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spencers-renaissance · 3 years ago

Text

you know that a boy who likes boys is a dead boy

Summary: Spencer's gay. He joins the BAU and befriends the team, but it is 2003. It's a secret he has to keep. He just didn't expect it to be this hard.

Tags: gay!spencer, coming out, hurt/comfort, insecure!spencer, misunderstandings, angst with a happy ending, dad hotch, protective!hotch, protective!derek, childhood trauma TW: one instance of explicit homophobia, but it is referenced a lot, as is Spencer's internalised homophobia at the start of this fic. A shit ton of heteronormativity but tbh that's just canon lol

Pairing: Spencer Reid/OMC, Spencer Reid & Derek Morgan, Spencer Reid & Aaron Hotchner, The BAU Team & Spencer Reid

Word Count: 6k

Masterlist // Read on AO3

Consider this my contribution to pride month 😌 I've waited so long to post it and I'm so glad I'm finally doing it because it's definitely one of my all time favourites <3 Gideon is here somewhere but just like with all my early season fics he's not really part of the plot I combined my moreid and gen taglists bc it was hard to know the audience for this, but just ignore it if you're not interested!

you know that a boy who likes boys is a dead boy, unless he keeps his mouth shut, which is what you didn’t do, because you are weak and hollow and it doesn’t matter anymore. — richard siken, a primer for the small weird loves

Spencer has only told one person in his whole life.

His mother guessed. For as long as he can remember, she’s used gender neutral pronouns when talking about his future partner, read him all the gay literature she could find, promised him that he’s perfect just the way he is.

The trouble is that Spencer only believes her until the first grade, when Ryan Sampson shoves him over in the playground and calls him gay. His mom had only ever used that term in a sweet, loving way, taking care to associate such words with positivity, as long as his dad wasn’t around to hear. When that word comes out of Ryan Sampson’s mouth, it is not said with sweetness and love; it is said with venom, and Spencer learns quickly that his mom is wrong. He is not perfect just the way he is.

And so, he keeps it a secret. When his mom notices him getting uncomfortable at the mention of future partners, she stops bringing it up, though she refuses to give up the diverse education she provides for him outside of school. His dad tells him that one day he’ll be a strapping young man and marry a nice girl in a church, and Spencer nods along. He ignores the way his stomach turns with anxiety at the thought. Ignores the screaming match his parents have that night. Ignores the fact that it started because Diana chipped in with ‘or boy’.

He’s in high school by the time he’s twelve, and the only part he’s grateful for is the absence of pressure to get a girlfriend. His dad’s out of the picture now, and Spencer tries not to let himself think that maybe if he wasn’t like this he might have stayed. Diana’s so out of it most days that she doesn’t remember what she noticed about him when he was a child, only recalling the last few years of shoving himself so far back in the closet he can hardly see the door anymore.

It feels like he’s lost his last ally.

(He hates that a small part of him feels relieved she doesn’t remember; that he almost feels assured by the fact that the last person to know who he really is has forgotten. There is only this version of Spencer Reid now. No other exists.)

He makes the mistake during his second undergraduate degree. He’s just turned eighteen but he is already a doctor and, fortunately, this alienates him from most of his peers, but someone manages to slide past his defences. Ethan Miller is twenty, in the second year of his (first) undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering, and he’s nice. Spencer doesn’t have a lot of experience with friendship, but they get on well and Ethan makes him laugh. For the first time, he feels comfortable in the presence of anyone other than his mother.

They slip into an easy friendship: waiting for each other after class — Spencer back in the undergraduate buildings now he has his first PhD under his belt — and going out for ice cream and pizza and Thai food. Ethan goes to parties while Spencer studies, and then they reconvene to watch Doctor Who and play cards.

For almost a year, Spencer keeps his secret carefully locked up, hidden behind the mask he’s perfected after so many years. Even though he’s eighteen, nearly nineteen now, he doesn’t try and explore that side of himself. No, that’s far too risky. He doesn’t try and pretend any other way either, he just stays silent and lets people’s assumptions lie for him, but he can’t help the longing that claws up his throat when he locks eyes with a passing guy on campus. One time, he’d seen two men kiss on a bench in the city, and he’d run back to his dorm and had a panic attack. Why couldn’t he have that?

The feelings don’t stop, and he doesn’t know how to make them. He hates that he isn’t normal, but still longs for the touch of a man, the feeling of being wrapped up in strong arms, of being kissed by dry, chapped lips, and falling asleep to a heartbeat approximately 11% slower than that of a woman’s.

It’s a constant battle inside him, emotions raging, and he struggles to control it, suppress it, tame it.

He pays a sorry price.

Ethan makes him feel comfortable, and that turns out to be a detriment. He relaxes around the other boy: he tells him about growing up as a pre-teen in a high school, about how a child feels living 260 miles away from home, even about his mother’s illness.

And one day, it slips out. They’re on the beach, lying on towels as they look up at the blue sky, talking about what their futures will look like: Ethan will be a successful chemical engineer in Berlin, and Spencer will work for the FBI, profiling serial killers.

“You’ll have to marry a German girl,” he tells Ethan. “It’ll be tough to convince an American girl to move all the way to Germany as soon as you graduate.”

“Yeah, and what about you? You’ll be off fighting crime around the country, not much of a life for a family.”

“Oh, I imagine my husband will be the type to—”

“Husband?”

Spencer freezes. It shocks him as much as it shocks Ethan. He doesn’t even pay much attention to Ethan’s disgusted face and his outraged tirade. He hears slurs and insults, hears him say that he can’t believe Spencer tricked him like this, that he was probably waiting to make a move on him, that he was never to look in Ethan’s direction again, but Spencer is frozen in time.

He’s never allowed him to think much about what his personal life might look like in the future, but he’d said ‘husband’ on instinct, without thinking, and it’s clearly something he actually wants. Ethan’s words sting, but the moment brings about a realisation Spencer is thankful for; it instigates a journey of self-discovery and self-expression, of the joy of living as your true self.

He loses his first and only friend, but he gains something much more valuable. He visits gay bars — nervously sipping a non-alcoholic drink in the corner at first, before soon becoming confident enough to respond to the men who sidle up to him and ask for his name. He lets go and dances the night away, sometimes going home with one of the many dance partners he acquires during the night, sometimes heading back to his own dorm happily alone.

Makeup and dresses and skirts and heels make their way into his wardrobe, and he befriends girls and drag queens and other gay men who encourage him to be exactly the way he is. And the best part is, he never has to come out to any of them. All of them know, and that’s good enough for everyone.

The fun comes to a sad sort of slow, however, when he joins the BAU. Everyone knows law enforcement’s relationship with the LGBT community is less than adequate — Spencer’s seen it with his own eyes: butch lesbians and men in dresses getting roughed up by angry police officers for ‘lewd behaviour’ or ‘drunkenness’ when they’re just being themselves. It’s not safe for him to tell anyone, so he doesn’t.

He still goes out with his friends when he’s in town and wears makeup and dresses and crop tops when he’s at home, but presents as rigidly straight Dr Spencer Reid to his team at the BAU.

The hardest part about it is that he loves his team. He’s known Gideon for years — and he wouldn’t be surprised if he suspects something after coming over to his house unannounced one night, only to have a man other than Spencer open the door — but he settles into a comforting dynamic with Hotch. He can’t help but see him as something of a father figure, and he knows Hotch has a soft spot for him, always looking out for him and taking him under his wing without a moment’s hesitation.

Elle, JJ, and Penelope all take a shine to him, too, teasing him without a hint of malice in their tones, only the kind of playful kindness that reminds him of his mother. He forms a special bond with Penelope and they spend hours watching Doctor Who together and geeking out on all the areas their interests overlap, and the comfort he feels with her matches the comfort he’s found with his new group of queer friends.

(She doesn’t hold a candle to Ethan, he decides one night, after he’d cried at a movie she’d made him watch and she felt so bad she made him hot chocolate and jam toast and cuddled him until he felt better.)

Derek becomes a brother to him. He puts him in a headlock at least once a day — which Spencer has been reliably informed by multiple sources is a very brotherly thing to do — and teases him relentlessly, while simultaneously being fiercely protective of him. Enough so, that Spencer sometimes wonders if he even has Hotch beat in that department.

He loves his team and his team loves him. It should be simple. It is still 2003.

He comes in one morning late for a briefing, his shirt buttoned wrong and his hair is a mess, and he’s fairly sure that his attempt to cover the hickey at the base of his neck with concealer has been ultimately unsuccessful. It’s obvious why he’s late. Gideon is too engrossed in the case file to notice, but Hotch raises an eyebrow, an amused look on his face as everyone else immediately takes to teasing him.

“Who’s the lucky lady, pretty boy?”

Elle raises an eyebrow to match Derek’s shit-eating grin, “Someone definitely got some strange last night.”

“When do we get to meet her, Spence?” JJ asks, smirking as he takes a seat.

He’s bright red — as if he needed to look any more debauched — and Spencer tries to ignore the hurt that seizes his chest at the reminder of his need to stay quiet. This team respects him, and he can’t throw that away just because Spencer gets too comfortable.

God, he wishes Penelope was here.

“None of your business,” he mutters, trying to keep his tone light. He fails.

Naturally, Hotch notices and swiftly moves the briefing on, and Spencer keeps his gaze locked on the case file, not missing the absence of a reprimand from his superior. He’s constantly thankful for the older man, but in this moment, he wishes he could hug him.

(A voice that sounds dangerously close to Ethan’s rises up and taunts him in his ear: he wouldn’t want a dirty homo like you anywhere near him—)

Derek doesn’t let up on the case, continuing to bug him about the special lady in his life. He does concede that it could’ve been a one night stand, which is one front he’s right on, but a couple more concessions are necessary before Derek comes close to the truth of last night.

Eventually, Derek stops, and Spencer notes that the cessation of comments comes suspiciously close to the last time Derek and Hotch were alone together. He doesn’t have it in him to feel angry at Hotch for stepping in when he had it handled; doesn’t have the energy to act as though his pride is wounded, because really, neither of those things are true, and he doesn’t need to add another item to ‘Spencer Reid’s List of Things He Pretends to Be.’

The situation is forgotten, and time moves on.

Things change when he finds his first proper boyfriend. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t the giddying rush of emotions it turns out to be, and Spencer spends his days smiling as he daydreams his time away.

His name is Oscar Wilkins, a History professor at Georgetown University, and Spencer falls quickly in love with him. Ever since their mutual friend had introduced them at a gay bar one evening, they’d spent all their free time together. He’s kind and gentle and understanding of Spencer’s hectic and unpredictable job, and he finally has the chance to experience everything he quietly and shamefully longed for as a teenager.

The only downside is the silent breaking of Spencer’s heart that the most important people in his life can’t meet his boyfriend. He longs to show Oscar off, to hold hands in front of his team, lean up to press a tender kiss to Oscar’s lips. He wants to put a framed picture of the two of them at the Washington Monument on his desk to remind him of why he needs to get through the hard days; he doesn’t want to have to sneak out of the hotel room he shares with Derek to whisper hushed, loving goodnights over the phone.

But he’s too scared. Too cowardly.

It’s different being who he is with his gay group of friends littered with wlws and drag queens and other gay and bisexual guys. They understand.

But Derek and Hotch are two extremely masculine, alpha men: Derek’s a ladies’ man and Hotch is married to a woman he met in college with a baby on the way and both have a strong and dominant energy that still sometimes manages to intimidate Spencer even after all these years. And Elle and JJ are lovely — some of his closest friends, really — but sometimes they remind him a little too much of the mean girls he went to high school with.

The hardest person to keep his secret from, though, is Penelope. She’s his best friend and he desperately wants to give her all of him, but he’s so scared. He’s lost a best friend to this secret before, and even though he’s certain she’d be fine with it, what if she accidentally let it slip to Derek? What if Hotch found out and didn’t see him in the same light anymore? What if the girls started teasing him? What if Gideon didn’t want to mentor him anymore?

The fear paralyses him. And it’s a cycle he doesn’t know how to break.

Fear, though, doesn't stop everyone from noticing his daydreaming, his dopey smile when he checks his messages, his urgency to get home where he would’ve stayed until the small hours of the morning before. As excellent as he is at hiding his sexuality, he’s fucking terrible at hiding the fact that he’s in love: it was easy enough to pretend he was straight, but hiding something this all-consuming is an impossible ask.

Derek comes over to perch on the edge of his desk one afternoon, sighing as he sits down. “Pretty boy, this is getting ridiculous,” he says, snatching Spencer’s attention away from his phone. “You’ve been grinning like an idiot for the last twenty minutes as you’ve texted Future Mrs Reid. When are we going to meet her?”

(He hates the new nickname the team has given his mystery significant other, although Oscar had found it hilarious. “It’s funny because when we get married, we’ll hardly be able to tell,” he’d argued through his laughter. “Neither of us will change our name because of our academic profiles, and we’ll both still be ‘Dr’. Our wedding rings will be the only indicator.”

Spencer hadn’t argued back, because he’d been too tongue-tied and flushed pink at Oscar’s use of ‘when’ in regards to their hypothetical nuptials. It was only made bearable by Oscar kissing him gently and tucking him under his arm, not embarrassing him any further as Spencer had sort of anticipated, warmth settling over his chest at the thought of their future together.)

“You won’t,” he replies, perhaps a little too curtly.

Derek starts at that, clearly not expecting it. He definitely should’ve tried to play it off as a joke. “What— should I be offended, pretty boy?”

You wouldn’t call me that if you knew who I really am.

“That’s up to you, Derek,” he says calmly, although he still can’t meet his eyes, “but you won’t meet the ‘Future Mrs Reid, so I think it would probably be best if you left it alone.”

“Damn,” Derek mutters under his breath, clearly pissed off and probably more hurt than Spencer ever intended. “Suit yourself.”

And with that, he gets up and leaves his desk. Spencer’s only solace is the text message he sees on his phone when he picks it back up: I love you so much. You know that, right?

The light-hearted ridicule comes to an abrupt halt after the incident with Derek, and it’s clear that he had been the biggest contributor to the teasing. He’s thankful that the jokes have stopped, but he wishes desperately that it didn’t come with the growing distance between him and his team. Loneliness takes the place of his previous irritated anxiety, and he isn’t sure what’s worse.

It all comes to a head at the end of a case in Michigan. They’re stuck in the lounge of the small inn they’d stayed in the last few days, a snowstorm having blocked them in and grounded the jet, although Gideon had long since retreated to his room. The fire’s going and they’re the only guests around, so it’s cosy enough, but Spencer can’t help but feel sick at the idea of another night away from home.

It’s only been two weeks since he’d snapped at Derek, but the chasm between him and the team is only widening with each passing day. He knows it’s not a case of ‘pick a side’, but the team’s morale relies on light-hearted banter and teasing, and him not being a part of that anymore has only brewed awkwardness. Everyone’s trying to give him space when space is the last thing he wants.

Oscar’s keeping him company over the phone at least, but it’s not quite enough to quell the loneliness swimming around his stomach, and the 'discrete' sideways looks he gets from the team only make him feel worse.

“At least it’s nice and toasty in here,” JJ sighs as she takes a sip of the hot chocolate the kindly inn owner had made for them all.

Elle hums in agreement. “There are worse places to be grounded.”

“I dunno, man, I just wanna get home,” Derek says, not taking his eyes off the fire. Spencer can’t help but agree.

“Oh, come on,” Hotch muses, considerably more jovial now the case is over, “we’re here, and that’s not going to change any time soon. We should make the most of it.”

“It’s at least nice to be somewhere sort-of Christmassy now it’s December,” Elle points out. “We could be stuck in a dingy police station like we probably will be next week.”

“Ooh, I noticed that Jemimah and Kiran started planning the Christmas party last week,” JJ says, smiling at them. “I offered my help, but they seem to have it covered.”

Hotch raises an eyebrow“That’s probably a good thing. You don’t need more work on your plate.”

“Not gonna argue with that,” she murmurs, smiling as she brings her mug to her lips again.

Spencer doesn’t miss that Derek is still stewing on the opposite side of the room.

“Are you looking forward to the Christmas party, Spencer? Will you come?” Hotch asks, clearly trying to rope him into the conversation, which he appreciates. He’s been making a lot of effort with him the past few weeks, and it’s just about the only thing that’s getting him through each day.

Before he can reply, though, Derek erupts from the other side of the room; an already pissed-off man being pushed over the edge. “He won’t even let us meet his fucking girlfriend, Hotch, he’s not gonna want to come to the Christmas party!” he yells, throwing his hands in the air as he glares at Spencer with a stormy expression raging across his face.

Suddenly, Spencer can’t stay silent anymore, and his retort shocks himself just as much as it does everyone else. “I don’t have a girlfriend!”

It might be the loudest he’s ever shouted in his whole life. He’s always been quiet and restrained, the type to state his feelings as calmly as possible no matter how he’s feeling on the inside. Even in the biggest fight he’s had with Oscar, his voice was barely loud enough to qualify as a shout.

There’s a brief stunned silence, but Derek quickly slices his way through it, voice raising to meet Spencer’s fiery emotion, fierce and loud. “Oh, don’t even go there, Reid, you’re really gonna try and argue that? You’re gonna lie about her as well as not let us meet her? What a boyfriend you are.”

“I don’t! I don’t have a girlfriend!” he repeats, voice catching this time as tears rise unbidden to the backs of his eyes and all the emotions of the journey he’s taken with his sexuality over the years flood him in a wave of intensity he’s not prepared for.

“You’re fucking lying—!”

“I have a boyfriend!” he yells. “Alright? I have a boyfriend. I’m gay.”

The anger and emotion quickly dissipates, and he’s left standing alone in front of the team he’s put so much effort into hiding this from, watching shock spell out across everyone’s expressions. He’s never felt smaller than he does in that moment, and he quickly grabs his phone before running upstairs to his room, locking the door behind him.

“Oh God, Oscar, I fucked up so bad,” he cries over the phone as soon as his boyfriend picks up.

“Hey, hey, breathe, baby,” Oscar says gently, but Spencer can hear the anxious concern in his voice, “it’s gonna be okay, I promise. I’m here. Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“I just— Oh God, I just told the team.” A new wave of horror rolls over him as he realises what he’s done. Times might be changing, but it’s still only 2006, and he doesn’t know each and every nuance of his team members’ political positions and, fuck, he hates that his existence is a fucking political position.

Oscar’s been so understanding of his reluctance to not tell the team, even though Spencer’s met pretty much everyone in his life. He isn’t sure what he’s done to earn such a gracious and understanding boyfriend, but he’s not about to question it.

“Baby, I know it’s scary, and I know you’re really worked up right now,” he counsels, voice soft and reassuring, using the nickname he knows Spencer loves the most to make him feel as safe as he can from 700 miles away, “but it’s probably not as bad as you think. From what you’ve told me about the team, they love you so much, and even in the case that in the past they've had some issue with gay people, I can't imagine they’d ever actually think of you any differently when it comes down to it, Spencer.”

He’s crying too hard to reply, and Oscar understands immediately, gently transitioning into a story about his day that slowly starts to calm him down, and by the time he’s wrapping it up, his tears are starting to subside.

“Thank you, Ozzy,” he whispers into the phone, lifting himself up off the floor and making his way to sit on the bed instead.

“You know I’d do anything for you, sweetheart,” he murmurs warmly. “Do you want me to stay on the phone for a bit?”

“Yes please,” he whispers again, holding it as close to himself as possible, drawing all the comfort he can from his boyfriend’s voice.

He lies there listening to Oscar’s voice and trying not to think about the disaster downstairs for a good ten minutes before there’s a tap at the door.

“Oz, there’s someone here,” he says, voice panicked.

“I think you should probably speak to them, baby,” he urges. “I’ll stay on the phone with you while you do, if you like?”

“Please.” He gets up from the bed gingerly, keeping his phone tightly gripped in his right hand as he slowly unlocks the door with his left, revealing Hotch on the other side.

“Hey, Spencer. Do you mind if I come in?”

He’s riddled with nerves, but Hotch is smiling warmly, and he’s never said a harsh word to Spencer, so he steps aside and lets him into his room.

Hotch quickly notices the phone in his hand, visibly still on a call. “Is that your boyfriend?”

Spencer nods.

“Do you mind if I talk to him?”

His brows knit in confusion and his lips part slightly in surprise, but it’s all he can do to hand the phone over, watching Hotch carefully.

“Hi, Spencer tells me this is his boyfriend?” Hotch inquires politely into the phone, his tone still warm. “I’m Hotch, Spencer’s boss.”

He can vaguely hear Oscar speaking on the other end of the line, and he worries slightly that Oscar will somehow give away the familial feelings he holds for Hotch, but the conversation doesn’t last long enough for the anxiety to really take over.

“Everything’s fine here, I just want to have a conversation with Spencer, so is it alright if we hang up and I talk to him alone for a minute? He can call you straight back afterwards.” After a brief pause in which Oscar says something, Hotch looks back up at him. “Are you okay with that, Spencer?”

He nods hesitantly, and Hotch says a quick goodbye to Oscar before surging forwards and wrapping Spencer in a hug. It catches him off guard, but he doesn’t waste any time in burying his face into Hotch’s neck and soaking in the comfort and warmth that always radiates from his father figure.

“Come on,” Hotch says softly as they pull away a good minute or so later, “let’s sit down, shall we?”

“You’re not mad?” Spencer can’t help but ask, the question burning his tongue as anxiety — however quietened from Hotch’s hug — still swims around in his stomach.

“There are many things that could make me mad, Spencer,” he says earnestly, “but this is not one of them. I would never be angry at you for being who you are, okay? I might… I might be overstepping here, and if I am, then tell me and I’ll back off, but I’ve always seen you as a mentee, and over the years that’s developed— well, I see you more as a son these days. And part of that is wanting to protect and support you no matter what you do or say or who you are.”

Spencer wastes no time in diving back in for a hug, clinging onto Hotch for dear life as he hugs back, rubbing his back gently.

“I’m so sorry you didn’t feel like you could tell us sooner, Spencer,” he says in a voice soft with affection and regret. “But I’m so glad you’ve told us now.”

He only presses closer at that, tears springing back to his eyes. “I didn’t want to lose you.” He knows what he’s implying, and even in a roundabout way, he’s glad he’s telling Hotch.

“Oh, Spence,” he sighs sadly, “you couldn’t do a single thing to lose me. I’m in it for the long haul.”

“Really?” he asks, hating how insecure he sounds.

“Really,” Hotch promises, pulling away as Spencer does. “Now, you have a whole team of agents downstairs who are feeling very sorry for themselves and really want to see you.”

Nausea rolls in his stomach and panic springs back up as he looks at Hotch, desperate for some sort of grounding. “Are they angry at me? Do they hate me now?”

“No one hates you, Spencer,” he says firmly. “I promise you that. Everyone just wishes that they’d made you feel more welcome and comfortable. We all hate that you felt you had to lock up something so integral to who you are, and we can’t help but feel we played a part in it.”

“No,” he protests — the last thing he wants is family blaming themselves when it has nothing to do with them, “it’s not your fault, it’s just…”

Hotch nods. “I understand, it’s okay. Now, do you want to go down and see them? You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but it might help ease your mind to see that they really don’t hate you.”

Spencer pauses, taking a moment to think. “Can I see Derek first?”

“Of course,” Hotch says understandingly, and the comforting smile that crosses his face makes Spencer feel safe and taken care of. “I’ll send him up?”

Spencer nods and Hotch hugs him once more before leaving the room almost reluctantly. He wastes no time in picking up his phone and sending a text to Oscar. You were right. Hotch is fine. He’s just sending Derek up before I go and see the team but he says that no one’s angry and I think I believe him. Thank you, Oscar. I love you.

Not even half a minute goes past before his phone lights up with a text back. I’m so glad, baby. Call me later, okay? I want to make sure you’re okay before I go to bed. I love you more.

Before Spencer can argue that actually, he is the one more in love with the other, a hesitant knock sounds on his door. Nerves suddenly flip his stomach, and he clenches and unclenches his fists a couple of times before forcing himself to cross the room, revealing a very worried and regretful-looking Derek.

“Oh, pretty boy,” he says sadly, before crushing Spencer in a warm and tender hug. Immediately, he relaxes into the arms of one of his best friends, and relief courses through his blood at Derek’s reaction. “I am so sorry that I ever made you feel like you couldn’t tell me that you were gay or had a boyfriend. That’s completely on me. I don’t care who you love, Spencer, I just want you to be happy, okay? And if this guy makes you happy, then that’s fine by me. But if he ever lays a hand on you or—”

“Derek, Derek,” he laughs, “it’s fine I get it. Thank you, though, I’m… I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier and for snapping at you in the bullpen that time…”

“I understand, Spence,” he promises. “It’s in the past, okay? And I’m sorry for pushing so hard. I mean, I’d love to meet him but if you don’t feel comfortable or you don’t want to, that’s fine, too. It’s your life, man.”

“No, I… I think I want you guys to meet him. It’s been so hard to keep him away from the people I consider my family, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. Maybe after Christmas, we can all have dinner or something.”

Spencer smiles shyly. “Well, Oscar’s a great cook, so I reckon we could work something out.”

Derek grins, throwing an arm around his shoulders as he immediately jumps back into teasing him as they make their way to the door to go downstairs and see the rest of the team. “Ooh, lover boy’s got him a chef, hey? What else does this Oscar have going for him?”

Spencer chatters eagerly about his boyfriend to Derek, barely skipping a beat when he joins everyone downstairs, his friends taking his cues and joining in with the conversation seamlessly. He’s had enough fuss for one night, and the warmth and understanding on everyone’s faces tells him everything he needs to know.

“Do you have any pictures of him?” JJ asks, raising an eyebrow with eager expectancy as they all settle back into their seats by the fire, a warm and unbelievably happy feeling settling in Spencer’s stomach.

He blushes, digging out his phone from his pocket and unlocking it. “More than a few, I think.”

He finds the most recent picture of his boyfriend — a candid shot of him cooking in the kitchen, spatula aloft, and a huge grin on his face — and hands the phone around.

“Oh wow, you like them buff, huh, pretty boy?” Derek teases as soon as he gets his hands on it, and Spencer’s stomach twists in a sudden bout of fear, expecting to see some hesitancy or even disgust on his friend’s face. What if he thinks that Spencer has a crush on him? What if he’s uncomfortable around him now?

But if Derek’s having any of those thoughts, they don’t show on his face. He’s smiling widely and openly, all the pent-up anxiety and frustration borne from hurt gone from his body language, and he looks completely comfortable sat next to Spencer, his arm stretched out behind him on the back of the sofa.

They sit happily around the fire for a couple of hours, settling into a happy, intimate familiarity Spencer hadn’t realised was missing when he was hiding something so integral to his being from his family, and he’s still smiling when they finally part ways to head to bed, the clock ticking closer and closer to 1 am.

He gets ready for bed quickly, brushing his teeth and throwing on the top he’d stolen from Oscar the first time he’d stayed at his place; a welcome change from his worn and wrinkled suit. As soon as his teeth are brushed and the lights are all off except for his bedside lamp, he pulls out his phone, knowing there’s one more thing he has to do before he goes to sleep.

“Spencer?” Penelope’s voice sounds down the line, clearly concerned. “It’s almost 2 am here, are you okay?”

“I’m gay,” he says, getting straight to the point. The main reason he ever kept it from her was because of his fear of it accidentally getting out to the team rather than fear over her reaction. After all, multiple of his drag queen friends are also hers.

“Oh my God,” she says in that small voice she uses when she’s not actually talking to you, before finally actually replying to me. “Spencer, I’m so happy you told me!”

He doesn’t miss her choice of words, or the way she says them and he tilts his head suspiciously. “You already knew, didn’t you?”

She sighs. “Yeah. I’m sorry, a couple of months ago I saw a text from Oscar on your phone when you went to the bathroom during one of our Doctor Who marathons, and it wasn’t hard to figure out the relationship.”

“And… wait, you’re not mad at me for not telling you sooner?”

“Spencer! Of course not. I was waiting for you to be comfortable enough to share it with me. I felt awful that I knew without your consent but I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to catch you off guard or make you feel uncomfortable. It’s fine that you waited, baby genius, I’m just so happy you told me now. What finally gave you the courage?”

“Well, it might have slipped out in front of the team this evening,” he admits sheepishly, “and the only reason I never told you was because I was scared that it would slip out somehow — accidentally, of course, I didn’t think you’d tell anyone on purpose — and now everyone knows. It’s been killing me not to tell you, Penelope, it really has because I love you so much and you’re my best friend and I trust you with my life, it’s just…”

“Whoa, slow down, Spence,” she laughs fondly, “you don’t have to explain yourself to me, I understand. But I’m glad you finally told everyone and you can be yourself completely with us, now. We all love you no matter what, you know that right?”

“I do now.”

“Good. You should get some sleep, baby boy, it’s late and you’ve had an emotional evening.”

Spencer smiles. “Yeah, I know. You should, too, Pen. I’ll see you when we can finally make it home, okay? Love you.”

“Love you, too, 187,” she says softly, and Spencer can hear the smile in her voice. “Goodnight.”

As soon as he hangs up, he settles down into the bed, turning off the light and pulling the duvet up over his shoulders before dialling one more number.

“Hey, baby,” Oscar says, voice as gentle and caring as it always is, although thicker with tiredness now. “I take it everything went okay?”

“Yeah,” Spencer murmurs, already feeling tired as the safety he always feels at the sound of Oscar’s voice settles into the fibres of his being. “It went so well. I can’t wait for you to meet everyone.”

“I can’t wait either, sweetheart. Are you in bed now?”

“Yeah,” he sighs. “Can you talk to me as I fall asleep?”

“Anything for you, Spence,” he says softly, before transitioning seamlessly into a story about the professors on campus, and his gentle comfort and the knowledge of the unconditional love his family has for him finally lulls Spencer into the best sleep he’s had in weeks.

taglist : @criminalmindsvibez @moreidstrobed @suburban--gothic @strippersenseii @takeyourleap-of-faith @negativefouriq @makaylajadewrites @iamrenstark @livrere-blue @hotchseyebrows @reidology @i-like-buttons @spencerspecifics @bau-gremlin @hotchedyke @tobias-hankel @goobzoop @marsjareau @garcias-bitch @oliverbrnch @physics-magic @sbeno22 @temily @enbyspencer @im-autistic @anxious-enby @kuolonsyoja @reidreids (add yourself to my taglist via this form!!)

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angelaiswriting · 4 years ago

Text

Undercover | Bandit x fem!reader

[video by Yogendra Singh from Pexels]

✏️ Pairing: Bandit x fem!reader

✏️ Summary: In which Dominic realizes he's fallen too hard for a woman during an undercover mission and he doesn't think he's fit to work for Rainbow anymore.

🎁 A/N: I wrote this for @kind-wolf‘s birthday but she gave me the okay to post it, so hopefully y’all will enjoy it too 💛

✏️ Warnings: slight angst, 18+ only? idk (the sex is generally only implied but there are some paragraphs in which it’s a little less implied), also a dash of fluff?

✏️ Word-count: 11,555

UNDERCOVER

There was something about early-morning runs that just calmed his nerves, even with music blasting in his ears. There was something in the way his trainers would rhythmically slap against the ground; something in the burning in his lungs, in the way the wind would blow against his face every now and then…

The British countryside expanded to infinity on his runs and it erased anything Hereford Base inevitably brought along—training sessions, mission calls, even more simulations, and then endless tests to pieces of equipment that he surely had not missed while on his last undercover mission.

He didn’t think much about it. About the mission. He always tried his best not to, although he did so unconsciously, probably more out of habit than anything else. It was never easy, to go back to a daily routine that didn’t feel yours anymore, to a routine you couldn’t recognize after having pretended to be someone else for the past six years. Some things just get to your head at some point, and going back to who you had once been feels like being reborn completely, and into someone you can’t recognize. You wake up one day, and you find yourself being forced to put on yet another mask, with the only exception that this is no mask. This is your face. Who you are. Or who you’re supposed to be, at least.

And although most likely unprofessional, this was how Dominic Brunsmeier still felt, six months after his mission had come to its end. He woke up every day and for the first, endless minutes he simply lied there, staring at a ceiling he had problems recognizing, with the reality that he was thousands of miles away from Germany hanging like Damocles’ sword above his head. His ears still subconsciously strained for the sound of two dogs’ nails ticking against the tiles of the floor to come to say good morning, and his left hand still stretched out to feel for someone who wasn’t there—who would never be there again.

That’s why running helped. It emptied his mind—and it also filled his lungs with the smell of wet grass and dirt. And although he still turned around to check behind his back every few minutes in search for furry snouts—one of the habits he had developed in the past life he had been forced to leave behind—, it was getting better, and the music in his ear pods seemed to be starting to do the trick.

Sometime later, when he got back to the Base, he was somewhat ready to be a Rainbow operator once again. At least for that day.

The truth was, he had somehow grown almost detached from anything and anyone Rainbow. He would do something, and then he’d mentally compare it to how he did it before. The way his morning coffee would taste; the way her laundry detergent would smell fresh and somehow cozy; how peaceful car trips would feel, almost as though he could lose himself into one of them for the rest of his life. Now his coffee was just Marius’s boring blend, and the detergent they used in the laundry at the base had no scent. And when he did end up tagging along on short weekend trips, there was no dog whining ecstatically in the back of the car and trying to lick his neck.

“How was your run?”

Monika was looking at him from above the file she was reading—a mission report, a test session report, he didn’t know and he also found himself not caring. That life still felt alien to him.

He shrugged. “Good.” He had somehow become a man of few words, and he had also started to realize that maybe undercover missions weren’t for him. Not anymore, at least. Maybe he had let this one get to him a bit too much, and everyone he had met had grown under his skin without him wanting so and he still did somehow feel like he had betrayed his family, sent them all to jail.

It was a stupid thought—he tried to remind himself of that every time that feeling came up, but maybe he just wasn’t cut for long undercover missions anymore. He didn’t remember when it had become difficult to tell right from wrong, but it had happened, and every time his mind stopped on that period of his life, he found himself growing homesick for a home he never had, not there.

“Just good?”

Elias was there, too. Of fucking course, he would be there. He had been keeping an eye on him for a few weeks now, and Dominic was too much of an expert not to notice. It hadn’t been a surprise to see him enter the kitchen a minute or two after he had.

“Just good,” he nodded

There was some staring, then. Dominic stared at Elias because he wanted to be left alone, and Elias stared at Dominic because he wanted to understand what the problem was, so that he could help his friend. It was all useless, though, and they both knew it: one had closed off too securely to let on anything—or let anyone in, and the other was too stubborn to just stop caring about someone he loved.

That afternoon, though, he was running some errands in town with Marius when a dog stopped right in front of him to sniff his pants. It was a lovely animal, with fur of an almost bronze-red color and a tail that never once stopped wagging.

It brought him back in time, and for a moment he stood there, frozen and rooted to the spot. He could almost still feel the rain on his skin despite that exceptionally bright sunny day. But then, the Irish setter’s owner called Bonnie, let’s go! and Dominic was back to the present day, a bag with stuff he had bought at the hardware store just on the other side of the parking lot in one hand and a bunch of keys in the other.

“Everything alright with you?” Marius asked when Dominic reached him. He had been waiting for him, leaning against the door of the truck, and he hadn’t missed the way his friend had grown rigid. It didn’t matter how much pride Dom felt at the idea of being good at hiding feelings: there was always someone that saw right through his shit. And called him out on it.

“I used to have two dogs,” he blurted out with a smile on his face before he could stop himself. They were both loading bags into the trunk of the car and he hadn’t even felt the words slip through his lips that they were already out there in the open. But the memory had hit him with the same force of a freight train, and he had found himself basking in that warm feeling that had started to blossom inside him at the memory. After all, he loved those two pests like his own kids.

He looked up, the feeling of being caught red-handed quickly seeping in, and he found that Marius had a weird look in his eyes as he watched his every move.

“You had two dogs?” his friend quoted, one hand reaching up for the back door of the car. He closed it shut, and the frown didn’t leave his face for a second. “Back during your mission, you mean?”

“Forget about it. It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have said it in the first place.” It had always been custom for him to not open up about his undercovers—the person he was when he was on one wasn’t the person he was when he came back to his real life, and that’s how things had to be.

“To hell with your bullshit!”

The first five minutes in the car, however, were spent in silence.

Dominic was still cursing himself mentally for opening his damn mouth—or his memory vault, for what it mattered. It had been the first time he had mentioned anything about her since his return—his return home his friends had cheered him with six months ago, but that homely feeling still had to make an appearance. She had become taboo, and he had done so to protect her—and himself, in a way, for not having to bring her up had seemed to be the most sensible way to forget all about her, at least back then.

But now here he was, catching himself just in time before worsening his case.

“Where are those dogs now?” Marius used the excuse of a red streetlight to speak again and when Dominic looked at him from the corner of his eye, he found his friend already staring.

A shrug of his shoulders will do the trick, or that was what he hoped. Unsuccessfully.

“You’ve barely put full sentences together outside of missions since you came back from Germany. And now you mention two dogs. That you owned, apparently.”

“I didn’t own them, they weren’t mine,” he corrected.

“Whose were they, then?”

The first time Dominic sees her is on a chilly early-April morning. It’s pouring rain outside, and she’s walking two dogs with nothing to shield her from the rain but an old sweatshirt.

It’s half past five in the morning and his first thought is: What the fuck is this girl doing out here in the rain?

He almost slows down his truck when he drives past her. Probably he should be a good person and ask her if she needs a ride, but this side of town is new to him and he doesn’t want to risk anything that would have Fabian put him on his boss’ black book the month after having been fully accepted into the gang.

She’s in his rearview mirror before he has the chance to think his civilized deed through. He finds himself staring for two seconds at most—red sweatshirt, jean shorts that are a tad bit out of season now, and two happy dogs that walk on either side of her without the need for a leash. Then, he’s pulling over and stopping the truck right before the closed garage door of his new two-bedroom house. He still has to fix it—along with other things inside—but Christian has been keeping him busy with errands and whatnot, and he’s lacked the time.

He’s barely out of the vehicle when there’s barking—short, quick barks in succession coming from two different dogs, defying the sound of the rain and the otherwise silence of the early morning. When he turns around, the girl’s dogs are running across the empty street, their owner right behind them, and they’re aiming at him, tails wagging happily and tongues lolling out from open mouths.

They don’t jump up as he expected them to, but they still do take their few seconds of freedom to sniff him up. His shoes, his legs, a hand—and all the while he’s getting soaked through just as much as the girl running over with two leashes in a hand is.

“Hey, buddy,” he coos, almost involuntarily, as he presents the bigger dog with the open palm of his left hand.

It looks like a nice mutt, the fur a shade of brown streaked with white and black, and it excitedly licks his skin after a moment of indecision.

“I’m so sorry.” When he looks up, the young woman is panting, a hand on her side as the other comes up to wipe the rain from her eyes. “C’mon, Otto, come here.”

The white dog with a chocolate-colored stain on the left side of his face is quickly put on his leash, and he sits still by his owner’s feet as she pries Rex from his hand.

“I’m sorry they’ve bothered you,” she offers, and then groans when she can’t seem to attach the leash to the ring in the dog’s collar. “They’re usually well-behaved.”

“No problem,” he smiles.

Rex lunges forward one last time to get a good-bye caress on his head before he eventually chooses to behave and steps back.

“They didn’t do anything but smell me up a bit, it’s all cool.”

She smiles. He smiles. Rex barks happily and turns back to nudge Otto, and both their tails are wild whips against the soaked grass-less ground of his short driveway. Then, she’s gone.

He stares as she runs down the street, thunder finally rolling up high in the steely sky, and he smiles when he hears her laugh and call for the dogs when the rain starts pouring stronger. Then he turns, walks around the back of his truck and up to his door, and leaves the world outside.

That night Dominic sat at the desk in his room. His things had been relocated to a smaller one while he had been away on his mission and although he would have probably complained once, he found that this new accommodation somehow suited him better now. It felt much more secluded and since it was in the newly-built dorm area where his buddies didn’t reside, it felt much calmer. It didn’t give him much need to lie.

And it didn’t give his friends the chance to see that most of his stuff was still in cardboard boxes he had yet to unpack. The mere thought seemed to overwhelm him somehow and even that night, all he did was stare at them for endless minutes before eventually begrudgingly opening his laptop.

The brief and vague chat with Marius that afternoon had given him that sort of push he needed to finally pull out the hard disks and SD cards he had hidden away but that still contained all the files he had to organize. It was nothing major, of course—that kind of stuff had been transferred onto Rainbow servers the moment he had set foot onto British ground, one could say. But he still had private stuff, videos and photographs he had never thought he’d one day keep, back when he had first taken them, but then again, here he was.

Part of his brain did know that wasn’t the smart thing to do, but when he plugged in the black hard disk with that owl sticker she had slapped on it one night after tipsy sex, he found that his hand hesitated on the mouse.

He had chuckled—even now, he could still hear the sound in the otherwise quiet room. It had been at the beginning of that thing that had slowly—and then more and more quickly, like an avalanche effect of some sort—turned into a relationship. Why? he had simply asked, putting his lighter back on the nightstand when she gave it a disgusted look. And she had laughed, too, and he had stared at her sweaty skin glistening in the light of his bedside lamp, at the way her messy bangs stuck to her forehead, and he thought that fuck, what the fuck was he doing? Because I felt like it, she had answered with a shrug and he had laughed deep in his chest before pulling her back over his body.

Maybe he could keep what was in there. He did not have to look, but maybe he’d keep those files stored away in some folder-in-a-folder kind of thing, hidden away from his eyes and hopefully from his mind, until he’d forget all about them. Until he’d stop being a spineless dick, murmured a mean voice in the back of his head.

“Fuck it!” he groaned, finally opening the main folder and watching as his old laptop loaded everything.

There were some pictures he had never stored away in their respective folders, and he suddenly remembered now that it was because he loved them. Loved those two dogs piled up on each other as they slept in his armchair. And loved the way she’d scream song lyrics using an almost-empty beer bottle as a microphone.

Those were memories—and damn good memories at that! There was no reason to shy away from them. Just as a reminder, he reasoned—something to keep for a long time so that it could remind him to keep his head on his shoulders next time he’d be assigned on some other undercover mission. Something that could tell him not to fall for a chick he’d eventually have to leave behind forever. Something that could prove to him that yes, he could enjoy things while living a lie, but that no, there were things he could not bring back home.

Like Rex and Otto.

Or like Y/N.

He meets her again two weeks later, when Fabian drags him along to a club to have fun and maybe get some pussy. Dominic’s not exactly in the mood for pussy for once, still exhausted after having come back from a quick ‘business trip’ to Austria with two other guys, but he doesn’t want to be the buzzkill. He’s also not been in the city long enough, so he’d rather fly low and not risk making even the slightest doubt arise.

So he goes. He dresses up in an all-black combo of pants and shirt, and meets his friend outside one of the clubs Christian owns. The air is warm, and the night traffic buzzes behind his back as Fabian leads him all the way up to the entrance while recounting the weird-ass trip Alex had the first time he did acid. Domi laughs along in all the right points and for a split second, before Julian lets them in without a question, he finds himself thinking that it isn’t so hard after all, to pretend to be someone he’s not every time Fabian’s around. The dude is chill, five or so years younger than he but just as crazy, and there’s this tiny voice in Dominic’s head that seems to whisper to him that they could actually be great pals if the situation and the setting were different.

“What’s your poison?” his friend of sorts asks as he takes him through the place and then to a table—not right up under the stage, but a bit in the back.

“Just beer,” is his reply. He didn’t think he’d be seeing girls perform when he left his house, but now that he’s here and he gets a glimpse of a redhead beauty before she disappears offstage, he’s not exactly opposed.

Fabian’s face is contorted into a grimace of confusion before it opens up into a grin as things seem to clear up in his head. “Oh, yeah, as a warm-up, I see!”

He laughs, leaning back against the seat before he shakes his head. “One of us gotta stay sober enough to take you home when you’re shit-faced,” he bites back, subtly implying to that one time, three months after Dom had officially become a rookie, when Fabian had ridden himself into a tree on his bike. The others had made him look after and take care of the younger idiot, and he had had to swallow down his pride and cater to any and all silly needs he had been presented with and that had felt like a setback in his undercover path.

A girl hurries by then, a serving platter with drinks in hand as she flags down another waitress and mouths something over the music of the new performance, and Fabian is quick at grabbing a hold of her forearm. When she turns around, an expression on her face that makes it clear she would be more than ready to throw hands, it takes Dominic half a minute to recognize her in this new setting.

“Come back to us later, Baby,” Fabian says, his hand moving to swat at her ass before she grabs a hold of it and presses down hard enough to make him wince.

“Don’t make me kick your ass.”

Dominic turns around when she walks past him and watches as she serves drinks at a table. She’s all smiles as she replies back to something she’s being told, and steps back a little when one of the men tries to stretch a hand out and touch her.

“Is that how you act with women?” he asks when he turns back around.

His friend laughs over a text he’s sending—probably to one of the other guys they’re supposed to meet here tonight, or probably to someone else entirely—Dominic does wonder about it, just as he wonders about many things when it comes to the Club, but he voices none of his thoughts. He never does.

“It’s not what you think,” he shrugs, grinning at him before glancing at the brunette performing on stage. He stares for a long while, and Dominic has the time to study some more of the details in the snake tattoo that crawls up the side of his neck and disappears into his hair. “She’s a friend.”

“She’s still not excited about you slapping her butt, though,” the girl in question chimes in when she finally reaches their table again, her serving platter now held securely against her abdomen. “But Fabian’s— Hey!” she grins, stopping mid-sentence when she seems to recognize him from that rainy early morning of fifteen or so days ago. “You’re the new guy on the block.”

“You know each other?”

“Sorta. The boys ran up to him when we were on a walk a few days ago,” she nods, eyes trailing down to where Domi’s left the first two buttons of his shirt undone, tattoos on full display underneath, before moving back to meet his.

Fabian’s pout distracts the both of them, and when she sets her eyes on him, he’s quick at letting out a childish complaint. “You never smile at me like that.”

“Don’t be a douche.” And then, to Dominic: “I’ll pay you real money if you drag him out of here.”

“Geez, women!” Fabian scoffs. “Anyway. Nic, this is Y/N. Y/N, this is Dominic.” He watches briefly as they shake hands before continuing. “She’s off-limits, unless she’ll somehow consider you worthy enough of her and her p— I’m just kidding, Angel!” he pleads, leaning away from her hand as she slaps at his shoulder. “C’mon, be a good girl.”

“You be a good boy and I might not spit in your drink.”

Dominic’s still thinking about her sometime later, after some of the guys have joined him and his company for tonight. They’re watching girls perform, but he’s unfocused. Even the beer in his hand has been forgotten for a while now, as his gaze finds itself being attracted back to the bar—or to wherever she is at the moment.

He stares, and even blatantly so, half listening to Fabian’s words echoing in his mind, and half ignoring them. She’s close to Christian, that’s what he knows: she used to be his sister’s best friend before the girl passed away a few years after finishing high school. And, as Fabian has half-heartedly complained more than once, she’s not that friendly with gang members—if you know what I mean, Nic. Not that he’s thinking about that with her! He barely even knows her. What he does know, however, is that there’s a file, back at Rainbow, that he has to fill with pieces of information he finds out here, and he’s starting to wonder what she could know.

And sometimes—every once in a while and almost covertly—she glances back and meets his eye, and when she finds him staring, she seems to stumble over her words for a heartbeat before the smile is back on her face and she turns her attention back to whatever patron she’s tending to.

He’s back the next Friday night, and the week after that, and on the third week, it starts becoming a habit. Fabian’s with him sometimes; sometimes it’s someone else, but more often—because he starts hanging out at the club on whatever free nights he has during the week—he goes on his own. He drinks, spends money on women, and goes as far as paying for personal dances—and maybe it becomes a bit too often, because one day Christian asks him—through Alex, because Christian’s too busy with a rival gang to do it in person—and mentions something about it.

But the more he sits in there, the closer he somehow seems to get to Y/N—and the closer she seems to get to him. It’s just smiles at first; even when he goes up to the bar to order drinks, she’s always too busy to focus on him only. But then they start exchanging a few words—and in the meantime they wave at each other from opposite sides of the road they live on, when they pass by—and then a few puns, until at some point, probably three, almost four months into his habitual trips to the club, she starts actively seeking him out. And if by any chance he’s absent on one of his regular nights, he finds her politely asking whether everything’s alright on the first night he’s back.

He missed that—missed his club nights and the dancers, even the waitresses. Y/N, of course, although he always did his best not to allow his brain to bring her up. But sometimes, out of the blue, the most random things would make one of the many memories he had stored away out of sight resurface and he found himself thinking about her. It would start subconsciously—with something someone said or did, or maybe it was something he saw in the window of a shop, or in one of the girls he’d find himself dancing with when his friends dragged him along. And then, when he caught himself red-handed, it was hard to stop. His brain would fixate on a memory and the more he willed himself to shift the focus of his attention onto something—anything—else, the harder it was to actually do it.

So, he turned his strategy around. He did that when he transferred all his secreted files onto his laptop—and then onto a new one yet again, when the old thing slowed down too much for him to be able to do work-related things on it. The reasoning was, if he kept those memories where he could easily reach them, then maybe they’d lose that hue of exceptionality and he’d get so used to them that it would finally be easier to coexist with them and all they had once meant.

And the next time Marius asked, tried to pull things out of him the same way he’d done with shards of glass after that one assignment in Bosnia, Dominic found himself loosening up. With him only, no one else for the time being, but it still felt liberating. Marius would listen, and he wouldn’t try to guilt-trip him the same way Domi had done to himself. He’d listen, and chime in every now and then, and then he’d stop asking when it was clear his friend wasn’t comfortable with continuing for now.

Y/N hadn’t come up yet. He told him about the dogs, and the guys—about Fabian most of all, and Markus, the two he had bonded with the most. He talked about the club—and he won’t lie, about the women there and the ones he had ended up in bed or against a wall with, as well. Not many, but enough to make Marius tease him for a while before he eventually relented.

But then one day, when most operators had been sent off on various missions, they decided to go on a trip. They took a Jeep car, loaded it with backpacks and food and tents, and took off for a week to spend camping far from the Base.

It had been quite a long couple of months—with training and simulations and tests, and even weeks spent abroad. And meetings in Harry’s office so that the Agency could see where Dominic’s loyalty lied, and how he was doing, how he was settling back into his old routine, now almost ten months after having come back from Germany. Which he… was, in a way. Settling back into his old routine, that is—everything was normal when he was working, at least.

But opening up to his Director wasn’t the same as opening up to his friend. And probably even Harry knew, or had at least come to that conclusion, for he had relented in his questions and had given him more free time, away from his Rainbow responsibilities.

“So, you were telling me about Fabian the other day.”

Marius’s voice shook him out of his thoughts, and Dominic found himself blinking a couple of times at the pale light of the sun that still had to fully rise. He felt almost as though he had dozed off, his tongue still heavy and laced with the slumber he had been forced to wake up from at two.

“What?” he mumbled, fumbling with his seat belt when he realized his friend had parked the car and it was now time to get out.

He had been sleeping poorly the past few days, with endless thoughts incessantly mulling around in his mind and keeping him awake. Stuff about Germany, but also stuff about Rainbow—missions and briefings and that upgrade he was helping Elias come up with for his shield. It all slowed him down, left him less reactive than he had been in a while, always dozing off when he was supposed to do something else. Even his morning runs had stopped being that nice a distraction.

The cup of coffee Marius pushed into his hands was hot, almost comforting in a way, and it sent a shiver throughout his whole body as they stood there, in the low, late-March temperatures. It was supposed to get warmer as the day progressed, or so the forecasts seemed to promise, and he surely found himself hoping for that to be the case.

“You were saying about how Fabian introduced you to this Angel dude,” Jäger insisted sometime later, when they had heaved their backpacks on their backs and locked the Jeep. They’d be back in a week—or that was the plan, but they both knew that if the weather would take a turn for the worst, they’d be back much sooner, neither of them willing to deal with storms and cold temperatures when they could feel warm somewhere else.

“Angel’s not a dude,” was Dominic’s chuckle.

The sun had finally risen and its light, although still pale, filtered in through the foliage of the forest, casting shapes on the ground and on their faces alike. The temperatures had gone up a bit, but Dom was still glad he had listened to Lera’s advice and had taken off with thermal clothes on.

“Angel is— was,” he quickly corrected himself, casting a quick glance at Marius, walking by his side, “my girlfriend… I guess.”

“You guess?” His friend frowned, not even taking his eyes off of the path they were currently trekking on. They still had quite a few kilometers to go before their next stop and he had absolutely no intention of spending them in silence, not now that Dominic seemed like he had slowly regained his ability to talk and let his tongue loose, although not in everyone’s company. But progress was progress, and he didn’t want to risk and ruin it.

Dominic shrugged. “I’m not sure Y/N and I ever officially defined the relationship.”

“Y/N… Angel, you mean?”

“Yeah, we called her that most of the time. Those dogs I told you about… they were hers.”

Marius nodded. Dominic had started to introduce him to bits and pieces of his undercover life—the clubs, the gang, the dogs, the speed races at night, the way Fabian would often crash on his couch when his partying got too wild and out-of-hand, or the way Markus, three years his junior, would often trail behind him like a lost puppy. It was never a chronological recollection of events, with some kind of thread that would link them together. Sometimes he’d ask questions, making sure to remain as vague as possible when it came to enquiring about someone’s life, and Domi would reply with what came to mind.

But now… Now he had slowly started to piece all those memories together, bit by bit, and he was seeing that it was not all black and white, the way some back at the Organization would make it out to be, but more like grayscale. The good and the bad would mix together in the same bowl, and it would make it hard for anybody to draw absolutes.

“Tell me something about her.”

Dominic’s sitting in Christian’s backyard for the first time in two years and a half. It’s something new, but at the same time it feels so familiar, in a weird and convoluted way, as he’s surrounded by people he knew nothing about just three years ago. He laughs at what his friends say, and even whistles with them when the girl Fabian has shown up with leaves in a hurry after printing the fingers of her left hand across his cheek.

“You truly can’t keep them for more than a week, can you?” Christian laughs, taking a sip from his beer as he and Marcel flip the meat on the barbeque.

Fabian groans. “Always pointing out the details, gee. Anyway!”

Some bickering ensues, and Dominic sits back against the seat of his plastic chair with the rim of his beer bottle grazing his lower lip, barely containing his laughter, but still trying his best because he’s usually the one taking Fabian’s sides—even if just out of pure sarcasm. It all only settles when Franziska walks out of the house, a bowl of salad in each hand, saying something about leaving the poor child alone, what are you? Five? before Marcel pulls her into his side for a kiss.

They’re cute—it’s a weird and intrusive thought as Dominic watches, eyes glinting with a badly concealed smile, but it’s also the truth. Franziska and Marcel are like opposite sides of the same coin, but they somehow fit so well together… He’d tell Marius that, years after that day, and he’d recall the way she’d look up into her lover’s eyes with such emotion that, before Y/N came along, it would have made him feel the pangs of jealousy stab his stomach.

“Ugh, lovebirds.” Markus rolls his eyes, and when Dominic turns his head to look at him, he adds a snort and a wave of his hand.

“Kids.” Marcel shakes his head at Domi, almost as though he knows just how Markus and Fabian can get, and Dominic’s the one who’s spending the most time with them. “Always moaning about what they don’t have.”

But no one’s that serious. They all sort of envy what Marcel has, but they cherish it most of all, and although there’s often some playful mocking during gatherings, Marcel still knows they’d all jump in front of his woman without batting an eyelash if that meant keeping her safe.

There’s commotion coming from inside the house, then. The old dog that had been snoozing by Christian’s feet lifts her head, barking low in the back of her throat, still sleepy, before two dogs dash outside and she’s suddenly chasing them on her three paws, long fluffy tail wagging.

The guys cheer the new-comers and although the white one—it takes Dom a while to recognize Otto, Angel’s dog—jumps and huffs to play with Christian’s Stella, the loud and cheering voices send the other one in a frenzy. Rex runs back and forth, tail wagging as hard as a whip, tongue two meters out of his snout. And it’s such a hilarious sight that it sends Dominic laughing with his other friends as the dog almost trips Eva and that jar of cold lemonade over.

Then, when Dominic’s regained enough breath to stop the wheezing and wipe the tears from his eyes with a hand, he calls him over. “Hey, Rex! C’mere!”

He has no time to see the surprise flash across his friends’ faces, for it’s all downhill from there. Rex stops dead in his tracks, front paws down on the grass to his elbows and butt up in the air, his tail still wagging wildly—and really, he doesn’t know how he hasn’t sprained it yet, or how he hasn’t taken off like in some cartoon. His head turns here and there for half a second before his caramel eyes zero in on him. Before Dominic has the time to beg Stop!, the dog is on him: The impact sends his empty beer bottle flying backward as the chair tips back, a leg snaps, and he’s suddenly half-laying, half-sitting almost horizontally with an ecstatic Rex licking his face and his beard, barely able to keep still in his arms.

The other two dogs are quick to join them, and before Dominic can turn his head to the side and see the way Christian kisses Y/N’s cheek hello or hear the way she groans out a fuck! before she can intervene, two more wet snouts blind and sniff at him.

Sometime later, as Markus is complaining under his breath about the ladies’ ‘rabbit food’, Dominic turns towards Fabian and half-says, half-asks: “I thought she didn’t do members.”

“Huh?” Fabian looks up from where he’s stuffing his face with pork ribs and Franziska’s salad, moaning for a second about how much I love fucking onions, God. But he’s quick at looking where Domi’s quick tilt of the head is pointing.

Y/N and Christian are sitting next to each other, heads close as they discuss something before she feels them staring and sends them a quick smile.

“Oh, no. No.” Fabian coughs as he tries not to choke on his food when he picks up with what Dom’s implying—Jeez, no, shit, Angel and Christian? He laughs, still breathless, and chugs down the glass of lemonade Verena’s poured him. “Nah, she’s like a sister to him. Same for her. It was hard for a while after Mia’s death. The gang…” But he shrugs, cuts himself off and trails his gaze back down on his plate. “It was rough. And they’ve grown real close, but there’s nothing more than fraternal love between them.”

Dominic nods. “Oh, okay.”

He’s thinking nothing of her—or is he? They’ve been hanging out quite a bit these past few weeks. He’s been over at her house for a leaking sink just last Saturday afternoon, and she’s made him stay longer so that they could eat dinner together, watch the wrestling match on TV. He’s not… into her like that, he thinks—yet. Because, really, he wouldn’t mind being.

“Why?” There’s a suggestive smirk growing on his friend’s face. “You thinking of—”

But he’s cut off when Christian calls Dominic and steals his attention. No one discusses business during this kind of gatherings, but there’s a look on the man and his right hand, Marcel’s faces that just makes him think he’ll be hearing from them not long after going back home that night. He’s already made great progress on his undercover assignment, but this truly does start feeling like a step in the right direction.

When the party’s over, that night after dinner, he ends up sitting in Y/N’s car as she takes both of them home. Her dogs would be all up in his neck if it weren’t for the shield provided by the passenger’s seat, and she’s apologizing—although with a grin on her face and a tone that doesn’t make her apology come out that sincere—about their behavior.

“I just don’t understand why they like you so much,” she muses. “Rex most of all.”

He shrugs. “I didn’t even know I was that good with dogs before these two.”

Years later, he’d tell Marius Streicher how pretty she looked, with her make-up slightly smudged and the hair locks that had escaped her now messy bun. How accessible she felt—and not even in a bad way, but more like, he could reach a hand out and poke her cheek with his fingertips, or trail his index along her hairline, down the curve of her ear and touch her piercings, or even just lean back against his seat and just, look at her. How peaceful the interior of her car felt.

He’d tell Marius how Rainbow didn’t exist back then. How it was just him and the wrong waitress he had started falling for. And at the same time, how he still had this thought in the back of his mind, constantly nagging him—what if he ended up blowing up his mission in smoke?

“You’re staring,” she’s saying, smiling, eyes still on the road ahead.

“And you’re blushing.”

If there’s one thing he’s learned about her during his countless nights at the same stupid club, then it’s that she doesn’t blush. Not when his eyes are glued to her. He has stared at her much more lewdly than he’s doing now, most of all with a few drinks too many in his stomach and in his system.

She shrugs, and when she stops the car and Dominic turns back around, he notices they’ve arrived at her house. “You should come in,” she says instead, already getting out of the car and opening the back door to let the dogs out. “You don’t have to,” she adds quickly when he gets out, too. And he can’t see her face now that she’s unlocking her entrance door, but he knows she’s still blushing. “Only if you want.”

He wouldn’t tell Marius how her lips felt against his, nor how the drinks they had in her kitchen tasted when her tongue brushed against his. How she felt in his lap, one of her hands on the back of his head and the other up his shirt, against his tattooed chest. How she ground her hips down against him just right and tore a grunt from deep inside his belly and that vibrated against her lips, making her smile.

He’d tell none of that, but his friend would still understand.

What he did tell Marius, however, as they laid under the starry sky, was that, somehow, no one had felt like her again. Not his random hook-ups, the ones he was guilty of picking either because he needed a distraction or because they reminded him of Angel, and not even Katie, that kindergarten teacher Seamus had introduced to him and with whom he had hung out for a month or so. Nothing serious, and he hadn’t even exactly put effort into it, but a part of him still had tried. More for Seamus’—or even just Katie’s—sake than his own.

It was exactly Katie that Marius brought up with a yawn. And when he asked what had been wrong with her—or, well, maybe not wrong per se but more, I don’t know, brother… Amiss?—Dominic had found himself scoffing.

Katie’s not her—but he didn’t say it out loud. He didn’t say how he had fallen for the way Y/N fought in the ring, how she grimaced or grinned, the way her braids would slap against a cheek or a shoulder when her movements would be too abrupt. He’d go to her after the fights, and sometimes still sweaty and bruised, she’d straight up fuck the living sanity out of him—a hand around his throat and the other on his chest to keep her balance as they went at it on either his or her couch.

“Katie was…” He thought it over, fighting with his words and his brain’s ability to pick the right one. “Too nice.”

Y/N hadn’t been just black or just white—she was a whole spectrum of grays, ranging from one end to the other of it. Soft and kind on any day; but then also fearless and strong when she needed to be, ready to raise hell and fight God when she had to.

Dominic would have never been able to picture Katie on a ring, taking blows and also giving them back, because that wasn’t who Katie was. And although there was absolutely nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with being who you are, it just… wasn’t the same. He never found himself with his wrists tied to the headboard of Katie’s bed, with a blindfold over his eyes, almost holding his breath to see—feel—where she’d touch him next. Or how. Or even with what.

And probably that was why he couldn’t take Angel out of his mind—because he knew, deep down, that he wouldn’t be able to have her again. That she was gone, lost in a chapter of his life that he had reached the end of, and that he had left in the past. And although he did often go back to reread it, that was exactly all he could do—read, but never change a word of it.

“You still have time to add something more, though.”

He had almost dozed off to sleep, the exhaustion and exertion of that day’s worth of hiking catching up with him and his tired limbs. And it was only when Marius uttered those words that he realized he had spoken that inner monologue out loud into the darkness of the night.

The stars were blinking down at him, almost winking at his powerlessness in that situation. He wasn’t scared that she might cut his balls off and feed them to the wolves; nor that she might pull her hair back into two braids and teach him a lesson or two.

What stopped him from working was the very last voicemail she had left him, when she had called his German number for the last time. He had seen her cry—cry with laughter at some stupid joke, or sob her lungs out that one time they watched Marley and Me together, the mere idea of one day losing her dogs tearing her up from the inside out. But the way she had breathed into the phone, trying to hold back the sobs, and the way her voice had broken on every other syllable—Please, Domi, pick up. I don’t understand what’s going on, but I know you’re not with the others—it still wrecked him.

He had listened to it so many times that not only did he know every word by heart, but he could hear her voice—the way it cracked, when she’d sob, when Otto would whine in the background. And what was worse, was that he could see her with his mind’s eye—sitting in the empty tub, or on one of the stools in the kitchen, or even behind the wheel of her car. So strong and resolute… crumbling apart because all he had had to offer was a lie.

Or maybe not all—he had been honest with her. Honest the first time he had told her he loved her, and honest the last time he had professed his love. That hadn’t been a lie. The way he’d hold her at night, when she’d sleep with her head on his chest, or the way he had always been ready to pounce on way-too-daring customers at the club, or when he told her she was the light of his life—none of that had been a lie.

But everything surrounding that? His loyalty to the gang? To the guys? To Christian? His made-up past before he settled down in the city? The real reason he’d sometimes love to go on solo trips and enjoy some peace, when he was in fact meeting up with people from his real life?

“I had my chance,” he decided to say instead, closing his eyes against the night sky. He’d been out stargazing with her, once, the first time they had fucked. It had been sweet and peaceful, until it had turned hotter and messier and sweatier. If he stared up at those stars one minute longer, he knew it, he’d be back on that field, with her trapped between him and the plaid blanket, clothes strewn haphazardly all around. And that was the last thing he needed. “And I wasted it.”

He didn’t say how he wasted it by coming back, but the implicature was still out there, heavy and acrid in the otherwise fresh air of the mountains.

But there had been no backing out of it. Rainbow would have come; something would have been done anyway. At some point in his staying, things had moved too forward before his heart had been able to pick a side, and there had been nothing else he could do. He had broken her heart, but he had also broken his own, and that had been inevitable. A fate he had had zero chances escaping. They had found each other too late, and he’d probably die regretting anything about that case.

There was absolutely no going back there, but he had also started to think that his future didn’t lay in Rainbow anymore, either. It had become too much—and also too little, all at the same time. Gang life surely wasn’t for him, but he was starting to realize that his last undercover mission had ended up messing up with him a bit too much, and although it didn’t exactly interfere with the way he acted in Rainbow, it did with the vision he had of it—and of himself as part of it.

“I think I need a break from this,” he muttered into the night, eyes closed both out of tiredness and that lingering sort of embarrassment he felt any time he addressed how inadequate he now felt. “It’s almost been a year and I still haven’t been able to stop long enough to think.”

He didn’t know if Marius had turned to glance at him in the semi-darkness, before they turned off their torches to sleep, but he knew he had heard.

“What Angel? You’re a little minx,” Dominic chuckles, still out of breath, his chest burning with exhaustion every time it rises and falls. His sweaty back sticks to the leather seats of the car, and he knows the sensation she must be feeling can’t be much different.

But he doesn’t turn to look at her. His gaze is glued to her lace panties, hanging from the gear shift in the front. If he didn’t feel too boneless to lean forward and take her phone from the passenger’s seat, he’d for sure take a picture.

“Who are you calling little?” Her laugh is breathless, and when she moves around like a contortionist to sit up straight, her lips brush against the side of his neck, making his skin break out in gooseflesh and the short hair on the nape of his head tug. “I’m still taller than you with my heels on.”

Laughter rumbles deep in his chest, and he lets her pull his head back when she tugs on his hair with a hand. “Details, pretty doll.”

She doesn’t remind him how she’s kicked his butt just a couple of weeks ago during training and part of him is happy because all they’ve been using that accident as is some sort of foreplay that always ends up with her straddling him, making him tremble with the unexpected touches his blindfold always seems to heighten.

When her finger traces the underside of his cock, however, that chuckle dies on his lips and he gasps almost inaudibly in the back of his throat. Suddenly, his suit pants pulled down to mid-thigh feel constricting and he knows that if she keeps it up, he’ll be hard again soon.

“Don’t.” He didn’t intend for it to come out that way, but his prayer is soft on her lips, when she turns his head to the side to stare into his eyes. “We’re running late for the party.”

She shrugs—and he thinks that fuck, if this car didn’t feel this cramped, he’d fuck her brains out, party or no party, not even when it comes to his boss. “You made me come twice,” she replies, matter-of-factly, not at all moved by his begging or by his breath hitching in the back of his throat when her fingers move down to his balls. “I think it’s just fair I pay back the favor, no?”

His chest and neck are still flushed when he walks into the villa Christian has rented out for his New Year’s party. The initial surprise of Y/N caving in for a member has quickly subsided, and no one whistles in their direction when they see them walk in hand in hand.

They greet their friends, exchange quick hugs, and before long, they’re all drinking and chatting.

“You were late,” Christian says. The expression on his face is serious, but the left corner of his mouth is slowly twitching up into a smirk he manages to hide when he tips his head back and downs his shot.

Dominic shrugs, gaze wandering back to where Angel is catching up with Franziska and Verena, one leg crossed over the other, left bare by the slit in her dress. “Yeah,” he clears his throat, trying not to think about how her panties are still hanging from the gear shift of the car. “We had a setback.” He hesitates on that last word, for he tries to come up with something that could at least sound unassuming, but by God, the crotch of his pants feels like it’s growing tighter and he just knows kissing her won’t be the only thing he’ll be doing when the clock strikes midnight.

Christian laughs. “If my car smells like sex—”

“We rolled the windows down. We’re not animals,” he replies with a snort.

“Just… get it cleaned before you give it back.”

Y/N glances back at them then, eyes twinkling and lips still kiss-swollen and bruised under the lipstick she reapplied before getting out of the car, he’s sure. But before she can call him to her or he can walk up to her a bit stiffly of his own accord, Christian speaks again.

“We still have some time before dinner. There’s a meeting in the other room. Marcel has news on that seemingly lost package.”

Dominic turns around, brows furrowed in confusion, before his brain manages to quickly piece everything back together and he follows the other man down a corridor and into another room. He’s almost forgotten about the new cargo coming in—it’s been a feat lately, to remember he’s not actually one of them but an undercover agent trying to blow a gang up. It’s harder and harder, and he knows the lines aren’t blurred—not yet, at least—but it’s become way too easy, to lose himself in his new friendships and in the unexpected love he’s found here.

But when reality strikes back, it’s hard to distract his mind again.

Anton’s there—and while he isn’t the boss, he’s high up enough to be one of Rainbow’s main concerns. The oldest in the group, he’s rarely there, he rarely shows up. He does work behind the scenes, but that’s where he’d rather stay—away from the kids’ stupidity, or that’s how he always jokes about it.

He’s tall and strong—a whole wardrobe of a man, but Dominic’s still been promoted to be his bodyguard and he can’t help but feel a pang of something deep in his brain, and there’s this unsolicited thought bubbling up that makes him feel all sorts of ways. Maybe someone’s had some suspicions about him, and this is all a test—or this is what he thinks before Anton moves the wrong way and he’s forced to explain that the reason for that agonized groan is the extent of the injuries he’s incurred into not too long ago.

But then they’re all back for dinner, and Dominic doesn’t have time to bask in that wave of relief washing over him when he figures out there’s nothing to fear. They eat and drink and play stupid semi-drunk games, until it’s half an hour to midnight and Y/N has dragged him into a bathroom and unbuckled his belt.

It’s quick and messy, and his fingertips dig hard into the flesh of her hips as they stare into each other’s eyes in the mirror.

“I was thinking,” she hums, wrapped tight around his arm as he walks back with her at five minutes to midnight—enough time to make her come once more, or maybe twice, but Alex has promised a great pyrotechnic show and neither of them wants to miss how he almost gets himself blown up like last year.

“My thoughts are still in that bathroom and you tell me you’re thinking?” he chuckles, pressing a kiss to her cheek before he gives her hand a squeeze, almost as though he’s telling her to just continue.

“You dork,” she laughs. “But yes, I was thinking. Why don’t you move in with me?” she asks. “You’re already there most of the time, and your house is always messy and your couch not comfortable enough for…” She shrugs, trying her best to hide her smirk. “Plus, I’d really love to have you there.”

He feigns thinking about it, but when she gasps in mock shock, he pulls her in for a kiss—and that is when their friends must see and whistle. “I’d never say no to that, Angel.”

Her smile is bright and in the moment, he doesn’t even realize he doesn’t have forever with her, although that’s what he’s come to crave for.

He didn’t know how he let Marius convince him to go back to Germany and see her. He really had no clue, just as he didn’t have a clue about many things—what he’d tell her, how she might react, what he’d do after. How he’d feel after—relieved? like he’s finally had some closure? and how would things be once back in Hereford?

There were a million and one thoughts in his mind as he sat there, on his hotel bed. Harry had offered to let the organization pay for it, but Dominic would have felt too bad if he had let him. This was personal, and there was no saying if his heart still lay within Rainbow schemes. He’d probably keep in touch; he’d probably always be available for anything, really, but the more time passed, the less he thought that was still the right place for him.

Düsseldorf was still buzzing with life despite the torrential rain when he walked out into the street. Y/N—he feared too many emotions and memories would resurface if he let himself think of her as Angel—had moved from the city three years after her lifetime friends had ended up in jail, sent behind bars by none other than her lover. They wouldn’t stay inside forever—he knew how these things worked, he didn’t live a delusion.

He had called her, the day before he had booked his flight. If there was one thing he owed her, it was at least that—let her know he’d be coming… if she wanted him to, that is. If she didn’t want to meet up, then so be it: he’d go on with his life the way he had done throughout the past year and try not to regret too much stuff he had been forced to do because of his job.

But when she had picked up the phone—he had called her old number with his old number—things had felt… well, not normal, of course—he had disappeared overnight without leaving a note or a text or a simple word that could let her know what the fuck had been going on during the past six years of his life—of their life. But she had picked up the phone and she hadn’t killed him through the device, and although she had remained silent for most of the call—and he had done the same, truly, not even knowing what he wanted to tell her, for the words just wouldn’t come—she had eventually agreed to meet up.

Not at her new house, although Harry had done some digging and knew where she lived—a nice apartment in a nice part of the city, but Dominic hadn’t wanted to know where, exactly, when his Director had offered to share the knowledge. She had picked a café, a nice and cozy place he had looked up on the internet, but still popular enough that the awkwardness of their date of sorts would be easily drowned out by the other patrons’ presence.

She was scrolling through her phone when he walked in and spotted her in the far left corner. It was secluded enough to guarantee them some privacy, but still not enough to cut them off from the rest of the world. He figured it was just perfect.

“Hey,” he greeted when he walked up to the table she had picked and he tried not to sigh when he noticed she had pulled her hair back into two braids.

She looked up at him—she didn’t glare the way he had expected her to, but she also didn’t smile. “Hey.”

He sat down, and they both stared at each other until a waiter came up and Y/N called for a coffee and an orange juice before glaring the guy away.

The awkwardness of it all quickly filled the space between them, and wrapped them up like a blanket, but it wasn’t just that. She was pissed, and angry, and probably murderous, but under all that he could still see the heartbreak in her eyes.

“Well, I’m here,” she said. “Say what you wanted to say. It’s the least I deserve, I think.”

Dominic opened his mouth to speak, but then the waiter came back and he closed it again as he watched their order being placed on the table. His cup of black coffee and her glass of juice seemed to put even more distance between them and he had to resist the impulse of passing a hand over his shaved head the way he did when he was nervous.

“I’m sorry,” was what he sighed, lowering his gaze first to the table and then back out of the window and the rain-washed street outside.

She leaned forward and took a sip from the straw before crossing her arms and sitting back against the cushioned back of the booth. “That’s it? You came all the way from wherever the fuck you’ve been hiding to just say I’m sorry? No explanation whatsoever?”

Another sigh, but before he could open his mouth to speak again, she cut him off.

“Was any of that real? Was there at least a crumb of truth? I opened up to you and you just—” Her voice trembled, but whether it was out of tears or pure anger, Dominic couldn’t tell.

“It was real.” He was quick at biting back, probably a bit too aggressively than he had any right to be. “It was real,” he repeated after a moment, voice much quieter and eyes boring into hers. “I did love you.”

“Love’s too big a word for the things you’ve done.”

“It was work,” he tried to reason. “I got sent here on an undercover mission—”

“I know that. I’ve been interrogated by the ones who didn’t go in. They suspected me. Because of you. Because I had been fucking the snitch for almost five years.”

He gaped at her for a moment before sighing in defeat. “I loved you,” but he didn’t say I still do, or You’re still on my mind day in and day out, and not even I still see your panties on the gear shift of Christian’s car. “That wasn’t fake, it wasn’t part of the mission. I told myself I wouldn’t fall for you, that it would mess things up, that it wasn’t fair to you. But I still did. Every I love you I said was real. Every single one of them.”

She was silent for a minute before she scoffed and shook her head. “You’re so full of shit, Dominic.”

It was different this time. She had told him that he was full of shit many a time, always laughing, always joking, but this time those words cut deep—deep enough to rob him of his breath for a moment.

“I trusted you,” she continued then, much quieter, voice barely audible above the sound of the music and of the other people chatting. “I thought you’d be my forever. How stupid I was…”

He looked down at his cup, his throat too knotted to even stomach the idea of drinking his coffee. “That makes two of us. I thought that I—”

“Don’t you even dare—”

“That I’d have more time,” he continued unrelenting, shaking his head with closed eyes for a second before opening them and staring at her again. “That I could buy more time. I kept on hoping I’d fuck up somehow, that things would go wrong and that I wouldn’t have to complete the mission. Or that I could have the time to make you hate me before it was all over.”

“Well, I do kinda hate you now.”

“Breaking your heart was never in my plans, though.” He almost moved his hand on the table to place it over hers, but a last-minute realization made him understand that that was most definitely the worst thing he could do at the moment. And not because she could snap his wrist easily, but because he had no right to. “I really did love you. I wanted to take you back with me. I tried to tell you.”

There was a spark of recognition in her eyes, then, and he knew what memory his words had brought back. The two of them relaxing in the bathtub, her back against his chest, her damp hair tickling his neck and cheek. Come away with me, he had told her, fingers trailing up and down her arms, making her shiver. Let’s go far away, where no one can find us.

“I didn’t want it to end,” he confessed. “Any of that.”

“You built everything on a lie, Dominic.” A scoff. “If that’s even your real name, that is.”

“It is.”

It seemed to take her off guard and erased the words she had been about to say.

“My name’s Dominic Brunsmeier, not Neumann. I work for an international unit of elite agents that fight terrorism. I was assigned on this mission because we were informed Anton was doing more than simply dealing drugs. I went undercover with a Hells Angels chapter in the past, so the GSG-9 called me back for this one,” he confessed, voice flat and almost professional. He would have never thought he’d one day be making such a speech out loud, but there he was, in a busy café, in front of the woman he still had the nerve to love but who didn’t love him back anymore. “And my love for you could’ve never been a lie.”

She nodded once and turned her head to the side and to the city outside. He was trying to gauge what she might be thinking, what might be going on inside her head. But she remained unreadable and distant. “They’d kill you if they knew you’re back,” she eventually said, glancing at him from the corner of her eye, her chin still resting on the palm of her hand.

He shrugged. “I’ve been close to death too many times to be scared today. This past year…” He couldn’t tell her it had been rough; he didn’t think he had the right to when in her eyes he had gone back home. “I knew I had to see you, even if it was for the last time. I didn’t think you’d agree to meet up, but I’m glad you did.”

They were silent after that. They drank their beverages, and all without speaking a word. But then, when they paid and left, she let him accompany her home.

“I thought you’d break my bones,” he confessed with a chuckle as he stood outside her apartment complex and she picked the right key to open the building’s door.

“I thought I would, too.” She was pensive, lost in thought, and it took her a couple of minutes before she pushed the door open. “But the truth is, I probably could never.”

They stared at each other, and before he could have the time to chicken out, he said, “I know it’s too much to ask, but… We could still have time together.”

She looked at him for a moment longer before she stepped into the building and closed the door behind her back.

Later that night, as he sat on his hotel bed once again, on a phone call with Marius, he couldn’t stop thinking about the last words she told him.

Yes, we could.

Feedback is always welcome if you want to drop old me a line 💛

If you want to be tagged, hit me up! xx

#dominic brunsmeier #dominic bandit brunsmeier #rainbow six siege imagine #r6s bandit imagine #dominic brunsmeier imagine #dominic brunsmeier x oc #r6s bandit x oc #rainbow six siege fanfic

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warsofasoiaf · 4 years ago

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The Celtic Tiger - A Kaiserreich Ireland AAR Chapter 6: Three Days in Halifax

“I am a war man in times of war, and a peace man in times of peace.” -Michael Collins

The Second Weltkrieg had seen millions of men dead on every continent save Antarctica. Europe and Asia had turned into rolling battlegrounds of armor and artillery, the fields littered with bodies and the hulks of tanks. The rivers were choked with fuel and blood. The seas could erupt at any time into a sudden death of torpedoes and naval bombardment, and the coasts were saturated with mines. What made the war worse is that it seemed that progress anywhere was slow; countless soldiers were dying for very little gain much like the First Weltkrieg.

The Entente had been suffering a crisis of leadership. The Dominion of Canada had seen setback after setback, and had failed to secure any landing zone on the British Home Isles. The Tories had been unsatisfied with King Edward’s performance and leadership during the war, and this had only exacerbated his low public standing. The king had frequently become a figure of public scandal for being spotted with young debutantes, and had expressed his wish to marry recently-divorced American film actress Constance Bennett. The Church of England had fiercely protested the proposal, as it was improper for the head of the Anglican Church. The Tories and Labour parties both expressed their desires that the King either call off the plans or abdicate the throne. When delegations from the West Indies Federation and the Dominion of India supported abdication, the King knew that his time on the throne was at an end. As 1940 came to a close, Edward formally abdicated the throne in favor of his brother, coronated as King Albert I. “Bertie,” a shy and awkward man, seemed to be ill-suited to lead the country at war. Some of the more militant members of the Canadian Exiles had hoped to install Prince Henry, but the traditionalists among the Exiles and the Tories both shot the proposal down; Albert was the oldest and the true and proper heir, nothing would dissuade them from that.

As his first act upon assuming the throne, Albert ordered an assessment of Entente military capabilities against the Internationale, which ways that the Entente could secure a better forward operating location to prosecute the Reclamation of the Home Isles. Launching from French Algeria and attacking at Marseilles or from Sardinia to Piedmont was fine for the European mainland, but the Home Isles were special. The French, naturally, were supportive of the idea of liberating their homeland first and then launching an attack across the Channel, but that didn’t satisfy the British Exiles. Iceland did not have the infrastructure, and shipping to Norway was considered too far and remote. All options had their own unique undesirable elements to them, and it fell to King Albert to pick which risky option would be the best for his population-in-exile.

Albert’s response surprised international observers across the world, when he formally invited the Reichspakt to discuss “matters of shared concern in the struggle against syndicalism” with a conference in Halifax. Given Albert’s tour of service against the Germans in the First Weltkrieg, everyone thought that there would be too much bad blood for any large-scale Entente-Reichspakt cooperation. The two empires had sworn non-aggression pacts with each other, but that had largely been a practical matter since both empires were waging war with the Internationale and the Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere. King Albert had potentially offered a further degree of cooperation and coordination with their European rivals, shocking foreign policy observers across the world. This shock was doubled when Kaiser Wilhelm agreed to the proposal. The Kaiser, whose health had been declining due to the stresses brought on by the war, elected to come in person along with his foreign minister.

“The German’s war is not going well. The Communards can afford to keep most of their army on the border and push against the Germans in the west, and the Vozhd can do the same in eastern Europe. But there’s too much bad blood between him and the English. He’ll torpedo the deal, mark my words.” Kevin O’Higgins, the foreign minister, had ruefully predicted. “I doubt the Marcheal will be willing to formally surrender Elsaß-Lothringen to the Germans. There’s too much pride, too many wounds from the First Weltkrieg.”

“I have little hope for them.” Richard Mulcahy agreed. “They can’t even agree on a mediator for the damn thing! The United States can’t be an effective mediator, they’re angry that Germany supported Huey Long. The Danubian Federation can’t be a mediator, they’re long allies of the Reichspakt. Even the International Mandate can’t mediate the conference since they restored British voting rights; their only goddamn job is to mediate between the powers. So now Quentin Roosevelt and Karl I are guests, not arbitrators.”

“Did we offer to mediate as well? I’m certain the Entente would have shut that one down, but I never heard anything about it.” Collins asked.

“They never even bothered to respond.” O’Higgins shrugged, but as soon as he said it, Collins stood up from his desk.

“Their mistake. Mulcahy, look for transit for three to Halifax.”

O’Higgins, mouth agape, could only stutter out, “You can’t be serious.”

“I can and I am.” Collins ordered. “Keep our presence quiet. This will be a conference to remember.”

***

Halifax was an unusual choice for high-level diplomatic talks. Nova Scotia was a rougher province than Ontario, devoted more to resource-gathering and the fishing industry than to high-level diplomatic summits. Ontario seemed like it would have been the first-choice. Quebec had seen riots against the draft for the war effort, but Ontario was still the capital province. But Collins had no experience in high-level diplomatic summits, and never had to set the venue for one. His first high-level summit, in fact, had him walking in as a semi-uninvited houseguest. O’Higgins had been able to bargain for a position with one, having the proposal being floated through Quentin Roosevelt and wielding the guilt of leaving Ireland to dangle in the wind with all the skill of a Catholic mother. King Albert could hardly deny Ireland a spot at the negotiations, not when the war against the Internationale was the chief concern. Ireland had been fighting against them the longest, and had the most experience against the continental armies.

The first part of the day was largely relegated to ceremony. So many visiting heads of state, there was a great deal of pomp and circumstance to go through. A novice observer might have thought it to be a waste of time, but Collins understood the craft of it. Making the Reichspakt nations feel welcome would put them in a more conciliatory mood. Information had always been key in the diplomatic game just as it was in the war. Collins had told Mulcahy to check the quarters that they had been assigned for any bugs, and he could only imagine checking the light fixtures and telephone receivers while he stood in the cold Nova Scotia air and listened to the Royal Canadian Band play the anthems of each of the visiting heads of state.

Collins could hardly get a free moment, he had been a darling in the press for both nations. From his successful handling of Black Monday to his repulse of the Internationale’s invasions with an army almost one-tenth the size of those who he was fighting. The handsome young revolutionary had turned into a seasoned and capable head of state. In both war and peace, there seemed to be no limit to what this man and the nation he led could do. Some Canadians, particularly those British Exiles, had strong opinions about the Ulster peace process. Mercifully, only a few held signs against the mastermind of Bloody Wednesday, far more held signs expressing their support. Collins didn’t doubt that some of those supporters would turn on them should the British King look to re-establish Ireland as a dominion or free state, but that would be a problem for another day. Collins needed to have his head on straight, because one misstep could doom the war effort.

The host for the event, King Albert I, looked young but eager. He looked optimistic, bright-eyed and driven. Past the smiles, Collins could see a man who was deeply troubled and trying his best to put a brave face on the event. As the processions wore on, the king looked less and less comfortable, yet stood proudly for each procession of head of state, with he and the Canadian Prime Minister welcoming each delegation. The plight of such a young king, freshly coronated and now thrust into the largest and perhaps most important conference of his life was sympathetic, even from an English king. When it had been Collins’s turn to be presented to the cheering crowd, he had expected a chilly reception, but he had been pleasantly surprised. He could see a few Irish tricolors being waved by the onlookers, far more than he would have expected from Candians of Irish heritage. When he shook King Albert’s hand, the monarch had told him: “I am pleased that you are here, Mister President. Welcome to the Dominion of Canada.” Collins had decided to maintain decorum by declining to mention that he hadn’t been invited, and had returned the greeting. “I feel quite welcome, your Majesty. Allow me to congratulate you on your coronation.”

The other main luminary for the event was the exact opposite. Kaiser Wilhelm looked tired and worn. He was pale, and walked slowly with the support of his wife and Empress. Collins had guessed that the stress had been taking his toll on the older man. His eyes were sunken and dark, and his mouth was pursed tightly. The leader of the Reichspakt looked like an aging dreadnought, with its sailor desperately bilging out water to keep her afloat. To Collins, the man appeared unsure of what the affair may hold. If he had no hope for the talks, it’s likely he would not have come, but he did not seem to appear conciliatory despite his frail condition. King Albert may have been his first cousin once removed, but that familial relation had meant little to Albert’s father during the First Weltkrieg and would not get in the way of his ambitions to secure Germany’s place in the sun now.

These two titans would be Collins’s targets, not for death but for life. Ireland depended upon a successful negotiation, and he had not come so far to fail now.

***

After the ceremony, a luncheon, and a private visit for King and Kaiser to the coffin of King George V, waiting to be interred in Westminster Abbey, the tall order of diplomatic business began. Both the Entente and the Reichspakt recognized the need for coordination between their armies to better overwhelm the Internationale’s defenses. A reconfirmation of their nations’ non-aggression pacts was a given, but success in this war would require far more than that. It would mean a need for intelligence coordination, military access, and even joint operations between the two alliances. In this statement, both the King and Kaiser were in firm agreement.

However, the exiles in Canada and French Algeria had made it plain that they intended to recover their territories in their entirety, and that this was a hard line for the Entente. Their return to their territories was their primary goal, and the successful conclusion of the war would only be after the rightful governments of Britain and France were restored and their territories returned to their proper administration in their entirety. The Reichspakt protested this; the core goal of the war should be to end the syndicalist menace once and for all, not to restore the British and French governments. “The syndicalists declared wars of aggression against the Reichspakt, along with Ireland and the Republic of Italy,” the Kaiser spoke loudly before a coughing fit brought him to a halt.

“This is true, the Internationale is a threat to world peace.” Collins interjected. He may not have been approved to be a mediator, but he wasn’t about to have the conference die in the first session. “And we cannot lose sight of that. Surely then, there can be something of strategic interest that the Reichspakt could use, that we can confirm by agreement at this conference in exchange?”

The Kaiser had yet to compose himself from his coughing fit, but his foreign minister took charge. “We are prepared to discuss our demands, but we are simply asking that the primary recognition be on the defeat of the syndicalist menace. I believe it is appropriate to turn to the matter of a common cause in the Italian Theater. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies is prepared to coordinate naval patrols with the Kingdom of Sardinia. Two Sicilies is prepared to maintain the army lines if Sardinia can help maintain clear seas in the Mediterranean. Since the majority of the German and Dutch navies are in the Pacific, Italian operations will depend upon Sardinian and French naval power. We understand that the French strategic direction looks to be a crossing at Marseilles. The Reichspakt is prepared to increase the pressure on the front between the Socialist Republic of Italy and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to divert Italian manpower away from potentially reinforcing French garrison troops in southern France.”

Collins folded his hands to hide his frown. The Reichspakt knew what it was doing, but Collins didn’t have to like it. Without a hard line of its own to establish, and thus focusing on matters that could have been saved for later, this conference was off to a bad start. There was no question that the German Emprie would have in mind a host of concessions to offer in exchange for taking no territory, particularly from France, and that should have been the first sticking point of the conference. Perhaps the Kaiser had hoped to foster a spirit of cooperation by settling some small affairs first, or perhaps to make the Entente feel invested so they would be reluctant when Germany offered its demands. Perhaps it could have even been considered a good ploy, but Collins thought that the war had no time to waste on such matters.

***

If the first day of the conference was dominated by things of lesser importance, the second day of the conference was sure to surprise Collins in the other direction. The Kaiser, looking much healthier than he had the day before, had opened the conference with his list of demands. “The German Empire demands that, to alleviate territorial concerns, that the Entente recognize colonial possessions currently administered by the German Empire in Central Africa and East Asia as confirmed colonial possessions. In addition, to facilitate the prompt and swift reconstruction of France into the European community, France would join the Central European Customs Union as a constituent member.”

The French government had been taken aback by the request. The recognition and acknowledgement of German colonial gains was an expected demand. With the war currently raging in East Asia, if the Germans were able to successfully fend off Japan and Siam, they would have far more legitimacy than the French held on ever since their successful defeat of the Indochinese Revolt led by Ho Chi Minh. Deustche-Mittelafrika was widely seen as a colonial failure, with the corrupt Stattholders extracting resources from African fiefs. Such lands, even if the Entente could reclaim them, would be ungovernable, especially with a more assertive Somalia and Ethiopia pressuring decolonization efforts and the Internationale’s Anti-Colonialist Committee launching terror attacks in Morocco and Algeria. France still maintained its hold on northern and western Africa, and administered it far more capably. The lost colonies were already lost; there was no need to hold on to them.

Joining Mitteleuropa was the larger concern; it was no secret that while the organizations did benefit all member countries, the lion’s share of the benefits went to the German Empire and several structural rules served no other purpose than to enrich Germany at the expense of the other member nations. Several nations within Mitteleuropa were almost forced to join the union out of necessity in the wake of the First Weltkrieg, and chafed at some of its restrictions. France had protested this requirement, asserting that it had the potential to threaten the recovery of the French government and economy. The Dominion of Canada also had its own concerns, namely how the Mitteleuropa rules and regulations would interfere with the Imperial Economic Development Council, the Entente’s own economic development organization. Much more loosely structured than Mitteleuropa, and centered on economic advisors and medium-term projects, the actions of the IEDC could be seen as a violation of trade agreements and regulatory oversight agreements that were present in Mitteleuropa. “Sorting out the idiosyncrasies of how these two great organizations would interact would take months of policy consultation, something that is well beyond the scope of this conference,” King Albert offered.

“So are the necessary withdrawal arrangements for territories. We understand the need for the details to be sorted. At this point, we are only seeking a pledge that once the French government has fully retaken its position and has successfully re-established governance following the cessation of hostilities, that they will join Mitteleuropa in totality.” The French delegation deferred the answer until the next day, asking its economic advisor to meet with the Canadian Minister of Finance and work out a quick answer as to whether or not such a plan was even feasible. Collins despaired. Had he been named the mediator of this discussion, he would have made sure he understood the various proposals of negotiation before any of them had set foot in Halifax.

“The French delegation makes a sound point,” Collins offered the Reichspakt delegation. “It is worthwhile to understand whether the French government is capable of complying with a demand and maintain its current treaties and commitments. Now, let us discuss shared planning between our nations’ intelligence services. It would be advantageous for us to find ways to streamline the sharing of intelligence gathering for both aerial and naval reconnaissance, and the establishment of signals officers that can ensure ground troops can benefit from enemy intelligence. G-2 has offered several proposals that may be adopted quickly by our respective army signal corps.”

All Collins could do was attempt to keep the discussion moving forward.

***

Deustche-Mittelafrika had been even more fragile than any could have predicted. Periodic mismanagement by the colonial administration, made worse by the disorganized and often mutually-contradictory procedures and byzantine support structure between the regional colonial governors and allied local leaders. The Stathalter, Hermann Goering, had run an infamously brutal colonial regime in his attempt to provide Germany with raw resources. Even domestic protest had risen steadily as word from journalists, dissidents, and other sources continued to trickle in from the dark continent. “Goering has become Kurtz of Joseph Conrad’s novel in every way. He holds himself as the great iron man of Africa, more force of nature than man and every bit as pitiless. He conceives of himself as inseparable from the nation. Rising industrial outputs are the equivalent, in Goering’s eyes, to climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. He holds himself as a vital thriving heart, and purges those who do not think as he does.”

As protests continued to mount, high-level members began to depart Mittelafrika. Ernst Junger, noted author and new thinker, departed for Deutsche Ostasia. The Reformgruppen, an alliance of German colonial officers who supported greater autonomy and partitioning of Mittelafrika, returned home after Goering refused to return to German courts to fight the Black Dossier of abuses compiled by his brother Albert. Theodor von Hassel, who had grown disgusted with Goering, had even publicly spoken of democratic transition. “It is intolerable that Prussia may have a Bundesrat, but nowhere in the entirety of Africa can anyone offer even a breath in its governance.” Famously, he had met with Somalia and had encouraged their own path to democracy, and when their constitution had been articulated, he had gone to Mogadishu and proclaimed Somalia “the bright heart of African democracy.” Somalia had taken those words to heart, and had founded the African League for Democratic Independence, espousing the desire for African nations to gain control of their own governments and achieve ethnic self-determination.

Mittelafrika had debated invading Somalia to end this threat to their colonial overlordship, but repeated flare ups and Goering’s corruption had caused more and more of the component colonial nations of Africa to turn against him. Over the course of one day, spontaneous demonstrations, some believed to be influenced partially by Somalia and Emperor Haile Selassie in Ethiopia, and others believed to be organic, had risen from the Ivory Coast to Nyassaland. Goering had disappeared, and more than a dozen groups claimed to have ended the madman’s life once and for all. The German colonial government had scrambled, with only the Namibian colonial administration holding on to a shred of territory, now called Deutsche-Südwestafrika. The newly independent countries wasted no time both in suppressing their own internal revolts and going to war with each other, and Ethiopia and Somalia had almost declared war on each other.

***

Late into the evening, Collins had sat with the French delegation, drinking wine long into the night and working with their advisors. Ireland had long been a member of Mitteleuropa and had chafed under its regulations just as the other member nations had. The French government-in-exile had been curious to see if the German offer was genuine, but had quickly run into a row when France had brought up that Ireland had not made entreaties to France in the Open For Business Initiative. Collins had tried to defend himself, saying that French Algeria had little in the way of businesses to open in Ireland. At the time Ireland had been courting for investment in 1936, the French exiles had been conducting their own Transsaharan survey, and were building a Algers-to-Mali railway, hardly conducive to opening a business in Ireland.

“I heard the Jacobins had hoped to open an automotive plant in Dublin. Was that true?” came a pointed question.

“They did. While they were sending boys to fight in the United States, fighting my own volunteers, they came hoping to give themselves a place to peddle syndicalism to their employees while they were stuck on the line. I’ll say, telling the Communards to piss off was satisfying. You and I fought on the right side during the Second American Civil War. Let’s fight on the same side again.”

The news of Mittelafrika’s collapse worried the German and Portuguese delegations immensely. The Kaiser had elected not to postpone or abort the proceedings at the Halifax Conference. Collins had speculated that to do so was to declare weakness in the face of the Entente. This had left the state of the conference in a terrible balance; one of the concessions that the Reichspakt had agreed to were the British and French colonies they had taken over after the Weltkrieg and the syndicalist revolutions. With those colonies no longer under their control, Kaiser Wilhelm may have hoped to demand further concessions from the Entente nations in exchange for their support. Collins had advised against it, with the loss of their African holdings the Reichspakt was weaker, not stronger. If the French had accepted the demands for Mitteleuropan membership, then the conference could be successful. They had already secured themselves in Indochina, there was no need to rock the boat further.

“In light of recent events, to further cement ongoing peace between the Entente and the Reichspakt, the German Empire requires the French government to formally renounce their claims to the territory of Elsaß-Lothringen. This will solidify the borders between our two nations and lead to lasting peace in Europe.” Kaiser Wilhelm addressed grandly, much to Collins’s shock. “This will be the German Empire’s final demand.”

The French delegation immediately stood up and stormed out of the council chambers. Collins, sunken-eyed from his late night, called the session for a recess, and sent O’Higgins to talk the French delegate down from aborting the conference altogether. On his fourth cup of coffee, Collins had no appetite as he met with Richard Mulcahy and Kevin O’Higgins.

“What the hell is Kaiser Wilhelm thinking?” Collins tried to keep from raising his voice. “He just lost one of his largest colonies and now he wants to demand more?”

“He’s overplaying his hand. He doesn’t want to appear weak.” O’Higgins offered, trying to explain the Reichspakt position. “And with the loss of the African colonies, he wants to be seen as someone who delivered, not someone who capitulated to the Entente.

Richard Mulcahy shook his head. “I don’t blame him for wanting to project strength. They’re sharks out there and they smell blood.”

Collins scoffed. “Well, he did it in the worst possible way. Looks like I’ll need a secret weapon. Mulcahy, go and grab my bag from the cloakroom. Bring the small brown case.”

***

When the session reconvened, the tension was so thick the room felt like a jungle. Once the session was called, the French delegation immediately spoke.

“I do not see the reason in promoting further concessions. It is evident to us now that the Reichspakt has not come to bargain with us as equals.”

“That is a gross mischaracterization. The Reichspakt has already graciously seen fit to agree to the territorial integrity of the Entente, and sees no reason why it is not also free to claim its own sovereignty regarding its own territories.”

“And demanding that France surrender her economic sovereignty as well?”

“A speedy rebuilding and recovery is in German interests as well as France, and the best way to secure that is membership within the Central European Customs Union.”

As the discussion became more and more heated, Collins, the unofficial mediator, slowly opened a brown case seated on the desk, and pulled out a glass bottle, filled with a dark brown liquid. Few even noticed as Collins took the bottle into his hand, running his fingers over the finely-crafted neck, before taking the bottle, and smashing it as hard as he could against the hard oak table. The loud crash brought every delegate to quiet, and that pause held as the thick smell of whiskey began to fill the room.

“That...was the Cairedas bottle on display in the Dail.” Michael Collins began. “Five years ago, we made four of those bottles to commemorate a spirit of friendship and shared optimism for the future. That bottle was priceless. Now look at it, there are pieces of priceless scattered all over this table. Take a piece of it if you want, go ahead, cut your finger on something priceless and see how valuable it is. Because that’s what we have now, nothing.”

“Every single one of us has reason not to be here. And if that’s all that we have, then this is all we’ll ever be, pieces of something greater made worthless by the struggle. And those pieces will be swallowed up. If not by the syndicalists, by Savinkov. Is that all we are?”

***

It would have been poetic for the sides to have come to an agreement after Collins’s speech, but it had taken several hours of negotiation to work out an acceptable compromise. The Entente formally recognized their lost colonies as German territorial possessions. The Reichspakt agreed to take no territories from the Entente and not to interfere with the rebuilding process of the Entente nations save through mutual treaty, unconditional foreign aid, or private donations. Portugal vowed not to cause or entice any actions against the German colonies in Namibia. France agreed to join the Central European Customs Union, but did not have to leave the Imperial Economic Development Council or the Imperial Scientific and Academic Council, nor did IEDC or ISAC initiatives fall under the jurisdiction of Mitteleuropa or the Kaiser Wilhelm Society. France would also be permitted to maintain all previously existing trade treaties with Entente nations, providing it a significant advantage over other Mitteleuropa member states. Signals operators from each alliance would be detailed to the other alliance’s divisions in the interests of unified communications and joint operations at the divisional level.

Ireland, belonging to neither alliance, would also engage in sharing intelligence with both nations. Entente planes could utilize the air bases in Belfast to support combat operations on the British Home Isles. Ireland would participate in joint planning as a non-aligned full belligerent power. If necessary, the Dominion of Canada could utilize Irish territory temporarily as a staging ground for naval invasions of the Union of Britain. It was certainly not a small sacrifice, but Collins made it gladly.

As the Irish delegation prepared to depart, Richard Mulcahy whispered to Collins, once he was sure that they were on their plane and away from any Canadian microphones placed in their quarters.

“I didn’t know you took the Cairedas bottle from the Dail.”

“I didn’t. I just paid Saorstat to make a replica.”

“You cheeky bastard. What were you going to do if they called your bluff?”

“Thank God, we’ll never have to find out. Come on, we’ve got a war to win.”

---

King Edward Abdicates

Collapse of Mittelafrika

Successful Halifax Conference

Alright, as I said, the format was a little different in this one, wanted to do a little character work for Collins. Less pictures in this one since the game doesn’t really replicate treaty negotiations (hell, it doesn’t even allow non-members to participate, but that wouldn’t do for this AAR) Decided to be a bit showboat-y at the end since in the Anglo-Irish treaty negotiations he was quite the darling of the London crowd. Had some fun playing around with the setting, even if it might get a little past the point.

Two more chapters to go, the war and the peace afterward, plus an appendix to detail my units and my national focuses to give a picture of this new Ireland. Hope you like this one.

-SLAL

#kaiserreich #creative #celtic tiger

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entamewitchlulu · 5 years ago

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so i did a reading challenge this year and i wanna talk about what i read

transcription under the cut

i did Popsugar 2019 and wanna talk about what i read: Book Reccs and Anti-Reccs

1.) Becoming a Movie in 2019: Umbrella Academy (vol 1) by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba

4/5. A fascinating take on superpowers, dysfunctional families, and the apocalypse. Can get pretty gory, confusing here and there and you have to pay close attention to panels for lore, but overall an entertaining romp.

2.) Makes you Feel Nostalgic: Circles in the Stream by Rachel Roberts

4/5. Middle grade novel about the magic of music, belief, and of course, friendship. Definitely written for kids, and has some unfortunately clumsy Native rep, but overall an absolute joy to dive into once again.

3.) Written by a Musician: Umbrella Academy (vol 2) by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba

4/5. Ramps up the confusion to ridiculous degrees with some absolutely bonkers, unexplained arcs, but still fun to watch this dysfunctional family do its dysfunctional thing.

4.) You Think Should be Turned into a movie: All That Glitters by Rachel Roberts

4/5. Continuation of Circles in the Stream, but with more unicorns, more rainbows, and more fae, which makes it automatically even better than the first.

5.) With At Least 1 Mil. Ratings on Goodreads: 1984 by George Orwell

1/5. I understand why it's important and all but wasn't prepared for some of the more graphic scenes and the overall hopelessness of the message. Would not recommend or read again.

6.) W/ a Plant in the title or cover: The secret of Dreadwillow carse by Brian farrey

5/5. A fantasy world where everyone is always happy, save for one girl and the princess, who set out to solve the mystery of their kingdom. Poignant and great for kids and adults.

7.) Reread of a favorite: Cry of the Wolf by Rachel Roberts

4/5. Yet another installment in the Avalon: Web of Magic series, which clearly I am obsessed with. Please just read them.

8.) About a Hobby: Welcome to the Writer's Life by Paulette Perhach

5/5. A welcome kick in the pants, chock full of great advice told without condescension, and full of hope and inspiration for writers both new and old.

9.) Meant to read in 2018: The Poet x by Elizabeth Acevedo

4/5. Absolutely beautiful coming of age novel told in verse. Do yourself a favor and listen to the audiobook version.

10.) w/ "pop," "sugar," or "challenge" in the title: Black Sugar by Miguel Bonnefoy

2/5. I think maybe I just don't understand this genre. Or maybe the translation was weird. I was confused.

11.) w/ An Item of Clothing or Accessory on the cover: Our dreams at Dusk by Yuhki Kamatani

4/5. It had a lot more slurs/homophobia than I was prepared for, but otherwise is a very touching, relatable collection of queer characters living in a heteronormative world.

12.) Inspired by Mythology or Folklore: Ravenous by MarcyKate Connolly

3/5. A girl goes on an impossible quest to save her brother from a child-eating witch. Really wanted to like it more because I loved the first one, Monstrous, but it dragged a little.

13.) Published Posthumously: The Islands of Chaldea by Diana Wynne Jones

3/5. I adore Diana Wynne Jones, but this one was missing some of the magic of her other books. Not sure if it was because it had to be finished by someone else, or if I just grew out of her stories.

14.) Set in Space: Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

4/5. Powerfully written story of a girl straddling tradition and innovation, who wields power through mathematical magic, surviving on a spaceship alone with a dangerous alien occupation after everyone else has been killed.

15.) By 2 Female Authors: Burn for Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian

2/5. Ostensibly a story about a revenge pact in a small island town, but leaves far too many dangling threads to attempt alluring you to the sequel.

16.) W/ A Title containing "salty," "bitter," "Sweet," or "Spicy": The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith

3/5. It's okay but I literally just never know what anyone means at any time. Are they being reticent on purpose or do i just not understand communication

17.) Set in scandinavia: Vinland Saga by Makoto Yukimura

2/5. Technically and historically accurate and well made, but the story itself is not my cup of tea. Very gory.

18.) Takes Place in a Single Day: Long WAy Down by Jason Reynolds

4/5. A boy goes to avenge his murdered brother, but ghostly passengers join him on the elevator ride down. Stunning and powerful character-driven analysis.

19.) Debut Novel: Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

4/5. Charming and then surprisingly heart-breaking comic about Nimona, a shapeshifter who wants to become a villain's minion. Really love the villain/hero dynamic going on in the background, along with the dysfunctional found family.

20.) Published in 2019: The Book of Pride by Mason Funk

4/5. A collection of interviews with the movers, shakers, and pioneers of the queer and LGBTQ+ community. An absolutely essential work for community members and allies alike.

21.) Featuring an extinct/imaginary creature: Phoebe and her Unicorn by Dana Simpson

4/5. Incredibly charming, Calvin and Hobbes-esque collection of comics featuring the adventures of Phoebe and her unicorn best friend.

22.) Recced by a celebrity you admire: The Emerald Circus by Jane Yolen

2/5. Recced by my fave author Brandon Sanderson. An unfortunately disappointing anthology proving that any story can be made uninteresting by telling the wrong section of it.

23.) With "Love" in the Title: Book Love by Debbie Tung

4/5. One of those relatable webcomics, only this one I felt super hard almost the entire time. Books are awesome and libraries rule.

24.) Featuring an amateur detective: Nancy Drew: Palace of Wisdom by Kelly Thompson

4/5. REALLY love this modern take on Nancy Drew, coming back home to her roots to solve a brand new mystery. Diverse cast and lovely artwork, though definitely more adult.

25.) About a family: Amulet by Kabu Kibuishi

4/5. Excellent, top tier graphic novel about a sister and brother who have to go rescue their mother with a mysterious magic stone. LOVE that the mom gets to be involved in the adventure for once.

26.) by an author from asia, Africa, or s. America: Girls' Last tour by Tsukumizu

4/5. Somehow both light-hearted and melancholy. Two girls travel about an empty, post-apocalyptic world, and muse about life and their next meal.

27.) w/ a Zodiac or astrology term in title: Drawing down the moon by margot adler

3/5. A good starting place for anyone interested in the Neo Pagan movement, but didn't really give me what I was personally looking for.

28.) you see someone reading in a tv show or movie: The Promised NEverland by Kaiu Shirai

4/5. I don't watch TV or movies where people read books so i think reading an adaptation of a TV series after watching the series counts. Anyway it was good but beware racist caricatures

29.) A retelling of a classic: Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Rey Terciero

5/5. We can stop the Little Women reboots and retellings now, this is the only one we need. In fact, we can toss out the original too, this is the only one necessary.

30.) w/ a question in the title: So I'm a spider, so what? by Asahiro Kakashi

4/5. Cute art despite the subject matter, and a surprisingly enthralling take on the isekai genre. Love the doubling down on the video game skills.

31.) Set in a college or university campus: Moonstruck (vol 2) by Grace Ellis

2/5. An incredibly cute, beautiful, and fascinating world of modern magic and creatures, but unfortunately falls apart at the plot and pacing.

32.) About someone with a superpower: Moonstruck (vol 1) by Grace Ellis

4/5. Though nearly as messy plot-wise as its sequel, the first volume is overwhelmingly charming in a way that overpowers the more confusing plot elements.

33.) told from multiple povs: The Long way to a Small, Angry Planet by becky Chambers

4/5. Told almost in a serial format, like watching a miniseries, a group of found-family spaceship crew members make the long journey to their biggest job ever.

34.) Includes a wedding: We Set the dark on fire by Tehlor kay mejia

4/5. Timely and poignant, a girl tumbles into both love and resistance after becoming one of two wives to one of the most powerful men in the country.

35.) by an author w/ alliterative name: The only harmless great Thing by brooke bolander

3/5. Much deeper than I can currently comprehend. Beautifully written, but difficult to parse.

36.) A ghost story: Her body and other parties by Carmen Maria Machado

4/5. It counts because one of the stories in it has ghosts. A sometimes difficult collection of surrealist, feminist, queer short stories.

37.) W/ a 2 word title: Good omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

4/5. Charming, touching, and comical, probably the best take on the apocalypse to date. Also excellent ruminations on religion and purpose.

38.) based on a true story: The faithful Spy by John Hendrix

4/5. Brilliantly crafted graphic biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and his assistance in fighting back against Nazi Germany.

39.) Revolving around a puzzle or game: the Crossover by Kwame alexander

4/5. The verse didn't always hit right with me, but the story is a sweet, melancholy one about family, loss, and moving on.

40.) previous popsugar prompt (animal in title): The last unicorn by peter s. Beagle

5/5. Absolutely one of my all-time favorite books, it manages to perfectly combine anachronism and comedy with lyricism, melancholy, and ethereal beauty.

41.) Cli-fi: Tokyo Mew Mew by Mia ikumi and Reiko Yoshida

4/5. Shut up it counts

42.) Choose-your-own-adventure: My Lady's choosing by Kitty curran

3/5. Cute in concept, a bit underwhelming in execution. Honestly, just play an otome.

43.) "Own Voices": Home by Nnedi Okorafor

3/5. The storytelling style was definitely not my style; while the first book was slow, too, it felt more purposeful. I found my attention wandering during this installment.

44.) During the season it's set in: Pumpkinheads by rainbow rowell

3/5. Cute art, but precious little substance. The concept simply wasn't for me in the first place.

45.) LITRPG: My next life as a villainess: All routes lead to doom! by Hidaka nami

5/5. An absolute insta-fave! Charming art, endearing characters, an incredible premise, and so much sweet wholesome fluff it'll give you cavities.

46.) No chapters: The field guide to dumb birds of north america by matt kracht

3/5. It started out super strong, but the joke started to wear thin at a little past the halfway point.

47.) 2 books with the same title: Unfollow by Megan Phelps-Roger

4/5. A brave and enduring personal story of growing up in and eventually leaving the Westboro Baptist Church. Really called to me to act with grace and kindness even more in the future.

48.) 2 books with the same title: unfollow by rob williams and michael dowling

1/5. How many times do you think we can make Battle Royale again before someone notices

49.) That has inspired a common phrase or idiom: THe Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

4/5. Definitely good and deserves it's praise as something that pretty much revolutionized and created an entire demographic of literature.

50.) Set in an abbey, cloister, Monastery, convent, or vicarage: Murder at the vicarage by agatha christie

3/5. I just cannot. physically keep up with all of these characters or find the energy to read between the lines.

ok that's all i got, what did y'all read and like this year? (oh god it’s gonna be 2020)

#book reccs #lulu booktalks

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neighbours-kid · 5 years ago

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June, July, Whatever

Yeah. Remember when I said I’d try and not slip up again, trying to post every month? Turned out great, didn’t it. Honestly, life has been so all over the place and at the same time absolutely uneventful lately, that it’s all a big ball of SOMETHING in my brain, and I don’t even know what happened when. But let’s see.

I started June the absolutely best way imaginable — falling into bed somewhat after midnight exhausted but so fucking proud and happy, after watching six hours of Good Omens. I have obviously not shut up about it since. My friends can attest to that.

And that is basically my June, to be honest. I yelled about Good Omens a lot, both in real life to my friends, in text messages, on twitter, tumblr and instagram.

Well…..I did also go to a wedding on June 1st, and to a convention in Cologne, Germany at the end of the month (which you can all read about here if you haven’t already), which was also really fucking exciting and cool and I had a wonderful time there.

I also watched the new and last season of Jessica Jones, which I think was pretty decent, but it did drag from time to time. I couldn’t binge through it, my attention span for it was close to non-existent. But it was fairly okay.

Not to forget, June was obviously also Pride Month, and I had a great pride with my friends, which was really good. It feels so incredibly liberating to surround yourself with people who are just like you, to find people who can relate to you and the other way around, to find, well, birds of a feather, if you will. I’m pretty sure there’s still glitter in my apartment from then, though. It’s the herpes of arts and craft, folks. Never goes away.

Oh, yeah, one other thing that happened in June, that is important to mention: I had my first appointment with a doctor about going on testosterone. I was really nervous about it, but she was incredibly lovely and helpful, and just a dream of a doctor, to be honest. I have my next appointment with her early in October, and between now and then I have to talk to a psychologist twice to get some papers, but overall she said there should be no problem with me being able to start taking testosterone from that next appointment on. Which I am very happy about. She was very uncomplicated and incredibly informative. I am currently still waiting for the psych person to send me a date, but if that doesn’t happen until next week, I’ll have to contact my doctor again, and she’ll figure it out. I am very excited that things are going forward now. Really gives me something to look forward to.

Now, July.

July was, well, not much different, to be honest. Lots of yelling about Good Omens, with equal amounts of yelling about just Michael Sheen (if you haven’t been privy to that, you should probably be glad). I did some work for two weeks — could, technically, have gone back to do even more, but I hate work and I have shit to do —, and watched a lot of stuff, as well.

I saw Spider-Man: Far From Home, which was really good, but also sort of destroyed my heart for a, well, moment. Well, moment might be a bit too short. You know what I mean. I just really miss Tony. Still breaks my heart.

I binged through two seasons of The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel, finally, which was really fucking great, can’t wait for the third season to come out. I’m really hoping they bring Benjamin back (I know, I’m biased because it’s Zac). I also watched the third part of La Casa de Papel/Money Heist which came out, and good GOD, if they don’t release a fourth part very soon, I’m gonna lose my shit with that cliffhanger they left us with. This show is so fucking good. Spanish TV, y’all. It’s incredible.

Then there’s one more thing I did in July. I started my deep-dive into Michael Sheen’s filmography. I have so far seen nine of his movies (two of which already fall into August though), and I become more amazed by the man’s talent after every new movie I see. He is a fucking acting chameleon, and I still can’t wrap my head around how just a bit of weight change, or a different hairstyle, or length of facial hair can change this man’s appearance so much that he becomes nearly unrecognisable. I do, however, say this. It’s getting better, now that I see the movies, and not just pictures or gifs of it. Before I started, I looked at pictures of him in, say, Underworld, and I could not see a single thing connecting this Michael to the Michael who played Aziraphale in Good Omens. There were no similarities. But now that I’ve seen one of the Underworld movies? I see it, I can see it now. Certain gestures or expressions give him away. But still. He is insanely talented and I wish I had a smidge of his shapeshifting talent, because it’s incredible and I am very much jealous.

So far, I’ve seen: Midnight in Paris (2014), Passengers (2016), Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009), The Adventurer: Curse of the Midas Box (2013), Bright Young Things (2003), Far from the Madding Crowd (2015), Beautiful Boy (2010), Laws of Attraction (2004), and Home Again (2017), with the last two, officially, falling already into August, but never mind that.

My favourite look of his was probably in Curse of the Midas Box (even though, y’all, his Miles in Bright Young Things? Excellent. Stunning. Absolutely beautiful), and my overall favourite movie, probably…….Passengers, even though I don’t like Jennifer Lawrence, and I don’t really care that much for Chris Pratt. But, well, Michael was excellent in it, and I love that little android he plays.

But I’ll shut up about Michael now, I will, likely, make a specific post about my current hyperfixation on him once I’ve actually seen everything he’s been in. And I mean everything, really.

Yeah…that’s my life for you, right there. Not much happening except watching a lot of stuff. I should be working on a seminar paper and start studying for two exams, but you know me. My scatterbrain mind is not very good at actually doing things I should be doing, when I should be doing them, and will probably only flip the switch to ProductivityTM once the deadlines start approaching.

That is all from me for now.

Be seeing ya.

#monthly blog #july #june #blog post #text post #good omens #michael sheen

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shujinkomononobe · 6 years ago

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Voltron has ended and I just finally digitalized my OC for the show...

Name: Blade Nadezhda Dunkeheit Titles: Einherjar of the Black Hound Garmr NA - 235

Age: Season 1 - 17 (22) Season 6 - 18 (23)

Birthday: May 23 Rebirth: November 28

Species: (Experimented) Human Heritage: German (Janus)/Russian (Allisa)

Relationships: Hunk - Best Friend Lance - Prank Partner Keith - Sparring Partner Pidge - Little Sister Figure Shiro - Uncle Figure Coran - Weird Uncle Figure Allura: Big Sister Figure Garmr - Friend and Hound Allisa - Deceased Mother Janus - Deceased Father

Weapons: Garmr - His Hound. Unlike the Lions of Voltron, Hound is a pendant that acts like a full body bayard. Created by Blade when a meteor of the same ore as Voltron fell on Earth. Due to it’s small size Blade couldn’t build a ship, hence why it is a pendante. Unlike the Lions, Garmr’s energy source is his Einherjar. Thus those who wishes to use him must need a large amount of quintessence within themselves. Allura, Lotor, Haggar, Blade and other Alteans are capable of using him. if someone uses him that lacks the required amount of quintessence, they will quickly tire out. Also unlike the Lions who sends signals or ideas to their Paladins, Garmr can talk to it’s Einherjar as one would normally talk to anyone. Body - Experimented body can control his biological components giving him abilities of numerous animals and aliens Magic - After consuming Altean hair he has given the ability of magic but he doesn’t know how to use it though.

Rules: 1. Anyone can give him an order 2. Any kind of order is acceptable. 3. Only the one who gave the order can cancel or change the order. 4. One order at a time. 5. Achieve the order at any means possible.

Personality: Kindly know he has two personalities. The reason for this is his body protecting him. Animals have self defense mechanism that protects them. His doesn’t protect him physically but emotionally. When fear overrides his system his self defense mechanism activates causing his brain to shut down all emotions. Only when he feels safe can snap him back to normal. Self Defense: Stoic and robotic. He follows the rules, making him the perfect tool for anything. His fighting capabilities during this phase is inhumanly great that Voltron fell before him during their first meeting in less than five seconds due to the lack of mercy and no fear of death. Normal: After being trapped in his self defense mechanism for nearly 17 years he is a bit shy and stoic towards new people. He often maintains distance towards newcomers and doesn’t trust easily. After gaining his trust he will show affection by physical touching. Which can be seen at the team when he constantly hug Hunk, carries Pidge around, massage Lance, pet Keith, arm wrestle with Shiro and teach the Alteans the Earth dances. He is also caring and fierce fully loyal once he trusts you. His fighting capabilities are still great in this phase but not as great when his self defense is activated due to his empathetic self. He is also known to call Pidge by her real name Katie, and calling Shiro by his first name Takashi and is also known to use German phrases from time to time. Russian phrases are rare but it also happens.

Backstory: His parents Janus and Allisa we’re both orphans. The two grew up in the same orphanage in Germany and was never adopted. The two feel in love with each other as they grow up and helped around the orphanage. Later in their lives they became great scientists and got married. Allisa then became pregnant with Janus’ son. The two named him Blade after their first date when Janus tried to impress Allisa by carving their initials on a tree which Allisa replied sarcastically “Oh yes, bring a blade on a first date in a forest far away from civilization where no one can hear me scream is romantic.” Then tragedy struck the two. An accident occurred in their lab causing Janus to forget human emotions leaving Allisa. To make matters worse Allisa lost Blade in the accident. As a way to cope with depression Allisa kept Blade’s corpse in a specialized container as a reminder of the happy times. After five years she finds Janus again and found out he made a military organization with questionable morals named Angel Corps. In hopes of reminding Janus who she is, she joins the organization. After watching a documentary Janus sought to create the “perfect human”. A human capable of evolving so quickly that it can’t die by natural means. He instructs his scientists to create his desire by any means necessary. Some started from scratch, creating artificial humans, others started to experiment on young orphans, while Allisa who is slowly losing hope used Blade in the experiment. A lot of the experiments failed and died. A few like Allisa’s experiment succeeded. At first Allisa was filled with joy. She has managed to bring her son back to life. Until reality struck her that her son is to be made a soldier, a killer, a monster. Blade during the time was known by his code name. NA - 235. NA meaning Noah’s Ark which is the name of the project he is in and 235 as his number. He made friends with other experiments like him as they were all grouped up in a room. From time to time the scientists came to experiment on them. Little by little their numbers dwindle. The last experiment was the remaining experiments take a serum. Unlike 235 who was fine with the serum the rest of them turned into grotesque flesh monsters. Seeing his friends turn into such creatures scared him so much that the last experiment finally made 235 activate his self defense mechanism. And so he killed his friends when he was ordered by Janus. Allisa watched in horror seeing this. As the creator of the “perfect human” Allisa became Janus’ new assistant. Allisa accepts the “promotion” in hopes that she can keep her son safe. 17 years passed and a meteor fell. 235 was sent to investigate the it due to it’s abnormal readings. When he finds the meteor he called back the organization reporting his findings. Before the organization could give him a new order, a voice asked him to create something from the meteor. He does so with the voice guiding him and slowly made a pendant out of it. It is then revealed that the voice was Garmr. 235 gave the pendant to Janus when he was instructed to give him the meteor. Curious Janus wore it. Janus finding the pendant and the ore it is made of unique but ultimately useless gives it to Allisa. Unknown to him Garmr tried to heal him. Slowly his emotions arise again and the memory of Allisa returns. Sure enough he looks and finds Allisa and asks her forgiveness. In joy Allisa does and the two planned to run away with their son for a peaceful life they originally planned. Unknown to the two a rival organization ordered 235 to destroy Angel Corps and to kill everyone involved in it. 235 follows this order. Allisa who had the pendant wished for someone to help her son. Garmr moved by her plea for her son and not for her life spoke to her. There the father and mother gave their quintessence to Garmr asking him to protect their son. When 235 finally killed the remaining people of Angel Corps, his parents, Garmr used the quintessence given to him to order 235 to use him. Garmr wants to fulfill the two’s wish but he doesn’t know how. He is young and has no experience with caring for another. And this robotic phase he is in isn’t a sickness since it’s natural for his body to engage in this weird self defense so he can’t heal him like what he did to Janus. Then he hears a roar of five lions, sensing they are like him he orders Blade to search for the Pride. The Pride of Voltron. Months passed and Voltron hearing a howl leads the Paladins to a moon. There they found Blade but Garmr who was scared for his Einherjar after the Galra continuously attack them both thought they were enemies and ordered Blade to fight them. In five seconds Blade defeats them. After hearing the the Voltron Lions roar, Garmr realizes he has found the ones who can help Blade, telling him to stop. After the fight Garmr apologizes and pleads for the Lions to help his Einherjar. Hearing this the Pride accepts his apology and promises to help Blade, coaxing their Paladins to welcome Blade into their group. The group naturally wasn’t so trusting with Blade at first. They also soon found out that he will obey any order which Lance used to his advantage to prank them all. In irritation Keith accidentally ordered Blade to kill Lance. Keith managed to cancel the order in time but in doing so they grew to hate Blade ordering him to isolate himself in a room. The only one was kind enough to visit and try to befriend him was Hunk. Bringing him food, talking about random things, asking about his life. With Hunk’s kindness Blade slowly felt safe until his body deactivates his self defense phase. After 17 years Blade finally cries into Hunk’s arms. After this he slowly bonds with the rest of the group who slowly but surely accepts him. Now he fights with them and depending on their choices, his future will change.

#Voltron #Voltron Legendary Defender #Voltron OCs #Voltron Legendary Defender OCs #My OCs #Blade #Blade Nadezhda Dunkelheit

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anarchistnewsdaily · 7 years ago

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News Highlights: January 22 2018 - January 28 2018

In case you didn’t see, hear, or do it yourself these are some events that took place or were reported during the last week.

Smashy

Santiago, Chile: Incendiary Attack Against the Mother of Divine Providence Parish During the Visit of the Pope

“Anonymous attackers managed to break the padlock of the perimeter fence of the religious temple, then set the Vatican and Chilean flags on fire at the the feet of a sculpture of the Virgin, as well as throwing incendiary devices at the doors of the Parish. The fire began to spread both at the door and inside the Parish before being discovered by priests and security guards who extinguished it. At the scene they would have found anarchist leaflets which were not mentioned by the media, but would have contained slogans against religion and the Pope’s visit to Chile.“

Report Back from the Eagles Riots: A Chance for Solidarity, but More Importantly, a Chance for Joy | anarchistnews.org

“On January 21st, we took the opportunity to take part in the temporary autonomous spaces created by the post victory fervor of thousands of football fans. Realizing that the soon to be victory of the Eagles was an ample time for us to strike back against the domination of civilization, the police, and the prison walls built by our own deteriorating mental, we met up with friends outside of Lincoln Financial field with the intention of freeing ourselves, albeit temporarily. We joined up with fellow members of the continuous class war in their celebration, singing, chanting, lighting fires, and using this opportunity to attack ATMs and throw a little bit of art on the dismal walls of south Philadelphia. We moved down broad street with a roving party that the Philly PD just couldn’t seem to shut down.“

Earth Liberation

FERC Grants Request to Begin Tree Cutting for Atlantic Coast Pipeline | Earth First! Newswire

“The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has granted a request by the Dominion Energy-led Atlantic Coast Pipeline to begin cutting down trees along parts of the 600-mile pipeline route in West Virginia and Virginia, despite the fact that the project still lacks some regulatory approvals.“

Menominee Tribe Files Lawsuit Over Back Forty Mine Clean Water Act Wetlands Permit | Earth First! Newswire

“Today the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin filed a lawsuit in federal court against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Tribe asserts that the agencies have failed to take primary responsibility for a wetland permit that is key to the future of the controversial Back Forty Mine proposal.“

Protesters March Against Snowbowl, Snowmaking

“Just the day before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a vehement group against the expansion of Arizona Snowbowl and snowmaking on Dook’o’ooslííd, marched across downtown Flagstaff, urging the city council to end the city’s contract with the ski resort.“

Estonia: Logging Threatens Endangered Species, Sacred Sites | Earth First! Newswire

“Thousands of ancient sites are at risk of logging because the government will not pay to have them mapped, according to Tiit Kaasik, board member of the country’s Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Estonia’s FSC is prepared to recommend to international headquarters that auditor Nepcon be stripped of its certification rights, he told Climate Home News, if pagan traditions are not respected.“

Hambacher Forest, Germany: Barricade-eviction, and the ‘Hambi 9’ « Contra Info

“9 activists in pre-trial detention, after being arrested during a barricade-eviction in the occupied Hambach Forest, Germany. The activists are accused of ‘obstructing the work of police officers’, during the barricade eviction on Monday the 22. of January. Arriving early in the morning, the cops were met with activists occupying blockading-infrastructure, including 2 tripods, 3 monopods, a skypod, and a 3 meter deep tunnel. The cutting of the Hambacher Forest was officially stopped early this season, on a court-decision, postponing cutting until October 1st 2018, however the risk of eviction of the occupation is as great as ever.

Canada: Kwakwaka'wakw Leaders Hand Eviction Notice to B.C. Fish Farm | Earth First! Newswire

“Setting out from Port Hardy on Vancouver Island, members of at least six B.C. First Nations took to the sea Monday to deliver an eviction notice to a fish farm operated by Marine Harvest: one of Canada’s largest producers of farmed Atlantic salmon.”

South Dakota: Oglala Lakota People Denounce State's Approval of Gold Mining | Earth First! Newswire

“At a hearing on Jan. 18, Oglala Lakota tribal members and others took issue with state officials for approving a permit transfer that moves Canadian prospectors one step closer to their goal of large-scale Black Hills gold mining.”

Animal Liberation

First Wolf in a Hundred Years Recorded in Belgium | Earth First! Newswire

“The first recorded wolf on Belgian soil for at least 100 years has made her bloody mark. Farmers in north-east Flanders have been put on high alert after evidence emerged that Naya, a female originally from eastern Germany that has been making a pioneering trek across Europe, had killed two sheep and injured a third near the Belgian town of Meerhout.“

Mutual Aid

San Diego, CA: Report on Autonomous Activity Over Last Week - It's Going Down

“Food Not Bombs of San Diego/Drop the Ban held one of several actions defying El Cajon’s new law against feeding houseless people in public on MLK Day. Earlier in the day, reportedly a blue lives matter flag was captured from a local business in an increasingly gentrified, hip part of town, and the words “I CAN’T BREATHE,” were seen painted onto the side of the building.“

“Meanwhile, signs have been put up in all of the popular panhandling spots with the words “DON’T SUPPORT PAN HANDLING. CONTRIBUTE TO THE SOLUTION…” Suggesting people donate to other services online instead. These signs are promptly being vandalized. Lastly, on January 20th, in solidarity with the J20 defendants and increasing border struggles a very large banner was dropped over the busy I-15. The banner read: “WE ARE STILL HERE DROP J20 SMASH THE WALL!” A bold three arrows on one side and a circle A on the other.“

Banner Drop

Minneapolis, MN: Banner Drop in Solidarity with #J20 - It's Going Down

“Solidarity from comrades in the Twin Cities IWW/GDC! The banner reads: Drop The Charges #Defendj20!“

Chicago: Solidarity with #J20 Defendees Coordinated Banner Drop - It's Going Down

“On the one year anniversary of the J20, partisans in Chicago coordinated a series of banner drops in support of the 59 remaining arrestees. We will continue to organize and fight with our comrades until each and every one of them is free from the state’s repression.“

Narrm / Melbourne, So-Called Australia: Banner Action for Invasion Day 2018

“Banner drop. West Gate freeway. Melbourne. Solidarity with our Indigenous brothers and sisters.”

Narrm / Melbourne, So-Called Australia: Banner & Poster Action for #7DaysOfResistance

“Anti-colonial poster & banner action for #7DaysOfResistance on occupied territory of the Boon Wurrung, Kulin Nations. South Eastern suburbs of so-called-Melbourne, ‘Australia‘.

Banners (L-R): Australia Is A Crime Scene, Stop The Genocide, Abolish Aus Day

Posters: Sovereignty Never Ceded! No Pride In Genocide, Queers Against Colonialism

Abolish Australia Day, Solidarity with the Aboriginal Resistance, Burn the Butcher’s Rag.”

Armidale, NSW, So-Called Australia: Banner Drops for Invasion Day 2018

“In the early hours of January 26th, 2018, banners were hung around so-called Armidale, NSW, with one facing out onto the parklands where Australia Day Festivities would be held later that day, reading “NO PRIDE IN GENOCIDE – JAN 26 = INVASION DAY”. This action was taken by non-Indigenous people as a minimal act of solidarity with the ongoing struggles of First Nations peoples.”

Infiltration

An Anarchist Survey of Amazon: Day Two | anarchistnews.org

“Security was very lose and we entered without issue or incident. This laxness was due in large part to the fact that Jeff Bezos was not going to be there. Our first observation was that the majority of Amazon employees in Seattle are between the ages of 25 and 35, many of whom wore Romanesque laurels around their heads. The only major exceptions were immigrant tech employees on H1B visas who were mostly in their 40s and early 50s. Our first stop was the silent dancing area where two hundred employees danced to music over specialty headphones provided for the occasion. It was eerily reminiscent of the celibate loner cult depicted in the film The Lobster who danced silently to their headphones in the middle of a forest. “

Union Activity

Portland, OR: Burgerville Workers Union Pickets and Expands Into More Stores - It's Going Down

“Our first picket of the year kicked off 2018 right: faced with yet another strong picket, Burgerville CLOSED THE STORE for the duration of the action for a suspicious “maintenance inspection.” This is the power of workers and the community coming together to show that we can and will continue to shut union-busters down!“

Antifa

Neo-Nazi Virginia Tech Employee Mark Neuhoff Continues Online Rants Against African-Americans and Jews - It's Going Down

“This following report from New River Against Fascism, details the ongoing exploits of Graduate Assistant Mark Neuhoff, a current employee of Virginia Tech University.”

We Don't Forget J20: Action Report Back from the Greater Seattle IWW General Defense Committee - It's Going Down

“local musicians performed and the DJ blasted songs throughout the square. Not much later began a rousing march through the campus and down the University Avenue main thoroughfare.“

J20 Solidarity Demonstration in Grand Rapids, MI - It's Going Down

“On January 20, about 30 people held an event in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan in solidarity with the remaining J20 defendants. There was a short rally with speakers about the J20 case, ongoing struggles, and the importance of fighting back. Following the speakers, the crowd burned an American flag and a Trump banner before setting off on a march through the center of the city. There were numerous people masked up, anarchist flags were flying, and anti-fascist chants were plentiful.“

Berkeley, CA: Antifa Patrol Turns Up Zero Alt-Right Posters - It's Going Down

“Along the way, we were able to put several anti-fascist stickers up on campus and the surrounding area. So in the end, what was to be a 4chan propaganda night ended up becoming yet another opportunity to make it known that Berkeley is an antifa zone!“

Albany, NY: Anarchists & Radicals Stand in Solidarity with J20 Defendants at Benefit - It's Going Down

“The Albany anarchist and radical community came out en mass to celebrate and support J20 defendants at a benefit show thrown at community education space The Albany Free School in the city’s Mansion District. The event put on by “friendly neighborhood anarchists,” featured over a dozen bands from around the capital region, vegan pizza sourced and catered by Albany Food Not Bombs, and a raffle with anarchist themed prizes donated by groups such as It’s Going Down and AK Press.”

Phoenix, AZ: #MyBordersMyChoice Neo-Nazi Propaganda Efforts Foiled by Antifascists - It's Going Down

“Around 50 fliers were found in total, a large increase in prior instances, and it was determined that at least two people were involved, with the comparison of fliers, and techniques used to post them. After we were confident that we had rounded up the significant majority of fascist materials, we moved to a nearby park and disposed of them by fire.“

Stand With Tariq Khan As Alt-Right Outrage Machine Inspires Death Threats - It's Going Down

“It is questionable whether Khan and his partner will be able to continue their studies uninterrupted, putting their dreams on hold until racists can stop making harassment their pet cause. This is disgusting, and it is not something we are going to stand by and just let happen. Khan is a respected academic and scholar, a celebrated educator, a committed student, and an amazing father and husband. We will not allow college campuses to be the killing fields for Alt Right terror, and we stand with Khan and anyone else who has been victimized by this kind of threat.”

Knoxville, TN: Neo-Nazis outnumbered 700 to 1 at Knoxville Women’s March - It's Going Down

“Less than two hours after they arrived at their barricaded protest area, the Traditionalist Worker Party members were escorted back to their vehicles in a nearby parking garage by several police officers in riot gear. A crowd of antifa and anti-racist activists followed them, shouting, “Go home Nazi.”

Outreach

Kolkata, India: International Anarchist Solidarity Action with Villawood Hunger Strikers

“Our solidarity action involved displaying a banner, reading; “Solidarity with Villawood Hunger Strikers! Burn down the concentration camps! Boycott Australian Tourism, End Exploitation of South Asian Students!”. We also distributed 200 plus flyers to passers-by and students attending the Indian State sponsored Australian Education Fair,”

Repression

#NoDAPL Water Protector 'Rattler' Takes Non-Cooperating Plea - UNICORN RIOT

“The Water Protector Legal Collectiveannounced that attorneys for water protector Michael Markus, known as Rattler, had reached a non-cooperating plea agreement with federal prosecutors. In the deal, Rattler agreed to plead guilty to one charge of Civil Disorder in exchange for a recommended prison sentence of three years. He had been scheduled to go to trial on two charges of Civil Disorder and Use of Fire to Commit a Federal Felony Offense, which carried a minimum sentence of ten years in prison and a possible sentence of up to fifteen years.“

Chile: Prison Officer Michelle Barahona, Responsible for the Harassment & Mistreatment of Anarchist Comrade Tamara Sol (Eng/Esp)

“Tamara Sol has been punished in a severe and inhuman manner. The last incident was provoked when two common prisoners, instructed by the gendarmarie, threatened Tamara and she defended herself. Tamara and two comrades who came to her aid, were brutally beaten, locked in ‘La Jaula’ (punishment cell) and shackled, with their hands and feet bound.“

Third Black Cville Resident Arrested in Wake of 'Unite the Right' - It's Going Down

“Mr. Blakney is the third counter-protester to be arrested and charged arising out of the events in Charlottesville on August 12, 2017. Corey Long and DeAndre Harris are both also facing criminal charges. All three are Black men and local residents who were attacked that day.“

Italy – The Italian government’s politics in Libya |

“With the shameless pretext of the ‘struggle against human traffickers’, the Italian State is lavishly financing war lords, guards and militias (those clumsily defined as the ‘Libyan government’) for the control and mass internment of the poor in flight. Patrols and refusal of entry along the Mediterranean coast, the detention of about six hundred thousand people in the Libyan concentration camps, the erection of a wall in the desert along theborders with Niger, Chad and Mali.“

The Heat is On: Update on Week 1 of #OperationPUSH - It's Going Down

“Prison organizers who correspond with these groups are being targeted for having their “security threat level” increased–a practice that translates into greater isolation and harsher conditions of confinement. One prisoner was told point blank, “As long as you communicate with these people you’re always going to be labelled a security threat and you’re always going to be put under investigation. ”Communication has been curtailed so severely that it’s hard to know how much of an economic impact the strike has had so far; we do know that in some cases scab labor has been brought in to keep facilities running.“

BREAKING: Rashid Johnson Tortured by Florida DOC - It's Going Down

“Kevin “Rashid” Johnson is being tortured at the Florida State Prison according to an “emergency note” Rashid’s lawyers received from him yesterday dated 1/19. It is suspected the torture began sometime between 1/12 and 1/19 since there was no mention of it in his 1/12 communication. No other details are available at this time but we will post updates here once we have them. This comes immediately after news that Rashid faces an “inciting a riot” charge for merely reporting on #OperationPUSH. You can read Rashid’s original reporting on Operation PUSH and the conditions in Florida prisons on IWOC’s site here. Rashid is the Minister of Defense of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party (Prison Chapter) and a prolific organizer, author, and artist.

Albany, NY: Support for Dawedo from Capital Region Anti-Repression Committee - It's Going Down

“Here in Albany, a community member is being targeted by ICE. Dawedo Sanon was taken and is being held in an immigration facility in Buffalo, NY. She is facing court dates, and her family is navigating how to keep her home. They’re raising funds to get her out of the facility. Her family has set up a fundraiser, which you can donate to here.“

Kurdish Fighters Defend Afrin From Turkish Military Invasion in Northern Syria - UNICORN RIOT

“Turkish Armed Forces launched “Operation Olive Branch” which amounted to a full-scale military invasion of northwestern Kurdish-controlled Syria. The Turkish Armed Forces rank second to the United States, as the largest military force within the NATO alliance. In the last few days, the Turkish military along with an estimated 25,000 Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels, have fired extensive artillery barrages into multiple villages near Afrin, dropped hundreds of bombs with F-16’s, and driven ground forces into Syria that include armored tank brigades and heavy infantry.”

“On January 17th, 2018, our compañera and community member of Cherán, Guadalupe Companur, was found dead in the area known as Irapio, in the Municipality of Chilchota, Michoacán. We want to clarify that her assassination did not occur inside the community, nor in the territory of Cherán. In spite of the measures of community security we have developed in our community, the region continues suffering from problems of insecurity and violence.“

Arrests and Injuries as Mexicali Resiste Defends Blockade Against Police Attack - It's Going Down

“For more than one year, residents of Mexicali have been organizing against the construction of a brewery and aqueduct by the U.S. company Constellation Brands. If completed, the facility would produce beer for export to the U.S. and consume seven to thirty million cubic meters of water annually. (A city of one million uses around 20 million cubic meters.) Earlier this month, members of Mexicali Resiste began blockading aqueduct construction. On January 16, state and local police forces attacked the blockade and an hours-long confrontation ensued. While the blockade was successfully defended, at least five were arrested and ten injured. Below is a translation of the statement released later that day by Mexicali Resiste.“

Italy – Updates on the deported Sardinian anarchist prisoner Davide Delogu |

“From a telegram we received on 15/01/2018 we learn that the censorship office has been accumulating books sent in over 8 months, which they are not giving him. He has only received two bulletins. He sends hugs to all comrades who unconditionally struggle with dignity on both sides of the walls.“

Senate Approves Extended Surveillance Powers For Trump - UNICORN RIOT

“The US Senate voted to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA – the legal underpinning for global mass surveillance carried out by the National Security Agency (NSA). The Senate passed the bill last Thursday after the US House of Representatives approved the same legislation a week earlier on January 11. President Trump signed the bill into law on Friday, January 19. The bill would extend unaccountable surveillance authorities for another seven years, at which point FISA will again be up for congressional reauthorization.“

Humanitarian Arrested After Group Releases Report Implicating US Border Patrol - UNICORN RIOT

“Hours after the release of a report titled ‘Interference with Humanitarian Aid: Death and Disappearance on the US-Mexico Border‘, which exposes the US Border Patrol’s efforts to destroy water, food, and blankets left by humanitarian aid workers, agents arrested an aid provider and two others receiving aid near Ajo, Arizona on January 17, 2018.

The aid provider arrested by Border Patrol was Scott Warren, who since 2013 has been working with the organization No More Deaths to provide “direct humanitarian aid in an effort to end death and suffering along the US-Mexico border.”

Judge Accepts Red Fawn Fallis Plea Agreement - UNICORN RIOT

“Red Fawn Fallis’s plea agreement was accepted by North Dakota Chief Judge Hovland. The agreement, made between her defense team and federal prosecutors, dropped the most serious charge of “discharge of a firearm in relation to a felony crime of violence.” Fallis pled guilty to the remaining charges of ‘Civil Disorder and ‘Possession of a Firearm and Ammunition by a Convicted Felon.’ Red Fawn Fallis is expected to have a sentencing hearing sometime in May.”

Social Center Burned Down by Nazis & Nationalists in Thessaloniki, Greece - UNICORN RIOT

“Using the cover of a large nationalist rally over Macedonia naming rights, Nazis and nationalists attacked two social centers (burning one to the ground), vandalized a Holocaust Memorial and tore down a sign promoting religious tolerance. Although dozens of police were present, no arrests were reported in either of the attacks on the social centers, ‘The School’ and ‘Libertatia Squat’.“

Water Supply at the Ramsey Unit, Texas, May be Contaminated Like the Rest of the State - It's Going Down

“Jason Renard Walker is Deputy Minister of Labor for the New Afrikan Black Panther Party and one of the contributors to the Fire Inside zine. He writes here about possible water contamination in Texas prisons, as it has been revealed that across Texas, many people are drinking water polluted with radium.“

Cops, Cameras, and Condos: Bloomington Is Getting Worse - It's Going Down

“Bloomington is not an unaffordable, tightly-packed, constantly-surveilled dystopia yet. There are more condos, cameras, and cops now than in the recent past, and there will be even more of all three in the future. This piece is not meant to produce a feeling of hopelessness, but rather point out to those who are threatened by these new developments how the situation here is changing, so we can adapt. The forces of order are still not omnipotent, not even close.”

Cambodia: Environmental Activists Jailed For Photographing Boat | Earth First! Newswire

“Dem and Hun were arrested on September 12, 2017 while at sea after filming boats suspected of being involved in the transportation of illegally dredged silica sand. The two environmental activists have been held in pre-trial detention since their arrest.”

Class War Scotland member on trial for displaying a poster on his window | anarchistnews.org

”Eventually David was arrested for ’threatening or abusive behaviour’ under Section 38, The Criminal Justice and Licencing (Scotland) Act 2012 and for ‘failure to give details as a witness’ under the Court Section 13–14, The Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995. However, initially David wasn’t even charged: instead, he was taken to the police station, where he was made to wait for 9 hours, and was subjected to anal cavity search. David is a member of Class War Scotland. He says that ‘It was done to humiliate me, because they were obviously aware of my political standing which is anarchist’. David’s trial took place mid- January at Glasgow Sheriff Court and the case has been adjourned till June. “

Rest In Power

Ursula K. Le Guin, Acclaimed for Her Fantasy Fiction, Is Dead at 88

“Ursula K. Le Guin, the immensely popular author who brought literary depth and a tough-minded feminine sensibility to science fiction and fantasy with books like “The Left Hand of Darkness” and the Earthsea series, died on Monday at her home in Portland, Ore. She was 88.“

For further news check out: Anarchist News Daily

For anarchist podcasts, lectures, and audiobooks check out: F Yeah Anarchist Audio

For anarchist videos check out: F Yeah Anarchist Video

Current news sites include: itsgoingdown.org insurrectionnewsworldwide.com earthfirstjournal.org unicornriot.ninja anarchistnews.org contrainfo.espiv.net actforfree.nostate.net

#anarchism #news #january 2018 #highlights #h

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ernmark · 7 years ago

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Any chance we could see Juno and Peter pulling that heist together in the new au? (It's quickly become one of my favorites.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

You know, for someone that watched as much Burn Notice and White Collar as I did, I’m not good at the super flashy heist stuff– especially since it seems to me that the most effective heists are the ones where the mark doesn’t even know they’ve been robbed.

For the record, the concept of every town having a foundation festival comes from Germany.

I can’t help a sense of unease as we approach the DiMaggio mansion, but I swallow it down. A bit of discomfort isn’t worth calling off a job, after all, and this is hardly the first floating mansion I’ve broken into since New Kinshasa. Besides, it seems we’ll be out of here in short order.

Juno knocks at the door with an expression of intense focus. It’s a good look on him, all professional and intent.

When the valet opens the door, he’s already got his badge out. “Detective Steel,” he says, and jerks his head at me. “My partner, Detective Markovik.”

I flash my own badge, stolen from the apartment of the real Detective Lazar Markovik less than an hour ago. According to Juno, Tuesday afternoons are when he’s busy at the Triad card tables; it should be a few hours before he realizes his badge is gone, which means that it won’t register as missing when the valet runs my credentials. Juno’s credentials aren’t quite so clean, but before he can hand over his badge, a voice echoes through the voluminous front hall.

“That won’t be necessary, Jeremy.” A remarkably beautiful man stands at the top of a flight of stairs, draped over the banister like a renaissance painting. He’s almost waifish in his build, but soft-skinned and bright-eyed, and he carries himself with an ostentatious glamour that very few can pull off. I respect that. “Or did you think I wouldn’t remember you, Detective Steel?”

As a matter of fact, we’re counting on it.

‘Good cop/bad cop’ is a law enforcement tradition that spans the galaxy, but in Hyperion City, it’s no game. When Julian DiMaggio was suspected of murder, Juno was one of the few good cops left in his precinct.

“Julian,” Juno said, nodding at him. “Or I guess it’s Mr. DiMaggio now?”

“Oh, please, call me Julian. Really, it’s the least I could do after you saved me. And now you’re back to do it again. We really must stop meeting like this.”

Juno clears his throat. “Julian, maybe we could have this conversation somewhere more private.”

“Oh, of course, of course.” He sweeps down the steps like it’s his own personal gala instead of a faux police investigation. “This way, detectives. Jeremy, if you’d be a dear?”

He leads us into a study large enough to be a ballroom, and the valet shuts the door behind us.

“Please, sit,” he says. I’ve seen the posters and commercials; I assumed that the drama behind the Prince of Mars was an elaborate bit of showmanship, but it seems there aren’t many hidden layers. He really is that loud. “Can I get you two a drink? Coffee? Tea? Something stronger?”

“Sorry, Julian, but we’re on duty.”

“Of course, of course.” He leans forward. “Oh, I must know. What is this really about, Detective?”

Maybe it has something to do with the lingering discomfort from being this high in the air, but I’m irritated by the look he gives Juno. My partner in crime, for his part, makes no sign that he notices the attention.

“This morning we got some leads about a planned robbery of one of Saffron’s facilities. Something in the R&D department.”

“Really?” he giggles. “Oh, but that’s adorable. I can assure you, our security is state of the art.”

“Are you certain?” I ask.

“Utterly. I hope you understand, Detective. It isn’t that I don’t trust you, but the rest of the department has a rather… unsavory reputation.”

“I know,” Juno says. “That’s why we’re working off the books. We already ran into some trouble when we started this investigation. Looks like this is part of a bigger picture, Julian, and there are a few uniforms who don’t want it solved.” He lowers his voice. “That’s why we need you.”

“Me?” DiMaggio gasps.

“If we find out what they’re after, it may help us uncover their greater plan,” I say, my voice hushed nearly to a whisper.

DiMaggio is an excitable man, and it isn’t difficult for him to get swept up in the drama of it all. We tell him what little information Miasma gave me about the Pill I’m meant to steal, add it to stories of the Mask, the Key she procured before she hired me, and a few other odds and ends that Miasma’s been collecting. Before long, DiMaggio is chiming in with guesses and suggestions of his own, and Juno and I lead him into planning an ambush against the thieves. By the time we return to our car, we have all the information we need, in addition to recordings of our little meeting for the voice authentication in the building.

“He seems quite taken with you,” I muse as I begin the drive back to our apartment.

“Nah, he’s just loud like that.”

“Oh? He barely said a word when I was speaking to him.” I adjust the altitude controls to take us back to ground level. It seems you’re the one he wanted to impress. You did save him, after all.”

I flit a glance in Juno’s direction long enough to catch his raised eyebrow. “He’s a married man.”

“That fact stops fewer people than you would think.”

“Then maybe it helps that I’m not interested.”

“No?”

“He’s not exactly my type.”

We’re in a stretch of clear air, so I take the chance to lean closer to him. “And what type would that be?”

He swallows and his mouth opens involuntarily. I could put this car on autopilot for a few moments…

“What’s it to you?” Juno asks.

I flash a smile. “Nothing at all, Detective. Simply curious.”

I leave Juno at the hotel while I slip into the basement of Saffron’s headquarters. Not for secrecy’s sake– at this point, I’ve broken into the building so many times that I know where all the cameras are by heart– but because I don’t want to explain to Juno why I know it so well. I take pride in my competence; I don’t want him to know that I’d done this so very often and never bothered to check the basement.

It isn’t my fault, after all– how was I to know that an entire department had been left off the building’s blueprints?

With DiMaggio’s instructions, reaching the proper room is simple enough. Finding the Pill itself, though, is slightly more difficult. The entire wall is covered in lockboxes, and I have to pick almost half of them before I find what I’m looking for. It takes hours, and an aggravating amount of that time is spent hiding when the guards make their rounds.

By the time I find the Pill and its associated documentation, the sky is gray-pink with the first light of dawn.

I send a message to Miasma and make my way back to the hotel.

Fortunately, Juno is a late sleeper; with any luck, I’ll be able to slip into the room without waking him.

That plan dies, though, when I open the door.

Juno’s sitting on his bed, still in yesterday’s clothes. When he turns to look at me, his eyes are bloodshot and lined with dark bags.

I close the door quietly behind me. “I hope you weren’t waiting up for me.”

He shrugs. “Just a bit of insomnia.”

I might be more inclined to believe that if he’d gotten under the covers. Or bothered taking his shoes off.

He notices the glance, and slides them off, dropping them unceremoniously at the foot of his bed. “If you ran into trouble, you should have called me.”

“Don’t tell me I had you worried over me.” I won’t pretend I’m not charmed by the notion.

“Of course not,” he grumbles. “You’re my ticket out of here, remember?”

“How could I forget?” I slip off my coat and hang it up on one of the thick metal hangers that can handle its weight. “Have you done much thinking about where you’ll go after we leave Mars?”

“There are a few planets I’ve got my eye on.”

“Any place I’ve been?” I sit on the edge of his bed. “I might be able to show you around. Perhaps get you started on... whatever it is you’re planning to do there.”

“Something in the Tau Ceti system, maybe,” Juno says.

“Orcinus is lovely,” I yawn. It seems the night took more out of me than I thought. “Every city has a holiday commemorating its foundation. There are people who spend their whole lives traveling from fair to fair.”

“Sounds like a lot of opportunities for crime,” Juno says.

“What do you think attracted me to it in the first place?” I grin. “But I imagine it would have plenty of room for a seasoned detective. Unless you’re planning to change careers?” The last word is half-swallowed in another yawn.

Juno rolls his eyes at me. “Oh, for the love of-- lay down if you’re tired.”

“If you insist.” I know he means on the other bed, I sink into the mattress, just to annoy him. That might have been a mistake, though. I really am exhausted, and the bed is so very soft.

“You asshole,” he mutters, but he pulls back the covers. “At least take off your shoes first.”

“Anything for the lady.” I sit up to untie the laces-- these shoes are far too nice to scuff up so casually-- and stretch out on the proffered side of the bed.

Juno throws the blanket over me, then crawls under the covers beside me. “And no biting this time,” he mutters.

I hum. “Not unless you ask nicely.”

#briwhosaysni #eternalgirlscout #the penumbra podcast #writing prompt #fanfiction #okay so maybe I have a thing for bed sharing #like a big thing for it

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mouseintheannex · 8 years ago

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Ezekiel Jones’ Friends

I was thinking about the prompt ‘favourite season/episode/scene’ and while I can’t pin down just one, my favourite Ezekiel scenes are always the ones where he shows someone how much he cares. So uh... here, have this. (Long enough that I’m dropping in a readmore, but only 1 421 words.)

Ezekiel Jones didn’t half mind having friends.

He’d spent a long time alone. Growing up with not much but his talents, he struck out into the world as soon as he got the chance, eager to see everything. Get away from home. He didn’t mind it there but he had never quite liked knowing how much his parents gave up looking after him. Running out into the world at full speed was something you could explain away with wanderlust, but getting out of his parents’ hair wasn’t a small part of why he left. He called enough to keep them from worrying, and sent them some money when he had it. Not enough to hurt their pride; just little gifts. Here, Dad, buy Mom something nice. And otherwise he bounced his way around the world, soaking up culture, stealing whatever caught his fancy, avoiding police on every continent. It wasn’t a life of only crime; he found all kinds of things to do. The world was full of music and sights and food and festivals, and there was no lack of things to try.

The thing about living like that was that you didn’t meet a lot of people. Well, really, you met a lot of people. But never for long. You’d make quick friendships that were only ever meant to last a week in the first place. There were a few people he got to know better – that trio of friends he tagged along with from Germany to Switzerland to Italy; the girl he got coffee and caught up with every time he was Paraguay; the friend in the Philippines who still sent him an email every couple of months. Online he was connected with dozens of other world travellers whose paths he’d crossed, but mostly they liked each other’s travel selfies and recommended good breakfast joints. Few of these relationships were more than skin deep.

When he got to the Library, Ezekiel had a certain attitude he’d built up over the years. It wasn’t fake, really; he was a confident, basically well-adjusted young man. But it was a little cocky, a little devil-may-care, a little one-man-show. That’s what a lifestyle like the one he’d been leading for the last several years did to a person. You get lonely or you learn to be alone. He’d done the latter. He hadn’t, at first, expected the people he met in the Library to be any different than anyone else he’d met over the years – in one side of his life and out the other.

But then, somehow, no one ever left. His itch to go everywhere was scratched better than ever; it was hardly settling down when you had a magic door that’d dump you just about anywhere in the world anytime you liked. So they became a team. They made friends. And after a while, for the first time in a long damn time, Ezekiel had something resembling a family.

He could scarcely let his guard down and tell them how much he cared. He’d never been a man with his heart on his sleeve, and this was no time to change. Just like when he was a kid, most of his affection was expressed via pestering. It was good-natured, and despite the scolding he sometimes received, no one had kicked him out yet. When it came down to the wire, they all cared about each other.

And that was the crux of it: they all did care. Sometimes it showed. It varied person to person; you had Cassandra, who never stopped letting them all know how she felt (and was all the more endearing for it), and on the other hand you had Stone, who you could almost convince yourself didn’t care much at all until he punched a guy out for looking at you sideways. Baird showed her love like a true mom – by always pushing. Jenkins by patching you up when you were hurt, even if he was reaming you out for your recklessness while he was doing it. And Flynn, well – though he and Ezekiel never totally got along, Flynn was doing things for them all the time. He wasn’t great at expressing through words, but his actions were a pretty good substitute.

And while being a pain in the ass was still Ezekiel’s favourite way to interact with them, once in a while he did show his real feelings. He was too cool to show them all the time, but also too cool to keep them completely hidden. He’d learned pretty early on that the best way of keeping people around was letting them know, once in a while, that they mattered. And this team mattered more to Ezekiel than most people in his life ever had. So when the opportunity showed itself, he stepped up to the plate.

Cassandra was the easiest – they were close, and she was so affectionate anyway. Plus, she was always so moved by it, and he had to admit that made it rewarding. She deserved to be loved, but hell, he wasn’t going to complain about how happy she got about it. A few words of encouragement, a small gift – she’d be over the moon, and that smile was worth the little bit of embarrassment. Plus, she seemed to understand that he didn’t like to show this side all the time, so she was tactful and didn’t tell the others how sweet he could be. It was a reciprocal thing.

Baird was tougher, but he figured it out eventually. She hated being compared to a mother but she mothered them hard and when he realized that, making her happy got a lot easier. It turned out the trick was just to let her see that she’d made some kind of progress on him. He liked to make out like he was so full of himself he’d never change, but he knew he’d grown, and he knew she was part of why. All he had to do was prove she’d been right to put her faith in him. Knowing she’d had an impact was all she needed to see that he cared.

Stone, that one took a while. But they worked it out. Mostly it was a matter of trusting each other. Stone hadn’t been close to many people in his life, it didn’t take Ezekiel long to figure that out. So they could get on each other’s nerves all they wanted; as long as they had each other’s backs where it mattered, their friendship stayed strong. They didn’t have to pretend they saw eye-to-eye. In a fight or a tight spot, they could count on each other. And sometimes Ezekiel caught that nod of acknowledgement and respect that Stone would give him once they were out of trouble, and he knew they were on the same page.

With Jenkins, he only had to shut up. It was both the easiest and the hardest one to manage. Jenkins appreciated silence a great deal. But for those times when he knew he just couldn’t be quiet, Ezekiel found workarounds. Mostly he kept an eye out on cases for anything that might be magical and interesting. Obviously the artifacts that they were always bringing back to the Library weren’t options, but sometimes other things around a case would be touched or affected by magic in some way that turned out to be harmless, but curious. Bringing those things back for Jenkins to look at always seemed to charm the old man, even if he pretended he had too much work to do already, thank you very much, Mr. Jones.

With Flynn, it was about the banter. It was about keeping up the pretense of disliking each other long after it had ever been a real problem. They’d gotten off on the wrong foot in the first place and then it just became their normal. But a well-timed derisive joke when they knew there was a lot at stake – it said a lot more than you might think. They spoke with their actions while their words said something else. That was how they worked. They both knew what they meant.

Ezekiel Jones hadn’t had friends like these in a long time, if ever. He’d known a lot of people but he’d thrown his lot in with these ones, and it had worked out. It was a pretty big change from the life he’d been living – some things were similar, but some things really weren’t – but he’d gotten lucky. And he really couldn’t complain.

#it's past midnight oops #oh well it's still Tuesday west of me >->#EJAW 2017 #Ezekiel Jones #fanfiction #(I guess)#The Librarians #mine #my fanfiction

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samanthasroberts · 6 years ago

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Anthony Bourdains Greatest Triumph Was Calling B.S. on French Food

It’s strangely poignant that Anthony Bourdain should end his life in France, because nobody did more than he did to end the long hegemony of France over international cuisine.

Few of those who followed him on CNN as he relished exotic entrails, smelly noodles, the most inflammatory spices, will have realized that not so long ago all these pleasures were virtually shut out of any chance of recognition as serious food by the belief that only France could decide what counted as world-class dining.

Now, as we slowly realize the seriousness of the loss of Bourdain to the unalloyed joys of eating, his democratizing impact on global cuisine becomes more and more apparent. It virtually equals the destruction of a religion.

France was the holy ground of that religion. The French dictated the terms on which eating could be enjoyed as though they represented an absolute gastronomic deity. There was even the sacred book of catechisms, between red covers and ordained in dense and didactic texts—the Michelin guidebooks.

Throughout France, the threat of visiting anonymous Michelin inspectors tyrannized every chef. Michelin’s judgment of a chef’s performance, delivered via its signature star-rating system, was based on more than a century of accumulated orthodoxy. The gaining of a star could mean the making of a reputation. The loss of one could be devastating—even, horrifically, provoking suicides.

Bourdain’s own suicide occurred in a French village, Kayersberg, that might have been a backwater but for the fact that it had two restaurants awarded Michelin stars and that it was in Alsace, a sausage-friendly foodie mecca in northeastern France. His traveling companion on the trip was Eric Ripert, chef of the Michelin three-star Manhattan restaurant Le Bernadin.

It was almost as though the cult-like French food regime he had done so much to discard had, in some malicious twist, finally administered a vengeful curse on him.

The real force of Bourdain’s voice was that, although he had been a chef, he spoke and lived at the table, not in the kitchen. He was, above all, an eater. And, true to the punning title of his show, Parts Unknown, he would go literally anywhere and eat anything if it expressed the infinite pleasure of discovering something original and elusively local.

In contrast, the whole culture of French food as declared to the world was defiantly insular—or, to use a French term, chauvinistic. No dish beyond the borders of France was really worth a trip, nor any wine.

Oddly enough, this attitude was brought to America like a virus by another great eater who was also a lyrical writer about eating and whose reverence for French food was contagious.

In the 1920s, a young New Yorker named A.J. Liebling went to Paris to study for a year at the Sorbonne. His father had given him just enough money to have a good time as long as it was limited to the student bohemia.

As far as Liebling was concerned, the food was the biggest revelation of his life. He wrote, “the eater’s apprenticeship, though less arduous, must be as earnest as the cook’s.” It helped that at the time the average price of a meal in Paris was a dollar and 35 cents.

For that sum Liebling learned the unadulterated tastes of a virtual encyclopedia of charcuterie, soups, seafood, offal, terrines, tripes, sausages, game birds and cheap cuts of meat. All washed down with a variety of wines not yet priced for consumption by foreigners with pockets as deep as their cellars.

“The eater’s apprenticeship, though less arduous, must be as earnest as the cook’s.”

— A.J. Liebling

Later Liebling became a writer at the New Yorker, notable for his eye for the telling detail. He brought that talent to food, as an eater, and invented a narrative voice that for the first time took food writing away from the vocabulary of chefs, using himself as though he was a test specimen for a condition called gluttony, indulging fully in a drug better to understand its effects.

All this was absorbed into a book, Between Meals, that all apprentice eaters lapped up as eagerly as though encountering their first taste of foie gras. I know, because I was one of them.

One effect of this was that, along with all Liebling’s followers, I was suckered into accepting the sovereignty of French cuisine.

For several decades my family was swept up in regular pilgrimages to the many shrines of traditional French food; every summer holiday was spent driving from region to region, dutifully following the Michelin recommendations. These rarely included any stars. They were too expensive and too intimidating. We trawled the lower rankings, indicated by Michelin’s version of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, three crossed knives and forks and downward to a single setting—often a lowly bistro, quietly delivering honest cooking in the deepest shadows of the remorseless Michelin hierarchy.

It was a slavish itinerary but not a disappointing one. There were always culinary treasures specific to place. From the almond macaroons of the Basque country in the far south to the unctuous goose livers of Alsace, from the crab of Normandy to the trout from mountain rivers in the northeastern Jura, dishes that were the simple, natural essence of the land were served as they had been for centuries without all the pomposity of the three-star table where the waiters were as stiff as the linen.

As it happened, there was ultimately one moment of epiphany that combined one of the most illustrious names in the vocabulary of French epicurean conceit with the one of the lowliest of peasant dishes.

Chateau Petrus has for long been among the most expensive Bordeaux wines. Part of its mystique is that the vineyard covers only 30 acres where there is an unreproducable freak of geology, a small cap of clay called the boutonniere. The Merlot grape, notoriously fickle and widely abused, reaches a fragile perfection here—as long as weather in the growing season collaborates. (A single bottle of a prized vintage, 1982, can fetch as much as $6,000 today.)

I was assigned by a travel magazine to investigate this phenomenon at the critical moment when the grapes are picked. That year the moment arrived on the first Monday of October. The morning was sultry. There was dew on the grapes. The pickers—more than 100 of them, most from nearby villages—were held back until afternoon to allow the dew to burn off.

We were invited to join the pickers at lunch in a large whitewashed barn where long communal tables were set out. The food was a classic peasant feast, the kind I would drive hundreds of miles to find: cauldrons of steaming vegetable soup; more cauldrons of blanquette de veau, pale meat peeling from the bone in a tangy broth with potatoes; hunks of coarse bread, a choice of cheeses—and red wine. Not Petrus. It came in three liter bottles, unlabeled and poured freely.

The pickers poured some of the wine into the soup, transforming it into what is called chabrol, a divine fusion that provides an instant sense of well-being.

By the time I made the trip to Petrus, though, I was discovering that the idea of French exceptionalism was no longer sustainable.

Its first and most effective booster had been Georges-Auguste Escoffier, really the original celebrity chef, who built his reputation at the Ritz Hotel in Paris at the end of the nineteenth century and went on to be called “the chef of kings” after being told by the German Kaiser, “I am the emperor of Germany, but you are the emperor of chefs.”

Escoffier’s rule in the kitchen was faites simples—keep it simple. That didn’t apply to the volume of his banquets.

A weekend shooting party before the First World War that he catered enjoyed a dinner that included cabbage and potato soup, chickens with bacon and sausage, a leg of mutton with chestnut puree and an immense tureen containing eight partridges “amply truffled” and cased in fat bacon with celery salad.

Later generations of French chefs cut back on the volume but the grand hotel pretensions of a luxury dining room that Escoffier established became the norm for restaurants that aspired to Michelin stars, a feature that has never really disappeared and is loved now by oligarchs as much as it was by the Kaiser. (Escoffier’s system in the kichen of stations to help expedite the cooking and plating of dishes is still used in modern kitchens.)

Pride of cuisine was (and still is) embedded in French culture to a point where it became inseparable from patriotism. No other country takes it that seriously or is as sensitive about its supposed superiority. But that attitude began to seriously erode after the creation of the European Union. The abolition of hard borders and the far freer movement of people has opened up both minds and palates.

Spain is the most salient example of what this change means to food. While it remained a cultural and political anachronism during the fascist regime of General Franco, Spain’s gastronomic bounty remained largely unknown—and relatively untapped. Now, among all European nations, Spain’s food and wine is as versatile and accomplished as any.

Another outlier, long regarded as a gastronomic wasteland, was Great Britain. Somehow French mockery of Britain as a nation whose tastes were confined to beefsteak and warm beer caught on with Americans, too, who, while happy to pay for such British-branded diversions as afternoon tea and fish and chips, were convinced that the French were right.

But one American never believed in that slander. Twenty years ago, Bourdain walked into a plain, bare-bones dining room near London’s Smithfield meat market. He wrote:

“I ate as much as I could off the menu. After my meal I remember tottering unsteadily into the kitchen, getting on my knees and bowing down in front of Fergus [Henderson, the chef]. It really was the restaurant of my dreams. I loved absolutely everything about it: the attitude, the look, the food, the wine.”

Bourdain had discovered what the rest of the culinary world has now recognized: British cooks had finally learned to recover their deep natural food resources. When it appeared, Fergus Henderson’s restaurant, St. John, was accused of being “200 years out of date.” Now, world famous under its rubric of “nose to tail eating” (no piece of the animal goes to waste) it also stands for what Bourdain brought to his mission—great cooking without pretense.

To this day, St. John has paper table cloths and, whatever the quality of the wine, it is poured into a standard “canteen” glass. None of the haute of haute cuisine here, none of the valueless décor of the grand hotel. In fact, what Bourdain wrote of Fergus Henderson now seems like a suitable epitaph for him:

“He is a walking Buddha to chefs all over the world, a total rock star. He opened the doors for people to start questioning the conventional wisdom of the restaurant business, built up over hundreds of years. He absolutely changed the world.”

Source: http://allofbeer.com/anthony-bourdains-greatest-triumph-was-calling-b-s-on-french-food/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/12/02/anthony-bourdains-greatest-triumph-was-calling-b-s-on-french-food/

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adambstingus · 6 years ago

Text

Anthony Bourdains Greatest Triumph Was Calling B.S. on French Food

It’s strangely poignant that Anthony Bourdain should end his life in France, because nobody did more than he did to end the long hegemony of France over international cuisine.

It was almost as though the cult-like French food regime he had done so much to discard had, in some malicious twist, finally administered a vengeful curse on him.

Oddly enough, this attitude was brought to America like a virus by another great eater who was also a lyrical writer about eating and whose reverence for French food was contagious.

“The eater’s apprenticeship, though less arduous, must be as earnest as the cook’s.”

— A.J. Liebling

All this was absorbed into a book, Between Meals, that all apprentice eaters lapped up as eagerly as though encountering their first taste of foie gras. I know, because I was one of them.

One effect of this was that, along with all Liebling’s followers, I was suckered into accepting the sovereignty of French cuisine.

The pickers poured some of the wine into the soup, transforming it into what is called chabrol, a divine fusion that provides an instant sense of well-being.

By the time I made the trip to Petrus, though, I was discovering that the idea of French exceptionalism was no longer sustainable.

Escoffier’s rule in the kitchen was faites simples—keep it simple. That didn’t apply to the volume of his banquets.

But one American never believed in that slander. Twenty years ago, Bourdain walked into a plain, bare-bones dining room near London’s Smithfield meat market. He wrote:

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/anthony-bourdains-greatest-triumph-was-calling-b-s-on-french-food/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/180732385277

0 notes

bundeslihaha · 7 years ago

Text

To React in a Flash: A Drabble Collection

A few (cracky) impressions of the year 2015, from both men and women's leagues... enjoy!

(Featuring: VfB Stuttgart, Karlsruher SC, VfB II, Frauen-Effzeh, Frauen-KSC, RB Leipzig, Dynamo Dresden, and FC Ingolstadt 04!)

A New Force Awakens

RB Leipzig emerged out of the theater with tears in his eyes, ignoring Ingolstadt’s whines. He couldn’t care less that the older club had to take many small steps to keep up with just one of his ground-eating strides, he just needed to come to terms with the fact that neither Mara Jade, Ben Skywalker, the Solos, Xizor, Thrawn, nor secret agent Wrenga Jixton was canon now. Fuck, why did Jar Jar Abrams had to do this? Yeah, it was far better than tacky Phantom Menace, maybe some fans saw it as an apology and all, but it was far from perfect. Heck, it was a fucking ripoff of the original Star Wars, even if Bandwagon Inge didn’t know that! Just because it has better CGI… and is more ‘progressive’… bullshit.

Fuck, he needed to meditate or something on this change. He wasn’t going to throw an emo fit like that stupid, even-Bayern-is-more-intimidating Kylo Ren, though. He wasn’t fucking ready!

It was ironic for a club like Die roten Bullen to think about this kind of thing as he stormed out of the movie theater , but damn Lucasfilm – or Disney – to just disappoint a whole group of fans just to milk the cash cow! Not to mention the upcoming Han Solo film, or Rogue One, whatever it was…

CRASH!!!

Leipzig collided with a fellow mall-goer, sending his unfinished popcorn flying in the air, raining over the three of them (panicked, little Inge had run to RB’s aid, but he was just plain useless.)

Cringing, the two adults stood up at the same time, RB pulling the Bavarian up as he did. “Sorry, Sir–“

When they heard each other’s voice, they broke off in unison–

“Dynamo?”

“Soda?!”

“What are you doing here?!”

Dynamo's red eyes and Leipzig's blue ones bore into each other, leaving poor Ingolstadt alone with his BB-8 plushie.

“Watching Star Wars,” spat the Dresden club.

“What?!” the Retortenverein roared, “we couldn’t have been on the same theater, could we?!”

Dynamo folded his hands over his chest. “Show me your ticket.”

RB handed the other club his Premier Pass with a scoff, knowing that he couldn’t afford it. “Inge’s dad paid for it.” The lie rolled easily from his tongue, and he paid his fellow ‘plastic club’ no heed.

The blond-and-black-haired club, unfortunately, saw through it, what with the condescending scowl contorting his angular features, or maybe it was his words, “Whatever you say, you’re still a money club with no fucking tradition, so cut the crap, Soda.”

“And whatever you say, you’re still a third division club who’ll probably go bankrupt in a few years,” Leipzig retorted, “now give me your ticket.”

“No need,” Dresden said gruffly, returning the ticket as hastily as he could, as if it was deadly radioactive poison that could turn him into goo, “like a true fan, I go for the actual movie, not for the massaging chairs and whatever posh shit you two bandwagons eat inside.”

“I’m not a bandwagon!” Ingolstadt whined.

The club with the record-breaking banner not-so-playfully smacked Germany’s tiniest club in the head. “Shut up.”

“Hey – you can’t do that, I’ll tell my Papa!” the crybaby continued, “and you can never, ever bully us again!”

While the two clubs went on with the useless banter, RB Leipzig focused into himself, calming his mind – the Light Side of the Force called to him, whispering calming tones as he breathed in… and out. And in… and out. He shouldn’t be so angry… but stars, a whole fucking expanded universe! From semi-canon references with compelling stories, memorable characters, and world-shattering tech, was now mere… fanfictions. Those mouse-controlled bastards may have called it ‘Legends’, but…

SLAP!

“Oi! Red Bull!”

He blinked, barely registering the pain at first, but a second later, his nerves decided to be jerks and made him rub it uselessly.

SGD shot him an even dirtier look.. “What the fuck are you high on?”

“What?”

“You were fucking standing in front of a furniture store with your eyes closed,” the Dresdener continued, “what else would you call that, huh?”

“Oh I know!” Inge piped up from under the grown ups’ armpits, “he’s meditating! With the Force!”

Dynamo started laughing. “Are you freaking kidding me?!”

“Well… I…” Leipzig paused, fighting his blush in vain, “I was just thinking about the EU.”

Silence.

The 2009-born club swallowed his pride – maybe the violent Traditionsverein could be civil in this common ground. “It’s just a shame,” he continued, “that Episode VII throws away the effort of tens, maybe hundreds of EU writers… just like that!”

The older Saxony club ‘hmm’ed mock-thoughtfully. “I second that,” he replied, “but you know… it reminds me of your situation, Soda.”

“How?” Leipzig wondered aloud.

“Imagine SSV Markranstädt as the EU,” Dynamo said in a low, dramatic voice as they walked to a nearby restaurant on the pint-sized Bundesligist’s insistence, “the fruit of thirty years of labor with thousands of fans, fanfics, and merchandise.”

RB let out a growl, knowing full well where this conversation was going.

“And you, the money bastard who bought his license and replaced him, erasing years of tradition, is The Force Awakens,” the 3. Liga club paused, gauging Soda’s reaction, “so it’s fucking ironic that you hate the new, glamorous Star Wars while being Mateshit’s new, glamorous rent boy.”

Ingolstadt stared at the two eastern German personifications, from Red Bull’s clenched fists to his glowering eyes to Dynamo's casual steps and eye-to-eye smirk, and shuddered.

It can’t be the Dark Side, can it?

Social Media Shenanigans

1. FC Köln - its women’s team, to be exact, logged into her account, giddy to share (the photo of) her first win in what seemed like ages. Sure, it was ‘only’ DFB-Pokal, but a win was a win, right? Especially against the Baden Cup winners!

(photo)

MsEffzeh SIEG IN KARLSRUHE! 4:1, baby! - with @karli_ksc :3

#sieg #victory #dfbcup #dfbpokal #football #fußball #soccer #koe #effzeh #ksc #happy

Not a minute later, the Rhine club received notifications from clubs she barely knew:

GeissbockVIII , StuttgarterSnarker and VfB_jungundwild liked your photo.

StuttgarterSnarker and Karlsruh_94 commented on your photo.

Out of curiosity, she decided to check them out.

StuttgarterSnarker Congratulations, kid! >:)

Karlsruh_94 @StuttgarterSnarker @MsEffzeh she’s an oberligist, big deal

StuttgarterSnarker @Karlsruh_94 Someone’s a sore loser, isn’t he? @MsEffzeh Remind me to treat you sometime, eh?

Köln giggled like a lovestruck teenager.

MsEffzeh @GeissbockVIII ayyyyyyy~ @StuttgarterSnarker awww, thanks!! <3 @Karlsruh_94 a win is a win :p

After replying to the boys’ comments, she switched tabs to DFB’s website to watch the highlights of her game… Karlsruhe’s Mädels played well, but they were surely no match for hers!

Just when the second goal touched the southern German club’s net, she got a new notification. If it was possible, her face lit up even more. I hope it’s Stuttgart, she thought, mouth watering at the prospect of being treated to delicious food, or even better, a new costume for Alaaf!

Click!

karli_ksc commented on your photo.

“Aww, it’s not Stuttgart,” she lamented. But… was the sister going to be as butthurt as her brother? Better click the link, then.

karli_ksc @Karlsruh_94 COULD YOU PLEASE STOP EMBARRASSING ME FOR ONCE

The Cologne-born woman doubled over in laughter. This banter might just be the cherry on top of the whipped cream that was her victory!

Karlsruh_94 @karli_ksc but he’s bullying you! and i’m your big brother, i should protect you

StuttgarterSnarker @Karlsruh_94 @karli_ksc Awww, the joys of having a baby sister!

Karlsruh_94 @StuttgarterSnarker shut the fuck up, asshole

karli_ksc @Karlsruh_94 @StuttgarterSnarker I DON'T NEED TO BE CODDLED OK I’M NOT A BABY

StuttgarterSnarker Ah, I wish I had a sister… (sigh emoticon)

StuttgarterSnarker @VfB_jungundwild No offense, little bro.

VfB_jungundwild @StuttgarterSnarker :( :( :(

Karlsruh_94 @StuttgarterSnarker she’d disown you (middle finger emoticon)

karli_ksc @Karlsruh_94 I’M DISOWNING YOU

StuttgarterSnarker @karli_ksc Sweet!

Wait, scratch that, Köln grinned, leaning back further on her bed, it definitely was.

One Thing For Sure

“Miss Hertha, how would you explain your third place finish in this Hinrunde?”

Hertha Berlin flashed the reporter a warm smile, as she was wont to do. “There are a lot of factors at play, which will be explained further by the coach,” she intoned, “but one thing’s for sure,” she exchanged a glance with the Hungarian sitting beside her, “Dardai is the best Pal we’ve had in years.”

(End Hinrunde)

EU: Expanded Universe And yes, I know RB only 'replaced' SSV for one season, but Dresden doesn't bother with his research :p

0 notes

movietvtechgeeks · 8 years ago

Photo

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/donald-trump-supporters-watching-next-four-years-closely/

Donald Trump supporters watching next four years closely

One thing we learned from Donald Trump becoming the 45th president of the United States was that many people who had voted for Barack Obama voted against Hillary Clinton. They wanted change, and they haven’t forgotten all the promises that Trump made to them.

There are actually many who take him at his word even though he has trained his press secretary Sean Spicer to create many versions of what he did say. These voters aren’t stupid, and as their stories show, they’re watching, and if Trump doesn’t deliver in his four years, they’re open to another change.

She tugged 13 envelopes from a cabinet above the stove, each one labeled with a different debt: the house payment, the student loans, the vacuum cleaner she bought on credit.

Lydia Holt and her husband tuck money into these envelopes with each paycheck to whittle away at what they owe. They both earn about $10 an hour and, with two kids, there are usually some they can’t fill. She did the math; at this rate, they’ll be paying these same bills for 87 years.

In 2012, Holt voted for Barack Obama because he promised her change, but she feels that change hasn’t reached her here. So last year she chose a presidential candidate unlike any she’d ever seen, the billionaire businessman who promised to help America, and people like her, win again.

Many of her neighbors did, too – so many that for the first time in more than 30 years, Crawford County, Wisconsin, a sturdy brick in the once-mighty Big Blue Wall, abandoned the Democratic Party and that wall crumbled. The rural county lent Donald Trump 3,844 votes toward his win. More came from formerly blue counties to the north and to the south, and on and on. Some 50 counties stretching 300 miles down the Mississippi River – through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois – transformed in one election season into Trump Country.

They voted for Trump for an array of reasons, and the list of grievances they hope he now corrects is long and exacting: stagnant wages, the cost of health care, a hard-to-define feeling that things are not getting better, at least not for people like them.

Here in Crawford County, residents often recite two facts about their hometown, the first one proudly: It is the second-oldest community in the state. The next is that it’s also one of the poorest.

There are no rusted-out factories to embody this discontent. The main street of Prairie du Chien butts up to the Mississippi River and bustles with tourists come summer. Pickup trucks crowd parking lots at the 3M plant and Cabela’s distribution center where hundreds work. Just a few vacant storefronts hint at the seething resentment that life still seems harder here than it should.

In this place that astonished America when it helped hand Trump the White House, many of those who chose him greeted the frenetic opening acts of his presidency with a shrug. Immigration is not their top concern, and so they watched with some trepidation as Trump signed orders to build a wall on the Mexican border and bar immigrants from seven Muslim countries, sowing chaos around the world.

Among them is a woman who works for $10.50 an hour in a sewing factory, who still admires Obama, bristles at Trump’s bluster, but can’t afford health insurance. And the dairy farmer who thinks Trump is a jerk – “somebody needs to get some Gorilla Glue and glue his lips shut” – but has watched his profits plummet and was willing to take the risk.

There’s a man who owns an engine repair shop and struggles to keep the lights on, and a bartender who cringes when he sees “Made in China” printed on American goods.

There’s also Holt, who makes $400 a week as a lawyer’s assistant and whose husband doesn’t do much better at a car parts store. She is enthusiastic that Trump started quickly doing the things he said he would, because she worries that by the time their sons grow up there will be nothing left for them here.

In this corner of middle America, in this one, small slice of the nation that sent Trump to Washington, they are watching and they are waiting, their hopes pinned on his promised economic renaissance. And if four years from now the change he pledged hasn’t found them here, the people of Crawford County said they might change again to someone else.

—

Katherine Cramer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, coined a name for what’s happened in her state’s rural pockets: the politics of resentment.

She spent years traveling to small towns and talking to people at diners and gas stations. And when she asked which political party best represented them, their answers almost always sounded something like, “Are you crazy lady? Neither party is representing people around here.”

“People have been looking for a politician who is going to change that, going to listen to them, do it differently,” she said. “People a lot of times don’t have specifics about what that means. They just know that however government is operating currently is not working for them.”

In Crawford County, with just 16,000 residents, that dissatisfaction stems from feeling left behind as other places prospered.

There are plenty of jobs in retail or on factory floors, but it’s hard to find one that pays more than $12 an hour. Ambitious young people leave and don’t come back. Rural schools are dwindling and with them a sense of pride and purpose.

Still, much of the economic anxiety is based not on measurable decay, but rather a perception that life is decaying, said Jim Bowman, director of the county’s Economic Development Corporation.

There are higher-paying jobs – in welding, for example – but companies can’t find enough workers with the right training, Bowman said. The county’s $44,000-a-year median household income is $9,000 less than the state’s, but the cost of living is lower, too.

Just 15 percent of adults have college degrees, half the national average, and yet the ratio of people living in poverty is below the country as a whole.

Crawford County and all the other places in the county cluster along the Mississippi River that switched from Obama to Trump rank roughly in the middle on a scale of American comfort in one economic think tank’s county-by-county appraisal of community distress.

Yet for many here, it doesn’t feel that way.

“If you ask anybody here, we’ll all tell you the same thing: We’re tired of living like this. We’ve been railroaded, run over by the politicians and run over by laws,” said Mark Berns, leaning through the service window in the small-engine repair shop downtown that he can barely keep open anymore. He drives a 14-year-old truck with 207,000 miles on it because he doesn’t make enough profit to buy a new one.

Berns watched Trump’s first days in office half-hopeful, half-frightened.

“He jumps on every bandwagon there is. It’s a mess,” he said, bemoaning what he described as a quantity-over-quality, “sign, sign, sign” approach to governing. “I just hope we get the jobs back and the economy on its feet, so everybody can get a decent job and make a decent living, and have that chance at the American dream that’s gone away over the past eight or 10 years.

“I’m still optimistic,” he said, sighing. “I hope I’m not wrong.”

—

Marlene Kramer gets to work before the sun comes up and spends her days sitting at a sewing machine, stitching sports uniforms for $10.50 an hour.

Kramer, who voted twice for Obama, used to watch Trump on “Celebrity Apprentice.” ”I said to myself, ‘Ugh, I can’t stand him.'” When he announced his candidacy, she thought it was a joke. “Then my husband said to me, ‘Just think, everything he touches seems to turn to money.'” And she changed her mind.

She’s 54, and she’s worked since she was 14, all hard jobs: feeding cows, pulling weeds, standing all day on factory floors. Now it’s the sewing shop, where she’s happy and gets to sit. But there’s no health insurance.

Her bosses, brothers Todd and Scott Yeomans, opened the factory 12 years ago. They said they’re trying to do the right thing by making sportswear with American-made fabrics and American labor. But they compete against factories overseas.

They’d like to offer insurance. The other day, a trusted worker quit for a job with benefits. But they’ve run the numbers, and it would cost $200,000 a year – far more than they can spend.

Kramer said she’s glad the Affordable Care Act has helped millions get insurance. But it hasn’t helped her.

She and her husband were stunned to find premiums over $1,000 a month. Her daughter recently moved into their house with her five children, so there’s no money to spare. They opted to pay the penalty of $2,000, and pray they don’t get sick until Trump, she hopes, keeps his promise to replace the law with something better.

Kramer thinks Obama did as good a job as he could in the time he had. She admires him, still, but went with Trump. That doesn’t seem incongruous to her, just a simple calculation of results.

“His things aren’t going the way we want them here,” she said, “so we needed to go in another direction.”

Across town, Robbo Coleman leaned over the bar he tends and described a similar political about-face. He held up an ink pen, wrapped in plastic stamped “Made in China.”

“I don’t see why we can’t make pens in Prairie du Chien or in Louisville, Kentucky, or in Alabama or wherever,” said Coleman. “Trump brought something to the table that I haven’t heard or seen before. And if it doesn’t turn out, then, hey, at least we tried.”

Coleman doesn’t love Trump’s moves to build a wall or ban certain immigrants – all Americans descended from immigrants, he said, including his own relatives, who migrated from Germany too many generations ago to count. But he’s frustrated that other politicians stopped listening to working people like him.

“We’ve got to give him some time,” he said of Trump. “He’s not Houdini.”

Even some rural Wisconsin Democrats agreed with Coleman’s assessment, and think their party’s leaders are among those who stopped paying attention to those just trying to get by. On the same day that Trump took the oath of office, a group of them huddled in the back room of a tavern, still trying to grasp how the election went awry.

Bob Welsh met Hillary Clinton at a rope line in Iowa and asked her to visit Wisconsin. But she didn’t come a single time during her campaign against Trump, and Welsh thinks that confirmed in the minds of many that Democrats are disinterested in white working people.

Welsh wears flannel shirts and suspenders. He grew up on a farm, worked as a herdsman, and drove a school bus until he was 76 years old. He’s 78 now, and knows his neighbors as kind, hard-working people, and could barely believe they voted for a man he finds reprehensible. But the left-right, blue-red vitriol that has cleaved apart the country has not left the same scars here, where wives reported not knowing how their own husbands voted and husbands said they never asked their wives.

Welsh said he hopes Trump finds a way to keep his promise to build his friends better lives.

“If he does that then he’ll change my mind,” he said. “And I’ll be the first to admit it.”

—

Bernard Moravits hosed the mud and cow dung off the boots pulled up over his jeans and headed for his truck, to drive to town to talk to a banker about keeping his farm afloat.

Moravits – everyone calls him Tinker – works on his farm outside of town at least 12 hours every day, and usually a lot longer. He diversified to minimize risk and has dairy and beef cows, and acre after acre of corn, beans, alfalfa.

“You don’t hit a home run that way, but you don’t get your ass kicked either,” he said. “But this year could be the ass-kicking year.”

The price of milk and agricultural goods has plummeted, and it’s hard to keep things running.

Change is what he looked to Obama for and now expects from Trump. He wants the president to reduce red tape and renegotiate trade deals to benefit American farmers. And he hopes people make more money and spend more money, which eventually trickles down to him.

“I think he’s a shrewd businessman,” he said. “He’s been broke several times. He keeps bouncing back, and he knows how big business works.”

He has several choice words for Trump’s move to build “his stupid wall.” Moravits employs Hispanic workers who have been with him 15 years. He built them apartments. He trusts them to do a dirty, difficult job that he says white people aren’t willing to do.

“A lot of people don’t treat them like people,” he grumbled.

Unlike many transfixed by Trump’s presidency, Moravits doesn’t stay up-to-the-minute on the news. In the morning, he checks the agriculture prices and the weather. As protests over Trump’s immigration ban raged for days, Moravits wasn’t paying attention.

“The play-by-play don’t mean bullshit,” he said. “It’s like watching the Super Bowl. What counts is how it ends.”

He took over this farm at 18 years old, when his father died of an aneurysm while milking cows. He said he plans to die here, too. He’ll retire when “they close the casket lid.”

But if nothing changes and changes soon he might have to borrow against his equity.

Moravits isn’t sure Trump is going to “Make America Great Again” for farmers. But he feels he had to take the gamble.

“He might have us in a war in two weeks,” he said. “We’ll come back here in six months, drink a 30-pack of Busch Light and talk, because no one knows now what’s gonna happen.”

He laughed, then shrugged and pantomimed rolling the dice.

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