#it's probably obvious but Julie goes to a university that's maybe a few hours away from where they grew up

[daintyduck99]

Friends to lovers trope my beloved! hugging and absentmindedly kissing their neck, resulting in mortification for one of them for rulie please!

Also tagging @jmrothwell, who asked for the same prompt! <3

Julie frowns at herself in the mirror.

She looks fine. She's being ridiculous.

Reggie has known her since they were six and seven years old; he's seen her covered in mud and paint and god knows what else. Heck, he saw her cry because she got her hair stuck in a fan once! 

Which…may have slightly been his fault, but he'd looked so torn up about it that she hadn't had the heart to be mad at him. Plus, he had held her hand the whole time as her mom got the fan detangled. 

So. She looks totally fine, and he knows she's looked worse. He's just dropping by her apartment for a friendly weekend visit. No need to fret about her baby hairs, or if her tied-back t-shirt and patchwork jeans are cute but casual enough. None at all! 

Still…

She tugs at her curls, wondering if she ought to try and tame them. But if she leaves them be, he might play with them, or bury his face in them when he hugs her. 

She'd given him permission to touch her hair long ago, and the way he'd lit up is still burned on the inside of her eyelids. 

And he's gotten really good at braiding it, which kinda outweighs the whole thing with the fan. She smiles at the thought.

"Daydreaming about your boy, babe?"

Julie squeaks, spinning to confront Kayla's smirk, which only grows as Julie stammers.

"H-he isn't…it's not like that!" 

"Oh?" Kayla's eyebrows arch. "Julie, how long have you been standing there?" 

Julie bites her lip, and Kayla relents a bit.

"Well, either way, I'll be out of your hair before he gets here. Don't sweat it, okay? I'm sure he's sighing into the sunset and messing with his hair in his mirrors, too." 

She's gone in a whirl of glitter and fluttery purple fabric before Julie can object, or even ask her about her own plans. 

And Julie tries not to daydream. She does.

But, well…

How else is she supposed to pass the time? She's sick of overanalyzing herself. 

She's sitting on the couch with a book she hasn't absorbed a word of by the time he knocks on the door, wrenching her from a particularly interesting scenario in her head that involved them square dancing. 

She may or may not have stolen his hat. 

Anyway! Reality! He's here! 

She plucks at her top and her bracelets and her hair, then hurries over to the door. 

Swinging it open reveals his sunny crooked smile, and his bright green eyes, which have crinkled at the corners. 

"Hi," she breathes, heart hammering against the bars of her ribs. "How—" 

He surges forward and tugs her into his arms, startling a giddy laugh out of her.

He does bury his face in her hair, and her heart stutters. She hides her face in the crook of his neck as he murmurs…

"Missed you." 

That does sort of answer her unspoken question. She missed him too, of course, and she holds him tighter in response. 

She even missed the way he smells, like leather and some kind of smoky cologne. 

He didn't always, of course. He used to smell like freshly cut grass from hours spent outside, or like cinnamon candies.

One thing that hasn't changed, though, is how sensitive his neck is. Ticklish. She'd first discovered it by accident when they were teens, playing with the fine hair at the nape of his neck, and she loves how blushy he gets, how it makes him shiver and surrender a quiet, breathy laugh.

A quiet, breathy laugh that's echoing a bit too sharply in her ears. 

"J-Julie—" 

Her eyes fly open, and she gasps, detaching her lips from his neck. 

She tries to scramble out of his arms, but he keeps holding her close, and she presses her forehead into his shoulder with a groan. A blush burns along her cheeks, spreading to the tops of her ears.

"Oh my god, Reggie, I am so sorry…" 

He swallows, hard. "You don't have to be." 

She feels her confusion write itself on her face, wrinkling her forehead. She lifts her head slowly, still conscious of her flush. 

And he's blushing too, but what really makes her gasp is the state of his eyes.

They flicker, like a candle burning low, to her lips, darker than she's ever seen them. 

"If you want me," he murmurs, "don't be sorry. Just say the word, and I'm yours." 

So she bunches her fingers in the back of his jacket, uncaring of the fact that they're still standing in the doorway for anyone to see, and tilts her face more towards his. 

She's scarcely said yes before he's stealing the word straight from her lips. 

And later, when Kayla takes one look at her and her still thoroughly mussed hair, squeals, and tells her good for you, Julie just beams…

Too sated and smitten to be mortified at all. 

[tessatechaitea]

Wonder Twins #5

Jayna just punched straight through her brother's butthole.

If you're a being who turns into water, your dick and butthole don't just disappear, right? They just become part of the water! So I'm almost certainly correct in my comment on the cover. Hopefully Mark Russell will explore this topic in a future issue. Until then, I'll be certain to tell everybody I know that Jayna basically fisted Zan. Luckily for the Wonder Twins, I don't know many people and also they are fictional characters. This issue is called "Magic and Games." I think. It will probably take me less time to read this entire comic book than it took me to puzzle out the word "Games" in the font used for the title.

Sure, you can see it now that I already told you what it was! But it was difficult before I worked it out! Although I still wouldn't be surprised to learn the title is "Magic and Galljes" or "Magic and "Gaines" and that the second word is somebody's name.

Usually I don't comment on Mark Russell comic books because to comment on a Mark Russell comic book, you should probably be smart and serious. Sure, he's having fun and writing an entertaining book that I can easily use to make jokes about fisting incest! But he also writes sensitive stories about social justice and systemic bias and ethical dilemmas in changing times and, well, other stuff that I'm too dumb to even discuss in the most general terms! He's a smart guy which is why I hate him with a burning passion! But it's a good hate! It's the kind of envious hate that pushes me to my own Emerald Twilight! I probably won't wind up destroying an entire town and ruining my reputation and becoming the most vilified hero in our universe but I almost certainly will eventually become the avenging spirit of God judging everybody around me! Wait, I think I already am that! Whatever my point is, it's that Mark Russell writes good and I'm too weak to not despise him for it. Polly Math has just won first prize at the science fair because her last name is Math. I guess Sandra Science didn't compete this year so Polly was the obvious next choice. Jayna wins second place because her project on fucking hot guys while being a nerd in high school fell apart when the guy she attempted to science fair fuck turned out to be a villain. It's also possible I'm confusing story lines but you have to expect that kind of thing! I'm not spring chicken! Remembering details between chapters that come out a full month apart has been nearly impossible for the last twenty years! I shouldn't make fun of Polly Math's name because I have a name that people always try to make jokes about too. It's not Grunion Guy! You can probably find it if you do even the smallest amount of Internet research! I'm not going to help you though because I don't want to get called a Deaf Chef anymore! Polly is upset that her father is working with Lex Luthor and the League of Annoyance. But Jayna has a plan to fix things! I bet her plan is to turn into a giant tortoise while Zan turns into an ice dildo and...wait a second! Why am I giving out good ideas that Mark Russell will just steal in a few issues?! Better to not speculate on things! Also, I mean, the cover shows Jayna going with the shark plan.

Okay fine! I'm finally interested in Fox News!

The most disturbing thing about people who watch Fox News is that they ignore five hundred other channels that are showing entertaining things on their television at the same time! Who chooses that shit over Comedy Central or the Game Show Network?! I haven't had cable for nearly twenty years and whenever I'm staying somewhere with cable, it's locked on the Game Show Network 24/7! Who the fuck chooses to watch state propaganda over old game shows?! Fucking psychopaths, that's who!

Polly Math's father wound up working with Lex Industries because only Lex Luthor hired African Americans, I guess? Hadn't he heard of STAR Labs?! Maybe Silas Stone and Sarah Charles fulfilled their quota?

I might be misreading this scene but I don't think I am because the white guys with white guys playing golf pictures behind them seem interested in Filo Math if he's Norwegian (so, you know, totally white!) and then when they meet him, they don't want to hire him. It could be that they really are concerned with his specialty! What could that be?! I mean, it can't be any worse than Silas Stone's specialty of turning his son into a cybernetic example of the castration of the black male in America! That's a really terrible specialty! Although Sarah Charles seemed to be pretty into it. See?! This is why I can't review a Mark Russell book! He's making a great point about the systemic bias inherent in corporate hiring practices and I'm not taking it seriously! I mean, he isn't either, really? He's being light-hearted while still making a good point. Which is what I've done, I think, in my comment about Cyborg's lack of a penis! The Scrambler wants to play a trick on society. He's a magician that believes people are frightened of magic and only like the part where everything is normal again. Magician: "Is this your card?" Audience Member: "Why yes! Thank God you picked my card! I was worried I was going to have to live in a world where my card wasn't picked!" Maybe I'm not comprehending his point. Anyway, The Scrambler wants to do a trick where things don't ever go back to normal! He's a monster! Imagine picking the Three of Clubs and nobody ever showing you the Three of Clubs ever again! Ugh, I'm feeling faint. To save Polly's Dad from definite prison time (or possibly, if Superman shows up, an eternity in the Phantom Zone. As if Superman can be bothered with Earth's judicial system! Pshaw!), Jan has challenged the League of Annoyance to a duel at the zoo. I guess if she wants to stress out all of the animals there with a big battle, who am I to judge? I mean other than being the real life version of Hal Jordan's Spectre, of course! At the zoo, Jayna recruits a bunch of Australian animals to help fight which goes as spectacularly as you can imagine it would. And what I mean by that is that a koala is blown to bits. But I guess that's worth it in the grand scheme of getting Polly Math's father to stop working with the League of Annoyance. It's like that philosophical conundrum about an ant that sacrifices its life for even the tiniest amount to better the world. It's just an ant! It practically owes it to the universe to die for nearly nothing! What does this koala bear expect? It should get to live in luxurious confinement at the zoo and not die for a trivial reason? Stupid koala bear. Go fuck yourself, you selfish bastard. The Wonder Twins defeat two out of three of the League of Annoyance members at the expense of just one koala's life and the bruised jaw of an innocent kangaroo. The third member, some woman with a Kryptonian cell phone whose name maybe I should remember, gets away to go regroup. Sylvia is a racist that joined the League because she didn't like the demographics of her small town changing. She's startled by Filo entering the League's headquarters to pack up his stuff and winds up zapping him like she zapped the koala. Okay, I guess the koala isn't as dead as I first thought. I should have realize a Kryptonian phone is probably sending everything to the Phantom Zone. So once again, I, the Grandmaster Comic Book Reader, was correct when I speculated that the worst that could happen to Filo was prison or the Phantom Zone! I'm the smarterest! Sylvia is caught on camera zapping Filo Math and then messes up in an interview when she kind of admits to having maybe zapped more than one black person with her phone off-camera? It's a real public relations nightmare!

But Lex can fix it! His greatest strength is turning public relations nightmares into public relations wet dreams!

Lex News turns Cell Phone Sylvia into a national hero. Because anything is excusable if you just say how scared you were! I mean, as long as you're white! It's scary being white! Sometimes you have to kill people with your legal gun while standing your own ground after confronting somebody for the most inconsequential reasons! It's just the way the world works! At least in America! Happy 4th of July! Just in case some readers weren't smart enough to get that everybody blasted by Sylvia's phone went to the Phantom Zone, Mark Russell supplies us with an image of Filo and the koala and a bunch of Sylvia's other victims (hmm, all black! But that's probably just a coincidence!) in the Phantom Zone. Polly, at the end of her rope with doing the right thing in an unjust world, decides to contact The Scrambler. I can't wait for her big magic trick to fix the world! The Scrambler's big trick to fix the world is to threaten to scramble everybody's identity. Everybody's minds will switch around so that they're now in different bodies. That means the powerful might wind up being the poorest people in the worst poverty. And the only way he won't do it is if the powerful fix the world in thirty days. Seems like a good plan! Except I'm curious to see how they fix it. Most people's ideas of fixing the world rely on the current world still existing somehow. So the fix is handicapped from the beginning by needing to be built on the ruins of the old system. To truly make a new system that works, the old system must be completely razed to the ground. But nobody has the stomach for that. So we make exceptions and compromises, building the new structure on top of a rotting foundation. It's why DC's Universe fixes always fail. They rely on making things new and better but need to remain rooted in the past. Crisis on Infinite Earths was built on a world that still contained members of Infinity Inc. who suddenly didn't fit in the world anymore. So DC then had to do Zero Hour which told new origin stories but still refused to throw out everything that came before to simply start again. Even The New 52, which people hated because they felt it did exactly what I suggested (razing the shit to the ground), didn't work because, I believe, it didn't go far enough! It still accepted Superman had died. It still accepted all of Green Lantern's past. It still contained a Batgirl who was shot by Joker and became Oracle. It was still the DC Universe but with arbitrary and subtle changes that made no real difference except the jettisoning of a ton of history. So it didn't work for anybody! Um, anyway, my initial point was that real life political structures and social dynamics and economic systems can never really be restructured in a meaningful way because they have to kowtow to older ways of thinking and doing things. The comic book stuff was just easier to write about! I'm sure Mark Russell will figure it out! Or he'll just have The Scrambler and Polly Math arrested and nothing will work out like it should and it will just be the punctuation on the idea that everything fucking sucks. Yay! Wonder Twins #5 Rating: A+. Come on! Everything Mark Russell writes gets an A+! It shows how smart I am!

[talonsaga-trash]

Fanfic idea: The crazy thoughts that goes through wes's head on a day to day basis

An entire day? Man, Julie stretches those out so much! I didn’t realize how long they were, but here it is. Thanks for the prompt, anon!

Title: Used to Want a Job with Miscrosoft, Now Just Want to go to Bed

Word count: 4k

A/N: Takes place during Rouge, during the show of a day that Ember wakes up from being shot. I’m also going off of the assumption that Wes has insomnia, which I’m rather sure Julie has been hinting at.

Disclaimer: I realized I need to add these. Don’t own Talon, Julie owns Talon, I’m just a humble blogger. Some of the dialouge is taken directly from the book.

It didn’t come as a surprise when Wes opened his eyes to darkness.It wasn’t the first time and certainly wouldn’t be the last time he woke up before the sun had even approached rising. In all honesty, he lucked out by falling asleep at eleven. It couldn’t last, it never did, but it was a small disappointment. He pressed the button of light on his watch and discovered that it was 1:30. Two and a half hours of sleep, he probably wouldn’t get any more for a while. Perhaps the next night, or in two more. So he did what any reasonable human would do his his situation.

He closed his eyes and went into denial about being awake.

It was dawn by the time he heard Riley wake up in the room across from his, the slight groan of annoyance over being awake, similar to Wes’s. A few more seconds and Wes heard the unmistakable thump and curse that signalled Riley running into something. Idiot. Tired dragons were clumsy dragons in their human form, and endless entertainment for Wes. The only entertainment he got sometimes. “I can fly and breath fire and kill you with my left pinkie toe” “Yeah, well I can get up in the morning without tripping over the floor.” Who was the real winner in life?

Dragons. Definitely Dragons.

Riley seemingly recovered from running into whatever he ran into and walked down the hall, probably to check on the hatchling he was obviously smitten with and the soldier she was obviously smitten with.

It was not a fun situation for anyone, but if he ever got to fill out a job application he could at least add ‘patient third wheel’ onto list of achievements along with ‘fishes bullets out of idiots dragons in free time.’

“Wes? You awake?” Riley opened the door and whisered, spilling light into the room. It made Wes want to curl up and hide.

“No,” Instead he sat up and kicked the blankets away. Riley raised an eyebrow, smile tugging at his lips at his obvious denial. “So, Is Ember dead?”

“No.” Riley’s look changed to what could only be described as disapproving, since he had long gotten used to Wes’s word choice. Eight years ago when he asked a similar question he got a very solid smack on the head and a terrifying chew-out from an angry dragon that went by Leo at the time. “She actually might wake up today.”

“Oh, goody.”

“And we need more food unless you want to sacrifice an arm for the cause of hungry dragon.”

“Oh, goody.” Well, shit. “I’ll be off to bed, then. Wake me when she stops trying to eat me.”

Riley closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You don’t sleep, idiot. You’re fooling no one.” Joke’s on you, I’m fooling myself. In your face, lizard.

“Humans need an average of seven to nine hours of sleep a night, so I have four and a half—”

“Get your ass up, Wes, before I drag you out by your ankle.”

“I’m charmed,” He rolled his eyes. “Give me a bit of privacy and I’ll get changed. Any requests for restocking the kitchen?”

“Orange juice. And Salami.”

What the hell is that combination? Sometimes he really questioned Riley’s sense of taste. And most dragons. Who thought Salami and orange juice went together?

Apparently Riley did.

The soldier was already up, sitting at the table. The three of them were sporting the newest fashion trend: grey complexion and circles under the eyes as black as Riley’s soul. St. George waved awkwardly as Wes came in, who made a beeline for the refrigerator and retrieved a bottle of Mountain Dew.

“Any requests from you?” Wes finally sighed at him and downed half of the bottle. The soldier opened his mouth and closed it with a snap. “I’m not going to bite your head off for requesting food.” That’s Riley’s job.

“Is milk ever going—”

“Nope!” Riley yelled from the opposite room and Wes closed his eyes, the dragon’s voice searing a hole through his ear. Riley could devolve from fearless leader of the underground to small petty lizard in approximately five seconds. Impressive skill. Annoying skill. A skill that Wes possessed as well, sans the lizard part.

St. George seemed to think so, too, if the twitch in his eyes had anything to say about it. “What is with everyone’s aversion to milk?” He whispered to himself even though Wes could hear it.

“Dragons are lactose intolerant, so no milk.”

“Ember ate two ice cream cones in one sitting.”

“I pity the folks who were looking after her.” It was a rather common occurrence when they first started the underground. Hatchlings were hungry. Hatchlings wanted ice cream. Hatchlings asked for ice cream. Wes said no. Hatchlings got ice cream. Hatchlings threw up everywhere. Hatchlings got more ice cream.

For that reason Wes no longer bought ice cream.

“Wes. Food. Out.”

I feel so appreciated.

Shit shit shit shit shit. That word crossed his mind for very valid reasons more often than it was healthy. The current reason? The conspicuous tail that he had picked up. He was just trying to get salami, and he had to deal with St. George. 

Why did the universe hate him? It wasn’t even being subtle about it anymore.

It took a solid hour minutes to lose them and Wes let out a long sigh of relief and exhaustion before figuring out where the hell he was. 

Who in their right mind even let him drive? He never officially got his license and was fuctioning on two hours of sleep. Usually he could add spite as a source of energy, but turned out it didn’t work while driving, just putting up with bullshit or impossible situations. Such as digging a bullet out of Ember without a medical degree. Spite worked wonders. Just not for driving.

Wes pulled into their street after navigating the Vegas slums for another half hour and saw the car again. Fear flooded his bloodstream as it turned off to a different road, slowly. The part of him that was more tired than scared had the nerve to say ‘Well, shit.’ in the most annoyed voice possible.

“St. George! They’re here, I think they’re right behind me!” He slammed the door against the wall as Riley’s head jerked up. Hey, Ember’s awake! 

“What do you mean, they’re right behind you?” Riley stood as Wes locked the door. Are there multiple explanations that I’m missing? “St. George doesn’t know who you are, they’ve never seen you before. How would they know you’re even a target?”

“I don’t know mate, but someone was staring at me in the parking lot,” Probably because I bought fucking salami and orange juice like they belonged together. “And when I was driving back I noticed I’d picked up tail. That’s why it took me so bloody long to get here. I was trying to lose the bastards, but they could still be out there.”

Riley walked to the edge of the window and peered through the glass. Don’t do that. If you get shot I’m not pulling the slug out or hauling your corpse out of the house. Except he would do both. How dare that dragon make him do stuff like that?

“I don’t see anyone … maybe you lost them?”

“They’re out there,” The soldier murmured. “If this really is St. George, the surveyors Wes saw will be narrowing the houses down right now. The assault team is probably on its way. We don’t have a lot of time.” Aren’t you a small ray of optimism?

“Then we need to leave,” Riley kept up a calm facade impressively, but Wes could tell he wasn’t by the stiffness along his shoulders and the habitual twitch in his left foot. A barely noticeable tremor in his voice that Wes used to be unable to detect gave away exactly how panicked he was. Very much so. “Now. Wes, get everything together.”

Wes nodded and walked into his room, grabbing his backpack and gun. They didn’t really have any possessions, Riley’s duffel held his own weaponry and clothing. He threw the it at Riley when he came in.

“Ow.” Riley caught it, his voice shaking to the point where any person could identify it. He looked scared, a look he only had when he and Wes were alone. He needed to be strong for the hatchlings; Wes got a pass because he was a human, but Riley was the one that they looked up to. He was always calm and determined around them, probably why he let it drop when it was just Wes.

Wes gave a quick smile, the only thing he could give him in their current situation. They had gone through hell before, this was no different. “Chin up, Riley.”

Riley nodded. “You too.” He took a breath and returned the scared smile before turning back, putting on a calm facade, and getting everyone else assembled.

Step up from shitty motels. Step down from … anywhere else.

Off the main strip, a poor imitation of Caesar’s palace, with all of the nudity and none of the things he assumed were good about Caesar’s palace. He had never been in it, but he assumed that it didn’t smell like five different air fresheners, and probably had better sheets.

God, he was tired. He wanted to sleep for a twelve hours. Either his brain, body, or the universe laughed at that wish, and he laughed at the stupidity of it. 

If anything could describe his ability to sleep, he once slept for eight hours and Riley thought he had fallen into a coma. Cue tired twenty-one-year-old being shaken from what was his longest sleep since he was seventeen and he actually fell into a coma. Jokes on Riley, because he got kicked in the face.

I need fuel. Wes decided and closed his laptop, grabbing his phone. 

Perks of being a hacker: Everything was computerized, including most vending machines. So that meant free food with relative ease.  

Drawbacks of being a hacker: Getting kidnapped by Talon.

He nearly ran into Riley on the way back to his room, Riley looking grim. That could either be because of the St. George debacle or … “Griffin finally get back to you?” Riley nodded. Bingo.

“Heading down to meet him right now. Where are the others?” Riley asked. How should I know?

Of course he did. It was his job. “In their rooms, last I saw them. One sulking, one doing … bugger all. Hope the blasted hatchling doesn’t wander off. She looked quite put out when you told her not to leave the floor.”

Riley closed his eyes, a pained expression crossing his face for a second and Wes wondered, not for the first time, why they were the ones who had to act like adults. The underground needed better adults. Adults who were better at adulting, because they absolutely sucked at it. Riley was a juvenile. He wasn’t an adult.

“Keep an eye on them,” Riley said. “Make sure Ember stays put, but watch the soldier, too.” 

Seriously, why did they have to be the adults in this equation? 

“He might’ve broken from the Order, but he’s still St. Geroge, and that will never change.” Really? Never would’ve guessed. “If he moves or leaves the room, I want to know about it.” Brilliant.

“Want me to stick a bug in his lamp when he’s asleep?” And probably get shot in the process, but then at least I wouldn’t have any more responsibilities. 

“No.” Foiled again. “Doubt he’s in contact with the Order. They’re hunting him now, same as us. But if he goes off alone, or gets within twenty feet of Ember, let me know. If everything is too quiet, let me know. Hell, if …” Oh god, the list never ends.

Wes rubbed his face. “Fabulous. Twelve years of being the best hacker in this circus, and now I’m a bloody babysitter.” Riley cracked a smile and Wes glowered at him. Wes swallowed and lowered his voice. “Where are the guns, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Confession: Wes despised guns, he hated them being aimed at him, he hated aiming them at other people. He hated the idea of killing, even though he had done so before. And he was a terrible shot. Riley gave up trying to teach him properly when he was twenty. He only kept one at his bed for his friend’s sake and sanity, because he didn’t like the idea of the squishy human being defenseless while he slept. Wes had never used it.

But still, genocidal seventeen-year-old called for desperate measures.

“In my room, of course. You think I’m going to let St. George anywhere near them?” Riley said and stepped away from Wes. “I’m off. Call me if the room explodes.”

“Y know, that’s be funny if I wasn’t terrified it could actually happen.”

Riley smirked and ruffled Wes’s hair before nearly sprinting to the elevator.

Jerk.

Wes trudged back to his room, opened his laptop, and started hacking into the security. Whoever directed Ocean’s Eleven didn’t know shit about casino security, or at least the average casino’s. The one’s on the strip were probably harder to break into, but he doubted they could beat anything that the St. Geroge servers threw at him, and he was nineteen back then. Getting into the cameras was child’s play, and after six minutes he found Riley and Griffin.

Griffin was a tall asshole. Enough said about him. Riley was obviously uncomfortable, holding his drink in a vice grip and not drinking any. Good. Wes still remembered the last time he let Riley anywhere around heavy alcohol, and it had ended up with Riley flopping on top of Wes and blabbering about something in French. Then falling asleep and kicking Wes in the stomach.

Not a good night.

There didn’t seem to be any threats, but he flicked back to the cameras on their floor anyways. All clear. He flipped back to Riley and Griffin, making sure not to let them out of his sight. Wes trusted Griffin about as far as he could throw him, and he was a skinny hacker who failed gym in seventh, eighth, and freshman year.

Wes, you got a C. That’s not failing. You just got a thirty-five percent on all of your strength tests.

Close enough.

There was a knock on the door and Wes straightened, looking back at the security camera. Riley was still there, uncomfortable as ever, looking ready to drink poison. Please be a lost drunk person, please be a lost drunk person, please—

Damn.

It wasn’t.

“Oh it’s you.” Wes leaned out the door slightly to look to the elevator. Riley could usually deal with the hatchlings, not Wes. He couldn’t even deal with humans. The only organic like form he could deal with on a regular basis were dogs.

He turned back to Ember. “What do you want?”

Case in point.

“Hey, Wes.” She tried for a smile and settled on a grimace. Me too. “I have a question.” I want to go to bed. “Can I come in? I… don’t want to talk out in the open.”

“Bloody hell,” Wes muttered and opened the door wider. She’s turned paranoid already. Riley will be proud. Ember looked around the room, eyes landing on the computer for a moment and on his laptop bag a second later. Okay, sure, invade my privacy. I’m good, just standing here. He shut the door. 

“Well?” He asked. Ember looked shocked about the hostility that his voice was coated in, and Wes restarted. “Whatever this is, can you make it quick? I really don’t have time—” Or desire “—to faff around with hatchlings right now.”

Ember raised her eyebrows slightly. “Faff around?”

Fuck you. “What’s the bloody emergency?”

She fiddled with the hem of her shirt for a moment before folding her hands behind her back. “I want to get a message to my brother.”

Wes had fallen into a coma when he was seventeen due to untreated scarlet fever. He slept for fifty-two hours straight and woke up barely able to speak, delirious, and still exhausted. That seemed like a pretty nice option. Comas were good.

“Your brother.” Wes said. Ember nodded. “I’m sorry… you mean the bloke who sold us out to Talon? Are— are you off your rocker, you want to let Talon know exactly where we are?”

Ember twitched, but held her ground. Wes was so done dealing with dragons. There had to be a job that involved petting dogs all day. He would find that job, and he would excel at it.

“He didn’t sell us out.” Really? That’s what it looked like from where I was crouching in a cave, hoping Riley wasn’t dead. “Talon lied to him, he didn’t know what would happen when he told Lilith where we were. He didn’t know she would try to kill us! I know Dante, I’ve known him all my life, he wouldn’t willingly do anything that would put me in danger. Talon used, him, just like they used all of us.”

Comas were very nice. Perhaps he could get scarlet fever again.

“Be that as it may, he’s still part of the organization. Or have you forgotten they’re the ones sending Vipers after us? Even if your brother is being manipulated, it doesn’t change anything; Talon will still use him to get to us. So, sorry, can’t help you there. I like our status as it is— alive and breathing.”

Ember pursed her lips, eyes filling with tears. Oh no. He could deal with angry hatchlings, he could not deal with sad hatchlings. Mission Abort, mayday mayday Riley help please.

“Please,” She all but whispered. “Wes, please, he’s my brother. I don’t know what’s happened to him, if he’s okay, if Talon is making him do something awful. I won’t tell him where we are, or give him any information that can be traced back to us. I just need to know if he’s alright.”

Wes closed his eyes for a moment, wishing for a simpler time, at one o’clock, when he was sleeping. He opened them again and looked Ember in the eyes, trying not to be too harsh. “Even if I wanted to do this— which I don’t, let’s make that very clear— I’m not going to risk it without Riley’s approval. You really haven’t seen the blighter lose his temper yet, and as I am not fireproof, I’m not going to sneak around behind his back. You’ll have to take the request up with him.”

Ember set her jaw and backed towards the door. “Fine, then I’ll find him and ask him myself.” Yay! Please leave!

“Ask me what?” Bloody hell! Wes turned towards the door, where Riley was standing. Is my privacy non-existent? Is that how it is? Should I just remove the bloody door?

Riley looked at Ember and narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing in here?”

“Bloody hatchling wanted me to send a message to her brother,” Wes walked back to the computer and sat down, not before seeing Riley raise his eyebrows incredulously and Ember glare at him. He minimized the security feed and started his routine checking of their safe houses. Nettle and Remy had been relocated to southern Texas, along the Mexican border, he checked up on theirs first.

“I told her that before she brought the whole of Talon and St. George down on our heads, she’d have to take it up with you.” With that he took out his earbuds, plugged them into the computer, and tried to drown out their conversation with Skyrim.

As far as arguments with hatchlings went, nothing broke, neither he nor Riley were slapped or punched across the face, and no one threw a pizza at the wall, so he supposed it went alright. Of course, when he was nineteen and the underground was young, he didn’t think he’d have to worry about flying pizzas. Nettle had quite the character.

Mr. Evans had sent him a message. Oh, joy. Atlas had accidentally come across a family out camping in his dragon form, and they needed to be relocated ASAP before St. George or Talon came down on them. Damn. Wes opened his list of temporary safe houses and found the nearest one that would be out of the radius St. Geroge and Talon usually checked. Morehead, Kentucky. He sent the directions and promised to set up a more permanent fix as soon as he could. He took out an earbud to tell Riley that they needed to set up another safer safe house, to see Riley’s face about two inches away from Ember.

I do not need this in my life. Wes took his laptop and moved to sit cross-legged on the bed. He turned his music up and tried to ignore the very heated conversation with sexual undertones going in front of him. Okay, Atlas, where can we put you where you won’t scare hippies? Canadian border? It might be too cold to camp there. Wait, humans are insane, of course they would. No where is safe from the campers. Perhaps if he started whistling Skyrim they would remember that they had an audience.

It worked, Riley’s face lit up like a Christmas tree and tried to act normal until Ember left. He then swatted Wes’s head, hard.

“What was that for?” Wes recoiled as Riley found his hair and clenched his hand around it, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make Wes annoyed at his very touchy dragon friend. ‘I’m not the touchy-feely type’ he said. ‘Dragons don’t depend of physical contact like humans do’ he said. He was wrong. He was very wrong.

“For being an ass.” Riley replied and Wes snorted. He turned back to his laptop, ignoring the hand in his hair as easily as he did all of the other times Riley messed with it. More than either of them would ever admit, for sure. Or notice. “So, is there anything you need me for?”

“Yes, actually.” Wes opened up the message. “We need to relocate Atlas. He’s in our temporary safe house in Kentucky, don’t worry, some campers spotted him so he had to scram, we need to set a permanent one up, and quick. Our temp houses suck.”

“You’re not wrong,” Riley sat down next to him. Ow, ow, you’re pulling my hair you bloody lizard! Riley seemed to notice and pulled his hand away. Christ!  “Sorry.”

“It’s really not that hard to extract one’s hand from straight, reasonably short hair, without ripping it out, Riley,” Wes elbowed his ribs softly.

“You’ve slain me,” Riley looked down at his ribs and Wes chuckled before turning back to the computer. “Okay, we need to focus.”

They spent a better part of the night finding a new safehouse. Or rather, re-securing an abandoned safe house. It was in Pennsylvania, high in the mountains, surrounded by pine trees. They hadn’t used it in three years ever since Mrs. Mcsteen died from idiocy, a.k.a, walking outside in the middle of a cloud and falling off a cliff. Usually the humans weren’t stupid, but they couldn’t avoid all of them.

The one in Arizona would be so much easier to use … Wes finished his Mountain Dew and started taking the land surrounding it and putting it in Mr. Evans’s name. The good thing was that it was the state’s, not some poor citizens, so his conscious was clear. The bad thing was that he was in Nevada and trying to steal from the Pennsylvania. Not easy.

It was dawn before he could finally send the coordinates and get Altas on his way. Riley sighed and rested his head on Wes’s shoulder.

Me too, mate. Wes closed his laptop and felt his back cramp the moment he moved.

“Chin up.” He murmured.

“You too.”