#is there a single sane mother on the surface of this earth

[cetoddle-archive]

my mom invited herself to go grocery shopping with me and is now upset with me cause i've not left yet so i told her she can go by herself if she's in a hurry cause idk when i'm gonna get around to going and she got all offended claiming i don't wanna spend time with her -_-

[leclerc-s]

snow angel - track six

series masterlist // previous // next

liked by carlossainz55, landonorris, maggielindemann and others

maia_bennett and we don't talk shit about you on the internet...

tagged: landonorris, carlossainz55

view all comments

user1 oh my god is she for real?

landonorris pretty girl 🧡

↳ maia_bennett pretty boy 🧡

user2 this has got to be some sort of joke, right?

lilymhe lol.

↳ user3 this is the most threatening lol i've ever see. period and everything.

alex_albon LMFAOOOOOO

↳ user4 most unserious driver on the grid.

↳ user5 we don't talk about alex's chaos enough

francesca.cgomes see this caption would work if we didn't all know what carlos and lando did in the spanish media.

↳ user6 SPEAK THE TRUTH KIKA!!

user7 you've got to be fucking kidding me...

user8 oh no. honey this isn't the flex you think it is.

luisinhaoliveira99 oh sweetie...

user9 i pray you're ready for the shit storm that is about to hit you.

alex_albon LMFAOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

user has turned off comments

liked by luisinhaoliveira99, maxverstappen1, yukitsunoda0511 and others

rheareynolds "but for what it's worth, he's her problem now."

tagged: luisinhaoliveira99, maia_bennett, landonorris

user10 MOTHER!! MOTHER IS MOTHERING Y'ALL!!

user11 oh, she's so cunty and i love that.

lilymhe everyday i am grateful i live on the same earth as rhea reynolds.

↳ rheareynolds oh lily, you sure know how to make a girl blush.

luisinhaoliveira99 oh girl, i fucking love you.

↳ rheareynolds baby, i fucking love you 😘. no one show this to mick!

↳ mickschumacher this is a public instagram comment section...

↳ rheareynolds LOVE YOU TOO BABE 💙!

maxverstappen1 see, i can't tell if those are lyrics or someone told you that but either way, YOU ATE THAT SHIT UP!!

↳ rheareynolds why thank you maximilian.

↳ maxverstappen1 i'll let it slide, just this once.

georgerussell63 SHE CAME TO SERVE!!

↳ rheareynolds CHANNELED MY INNER RUSSELL GEORGE FOR THIS PHOTOSHOOT!!

francesca.cgomes ATE AND LEFT NO CRUMBS!

↳ rheareynolds I HAD THE BEST TEACHER!

user12 oh she's so unhinged and i fucking love that shit.

oscarpiastri i just heard the most unholy screech come from the dining hall. target has been reached.

↳ rheareynolds good. he deserves this and much worse.

logansargeant YES QUEEN!! SERVING CUNT!!

↳ rheareynolds LOGIE! THANK YOU! ❤️

yukitsunoda0511 my offer still stands.

↳ rheareynolds no yuki, you are not biting his ankles while pierre holds him down.

↳ pierregasly BOO!! LET US TAKE HIM DOWN!!!

maia_bennett real mature rhea. real mature.

↳ rheareynolds oh honey, we haven't even scratched the surface.

charles_leclerc THAT'S MY BESTIE!!

↳ rheareynolds what an iconic duo, regina george and lightning mcqueen.

alex_albon REGINA GEORGE CAME TO GAG LANDO NO WINS!

↳ rheareynolds albono, i think you gagged him even more with the no wins.

maxfretwell let be known that i had no idea what was going on. i just thought she was your best friend.

↳ rheareynolds no it's okay maxie, i don't blame you for having a shitty best friend.

pierre gasly added one person

kika gomes i can't believe i'm saying this but what the hell guys? why wasn't i added sooner??

rhea reynolds you're the only sane one.

lily muni he if the loser shows up with her can i fight him??

yuki tsunoda i'll help! daniel ricciardo you two are so violent.

esteban ocon when mick said lando had cheated on you with your childhood best friend, i didn't think he meant maia, who knew you two were together. and constantly hung out together with you two.

mick schumacher i told you guys it was bad!

oscar piastri ...

alex albon WHAT DO YOU KNOW PIASTRI?? oscar piastri she's been to every single race this year... the girl he showed up with in bahrain was a fake girlfriend. he's been dating her for months. oscar piastri and i learned that every time lando said he was hanging out with carlos, he was with her. don't ask how i learned.

rhea reynolds THAT MOTHER FUCKER!!

rhea reynolds oh he's fucking lucky i could go to jail for murder.

rhea reynolds i had a different song planned to be the next single but i changed my fucking mind. fuck lando norris, fuck carlos sainz, and fuck maia bennett. i hope they enjoy their little corner in hell.

lily muni he oh regina george has not come to play.

george russell i think you mean leighton murray did not come to play.

lewis hamilton i have you all muted for a reason but please, make him miserable. it's the least he deserves.

rhea reynolds oh my manager is about to be so pissed at me but what lewis hamilton says goes.

pierre gasly BURN THE BITCH RHEA!

yuki tsunoda I'M GOING TO HIS FUCKING ANKLES!

daniel ricciardo GET HIS FUCKING ASS!!

kika gomes YOU DESTROY THAT MAN RHEA!

logan sargeant WE WILL DESTROY HIS FUCKING PEACE!

lance stroll to quote yuki, "we ride at dawn fuckers"

logan sargeant SHE WENT STRAIGHT FOR THE JUGULAR!

alex albon i am in awe of you rhea reynolds.

lewis hamilton i think you've outdone yourself rhea.

lily muni he marry me. forget alex and mick. marry me.

kika gomes no! marry me! rhea reynolds fuck it, we'll marry each other. throuple all the way.

mick schumacher trust me. it gets worse.

charles leclerc HOW MUCH MORE WORSE COULD IT POSSIBLY GET?

mick schumacher think like dear john by taylor

lily muni he oh shit. it's that bad?

max verstappen WHATEVER I GET TO MAKE HIM FUCKING MISERABLE!

yuki tsunoda FUCK YEAH! I'M BITING ANKLES BITCHES

oscar piastri OSCAR PIASTRI REPORTING FOR DUTY!!

kika gomes that man will never know peace as long as we live

pierre gasly he hasn't known peace since december 2021

kika gomes good, then we're doing our job as her friends.

oscar piastri there is nothing i enjoy more than slowly torturing my teammate

daniel ricciardo chaotic aussies and mclaren. something they can never get away from.

logan sargeant listen, if we host a listening party, at the same time, in different garages. he can't really shit on any of us.

max verstappen so what you mean is, all of us play tummy hurts, on a loop to annoy him?

charles leclerc SIGN ME THE FUCK UP! ANYTHING TO ANNOY HIM AND HIS PARTNERS IN CRIME!

lance stroll I'M IN! FERNANDO'S IN TOO!!

rhea reynolds i seriously love you guys.

lily muni he rhea, baby, we love you too.

oscar piastri i enjoy chaos. we aren't quite at the love phase rhea.

rhea reynolds oh fuck you swimp.

logan sargeant SWIMP!!

oscar piastri OH FUCK OFF!

taglist: @emilyval @ihateyougunthersteiner @lesliiieeeee @33-81 @landonorizzz @yoremins @nikfigueiredo @badassturtle13 @cataf1 @silentreader128 @taylorsatl @alessioayla @greeneyesandsunshine @mrscharlesleclerc @sesamepancakes @localwhoore @vettelsebastianvettel @yourbane @nichmeddar @landossainz @cha-hot @ssararuffoni @cherry-piee @vroomvroommuppett @shineforever19 @kissesandmartinis @luckyladycreator2 @blushmimi @namgification @moonyzsworld @casperlikej @lilsiz @seesaw-it @aandreea2005 @asparklysoul @scarletwidow3000 @reader-22s-blog @cowboylikemets1989

not taggable: @wisteriafence @Pinksstrawberry

click here to be added to the taglist

¡leclerc-s speaks! no cause if there was no more drama there this story would end so much sooner and we don't want that yet.

¡disclaimer! this is in no way making assumptions about the people involved in this story, this is all fake. it is a fanfiction please don't take any of what is said seriously. this is all for entertainment purposes and as a creative outlet for me. enjoy!

[fyeahiwatarikei]

📚 to pick up an item my muse has dropped + also Kosuke~

Love Language - Physical Touch Starters

Pick up an item the other has dropped

It only took a second that felt like eternity: a flat sound, something heavy fell, then an explosion of paper. Kei immediately understood what it meant without looking up from his own book: Niwa Kosuke’s foot had accidentally met the treacherous step that waited for unsuspecting visitors in the middle of this room of the library, and what was supposed to happen happened.

The pile of books the man had been carrying dangerously tilted, lost its upper volumes that decided to crash heavily on the tiled floor and, more importantly, tossed the notebook down.

Said notebook was a peculiar kind – like everything this man carried in his pockets anyway – as it concealed an eclectic mix of loose papers, receipts, notes and probably many other unidentified types of mementos and small items Kei hadn’t managed to glance at. The poor thing barely held its content thanks to a leather strap that decided to betray its owner in the middle of this silent library: as soon as it hit the floor, the whole structure gave up and opened wide, sending papers and what resembled a coin or two in every direction, encouraged by the flat, slippery surface.

The owner immediately fell to his knees, recovering the books that would most likely bear scars from the incident, apologising to any helping hand coming to his rescue. He managed as well as he could, yet not intervening would have been too obvious: Kei crouched in turn to gather droplets in the sea of notes surrounding the impact zone.

If the theory that notes are revealing when it comes to understand how a person’s mind works is true, then there was no way Niwa Kosuke was a sane man: not only did recipes, pictures, identity documents, newspapers extracts and hastily scribbled single words mixed together in a confused mess but several languages coexisted side by side in a confusing, unintelligible melting pot. What?

No way anyone on earth could understand this. However, images were definitely more approachable, even if their purposes had potentially been lost to time and lack of proper archiving; on a picture in particular, a family smiled, the beaming mother holding a child who put his best effort in maintaining the little hat on his head. The pose had probably been planned, but not the strength the woman had put into the embrace – unless she had done this on purpose to catch the little one off-guard. A sweet, private moment, made genuine during the last minute, in short.

Of course, Kei recognised them both and could easily guess who had taken this fragment of the past. Abandoning his collection task, he flipped the glossy paper over, and sought any additional piece of information – in vain. Before he could rise his eyes to analyse the situation and seriously consider pocketing it, Niwa Kosuke’s fingers appeared to gently yet firmly retrieve it.

“I’m so sorry, Hiwatari-san. Thank you!”

No further word came about this one specific picture: apparently, messy minds had reluctantly opened more than enough this day. A knowing smile met a lowering gaze, and the picture joined the rest of Niwa’s junk back into the notebook.

Missed opportunity…

[too-scared-to-do-this]

Of the Devil’s head

Chapter two - Some good signs

Sander’s sides fanfiction

Ships: eventual prinxiety (i’ll be adding as we go)

Wordcount: 1846

TW: mentions of hunger, illness, some shape of discrimination or how should I name it, chasing.... and I think that’s all for today. If I accidently missed something, let me know :)

Summary of the whole story: They say, the one that wears the crown rules all - the living, the dead, the walking, the crawling, the rooted, the sane and the mad. They say, once you own the crown, you become the  most powerful being on Earth and beyond. Roman’s stolen bigger things - a measly little crown won’t present a problem, even if he has to steel it straight off of the devils head!

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

Chapter two - Some good signs 

Getting out alive. Yeah. That shouldn’t be such a problem. A duck here, a run there, tripping and falling, alerting one of the many guards. Hide as fast as you can, wait out the guard, run again. Climb the wall. Then fall two stories, because your dumb brain completely forgot that if you climb up a wall you have to climb down as well.

“Ow…” Roman grumbled brokenly as he laid there on the grassy hill-side. On the other side of the stone wall, ruckus and panic ruled the guard-quarters, because someone had just broken in. Nobody knew what they took or where to find them. Or what they looked like for the matter. But they were all over the place, running around like crazy, literally moving rocks to see if the thief wasn’t hiding underneath them (yes, some guards were either really drunk, or really dumb).

Roman grinned to himself. He was safe. Probably had a cracked rib or too, but was safe and out of there. He got the food.

And much more!

Forcing himself up, he hurried home, occasionally checking for guards following.

Passing trees, fields, houses and dirty streets he turned a corner and walked into a run-down ally. There he finally slowed down and let the news completely sink in.

Falling back against the cold stone of the building, he felt his body relax. Hands limp, only the sack hanging from one of them, his head hit the stone-brick wall. He was smiling. Grinning, so widely it seemed like his mouth would split in two.

He was going to get the money for mother’s medicine… They won’t ever go hungry another day in their lives!

He was about to save his family.

Roman pushed on the door next to him and quietly stepped into his house. Faint and shallow breaths coming from the back of the room let him know his momma was asleep. He put the bread on the bedside table, together with the pie and covered it with a piece of cloth he found in the place they used as a kitchen. Leaving the fruit in the sack, he placed it, open, next to the rest of the food.

“Guess what mommy.” he ran a hand down her pail face. “I’m about to get some money for us. And when I get back, we’ll be filthy rich! You’ll be wearing only the finest of dresses, walking around in silk and gold. We’ll be eating roast beef and pork-chops for dinner every day! And I won’t ever have to steal again!” a smile, so pained but hopeful, sat on his lips silently. “And we’ll get you the best doctors! You’ll be healthy in no time. I promise…”

She didn’t wake up. She almost never did. And when she did, she barely even comprehended her own existence let alone notice her son.

Roman guessed it was better this way… She didn’t have to see how much they both were suffering… How much Roman missed her…

He gave her a kiss on the forehead, squeezing her fragile hand. “Take care, mommy. I’ll be back in a few days...”

And with that, he picked up an apple from the sack and quietly pulled the door closed behind him. There was a long way ahead, back to the castle. It seemed so stupid going back to where he just came from. But the King needed to know who was looking for his crown. And no matter how torn up Roman looked in his current attire, the King didn’t have a choice but to see him if he wanted to lay his greedy hands on that crown.

There was a pep in his step, a giddy energy coursing through his veins. He started whistling to drown out the thoughts and doubts that were getting louder in his head..

No, he won’t die down there. He’s the great Roman, who slipped the guards too many times to count. He won’t get caught, won’t be seen, won’t be imprisoned. And he certainly won’t end up dead. Not if he has something to say about it. Which he really hoped he did… That devil can’t be that bad, can he?

There wasn’t much left of the road ahead, but Ro had to make a pit-stop by the lake near-by. No matter how poor, Roman won’t step a foot in front of King without looking at least somewhat presentable.

He washed his face, ran a hand through his hair. Played around with it a little to make it look somewhat decent. Then, squatted down on the shore. Looking into the water he watched as the surface glistened and moved around in the sun.

What if he doesn’t make it back? There won’t be anybody left to care for his poor mother… She’s in no condition to stay alone for more than a few days. He can’t-

He can’t think like that! Splashing his face once more he pushed himself up and gave one last grin at his reflection. “Let’s do this.”

The moment he spotted the gates of the castle he felt completely out of place. Makes sense, since merely two hours ago he robbed the guard-quarters.

It was so weird actually walking in through the gates. He has never done that and he’s been to the castle several times now (not that anybody knew about it…). Nonetheless, he marched on, keeping his head high, shoulders straight and a confident grin on his face.

“I’m here to see their Majesty.” he said to the men guarding the enormous entrance.

They looked at him as if what he just said was the most ridiculous thing in the world! “Pfff, you?” the two men burst out laughing.

“Yes, me.” He gave them a confident grin, trying not to squirm in the face of lauter. “You have a problem with that?”

“Hmm, no not at all!” one said, both still laughing.

And so, Roman found himself walking into the big castles, for once through the actual entrance.

A beautiful garden and a hallway decorated with gold later, he stood in front of a high throne with a short, bald round person barely fitting into it. The King.

He… didn’t expect that sight. Stories about the King were much more unreal then the once about the crown it seems. But no matter, Roman shook of the shock and marched on, stopping right in front of the ruler. The guards stepped aside, watching his every move with very amused, very expectant gazes.

“Your Majesty!” he bowed down deep. “It’s such a pleasure to be standing here.”

The ruler gave him a once over and the disgust wasn’t exactly subtle in their eyes. Not only did they not take kindly to thieves, they also seemed to not much like simple folks like Roman or the other villagers. This… wasn’t how Roman planned this. But there was no backing down now. He pulled his smile a bit tighter and his shoulders a bit straighter.

“Why are you here?” came the Kings bored answer. He already lost his interest. Great!

The guards snickered on the side-lines. Roman gave them a harsh look and turned back to the King, smiling again. “Your Grace, I’d like to try and retrieve the Crown of Hell.”

That made the old person crack up. Not just a bit, but completely full-on uncontrollable laughter. “You?”

“What we said!” one of the men pointed out, laughing along with the crowned one.

“Yes. Me.” Roman said, kind off offended at this point. What made him any less then these dressed up sissies? “Unlike all these other stuck-up powdered-noses, I have all the skills needed to steel a crown. I am agile, fast, can hide much easier without all that unnecessary clothing and I have something none of those parade parrots have.”

“Oh really? And what would that be?” the mock tone of the King made Ro’s blood boil.

“Will, your Majesty. Unlike them, I have something to fight for.”

“Many have tried and many have failed. But if you think you’ll succeed, I won’t stop you.” their Majesty shrugged, completely uninterested once again.

"I don’t think I’ll succeed; I know I will.” There wasn’t much he could do to win their attention back, but he decided to chance it. “I only have a single request to make and I’ll be on my way.”

“Ts! Look at him! He barges in here in those… rags and demands a request! The audacity this young man has!” one of the guards commented. The other snorted.

The King just gave him a look and turned his gaze back to the villager. “Yes?”

“If I- If I don’t come back- please take care of my mother. She’s sick and she needs the care. If I die in wain in your name, I’d like for your doctors to take of her.”

“That- can be arranged.” the King nodded slowly, thinking. Unknown to Roman, they were contemplating how could they get out of this situation. If the man should die, nobody will know about this deal. Their men won’t tell no one. And so, no doctors have to be involved. “Yes.”

The relieved breath roman let out, spoke a thousand words. “Thank you, dear King! I promise, in two days’ time, I’ll be standing in front of you with the Devils crown!”

“We’ll see…” smiled the King. A chilly fake smile that promised no good. But Ro wasn’t paying attention anymore. He missed the look their Majesty gave the Guards and the way the guards stifled their laughter.

He was already thinking up a plan how to go about this.

Not long after, he was walking into the woods, stepping on branches and old leaves. Whistling his tune, he walked around aimlessly hoping he would eventually find what he was looking for. The entrance to Hell.

And oh boy, if he just knew what he got himself into! But poor Roman had no idea.

By the time he walked through half of the forest, night fell. Moon barely shined through the thick tree-tops.  Stars weren’t even visible! And the branches were getting thicker and thicker! Roman's already thorn clothing was getting dirtier and more thorn by the minute.

“Goddamned trees!” he cursed. “I didn’t think it’d be this hard to find He-“ he tripped on a root and fall face first to the ground. “Oh, DODDAMN IT!!!”

He growled angrily, entangling himself from the roots and tried to stand up. He was barely sitting up when his eyes fall onto something very out of place.

A wooden sign. He hurriedly stood up and rushed over to it. With big red (and very ugly, he might ad) letters, the words “Hell - this way” glared at Roman.

Well. Either this was a cruel joke, or demon’s just like directions. Either way, Roman continued in the direction the sign was pointing. And low-and-behold, a giant gaping cave.

And stuck to its rocky exterior was another sign. The same ugly handwriting.

“Welcome to hell - continue in”

Hah... Guess demons really do like directions.

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

Another part! Yay!

And we’re finally getting somewhere. Next time you hear from me, Roman will be deep in the heart of Hell B)

But for now, I hope you liked it <3

Tag list_

@alice-only-me

[detectiveguapo]

Breathe

Summary: The unbearable loneliness of loving a bad guy takes its toll. 

Pairing: Miguel Galindo x Reader

Words: 2744

TW: mild language, mentions of depression and addiction

---

---

“Let’s go for a drive.”

The rough voice breaks through your thoughts, and your immediate reaction is to grind your cigarette on the pool edge like you’re trying to hide a dirty habit. You release a nicotine-laced breath you’ve been holding and look up with guilt stamped all over your face. The owner of the voice looms over you, hands on his hips and an eyebrow raised. The blue glow refracts off the planes of his face, casting deep shadows under weary eyes. You hate that your insomnia is disturbing his sleep; you know how busy his days are and how stressed he is juggling his work on both sides of the border.

“Where are we going?” You take his offered hand, pulling yourself up so you’re face-to-face with him. He keeps his hand on yours. The water drips down your bare legs as he leads you back into the house. “Miguel.”

“You can’t sleep.”

“Let’s go back to bed,” you offer as you tug on his hand. He stills and looks over his shoulder, his expression soft and apologetic. “I can try.”

With a solemn shake of his head, he squeezes your hand and leads you through the side door into the garage. He reaches for a set of keys with an enamel racehorse.

“Should we get Paco or Nestor?”

“No,” he says. He opens the passenger side door to the red Ferrari convertible — his first car gifted to him by his father when he was barely old enough for a learner’s permit. He’s kept it all these years for its sentimental value; but you don’t recall the last time he used it (or the last time he drove — he always gets chauffeured). “We won’t go too far. Promise.”

When he gets into the driver’s side and starts the engine, you can’t help but feel like you’re at fault. You hate making him feel like he has to worry about you when he’s already got so much on his plate. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” He asks with a soft smile before he kisses you. “You’ve done nothing wrong, my love.”

---

Somehow you feel like every other thing you’ve done to lead you to this man has been the wrong decision. Sure he’s made you the happiest you’ve ever been. He’s made you believe that you can love someone so much you’d be willing to sacrifice your world just to be a part of his. And yet, here you are overwhelmed with guilt over the fact that you’ve isolated yourself from everyone else you’ve ever loved just to be with him.

Once you’re on the road, Miguel leisurely drives through the bends and curves of the Santo Padre hillside. A long stretch of road opens up and he revs the engine before he bolts through at breakneck speed. As your back presses into the seat, you glance sideways to see the smirk on his face and the concentration in his eyes as he changes gear. Looking at him like this — genuinely happy — brings you a sense of calm. When it’s just the two of you, it reminds you of how much fun you have when you’re with him.

He’s the hand that pulls you out of the deep blue waters.

---

Miguel drives for another fifteen minutes before you stop at a lookout point overlooking the border wall. It’s a sight to behold to see the agricultural side of Santo Padre set in opposition to the vibrancy of light over in Santa Madre. In a way, it parallels the state of your life right now. Isolated up in the hills with just Miguel to keep you sane, while the life you once had continues beyond the metal gates of your new home.

“We need to talk,” Miguel says as he parks the car and leaves it idle. The ensuing silence is like fog — so thick and ominous. You want to wait it out, wait until it lifts before continuing on this conversation. “At some point, you need to tell me what’s going on in that pretty head of yours.”

You smile weakly in his direction.

“Babe.”

You swallow hard, parting your lips like you’re ready to divulge every self-critical thought contributing to your depression. But the words halt at the tip of your tongue. You can’t tell Miguel you’re losing yourself by being with him. You love him too much to hurt him like that. “I need some air.”

---

November in the desert is really no different from the rest of the year, only the nights are colder. The moment you step outside, your body wants to retreat back into the warm leather comfort of the Italian sports car, but you surge on. The ivory silk robe flutters in the breeze. Your bare feet hurt from the jagged surface of the earth. Standing on the edge, you look down below at the rocks — their flat surfaces lit by the pale glow of the moon. It’s a long way down from here.

“Come back.”

He wraps his hand around your wrist and pulls you from the edge and into his arms, wrapping you in a tight embrace. Your arms fall limply at your sides only prompting him to squeeze a little tighter. “Miguel, you’re hurting me.”

“I — I’m sorry.” He pulls away but still keeps you within arms reach, and he presses a long kiss to your forehead. “I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong here. Please tell me because it’s killing me to see you like this.”

“Like?”

“Sad,” he says then chews on his bottom lip. “I don’t know. Depressed?”

Tears — the kind that burn — well up in your eyes.

He kisses one closed eyelid after the other, then he sighs.

“I’m sorry I’m like this,” you say quietly. Memories of the last several weeks enter your brain, and you’re reminded of those sleepless nights, the surface-level conversations over dinner, the lack of motivation to go into town to get anything done. Apart from your job, which you don’t even find to be a refuge anymore because you’ve noticed how everyone treats you differently, you’ve holed yourself up in that mansion on the hill. “This is probably not what you had in mind when you asked me to move in with you. But this is me, Miguel. This is who you get.”

He presses his lips together in a tight line and looks up at the night sky. He shakes his head, refusing to believe you —  wanting to believe the honeymoon version of you. The girl who was falling in love and who could pretend that nothing else mattered, that it was just the two of them against the naysayers. But she’s gone. You left her down in the valley when you chose him over your family. When you chose the cartel over your own brother who died of addiction. When you chose love over principle.

---

Miguel walks back to the car and sits on the hood. He leans forward, resting his palms on his knees, his head hanging low. You can tell he’s pondering whether or not he’s made a mistake taking this huge step with you. It was easier when you started; no one else had confirmation you were dating the leader of the drug cartel. It was all rumours and whispers. Now, you essentially belonged to him.

As your friends and family found out, they began to stay away from you. A lot of them warned you not to fall for his charm. A few, who were never really your friends to begin with, used your connection to try to get something for themselves. If they weren’t using you to get to Miguel, they were leaving you in the dust.

The worst was your family. But who could blame them after the hell you all went through when your brother died from a heroin overdose 15 years ago? Miguel had been in the East Coast at the time, and wasn’t even involved in his father’s cartel business. He didn’t kill your brother, but to your family, he might as well have.

It’s fucked up. You know how fucked up it is to fall in love with him with your family’s history. It’s selfish and weak. This whole relationship is a ticking time bomb, and once it inevitably explodes, you’ll have no one else. And for what? Because he treats you like the queen in his castle? Because he fucks you so good you forget the terrible decisions you make?

Your mother once told you that you’ve given up everything just to be Miguel’s puta. You stay awake at night and tear through an entire box of cigarettes, thinking about what she said and always coming to the conclusion  that she’s right.

How can you love and resent him at the same time? The push and pull takes a toll on the heart, and you’re just so fucking tired of it. You just want to go home, curl up in your mother’s arms where no one ever questions the context of that love.

---

If you were to take away the fact that he is the Galindo Cartel, it changes the context of your love. A businessman recruited your help in offering refuge to the children of one of the men in his payroll — a man working legally as a sub-contractor for the development of the agricultural park. However, ICE caught wind of the fact that the man was not a US citizen, ambushed him on his way to dropping his kids off at school, and imprisoned him in a cage along the border. He was a single dad of two young daughters; his wife had died of cancer only a year prior.

Miguel’s hands were tied as Lincoln Potter and the rest of the DOJ prevented him from getting involved with affairs that concerned immigration. But Miguel wasn’t a heartless man. He used his resources to find you and ask you to help him secure a place of refuge for the man’s daughters. “I heard you were the best at what you do,” he told you upon first meeting you. “So can you help me?”

A man in his power and position asking you to help him caught you by surprise. But it wasn’t the humility that left you speechless; it was this desire to be the best leader he could be by protecting his people and treating them well. It was his heart.

And after that, Miguel just never stopped surprising you.

---

You suppose it’s easy to think of a cartel kingpin as completely heartless. A sociopath who has nothing to contribute to society. And  for people who see the world as black versus white, good versus evil — you can see where they’re coming from, but you refuse to take such a binary approach. You don’t want to come across like you’re idealizing Miguel, because everyone who’s been critical of you throughout your life has said you have the tendency to romanticize your partners. But you strongly believe there’s more to judge in people than the worst acts they’ve done. It’s true he’s all they say he is, but he is so much more.

He is darkness and light, and all the shades of grey in between.

---

Standing in front of him, you place your hands on his hunched shoulders. He stares up at you — sadness swimming in those brown eyes. It isn’t fair. He only wants to be with you, but you’re making it so hard to let him do that when you’re closing yourself off. He’s the reason everyone else abandoned you. He’s all you’ve got left, and you can’t abandon him. You’ve made your choice. As awful as it is to be disowned by your family and to be judged by people who know so little about you and Miguel, you would persist through it all if it means you can continue to love and be loved by this man.

“Te quiero mucho, Miguel.”

He takes your hand and presses it firmly against his lips. “Yo también te quiero, cariño.

You begin to take a seat beside him. A brow raised to ask the unspoken question if it’s okay to sit on the hood of a car that costs more than what most people make in a year. He laughs a little and pats the space next to him, then he drapes an arm over your shoulder. You lean into him and stare out at the night sky — a gradient of black to amber from the lights below.

“My sister asked me not to come to Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’ house,” you say. “She asked me not to come for Christmas or holiday or birthday parties as long as I’m playing house with you.”

Miguel runs his hands over his face and sighs. “Jesus. I’m so sorry it had to come to this.”

“Me too.”

“Is there anything I can do?” He turns to you, eyes pleading for answers. He’s a man of action, who can’t sit idly by as people hurt you and make you feel terrible. But he knows better than to fight back against your family, even though you can tell it’s the equivalent of putting him in restraints. “I don’t want you to lose them.”

You breathe out that last tiny shred of hope. “I already have.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” he admits.

“You won’t.”

“But —“

“— I choose you.”

“You shouldn’t have to make that choice.

---

As the quiet settles, you think now is the time to tell the truth.

“My brother didn’t drown in the Salton Sea,” you tell Miguel for the first time in your relationship. The drowning was a story your family made up because of the shame associated with addiction. Your neighbours knew the story of your brother going to the beach on a summer weekend, and not waking up hours after a swim because of secondary drowning. “He was at the beach that weekend, but he bailed on his friends to try to score heroin. He got caught up in this bad crowd that pressured him into injecting more than he was used to…”

Realization dawns upon Miguel. He knows why people avoid him and don’t like him; it doesn’t phase him anymore. But the unyielding hatred he’s gotten from your family has been a source of confusion for him. Until now.

“You didn’t cause the overdose that killed my brother, but to my family, it’s like you handed him that needle.”

“I’m sorry.” A tear falls to his cheek and he quickly wipes away the evidence.

Wrapping your arm around his waist, you tuck your head under his chin. “It’s not your fault. I would never blame you for what happened. My family can’t understand that. I can’t make them understand that — no matter how hard I’ve tried. And I’m done. I’m so tired, Miguel. I’m so tired.” The sobs start to come out and you’re shaking. He wraps his arms tight around your body, his steady breath soothing the back of your neck.

“I understand now why you need to push me away sometimes,” he whispers softly against your skin. He strokes your hair and rocks you gently against his body. “And I’ll give you whatever you want —  the space you need, the time it takes before you’re better. But please don’t leave.”

“I couldn’t.” You look up at him with tears streaming down your face. “The thought of losing you kills me more than the reality of having lost everyone else.”

Miguel holds your face in his hands and presses his forehead to yours. His eyes are sealed tight as he breathes against your parted lips. Something about sharing the air he breathes makes you feel like you’re enveloped in the comforting thought that you’ll be fine. You’ll make it out of this dark hole and find the light, and Miguel will be on the other side waiting patiently for you. You feel safe in his arms. You know he believes in you. Not this shadow of your former self, but you. And even if you can’t be that person tonight, he’s still here. He’s not going anywhere and he’s not letting you go. He breathes you in and that’s all it takes for you to feel enough. The thought settles you and you curl up into him, letting the steady beat of his heart lull you into sleep.

This love has been worth all the sacrifice.

[ilguna]

Tacenda - Chapter Two (f.o)

Summary: you’ll never truly be free from the Capitol.

Word Count; 6k

Warnings; swearing, DEATH MENTION

NOTES: i give reader a last name to fit the world.

–

You join Finnick’s side, taking his hand in yours. The both of you are squeezing hard, not looking at each other, but straight ahead as Elysia wraps this up. You get a wave of deja vu when you look back at your family.

Reed is standing tall, staring right at you. There’s betrayal on his face, he didn’t know that this was a possibility. He knew that Annie was supposed to be volunteered over, but that’s about it. He didn’t realize that if Finnick were to go in, you would follow right behind him.

They all should have seen it coming the second that Elysia had started with the boys. It was a dead giveaway. In all her years of representing, it’s started with the girls, and you don’t break a pattern like that. Representatives are supposed to be consistent with things.

Elysia played it off well though, she had practiced it thoroughly. She didn’t skip a single beat and easily pulled out the boys name. She didn’t mess up and accidentally reach for the girls bowl.

Mox looks teary-eyed as usual. He might be all the way in the back, but you have come to know this look. He could be miles and miles away and you’d know instantly if he were on the verge of tears. Mox can’t handle things like this, one trauma after another, it ruins him.

As for Alyssum, she doesn’t know what to think. She’s standing there, confused as she occasionally looks to Reed for answers. She knows that you love Finnick dearly, and she knows that you would go to the ends of the earth for him. She just hasn’t put the pieces together yet. Wherever he goes, you go.

Annie has stopped crying, she’s silent. The other victors whisper back and forth, you can see them from the corners of your eyes. They’ll lean over and share certain looks. Even for them, this might be a shock.

No one with a sane mind would willingly volunteer to go into this arena. You won’t be competing with regular people, you’re competing with other victors. Twenty-two other victors who are just as deadly as you and Finnick. They won their games because they manipulated it to be theirs.

To volunteer is a death wish. And you just signed up for it.

Before you and Finnick are escorted off the stage, Finnick turns you to him, cupping your face softly. Then, he kisses you in front of everyone. You can hear the hearts of everyone in the Capitol breaking at once. Because this is what they’ll be sending in this year.

After that, the peacekeepers are tight behind you. Elysia leads the way mostly, and she begins to head off to the rooms where you guys go to say goodbye to your family, but a peacekeeper grabs her arm, redirecting her.

This is when you put your foot down, “You’re not getting me on that train if I don’t get to say goodbye.”

“New rules.”

“Fuck your rules!” you yell, planting your feet, “I get to say goodbye, everyone gets to say goodbye–”

“Not anymore.”

The peacekeeper goes to grab you, but Finnick steps in front, acting as a barrier between the two of you. Because of this, there’s two peacekeepers on him, grabbing his arms and dragging him towards the cars. He struggles, squirming in their grasp.

When the other two finally turn to you, and see that you still haven’t moved, they bring out their batons. If there’s one thing that you’ve learned after watching countless people get punished with it, you don’t want to be touched. You don’t want to be hit by them.

“Don’t touch her!” Finnick shouts.

The peacekeepers don’t swing at you, it must have been for intimidation to get you to cooperate easier. But the thing is, you’ve stared death straight in the face too many times. These peacekeepers are absolutely nothing to him. They don’t have the same feeling as he does.

They grab you roughly, Elysia tries to tell them to let you go, but they don’t listen. In no time, you’re letting your body get dragged, not participating in the walking part. The peacekeepers are growing frustrated by this, and they try to get you onto your feet over and over.

They can’t hurt you. They can’t lay a goddamn finger on you, because you need to go into that arena without a single injury to be recorded.

Mags is there at the car when you all show up. You watch as she swats away the peacekeepers when you’re close enough. Her face twists with anger, and she points at the men that were holding you.

Elysia slides in first, next is Mags. Finnicks helps you in, and then follows as soon as you’re comfortable. The door is forced shut, and they lock.

Mags doesn’t look happy in the slightest, but she should feel how you do. If she’s mad, then that means you’re on a whole new level of it.

None of you talk about what had just happened. The ride is quiet, and short. All of you are at the station before you know it. Finnick helps you out of the car, and then proceeds to do the same for Mags and Elysia.

You guys are brought up the staircase, and when you turn to look out at who’s saying goodbye, you’re surprised, to say the least.

The whole district looks like they’re here. Your family is up front, Alyssum is on Reed’s shoulders, and Mox holds her back to make sure that she doesn’t fall off backwards. Annie is holding onto Reed’s jacket sleeve, and she gives you a look full of pure gratitude.

Caspian’s family is waving. The parents of those kids that you had lost are waving. The people that allowed you to train for the past few months, are waving. Your mother’s friends, your father’s friends. The kids that had gone to school with you and Finnick.

Everyone is here for a final goodbye.

You and Finnick are definitely on camera again. You wonder if they also have microphones, or if it’s going to be completely silent.

You raise your hand like you did ten years ago, beginning to wave slightly, “Thank you, District Four. For being my home.”

Finnick does the same, “Don’t forget about us.”

Of course, they want to get you onto the train quickly after that, and so you turn to your family, blowing them a kiss instead. Alyssum’s eyes fill with tears, Mox has to bite down onto his lip to keep from crying. And Reed nods at you.

You and Finnick head into the train with Mags. Elysia follows a second later. The doors slide shut, and it’s a moment of stillness. Complete silence, and then the train starts moving.

Suddenly, all eyes are on you.

“What happened to Mags volunteering?” Finnick asks, “Wasn’t that the plan?”

“It was one of the plans.” you tell him, and the look of confusion only lasts for a moment.

“There was more than one?”

You shrug slightly, “It depended on the circumstances. If you got called, then I would go too. If someone else got called, then I would have let Mags volunteer.”

Suddenly, Finnick isn’t very happy, “You were planning to come with me all along.”

“You would have done the same, Finnick.” You snap slightly, “Had the girls gone first, and I volunteered, wouldn’t you have followed?”

“There’s a difference there.” he tells you, “You wouldn’t have willingly volunteered unless…” he’s putting the pieces together now, “Unless you knew.”

You nod, “That’s why Elysia called boys first.”

Elysia raises her hands as if she’s surrendering, “Leave me out of this.”

There’s a calm moment, where you’re all just staring at each other, not knowing what to say about the situation next. Because it’s been done, Mags can’t volunteer over you, that’s not how it works. And she can’t replace you, because that’s not how it works. You’re going into the games with Finnick.

“That wasn’t very smart of you.” Finnick says quietly.

“I wouldn’t let you go in without me.” you tell him, “We both know how it is inside of there. You have me to look out for you now.”

This is when he turns to you, grabbing your shoulders, “(Y/n), don’t you get it? If we both make it to the end of those games, then only one of us makes it home. You’ve screwed us.”

“Who says we can’t make it home together?” you ask, “Who says we have to?”

“That’s not possible—“

“The rules have been bent once.” You remind him, “Did you forget what happened last year?”

“Did you forget the repercussions for it?” He counters, “The districts are rioting. There’s stricter rules. Imagine what would happen if we tried to do the same.”

“He’s right.” Mags says quietly.

“I know he is.” you tell Mags, “Finnick and I need to speak privately for a while.”

Finnick’s face twists now, because everything that happens between you two, is in front of everyone else to see. There are no secrets in a tight-knit community like yours. Your family, Mags, Annie and even Caspian’s family are let in on everything. There’s normally no reason to keep things from each other.

However, this time it’s different. This is a Finnick and you moment.

The rules have changed this year. There are new ones, and there are changed ones. For all you know, there could be a hundred different cameras placed on every possible surface inside of every single thing they could fit them into. Just like the hunger games, you move, and they know it. They know your location at all times.

This hasn’t bothered you before. You knew that the peacekeepers would probably listen in on conversations and report the serious ones to people higher up. But you were always so careful with words. Back then, it could be your word against the peacekeeper. If they have cameras now, though, video footage.

You look to Elysia and Mags, “We’ll be back by supper. Leave us be, please.”

Finnick takes your hand before you reach over. He lets you pull him from one car to another. When you finally get to the one that holds both yours and Finnick’s rooms–two rooms are required to be provided no matter what, no one would be bothered if you and Finnick were to stay in the same room, though–Finnick tries to go to your room.

You stop him silently, shaking your head and pulling him to his own room. Then, you’re sure to poke a button near the door that locks the door in place. It can be overridden, but only by the peacekeepers. They typically do this if they’re suspicious that the tributes are harming themselves. It’s happened once before, they’re always wary that it’ll happen again.

You don’t stop in the bedroom area though, you continue along to the bathroom. Pulling him inside, locking the door a second time, and then you turn on the shower and place it to the loudest settings. Finnick winces at the noise, but the both of you hang around for a moment while you get adjusted.

Of course, there could always be cameras inside of the bathroom, and likely microphones that can pick up everything, but it’s the inconvenience of it that matters. If they have to put in too much effort, they’re not going to want to. They have better things to be wasting their resources on.

“You wouldn’t be so stupid to think that I wouldn’t come here, right?” you ask him, sitting on the counter.

Finnick sighs, “I thought the plan would be for you to stay in the district. Safe at home.”

“I would have come with you to the Capitol, still.” you shake your head, “As a mentor.”

“It was a safer option.”

You laugh bitterly, “Finnick, would you have let me go into that arena without you if the roles were reversed?”

“To ease your mind, yes.” Finnick looks confident in his answer.

You can’t help but to call his bullshit, “You would rather watch me die over a flat-screen tv than in person? You’d rather watch some random ass tribute give me a final goodbye, than you?” you lean in now, “You wouldn’t like to hold me in your arms one last time?”

Finnick clearly sees the difference now.

“I’m going in with you, because I want to be with you.” you tell him, “I’m doing this because I’m selfish, and I love you. And I want to spend every waking moment with you.

“I knew that if you were to go into the games alone, you might not come out the same person as you are now. I would rather take all the chances than none at all.”

Finnick nods slowly, going over to you with his arms outstretched. You pull him into your body tightly, feeling him squeeze. The both of you welcome the silence now.

“Finnick, we need to consider the possibilities of a rebellion.” You whisper to him very, very quietly.

Finnick gets down a little lower so it’s easier to hear and be even quieter, “The games had to have been a punishment.”

That is obvious. Everything is set up so perfectly. The Quarter Quell was a slap to the face to all districts and victors. It’s because this is the way that the Capitol will fight back. The districts are never in control, the Capitol will keep things running.

Snow will never stop flexing the power that he holds. If there’s a chance of a rebellion, he’s going to do anything he can to end the possibility of it. Which is why there’s stricter rules, the whole curfew, peacekeepers getting in your business, and all of that. You know for a fact that it wasn’t just four, you were getting phone calls from other districts–and you were talking to the governor–asking and telling you how things have changed.

Districts like eleven are already pretty strict. They stick to the rules as tightly as possible, so you can only imagine what had happened. Worse punishments, more rules. It gives no stretching room, and it aggravates the districts even more because they can’t do what they want.

In your opinion, Snow is going about this all wrong. He can kill the people in the districts, and he can shove things down your throats, but the reality of the situation is, is that’s just going to spark even more resistance. You guys are going to want to get free to get away from this.

“Yes,” you tell Finnick, moving some of his hair, “It was.”

A few hours later, after you and Finnick have turned off the shower, you just sit in his room for a little while. You figured that if the Capitol were going to bug rooms, it would be yours. It didn’t stop you from going into yours briefly to grab a hold of the box of training stuff.

Finnick sat in the hammock, playing around with knives while you messed around with knots and fires. More practice to keep it fresh in your mind. Eventually Finnick got bored and joined you on the floor. Over the years he’s learned a few of the knots that you were teaching the tributes, but never go all of them down.

The thing is, is that they’re all practically useless. Most of them hold the same use. Tie things together, or keep things in the knot. This is why you only teach a couple to the kids. Most they already know for fishing lines anyway, it’s the rope ones that are different. Of course, the chances of coming across something that resembles a rope is one in a hundred.

The vines in your games were perfect for tying. With the little spikes in them, it could do damage to a tribute without them knowing. You only figured it out that the vines had thorns because you dipped your hands in the salt water. Had that not happened, you would have been absolutely clueless.

Imagine how raw your hands could have been. Climbing things would have been impossible to do without the palms of your hands hurting. On top of that, imagine getting the vines tied around you, and it moving that way. Suddenly the little cuts are all over your body, and there’s not really anything you can do.

Ask the sponsors for some healing cream, you suppose. But it would have been weird to gift that to a tribute, especially when on the surface, they have nothing wrong with them. From far away, they look normal. You remember seeing this during the recap of the games.

The Capitol had no clue–beside the gamemakers–that they had thorns on them. When you had revealed it, only then did the Capitol know. Caesar had even popped up on screen long enough to explain what was going on. Unfortunately, the vines weren’t poisonous, which would have been absolutely genius.

Slowly dying to something that you have no idea about. You can’t see that there’s cuts on your hands, or that there’s thorns on the vines. The tribute would be slowly deteriorating, maybe some terrible blood poisoning or organ failure or something. The gamemakers would be able to engineer poison like that.

You’re just glad that the Capitol isn’t necessarily that smart. Sure, they were sadistic enough to come up with the hunger games, but you doubt that they use most of their brain power.

After all, with a whole idea of a rebellion, if all the people stop working, they get nothing in the Capitol. No food, no clothes, no electronics or electricity, no lumber, they get absolutely nothing. Because you guys are the ones that are providing the supplies.

It’s funny how they rely on a bunch of people to make their things for them. There is so much more people in the districts than there is in the Capitol. But the only thing that has stopped your ancestors the first time, and will probably hinder you this time are two things. The first, and very important one, is that the Capitol is very ahead when it comes to technology.

They have the most electricity, it’s constantly fueled there. Unlike here in the districts, where it’s every couple of hours, except for during the games. Only then, is power most consistent. In the poorer districts, they get an hour or two at most of electricity. Of course, that’s not the only thing that the Capitol has.

More weapons, they have peacekeepers, they have food, they have technology. They have the gamemakers and hundreds of different models for mutations that they haven’t gotten to test out yet, but you bet that they’re dying to try. They’ve got hovercrafts, and nuclear technology.

When it comes to a rebellion, all of you guys would be absolutely fucked because you aren’t on the same playing field. And you haven’t even mentioned the second part that would make it difficult for you guys to fight the Capitol. Which is, they’re surrounded by mountains. To get to them, would be so extremely hard.

They would see you guys from every position. The only real way to even get to the Capitol would be through the same way that the train runs. And holy shit would that be fucking obvious.

Finnick passes some rolls to you. You take one, knawing on it mindlessly as you stare out the window that’s above Elysia’s head. It’s long since turned dark, there isn’t really anything to see but the stars and the moon. However, there is no moon, and from all the pollution of the old world, the stars are a rare sight to see.

By tomorrow morning, you guys should be inside of the Capitol. A short ride, as it is every year. It just so happens to be that District Four is fairly close to the place. You guys are always one of the first people to arrive to the Capitol. You’re not exactly sure who follows soon after, probably the careers. But districts like twelve and eleven are pretty damn far away.

“Have you guys seen the tributes for this year?” Elysia asks politely.

Finnick knows that your mind is elsewhere, “Not yet.”

Elysia nods slightly, and then, “Would you like to watch it after?”

“Sure,” your voice is soft, as you then look down to your empty hands. Then, back up again at one of the avoxes, “Can I please get another bowl of stew?”

“Here we go with the stuffing.” Finnick jokes.

“And water.” you add, smiling, “Thank you.”

“Same here, if you don’t mind.” Finnick holds up his bowl for them to fill.

You’re lucky that you and Finnick hadn’t gotten stuck with some rude representative that treats the avoxes like traitors as they supposedly are. Elysia still uses her manners very strictly, and she thanks them every single time. At any point, they could turn on you guys, but there must be something in your eyes that stops them from doing it.

Of course, they’re spread across practically everywhere. Household maids practically, standing at bedside waiting for orders. Normally, you’re supposed to order them around and not ask them questions. Don’t treat them as humans, rather like artificial intelligence that can’t feel.

But they are humans, and they do think, and feel and have beliefs just the same as you guys. They have hopes and dreams, and just because of one simple mistake they had made, they ended up here. You know why they’re made, that’s no secret. There’s a variety of reasons, but the main one is the most dangerous one.

Running away from the district. In order to do this, you have to be smart about all the moves you make. You have to be agile, and smart in survival skills. You have to be prepared, and it’s best to be forgotten about in the district. The only time they’ll really know that your missing is when the reaping comes around.

Hopefully, people are smart enough to run away, and run far, months before the reaping comes around. If they know that you’re missing on reaping day, they’ll check houses first, but they’ll be quick to come to the conclusion that you ran into the woods. If you went months beforehand, then there’s no way that they’ll be able to catch you. They won’t be able to pinpoint when you had ran, if you’re invisible in the district, and they might even overlook you for that exact reason.

Running isn’t smart though. It’s only for the people that understand every single thing that’s out in the woods and desert. The bears, wolves, coyotes, snakes, and more that hide out there. The worst time would be to go during the fall and winter, and yet that’s the only option. The games come to the end of spring and the beginning of summer, almost.

Anyway, the point is, is that when people treat the avoxes as slaves rather than people, it pisses you off. It makes you sick to your stomach, because they’re forced to work all hours of the day for people who don’t realize how privileged they are. The poor avoxes are made from district people. They get to watch as the Capitol people waste the food that’s given to them.

The pills they take to make themselves throw up so they can keep eating… you haven’t ever used one yourself, and you hope that day will never come. Because some people in the districts aren’t eating at all. And to take advantage…

You and Finnick finish eating pretty quickly. Soon, you’re full. Finnick had filled up faster than you had, which isn’t very surprising, you did that the first time around too. Finnick had watched you fill up on at least six bowls before you felt like you were going to throw up. And that’s six bowls of stew, five rolls, and so many glasses of water.

Mags joins you, Finnick and Elysia at the train car with the tv and couch. Off to the side is a bar with freshments too. You take this time to grab more water, and Finnick follows your lead. Finnick throws his arm around your shoulders, pulling you into his body as the both of you start the program.

District One’s stage is almost completely covered with tributes. From young to old, there is more than twenty-five people standing on that stage, and you think to yourself that it’s an actual mystery on who will be called for them. It’s a mystery to most districts, of course.

But for them, they can’t calculate the one-in-four chance like you can. They won’t be able to get it down to the nitty gritty the same way you can. A total of seven victors in your district is different from a district with over fifteen. You don’t know how to explain it exactly, but it’s just how it goes.

They go with girls first, the male representative dips his hand into the bowl and pulls out a single paper, as usual. He opens the slip of paper easily, and much to your surprise, and quite frankly your horror, you’re forced to listen to Cashmere’s name get pulled out of the bowl.

“Oh fuck.” the words slip out of your mouth before you can think about it.

And much, much to your dismay, you watch as Gloss gets pulled right after her. No one volunteers over them. They hold hands, they smile proudly. And funnily enough, they look like opposites. With Cashmere wearing all black and Gloss wearing beige. Fashionable clothes though, you wouldn’t expect anything less from the district one tributes.

Next is the second district, obviously. For a moment, you think it can’t get any worse, asking yourself ‘what are the odds?’. Slim, because there’s more than fifteen tributes on both girls and boys sides. There’s absolutely no one.

Enobaria’s name is called, and you can hear your ears turn to ringing. Watching blankly as she grins her pointed tooth grin. She looks proud when she takes her spot. Right after girls, are boys.

“Fuck!” Finnick shouts.

Brutus.

He volunteered over who was pulled. If he hadn’t volunteered, then you guys would be in the clear. If there’s anyone you wouldn’t ever want to come across in an arena, it’s Brutus. He’s big in the beefy way. He’s violent, not just because of how he looks, but because of how he won his games. Him and Enobaria fit the same bill, completely psychotic and an actual threat. He will arguably be the worst to come across in there.

“We’d have to kill him first.” you whisper, “We can’t let him live past the first day. He’d have to die in the bloodbath.”

Elysia glances at you nervously, seeing how much confidence you’re lacking, “He’s that bad?”

“He’s giant, Elysia.” Finnick tells her, shaking his head, “Strong. He would be able to strangle anyone to death in that arena. He gets his hands on someone, they’re as good as dead. Combat-wise, we stand no chance.”

District Three’s tributes are Wirress and Beetee. You’ve met both of them before, they’re very smart and kind. They won their games in unique ways, as most of you have. But it’s not everyday that you’re able to shock a couple of tributes at once and kill them that way.

If it came down to killing them, easy targets. Not much for combat. Would be able to survive longer than you guys though, by running, hunting and starting fires. Their district limits what they’re able to learn outside their jobs, so it puts them at an immediate disadvantage.

Not to mention, Wirress had gone a little crazy from her games too. She’s not all there completely, so you’re not sure how that will be able to hinder her abilities. You can imagine she’s not as bad as Annie, but there’s something similar to it. Maybe she can’t think straight, or she’s paranoid beyond belief.

After District Three, comes four. Here, you guys break the ladies-first streak, but Elysia makes it seem natural with how she goes about it. Here, you’re able to see Finnick’s face when he gets picked. He smiles brightly, waves a little bit. He plays it off smoothly, like it’s no shock.

There’s a puff to his chest, and he acts confident when he stands. He doesn’t look to where you are, it’s more that he watches Elysia closer when she picks the name out of the bowl. Here, you’re able to watch what it looks like from an outsiders perspective. This is what everyone had seen when the girls were pulled. The Capitol, the districts, the people of four.

First, Annie’s name is pulled and then called. You can see how Annie bursts into tears immediately, watch as Finnick relaxes slightly, and how your eyes dart to the nearest camera. Finnick is basically cut off on the side, but you’re able to see him clearly enough to watch his posture.

Mags goes to comfort Annie, and then there’s a change in your face. This is the moment when you decide that it’s time for you to volunteer. There’s a little smirk that comes across the corners of your lips, which gives away your whole idea. And then, when Mags twitches, you step forward with your hand held, and head ducked slightly.

With that posture, anyone would think that the words would come out of your mouth quietly. But it’s loud, your voice is loud and clear. You’re getting the message across, that you’re going back inside of the games. Finnick deflates for half a moment, but as soon as you join him, you’re holding hands and standing tall.

A united front. Together or not at all.

Next, District Five and Six aren’t as important. The only problem you have with six, is that they’re made up of morphlings. It’s not that they did turn to drugs to cope with the trauma after the games. It’s that they’re going to be difficult to find inside of the arena. They’re going to hide, and they’re going to do it well.

District Seven is up before you know it, which is when you’re sure people start to get interested again. Especially when Johanna is pulled from the bowl. You and Finnick don’t curse this one as much, even though it is going to be a pain in the ass. Johanna won her games a couple of years ago, played the damsel card well, and fooled everyone around her.

They let her be, which is what you’re going to want if you’re playing that card. It was when she got into the arena, where she completely surprised the people around her. Not to your surprise, but her weapon is an axe, respectively. She comes from district seven, it’s the lumber district, of course her choice is going to be an axe.

It’s a stereotype. The main career districts have their swords, district four has spears and tridents, seven has their axes, nine might be sythes because they’re a grain district. It’s the cliches that everyone expects. You’re sure there’s more.

After Johanna is Blight, you remember meeting him briefly. He’s nice, but never paid much attention to you. Same thing for Johanna, since she’s been mentoring for the past couple of years. She’ll say a brief ‘hello’ in passing, but doesn’t hold conversation well. She’s blunt, people see it as rude. She can’t help it, you imagine, she’s irritated as the rest of you.

District Eight follows, and you watch as Cecelia gets pulled.

“No.” you cover your mouth with your hands.

You know Cecelia well, she’s practically your best friend. She was at your wedding, with her husband and her kids. She’s married and has three kids now. On screen, you watch as they all clutch onto her tightly, some of them start crying.

Finnick squeezes your shoulder, “We can get her into our alliance.”

“We have to.” you tell him.

Next to be pulled is Woof, he’s older. He’s in his seventies and up. Mags recognizes him and shakes her head. He’s not going to survive in the games, he’s likely going to die on the first day for a variety of reasons. He won’t be able to run or defend himself as easily.

Nine and ten are also pretty irrelevant. You don’t know the names that are pulled, much less what their games were like. They’re older though, thirties and over, so you never stood a chance at knowing. They went in before you were even born.

For eleven, Seeder is pulled. She’s more of the prestigious type, very religious when it comes to things. She holds her head high, and you can respect that. But right after her, is Chaff. Who also had attended your wedding, an alcoholic right alongside Haymitch. You can only imagine what’s going to happen to him inside of the arena. Because withdrawal is a hell of a thing to experience.

Same goes for the morphlings. You wonder if they’ll be able to stand being sober for more than a couple of days. Of course, they can get drunk and high in the apartments all they want, but that’ll just screw their chances. You hope that all of them are easing themselves off of the drugs, otherwise they won’t last past the first couple of days either.

And finally, comes District Twelve. Three victors. No matter what happens, Katniss is going in. You watch as her name is pulled, and she stands where she needs to be, easily. Although, it looks like something else is going on, because she’s not as confident as you’d expect her to be.

She’s entering shark-infested waters. You’re going to want to keep your head up, even if that’s not how you’re feeling.

Their district representative pulls boys. Haymitch’s name has only been lingering in the air for half a second, and then Peeta is volunteering over him immediately. This is what she was afraid of, she doesn’t want Peeta to go back inside. You watch as they stand together, and then it cuts to Caesar.

“So?” Elysia asks, she probably doesn’t like how you two all of this in. You weren’t picking people out like you normally do.

Mags looks at you guys now.

Finnick sighs, “It’s a reaping full of victors, I don’t know what you want us to say.”

She’s quiet, and you get off of the couch, stretching slightly, “The thing is, is that they’re all amazingly skilled, and they all killed people, they all went through the same things that we did, and they all won.” you look to Elysia, “At one point, the Capitol had loved each and every one of them.”

Finnick nods, “They’re not going to know who to pick to favor. My advice is to talk us up and get as many people as you could possibly imagine to favor us again.”

You then start wandering off to the door that would lead you to your car, “I’m going to bed.”

Finnick is behind you, and the second that the door has shut behind you two, you’re rubbing your face, “What are you thinking?”

“They’re are so many people that they’re going to be torn between,” you say, “Gloss and Cashmere are siblings, won back to back games, they’re a favorite. Brutus is gigantic, anyone would be an idiot not to sponsor him. And coming across Enobaria would be like coming across a lion.”

“Well, Katniss and Peeta had just won their games. They’ve got a ton of people looking at them right now.”

He doesn’t even have to say it, and you’re already understanding. You and Finnick stop outside the rooms, and you look to him, “You’re a genius, Finnick.”

Finnick smiles, “I know.”

Katniss and Peeta have to be in the alliance.

[dokuhebi]

Word prompts, [secrets] or [run]? ~~ for Dan @shatteredxlookingxglass

word prompts compilation [ run ] for your muse to run their fingers through mine’s hair [ secrets ]   my  muse  sharing/confiding  a secret // @shatteredxlookingxglass

Cold were the streets of the Hidden Leaf, when civilians hid themselves in their homes and the sun hid itself beneath the horizon. Dull was the moon that hung in the sky and meekly tried to banish the darkness, as stars all but disappear behind clouds. Orange were the assisting lights of buildings and houses, keeping the town from the shadows in the form of lamps, streetlights and still bustling households. Quiet was the home the serpent climbs short stairs toward, and hesitant was the pale hand curled in to a ball awaiting the nerve to knock at the impolite hour of night. They break down every detail, they analyze every aspect from paint colours and textures of walls, to sounds and sights of the village around them. For it was what their mother had once taught them to do when their emotions got the better of them. How to perfect the age old shinobi trick of overriding basic feelings to instead focus on something more beneficial. Being extra perceptive, detailing the cold roads, dull moon, vanishing stars and orange lights, all served to take their mind off what may otherwise haunt them. And so the serpent persists with this ingrained and taught habit, counting those steps all the way up to Dan’s door, chatoyant eyes bounding off every surface available to seek out the next analysis that may drive away incoming thoughts of less desirable and clinical emotions. What they don’t stop to think about, despite how deep the thought may run if they allow it, was why they had chosen to come to his house in the first place. Why in the moment of stifling grief they had fled their hidden den and found themself outside his door. Wondering if they dare knock, wondering if they should back out now before they have to explain being here to him before they have even explained it to themself. The door clicks open, jolting them from their thoughts. Jarring was the noise of the hinges creaking when the door opens its mouth to offer entrance. Blue were the eyes to greet them, a second spent counting those shades of mingling blue and green. Cheerful was the sound of the songbird they only now notice, sitting on a nearby tree, coated in the darkness from overhanging branches, tattling on their arrival to its summoner. So much for being more perceptive, they realize, far more distracted by this trick their mother so vouched for. They take a step back, no longer requiring such close proximity to the door when he had rid them of any need to knock. Only for his figure to step aside to grant them entry, as their slender hand falls back to their side. Still wearing their Jounin attire, still speckled in what looks like poorly brushed off mud, debris, ink and the potential faded splintering of blood. They hadn’t done much else than haphazardly draw a cloak over their figure, and that in itself gets swept by the wind, drawing open the front of the fabric to reveal the stains. They find their way inside, a quiet apology for disturbing him so late, taking the seat he offered to them, declining the offer to remove their cloak. Ghostly is the way they make themself a part of the furniture, half there, half somewhere else, trapped between worlds. Warm was the porcelain cup offered containing herbs and leaves mingled in hot water. Patient is the gaze that watches them, as his form takes residence on his own couch, as his hands eventually take up the task of drawing the residue of dried blood from their silken hair. Counting the patterns in the room, in his eyes, it no longer serves to distract them at all, as they take a sip from the tea he had just told them was still too hot to drink. Allowing the burn to bite at their tongue without so much as wincing, irritable when the pain only serves to shake them from their thoughts a mere moment. “What do you believe happens to the dead?” the question falls from their lips almost scathingly, as if the topic itself had angered them for years, and the quiet lull of displeasure would forever scar their throat, “I’ve never heard a man sound sane when speaking about what happens after this life,” they say, and such a short and fleeting life the human body was offered, “I have heard shinobi say that the dead eventually come back in new vessels, reincarnation. As if it may be even slightly believable that in all the centuries, not one shred of evidence exists of returned loved ones. I have heard shinobi speak of the pure lands, as if they feel they are owed some sense of peace, as if being disillusioned in this life might somehow equate to them being saved in some next one. I have heard of shinobi speak of gods, gods who they swear to be all powerful, yet for all the suffering our people are wrought by, must either be cruel, or incompetent.” They haven’t noticed his hands running gentle strokes through their hair, combing out the mess that had tangled itself in silken locks. At least, their mind has not noticed. Too accepting of his presence beside their own, too unquestioning. Their body however, starved of touch and the conditioned to cope only with the isolated habits they bring upon themself, notices instantly. Takes advantage perhaps, as their svelte form leans against him. Their smaller frame tucked neatly in to the curve of his body, fitting there rather perfectly, as they unconsciously seek the contact of reassurance he offers. As he rids them of not only the messy little leaves and speckled blood, but of the tension that had gripped their shoulders when such soothing combing proves a rare show of trust in their presence. “If reincarnation is real, it means we live one pointless life after the other. Never remembering the lessons we learnt to begin with, never remembering the people who supposedly return to us. If the gods are real, we ought to want nothing to do with the creatures that can do so much, but do so very little, that we might question their existence,” they say, before golden eyes move across to finally spot and acknowledge the hands running through their hair, where their own slender fingers move to coil around his one wrist, drawing his hand toward themself and turning it over, so they can expose the vein running along his wrist and up his arm. Hidden beneath pale skin, skin that had suffered countless lacerations, yet persistently heals, “why should we bother think about what being dead might be like anyhow? Why are we so accepting of the idea that dying is the only option?” He must think them mad now, for all their ramblings without context. For showing up looking as if they had returned from some assignment when he had indeed seen them in the village that very morning. Looking elegantly refined and neat, reserved and evidently lost in their own thoughts. If only they had the excuse of alcohol being in their system, when their next idea surfaces without a moment of consideration. If only they could blame carelessness on some overindulged and mind altering poison controlling their inhibitions. It is only the disturbed state they are in after staggering and startling failure that had propelled this idea however. As they run their finger over the vein they know needed the smallest cut to cause him to lose too much blood to recover from. Fragile was the body gifted to the ones they loved. They allow their light grip around his wrist to instead tug him to his feet when they stand. Where they bring the man to his own dining table, before releasing his wrist so their hand can dip in to their cloaks hidden pocket, and retrieve a single scroll. Grey had been the engraved stones of countless memorials and tombs, housing lines of bodies in Konoha’s cemetery. Deep had been the holes dug to retrieve the remains bundled in cloth at the heart of their parents graves, barely distinguishable as human with how little was gathered from the blown up war grounds years ago. Quick had been their departure from robbing those graves, after sampling dna and covering their tracks by putting back the earth they had disturbed. Erratic had been the behaviour of two captured criminals, men who were meant to be escorted to prison by the serpent during their last assignment, but who had been abducted instead and caged away, only for the viper to lie and feign having killed them during the mission due to dangerously uncooperative behaviour. Terrified were the sacrifices fighting back, two men unable to escape the smaller serpentine shinobi, who’s skill in the art of killing and destroying exceeded their entire generation. Pained had been the screams when both men became a part of a greater experiment, when their bodies began to give way to the new souls the serpent decided to replace them with. Empty had been the agonized eyes of the men as they helplessly waited for the serpent to complete Edo Tensei, as the serpent desperately waited to see their parents faces start to overtake the sacrifices. A life for a life. Unfamiliar had been the faces to finally greet the necromancer, when they realize in a jarring moment that buried within their parents graves were two strangers. Agonized had been those strangers faces when they were torn back to the living world unsuccessfully. Unable to die, but far from alive. Tormented had been the resurrected shinobi, crying for their ends as they crumbled in to paper in ruination, only to remain alive despite the cracking, decaying and crippling forms. Fumbled had been the serpents attempt to dispel the ritual and dismiss the souls back to the unknown. Ten minutes had been the time needed to finally empty the room of the living dead, that felt more like hours in their overwhelmed shock. Layers of failure had made that experiment a shaking experience. Failing to find their parents remains, realizing they now had no dna to even attempt this ritual in future. That they had been visiting the graves of strangers for years when error was made on the battlefield, and the wrong blown up and mutilated bodies had been placed in the holes dug for their mother and father. Failing to even complete Tobirama’s abandoned project, when the sacrifices suffered a gruesome fate and the resurrected suffered just the same agony, only to be banished after finally collapsing lifelessly. It might have put them off Edo Tensei, if the devilishly ambitious streak in them did not hiss it had not given them the right to give up. Now, the scroll of Tobirama’s work, revised by the serpent in Dan’s home, is presented. Placed in the middle of the dining table, as golden eyes look to the pale haired shinobi beside them. Forbidden techniques were something they knew Dan found fascinating, but whether he would be on the same page as them regarding one so cruel, one so actively defying all that was thought moral, natural and doable... well, they are yet to see. But they trust him enough to know that either way, their secret, their obsession with the dead coming back to them, would be kept safe. And so it is rolled open, for his eyes to see the detailed ritual, the inked sigils and the hand written demands. “Why seek out pure lands, when we can make this our home eternally... and why pray to gods, when we can become them.”

[kunrendeotaku]

Chapter 5

Star and I make our way back home shortly after. I’ve long dried off by this point, and my disheveled appearance doesn’t even bother me. I’m damn near skipping, to be honest, still riding on that wonderful high of battle. Once we make it inside, I’m rushed by my parents who wrap me up in a three way hug. “Marco! Star said you ran off, are you okay?” My mother asks, once I’m finally let go. I feel my cheeks warm up in shame at having thought of these wonderful people abandoning me only a few hours ago, and I start pushing them away. “C’mon, I’m fiiine. Star and I worked things out."

My parents share a look, but allow me to pull away. “Mijo, we want you to know that we aren't ignoring Star’s clear danger, or not listening to your warnings.” My father begins, continued by my mother after placing a hand on his shoulder. “We realize what she is, especially after she told us why she's on Earth to begin with...but we need this. You’re a great kid, Marco. Sometimes a bit too great.”

“What are we supposed to do if you mostly parent yourself? Over the last year you've lectured us, rightfully so, more than we have you.” My father seems uncomfortable with that, almost scared. My mother seems more frustrated than anything, she's always been the braver one of the pair. “But with Star, we have a chance to be real parents to an actual kid, one who messes up or might even need to be told to do their homework! We would never have wanted you to be forced out of the house, but I think I speak for everyone when I say I'm glad you two worked things out.”

The pair of them both smile at me, clearly feeling better after letting all that out. “I-uh. I don't know what to say. I'm sorry if I'm not quite the kind of kid you were expecting? I didn't even know you felt that way. I'll try to mess up more often, so you have a chance to give one of the old lectures!” It's a really awkward thing they've dropped on me, and I respond in kind-about as smoothly as a drunken chicken. They laugh somewhat nervously, clearly as torn about me possibly following through on that promise as I am. “You know what I need? A shower! Let's go, Star.”

I snag her hand and weave my way past my still a bit concerned parents, but I know they’ll be fine-it's not in their nature to worry about anything for very long. “Uh, Marco, why am I going with you? You’re getting a shower, right?” Once we’re up the stairs Star takes her hand back with a bemused look, continuing “I’m pretty sure people on Earth don’t take baths together.” While not completely accurate, she’s right this time-two American kids of different genders definitely aren’t gonna bathe together, at least at our age. I find myself wondering what common sense she really has about Earth-she got that right, but has no clue what a water fountain is?

“Well, Star, in this household we do things a bit differently. At least I do. Do you know how dangerous taking a shower is?! You can slip and fall at any time, and baths are even worse! I never shower without someone there to keep an eye on me. Plus, I can use this time to introduce you to the bathroom.” Star nods along reasonably obediently, though I’m sure she stopped listening once I got into full rant mode like most people do. Oh well, she’ll get the gist of it. I open the door into our new shared bathroom, and present it for the girl to see.

“Oh my god! What's this thing!?” Star immediately bounces over to the toilet, her namesake popping up in her eyes. She starts fiddling with it, lifting the seat up and down, poking the handle, and various other physical investigations that make me very glad I keep every single surface clean enough to eat off of. “It's our toilet. You uh, you poop in it. And pee. Then wipe yourself clean with that.” I gesture to the toilet paper next to her, which she immediately begins unrolling and spinning around herself with glee. “Wow! But how do you lift it and throw it out? It looks stuck to the floor.” She thumps the bottom of the porcelain throne with her boot, her upper body now resembling a mummy from her constant spinning.

I blink, a bit confused by what she means for a moment, before it clicks-chamber pots. I shudder at what the poor girl must have gone through in her clearly medieval dimension, then demonstrate flushing the toilet for her. “You don’t. You just do this and it uh, goes down the drain.” She blinks, then her eyes widen as she clearly realizes how amazing this is compared to throwing your shit out of the nearest window. “Where does it go?” She whispers, having managed to completely empty out the roll of toilet paper by this point. I whisper back “Nobody knooooows.” then open up our cabinets and snag another roll to replace it with. When Star starts looking thoughtfully at the newly replaced roll, I give her my best disapproving parent face and she simply pouts.

After that I go into full lecture mode, showing Star the various parts of the bathroom. Having shared with both male and female exchange students most of my life, I’m pretty comfortable with the necessities of both, and ensure Star has what she needs, although when she asked me what a Tampon was pressed a bit too far. I’ll have to leave that conversation to my mother, I think. I’m not sure how much she really got, as distractible as the girl is, but hopefully she at least knows the basics of toothbrushes, toothpaste, mouthwash, shampoo and conditioner, as well as where the razors are and what not to drink or eat.

When she starts staring blankly at me, I know I’ve pushed too far, and so I finally sigh and say “We’ll talk about the rest later. Don’t forget to have that conversation with my mom. And don’t leave!” I snag a couple of towels and hang them outside the shower door, then step inside. Immediately a series of crashes and bangs rings out, and I open it back up to squint out at Star, who in the process of trying to free herself from the toilet paper has managed to throw open virtually every cabinet and drawer in the room, and currently wriggles on the counter. “Oh, I got this Marco! You do you.” I just kind of sigh, closing the shower door and beginning to strip down and toss my clothes over the stall door. We have one of those thick cloudy glass showers, where you can just barely see silhouettes through the door and nothing else.

“Just rip through it! It's not that hard!” I call out, turning on the shower. I have the perfect heat settings sharpied onto the temperature knobs with little black lines, so I always know I’ll have the right temperature. “Where's the fun in that?!” My new roommate calls back, clearly having fun trying to unravel herself the hard way, and destroying our bathroom in the process. Man, I hope she has a spell that can fix things. Speaking of spells, I hear a loud crash through the wall, sounding like it's coming from my room. “Star?! What was that?! You didn’t leave, right?” I hear a somewhat damning silence for a few moments, before she calls back “Nooope. Definitely totally didn’t get bored and run to your room. Also, your stuff is back! Yay good news. I mean, that sound was probably your stuff.”

I groan, annoyed at my extremely flighty lifeline. How am I supposed to shower in peace without knowing someone is there if I trip and knock myself out!? Usually one of my parents does it, but I know they find it super annoying, so I use the exchange students constantly when I get the chance. “Just, play with the bathroom supplies or something!” I call out, shampooing myself up. I hear some rather dangerous muttering, but thankfully nothing else. It's a rather boring shower from then on, but I can finally relax and let the hot water do its job.

When I make my way out into the steamy bathroom, towel wrapped around my hair and a second one up to my chest, I see that Star has used her time...wisely, I guess? She’s made pink and somewhat alive copies of pretty much every she might need in the bathroom for herself, cluttering up her side of the counter with more toothbrushes, perfume, brushes, and hair products than any sane person would ever need. I physically flinch at seeing the disorganized mess scattered about, but I’ve had to learn hard lessons about giving the exchange students their space and not being a control freak. I just kind of shudder, then point at the shower. “Your turn, Star.”

[nevermelting]

Living as an artist in a post Soviet country (tw violence and harassment)

I hope you won't unfollow me after reading this but I just need to get this off my chest. I hope you'll understand some behind the scenes of my art and texts after reading this.

On the surface, we are not very different, you and me.

At least, that's the impression you get, hopefully.

Hopefully because I didn't teach myself english for nothing, right? We share the same fandoms and I contribute my art to them just like the rest of the civilized world.

But let me tell you - we are different. In ways you will never imagine. Because I am living in a post soviet country, as a granddaughter of a man sent to a NKVD death camp. I am also a foreigner here and my grandfather was sent there exactly for that very reason: being a foreigner. Because it was a soviet ethnic cleansing. A genocide.

Human life has always mattered very little here. Life of women doubly less. One of my earliest memories (I was something like four or five) is boys humiliating me and touching my genitals. Groping on the street is normal and I was groped, indeed. Both my father and my stepfather tried to kill my mother. I was bullied by the whole class, ironically, changing schools didn't help because I was hated there too. I still dislike drug addicts because for me they aren't marijuana smoking hipsters but those two imbeciles who killed a dog in front of me. Even the boy I liked laughed at me and called me "weird" while I was just physically ill, weak and didn't have a single friend. ...Should I continue or is it hilarious enough already?...

Even through the screen I can sense your disbelief. "Are you sure that's what happened?" "Isn't it a bit too much for one person?" 

But what I said is true and I even omitted some facts. My artistic abilities were awakened in a small coal mining town which makes Cokeworth seem like heaven on earth because it featured ruins in the city center, famous pedophile serial murderers and men always happy to relieve themselves in front of you. 

In that town, being artistic didn't mean a single damn thing. What they cared about is that I am "fat", "weird" and "greasy", at least, that's what most of them did. At one point I was so buIllied at physical education lessons that I was afraid to go to school. Yet, I didn't know that there was a world without humiliation, I thought that everyone lives like this. And what's most horrifying of all...is that compared to a lot of women in my country, even with all this, I had it easy.

But with time,art literally showed me a different world - not some kind paradise but at least it was the world in which I saw many people, mainly americans but a lot of europeans too, at least talk about similar experiences. They weren't as traumatized as me but maybe it was even for the better because thanks to them, I learned to distinguish between what's right and what's not, how normal life looks like. 

...So...remember my previous point? About us being different? This may seem contradictory, but forget it.

We are the same now. Technically, we’ve always been the same because most of americans/europeans share their european heritage with me. But I also overcame miles and miles of hopelessness to make the distance between us a bit shorter. Due to the Soviet iron curtain, this distance was quite great at some point.

In any case, thank you for keeping me sane. Right now, I don't have any money to move to Europe, no matter how much I'd like to. I live surrounded by people who have no idea about things that matter to me or bring me joy, who share none of my interests or values but thanks to you, I feel heard.

And yes, I will continue to inspire you with pictures of Snape's past, various strange men real and imaginary and also something partly inspired by this experience of mine. 

After all, we are the same.

[rebel-band]

Track 5. Soul So Cynical

There's a conundrum with gossip in that whichever way you approach it, it won't ever be right.

Some choose to ignore it -- just go about their business as usual and don't waste their time with explanations, as people only hear what they want to.

Some choose to address it -- confront the people who are gossiping, as they alert you to a certain perception, which can spread and grow out of proportion if you don’t take action.

That's why you had PR teams, and carefully orchestrated stunts and strategies to fix anything not in line with your image. Tennoko knew that very well from how his uncle battled the media machine ever since he'd made a successful debut on the football field.

But Tennoko always thought if you addressed gossip, if you engaged with that kind of hateful monologue trying to turn it into a dialogue, you justified its existence, and maybe even acknowledged that there was some point to what people said; that you were indeed the bad and ugly truth brewing in their minds. Because, sadly, hardly anyone ever gossiped about virtue.

But if you ignored it, life wasn't really much easier. There were only so many first impressions you could make.

What Ko thought of gossip and first impressions was pretty clear. He didn't give a single...

Fun fact -- with his arrival, Motoki needed to rethink his image again. Because the bad boy label had been inadvertently taken.

And was Ko the baddest of them all or what, according to the gossip.

Rumour had it his parents sent him to Tokyo to some distant relatives as a punishment for acting out and bad grades, so he had to transfer to a new school from God knows where. Tennoko actually had a pretty good idea where that might be but he didn't share it, not even with Hideo, trying not to add any fuel to the proverbial flame.

Besides, Tennoko didn't really believe the rumour true, especially since he actually noticed Ko's name on the entry exam results table when, out of curiosity, he browsed back through photos he'd snapped that day. Ko's was the third best result in math. Would he have taken exams if he had simply transferred? Not likely. Would he have been punished for results like that? Even less so.

It didn't take a genius to notice Ko was great at math, and Tennoko caught himself waiting for him to flash a smug smile he always did as he answered the teachers correctly. It almost made Tennoko jealous, the way he was confident in his skills.

He wasn't what you'd call a typical nerd, though. The smug smile graced his face in PE too when he got praised in individual competition, whenever effort and concentration was required. In group play, Ko was fair and respectful but a team player he was not. A tad too aggressive in basketball, his height the obvious advantage, and not cooperative enough in football, always pushing forward alone.

Teamwork was an entirely different thing with Ko. To Tennoko's surprise, they actually tied in highest test scores in English more than once, and since Mrs Ishikawa had a horrible habit of making top students her aid, they were paired to assist her with making lesson plans and checking homework. At first, it made Tennoko tense and painfully aware of every word he was uttering in his presence. But Ko never once complained about him or the amount of work she put on them both, and he always came prepared, which was new to Tennoko as he was rather used to people slacking off in group work. He even thought Ko's reading materials were a bit too ambitious for high schoolers' tastes.

And so nervousness turned to...anticipation, maybe? Tennoko couldn't quite place the feeling he had at the prospect of working with Ko. Man, but did he feel disappointed if either of them didn't manage to score well enough to be paired together.

For him, it was usually because of grammar, when stress got the better of him, and he slipped with the tenses or prepositions. For Ko, it was the writing assignments and speaking tasks. He was reserved when speaking English, so working in pairs with him was a challenge for most people.

Truth is, he was reserved when speaking in general. After a week, the class even had a bet running if Ko would ever say a sentence in Japanese longer than five words.

His silence and smugness alongside constant disappearance from view during breaks, instead of mingling with classmates, people mostly took for arrogance. One more rumour said he was older than the rest of them, and simply thought everyone too childish and too boring to speak to.

Someone even said, they had seen Ko push a stroller in a park near Nakameguro station in the company of a woman. Yes, a woman, not a girl. She was too young to be his mom so was she his girlfriend? Was this an affair? Was the kid his?

Add to it random band aids over the fingers, a scar inside his right palm, and a sullen gaze of his very dark eyes, you'd get a picture of what mothers usually called a very bad influence. Someone to have only a bad feeling about.

Tennoko felt it too, or rather he felt something. Never before had a guy elicited such a strange mixture of admiration and jealousy in his life.

Sure, Tennoko looked up to Hideo's patience and his fortitude, and quite frankly mooned over him for years now, and he always envied Tomomi his quick wit and charm.

But none of them made such a startling and gut prickling impact in such a short time. None of them were like that drumming inside his tightening chest.

Tennoko always thought of Hideo as the thoughtful leveled head, and Tomomi the unruly fiery heart. But Ko didn't feel like any of that. He felt like visceral instincts. Something untamed about him like an ocean beneath the cold surface. Very, very bad.

And he didn't even like bad guys! Yet here he was obsessing over Ko in his spare time. God, what a disaster.

And it was a problem because nice guys like Hideo might not mind if he's crushing on them hard. But bad guys like Ko… Man, Ko would probably kick his ass in front of the entire class, ha! the entire school for even thinking it. Ko would flip out knowing he...

Jesus, it wasn't a crush! Why did he even need to remind himself that?

And was Ko really a bad guy? Tennoko was having serious doubts.

It all started with the Himawari twins incident.

A senior was mercilessly teasing the two girls from class B one recess. Tennoko overheard it on his way to the library, something about them ever sharing a boyfriend, which was inappropriate in itself, but the guy was also implying they should consider him for a future threesome. He was loud and obnoxious, his mates cheered him on, and the girls tried to get back a phone he took from one of them, God knows why.

Hajima strode their way, ready to intervene as a class rep but at that moment the phone slid across the floor dropped by the senior student when one of the girls simply kicked him in the shin having had enough. It landed some distance away from the scuffle, right by Ko sitting on a bench in the corridor, reading, headphones on his head.

The guy dived for the phone but Ko picked it up first. And just as the senior tried to harass him to give it back, Ko simply stood up.

He was taller by more than a head than the guy, and that alone seemed to drive a message home because the guy took two steps back. As his mates jumped to his side, Ko gave them a look that even from the distance made Tennoko shiver.

He said, "Stop fucking about," making a deliberate pause between each word, as Tennoko learned from the twins later on, and so the seniors retreated.

With them gone, Ko silently handed the phone back to the girls, and then not waiting for any thank yous, disappeared from view and the commotion for the rest of the break.

Tennoko ran into him in the library right after.

The second time he found him in there was also a surprise.

It was lunchtime but before grabbing a bite with Hideo and Tomomi, Tennoko decided to drop by to return Howl's Moving Castle he'd just finished the previous night.

As he fumbled in the bag for the book in a hurry, he bumped into someone coming back from the checkout counter with an armful of titles. A steady grip held him so Tennoko didn't fall but the person dropped the books he was carrying.

"Jesus, I'm sorry, are you OK?" Tennoko asked, picking them up. It seemed a random bunch, really, math and social studies and prose, but he was most surprised to see a sound engineering handbook.

Only then he noticed he'd bumped into Ko.

"My fault," he said pointing to the headphones on, and grabbed the books back.

While leaving, Tennoko saw him sit in the reading corner devouring a book and a clearly home cooked bento.

So the closer Tennoko looked, the more the whole bad guy thing looked like a shtick. A cynical PR stunt almost, Ko letting the rumours run wild for a purpose. All a matter of perspective.

Because last time he checked, bad guys didn't really hang out in the library to avoid people. They didn't stand up to bullies. They didn't score well on English and math tests. They also didn't bring home cooked lunch or strolled with toddlers around a park.

And didn't smell of Mocha. Why on Earth did he smell of Mocha?

The only thing keeping Tennoko somewhat sane was that there was close to zero chance of them interacting outside of classes and cleaning duty altogether, and he was pretty sure the novelty effect would wear off in the coming weeks.

Luckily, the new Crimson Blade was coming out shortly, and he'd be spending a lot of his spare time playing with the guys instead of worrying about misplacing his silly feelings on someone like Ko.

Thank you, God, for video games. A perfect distraction with only pixel worlds and characters to swoon over.

In the meantime, others made the decision for him to avoid the newcomer. Two weeks into the school year, the gossiping didn't end. No one dared to taunt Ko openly but they weren't really subtle about giving him the silent treatment. He was left out from group activities outside school, not invited to their class group chat, and generally singled out as not to be hanged out with.

And it bothered Tennoko, it really did, so he refused to add anything to the conversation whenever it steered into name calling and speculation about Ko's life. It also made him want to check up on him to make sure he's alright. Because Tennoko didn't believe, even with all his aloofness, Ko was not at all affected by their class, well, not on their best behaviour, to put it mildly.

One Friday, as they settled into informal groups during lunch, Tennoko found himself in a mix of some old familiar faces and new classmates, all chatting about the newcomer again.

"I mean, he could at least try to say hi. We're all making friends here. Otherwise it's just rude. What do you think, Hikaru-kun?"

Why would he want to say hi, if you're treating him that way, Tennoko thought but bit his tongue. With a mouthful of onigiri, he just shrugged.

"Whatever, he's just like this sad loner type."

"You don't like guys like that, Suzuki-san?" Motoki made puppy eyes towards the girl, and her short bob swayed as she shook her head.

"I like smart and fun guys." She winked and Motoki beamed.

"He is kind of handsome," added another girl, and Tennoko caught himself stopping mid bite at her words.

"Aiko-chan, you just like foreigners," laughed Suzuki in turn, and Honda shrugged with an innocent smile.

"Is he really Korean though," wondered Hajima, "I mean, his Japanese is normal."

Tennoko opened his mouth for a brief second, then closed it, considering if he should say anything at all. Finally he thought, though a single fact wouldn't really set things straight for Ko, it was better than constant speculation.

"He's from Kansai. Most likely, Osaka."

All eyes in the group turned his way.

He took another bite from his bento, and shrugged. "What? I heard it in his accent."

"Hikaru, you and your perfect pitch, this is brilliant." Motoki laughed out loud and playfully slapped Tennoko over the back.

"You have absolute hearing?"

Tennoko blushed at the sudden excitement and attention around his person, though he was happy it at least drew them off gossiping about Ko.

"Could play anything he heard, even when we were still in elementary." Hajima gave Tennoko, then the rest of them a proud smile. "Too shy to brag about it, right?"

"That is so cool," cheered Honda, a big wide grin on her heart shaped face. "So can you really play anything?"

"Music without notes, yes. But not like any instrument, I'd have to learn to play piano like any of us, really," Tennoko replied, still feeling a bit of a flush in his ears. "I play guitar, used to play violin as a kid."

"So did I. Real tiger mom I have. She stopped nagging me when my teacher said I'm hopeless," she laughed. Tennoko smiled back hoping Aiko wouldn't poke her nose into his reason to quit.

"And the accent thing -- also perfect pitch?" Suzuki asked.

"It helps but I learned that from my mom. She teaches linguistics at Komaba," he replied, "I can tell you, though, that our school chime's in E major, and Lana sings comfortably in C3 to F3."

"So you'll be joining the music club for sure."

"Yup, just need to check if I'd have to take my guitar for practice or if they have a good one here."

"Very particular about his guitars, that guy," Motoki snickered.

Tennoko smiled. "You'd be surprised how different it plays when it's the right one."

"Anyone else joining clubs or teams?" Suzuki asked.

"Baseball team," Hajima made a swing with an invisible bat. "Tryouts are tomorrow."

"Same for the running team. Care to watch, ladies?" Motoki added, shooting a look at Suzuki who beamed at him back.

As the girls giggled and the guys laughed, they noticed Ko enter the classroom and sit in his place beside Tennoko.

Leaning back in the chair, he hid comfortably behind a book, trying to ignore the noise. The group stopped laughing at once. It was almost the end of lunchtime anyway, so Tennoko hoped they'd just return to their seats as usual.

But to his surprise, Suzuki got up from her place and moved to the newcomer, with the eyes of each classmate closely following.

"Hey, Ko-san," she asked, leaning over him with a curious and, much to Motoki's distress, flirty smile, "We were just talking with the guys here about clubs. Aiko-chan and I are joining the drama club. What about you?"

He didn't answer right away but smiled at her from behind the book. It seemed forced, mouth moving to a smile but eyes not reflecting the sentiment.

"Clubs? Not into it."

"And what are you into?" She smiled, not giving up.

Tennoko noticed Hajima step slightly towards Suzuki, just in case.

Ko closed the book and pulled up in his chair forward, not taking eyes of her. "Why don't you try and guess, since you've been making shit up about me anyway."

The whole class went dead silent.

Well, there they had it, more than a five word sentence, Tennoko thought, not without satisfaction.

Suzuki startled with his response first, but did not have to be asked twice to take up the dare.

"Oh, I think you like getting into trouble. I think you got into some real shit in your previous school. You didn't transfer, they expelled you. That's why you're stuck with juniors now, even if you're older than us."

"Suzuki, give it a rest," Hajima tried to ease the tension, but Ko didn't really react, just passed him a single side glance at the remark.

Then he smirked. Suzuki's posture tensed and her nostrils flared.

"Either that, or you're just a fucking nerd. What is this, physics?" she snatched his book, and started browsing frantically.

"You think you're so smart. You think you've got everything figured out about everyone," he smiled, again that forced smile.

Suzuki stomped in place like she needed to find her footing and glared at him, teeth almost gritting, and face red at the cheeks.

"He's into music, Suzuki."

Tennoko was sure he huffed loud enough for everyone to hear. And it worked. They turned around, all including Ko, and looked at him surprised.

"And he is definitely an Osakan," he concluded, putting his bento box neatly back in the bag.

Jesus, was it like dealing with bickering siblings or what? He almost felt a headache coming.

Ko gave him a last stunned, "What-t?" but luckily the bell ended further conversation before it could start.

Suzuki dropped the book back to Ko's desk with a loud slam, and as the others moved back to their seats, Tennoko sent the still puzzled Korean a cautious smile.

Saturday came sunny and almost too warm for April, so warm in fact Tennoko regretted putting on the sweatshirt of their school tracksuit today, but it was pleasant to finally ride the longboard for the first time after winter, even if to the school. He agreed to cheer the guys a bit as they tried to make it to the baseball and running teams respectively. Let's face it, everything was better than keeping company to an eleven year old sister all day, since mom was too busy working at home on some admin work for the uni, what with the influx of new students with the start of April. Hiroyuki would need to just play in the garden by herself.

Besides, Tennoko wanted to check out the music room at school, and Saturday was a good time to do it alone and unbothered. So after going between the race track and the baseball pitch, where he observed for a while how his friends took up the challenge in the spring sun, Tennoko moved back to the cool building and into the music room.

He didn't expect company, and most definitely didn't expect it to be him.

Ko sat on the floor, two guitar cases by his side. He wasn't wearing a uniform, nor the tracksuit but rather faded looking jeans and a black t-shirt that looked like some merchandise for a hipster coffee house.

He was busy around the guitar pegs with...an electric winder. Was he getting the strings off one of the guitars and restringing them onto the other?

"Well, Suzuki was kind of right, you like getting into trouble," Tennoko joked in the door, entirely surprised by his own boldness.

Ko startled and hissed as he pricked his finger on the pointy edge of a string on a peg. He turned to the door with a frown, pushing the winder away from sight, ready for confrontation. Seeing Tennoko, however, he relaxed his tight shoulders and forehead.

Both frozen in place, they eyed each other for a moment, and he realised Ko was waiting to see what he does. Tennoko rolled his eyes. He was self-proclaimed lawful good, but a snitch he was not.

"That one yours?" He pointed with his head towards the case closer to Ko. His face relaxed with visible relief.

"Strings are expensive," he shrugged, and grabbed the winder again.

Tennoko tilted the head and narrowed his eyes. They really weren't. How many sets a month did he need?

"These are a waste. No one uses school guitars," Ko added, as if that was a good excuse.

"Well, I was going to."

"You?" There was a tiny tint of amusement in his voice.

Tennoko drew in a breath and finally stepped inside the room. He set the helmet and the longboard on top of a closest desk, and gestured to Ko for the guitar he was holding. "May I?"

Instrument in hands, he settled himself on a chair opposite his classmate, and after thinking for a bit, played a tune.

Ko watched him closely, arms folded over the chest. With each chord played his eyes got clearly more excited.

"Nice solo," he said after Tennoko was done, "Even more so without the one string."

Here was another one more than five words, Tennoko thought amused. "That's from the Legend of Zelda," he replied, not quite sure if it was a jab on Ko's part.

But he simply shrugged and gestured to get the guitar back. Second string off, he proceeded to the next.

"They won't reach back to the tuning pegs." Tennoko crossed his arms and shook his head. "The scale length is different between your Gibson and this no-brand."

Ko looked up at him, eyebrows raised, then visually measured the fingerboards of both instruments. He scratched his head with a frustrated sigh. "Ah, shit."

"Haste makes waste," Tennoko mocked.

"Add ‘theft doesn't pay’, and I'm gonna fucking punch you." Ko shot him a deadly look but Tennoko didn't flinch, just made a face in reply.

Seeing him unfazed, Ko narrowed his eyes but then got to winding the missing strings back onto the school guitar.

All six in, he drummed fingers against the soundboard. "Guess you know your stuff, though it don't look like you play."

"What, because I'm not all smug and rude?"

Wait, was that a snicker? Tennoko startled with the sound. Did he just make the big bad guy laugh? 

"You think you have everything figured out about everyone." The joke was just lying there, so Tennoko reached for it, echoing Ko's own words, and could see him silently laugh again.

Finally, Ko half-smiled, this time not trying to hide it. Then he took out his own guitar out of the red lined case.

When he struck the first chords, Tennoko grinned without even knowing it. Here was a flagship classic, he thought.

Well broken in medium strings gave it that rich full sound. The guitar looked new but they felt together like a pair of old friends.

The tune was quick as a pulse, loud and punchy, yet surprisingly warm. It was a well rounded draft -- verse, chorus, bridge -- if not yet complete a song.

"This your own, right?"

He nodded with a glint of pride in the eyes.

"What if you'd end it differently?" Tennoko bounced off from his chair and grabbed the no-brand again, tuned it, then replayed the song with a slight change at the end. His rendition felt less stressed, less rushed, at least in his mind.

Ko leaned in listening, then raised one eyebrow. "Perfect pitch, huh?" Tennoko nodded. "Wish I had it."

"You're good the way you play. It makes your music, yours. And believe me, this whole thing sucks when you go to karaoke. Off key singing sounds twice as bad."

Ko tilted his head. "Is that how you knew about Osaka?"

"That's just a geeky party trick with the accents," he cleared his throat, "You obviously been somewhere else lately, my guess is coastal. When did you get to Tokyo?"

"January."

"Well, no wonder you don't sound Tokyoite yet. Osaka-ben is hard to scrape off."

Ko snorted. "I wasn't even trying."

The Gibson still in his lap, he tapped the strings with a smile. "So how did you figure out the music thing?"

Tennoko shrugged. "You had a YG mag in your bag on the first day. The tapes," he wiggled his own fingers with a similar set of band aids, "I figured you play a lot too. The scar's probably from some weird snapped string, right?"

Ko looked into the right palm, then tightened it to a fist. "Yea, sure."

"Plus, that was a sound engineering book yesterday, the only one from our library. I saw you borrow it when I bumped--"

Ko furrowed his brow.

"Sorry about that," Tennoko noticed the sudden change in his face at the mention of yesterday's fight. "Suzuki is just curious, like everyone else, and you..."

"Stand out." There was sudden defiance in his voice.

"Yes." No point denying, Ko was already aware. "This leads to tension, if not...bullying." Tennoko knew he grimaced at the word but hoped Ko didn't notice. "Trust me, you don't want to go down that route."

"I've seen worse," Ko replied dryly.

"It would help if you hanged out with us together once in a while. Suzuki is the type of girl who likes attention, and all eyes are on you now, so..."

"I don't need advice," Ko stopped him, then sent him a tired but good-natured smile. "I also don't really need friends."

Tennoko smiled back cordially.

"Right," he composed himself and looked at the guitar Ko packed into his case, "You just need new strings," he added, a note to self.

Hideo's loud, "Ten-chan, you still here?" came as a relief, even though Tennoko was aware the affectionate nickname drew a light curl on Ko's lips. He decided to ignore it for now, maybe freak out about it in the safety of his own four walls.

"How did you do?"

Hajima raised a triumphant fist into the air. "Made it."

"Of course you have," a warm proud smile slid onto his face.

"Everything OK?" he asked, noticing the silence between them in the room.

Ko clicked his guitar case shut and put it on his back. "I was just leaving."

"Ko-kun," Hajima nodded as Ko passed him in the door.

"Class rep," he answered curtly.

"See you Monday," yelled Tennoko, placing the school guitar back in its own case.

The Korean just waved without turning around.

When cleaning duty was over for him Monday, Tennoko said goodbye to Takahashi he'd been partnered with, then made his way to the music room for an introductory music club meeting.

Hideo and Tomomi also had field practice, so they agreed to meet after outside the gate, grab some snacks, and head out to Motoki's to study.

As introductions go, thankfully, the meeting wasn't too stressful. It turned out one of the twins, Hinata, played guitar too, though her choice was classical. The music club consisted also of a second-year violinist, a 3 piece brass and reed section, and a very shy glockenspiel player. And of course there was also the club lead, senior student and professional pianist in the making, Koizumi Rui. Tennoko remembered him from their opening ceremony -- he was the student council president who welcomed the juniors in the auditorium alongside the principal.

Their main job would be to produce the music for the drama club's activities during the annual school festival and Christmas event, and during the opening and graduation ceremonies, he informed. They'd be mostly unsupervised, as Mrs Takayama, the music club supervisor, for years now offered the creative freedom to explore their own art direction, and if they needed support, Koizumi was actually their go to person.

It drew an excited chuckle from the group, and made Tennoko's heart skip a surprising hot beat. But that was for another reason entirely.

The way he said, "Feel free to reach out for anything you need," looking directly at him with that smile left Tennoko wondering if music club activities was all he meant.

Dusk was falling slowly over the school building when the music club parted but it was still warm with the windows open in the locker room. As Tennoko changed shoes and headed out towards the exit through the empty corridor, he heard someone call his name. It was Ko.

Within reach, he handed him a paper envelope. Tennoko recognized it instantly, and frowned.

"I can't accept it. It's too expensive," Ko said.

Tennoko rolled his eyes, "It's not a big deal, just a welcome gift."

"I'll have to repay, and I can't now" He was determined to give it back, hand outstretched firmly towards Tennoko with the small packet but voice oddly without power.

Who would have thought him so old fashioned and care about a thank you gift in return, Tennoko thought. He turned away and proceeded to the exit.

Ko startled at first, but then trailed behind him through the door. "I'm serious."

"You're being ridiculous," Tennoko turned around.

Ko outstretched the hand again but didn't face Tennoko at all. With a blank look he stared to the side. His mouth was turned down and so were his shoulders.

Tennoko felt sorry for him, after all, he was waiting all that time after class ended to confront him.

"Look, can we just, I don't know, play together instead?" he offered.

Ko shuffled in place and looked up at him.

"Or just hang out? We're getting some snacks with the guys and going to study. Which will probably just turn into a video game match anyway," Tennoko chuckled and gestured to Hajima and Motoki curiously observing them through the school gate in the distance. "You want to join?"

Ko exhaled loudly. "I can't." He seemed frustrated with his own words.

Tennoko sighed. "Right." Why did he bother at all.

"Not today. I'm busy. Working," he added, one foot tapping, hesitant for a reaction.

"Oh. Part time job?"

He nodded.

The Mocha, the t-shirt from Saturday, him not joining club activities after school. It all clicked into place -- he was working in a coffee house.

"That's cool," Tennoko smiled, "Let me know when you can. Music club's Mondays, and I've got cram school Thursdays but other than that my week's pretty empty. It's a deal, yeah?"

Ko adjusted the strap of his bag over the shoulder and wrinkled his forehead. Finally, he pushed hair out of his face and the envelope back into his bag.

"Yea."

"Catch you later then." With a grin Tennoko ran towards his friends.

"The hell was that about?" Tomomi gestured with arms and eyes wide open.

Tennoko grinned again. "We're going to play." He twirled to give Ko a small wave.

Hideo raised his eyebrows and shot him an incredulous look. "Guitars?"

"Do I look like I mean baseball?"

[col22promo]

Issoria Feinberg | Twenty Four;  Survivor

House: Brink Security Class: Three Status: Infected - Telepathy Name Pronunciation: Ish-OH-ree-ah (or Ee-Sha) Alignment: New World Radicals

[*TW: violence, muder, sexual abuse*]

History

"You look older than your age.” 

She heard it a lot. Since she was a little girl, she’d heard it, time and time again. That, or she was ‘mature’ for her age. ‘Wise’, ‘worldly’, ‘astute’. She’d heard it all, whether it be from next-door-mothers, both awed and envious that their daughters were not the same, or single-minded next-door-sons, hitting on her even though their girlfriend (namely her older sister) was no more than a room and a corridor away. 

She’d heard it, and said nothing. Docile, sweet and polite, people thought her to be. Only her silence, which many interpreted as manners, was gravely misunderstood. No one knew she was storing away every comment, assumption, or self-serving look. No one knew she collected every misogynistic glance like snapshots in a photo album. Or mugshots on the wall. 

Little Isha, so sophisticated for her age, and then when she was older,  so tempered and humble for someone as beautiful as she. She glowed with a natural grace, all creamy skin and light, striking eyes. People were awed that her ethereal looks never got to her head. That the fervency with which she was desired by so many, never influenced her to be anything less than grounded, modest and uninterested in their praise. 

But It wasn’t that Isha didn’t want to be noticed or looked at it. It was that she wanted to be noticed for her mind. Looked at and admired for her values or beliefs. She wanted never to be complimented on the same things her brother had so often whispered about. In dark rooms, behind locked doors—on the breath, sticky and unpleasant on her shoulder. The breath of a monster who had taken away her innocence, her pride. 

Until she killed him. Because one thing he would never take from her was her independence. Her freedom. Her strength. 

Bashing his head in had been easy. She hadn’t even formulated much of a plan. Her hands didn’t shake when she’d swung the hammer right into his temple and crushed his skull with both ends. She cleaned up the blood like it was spilled milk. Sprayed stain remover on her cream coloured blouse and then put it in the wash. 

And she supposes, if you ask her, that that fateful day when she was seventeen, could be considered her first day as a feminist freedom fighter of sorts. 

Because there were certain people in the world who deserved to die. Especially if it ever had any hope of becoming a better place. Even mother earth needed a cleanse from time to time. And these men were toxins, poisoning the universe. Like bacteria, they couldn’t be allowed to spread.

She would have been tried as a minor, had authorities obtained her after finding her brother’s body, bled out and staining the carpet of her bedroom floor. But she’d taken her mother’s mattress money—the collection she’d been hiding in the spare bedroom in hopes of one day affording enough to leave her alcoholic husband, until she was hit by a car one night walking home from her third job as a cocktail waitress in a bad part of town—and fled. Leaving a note that simply said “I love you” for her sister, she took to the road in a beat up used car, heading South for the border into Germany. Leaving Denmark wasn’t so hard. There’d never been anything but sick memories and hate tying her there anyway. 

Eventually settling in Belgium, she managed to remain in hiding for over a year, taking on fake names and working in hole-in-the-wall bookshops and coffee houses. She led a simple life. Mostly quiet, even. 

Except of course, for when she was dumping the bodies of the predators and rapists into the North Sea.

She didn’t go looking for victims. They always found her. Walks home through the park often made her witness to women being harassed or followed by drunk creeps. A few sweeps in chat rooms had men casting their nets meant for underage girls in her direction. Only Issoria was not the kind of catch you wanted to pull onto your deck.

She’d done away with eight other men, of varying ages, before the police caught up with her. 

Isha Today

Through sexual abuse, murder and 10 months in prison, Isha stayed remarkably the same—at least on the surface. Don’t misunderstand, she was strong-willed and sturdy, unmoored despite the locks and keys that had her surrounded, but she was also prudent and unassuming. When she’d been working in the bookstore in a small town on the coast of Belgium, no one would have taken her for anything more than an even-tempered feminist with a patient heart and a bold mind. And she was all of those things—she was simply also more than them. 

It’d also proved impossible to pass her as insane in her trials. She was too well spoken, too clear-headed and confident of what she’d done having been the right thing—a service to humanity—and that she would do it all over again were she given the opportunity to go back. 

She kept mostly to herself while behind bars, often found with a book in the courtyards, minding her own business. Serving her time. If that was what the law had deemed necessary, she’d let them have it. She couldn’t feel anything but relief knowing that some of these men were off the street, and that her brother would never hurt her again. 

When D-Day hit, she was among several survivors of the all women’s penitentiary. Its structure so sturdily built into rock and burrowed part way under the earth, they were somewhat save in the lower two floors. And this is where they stayed for several months, until Crusaders came off the merchant ships and took her and the fellow survivors that remained with her, over to Colony 22, where they were also housing a handful of Belvedere convicts. The isolation of the old stone, boarding school community was apparently the most secure place for them. 

Isha went without a fuss, content to go where the wind blew her. They were running out of provisions in their area, anyway, and she was growing tired of the mould-ridden hell that was the place they’d locked her up. Some of her inmates, however, weren’t quite as agreeable to the notion of being escorted to some island in the middle of nowhere, and they fought back, a small handful of them fleeing, a few others taking shots to the head.

In the end, Isha and one of the only people she’d come to like in the prison, Ada Woollacott, were among the few women taken to Colony 22. Having spent a few years here, she was more or less content until the rising of the New Wave Reformists. This movement awakened an old, simmering anger in her, drawing her thirst for justice and liberty to the surface. During the takeover, she immediately aligned herself as a Radical with Ada, and they were part of a small riot that broke out when the Reformist Reps moved in. Injuring several people in their plight, Ada and Isha were confined to the correctional wing for several weeks, but both of them telepathic, they kept each other sane telling jokes about the security men through the stone walls of the cells and the only ones laughing in the silence. 

Now, Issoria uses her level-headed demeanor as a Red Herring for any future revolts against the NWRF. She is patient. She will wait until the time has come and the window of opportunity is open, and then she will fight back. She always has, and it is a skill she has never forgotten. 

HOME | PLOT | SURVIVORS | INFECTIONS | 2157 was the end of the world.

[artificialqueens]

Just The Game We're In- Chapter 4- Ortega

A/N: a fun fact, I almost burst into fucking TEARS when I finally finished this chapter. I am SO SORRY for the wait of approximately 213 days (seriously folks…if your fav fic doesn’t get updated after like…2 weeks…just think…you could be reading this piece of shit) but HERE IT IS GUYS, chapter 4 of every mobile user’s waking fucking nightmare, Just The Game We’re In!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In case any new readers need a rundown, this fic is inspired by the best TV show on god’s green earth, The Thick Of It. This one goes out to every single one of you that has waited so so patiently for this update, I love the actual heart and souls of you. Also to the gals at AQ Brits who have kept me (in)sane writing this monster. This chapter holds two of the most favourite scenes I’ve ever written and is generally a bit of a wild ride, so I hope you all enjoy!!

Plot Summary: Willam is a senior political advisor to the government’s minister for social affairs and citizenship, Sharon Needles. Throw in a crush on co-worker Courtney, Sharon acting weird around Willam’s colleague Alaska, an incompetent press department headed by Actual Living Zombie Jinkx Monsoon, and Willam’s job couldn’t get much more stressful. No wonder spin doctor Bianca Del Rio is permanently at the end of her tether…

There was definitely something fishy going on in the department, and it wasn’t Jinkx’s disgusting home-made tuna and sweetcorn sandwiches.

Willam hadn’t really noticed it at first. She’d been too busy with her work if she was honest- December was looming ever-closer and the hurry to compile the existing crime stats in time for New Year was a busy race. But she’d first spotted it on Monday, when Alaska had been twenty minutes late for work and arrived at exactly the same time as Sharon, her face grubby with what was presumably makeup from the day before.

“Christ girl, did you get out the wrong side of bed this morning?” Willam had pressed her, yelling across the office as Alaska had sunk sheepishly into her chair. “And then hit a wall and dragged yourself through a river of pig shit and gorse bushes?”

Alaska had simply rolled her eyes, scrunching the bird’s nest of hair on her head a little self-consciously. “I don’t look that bad, drama queen. Just overslept, that’s all. Now can we all just get on with our damn work before we accidentally let in a million illegal immigrants or something?”

That had been that, and Willam hadn’t really thought any more about it. That was until the next evening, when Alaska seemed to leave work but reappeared again beside the lifts, dressed immaculately in a fancy red shift dress and gold heels with makeup to match. She’d quietly slipped away before Willam could even interrogate her.

The weirdest by far had been the morning after, when Alaska arrived at work in a dress that was almost identical, in fact completely identical, to one Sharon already owned.

“What, do we get to share Sharon’s clothes now? Is that our festive bonus this year?” Willam had laughed incredulously, narrowing her eyes at Alaska in confusion.

“What? It was a nice dress, I went and got the same one. It’s only from H&M, for crying out loud. Half the girls you see in any clapped-out Camden bar are probably going to be wearing it,” Alaska had snorted in response.  

It was all just odd. There was also the fact that Alaska was barely out of Sharon’s office prepping for the New Year’s trip to Brussels, where the minister, one of her advisors and one member of the comms team went over for an international summit on European social affairs. It was almost as if Willam barely knew what was going on with her friend anymore.

Courtney was being weird with her as well. She’d turned colder, almost like some weird professional ghost of her former self. She barely even smiled when Willam tried to joke with her, was strangely quiet, and never really ate lunch with her anymore. Willam wished she knew what was happening with her. It wasn’t as if her crush on Courtney had died down- in fact, being borderline ignored by her only made her heart hurt more, made her wonder if she’d done something horrendously wrong or offensive. Even as a friend it worried her, and she wished Courtney would open up to her as she had done all those weeks ago.

The combination of what was essentially her two best friends completely ditching her made Willam feel a little lonelier than normal, and so she’d begun spending her lunch breaks with the comms team. Katya was always happy to see her (even if she did tease Willam about Courtney mercilessly when nobody was listening), Trixie would often share her snacks with her, and Willam had found herself warming to Violet who was actually very sharp and witty, though she concealed it well under her stony, statuesque resting bitch face. Although she liked spending time with the civil servants, Willam couldn’t help but wish her friends would be back to normal again.  

It had started out as an ordinary Friday morning, if a little more boring now that Willam no longer had Alaska to bitch to or Courtney to flirt with, even if said flirting was under the guise of being platonic. In fact, the morning almost had an atmosphere of calm; that was until Jinkx answered the phone and proceeded to squawk the department down.

“What?! The seven o’clock?! Absolutely not. There’s no way! It’s not possible to collate that amount of data in time, let alone brief her on everything necessary.”

At this point everyone had stopped working entirely, all eyes fixed on Jinkx who was biting her lip impatiently and staring at Sharon’s door with uncertainty. “I’d need to discuss it with her. Can I get you to call me back? Right. Thank you.”

“Whose cat’s being strangled?” came a voice from the other end of the office. As if on cue, Sharon had appeared from her room. She seemed a little more tired today, and was clutching a Red Bull for dear life in her red-taloned hand.

Casting her eyes back down the office, Willam also noticed an identical Red Bull sitting on Alaska’s desk just beside her computer monitor.

Ignoring Sharon’s sarcasm, Jinkx gestured to the phone in irritation. “I have just come off the phone with Dan Donigan over at radio Five Live.”

“What, Milk?” Willam piped up, curiosity piqued. Milk, to give him his DJ name, was an interesting host. He was a lovely guy, chilled and easy-going, and on the surface seemed like a good interview. However one slip up and he would go in, firing off questions like one of those machines that shot out tennis balls one after the other, whacking you with them until you were a crumpled heap on the floor.

Barely acknowledging Willam’s interjection, Jinkx continued. “And he had the utter nerve to ask for an interview with you at seven o’clock this evening, a ‘showdown’ between you and the shadow minister covering the refugee crisis.”

“Wait, he wants me and Phi Phi?” Sharon asked, narrowing her eyes a little and suddenly more alert than she had been 60 seconds previously. Jinkx nodded in reply.

“I told him I’d have to ask you but if you want my opinion, there’s absolutely no way you should do it, Sharon. We have approximately-” she craned her neck to look at the clock. “- nine hours to prep you, which is not nearly enough time for you to collate all the facts and figures you’d need for a debate like that!”

“We had three hours to prepare for a Michaels interview and still pulled it off,” Alaska interjected, shrugging nonchalantly.

“Yes, Alaska, but this is different. Chad Michaels knew Sharon was in the right and simply wanted her as an illustration of tabloid sexism. This is Dan Donigan. And from what I’ve heard, he’s pretty buddy with Phi Phi.”

“Look, the refugee crisis is something I care a lot about and know a lot about. I have a lot of the facts already, it wouldn’t take me long to brush up on them and potentially even learn a couple more of the intricacies. It would take- what, a couple of hours to fully brief me about Five Live? I see no reason why I can’t do this, Jinkx,” Sharon said, her eyes more determined than ever.

Jinkx looked like a wearied mother whose child had just asked if they could have their entire class round for a sleepover the next day.

“What’s Bianca’s opinion?” Willam asked, leaning forward on her desk with her elbows. It made sense to her that they would ask Bianca, and if anyone was going to know if it was a good or bad idea it would be her.

“No idea. Call her and ask,” Jinkx shrugged, clearly happy to be palming off some extra work.

Despairing of Jinkx’s laziness for what must have been the thousandth time that year, Willam took out her work phone and dialled Bianca.

“Willam Belli. Good morning,” Bianca chirped down the phone jovially. She seemed to be in a good mood, a really good mood, which was fucking weird.

“Bianca, hi. Listen, we’ve had Milk on the phone, he wants Sharon and Phi Phi for a debate about the refugee crisis at 7pm. What do you think?”

“I say carpe that fucking diem. Get her on.”

Surprised, Willam gave her phone a double-take, as if she hadn’t heard correctly. “Sorry, this is for 7pm tonight, not tomorrow.”

“I know how the fuck time works! Get her on the damn show.”

Willam was nothing short of amazed. “Bianca, are you su- I mean, this is definitely a good idea then?”

“Listen. Sharon is a walking, talking database. She retains facts and figures like some horrifying human sponge. She’s a confident girl, Dan will love her. Just get her on and get her to make Phi Phi look like she’s drowned hundreds of refugee orphans personally with her own two hands.”

Rolling her eyes a little at Bianca’s harsh turn of phrase, Willam had heard all she needed. “Okay, well, thanks for your input.”

She hit ‘end call’ before Bianca had a chance to say any more, turning to face Sharon, Jinkx and Alaska who were all craning their necks, waiting to hear what the verdict was.

“Hell has frozen over and Bianca has actually approved something,” Willam shrugged, and was met with an excited beam from Sharon and a disgruntled sigh from Jinkx. “It’s going ahead. Jinkx, phone Milk back.”

Muttering in exasperation under her breath, Jinkx simply turned around in her swivel chair and dutifully began hitting a number of buttons on her phone. Waiting for some form of instruction from Sharon, Willam was surprised with she instead turned to Alaska, chattering happily but not quite audibly. At one point, Sharon seemed to excitedly grab one of Alaska’s hands, squeezing it once, twice and then letting go. Alaska didn’t appear the least bit fazed, as if this was almost a regular occurrence between them. In any event, if Sharon tried to involuntarily grab Willam’s hands mid-conversation, she was getting a slap.

With nobody left to talk to, Willam turned to Courtney’s desk to find her deep in concentration, her brow furrowed like a tiny ploughed field.

She’d been so deep in her work that she’d missed the entire exchange.

***

It was another lonely lunchtime for Willam. Well, she supposed she was being melodramatic. It was just that Alaska had been called into the office yet again about the trip to Brussels, and Courtney was sitting eating her lunch at her desk in front of her work. Willam had asked if she wanted to join her but all she’d received in reply was a shake of Courtney’s head and a small smile tinted a little with sadness. Willam could’ve asked her about it, finally confronted her about whatever was going on with her, but she’d never heard of a successful heart-to-heart that had taken place over crime stats so she’d just joined the comms team for lunch instead.

“Bow down, ladies! The minister’s political advisor has once again deigned us lowly civil servants worthy enough to be graced with her presence,” Katya announced dramatically as Willam took the chair next to her, earning her a barely-stifled laugh and an unimpressed roll of Willam’s eyes. The table shoved into one of the corners of the office was small but they’d managed to fit Violet, Trixie and Katya round it already, who were all currently munching their way through their lunch.

“Hey, just let me eat my disappointing Costa sandwich in peace, okay?”

“No, sorry. There’s nothing more disappointing than this,” Trixie interjected, giving Katya a death stare as she held up a sad-looking hot dog in a bun. “Who the fuck gives this to their girlfriend for their lunch? I swear this is a form of domestic abuse in some countries.”

“I’m sure there’s a child bride in the third world that’s weeping for you, Trixie,” Violet deadpanned, smirking a little at Katya’s hysterical laughter.

“All I’m saying is, why the fuck would the woman that supposedly loves me more than anything in the world give me this abomination in a ziplock bag?!”

“Because when you eat it, it makes me think of you sucking dick and it turns me on,” Katya batted her eyelashes, opening her legs to inhuman proportions under the table. As Trixie reached across the table to shove her, Violet flared her nostrils.

“That is gross, Katya.”

“You’re saying the undying love I have for my girlfriend and our obscure sexual practices is gross?! You are a homophobe, Violet Chachki.”

“Hey, I can’t be homophobic towards you if neither you nor I know what kind of sexuality you even are!” Violet laughed, her usually marble face breaking into the sunniest of smiles. Katya tilted her head to one side, suddenly deep in thought. She’d made it quite clear and had been quite open about the fact that she didn’t really believe in labelling herself, insisting in her own words that people were people, and if we were meant to have labels we’d be tins or jars.

“I think I’m that one that doesn’t give a fuck whether it’s a peen or vagine or whoever that peen or vagine belongs to, as long as they’re hot and can make me laugh.”

Trixie seemed to momentarily turn a little green. “If you ever refer to genitalia using those terms again, I’m breaking up with you.”

“What’s it called? Potsexual?”

Everyone at the table burst out into raucous laughter at Katya’s expense.

“Pansexual, you silly bitch!” Willam howled, clutching at her stomach which was now doubled up with laughter. Composing herself slightly and wiping the tears of laughter away from her eyes, she shook her head. “Y’all are fucking batshit crazy, no wonder I never eat lunch with you.” 

“Hey! It’s not my fault I’m not down with the tumblr lingo of the cool kids of today,” Katya shrugged, taking a bite of her own plain, dry hot dog. At that moment Adore appeared at the table, almost melting into the hard plastic chair.

“Christ, you look hellish. Did Laila have you up all night?” Trixie greeted her as Adore rubbed her eyes, clearly sleep deprived.

“Very funny, bitch,” she bit back, opening her pasta salad. “Sadly it wasn’t even fucking. Her neighbours have just had a new baby and the walls are paper thin so we got treated to Beethoven’s ninth symphony in Constant Screeching until, like, 5am.”

“To be fair, you’ve probably given them Mozart’s nocturne in Loud Moaning quite a few times,” Violet joked, earning her a kick under the table from Adore.

Willam looked at Adore curiously. She had no idea that her and Laila were still a thing, least of all that Adore was at the stage where she was staying over. Well, she concluded, it did the party no harm to have a journalist on their side and it was certainly more fruitful an endeavour than chasing a co-worker around for weeks on end whilst being ignored.  

“Anyway, why’s this bitch eating with us again?” Adore changed the subject, looking at Willam with a slightly confused air. “Where’s the two other blonde dye jobs?”

Willam glared at her a little, mildly offended. “Well Courtney’s still working on those bastarding crime stats and Alaska’s got yet another meeting with Sharon about Brussels.”

“Wait,” Violet scrunched up her face, the picture of confusion. “That’s not right. We’re not scheduled for meetings about Brussels until December, Sharon emailed me and Alaska last week.”

“She’s taking you to Brussels and not us?! How dare she! We’re the most professional and competent fuckers in this department,” Katya cried, appealing to her girlfriend for backup. Trixie simply smirked at her.

“Katya you literally spilt your entire cappuccino over your keyboard yesterday. The whole thing.”

“I did n-”

“The whole. Thing,” Trixie repeated, chucking a piece of bread at Katya from across the table.

“Can we just get back to this situation?” Willam cut in quietly, looking Violet directly in the eye. “So there’s no meetings about Brussels until next week?”

Violet shook her head, still as confused as before. Willam didn’t blame her- Alaska and Sharon had been meeting for the past two weeks about Brussels, or at least that was what Willam had been told. But now she didn’t know what to think. She didn’t know what they’d been talking about or planning. She hadn’t been told anything, neither had Courtney, and that made her blood boil.

Setting her lunch down on the table, Willam marched towards Sharon’s office, the combination of determination and annoyance almost clouding her vision. If she was being cut out of the loop, it would be the last, mouldy cherry on top of this shitstorm of this week’s cake. What did she care that Sharon was in charge? She had no right to exclude her and no right to exclude Courtney either, Willam’s heart swelling at the thought of her crush. No wonder she’d been so distant all week. If Sharon was planning something with only one advisor, then Willam had half a mind to tell her where she could stick her job.

That was until she burst open the door and saw Sharon sat behind her desk, her head tipped back and her eyes half-lidded, the smallest moan escaping her lips. Looking at the foot of the desk, Willam suddenly understood why- the red bottoms of Alaska’s Louboutins poked out from the strip of the desk just above the floor, almost concealing her from view, but not quite.

She put two and two together and got one million.

Aware that she’d slightly flung the door open, and still half in shock, Willam began to back out. 

“I’ll, um. Okay. I’m…yeah,” she babbled quietly, the sudden noise in the room causing Sharon’s eyes to fly open and her hands to shoot immediately up from her lap as if Willam had her at gunpoint. Ignoring her protestations, Willam made her way briskly down the corridor and into the bathroom, shutting the door firmly behind her. 

She badly needed to clear her head. It made sense, of course it made sense. It explained away so much of what had been going on in Dosac in the past fortnight. She just couldn’t believe how stupid she’d been not to notice it. Courtney had been right all along, and Willam could’ve kicked herself for not listening to her. Furthermore, she could’ve kicked Alaska for her stupidity in the matter as well. What the fuck was she thinking about, getting into a relationship or casual fucking or whatever the hell this whole mess was with Sharon? With her boss?! How was she now meant to give impartial advice about serious departmental- scratch that, governmental matters? 

Making to splash some cold water on her face, Willam stopped when the bathroom door burst open to reveal Alaska. 

“Willam,” she began, seemingly not knowing how she would follow it up. Her face was flushed, a scarlet blush striking her cheeks as if she’d been slapped. 

“I, um. I don’t really know what to think,” Willam shrugged, looking her friend in the eye and wondering if she really recognised her all that much anymore. “You didn’t tell me anything, Lask. I mean, what am I meant to think? What even is this? What the fuck is going on?! I just…”

“We’re together,” Alaska cut in quietly. “Sharon and I. We’ve been seeing each other these past two weeks.”

There was a frosty pause in which Willam wanted to give all kinds of sarcastic remarks, but nothing could really hide how much she’d been hurt by the whole situation. “I just don’t understand…Alaska, she’s your boss.”

“Yeah, well…” Alaska sighed, running a hand through her hair and appearing frustrated at not being able to articulate herself properly. “It doesn’t feel like that, Will. It feels different. It doesn’t feel like a workplace relationship, it feels like we’re equals.”

“Well that’s just peachy. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’ve not been able to give a single piece of impartial advice since she’s arrived. You’ve sided with her on everything, Alaska. It’s been up to me and Courtney to be the fucking common sense in this department.”

As Willam finished, Alaska shrank back, leaning a little on the sink and casting her eyes to the white tiled floor. Annoyed at the pang of sudden sympathy she felt for her friend, Willam changed tack.

“Does Jinkx know?” she asked her, knowing that if she’d confided in anyone it would have been her.

“No,” Alaska sighed, appearing sincere as she looked Willam in the eye. “You’re the only one that knows.”

Rolling her eyes, Willam scuffed the floor with the heel of her shoe. So now she was being burdened with this, this massive mess that Alaska had managed to enter into, hell, that Sharon had entered into as well. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t her secret to keep. Growing more annoyed by the minute, Willam found herself snapping at her friend.

“And so you want me to go to the trouble of covering this up for you and helping you both be happy as two pigs in shit together, wilfully ignoring the inevitable shitstorm this will cause if it gets to the press. I mean what are the papers going to make of this, Alaska?! They find out that Sharon’s been fucking one of her advisors so none of her policies have been properly analysed or vetted because the aides are too elbow-deep in their boss to care?! I mean why the fuck should I cover this for you, because as far as bad ideas go this sounds as if it could’ve been dreamed up by Darienne!”

“Because if this was you and Courtney, you would beg me to do the same!” Alaska barked back, covering her mouth slightly as if she’d just vomited all over the bathroom floor.

Willam felt her spine freeze up, as if she was suddenly in a horrible nightmare.

“How…How the fuck do you know about that? Did Katya tell you, is that it? Did Katya tell everyone? Holy fucking shit.”

Feeling the panic rise in her throat, Willam’s breathing hitched a little. This was an unmitigated disaster, people knew. Hell, Courtney probably knew, why else would she have been avoiding her? There was no way on God’s earth that Willam could show her face in the department again. Catching a quick glimpse of herself in the mirror, she noticed she’d gone completely white. 

Clearly feeling guilty, Alaska took Willam gently by the wrist. Her voice was softer as she addressed her friend.  "No. Nobody told me. I worked it out. I recognised that look you’ve been giving her for ages. It was the same one I’d been giving Sharon since the day she arrived, to be honest.”

Willam barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes, admittedly grateful that the news of her crush clearly wasn’t all around the office. Pausing a little in the silence, she cleared her throat.

“I won’t, um. I won’t tell anyone about you and Sharon, Lask. I was never going to, you’re my friend for Christ’s sake. I just want you to know what you’re doing,” Willam muttered, sweeping a long strand of hair out of her face. Alaska smiled slightly guiltily.

“Thank you. I do. And you’re right, maybe I could work on that whole impartiality thing. Honestly though, don’t worry. We won’t do anything that would put the integrity of the party at risk,” she said sincerely, squeezing Willam’s hand gently. Glad that things seemed to be calming down, Willam let out a breath she hadn’t really known she’d been holding. Alaska suddenly opened her mouth again, a cheeky glint in her eye. “You’re clearly worried about it getting out, but if you ever need someone to talk to about Courtney, well. I’m always here. You’re my friend, Willam and…well, no matter how involved I get with anyone, that won’t change.”

Relaxing a little, Willam allowed herself to laugh. “Thanks, girl. Has she, um. Has she mentioned anything to you?”

Alaska gave her a quizzical look. If she was being honest, Willam hadn’t really meant to ask Alaska anything, but the constant silence from Courtney was making her worried. Clearly deciding not to ask about it, Alaska shrugged.

“Not to me. In fact, she’s not really said much to me at all these past few days. She’s been a little quiet, don’t you think?”

Willam simply nodded in reply, secretly glad she wasn’t the only one that Courtney had been weird with.

“I guess I’ve been too caught up in the honeymoon phase of everything with me and Sharon that I haven’t really been making much time for my friends,” Alaska admitted, her face guilty as she looked to the floor. Realising that she’d probably suffered enough, Willam pulled her friend into a hug.

“It’s alright, girl, we’ve all done it. Well, not me, because I don’t actually have a heart.”

“Hey, you can’t make those jokes anymore, bitch!”

“Shut up, whore! Anyway. Court’s clearly going through something. Let’s just show her we’re there for her?“ Willam sighed, slightly at a loss as to what to do anymore since her life was beginning to be turned upside down at such a rapid pace, like some bizarre hourglass that someone kept flipping over and over.

“Agreed,” Alaska smiled. Her smile was so infectious and goofy that Willam couldn’t help but smile back, happy to have at least one of her friends back again.

“Hey, did you have lunch yet? Mine is still half-eaten at the table. Well, if Trixie hasn’t got to it yet,” Willam joked, earning a laugh from her friend.

“Go for it. And you can gush to me all about Court while we eat,” Alaska laughed as she threaded her arm through Willam’s. Rolling her eyes, Willam snorted a little, embarrassed but secretly pleased she had someone to open up to about things.

Of course, she would never let Alaska know that.

***

The building which held the Five Live studios was nice, from what Willam had seen of it so far. The entranceway was open and airy and certainly wasn’t as intimidating as it had seemed from the outside. The café also didn’t seem too much of a rip off, which was half the problem with a lot of the BBC buildings. Rubbing her eyes a little and being careful to avoid her mascara, Willam began pouring herself a latte from the coffee machine. It had been a long drive, and Willam had found herself wishing for the energetic presence of Katya as she sat squashed between Courtney and Sharon, who had both been completely silent for the duration of the journey with their heads in their notebooks. She wished Alaska had been there, but one of them had had to stay behind in the department in case anything horrific happened with communications while they were away, and considering what had happened earlier Alaska had volunteered herself, saving Willam from feeling like the third wheel on the office tryst tricycle.

It was good to have Alaska back as a friend. Even in the short space of time between their chat in the bathrooms to the drive to the Five Live studios, Willam felt it was as if nothing had ever happened. If anything, she seemed closer to Alaska; now that they both knew each other’s secrets they could open up to each other, and Willam felt far better for it. She actually felt happy for her friend, and hearing her talk about Sharon made her realise that what they had was definitely more than a flimsy office romance.

Taking her coffee to the counter to pay, Willam noticed Sharon already at the till. She realised that she hadn’t yet addressed the elephant in the room between them. Wondering if she should say something, she noticed that Sharon had only bought an apple and a bottle of water.

“You nervous?” she asked her, making Sharon jump a little bit beside her and subsequently answering Willam’s question without her even having to speak.

“A little,” Sharon smiled, seemingly grateful that Willam obviously didn’t hate her. “It’s just I’m expected to be an expert on this, you know? I feel like I need to deliver. I know it’s only a stupid radio debate but if I argue my point clearly enough we could maybe finally get something done about this in parliament.”

Willam nodded understandingly. “You’ll be fine, honestly. You’re good at shit like this.”

There was a small pause in which Willam wasn’t sure if it was the time to bring up the whole situation with Alaska. Sharon seemed to sense what Willam was thinking.

“Look, Willam, I’m really sorry for…well, earlier. It was severely unprofessional, I’m really not normally like that, I swear,” she babbled out, clearly trying her best to look Willam in the eye but too embarrassed to follow through with it. Laughing a little at the scarlet blush that was beginning to attack Sharon’s pale cheeks, Willam put her out of her misery.

“Sharon. It’s okay. Alaska talked to me about it. Sure, I don’t think it’s the most amazing idea in the world, but you two are clearly happy and as long as it’s not going to intervene in your work, then who am I to stop you?” she shrugged, turning around at the last second to pay for her coffee. When she turned back, Sharon was smiling at her, relieved.

“You’re a good friend, Willam,” she said sincerely, which stopped Willam in her tracks a little. She didn’t really think of Sharon as one of her friends, but thinking about it she supposed that there was probably no harm in letting someone else in. She simply smiled in return as Sharon continued. “I didn’t plan on getting so hung up on Alaska but that very first day when I arrived at Dosac and met her I just instantly felt connected to her, you know? I think she felt that way too.”

“She did. She’s told me,” Willam smirked, watching as Sharon broke out into a huge smile.

“Wow. I guess I try not to talk about those sorts of feelings so much round her in case it scares her off,” Sharon shrugged, her face still bashful.

“Believe me, I don’t think you’re in danger of doing that in a hurry.”

Just then, the little click-clack of heels behind them announced the arrival of Courtney, her footsteps almost as quiet as her recent demeanour.

“Shall we get going?” she asked, putting on what looked to be a brave face. “Phi Phi and her team should already be there. There’s still a couple of minutes to go but it’s best to be punctual, don’t you think?”

“You’re the boss,” Willam smiled cheerfully in an attempt to counteract Courtney’s downbeat air. “Well, technically Sharon is but, you know.”

Courtney only offered a polite smile in return. With Willam more confused than ever, the three made their way over to the lifts.

Six floors up sat the Five Live studios, a labyrinth of corridors and tiny offices with sofas and armchairs perched outside them. Three right-turns away from the lift, they were greeted by the three stony faces of Phi Phi, Detox and Roxxxy, a tall girl with long, straight blonde hair in a ponytail and huge hoop earrings, and a relaxed-looking man with a chiselled jaw and styled brown hair. If Willam hadn’t known who he was, she’d have mistaken him for a male model.

“Sharon, hi! Lovely to meet you. I’m Dan, although please do call me Milk,” he smiled, leaning forward and shaking Sharon’s hand warmly. Sharon seemed a little taken aback by such a friendly gesture from a journalist, but then Milk wasn’t really all that conventional anyway. Today he was wearing loose, cuffed black joggers and a baggy hoodie; so not exactly a picture of professionalism, but over the years Willam had learnt never to judge a book by its cover. Turning to include the opposition, Milk carried on.

“Okay, so you’ve probably heard the breaking news that Scotland are going to be aiming to take 20,000 refugees within the next five years, so we’re going to be covering that and springboarding the debate from there. The news is going to be after you.”

A quick glance to Phi Phi showed that the breaking news obviously hadn’t been broken to her yet. She was shooting a side-glance at Detox that could’ve melted a steel beam. Detox had the same level of discomfort on her face as someone halfway through a colonoscopy.

“This is Ganja, she’s our producer,” Milk waved a hand to the girl beside him, who smiled briefly and snuck a look at her clipboard.

“Your advisors will be allowed in the control room, although they will have to keep the noise down so I can put through texts to Milk. And this is all going out live, so no swearing from either of you two,” she glared coldly at Sharon and Phi Phi as if she’d just been informed that both of them had Tourette’s. “You’re all in this green room here.”

She gestured to the glass-panelled room beside the corridor, in which sat two coffee tables, three little sofas, and a coffee machine. Suddenly, Willam noticed that Sharon was stifling a laugh.

“I take it you spend a lot of time in the green room? You know, what with…your name,” she finally joked, clearly impressed with her own wit. All she got in return was a sour look and a click of Ganja’s long talons.

“My name is actually of Persian origin,” she sniffed, prompting an awkward silence. Milk was the one to finally break it.

“Okay, we’re going to go start the show and then Ganja will come and get you when it’s time. Please take a seat,” he smiled, walking off down the corridor with the producer.

Still cringing at Sharon’s joke, Willam led the way into the green room and relaxed onto the sofa. To her surprise, Courtney sat beside her. It would have been a normal occurrence every other day, but today Willam was surprised that Courtney wanted to be near her at all. As Sharon sat down, Willam became vaguely aware of Phi Phi ranting away to a sheepish-looking Detox.

“…why I, the damn shadow minister for social affairs and citizenship, apparently doesn’t know shit about what’s going on in relation to that? I mean we’re meant to be the ones that are one step ahead all the damn time!”

“Bitch was probably too busy ordering dresses for Alyssa’s to look at the BBC News 24 notifications blowing her phone up,” Roxxxy chipped in snarkily, shooting Detox a poisonous glare.

Interesting, Willam thought. All was clearly not well in political advisor paradise for the government or its opposition. 

“Oh, you think you’re immune to this?!” Phi Phi suddenly turned on her incredulously. Realising she’d perhaps been a little too loud she shot Sharon a sudden faux-relaxed smile, then resumed her hissing. “I mean, why didn’t you know? Why doesn’t anybody know anything? Jesus, twenty-fucking-thousand refugees? How am I going to explain that one to the cabinet? I mean, why was that allowed to happen?”

“Probably because Morgan McMichaels and the rest of her government don’t have a fucking compassion deficiency,” Willam muttered under her breath to no-one in particular. To her surprise and delight, she heard Courtney let out a soft giggle beside her. The remark had gone unnoticed by Phi Phi, who was still foaming at the mouth.

“When I see Morgan at Alyssa’s damn ball next week, she’s getting a piece of my mind. I mean, this decision has just come completely out of nowhere!”

“I guess it is their problem, though, Phi Phi. I mean, it is their government, they’ve got to worry about it, not us,” Roxxxy shrugged, attempting to calm the energy in the room down and failing.

“That’s all very fucking well and good until the public start asking me why I didn’t challenge it, or if things will be the same in the other three quarters of this damn, so-called United Kingdom. I mean, hell, the only reason Morgan’s doing this is so she can look good to the rest of the world and get some traction going on these dreams of another fucking independence referendum, which was bad enough the first time round!” Phi Phi’s voice raised to a dramatic crescendo as she reached the end of her sentence and slapped her lever arch file across her knees for emphasis. The room fell silent once more as Willam caught Sharon’s eye and they shared a knowing smile. Phi Phi was flustered, and that was good news for them.

A couple more minutes of frosty silence passed where neither Phi Phi or Sharon would look at each other.

“This is a joke. Are we just going to ignore each other until the debate starts?” Sharon whispered to Willam.

“I think that’s her plan. Anyway, it might be for the best. Release all the pent-up aggression in the studio like some kinda political Mike Tyson.”

“Well, as long as she doesn’t bite my literal ear off then I’m fine,” Sharon joked, shuddering a little. Just then, the silence in the room was broken by Roxxxy’s phone, the classic and yet generic iPhone ringtone deafening in the glass room.

“It’s Betty,” she whispered to Phi Phi. Phi Phi looked momentarily as if someone had swiftly removed every organ from her body in one go. Willam perked up. If the opposition’s spin doctor was trying to contact them, something important was obviously going on. She tucked her hair behind her ears in order to try and hear better.

“Hi Betty!” Roxxxy sing-songed down the phone in an effort to appear cheerful. Her face immediately faltered as something was being yelled down the line to her. Looking to Phi Phi, she leaned closer and Willam could only make out certain things she was whispering.

“…complete U-turn …in concurrence with the British people…welcome people in…”

Phi Phi was not as subtle. Narrowing her eyes at the phone then back to Roxxxy, she murmured a reply. “Roxxxy. I’ve been invited here for a debate. If I U-turn, there won’t be any debate. Plus I will be the only shadow minister in this whole party pulling this stance and I am not going to be spending the rest of my days in Westminster feeling like the girl who has to go and eat lunch in the toilets on her own, so no, tell her the answer’s no.”

Just then, Ganja appeared from the corridor, beckoning them all through. Sharon immediately leapt up, with Willam and Courtney following behind her. Roxxxy was still on the phone.

“Hi Betty, yeah, Phi Phi is kind of reluctant to do that so we’re just going to stick with the line we’ve been given.”

As Willam passed by her, she could hear the muffled yell of a woman at the end of her tether on the phone.

“Well this is the line I’m giving you! You tell her that-”

No more could be heard of Betty’s shouting as Willam made her way into the control room, with a quick “good luck” thrown Sharon’s way as she stepped into the studio behind a rattled-looking Phi Phi. Through the soundproof pane of glass she could see Milk chatting away into the microphone, Sharon sat at the huge wheely chair to his left and Phi Phi opposite them both. Willam could see Roxxxy’s face through the tiny pane of glass at the studio door, frantically trying to get Phi Phi to come back presumably so that she could communicate whatever Betty had been yelling to her. Suddenly, Detox stormed into the control room, irritation all over her face.

“Everything okay on your end, Detox?” Willam smiled pleasantly, revelling in the death glare that was sent her way in return.

“Fine, thank you Willam. All Phi is concerned about is making your boss look like the laughing stock she is,” Detox snapped back smugly. Willam could only laugh in reply.

“If I were you, I’d be a bit more worried about your boss actually knowing shit that goes on in this country instead of looking like an A-level government and politics student that just entered an exam room and forgot to revise. But y’know. You do you,” she shrugged nonchalantly, her smile becoming even bigger when she realised that Detox had absolutely no comeback. Casting a quick glance to Courtney, she was surprised to find her already smiling her way. Willam gave a timid smile back.

Timid. That was a word Willam never thought she’d be using to describe herself, but then so often being around Courtney fucked up her own self-expectations. Her kind, gentle nature always seemed to throw Willam off a bit, softening her personality. Although did she really need that if she wanted to get anywhere in the world of politics? This job was her life, it always had been. Perhaps that was only the case because she’d never had any alternative.

Willam scrunched her face up, chasing those particular thoughts away. This was neither the time nor the place.  

Roxxxy suddenly came scrambling through the control room door, earning a steely glare from Ganja as she pulled on an enormous pair of headphones. Detox cast her colleague a questioning gaze.

“Betty’s gone nuts. She wants Phi Phi to completely agree with Sharon on everything. The latest polls came in and apparently the majority were in favour of more refugees. Betty doesn’t want the party being hated more than they already are, so she wants Phi Phi to be in concurrence with the public.”

“Who the fuck did they poll, exclusively university campuses? What’s Phi doing?”

“Ignoring her. Which got me an earful of tinnitus from Betty, but Phi Phi’s put her foot down. The lady’s not for turning,” Roxxxy rolled her eyes, doing a sort of double-take as she saw Detox pull out her phone. Her face turned sour. “So you’re texting Guy all of this, then? Fucking couple goals.”

Willam was intrigued. There it was again, this reference to things not being perhaps all they should be between the two advisors. Roxxxy and Detox had always been close, the Tweedlebitch and Tweedlecunt of Phi Phi’s party, and this closeness had only increased when Alaska crossed the floor. Willam was left wondering what had happened.

Detox was fixing Roxxxy with a stare that suggested she was loath to bring this particular topic up in front of the opposite party. “Don’t start. We’ve discussed this.”

“I’m not starting anything. I’m just saying-”

“No, you’re not ‘just saying’. You’re being passive-aggressive and it’s getting on my tits,” Detox snapped at her. Roxxxy’s nostrils flared.

“Well maybe I’m just being aggressive!” she barked loudly, forcing Ganja to rip off her headphones and spin her chair round to face them both.

“Look,” she hissed, turning to address Roxxxy. “If you and that fucking inflatable dinghy don’t shut up right now, I’m removing you from this room. All of you.”

Annoyed that she’d been dropped in it, Willam glared at the two members of the opposition, but was distracted by Courtney pulling on her shirt sleeve.

“It’s starting,” she muttered, not once turning her gaze from the studio where Milk had begun introducing the topic.

“…and in the wake of Morgan McMichaels announcing that Scotland is to take twenty thousand new refugees over the next five years, we’re asking; should the rest of the UK be following in her footsteps? Discussing this with me today is Sharon Needles, Minister for Social Affairs and Citizenship-”

“Hi Milk, good to be here,” Sharon smiled easily, seemingly quite comfortable with the situation.

“-and the Right Honourable Phi Phi O’Hara MP, Shadow Minister,” he continued, gesturing to Phi Phi. Phi Phi sort of spluttered a hello.

“She doesn’t look entirely…comfortable, does she?” Courtney whispered, making Willam jump a bit. “Phi Phi, I mean.”

“She doesn’t. But that’s good news for us,” Willam replied, earning another smile from Courtney which had her wondering what had changed.  Milk was still talking.

“…and of course, you can get involved in the debate as well on Twitter, at Radio Five Live or using the hashtag ‘gotmilk’.”

“Fuck’s sake. This is today’s journalistic standard. Hashtag ‘gotmilk’,” Willam snorted, earning herself a glare from Detox and Roxxxy.

“So, Phi Phi O’Hara,” Milk was continuing, smiling lazily at the shadow minister. “What do you think? Should we be welcoming more refugees to the UK?”

A beat of silence. “Um, well, it’s a very good question, and one that does not necessarily have a yes or no answer, but a list of pros and cons. It is one of these situations where both the pros and the cons must be lined up together, and, um, from there it should be examined which the longer list is, the pros or the, um, cons. Now, of course there are many pros, however in the UK-”

“Fucking hell, Phi Phi, answer the question,” Detox muttered under her breath, as Roxxxy shook her head disparagingly.

Phi Phi seemed to have finally reached the end of her point, whatever the hell it was, as Sharon had begun speaking.

“Well, I think I’d have to answer that same question in much fewer words than Phi Phi did over there, and say yes, I think this country should be welcoming many more refugees, and I think Morgan McMichaels has done a brilliant thing today in announcing these plans for Scotland. I think they’re definitely going to see much of an economic benefit, much more diversity, a much more enriched culture, and certainly a more tolerant society.”

“Sharon, you mentioned the economic benefit- could you expand a little on that?” Milk questioned.

“Certainly. Well, I think it’s easy to forget that the refugees that are seeking to move over here aren’t all unskilled, many of them will have been in work or education before their country got completely ripped to shreds. In this case, this provides a vast pool of skilled workers who can set up businesses, contribute to established businesses, and generally help the economy.”

Phi Phi’s face looked as if Sharon may as well have taken a shit on the desk in front of her. Milk seemed to pick up on this.

“Phi Phi O’Hara- do you agree?”

“No, I don’t agree, Milk, and to be honest I don’t think Sharon really knows what she’s talking about. You think-” Phi Phi turned to Sharon. “-that more jobs are going to be created by these people coming over here, when we’re currently on our way out of a recession and unemployment is at its highest in years, thanks to your party. If these refugees are as skilled as you say- which they’re not, by the way, they’re only really coming over here for the benefit system- it’s going to mean that our own citizens are out of work, struggling to provide for families, and potentially even becoming homeless.”

Sharon sat and listened to Phi Phi’s tirade, finally smiling and stretching out in her chair as if she was in her family home and not a radio studio. “First of all, you weren’t even aware of the fact that Scotland was going to welcome these refugees until you arrived at this studio half an hour ago, so don’t talk to me about knowing what I’m talking about when I have been campaigning for the safety of refugees since I was at university. Second of all-”

Willam actually punched the air. Sharon was killing it, and Phi Phi was coming across just plain jittery. She turned to Courtney excitedly but found her concentrating on what Sharon was saying in the studio. Too hyped to listen properly, Willam peered over Ganja’s shoulder at the Five Live twitter feed.

Sharon is bae!!!! Love her!!!!! #gotmilk

lmao phi phi who #gotmilk

#gotmilk who is this lefty loony theyv got on this week? REFUGEES OUT THIS IS ARE COUNTRY #EDL #KNIGHTSTEMPLAR #PAULGOLDINGFORPM

#gotmilk interesting points from both sides but phi phi is winning for me atm

#gotmilk U TELL EM MOM @SharonNeedlesMP

A mixed bag, but Willam would take what the party could get. She became aware that Sharon was still talking.

“…and finally, honestly? If refugees are as unskilled as you say but at the same time can still steal your job? You probably weren’t really that good at it in the first place.”

Willam almost yelped when she felt an excited grab at her wrist. Looking sharply to her left she saw Courtney beaming with pride at Sharon, who was now lazing back in her chair like a satisfied cat. Seemingly realising where she was, or what she’d done, or exactly whose wrist she was grabbing, Courtney suddenly dropped her hand back to her side, looking up at Willam meekly.

“Sorry,” she muttered, her cheeks flushing a little pink before returning her gaze back to the ground.

Deciding this might be the only possible available moment of the day where she would be able to build a bridge with Courtney, Willam turned slightly to face her. “Hey, Court? Once this is over, do you think we could maybe talk about-”

She was cut short by a vibration from her pocket and a life-ruining generic iPhone ringtone ringing out into the studio. Ganja spun around in her chair with such a force that it almost spun through the glass into the studio.

“OUT. NOW. NO PHONES!”

Sighing in irritation, Willam stormed outside, pulling her phone out of her pocket. Bianca.

“Hello?”

“I had no idea the BBC were hosting a barbecue, are you having fun?”

Taking the phone away from her ear and double-checking the caller ID, Willam returned to the call in confusion. “What?!”

“Well it’s just all I’m hearing on the radio is Phi Phi O’Hara being absolutely roasted.”

Rolling her eyes a little, Willam held in an irritated hiss. “And you phoned to tell me this why exactly?”

“Hey! Stick that attitude far up your ass, you moaning bitch!” Bianca immediately snapped back, all joviality gone from her voice. Willam winced a little. “I wasn’t phoning you for the express purpose of making jokes, does it look like this government is being policed by Frankie Boyle to you?!”

Willam wanted to reply that sometimes it did with the amount that Bianca swore, but she thought better of it. “So why did you phone me then?”

“As great as Sharon’s doing, she’s coming across like a smug Poxbridge twat who’s just won her first debate and is about to piss her pants. Get her to tone it down a bit, will you?”

Willam shrugged, not completely disagreeing with Bianca. Sharon’s style of debate hadn’t really changed since uni and her years at the stock exchange really showed. She concluded that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to get Sharon to reign in the smugness.

“Right. I’ll try and communicate that to her, Bianca, but you see it’s a bit difficult when there’s a massive fuck-off pane of soundproof glass between me and my boss. “

“Drop that attitude or I’ll dropkick you into the Thames! Get it done!” Bianca yelled down the phone, her voice gone immediately after, indicating that she had hung up.

Willam internally bemoaned Bianca’s erratic mood swings as she headed back into the control room, Ganja giving her a sour look as she returned to her place beside Courtney. Phi Phi was currently rabbiting on about how immigration spelt the end for Britain, whilst Sharon was sitting back in her chair, feet up on the studio desk.

Milk looked displeased.

“Bianca’s right,” Willam thought aloud, then jumped a little as she felt Courtney’s eyes on her. “She just phoned me there. Wants Sharon to tone it down, and we’re supposed to get that message through to her.”

“Right. Well. That shouldn’t be too hard,” Courtney frowned, only slightly frosty. “Does Sharon know sign language?”

“She barely knows fucking English,” Willam muttered, sighing in exasperation as Sharon began to refute Phi Phi’s point with the same lazy smugness she’d displayed throughout the whole interview. “We could signal something to her?”

Courtney’s brow furrowed before she turned to the clear glass of the studio and started miming pushing her hands down rapidly. Willam watched her in severe disbelief, fleetingly wondering why she harboured such strong feelings for someone who was clearly such a massive blithering idiot. It seemed to be catching Sharon’s attention though, so dutifully Willam began miming the same action.

Sharon began to trail off, looking at them both incredulously. In fact all three people in the studio were giving them awestruck looks. Wishing and willing Sharon to understand what the fuck they both meant, Willam kept pushing her hands down in the hope that she’d get the message.

“Um…as I was saying, we have to remember that Britain is a country that is built on diversity and multiculturalism, and I do have to wonder what would happen to that if we suddenly stopped allowing- or deporting, as Phi Phi is arguing- immigrants and refugees,” Sharon continued, in a voice about three octaves lower than her normal tone. Willam physically slapped her palm to her forehead.

“Why the hell would she think we were talking about her fucking pitch?!” Willam ranted, as Courtney attempted to change tact by mouthing furiously to the clear glass. Out the corner of her eye, Willam could see Detox and Roxxxy sniggering in the corner. Bristling with rage, she decided that at that current moment she had bigger fish to fry.  Turning back to Courtney, she noticed that she was mouthing “TONE IT DOWN” furiously, ignoring the judgemental glares of Roxxxy and Detox. As Phi Phi rebutted Sharon’s point, Sharon was just staring at Courtney completely dumbfounded.

“It’s not working,” Willam sighed, as Courtney ran her hands through her hair in frustration. She looked good when she did that.

God, Willam wished more than anything that they were on good terms.

Shaking all unprofessional thoughts out of her head, Willam was suddenly hit with a brainwave.

“Do you have lipstick with you?” she turned to address Courtney. Appearing a little affronted by Willam’s blunt turn of phrase, Courtney raised her eyebrows and scrambled into her bag.

“Sure. Here.”

Grabbing it from Courtney’s hand, Willam fleetingly noticed it was MAC. Well, she hoped Courtney wasn’t particularly attached to this colour.

Without even hesitating, Willam wrenched the cap off and scrawled backwards on the glass the very three words Courtney had been mouthing through the pane just seconds ago. “TONE IT DOWN” now sat very boldly written in reverse, almost like a shriek against the clear glass.

And then a lot of things happened very quickly.

Sharon muttered “what the fuck?” very quietly to herself under her breath. There was a split second before Willam realised that the reason she’d heard her mutter it was because Sharon’s microphone had been switched on. Milk, partly in shock, stammered a choked apology, and then a hastily-tacked on link to the pre-recorded news. Ganja swore loudly, ripped off her headphones and stormed out of the room, presumably to find out from The Powers That Be how much the BBC was going to get fined this time, or maybe to find out how many complaints they’d received already. Courtney, who was frozen still, her mouth hanging open in shock, began to get a phone call. Willam didn’t even have to look to see who it was from. Becoming un-frozen and seemingly snapping back into a workplace android, Courtney looked at her phone, gave Willam a look that could curdle milk, then rushed out the room.

“Hi, Bianca- yes I know…”

In all the chaos, Willam had quite forgotten Detox and Roxxxy were in the room. They were both looking at her with punchable, smug smiles.

“Nice one, Willam,” Roxxxy smirked, leaning back against the wall calmly.

Willam didn’t even have a retort because, to give her her dues, Roxxxy was absolutely right.

***

“Oh, girl, I’ve got to give you credit. I haven’t laughed that much since…well. Probably quite recently. But it was an absolutely biblical shitshow.”

Willam rolled her eyes as she sat in the green room, Katya gabbing down the phone to her at a tremendous pace. “Yeah, well. We’ve got the last laugh because you guys have to field all the phone calls that must be flooding the department right now.”

“Are you kidding? This shit’s easy. No comment, no comment, no comment. Why do you think my smoke break’s been 15 minutes long? There’s nothing to do.”

“Well you could be listening to the damn thing.”

“Well what are you doing on the phone to me?” Katya reasoned, Willam hearing her taking a drag of a cigarette faintly down the line. She sighed. To be honest, she was just planning on hiding out in the green room until the whole thing was over. She’d been responsible for one of the biggest political fuck-ups someone could make, and she didn’t really feel she was in a position to give any political advice for some length of time. She didn’t know how Courtney was doing in there on her own. She didn’t really think to check on her. She didn’t want to make things worse. Christ, she was a fucking idiot.

Sitting in the green room had been interesting, though. During a break for sports news, she’d seen Detox and Roxxxy rush down the corridor in some sort of fury, and a kind of hushed argument had ensued. Roxxxy had been on the way to raising her voice in a furious crescendo, but had suddenly been cut off by something. Willam reflected on the situation. Maybe Detox and Roxxxy were fucking. Maybe this was what Courtney had meant those few weeks ago, about being more perceptive.

A sudden thought struck Willam. There was a correlation between that moment and when Courtney had started being weird with her. Why was that? What had happened then that had offended her so much? Before she could even think about it in any greater depth, she was jolted out of her daydream.

“Willam? Are you still there?”

Shaking her head, Willam tried to focus. “Yeah, sorry Katya. I was kind of in my own world.”

“Well, I guess I should let you go do your job. Love you lots. Try not to set the entire studios on fire as a grand finale.”

“That would be how this day would end,” Willam quipped as a sign-off, as she hit end call and tucked her phone back into the pouch in her bag. She supposed she should keep listening to the debate. From how it sounded, they were in the process of taking some phone calls and texts from the public. Always a great idea, thought Willam sarcastically. The pubic could always be trusted to have really great and sound opinions.

Phi Phi seemed to be answering someone’s phone call, her jitteriness now clearly back. The person who’d asked the question hadn’t seemed too happy, by what Willam had heard in the background of her phone call with Katya. Still, Phi Phi seemed to have done her best to answer whatever the question was, and now they were taking a phone call from,

“George in Tottenham Hale, let’s hear from you. I think you have a question for Sharon, is that right?” Milk’s voice came through the small speakers. What followed was a deep Ugandan voice, slightly tinged by what was clearly a couple of years in London.

“Yes, my question is for Sharon. It is a bit surprising to me to hear you are supportive of refugees and immigrants.”

Willam began to feel a sense of dread creeping over her. What the hell was coming next? She reached into her bag for her phone again, getting the horrible feeling that she might be needing it within the next few minutes. George continued on.

“I come to this country two years ago, I get a job with a cleaning company. We do big contracts and things, for big companies. And the government hired us to do the offices at Richmond Terrace, and the new offices of Sharon’s department.”

Suddenly, a harsh vibration from Willam’s phone made her heart beat of out her chest. A text from Bianca.

B: THERE IS A GLACIER OF SHIT ABOUT TO SINK US. I’M COMING IN. BE PREPARED.

If Willam was filled with horror before, then this only made her heart drop out of her stomach. As George carried on, Willam had to fight the urge to spew her insides out onto the green room’s floor.

“So we are working for the government, Sharon’s government, and she is here talking about the economic benefits of immigration, but they are paying us the very minimum wage, for five hours of work on the nightshift every day. So why does her government support this? It is cheap labour, and she is paying the company that supports our exploitation. She is exploiting us.”

A beat of silence was somewhat deafening on the speakers of the green room.

“Sharon Needles, how do you respond to that?” Milk spoke, obviously trying to inject some noise into the silence.

“Well. Um, that’s obviously a very serious accusation, and one which we will be working hard to-”

Willam never got to hear what Sharon would be working hard to do, as suddenly from the other end of the corridor came a dull yet frantic rumbling of high heels against a carpeted floor. Courtney was a blur past the glass of the green room until she came hurtling through its door, facing Willam with more urgency than she’d shown in a long time.

“We need to sort this out. This is a shitshow,” she gasped, hair all over her face. “You did hear that, yeah?”

“Yeah, Court, but the whole reason I’m here is because I fucked up,” Willam looked to the floor, a little embarrassed. “I don’t want to make things worse. It’s not my day, and you’re totally able to fix this. Alaska’s on the other end of the phone, just…I don’t know. Call her.”

Willam was shocked when Courtney took three little steps forward, fury written all over her face. For a moment, it looked as if she was going to slap her. She didn’t. Instead, she laid into her.

“Now, look! You’re Willam, god damn it! You can’t just give up because it’s ‘not your day’, that’s not how this shit works!” she yelled, pointing a single manicured finger in her face. Seemingly calming down a little, she ran a hand through her blonde waves of hair. “Now Bianca’s going to be here in…fifteen minutes now. And she’s going to expect us to have some sort of plan for mopping up this hurricane of piss, and how else are you going to redeem yourself in her eyes than to be the ringleader of the whole thing? The party needs you. I need you.”

Courtney’s words shocked Willam into locking eyes with her. Seeming to realise what she’d said, a pink flush tinted Courtney’s cheeks and she opened her mouth to backtrack. “That’s not- you know what I mean. We’re a team. And you can’t…you can’t just give up because of one fuck-up. The Willam I know wouldn’t do that.”

There was a silence in which Willam tried to figure out how to respond. She was a little irritated with Courtney herself; the fact that she was insisting they were a team only now when it was convenient to her and the situation, all the amazing things Courtney was saying about her probably just being a front to get her to do something about this fuckery. There was also that little bump in Courtney’s telling-off, “I need you”. It would be easy just to question her about that, and shit, Courtney was actually really up in her face, really close to her face, and there was still some sort of tension in the air, and she still hadn’t broken her gaze and God, it actually hurt how much she couldn’t be mad at her for long. Blinking twice, Willam sighed deeply and rubbed a hand down her face, disregarding all her perfectly-applied makeup. Her mind began working at a hundred miles an hour.

“Right, make sure that Jinkx and her minions know the line. Of course, we don’t actually know what the line is because Bianca’s not here, but just tell them that we’re looking into it, stress Sharon’s commitment to fair employment for refugees and immigrants, and that this doesn’t affect her standing or the validity of her opinions. Should we make a donation to someplace?”

“Hmm, maybe not. If the press got hold of it, they could say it was just a reactionary measure. And the press are quite likely to get hold of it, given that we’re probably going to be under scrutiny for about a fortnight at least,” Courtney offered, biting her lip nervously.

“Good point,” Willam nodded, her heart swelling a little at how well they were working together already as Courtney began typing a message, presumably to Jinkx. Maybe Courtney had forgiven her for whatever she’d done already. Tearing a hand through her hair, Willam had to remind herself to focus on the matter at hand. “Okay, no donations. In the meantime, let’s maybe try to get some information about this guy, see if there’s anything we can use against him, anything that makes his stance void.”

Courtney stopped typing suddenly, looking up at Willam with concern in her eyes. “Willam that’s…that’s smearing.”

“Yeah, and?”

“That’s kind of Bianca’s domain. We don’t really do that unless it’s under her jurisdiction. Do you have any idea the shit you could get into if it got out that you instigated something like this?” Courtney mumbled, panic tinging her voice as her thumbs hovered over her phone screen. Pausing for a second to think it through, Willam could faintly hear Phi Phi’s smug voice laying into Sharon about what a hypocrite she was. That made her decision for her.

“We’re doing it. If it gets out, I’ll take the hit,” Willam said simply. Courtney looked momentarily as if she’d just been shot through the stomach, but dutifully she continued to type.

“Okay, so we’re going with smear campaign and promote Sharon. Am I sending this?” she sucked in a breath of air through her teeth. Willam gave a curt nod and with that, Courtney’s thumb hit a single button on her phone.

“God, it’s sent. Okay. Now what do we do?” she asked, fear written across her face. “Should one of us go back to the control room and keep listening to see if anything develops?”

“Right. You do that. I’ll let you know when Bianca gets here. Hopefully she’ll have a way to help,” Willam reasoned. Courtney smiled hesitantly, making to turn and leave for the studio. Seeing the worry on her face, Willam reached out and gently touched her arm. The softness of the action surprised both of them, and Willam drew her hand back quickly.

“Don’t worry. It’ll all be fine,” she finally said, managing to muster a confident smile from somewhere. To her shock, Courtney fixed her with the most genuine smile she’d seen from her in weeks.

“I know it will. You’re involved,” she replied, looking quickly to the floor and rushing out of the green room, leaving Willam at peak confusion.

The ten minutes before Bianca arrived consisted of firstly of just initial googling. There wasn’t much that Willam had to go on, other than “George from Tottenham Hale”, but with the right keywords she managed to find a second name, which she immediately forwarded to Jinkx. She wasn’t sure how they were all doing back at the department. She was a little afraid to ask.

When Bianca arrived, she knew about it. Along the corridor, Willam heard the thumping of a pair of very distinctive heels, and she could tell immediately that she was there. Standing up quickly and preparing for a roasting, Willam tensed up as Bianca entered the green room, dressed in a tailored blue suit and giving her a look that could’ve frozen lava.

“Where’s Australian Idol?” Bianca quipped dryly, setting down her Mulberry bag on the small glass coffee table and looking Willam dead in the eye.

“She’s in the studio keeping tabs on things. We’re currently trying to-”

“Nope! Not interested. Don’t want to hear from you. Go get her.”

Holding in a massive sigh, Willam trotted along to the studio. She had known Bianca was going to be mad at her, but she could only prepare so much for her disappointment. The main thing was, Willam reminded herself, that Bianca was here now, and if anyone could get this mess back in order then it was her.

Willam didn’t even have to say anything to Courtney as she stuck her head through the door of the control room. She immediately came running out, and they both walked in silence down the corridor to meet Bianca. When they got to the green room she was sat quite menacingly on the sofa, and had taken her suit jacket off and flung it over its headrest. She meant business.

“Right, any bright ideas from either of you about how to fix this fucking abomination? Because I’d love to hear them. I’m sure whatever it is it won’t be as good as Willam’s greatest hit from earlier, take a simple task and fuck it up to the point where Sharon makes one of the biggest media blunders a politician could make!” she barked, as Courtney and Willam stood in front of her like two disgraced schoolchildren.

Courtney began their defence. “Well, we thought that the line should be that this doesn’t undermine Sharon at all, she’s looking into it, and that delivering fair employment opportunities for immigrants and refugees is still one of her unwavering top priorities.”

Bianca seemed to relax only slightly. “That’s not bad. Good work, Courtney.”

“Actually it was mainly Willam’s idea,” Courtney said quietly, Willam raising her head to meet Bianca’s eyes. Bianca’s cold stare didn’t seem to have that icy edge anymore, but she supposed that hoping for praise was pushing things a bit far.

“Okay. Anything else?”

“We’ve…said to comms that they’re to look for information on the man that phoned in- anything that we could use against him, anything that we could put about, things like that,” Courtney said a little hesitantly. Bianca’s glare darkened.

“That’s fucking smearing! You both know that! That falls under my purview, I do the smearing, you guys get the information for me to make it happen. Do you have any idea the fucking river of shit you are going to have to stay afloat in if it gets out to the press that you are trying to run a smear campaign against this fucking individual? That’s not going to look so good for this party, will it?!”

Willam winced. “It was entirely my idea, Bianca. Courtney did point it out but we didn’t have much time to act and we had to do something.”

“Well here’s something to do for next time. Use your fucking brain cells,” Bianca hissed, standing up from the sofa and giving Willam a look that could wilt flowers. “Have we put anything out about this man yet?”

“No, that’s for certain. Last I spoke to Jinkx they hadn’t found anything on him yet. Willam found his second name, but that’s all we have,” Courtney confirmed, her stance like that of an army soldier as she addressed Bianca. Willam suddenly felt a vibration from her phone. Glancing at it, a text had popped up on her screen.

“Alaska’s just told me she has the name of his cleaning company. Maybe our tactic should be to smear them? Expose them for their poor wages?” Willam suggested, in the vague hope that Bianca would agree. Instead, she frowned and shook her head rapidly.

“Nobody is smearing anyone or anything until I give the green light, tell Alaska that for starters. Jesus, right. See if they can get more information about the company. Find out its boss, see if he’s hiding a lovechild in a fucking cupboard anywhere. Until then, we do nothing,” Bianca sighed deeply, seemingly much more relaxed now she was in control of the situation again. Willam did as she was told and began messaging Alaska.

In the few minutes that followed, there was a flurry of activity in the studios. Roxxxy, Detox and Phi Phi sprinted down the corridor, with a yell from Phi Phi which Willam could make out as “Why is Betty coming in?!”. Before she could even react to that information, Sharon appeared in the green room looking visibly shaken.

“I didn’t- I didn’t know anything about this. I don’t know what the fuck’s going on,” she babbled, looking frantically from Willam, then Courtney, and finally Bianca.          

“Might want to tone down the swearing. Didn’t seem to work out too well earlier,” Bianca replied dryly, severely unimpressed.

Courtney turned to Sharon and put her hands on her shoulders reassuringly, “It’s okay, we’re on it. In the meantime, try and keep pushing that new policy of yours; the housing one for refugees.”

“But-”

“I know it’s only in its preliminary stages,” Courtney shook her head. “But it’s the best we’ve got at the moment, and you need to redeem yourself. Just keep banging on about it until we can get something to cool this situation down.”  

“We’ve got five minutes til we need to be back in. I need to- I need to speak to Alaska,” Sharon stammered, worry thickly coating every word she spoke. Bianca and Courtney shared an odd look.

“Why Alaska?” Bianca asked swiftly, her eyes questioning. Sharon’s face suddenly drained of all its colour. Willam suddenly felt like she had to step in.

“Alaska’s the only advisor left at the department right now. She’s going to give us a perspective that we maybe haven’t thought about.”

Silently, Willam handed Sharon her phone, Sharon’s hands shaking as she took it from her. As Sharon left the room, she shot Willam a look of gratitude. Bianca gave her a side glance as she disappeared down the corridor.

“Okay, you two, keep digging. I’m going to make a few phone calls,” she said decisively, rising from her position on the sofa and leaving the room. Willam rolled her eyes a little. As long as Sharon was speaking to Alaska, she couldn’t really do anything. She began thinking about the three members of the opposition.

“Did I hear right earlier? Did they say that Betty was coming in?” Willam asked Courtney softly. Courtney furrowed her brow in thought.

“That’s weird. They must know something we don’t. Something must be brewing for them too,” she said slowly, realisation dawning on her. “They must be worried that we’re digging into this. They’re involved in some way!”

Willam’s heart leapt as Courtney began bouncing on her own seat excitedly. “We just need to uncover whatever it is they’re worrying about.”

About a minute later, the three girls from the opposing party jogged past the clear glass of the green room again. Sharon raced back into the room behind them and chucked Willam her phone back.

“Thanks girl. I’ve got about a minute to get back. You’ve got a text from Katya, by the way,” she said quickly, out of breath as she quickly ran back to the studio. A little confused, and more than a little disorientated at the pace at which things were moving, Willam opened up the text wordlessly. She could see from the outset that something was attached to it.

K: OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A screenshot of a text conversation. When Willam hit her thumb against the screen, the image became clearer- a conversation between Katya and Trannika, except only Trannika had sent anything.

“Holy fuck girl!!! Your man on the radio- I thought I recognised his voice and then it clicked! He cleans for us as well! George comes in on the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and does the shadow offices. Bob & co are shitting themselves!! Betty is on her way in to Five Live to firefight in case anything goes down!! I’m going to need a strong fuckin whisky tonight I’ll tell u that for nothing xo”

“Shit!” Willam exclaimed involuntarily, prompting Courtney to crane her neck and read the text over Willam’s shoulder. “That’s it. We’ve got them. That’s why they were all running around the studio like chickens with their dicks cut off. Go tell Bianca!”

Courtney gave a little squeal, almost tripping over herself as she sped out of the green room to find Bianca. Willam was experiencing a sort of adrenaline rush. It was stressful at times, but this was what she loved the absolute most about this job; there was no better feeling than knowing you had the upper hand over the other party.

Bianca suddenly came storming in with Courtney, her face hard as marble, not quite seeming as overjoyed with the finding as Willam had been. Wordlessly, she held out an open palm in front of Willam.

“Let’s see.”

Obediently, Willam handed her her phone, still open on the screenshot of Trannika’s text. She watched as Bianca’s huge owl eyes darted across the screen, then as she almost threw the phone back into Willam’s possession. As she turned on her heel, she barked a “follow me” to no-one in particular. After sharing a quick glance, Courtney and Willam followed after her as she charged full speed ahead towards the control room. Bursting through its door, she instantly rounded on Detox. Willam had often heard the phrase “looked as if she’d shat herself” used facetiously, but only now could she with complete certainty say that this was the embodiment of Detox’s expression. Clearly she hadn’t encountered Bianca since she leaked information about Sharon’s DWI to Phi Phi, and by the looks of it she was frantically attempting to make peace with the fact that her death was imminent. She opened her mouth in an attempt to say or do something, but Bianca simply uttered one word.

“Phone,” she said calmly, holding out her open hand almost as a prompt. As Detox’s expression took on one of bemusement, Bianca simply followed her one word up with another, firmer and with an edge. “Now.”

Detox began scrambling to get her phone from her bag. As Roxxxy watched the exchange with nothing less than pure fear in her eyes, Ganja turned around in her chair, annoyance painted all over her face.

“Excuse me, what in the hell do you think you’re-”

“You turn the fuck back around in that chair and just concentrate on doing your job or I will loop my fingers round those fucking metal hula hoops stapled into your ears and do a Miss Trunchbull hammer throw on your imitation ghetto ass!” Bianca snapped without missing a single beat. Silently, as if she hadn’t quite yet processed the extent of Bianca’s wrath, the shocked producer swivelled back around. Near ripping the phone out of Detox’s hand, Bianca turned and left the control room, leading Willam and Courtney to the corridor outside.

“Watch my moves,” Bianca said, near out of breath, presumably as a result of her heart hammering in her chest the same way Willam’s was currently doing now. “What’s the number for texts to the studio?”

“08442,” Courtney reeled off without missing a beat. Catching Willam’s questioning look, she gave her a quick, amused smile. “I’ve been listening to this godforsaken debate for nigh on two hours now. That number’s practically engraved into my ear canal.”

Willam watched curiously as Bianca started typing, thumbs going like mad against Detox’s phone screen. Soon enough, she had a text waiting to be sent.

“Phi Phi is a hypocrite! The opposition also employs the same cleaning company as Sharon’s government and has them working more days! Know your facts before you start tearing others down! Julie in Brighton.”

Before Willam could comment on Bianca’s chosen pseudonym, Bianca had sent the text in, then gone to sent items and deleted it from history. It was as if nothing had ever happened.

“And that’s how it’s done,” Bianca finally smiled at the two advisors, some semblance of relaxed even though her frown lines were now engraved into her heavy foundation as a result of all the stressing she’d been doing for the past half hour or so. Willam shot a relieved smile at Courtney, who sent one back her way and consequently made her heart melt. Heart still hammering in her chest, Willam was about to compliment Bianca on her quick actions when a sudden voice from one end of the corridor made her jump.

“By ‘it’ do you mean stirring up a shitstorm for my party in the press which I’m now going to need to clean up?” It was a tall woman, some of her height coming from her impossibly tall electric blue heels. Her outfit didn’t exactly scream ‘politics’- black leggings with an electric blue fitted shirt and a crazy, floral patterned blazer- but then neither did her hair, which was white blonde with bright pink coursing through every other strand. Her makeup was wild and erratic, blue and black like her outfit, with a shocking pink lip pierced with a ring right through its centre. If Willam hadn’t known who she was, she would never have guessed that this was Bianca’s opposite number- “Acid” Betty Ruhren, so-called because she had a reputation for corroding anyone who happened to get on the wrong side of her via the media. Everyone except Bianca, that is, who she seemed to hold a kind of respect for. They were in the same game, and Betty seemed to recognise this, so Bianca had never ended up in the press. Now, however, she didn’t seem to look particularly happy. Decidedly acidic, Willam thought.

“Elizabeth, how wonderful of you to join us. Should I pile us all in to the control room? Your advisors are in there now, I feel it would really add to the party atmosphere,” Bianca smiled acridly. She looked as if she was making to add something, but Betty cut right in.

“Don’t give me that shit. You’re here to cause trouble.”

Bianca glared at her. “You’re here to save your own ass, and I know exactly what you’re trying to cover up.”

Betty’s eyes shot from Bianca’s face to the phone in her hand, the cogs clearly turning in her brain. There was a beat of silence, in which Willam could hear Milk’s voice from the studio.

“…and has them working more days, know your facts before you start tearing others down. Phi Phi O’Hara, quite a serious accusation there from Julie in Brighton-”

Bianca gave a small smile of satisfaction as Betty’s face darkened.

“Julie from Brighton. Is that what you’re going by these days?”

“I don’t know. It’s a whole lot better than having the same nickname as a main ingredient of bile,” Bianca shrugged, whipping her head round quickly as the door to the control room swung open and Detox and Roxxxy flew out.

“Betty, we didn’t think it would get out as fast as it did,” Roxxxy began, her eyes wide with panic as she addressed the spin doctor. Bianca nonchalantly handed Detox her phone back. Guiltily and silently, Detox slid it back into her bag, at once knowing full well what had happened. Completely oblivious to the exchange, Betty addressed Roxxxy calmly.

“It’s under control. Just go back in and make sure Phi doesn’t choke on her own tongue or some shit like that. I’ve got business out here to attend to,” she said forebodingly. Roxxxy cast a side glance at Willam before slinking back into the control room, Detox following behind her like a disgraced puppy. The door swung shut behind the two advisors. At once business-like again, Betty took one large step towards Bianca.

“You know what would go down horribly on your end? If I go to the press about the prostitutes that lovely John from the Ministry of Justice has been renting out like fucking Blockbuster DVDs every Saturday night. Somehow I think that would kick up a bit of a fuss, don’t you?”

“A man taking his sister out for dinner on a weekly basis- yes, his sister!- is actually a lovely wholesome tale that I’m sure the press would consider a non-story. What wouldn’t be considered a non-story is your not-so-lovely Anthony from your education department getting a bit too enthusiastic slapping his wife about, fucking gave her a black eye?”

Betty bristled as Courtney’s expression grew horrified. “That was a domestic accident, Bianca, and you know it.”

“Domestic accident, oh what, because he’s got hands the size of fucking flatpack wardrobes?” Bianca shot back incredulously.

“Yes, a domestic accident. What about Jade Jolie’s domestic accident, the one she got from sleeping around a little too much over at Richmond Terrace? Three potential Dads, but none of them her actual fucking husband, I reckon that would be a bit of a PR disaster for your party!”

“It wouldn’t be a PR disaster because- that is a fucking crock of shit!” Bianca laughed, rolling her eyes. Willam was in awe. It was as if the two spin doctors had quite forgotten she and Courtney were both there, and now here they were, caught in the crossfire of some form of smear war. Bianca was still going. “However, I have a photo, that I can get blown up to canvas size, of your shadow defence minister coming out of the toilets at Nobu with his nose covered in cocaine! What’s your defence to that going to be, eh? ‘Oh well you know Nigel, he’s just a really keen baker!’”

“I have tweets I can take down to Snappy Snaps and get blown up to fucking charity cheque size, from the account of your foreign secretary, except he doesn’t really seem to like foreign people all that much judging by the incredibly unironic use of the n word like punctuation in every 140 characters!”

“Your party’s been getting a lot of positive coverage by the Guardian recently, does that have anything to do with the new editor, you know, the one with the huge hair and the eyeliner? I’ve heard stories of you skulking around Camden recently, Betty, and I never really thought that was your scene? Or am I wrong?”

“DON’T FUCKING-” Betty raised her voice very suddenly as she momentarily forgot where she was, clearly having had a nerve hit. Darting her eyes from Courtney to Willam, she gave Bianca a sheepish glance, who in turn was looking at her as if she’d just won a third world war. Betty took one very laborious breath.

“Look,” she began, her voice much quieter. “How about this. We both issue a statement, saying that neither of our girls were in full possession of the facts. But both parties are in the process of employing a new company, and we’re going to be focusing on our stance towards a fairer working wage in the coming weeks.”

Respect seemingly regained, Bianca seemed to become less tense. “You carry on like that and I might not find you so grossly fucking reprehensible.”

Sniffing and then giving a little nod, Betty let go a breath she had been holding. As the atmosphere quietened, Willam became aware of Milk’s theme song playing, signalling the end of the programme. The studio door opened and out emerged a wearied-looking Dan Donigan, a Phi Phi with a face like thunder, and a Sharon that looked as if she’d been put through a wash and dry cycle. Ignoring Bianca, Willam and Courtney, she simply turned and walked towards the lifts.

The only thing she said into the echoing of the corridor was simply, “I need a fucking bath, my vibrator, and fifty tramadol.”

Same, was Willam’s only thought, as Roxxxy and Detox skulked out of the control room and off down towards the exit. They seemed to be holding hands, and Willam thought briefly about her theory from earlier.

“Well, all’s well that ends well,” Bianca raised her eyebrows sarcastically, making to head towards the green room. “Good work today, Courtney. Willam- step your shit up.”

Willam wanted to kick herself as Bianca walked off towards the exit. Turning on her heel, she slowly made her way towards the bathroom and couldn’t help but wonder if the sinks would be big enough to drown herself in after this utter turd of a day.  

***

As Willam slung her bag over her right shoulder and winced slightly under its weight, she turned to leave and jumped a little when she saw a silent Courtney in the doorway of the green room. She looked a little embarrassed and slightly nervous about the fact she was there. The gentle hum of the omnipresent radio in the background and the quiet tick of the clock were the only ones to speak.

“Hey,” Courtney began nervously, smiling slightly as she took one small step forward. “That was really great, what you did today.”

“What we did,” Willam corrected her, not really sure what tone to take so deciding to keep things neutral. For a moment Courtney was silent, tucking a little strand of hair behind her ear awkwardly and exposing a hint of a pink blush.

Finally she let out a big sigh and began talking. “Look Willam, I’m really sorry for how I’ve been acting recently. I’ve been a massive dick for not really much good reason and it’s not okay.”

The first reaction Willam had was one of total, complete, all-encompassing relief. Courtney wasn’t mad at her anymore, or was never mad at her to begin with. She still wanted to be friends, maybe even something more. Well, Willam couldn’t really get her hopes up all that high, but she was still slightly euphoric that Courtney was finally okay with her again and right now anything seemed possible. Noticing how Courtney was still shyly waiting for her response, Willam broke into a smile.

“C’mere, you stupid bitch,” she snorted, opening her arms in a hug whilst deciding she couldn’t break free from the platonic realm just yet. With relief washing over Courtney’s face, she stumble-ran into Willam’s arms, hugging her tightly in a way that made Willam’s heart swell. All at once she knew the old Courtney was back.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured again into Willam’s hair, and Willam privately thanked God for this little moment of reconciliation.

“Come on, you know I don’t hold grudges. Well, not against my friends.”

“You have every right to, though.”

“Well, I’m not going to. So stop worrying,” Willam muttered back, acutely aware that Courtney hadn’t yet shifted from Willam’s arms, seemingly not going anywhere anytime soon. “Are you alright though? Anything you want to talk about?”

Suddenly Courtney became unstuck and pulled away from the hug, pulling the sleeves of her jumper over her hands self-consciously. “Yeah…no, I’m fine. Just was struggling with something for a couple weeks. You know, a kind of inner battle?”

As Courtney laughed awkwardly, Willam indulged her with a nod, still not entirely sure what she was referring to. She was happy, though, that whatever Courtney had been struggling with was clearly over. She decided to change topic altogether.

“So, Alyssa’s next week. You still going?”

Courtney smiled. “Yeah, ‘course. If only to stop Sharon getting completely wrecked and vomiting on the shoes of the PM’s wife, or something equally Sharon-esque.”

“I think it’ll be fun. Running around after her and cleaning up her mess like she’s a toddler. How else would you want to spend a Saturday night?”

Willam delighted in the way Courtney’s face scrunched up as she laughed, concluding that it was probably the thing she’d missed most of all about her. Glancing at the clock, she realised that it was past nine.

“Listen, it’s getting late. Do you want to share a cab back? I think Sharon was so done with today she’s probably just taken the car and fucked off,” she laughed a little, holding back a quip about Alaska after remembering yet again that that wasn’t public knowledge just yet. It would be eventually, of course. Nothing could stay secret forever. Looking back at Courtney and her face all lit up in a smile, she reconsidered. Maybe some things could. As Courtney simply nodded twice in affirmation, Willam walked forward and, deciding to fuck platonic intent to one side, threaded an arm through Courtney’s. She didn’t pull away, and as the two made their way to the exit of these godforsaken studios, Willam realised she was leaving work without a heavy heart for the first time in over a fortnight.

[mrevaunit42]

Friendship Thursday

Hello everyone, Mr.E here with loads of duct tape and glue. So how about that finale?: and for those who haven’t seen it. I’m here for you. Anyway I finally managed to fight off busy life and sickness and finish this prompt from @wholesome-week Yes....i know...trust me I knoooow how late i am but I was working on it all month as it gave me a surprising amount of trouble. but even if it was prompt, i decided to make it really fluff. I actually rewrote a small part of it to up the fluffiness because i’ve seen the fandom’s reaction. So here’s some notes before we begin

First, there are 3 parts to this. the first part is self explanatory though does have some spoilers from the SVTFOE deep trouble comic number 2. The second part is canon Star vs before the blood moon ball. this mean someone is singing, this means someone else is singing  and this is the pair together and the 3rd part to this is a prequel but you’ll know what i mean when you get there. That’s it for me. have an amazing week, i should have more stories up because I owe birthday gifts and stay sane! We are here for you. bye for now!

A long time ago, in a kingdom called Mewni.

“Come on! It'll be fun Moon!”

Moon rolled her eyes, white gloved hands clasped firmly together. She was wearing her customary bell shaped dress of varying shades of pink, an outfit she was told under no circumstance she was to get dirty. A rule River Johansen clearly did not understand.

“River” Moon's face was set in stony indifference “I can't see how spending the day in the Forest of Certain Doom could be.....fun.”

River scoffed cheerfully “You're the princess of Mewni. Where's your sense of adventure?”

“You are a Johansen” Moon shot back “Where is your sense of self preservation?”

“I think you answered your own question princess.”

Moon blinked, unable to believe that River Johansen of all people had outsmarted her.

“Come on Moon” River pleaded, lip trembling, his sky blue eyes wide and tearing up “I just want to hang out with you. You've been pretty distance since.....you know”  

Moon shifted uncomfortably at the subtle reference to their former friend Dirt.

True while Dirt might've been a little pushy in his false affection towards Moon and far too cruel and indifference towards River, Moon still couldn't believe he was an assassin set to end the Butterfly line and take the wand.

Moon wasn't shaken by the fact Dirt pretended to be a friend. Her mother warned her of such things.

No it was the fact that she allowed him to get so close. So close that she would've never suspected he would try to kill her.

She needed to keep her distance from people, from allowing anyone to get that close again. She was the future of the Butterfly dynasty and her safety was paramount.

“And what” Moon asked after a moment a silence “is the reason we're going to the Forest? I mean it is what...Thursday?”

“Exactly!” River beamed cheerfully “Friendship Thursday!”

Moon raised an eyebrow

“Well....” River paused “my family has something called Family Thursday. It's when we get together and you know, hang out. Just reaffirm our bonds. I figured if it works so well for them, why not...you know....us?”

“I...”

“Come on Moon” River pouted “You need to get out. You've been locked up in that castle for the last week and I get it, everyone's on edge because you almost died but that's no excuse to stop living. It's just one day and you can kick my butt if anything happens.”

“River....” Moon began but the look of desperation River was giving her was enough to crumble her resolve.

“Fine” Moon relented “Only for a few hours okay?”

“Awesome” Moon felt herself smiling despite her attempts to remain composed, River's goofy, carefree smile infectious.

Moon regretted her decision at once.

The Forest of Certain Doom was seasonally humid, uncomfortably so during this time of year and despite the forest canopy and the shade it brought, it was the air that was causing the most suffering and dressed in stuffy, poorly ventilated royal outfits did not help the matter any.

“River” Moon tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice “I know I agreed to come outdoors into the...umm forest....but...”

There was a loud snarl and a sudden rustling that filled the air. Without warning, a large monstrous purple gator pushed through the brush, jaws lunging and snapping at anything within sight.

Moon rolled her eyes, lazily drawing her wand and taking aim at the ferocious beast.

River grinned happily to himself, muscles flexed as he prepared to tackle this new and amazing creature when a large rainbow sailed directly into the gator's waiting maw.

The eyes budged out for a moment as the gator reared back, its comically tiny legs flailing everywhere while it gagged and coughed, trying to loosen the refracted light clogging its throat.

River grimaced as Moon strolled pass, one hand loosely on her wand, the other rubbing her temple tiredly.

“River, I know you mean well” Moon sighed “but I don't need to be out here. I really should go back. I have princess things to do...and practicing with my wand and stuff....”

“wait! WAIT! We're here!” River gestured to the clearing around them, the gator still thrashing wildly behind him.

Moon glanced about, unimpressed by River's grand surprise: There was a log, there was the wild sky gator currently choking on her spell and some bushes. Overall nothing special for the Forest of Certain Doom. Well scratch that, the fact they were able to stand in this clearing without something attacking for a grand total of 20 seconds was special. A personal record but not worth the journey.

River kept his smile plastered on even as Moon gave him a deadpanned stare that screamed “I am not liking this. At all.” he could feel beads of sweats run down his neck, the heat not helping while he tried to keep his composure.

This wasn't working? WHY WASN'T IT WORKING?! He counted the right amount steps, he followed the pieces of tatter clothing he left behind the last few times he ventured into the forest. He was certain Moon was going to love the surprise but so far it seemed his grand plan was a total failure. Again.

Moon sighed as she began to walk back towards Mewni. She was unsure why she agreed to humor him. This was a waste of time and while she knew his intention were pure, she really was in no mood for this misadventure.

“Wait this isn't it....” Moon stopped in her tracks as she heard River rustle about, the foliage nearly drowning out his grunts of effort.

“River?” Moon questioned while she turned back, her curiosity far outweighing her irritation.

“There we go! TA DA!”

Moon was greeted with the familiar sight of a dirt covered, stained River, arms outstretched in a hopefully gesture, splitting an obstructing bush down the middle.

Behind the viking prince was beautiful pond. Its surface was calm and still despite the chaos that surrounded it this deep in the forest. The water was a crystal clear blue that sparkled as bright as the stars that hung overhead at night. Moon could hear the echoing of rushing water far in the distance that was soothing and put the young princess at ease.

“Do you like it?” River asked eagerly, his bright blue eyes wide with expectation.

Moon found her lips curving into a smile, her eyes softening at the natural beauty that lay before.

“I...”

Crack.

Moon and River shared a confused stare. Their gaze fell on the still struggling gator who was clutching at its throat dramatically.

Crack.

Moon looked back to River and River stared back at Moon.

Snap.

“Whoa!” River managed to get out before disappearing out of view, the sounds of crunching leaves, branches and dirt harmonizing with River's elated screams.

“River!” Moon cried out but before she could take a single step, there was a splash and a joyful burst of laughter.

Moon gripped the helm of her dress carefully, making her way down the previously unseen hill, concern still biting at her despite the lack of any real danger.

When Moon finally reached the bottom, there was River, laughing without restrain, his smile wide and gleaming as several multi-colored fish flopped about: Leaping over his head, skimming the surface of the pond as they playfully nudged the soaked teen with their heads.

Maybe it was the stress of the past few weeks. Maybe it was how absolutely ridiculous River looked just sitting there in the pond, making no effort to get out and instead deciding to play with the various fish that now surrounded him. Maybe it was just how carefree he seemed. Not a single worry. No crushing weight of the kingdom overhead. No fear about the future of the Butterfly.

Just a viking and his fish.

And despite her best effort, she started to snicker, something she wasn't used to and soon she started giggling which bleed naturally into snorting wildly as she desperately tried to hold it in but failed to do so.

“Wow....” River's daze voice broke her out of her fitful chuckling “You got a cute snort.”

Moon could feel her cheeks redden against her will, her gloved hand instinctively flying to her mouth and blocking River's view of her.  

“I like it.”

Moon stared dumbfounded at the viking who just sat there, same goofy smile he held the whole time.

River wasn't really complex....but that wasn't a bad thing.

Moon made her way to the edge of the water and crouched low though still careful not to dirty her dress.

“So...” Moon muttered softly with a small smile “Friendship Thursday huh? I like it.”

River couldn't contain his grin and neither could Moon.

Present day, Earth

“Friendship Thursday?” Marco questioned as he made his way over to the waiting magical princess who was currently trying to launch into space by using his couch as a launch pad “Is this a Mewni thing?”

“No no noooo” Star shook her head energetically “It's a Butterfly thing! A great and hallowed time honored tradition dating back...umm...blah blah blah years. Now come on!”

Marco yelped while Star pulled him closer, grabbing his arm tightly and dragging him into the seat next to her.

“Star!” Marco scolded, gently placing the nachos on the table “You need to be more careful, you almost made me drop the nachos.”

Marco cooed at his nachos but Star paid it no mind. She was far more interested in what Marco had plan for their first ever Friendship Thursday!

“Soooo Marco!” Star anxiously pawed at his arm “What are we doing? What we doing? Watching the magic box? OOOOOOH playing in the magic box! WHAT ARE WE DOING MARCO?! MAGIC PUPPET SHOW!?”

“haha calm down Star. I figured if this is our first Friendship Thursday, we can start off simple. Just me and you watching a movie. Sound good?”

“Magic puppet show!” Star cheered, raising her arms happily in the air

Marco rolled his eyes “Yes Star, magic puppet show.”

“YAY!” Star beamed, sky blue eyes twinkling with a joy that could not be matched.

Marco chuckled, still unable to believe someone as cute Star existed.

“What are we watching?” Star asked impatiently, still pawing at Marco's arm like some sort of playful cat.

“Well I figured you liked How to Train Your dragons so much....”

“ooooo!” Star cut in, blue eyes bright and sparkling “ THE GIANT FLYING LIZARDS? We're watching it again? Yes!”

Marco chuckled “No Star, we're watching part 2.”

Star gasped dramatically, her lips curled into an O while she clutched at her face with both hands “There's a 2?! YAY!”

Marco shook his head, reaching for the control before taking his seat, Star giving one final bounce before dropping onto the couch without warning.

“You know I'm still surprised Earth has vikings” Star said nonchalantly

“Oh yeah” Marco nodded, a past memory flashing into his head “Your dad's a viking right?”

“mhm!” Star gave a cheerful nod “I mean he is royalty but 100% a viking.”

“Neat” Marco murmured as the opening title sequence pulled up on the television.

Marco crept towards the living room quietly, trying his hardest not to disturb Star's enjoyment of the movie. He needed to sneak away for a moment to use the little bad boy's room though he doubt Star noticed. She was far too engrossed in the new cute lizards, Hictrid and the general good time that came with watching the sequel to her favorite Earth movie.

Honestly, it was a little too quiet for Marco's taste given Star's natural explosive nature. When he left, she was gasping at the news Hiccup's mother was in fact still alive. He could hear the cheers and tearful moments while confined in the tiny space but now, making his way back to his seat in the front of row of the theater, there was nothing.

Marco paused, his ears perking at something that hadn't been there before.

There was a low, melodic hum that filled the air. A soft, gentle flute-like tone that sung softly, hitting every pitch perfectly despite its volume.

Marco leaned forward as the muted pitter patter of feet joined in, a bouncy yet ever so quiet.

Marco peeked around the corner quietly and his brown eyes widen at the sight that lay before.

It was Star, no longer confined to the couch but behind it, her long sunshiney blonde hair  swaying back and forth as she glided across the floor, humming with the quietest hushed tone Marco had ever heard her use.

Her eyes were closed, dancing with an invisible partner.

Marco gazed on with wonder as Star moved back and forth with a previously unknown grace. Each movement was precise, effortless and smooth as any classically trained dancer Marco had ever seen.

Marco took a step forward as Star began to sing, slow and softly, her airy voice joining in with Stoik's thick, gravelly singing

“I'll swim and sail on savage seas” Star whispered, bowing to some unseen partner “With ne'er a fear of drowning”

Marco continued on, completely awestruck by Star's hidden talent.

Star was lost in her own world, eyes still shut and blind to the world around her as she outstretched her hand, her tone clear and strong despite how gentle “And gladly ride the waves of life......If you would marry me”

“I didn't know you knew how to dance.”

Star's eyes snapped open, her grace and charm vanishing into thin air as she whirled her arms uncontrollably, teetering on the edge of falling face first onto the ground

“WHOA!” she cried out as her body began its free fall.

“Star!”

Star flinched, body tensed for the anticipation of pain but was confused a moment later when no such thing befell her.

Star cracked open eye, her sky blue orb darting about while she pieced together what happened.

Marco held her by the waist, holding on tight with both arms as Star hung haphazardly, her body bent an angle with a leg high in the air.

Star turned one way only to find herself staring at the polished, clean tile of the Diaz household. Star turned the other way and was greeted with a relieved Marco, a small smile dancing on his lips.

“Hi Marco!” Star beamed, returning her best friend's grin “Thanks for catching me though you really shouldn't sneak up on people. It's rude.”

Marco pulled Star to her feet, his face sheepish and embarrassed “Sorry” he scratched the back of his head helpfully “I thought I heard something and I come out here to see you dancing and singing.”

“Oh....psst, no worries” Star waved off Marco's comment, desperately trying to hide her reddening cheeks “I couldn't resist! You didn't tell me Earth had the same songs as Mewni!”

“Huh? What are you...?”

“Duh” Star rolled her eyes, gesturing to the movie “For the dancing and the dreaming? That's the song my dad used to sing to my mom.”

“Whoa, really? I didn't know that.”

“Really? So cool.”

“Who knew Earth and Mewni had so much in common.” Marco smiled cheerfully.

“My dearest one, my darling dear”

“Marco” Star whispered, her smile shifting from happy to mischievous

“Your mighty words astound me”

“Umm, Star?”

“YOU interrupted my dance.”

“umm....” Marco took a step back as Star took one forward, closing the gap between them.

“But I've no need for mighty deeds”

“That means you need to dance with me....”

“Star! I...”

“When I feel your arms around me”

“Marco” Star said with a tone of finality, gripping his hand with her own as she guided the other to her waist “This is happening.”

Marco gulped, opting to nod in defeat. the song sped up at once, its joyful and lively beat overtaking the best friends.

“But I would bring you rings of gold, I'd even sing you poetry.”

Marco let out a happy laugh as Star spun him around, twisting and turning while shooting him the cutest smirk.

“And I would keep you from all harm, If you would stay beside me”

Marco's hand slipped from Star's waist while the other gripped her hand tightly to prevent her from flying away from him.

“I have no use for rings of gold, I care not for your poetry”

Marco planted his foot firmly, coming to a complete stop as Star was still caught in a dizzying spin.

“I only want your hand to hold!”

with flick of his waist, Star was sent into a twirl, her blonde hair trailing after her as she expertly pivoted on the balls of her feet.

“I only want you near me”

Star's grin could be barely contained on her face as Marco caught her, his hands in her hers while her hair flowed over her shoulder.

“To love and kiss to sweetly hold, For the dancing and the dreaming”

The pair's joyous laughter filled the empty room as they swayed and bounce to and fro, their movements perfect and synced

“Through all life's sorrows and delights, I'll keep your laugh inside me”

“Star! STAR!” Marco cried out between his fits of laughing “WE NEED TO STOP!”

“Nah uh safe kid!” Stat teased with a wink “the song's not over yet!”

“I'll swim and sail on savage seas, With ne'er a fear of drowning”

It was Star's turn, grabbing onto Marco's hand and launching them into a reckless spin, their giggles and chuckling overlapping in a harmonious melody without a care in the world.

“I'd gladly ride the waves so white, if you will marry me!”

Marco fell free of Star and the shift in weight caused the duo to sink to the floor, laughing all the while as they slid across the smooth surface

“Haha, man that was fun!” Marco shouted

“I didn't know you can dance Marco!” Star gushed as she jumped to her feet.

“haha a little” Marco chuckled, lifting himself off the ground and wiping away any dust and dirt that may have ended up on his clothes.

“That was not a little.” Star scolded with a playful edge while the best friends made their way back to their seat.

“Haha well I'm not telling you” Marco stuck out his tongue as they settled back onto the couch, cozily nestling against each other while film went on.

“Psst fine.” Star said with a shrug “I bet you're terrible waltzing”

“haha maybe if you're good, you'll find out”

“aww, tell me Marco! Tell me tell me tell me!”

20 years in the future.

“Hi Mr. and Mrs. Diaz-Butterfly” Connor called out as he made his way into the household, waving cheerfully towards the older couple relaxing on the couch without a care in the world.

“Hi Connor” Marco replied respectfully.

“CONNIE! HIIIIII!” Star answered with an excited wave.

Connor chuckled nervously.

“What are you doing here?” Marco questioned in a mock suspicious tone.

Connor opened his mouth

“He's here for Friendship Thursday daddy.”

Connor turned and glanced up the stairs, Nova waving at him eagerly as she made her way towards him.

She was wearing her adorable bluish pink sleep dress, her long brown hair freed from their usual twin tails and sprayed wildly all over her back. Her devil horns now two cute, soft looking cat ears.

“You really weren't kidding when you said it was pajama day....” Connor muttered

Nova looked unimpressed at the sight of Connor in his white shirt and brown khakis “and you really brought your street clothes? Four eyes I told you pjs! These are not pjs.”

“First of all” Connor countered as he reached for his bag “I thought you were lying”

“Me, lie? Never!”

“Second” Connor went on “I brought it. It's in my bag. Let me go change.”

“Okay four eyes, you know where the bathroom is. I'll set up the movie.”

“You'll set up the movie?” Marco questioned with a raised eyebrow while Connor disappeared out of sight.

Nova coughed, making her way to the blanket covered floor surround her parents and the couch “Well, I mean you already have the movie in the player right?”

“Riiiight.”

“So there's no need for me to do it. I wouldn't want to ruin your hard work.”

“You know” Marco muttered to himself, his eyes glancing upward thoughtfully “I'm thinking we should watch a different movie....”

“no!” Nova cried out “I mean you love this movie so why change it?”

“I don't know” Star added in helpfully “I'm kinda changed my mind.....you know, maybe it is a good idea if we watch something else.”

“Guys!” Nova couldn't keep the helpless whine out of her voice.

Marco and Star burst into laughter “haha we're kidding, we're kidding.”

“yeah Novy, they always joke like that” Sol's cute voice called from upstairs, his tiny pitter pattering echoing softly throughout the home.

“Mijo” Rafael scolded as he and Angie came out of the kitchen “don't tease Nova like that.”

Nova beamed in appreciation “Thank you grandpa!”

“You make fun of her when her novio is here.”

Nova paled at her grandpa's words “Grandpa, Connor no es mi novio.”

“I say, are we talking about Nova's boyfriend again?” River called out as he and Moon strolled out of the mystical portal that appeared in the middle of the household.

Nova's only response was a groan of irritation and defeat.

“Don't worry sweetie” Moon offered gently, holding onto her granddaughter's shoulder reassuringly “I'm sure they're just getting it out of their system.”

Nova's response was a deadpanned stare.

“Besides” Angie added in helpfully “we're not trying to rush you, we're in no hurry to be great grandparents.”

Nova eyerolled as Moon and Angie shared a high five with Star, the trio of women smiling bright at the expense of the youngest female Butterfly.

Connor came out of the bathroom, freshly changed and facing the entire Diaz-Butterfly clan though he had expected that.

“hi everyone” Connor greeted

Various types of greetings were returned as Connor made his way to his seat.

“I say Connor” River called out to the approaching inventor “Why haven't you found a girlfriend?”

Nova facepalmed herself, hand completely covering her eyes in embarrassment.

“Well....” Connor shifted awkwardly under the family's gaze “I'm pretty busy right now. Between inventing, school and keeping your granddaughter out of trouble, I don't know if I have time for the girlfriend. Plus I always smell like sweat and oil...”

“No you don't” Nova muttered lightly under her breath

“I don't think any girl wants to deal with that....”

River narrowed his eyes “You'd be surprised my dear boy.”

Connor chuckled anxiously, sitting next to Nova with a questioning stare.

Nova shrugged as the living room lights dimmed, Star twirling her wand with reckless abandon.

“WAAAAIT!” Sol cried out, lunging into Connor and Nova's lap.

“SOL!” Nova snarled but Sol was already curling in between the best friends, sending his older sister a playful smirk.

Nova sighed in content as the title sequence played, leaning against Connor's shoulder in the near darkness of the room

Everyone noticed.

[wonderfulchaos69-blog]

Title: Distinction of a Name Fandom: Servamp (Age AU) Characters: Mahiru, Kuro, and all the kids. Summary: The five times Mahiru was called mom, and the one time he learned why. Notes: @crazyanime3 - taking a break from the longer project, so I thought I'd write some random age au fic for you =) This idea has been on my mind since Lily called Mahiru “mom” <3

It was cold outside and none of the children had on their scarfs or hats. Mahiru was growing frustrated trying to garner their attention and finally resorted to rolling up a magazine and shouting through it, "Oi, listen up! If you don't put these on now, none of you are getting any ice cream tonight!"

The desired effect was that they were lining up to be handed what they needed to be wearing, though Hyde was struggling to put on his. It didn't help it was the longest one out of all of them and he was getting tangled up in it rather than having any success at bundling up. With an exasperated sigh, Mahiru undid the mess that Hyde had gotten himself into and asked him to stay still as he looped it around the little boys neck, tightening it up so it stayed in placed, and then patted him on top of his spiky head with a smile. "Go have fun," Mahiru encouraged, beginning to turn away.

"Thanks, mom!" called back Hyde as he ran off, only realizing what he said a heartbeat later and pausing mid-stride. From where he was, Mahiru could see the tips of his ears color as the little boy insisted, "I didn't say that, you can't prove it!"

Chuckling, Mahiru shrugged and said, "Heard what?" He didn't bring it up again, but Hyde was noticeably flustered throughout the rest of his time playing outside. He only returned to his usual behavior when Mahiru started quoting Shakespeare at him, asking questions. Hyde could never resist a good debate when it came to interpretation.

--

It was a quiet evening for a change. Most of the children were out of the house, and the few that were around were busy with their own activities. There was one lone child that tugged on Mahiru's shirt, pointing to the kitchen as he asked, "Can we bake a cake for Nii-san?"

That wasn't an bad idea. It would be a nice surprise for the snack-loving Kuro at any rate, but he couldn't resisting poking fun, wondering, "Did you eat your brother's snacks again, Wor-kun?" The screwed up face as World appeared to think of a good excuse as enough of an answer and Mahiru laughed, leading him into the kitchen as he agreed, "Let's make a cake together, then. That sounds fun."

Lighting up, World went about the place with the ease of someone who was well acquainted with where everything was, being the good assistant that Mahiru had come to expect. When it came to food. The mixing bowls were placed on the counter alongside the spoons and other things they would need. Next came the ingredients as Mahiru listed them off for World to procure for them.

Once everything was ready to go, Mahiru added the flour, salt and baking powder into one bowl, instructing World to crack the eggs into the other bowl while he watched. His assistant had certainly gotten the hang of cracking them by now and needed little to no aid. Though those first few attempts, back when they had first started cooking together, had been a test of patience.

When it came time to mix everything together and the batter became to stiffen, World began to have a harder time turning the spoon, so Mahiru walked up behind him and added his hands into the fray to better help with the stirring. One on the bowl, and one alongside World's, pressing down on the spoon to ensure the batter didn't fly out.

Happily, World told him, "You're really good at this, mom!" And that was when some of the batter did go flying out, because Mahiru had forgotten to momentarily hold down on the spoon and World's enthusiastic mixing had renewed.

They did manage to make a single-layered cake out of what was left of the batter, but it was a close thing. Mahiru didn't point out the incident that led to it, and World didn't seem to realize what he had said. It wa probably for the best.

--

The dining table was a mess of books, and among them was a shock of purple hair. A young woman slowly beginning to raise her head and level Mahiru with a squint-eyed stare as she asked, "Hey, you're almost an adult. Do we really need this much math to graduate?" She gestured to the oodles of scrap paper that had scratched out answers and formulas on them. Mahiru shifted his weight forward to take a look at what was troubling Okami and what she had accomplished thus far, hands on his hips as he let at a faint, "Hmm."

It didn't seem that difficult, what she was working on, but he had to admit, "This really is a lot of homework." Also adding in, "Are you sure this is all due tomorrow?" She gave him a blank look in response, so he elaborated, "This looks more like assigned work for the week. Did you double-check the due dates you wrote down?"

In disbelief, she dug through the mess until she reached the notebook she had written the dates down in and leafed through them to the correct page. She glanced back, mouth slightly parted in shock. "You're right, mom."

Mahiru decided not to comment; she was already searching through the assignments until she found the correct one due tomorrow and beginning to puzzle it out. He didn't want to interrupt her for something that wasn't that big of a deal.

Still, he was starting to wonder.

--

Hugh was getting ready for his part-time job, adjusting his uniform just so. Mahiru snapped a picture for memento's sake and showed it to him. "You look great," complimented Mahiru, "stop fussing over the necktie."

"It's despicable," argued Hugh, frustrated and half-tempted to throw it aside from the way he was clutching it in his hand. "Who on Earth wears bow ties in this day in age?"

Mahiru set his phone on the nearest surface and took the necktie from him, stepping closer to redo the bow that should have been there. "You never know," Mahiru said, "you might have liked them if you grew up in the Victorian Era. You strike me as the type."

Offended, Hugh straightened his new bow and insisted, "I could never. These things are a dreadful abomination. What sort of person do you take me for?"

Considering that for a moment, Mahiru tapped his chin and then snapped his fingers, grinning as he said, "I think you look posh. That's the word, right?"

With reddened cheeks, Hugh dropped his gaze to the floor and scoffed. "Yes, it is, but ... what needless flattery. Well, I should be going, mother. I'm going to be late if I don't hurry."

Hugh was already out the door before Mahiru could correct him.

--

Cleaning the house was a relaxing way to pass the time while the kids were preoccupied with their own things. It was a nice, measured duty that required little thought, ingrained in him from years of maintaining his own living space for fear it would never get done otherwise. He could break in the new headphones that Sakuya had gifted him with as well, turning up his music while he hummed under his breath for the rest of the household's entertainment.

He had gotten lost in his own mind when he felt a tap to his shoulder, which caused him to let out a shriek and jump a food in the air at the unexpectedness. Clutching at his heart, he took his headphones off and turned to give the person in question his full attention. Mahiru nearly gave another shriek at coming face to face with a smiley-faced paper bag, Jeje leaning down to whisper, "Mom, I lost something."

Instead of fixing what was wrong in that sentence, Mahiru simply asked, "What did you lose?"

Jeje made an aborted motion to his chest, where a wind-up toy's key was usually hanging, and then mumbled, "Forget it."

"No, no, stop right there." Mahiru reached out and patted his arm in reassurance. "If it's important to you, it's important to me, too. Let's look for it together."

They did eventually find the missing key, hidden behind the couch, but Mahiru never did discover why everyone was calling mom lately.

--

Rocking Tsubaki to sleep in his arms, Mahiru was glad there was at least one sane child in the house that didn't take him for a mom of any sort. He was supposed to be their babysitter, not their mother, and he would have to ask Kuro what he thought about it. Not that he didn't like the idea of being a part of the family, but it would probably make it awkward for the younger kids if he let the charade continue. It was bad enough that Lily called him that all the time now, when he could get away with it at least, and his best friend just thought it was funny until Kuro was brought up.

With a bubbly laugh, Tsubaki clutched at the sleeve of Mahiru's shirt, swinging it back and forth and making sounds that gave of the impression of, "Ma, ma." That could have Mahiru hearing things, he was determined to believe, and he concentrated on the front door as he waited for Kuro to come home. His steadfast determination paid off as the door creaked open and Kuro came in loaded down with grocery bags, an enthused Hyde commenting on how great it was that he beat a certain angel to the last box of cereal. From the bruise on his cheek, it looked like he hadn't escaped unscathed and Kuro was scolding him before shooing him off to the kitchen with the grocery bags.

"How was everything?" Kuro asked, already holding out his arms to take Tsubaki. The child didn't seem willing, pouting and burying his face into Mahiru's shirt as he stopped laughing. "Huh, that's new."

"It was fine, but Kuro ... there's something I've been meaning to ask."

Worried, Kuro asked, "Are you sure everything was fine then?"

After shifting Tsubaki to a more comfortable position, using his hip to keep the child supported, he flat-out questioned, "Where is all this mother stuff coming from?"

Kuro gave an intelligent, "Huh?" His head tilted to the side, baffled. "What?"

"All of the kids!" Mahiru began. "They've all been calling me mom! Every single one of them."

"Er ..." For some strange reason, Kuro was beginning to guilty, as if caught red-handed with his hand in the cookie jar. "That ... could be my fault."

Gaping, Mahiru asked, "How?!"

"Do you want a list?" Sheepishly, Kuro rubbed at the back of his neck. "It just ... slips out sometimes. As a joke."

"A joke," deadpanned Mahiru. "You joke about me ... being a mom?" He had mixed feelings about that, but more importantly: "You're confusing the kids! Stop that!"

Placing his hands over his ears, Kuro whined, "Can't deal," and started to follow after Hyde into the kitchen.

"Not so fast, mister, we're going to have a talk," corrected Mahiru, Tsubaki delightedly clapping his hands with the return of the, "Ma, ma," sounds.

[doctorwhonews]

Torchwood: Aliens Among Us - Part 2

Latest Review: Written By: Christopher Cooper, Mac Rogers, Janine H Jones, Tim Foley Directed By: Scott Handcock Cast: John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Alexandria Riley (Ng), Paul Clayton (Mr Colchester), Sam Béart (Orr), Jonny Green (Tyler Steele), Kai Owen (Rhys Williams), Tom Price (Sgt. Andy Davidson), Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), Murray Melvin (Bilis Manger), Rachel Atkins (Ro-Jedda), Ramon Tikaram (Colin Colchester-Price), Ewan Bailey (Duncan), Kerry Joy Stewart (Maddy), Diveen Henry (Sandra), Ellie Heydon (Andrea), Marilyn Le Conte (Patricia), Luke Rhodri (Rowan), Charlotte O'Leary (Poppy), Sacha Dhawan (Hasan), Sarah Annis (P.C. Nicki Owen), Rick Yale (Lorry Driver), Laura Dalgleish (Newsreader), Kristy Phillips (Stacey), Aly Cruickshank (Student), Richard Elfyn (Takeaway Man), Sanee Raval (Xander) ​Released by Big Finish Productions - October 2017 After an eclectic opening boxset pitting its titular team of ‘secret’ agents up against sentient hotels, vengeful brides, increasingly destructive terrorist cells and an extraterrestrial gangster newly appointed as Cardiff’s mayor, what could Big Finish possibly have up its sleeve next for their self-proclaimed fifth season of Torchwood? That’s a fair question, and with Aliens Among Us – Part 2 comes the adrenaline-fuelled, alien STD-carrying answer. “Love Rat”: If James Goss’ brilliantly-named sophomore instalment of Season Five, “Aliens & Sex & Chips & Gravy”, didn’t seem enough like a quintessential Torchwood outing, then “Love Rat” more than fits the bill. From its unashamedly risqué opening moments, involving Captain Jack’s not-so-romantic run-in with an unknown courter, to its hilariously absurd consequences witnessed throughout the hour, “Love Rat” is about as adult, gag-ridden and downright ridiculous as the show’s ever been under Big Finish’s stewardship. As one would expect at this point, though, the play’s ever-delightfully energetic cast take the increasingly bonkers events depicted here in their stride, with John Barrowman naturally relishing the opportunity to transform Jack into the ultimate sexual provocateur for one hour only, while Eve Myles’ bemused Gwen and Jonny Green’s stern yet susceptible PR agent Tyler both suffer the consequences with gut-wrenchingly comedic results. Those hoping for scribe Chris Cooper to push on with Season Five’s underlying secret invasion plot arc might need to take a chill pill here, since barring a cameo or two from Rachel Atkins’ still gloriously malevolent arch-foe Ro-Jedda, there’s little in the way of narrative substance or deep thematic exploration to be found amidst all the coital antics. But even so, complaining seems churlish when, by letting its hair down for once, one of Doctor Who’s darkest offshoots to date offers up such a constantly entertaining hour as this. “A Kill to a View”: That said, anyone concerned that Torchwood’s latest run might follow the traditional US TV model – and indeed arguably Miracle Day’s approach – of marginalising any major plot arcs until its final instalment, especially as we reach its halfway point, can breathe easy as they stick on Aliens Among Us’ sixth chapter. As teased by his familiar silhouette gracing Part 2’s cover, Season One antagonist Bilis Manger has returned to wreak havoc upon the lives of the Torchwood team, his intentions no less sinister than before. Murray Melvin, true to form, once again injects this mysterious adversary with all the understated menace and enigmatic omniscience for which fans knew and loved him back in 2007. It’s thanks to his accomplished performance that as Bilis adopts the role of a kindly Caretaker at the tower block where Mr. Colchester and his partner have coincidentally moved in of late, listeners can’t help but perch themselves at the edge of their seat in nervous anticipation of the turbulent conflict and inevitable tragedies to come. Placing Colchester centre-stage doesn’t do “Kill” any harm either, affording Paul Clayton’s constantly courageous yet endearingly vulnerable – and, thanks to his rather unique work-life balance, multi-faceted – civil servant with some much-needed development, as he realises to a harrowing extent the devastating personal consequences which come with taking the deadliest career path available to Welsh job-seekers. How this compelling character arc will resolve itself by season’s end remains to be seen, but we’re just as curious to see this develop as we are to discover what ominous teases of another old foe’s arrival portend for the second half of Season Five. “Zero Hour”: And what of Ro-Jedda’s doubtless sinister machinations behind-the-scenes? Evidently unwilling to allow Aliens Among Us to lose the gratifying plot momentum gained by Episode 6, Janine H. Jones dives headfirst into this mystery via a topical tale of exploitable employees forced to work inhumane hours just to earn a living. Enter Tyler Steele, whose work at the mayor’s office – and intrigue at noticing the peculiar habits of a delivery worker – sets him on a collision course with the unsettling truths behind Cardiff’s otherwise welcome upsurge in employment rates. Just as Green’s undeniably flawed wannabe journalist served as our entryway back into the covert, casualty-laden world of Torchwood in the season premiere, “Changes Everything”, so too does “Zero Hour” offer listeners the opportunity to experience the latest weekly threat to the Welsh capital’s fragile sanctity from the perspective of a relative outsider, as Tyler soon finds himself in treacherous waters with little-to-no help available from Gwen while she tackles toddler troubles or Jack while he investigates matters further afield. Thus we’re afforded a far deeper insight into a morally complex rogue who’ll cross almost any line to survive, yet shows visible dismay at witnessing his city on the brink of societal collapse. Meanwhile Gwen’s familial woes at home highlight another ongoing character arc which could so easily get forgotten amidst all of Part 2’s other hi-jinks – namely her possession by a still ambiguous alien entity driving Mrs. and Mr. Cooper further apart by the day. No doubt tensions will come to a head in the final four episodes of Season Five due for release next February, but it’s rather frustrating how frequently such a pivotal journey for one of the show’s longest standing protagonists ends up side-lined so as to allow other plot threads to breathe. At this rate, the true feisty heroine whom Myles usually portrays to great effect might not re-surface for most of the run, a crying shame given how Aliens Among Us supposedly marks Torchwood’s triumphant full-scale comeback. “The Empty Hand”: Last but by no means least, Aliens’ second mid-season finale takes the underlying political messages seeded within the previous seven episodes and amplifies them tenfold, namely by bringing ideas such as #BlackLivesMatter and hate crime to the fore as Sergeant Andy Davidson appears to gun down an innocuous immigrant worker in cold blood. As ever in a series whose mother show straddles the line between sci-fi and fantasy, there’s far more than meets the eye in this instance, but the increasingly relevant issues at hand lend “The Empty Hand” a greater sense of moral gravitas than most Torchwood romps can muster. Writer Tim Foley admirably never trivialises his weighty subject matter, allowing his characters to discuss the implications of Andy’s actions at length and affording Tom Price’s oft-befuddled police officer a long overdue extra layer of moral nuance in the process. Thankfully, though, he’s similarly aware that such intricate discussion points can scarcely receive closure over the course of a single one-hour drama, his focus primarily on how the Torchwood team’s struggle to resolve what soon becomes a citywide crisis feeds into Ro-Jedda’s long-term game-plan, and – after a belated intervention from the eternal Time Agent – the lengths to which Jack will go to protect humanity at all costs. Any fan will attest that the latter thematic strand has often proved a narrative goldmine for the series, particularly as Children of Earth drove the man who’d bested gas-mask zombies, Daleks and the son of Satan himself to take the life of his own grandson in the process. Similar to how that fateful decision carried major ramifications for Jack’s role in Miracle Day, so too do the actions taken here by the once and future Face of Boe indicate that life at the Hub might never truly be the same again. Of course, anyone who’s finished the boxset will know a further crucial reason why Part 3 promises to potentially uproot our understanding of Torchwood’s past, presence and future, and anyone who hasn’t will need to pick Part 2 up to discover as much for themselves. Speaking of which, in case it’s not already glaringly obvious by now, Aliens Among Us is fast shaping up as one of Torchwood’s finest hours to date, making the series a must-listen for any devotees who’ve longed for the show’s return to TV. It’s safe to say that Season Five has a hell of a lot of dangling plot threads to tie up in Part 3, from Gwen and Rhys’ fractured relationship to Ro-Jedda’s endgame to that plot twist awaiting listeners at the end of “Empty Hand”, but based on the opening two-thirds of Season Five, finding out how events reach their climax will doubtless prove one of the biggest early highlights of next year. February 2018 is apparently where everything changes, and we’re certainly ready. http://reviews.doctorwhonews.net/2017/10/torchwood_aliens_among_us_part_2.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[col22promo]

Issoria Feinberg | Twenty Four;  Survivor

House: Brink Security Class: Three Status: Infected - Telepathy Name Pronunciation: Ish-OH-ree-ah (or Ee-Sha) Alignment: New World Radicals

[*TW: violence, muder, sexual abuse*]

History

"You look older than your age.” 

She heard it a lot. Since she was a little girl, she’d heard it, time and time again. That, or she was ‘mature’ for her age. ‘Wise’, ‘worldly’, ‘astute’. She’d heard it all, whether it be from next-door-mothers, both awed and envious that their daughters were not the same, or single-minded next-door-sons, hitting on her even though their girlfriend (namely her older sister) was no more than a room and a corridor away. 

She’d heard it, and said nothing. Docile, sweet and polite, people thought her to be. Only her silence, which many interpreted as manners, was gravely misunderstood. No one knew she was storing away every comment, assumption, or self-serving look. No one knew she collected every misogynistic glance like snapshots in a photo album. Or mugshots on the wall. 

Little Isha, so sophisticated for her age, and then when she was older,  so tempered and humble for someone as beautiful as she. She glowed with a natural grace, all creamy skin and light, striking eyes. People were awed that her ethereal looks never got to her head. That the fervency with which she was desired by so many, never influenced her to be anything less than grounded, modest and uninterested in their praise. 

But It wasn’t that Isha didn’t want to be noticed or looked at it. It was that she wanted to be noticed for her mind. Looked at and admired for her values or beliefs. She wanted never to be complimented on the same things her brother had so often whispered about. In dark rooms, behind locked doors—on the breath, sticky and unpleasant on her shoulder. The breath of a monster who had taken away her innocence, her pride. 

Until she killed him. Because one thing he would never take from her was her independence. Her freedom. Her strength. 

Bashing his head in had been easy. She hadn’t even formulated much of a plan. Her hands didn’t shake when she’d swung the hammer right into his temple and crushed his skull with both ends. She cleaned up the blood like it was spilled milk. Sprayed stain remover on her cream coloured blouse and then put it in the wash. 

And she supposes, if you ask her, that that fateful day when she was seventeen, could be considered her first day as a feminist freedom fighter of sorts. 

Because there were certain people in the world who deserved to die. Especially if it ever had any hope of becoming a better place. Even mother earth needed a cleanse from time to time. And these men were toxins, poisoning the universe. Like bacteria, they couldn’t be allowed to spread.

She would have been tried as a minor, had authorities obtained her after finding her brother’s body, bled out and staining the carpet of her bedroom floor. But she’d taken her mother’s mattress money—the collection she’d been hiding in the spare bedroom in hopes of one day affording enough to leave her alcoholic husband, until she was hit by a car one night walking home from her third job as a cocktail waitress in a bad part of town—and fled. Leaving a note that simply said “I love you” for her sister, she took to the road in a beat up used car, heading South for the border into Germany. Leaving Denmark wasn’t so hard. There’d never been anything but sick memories and hate tying her there anyway. 

Eventually settling in Belgium, she managed to remain in hiding for over a year, taking on fake names and working in hole-in-the-wall bookshops and coffee houses. She led a simple life. Mostly quiet, even. 

Except of course, for when she was dumping the bodies of the predators and rapists into the North Sea.

She didn’t go looking for victims. They always found her. Walks home through the park often made her witness to women being harassed or followed by drunk creeps. A few sweeps in chat rooms had men casting their nets meant for underage girls in her direction. Only Issoria was not the kind of catch you wanted to pull onto your deck.

She’d done away with eight other men, of varying ages, before the police caught up with her. 

Isha Today

Through sexual abuse, murder and 10 months in prison, Isha stayed remarkably the same—at least on the surface. Don’t misunderstand, she was strong-willed and sturdy, unmoored despite the locks and keys that had her surrounded, but she was also prudent and unassuming. When she’d been working in the bookstore in a small town on the coast of Belgium, no one would have taken her for anything more than an even-tempered feminist with a patient heart and a bold mind. And she was all of those things—she was simply also more than them. 

It’d also proved impossible to pass her as insane in her trials. She was too well spoken, too clear-headed and confident of what she’d done having been the right thing—a service to humanity—and that she would do it all over again were she given the opportunity to go back. 

She kept mostly to herself while behind bars, often found with a book in the courtyards, minding her own business. Serving her time. If that was what the law had deemed necessary, she’d let them have it. She couldn’t feel anything but relief knowing that some of these men were off the street, and that her brother would never hurt her again. 

When D-Day hit, she was among several survivors of the all women’s penitentiary. Its structure so sturdily built into rock and burrowed part way under the earth, they were somewhat save in the lower two floors. And this is where they stayed for several months, until Crusaders came off the merchant ships and took her and the fellow survivors that remained with her, over to Colony 22, where they were also housing a handful of Belvedere convicts. The isolation of the old stone, boarding school community was apparently the most secure place for them. 

Isha went without a fuss, content to go where the wind blew her. They were running out of provisions in their area, anyway, and she was growing tired of the mould-ridden hell that was the place they’d locked her up. Some of her inmates, however, weren’t quite as agreeable to the notion of being escorted to some island in the middle of nowhere, and they fought back, a small handful of them fleeing, a few others taking shots to the head.

In the end, Isha and one of the only people she’d come to like in the prison, Ada Woollacott, were among the few women taken to Colony 22. Having spent a few years here, she was more or less content until the rising of the New Wave Reformists. This movement awakened an old, simmering anger in her, drawing her thirst for justice and liberty to the surface. During the takeover, she immediately aligned herself as a Radical with Ada, and they were part of a small riot that broke out when the Reformist Reps moved in. Injuring several people in their plight, Ada and Isha were confined to the correctional wing for several weeks, but both of them telepathic, they kept each other sane telling jokes about the security men through the stone walls of the cells and the only ones laughing in the silence. 

Now, Issoria uses her level-headed demeanor as a Red Herring for any future revolts against the NWRF. She is patient. She will wait until the time has come and the window of opportunity is open, and then she will fight back. She always has, and it is a skill she has never forgotten. 

HOME | PLOT | SURVIVORS | INFECTIONS | 2157 was the end of the world.