#its not weird or suspicious to have them or ask for one especially if you’re younger | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

robinewe · 5 months ago

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Bottled Emotions

2k, setting: heroes and villains, rated G

A car down the road screamed to a halt, four men wearing masks jumping out and running into the nearest building. I looked around. The street was deserted except for me.

...Well, if that wasn’t suspicious activity, I didn’t know what was. And if the logo on the van was any indication, this could be the organization I’d been tracking for a while.

For lack of a better disguise I pulled the hood of my jacket over my head, shrouding my face with shadows. The sky was dark as well, thunderclouds blocking the sun and threatening to storm later today. For now, there was a brisk wind, but no rain.

I tapped a finger to the center of my forehead, drawing out a crackling yellow strand of electricity. As it left my head my shoulders relaxed, now that I didn’t have some silly emotion distracting me. A bag hanging off my shoulder made a clicking sound as I pulled it open to fish out a small glass vial labeled ‘fear.’ This covered a small range of emotions, from anxiety to apprehension to dread. I put the sparking string into the bottle, sealing it tight and putting it away.

Ruffling through the bag some more, I found a glowing red one. It wasn’t hard to find, as it illuminated the entire bag, mixing its harsh red light with softer glows of other vials. I uncapped it and carefully held it over my eyes, allowing some of it to slip into my consciousness.

This process in total took less than a minute. A red glow of confidence tinted my vision, giving me exactly what I needed to go and confront these suspicious characters.

I scanned the building for a point of entry that would give me some kind of advantage, and as luck would have it, there was a fire escape leading up to one of the second-story windows. I climbed that easily, and peered through the window, giving the situation a quick glance before sliding it open. There were three men standing under a sole light illuminating the warehouse, all seeming to be focused on something on a table that they blocked from my view.

Not one for subtlety, especially with the extra confidence, I jumped down onto a catwalk above their heads, landing in a crouch and making a loud clang. All three heads turned to look, drawing weapons as well.

“So, guys, what’s the evil scheme this time?” I called down to them before jumping off the catwalk to slide down one of the columns supporting it.

Considering this wasn’t a planned thing, it was weird that none of them looked surprised. “You that kid who’s been messing around with the locals?” One asked.

“I’d say I’m more of a teen, or a young adult maybe, but yes. That’d be me.” I circled around the three men, all of them watching me warily, and circling in turn while still guarding the object of their seeming fascination. They still hadn’t given me an opportunity to see what it was. “...And you’re next.”

Dispatching the criminals was a simple task. I sprang at the nearest one, the one who had spoken, and with a swift kick to the head he was down. I used the momentum to carry myself into the next guy, who’d been trying to sneak up behind me. Well, that wasn’t going to work.

I blocked his first attempted punch, grinning with the adrenaline, and grabbed his forearm to swing him up and over my head into a flip. He collided with the third man as well, knocking them both to the floor.

I laughed. “I hope that teaches you a lesson! I’ll take you down, and anyone else who messes with this city too!” But I think they’d all already been knocked unconscious before I’d finished speaking. Ah, well. I put my hands on my hips to survey the fallen opponents, then, satisfied, went to examine what they’d been after.

On a desk in the middle of the room was an unassuming black briefcase. I flicked it open immediately, and… In hindsight, that might have been where I went wrong.

I’d forgotten about the fourth man. I flew backwards as the case exploded, hitting a column.

“Perhaps we could teach you a lesson,” he said dramatically. “Mind your own business.”

“Yeah? How about no. Turn yourself in, or you’ll end up like your friends, here,” I said weakly, gesturing to the motionless bodies laying around. I was still reeling from the minor explosion, though as far as I could tell I wasn’t really seriously hurt. The confidence still running through me gave me a bit of a boost.

The man was about to respond when a tremor shook the building. He looked towards me as if somehow I could be causing it, while I looked around checking the windows and doors to find the source.

Then a wall of flames erupted in front of me, blocking the man from my sight. “Another time maybe,” I heard him say, and then I couldn’t see or hear him anymore. He had gotten away.

A figure appeared from the smoke, leaning over and offering a hand.

“Come with me if you want to live,” she said. I looked at her doubtfully, wondering if she was making a joke or something, but took her hand anyway. She pulled me to my feet, made sure I was stable, and made for the front entrance of the warehouse. I followed immediately after, not wanting her to think I was slow or something. She looked back over her shoulder for a second, and the flames died down as quickly as they had come.

So she had some sort of fire powers. She’d probably be pretty useful if she ever wanted to help me fight criminals.

“We should do something about them.” I said, gesturing to the criminals still laying on the floor. “I brought some zip ties. It’d be a waste not to make sure they’re safely in custody before we leave.”

She glanced at me, slightly exasperated. “No, actually. We don’t have evidence they really committed any crime. We can’t legally arrest them, so we’ll be leaving them here.” She swung open the double door entrance of the warehouse, letting some of the dim light from outside in.

“Then what’s the point of this? Why are you here?” I demanded, closing the door roughly behind myself.

“You’re a rising vigilante. And a good one, at that. The sooner someone takes you out the better. I’ve dealt with rookies before, and I always keep an eye on them in case they get into something they can’t handle,” she explained.

“I definitely could handle that, excuse you,” I crossed my arms.

“Your thing is emotions, right? Do you have a default mode, or are you always in crime fighting mode?” She asked. I frowned. I didn’t need this kind of criticism. “Do whatever it is you do to fix yourself, please.”

I didn’t want to follow anyone’s orders, but she was obviously curious about what I could do, so why not make a show out of it? I begrudgingly ruffled through my bag to find the vial labeled with ‘confidence,’ which still had some extra red glowing substance in it.

I glanced at her before tapping my finger to my forehead again, drawing out the emotion that had been a source of the energy that I needed to confront criminals. My mind went still while I transferred the strand almost automatically into the vial, capping it, and searched for the next emotion I wanted. A simple, light green one stood out to me, even though it didn’t glow nearly as much as some of the others. I poured some of it into my eyes, blinking to absorb it fully, and felt a subtle glow of satisfaction for the job I’d just done.

“So that’s what you do,” she mused to herself. Good, she was impressed. “What emotion do you have now?”

“Satisfaction. The bright red one I just took out was confidence. I kind of used a lot of it, so sorry if I was a little…” I trailed off, self conscious now. “Um, do you want to see the other ones?” I asked. She nodded eagerly, but then paused.

“We should probably go somewhere safer first.” As her eyes hardened I realized that she had been doing this a lot longer than me, and her ordering tone suggested that she’d be suited to a leadership role very well. I wondered if she’d been on some kind of team of vigilantes before. “I have a hideout near here, that should do.”

I gestured for her to lead the way, and she started weaving her way through the city’s alleyways, finally coming to a stop outside an inconspicuous door. “Here?” I asked.

“Yes. I have tons of these all over the city,” she explained. “It’s safe.”

“Alright,” I shrugged. She held the door open as I walked in, taking in the surroundings. There was a couch with some blankets on it, a small table with some chairs, and a sink with some cabinets. “Not used much?” I asked.

“Not really, no.” She gestured at my bag, and I only hesitated a moment before carefully taking out all of the vials I had and arranging them onto the table. I had some of almost every color, varying strength, brightness, and quantity in each bottle.

“The glowing red one’s confidence, which you knew, and the softer green is satisfaction, which you also knew… The electricity yellow one is fear or stress, that kind of thing.” I went down the line, next going to a light blue one that was slow moving like honey and a completely still, dull grey one. “The blue one is calmness, which is pretty useful. The grey one is anger, but more of a cold anger.” One of them was shining with a brilliant white light. “That’s happiness,” I said simply, pointing to it. “And sadness,” I said, looking to the deep black one next to it. That one was full, unfortunately.

“What happens when you’re not using any of them?” She asked.

“...Nothing. I mean, I just feel nothing,” I shrugged again. “My mind used to produce emotions naturally, but then I started bottling them up, and I guess I ran out. They’re all in here, now. Sometimes one will come up naturally, like this one,” I put a finger on the crackling yellow one. “And I just take it out. That’s why some are more full than others.”

She nodded, deep in thought, and gestured to the last two bottles. “Which ones are those?” One was a mellow orange, with a more liquid-like quality than most of the others. The other had a solitary string of deep, shimmering purple, by far the emptiest bottle.

“The orange is excitement, joy, that type of thing. I swear it’s not just orange juice. The purple one, that’s, er… attraction.” I admitted. She didn’t say anything for a few moments, but that was alright.

“I see. Do you know how to use them?” She asked finally.

I blinked. “Yes? ...What do you mean by that?”

“You almost got blown up today because of taking too much confidence. It’s lucky you weren’t seriously hurt. Do you know how to balance these, and use them to your advantage?”

“I think so. I’ll be more careful next time,” I nodded in assurance. She stared at me as if to see if I meant it, then nodded in return.

“Then you can officially call yourself a vigilante, I’m giving you the go-ahead. Use this safe spot whenever you need it, call for help as needed too. The community will have your back. ...Good luck,” she said, then turned and left the room, shutting the door behind her.

I frowned. Was that it? Was that all it took to be a vigilante? What if this had been some sort of elaborate initiation ceremony?

...Either way I never saw her again.

#writing #my writing #fiction #story ficlet #writeblr #flash fiction #villain #hero #snippet #superhero #superheroes #superpowers

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paintingformike · 2 years ago

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i had this deep reflective moment on our way home from a trip like 3 weeks ago and tbh we’ve already known this for months but still. it suddenly sank in to me that there really was no point to the way they made mike act if he had no feelings for will...

like okay fine, neither of them were reaching out to each other in the months will was in lenora and it put a strain in their friendship (except mike called will several times but lets look at it this way for analysis’ sake), but if they just wanted to portray how much distance can make two people grow apart, then couldn’t they have just made BOTH OF THEM act awkward around each other in the airport reunion? lets say that the fact that its been so long since they last saw each other made the both of them feel like they werent as close as they used to be anymore. why is mike the only one exhibiting this awkwardness in their reunion then? why not just show the effects of distance and time spent apart in both of their actions, instead of making mike look like the suspicious one? it would especially make sense for will to initially act awkward about hugging mike, because he has feelings for him. but why is the weirdness specific to mike? why make him act out of the ordinary in the first place, if we were never meant to look deeper into it and find out what’s going on with him?

like lets be serious for one second...do you really think the duffers specifically wrote mike to act uncharacteristically in the airport, gave finn hyperspecific directions and acting choices for his reunion with will “ok in this scene you’re going to initially have the intention to hug will but change your mind at the last minute, hand in a fist as you pat his back, then after you ask about the painting you immediately cut will off with ‘cool’ while your eyes go visibly smaller/darker with a poker face”....all for it to mean absolutely nothing? they just wasted their time and energy for all that?

like im looking at this rationally. it just would be so senseless for the airport reunion to have happened the way it did if there was nothing deeper going on with mike in relation to how he felt about will 😭 anyways i feel like im just reiterating whats already been said in like 50 different posts but its times like these were i feel like just based on common sense, the context of certain byler scenes would be so obvious sooo

#clearing out my drafts again today #i love when im just pointing out obvious narrative choices in the show #byler #byler analysis

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infinitethree · 3 months ago

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Daz is still in the hidden room, working on the code with Innit– which is surreally nostalgic– when Aster suddenly shouts at him.

“You planned to kill me just because I didn’t buy your act?! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

He squints up at the traitor, needing a few moments to recalibrate to sudden conversation.

“Oh,” he says, blinking. “You were a threat. You still are, technically.”

Aster glares at him, and Daz rolls his eyes. “Save your bullshit. The more you talk, the less able I am to work on the damn code.”

Naturally, Aster is suspicious of that. “Code for what, some new sociopathic plan of yours?” Daz shoots back, “Innit and I are working on making its body, actually. Y’know, the thing you pushed for so bad?”

Suddenly, the bastard is in his personal space. He’s got one palm against his shoulder like he’s keeping him pinned back and growls, “You did something, didn’t you?”

It’s surprising to see him get so handsy. “Don’t fucking touch me–” “What did you do, asshole? We both know that you wouldn’t suddenly decide to be a decent fucking person without a reason. So– what. Did. You. Do.”

Daz’s sight is hijacked to see the past again.

Aster suddenly stops dead in his tracks in the middle of doing work in his office. He’s fumbling with his com, scrolling through the player list as fast as he can with trembling hands. His face has gone ashen and his thoughts are–

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck c’mon, c’mon you bastard, tell me you haven’t done it yet!

A shaky laugh escapes from Aster, but he only takes a moment to revel in the overwhelming sense of relief he feels. Not dead yet. Thank fuck…I might actually become religious from this.

Aster takes a sharp inhale and then quickly flicks through his com to find a specific menu, one Daz knows too well. It’s the one for activating remote stasis chambers, and thus the only way most of them can access the Council HQ.

I might kill you myself for this, though. Fuck, Daz– why do you have to be so broken…?

…Was that how Aster reacted when he saw that Daz was about to get himself killed for good?

A twinge of guilt threatens to tug at him, but he bats it away easily.

None of that would have happened if Aster stayed in his own fucking lane, after all.

He’s yanked to the future, which he knows is the future because Future-Aster is looking at Future-Daz, and he looks older.

Plus there’s the whole– sappy emotions, and the earcuff in Future-Daz’s ear.

The eventual version of himself is asleep on a couch that Daz hasn’t seen before. The room is unfamiliar, too– is this where they live?

Actually, from what he can see of a window, he sees some of those trees Aster loves so damn much. He must have remodeled the traitor’s house, then.

The weirdest part is that there’s a kid conked out on Future-Daz’s chest. She looks pretty young, maybe only four or so. Her hair is done up in pigtails and ribbons.

The ribbons are what gives it away, though. Daz knows his own handiwork, and he knows he’d be gun shy about giving anything like that to anyone, but especially to a kid.

Any kid but his own, that is.

…Shit, they have a kid? That’s so fucking weird!

Future-Aster thinks to himself, She looks just like him. I guess I’m just used to kids who are adopted; it still catches me by surprise. That’s genetics for you.

Daz is suddenly thrown back to the present again, reeling at the baffling and surreal implication that they– what, get a surrogate?

Uhhhg. Gross, on multiple levels. In no way shape or form does he want to– have any of that, and especially not with Aster!

Said bastard grips his shoulder and repeats, “I asked you a question–”

It’s not worth hiding it. He can’t effectively torment him without spilling the beans, anyway. “Made a deal with the Showrunner. I work on Innit’s body, meaning Innit can work on its body, and in exchange I see the same shit you do.”

There’s a long moment of silence, and then Aster scoffs and steps away. “You’re such a petty bastard.”

Even though it might prove his point, he retorts, “That’s not what you say at our wedding, you know.”

“Are you seriously going to–” Voice flipping to a mimickry of how Aster sounds, he recites, “ ‘I won’t say ‘til death do us part’. Death is too soon to let you go, so…instead? Instead, I’ll follow you through a hundred thousand lifetimes. Death, rebirth, oblivion– I don’t care. As long as you’re there, and as long as you want me…? I’ll follow you,’ ” Daz smugly tells him.

Aster glares at him with a surprising amount of venom, and then answers, “ ‘You stole my heart, but I can’t even be mad. Nothing in my life has been as good as you. Your devotion is the balm against the long, miserable, lonely years before I was with you. I can take on gods with you at my side, but without you I’m less than nothing. What I want more than anything is the die of old age in our sleep at the same as you. I love you to the point of madness; to the point of ruin.’ “

Goddamnit.

The bastard folds his arms over his chest. “You want to go low? I’ll match you. I’m not quietly putting up with your shit any more, Daz.”

He scoffs. “This’ll be fun to talk about eventually.” “Oh, I’m sure we’ll laugh and laugh over what an insufferable sociopath you used to be.” “No, I mean–”

Wait a minute.

He pauses. “...Have you seen anything big aside from the wedding and the– whatever the fuck you saw that had the suits?” “Christmas celebration, and no. Why, what did you–”

The wary question is cut off by Aster’s eyes suddenly going wide.

“Oh fuck no,” the bastard breathes. “A kid?!”

Uhhhhg, of course the Showrunner would decide to show him the damn kid.

He rolls his eyes. “Great, there goes that plan–” “To not tell me we have a goddamned child?!” “Well, evidently you adore her.” “I had fucking better, given she’s named after me!”

“Bullshit. She’s– uhg, apparently we do some shit with a surrogate–” “Then look up what ‘Azira’ means. Go on, I dare you.” Aster tells him.

He’d sound threatening if Daz wasn’t immune to him by now.

With a scoff, he pulls open one of the databases they use.

…Fuck. It means ‘a rising star’.

As he glowers at his com, Aster tells him, “I remember because it's a name related to stars. You know– my whole thing?”

“Clearly, I take pity on you and throw you a bone because I'm the biological dad.”

Aster stares at him, an odd expression on his face. “I– the rest of how fucked it is aside? That tracks. If I did love you and did decide to start a family with you, I'd rather– uhg, our kids, as gross as that feels to say– I would rather they have a shot at your freakish intelligence.”

…Huh. That's weirdly mature of him to admit.

“Granted, they'd also be at risk for inheriting your sociopathy, so maybe not. Tell me– was that genetic, or learned from your monster of a brother?”

Aaaaand there’s the loss of any goodwill that gained.

Sneering, he shoots back, “I know that about as well as you know if your stupidity is genetic.”

Aster’s gaze narrows, and he grabs a fistful of Daz’s shirt. “Careful, you don't want to piss me off.”

“Or what?”

A slow, ominous smile curls up on the bastard's lips.

“You made it so that nobody else can be an effective sparring partner for you. That means you're going to get your ass handed to you if you keep fucking around.”

He laughs in his face. “That’s your big threat?! Oh, honey…that's pathetic. You can't fully beat me up, you'll look like an asshole.”

Aster’s smile only grows. “You underestimate me, Daz. You always have.”

Is that really what he thinks?

Daz might have manipulated him, sure– but he always saw Aster as someone with potential.

That's why he extended a hand for the Council. It's why he pushed and bullied and forced Aster to grow.

Left to his own devices, he would be a fraction of the person Daz helped shape him into.

Aster, for years, held the most vital role in his plans. Daz never would have let someone he deemed unworthy control the Swords and Shields, nor hinge his last resort on them.

As little as he likes the traitor…Aster is competent, determined, and surprisingly humble.

He scoffs, “You understand me even less than before.”

With that, he forcibly removes Aster’s hand and gets up.

…Only to get hit with a dizzy spell and start going down immediately.

Aster catches him, probably without even meaning to. “Daz?”

Huh, he actually sounds worried.

Blinking dark spots from his eyes, he shoves his wrist upwards to look at his console. It takes a few tries to get it right, which he’s aware is a problem.

He struggles to focus enough to see the time, but Innit notes with surprise, it’s been sixteen hours since you ate. Were we really here for that long…?

Ohhhhh. Yeah, that’d do it.

He mumbles, distantly aware that the words aren’t coming out right, “Big pr’ject. N’t used to it. Forgot t’eat.”

He’s set down on the couch with a surprising amount of gentleness, considering they were fighting just a moment ago.

“I’ll be right back,” Aster tells him, going back through the passage he came from.

Right, sure.

Daz closes his eyes to fight the way his body is suddenly screaming at him to take care of it. He’s exhausted, starving, and sore from both the repetitive motions and not moving around much.

There’s the sound of a throat being cleared, and when he opens his eyes, two sandwiches are being held out to him.

…Huh. He didn’t actually think Aster would come back.

He grabs them and damn near inhales the food, ditto for the water he’s given.

Finally feeling a bit better now that he’s sitting and with something in his stomach, he asks Aster, “...Why?”

A long, tired sigh comes from the other Tommy, who sinks down next to him on the couch. “...I think you’re a petty, selfish bastard. But I don’t you to suffer,” Aster tells him, brow furrowed a little.

Weird.

“I still hate you for seeing in my head.” “Aren’t we even for that? I’ve explained my reasons. I reluctantly agreed once the wish was brought up; you did this all on your own our of petty spite.”

That gives him pause. “...You never mentioned it was reluctant.”

Aster stares at him in bafflement. “I was ready to refuse, but it’s a literal fucking reality warping wish– one I can hand over to anyone I want. There’s– shit, Daz, I might not have known but it was being offered by the god of time and reality. And fuck knows what else they reside over!”

He hates that he has a good point.

“I thought you jumped on the chance to pry my head open.” “I hated the idea, actually. I know you’ve secretive and I didn’t want to invade your privacy. But I assumed, stupidly, that I’d just– be told things. Like how Observers ask questions. In what fucking way was I supposed to know that I’d see things, and be in your head? I knew you’d be mad, but I, again stupidly, figured that you could recognize that the wish was worth the mortifying ordeal of being known.”

Daz knows he’s sulking as he mutters, “You could have asked me.” “Really didn’t feel like that was an option. Would you want to tell the Showrunner ‘please wait while I call up the guy you hate for permission’?”

Goddamnit.

See?! I told you he’s a good person!

“Shut up,” Daz mutters, scrubbing at his face. “I don’t need you yammering in my ear, too.”

Stop being a dick ‘cause I was proven right yet again. You always ignore me and it always fucks you over.

Aster asks, “Innit talking?” “Mhm. I’m not acting your gofer, you’ll have plenty of time to talk soon enough.”

There’s a little bit of blessed silence, and Daz feels his eyes getting heavy.

Fuck, he doesn’t want to fall asleep like this. But he’s tired, and…

And, as little as he wants to admit it, it’s nice to have someone next to him.

A small, stupid, childish part of him wants to ask Aster to stay right here so he might not be tormented by nightmares.

But also, he’d rather die than voice that tiny desire.

There’s a little disappointment as the other him starts moving, but it was inevitable.

Then he’s scooped up.

He sputters, “Wh– what the fuck?!” “Unfortunately for you, I know what you want. Even worse, I’m not enough of an asshole to refuse,” Aster tells him, just before tossing him onto the bed.

His heart hammers. “If you try anything weird–” Giving him a withering look, Aster snaps, “The fuck do you take me for? No, asshole, I’m dealing with your nightmares, insomnia, and touch starvation in one fell swoop.” The bastard undoes his shoes and flops down.

Oh hell no.

He tries to get up, but Aster yanks him back down. “I don’t trust you to get home on your own, and you’ll sleep like shit anyway. If you’re doing something nice– even if it’s for extremely fucked up reasons– I’m rewarding that by letting you actually fucking sleep for once in– what, four years or so?”

…It sucks that he can’t muster up the energy to fight this more seriously.

But, gods, real sleep sounds amazing. And his body is screaming for it, practically forcing it on him already.

So, reluctantly, he lets Aster wrap his arms around him and start messing with his hair.

“You can go back to being an insufferable asshole tomorrow. For now, just take this with a little grace.”

Daz can’t reply, because he’s already out like a light.

#chronotag #dazzlingvoid #shiningaster #innerinnit #yes they decide to have a kid in Sorrow #she's adorable and she 500% manipulates Lumen | Aster #(who remains oblivious btw. he's just wrapped around her finger that hard.)#(that is HIS BABY GIRL!!)#Nova | Lumen meanwhile is pleased she's putting her lessons to good use. but sees through her most of the time #her tactic with him is just Logic. if she can come up with a good enough argument then Nova will probably let her get what she wants #they get a surrogate bc they both have a lot of trauma related to lack of a (good) family/abandonment btw #so it's deeply meaningful to them to have a kid they spent years planning for and who they want so badly and who has a blood tie to them #Aster WILL have Very Complicated Feelings when he realizes that Azira won't ever be a part of his life btw #anyway. yeah Daz doesn't do shit by halves!! he said he's do it so he's doing it #also sooner it's done = sooner he can be free of Innit #and a glimmer of them getting along! Daz will probably go back to being a bastard when he's awake tho

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witchfall · 2 years ago

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take note, it's not impressive

[Fallen Hero series. Mid-Retribution. Sequel to this.]

[Chargestep, mostly, but barren hints to something more? River Basri and Ricardo Ortega. 1439 words.]

[not sure if the vibes are exactly right but I can't poke it anymore so here ya go!]

You are laying in the dark, migraine digging its sick fingers into your eye sockets, when your phone pings three times in a row. You aren't sure how far apart the messages are; your lucidity is questionable. But by the third ping — unusual that anyone texts you, and even Ortega has his limits — you decide to check just so it will stop.

Of course, it's Ortega. Who else?

[hey red, can you let me know you got home okay?]

[yes I know I just saw you, you can call me an idiot all you want]

[I talked to Herald. I just want to make sure you’re okay.]

Through the nauseous, heartsick haze (too open, too many people, too many masks), you pinch out a reply. More honest than you expect.

[Just a migraine. can we talk about it later? feeling really out of it]

A reply comes back faster than you expect, like he'd been waiting for you. [I have some doodads that need fixed. tomorrow morning? my office?]

[Fine] you reply, squeezing your eyes against the light.

You don't see his answer until later, after you startle awake from a sluggish nightmare, one where you are walking through tar.

You startle so hard into wakefulness that the phone nearly flies off the bed. But you catch it — just in time to wish you hadn't.

[okay. :) thinking of you.]

Your heart churns itself into street slush. Black ice. You are nothing but the final, killing frost for an unjust world.

They make it so hard to remember.

—

River does visit in the morning, like she said. Remembering him. That’s a good sign, especially when Ricardo can’t help but be a sap at the very thought of her. Thinking of you. Now he feels justified.

She is settled in an armchair in his official office, legs curled beneath her, leveraging a small screwdriver to break open a dead communicator. "What did you do, put these through the wash?"

"Probably."

The back snaps off. She throws her hair over her shoulder in that way that makes his heart twist in two directions. The copper catches the sun. "Stop looking at me like that."

Innocence. "Like what?"

“Like you don’t know what to say.” She hasn't even looked at him for the better part of three minutes. She’s absorbed, as she so often is, in the comforting puzzle of a broken thing. “Spit it out.”

He taps a pen on his desk. “So you’re training Herald.”

Now she casts her eyes to him. Suspicious, as always. “Is there a problem?”

He throws his hands up and slaps that charming smile on, but from the way her brows furrow, she isn’t buying it. Fair enough. “You know we’re not going to say no to the help.”

“Then stop being weird about it.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.” She points her screwdriver at him. “You texted me three times in a row yesterday.”

He smirks. “What’s so weird about that?”

There. A smile through the mist. A cord between them. “Just say what you want to say already.”

“Are you okay?”

“Why?”

He resists the urge to sigh. “Because you fainted mid-air?”

Her gaze slides away like ice cubes across a tray. She bites her lip, then firmly returns to torturing the broken com with her screwdriver. “Yeah.”

“It’s…okay, you know? You have no reason to be ashamed of that.”

“We’re not talking about my trauma response right now, Sparkles, if ever.”

“Okay.” Make it amiable. Really. He’s fine losing that battle. It isn’t even that important. It’s not like he doesn’t get it. He does. Way, way too well. He kicks his feet up onto the desk. She’s here now and that’s all that matters.

“Are you jealous?” she asks snippily, though she focuses on thumbing some tiny screw out of place. “Want me to kick your ass into the cement, too?”

“You’re so sure you’d be the teacher in that regard,” he says, smiling and sly. Hands behind his head. “I just like seeing you reach out. It’s good for you. And that makes me happy.”

He didn’t expect so much sincerity out of his own mouth at once. Today must be one of those days.

She blinks a little hard. “Maybe I’ll just teach you to mind your own business.”

He laughs. “You’ve been trying for so many years, and yet…”

Her mouth softens. Her hands stop fiddling.

“I’m not mad at him or anything. Anymore. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

“That’s a surprise.”

He tries to joke. It doesn’t feel like one. She’s run away for less.

“He’s thoughtless but he’s a nice kid.” She tilts her head to the side, sending her hair cascading across her body like living silk. “Kind of the opposite of you.”

He bares his teeth. He hopes it looks like a grin while he slides his feet back to the floor. “Ouch.”

But then those silver eyes shine at him, accusatory little searchlights. “I didn’t mean it like that, dickhead. I meant…” She huffs air out her nose, face flushing orange with embarrassment, and he is just about punched in the face by endearment. “With you, it's nice and quiet. I can hear myself think because you have nothing going on up there.” He grins. “Herald’s thoughts are really…loud.”

“Oh?”

“But that means I always know what he’s thinking all the time, and…” Her shoulders suddenly shrug and she can’t meet his eyes. A poor facsimile of nonchalance. “There’s no artifice there. I don’t know.”

He leans into his palm, propped up on the desk. “But you don’t like it.”

“It’s weird.”

He doesn’t have to read her mind to feel the words like static on the air: No one should be that nice for real.

Even sunshine burns.

His smile feels sodden. Of course she would find a way to reject something that is probably good for her. “He’s got a lot to learn, but his heart is in the right place.”

Once again, her shoulders go to her ears. Like she’s shrugging off glass. “I’d say maybe he’s faking it but…I don’t know if...”

She trails off. She’s far too logical to fight against hard evidence, but too stubborn to accept it on its face.

Isn’t that the old problem?

He’s thought about it for far too long. Too many sleepless nights, wondering if maybe it would be easier if she could peek in his head and see exactly how he sees her. Would she stop doubting him, then? Or does he deserve that doubt, after all this time?

She’d been caught by her enemies and he hadn’t been there.

He can’t ever shake the feeling, anyway, that if she could read his mind that it would all be for naught. She may know him better than most people in the world, but there's a reason he's grateful she can't see the entire dark muddle of him. The pile of fucking failures he hides under a sheet. He’s good at being a mystery. He’s good at making a mask out of the mess. It’s better this way. For everyone.

Someone needs to protect the Daniels of this damn world.

All of a sudden, she unfolds herself from the chair, her colorblock windbreaker rustling loudly in an explosion of movement, and he’s startled out of his reverie. He leans back and tries to look like was starting something rather than baldly watching her like a creep, but when she reaches his desk, she gently flicks his forehead.

He looks up at her, across the desk. Still not much taller than him, even when he's sitting. She raises an eyebrow.

“These are outdated models, old man.” She puts the communicator on the desk with a thunk, perhaps to distract from her growing blush. “Why do you want these fixed so bad?”

“Oh, you know.” He smiles at her, the real megawatt one. “My dastardly plans.”

She tilts her head, squinting. He gazes back in wonderment.

“You know what?” she says. “I take it back. You and Herald are both annoying in the exact same way.”

He chokes out a laugh, because he can’t help it. She pokes him again, one finger pad to his forehead, and it takes everything in him not to grab her hand and kiss her palm. He’s feeling too fragile about it. If she pulled away, he would feel the whole rest of the day go with her.

“You both think you know what’s best for me,” she says.

Her smile, as always, is like a perfect pair of knives.

“And you’re both idiots.”

And then she gently kisses his brow.

#fhr #chargestep #ricardo ortega #fhr ortega #river basri #otp: evencharge #kathryn writes #idk where all this productivity is coming from lol but i might as well lean in

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rowanisawriter · 1 year ago

Note

HI for cullen & iron bull maybe? The habit of paying compliments kept a man's tongue oiled without any expense.

hiiii thank you!! i'm taking some liberties with this quote... here's some spy craft, some weird feelings, some suspicious friendliness....

for @dadrunkwriting

wc: 755

Cullen sits back in his straight back chair, dropping his fountain pen and stretching out his fingers. His knuckles crack and fill the sudden silence in his office. Across from him, perched on the chair on the other side of his desk, the Iron Bull tucks some of his reports back into the side pocket of his striped pants and holds onto the others.

“Alright, Commander?” Bull asks. He sounds bright, as energetic as he was when he first entered Cullen’s office hours before, a stack of reports under his arm, and a pair of tankards in each hand. The tankards are long since drained now, although Cullen feels neither quenched nor the least bit drunk.

“Yes, fine,” Cullen says quickly. He skims through his notes, ignoring the twinge behind his eyes that signals a headache on the horizon. “I’m fine, thank you,” he adds in a lower tone. “Just… a lot of reports we sorted through. Your superiors are very thorough.”

“So are you,” Bull replies. “And organized. I have everything I need to send back to my leaders.”

“Is that surprise I hear?” Cullen asks.

Bull chuckles. “Not at all, Commander. Not surprised that you’re organized. Just that your current circumstances would allow for a little chaos.”

Cullen feels the press of the hard wooden back of his chair and realizes he’s leaned a little too far back. “My… circumstances?”

“Sure.” Bull’s face is open, friendly. But his one good eye is steady on Cullen’s face, unmoving. “You’re leading a makeshift army of recruits who have scarcely held a sword before they joined your cause. I’d estimate one out of thirty of them can write a decent report without guidance. Yet you’re able to whip up all this intel for my leaders in an afternoon. It’s impressive.”

Cullen feels something ballooning in his chest, puffing up like hot air. Pride. A rare enough feeling. He stifles it quickly and clears his throat, going back to shuffling through his notes. “I appreciate you saying that.”

“It’s the truth.” Bull gets to his feet. “This organization is lucky to have you.”

Cullen’s cheeks feel a little hot. “It… doesn't feel that way sometimes. Still good to hear.”

Bull’s eyes lift slightly, focusing on the top of Cullen’s head. “Working through it?” he asks vaguely.

Cullen shrugs. “Some days are better than others.”

“I admire that.” Bull leans forward to collect the tankards, grabbing one and shifting his reports back under his arm to free his other hand. Cullen hurries forward and starts to push his own empty tankard toward the edge of the desk but nudges his inkpot over on its side. He jumps to his feet.

“Shit,” Bull says, dropping the tankard and righting the inkpot. A pool of black ink spreads quickly on the surface of the desk. Cullen pushes his notes out of the way. Bull grabs scrolls of maps just as the ink begins to stain the edges. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s alright.” Cullen’s head twinges again. He sits back down and pulls out a stack of empty parchment to soak up some of the ink. “No harm done.”

Bull is looking down at the maps in his arms, one of which has unfurled slightly. “Is this the Approach?” he asks.

Cullen squints. He can see his own handwriting on the very edge of the map nearest Bull’s face, the corner of it stained with spilled ink. “I believe so.”

“Mind if I borrow this? I lost my own map in the field. I’d been using it to organize drops for my leaders.”

“Uh.” Cullen frowns at the map. There isn’t much confidential information in his office, nothing especially sensitive that can’t be shared with the Ben-Hassrath. Maker knows the nobles loitering around the castle grounds have gathered enough intel and provide little and less value to the Inquisition than this strange alliance with the Qunari. Still, he hesitates.

Bull lowers the map. “Something here I shouldn’t be seeing, Commander?”

His face is still open, still as friendly as ever. Cullen feels himself drawing back.

“Not at all, Bull. Go ahead. I will need it back, though.”

“Of course.” Bull tucks the map under his arm with the rest of his reports and gives him a smile. “Much appreciated.”

Cullen tries to smile back. A slow trickle of something slides down his spine. He stays as still as he can so Bull doesn’t see him squirm, but he knows that one good eye has caught this sudden discomfort.

“You’re very welcome.”

#im chewing on cullen & iron bull #two old soldiers #but ones also a spy........#not that cullen isn't smart (I think he's very smart!!) but I think he's easier to disarm #a hammer as someone (Josephine?) called him in game #and iron bull is a little more subtle #anyway lol #dadwc #cullen rutherford #iron bull

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saiilorstars · 2 years ago

Photo

Ch. 8: Dear Doppelganger

Pairing: Barry Allen x OFC // Fandom: The Flash

Story Masterlist • Previous Stories: Rise Up • It Had To Be You

Belén’s Masterlist • Fanfic • Ao3

Taglist: @ocappreciationtag @arrthurpendragon @anotherunreadblog @maaaaarveeeeel @stareyedplanet @foxesandmagic @frostandflamesfanfic

"Coffee is actually very delicious," Anais happily sipped her cappuccino in her hands.

The others chuckled at her but ultimately Iris lowered the coffee cup from Anais' lips for fear of it burning her. "You should take it easy."

Anais' smile turned confused. "Yeah, I know humans have this obsession with 'watch what you eat' but my metabolism doesn't work the same way."

"I remember that," Barry smiled at the memory of when Earth 31's Anais took him to a coffee shop where she proceeded to eat a stack of pancakes, cupcakes and then his own meal. "You basically eat without worry."

Anais nodded and returned to her coffee and walked behind Caitlin who worked at the computers. "I don't have to run anymore, do I?" Anais eyed the speed lab with weariness. As part of her condition to remain on this Earth, the group wanted to study her - not prod - but simply get a better idea of who she was.

"No," Caitlin softly smiled at her. "You're all done for today."

"Thank you," Anais' face said all the annoyance she was hiding out of sheer politeness for their consideration. "So can I leave, then?"

"You still want to leave the city?" Barry asked, not doing a good job of hiding his disappointment.

Anais had expressed her desire to leave the moment she felt she had herself collected from her trauma. "I just...I had a team, and I don't think I'm ready for another one."

"Especially one that has the faces of two dead people…" Cisco could be heard mumbling behind them. When everyone turned to give him sharp looks, he meekly smiled.

"I swear I will never harm anyone - I just wanted asylum," Anais sighed. "And I will do every test you want but at the end of the day...will I be free to go?"

Barry looked at the others but of course none of them really knew what to say. He, on the other hand, would've liked for Anais to stay and fight with them. He never did learn if this earth had a version of Anais…

"You...of course are free," he ultimately said.

"Thank you," Anais gave him a small nod. She sipped her coffee until it gave its last drop. She shook the cup with a frown and groaned. "Iris, can we go back to Jitters again?"

With an amused smile, Iris nodded. "Sure. My treat." Anais beamed and followed her out.

"So...that's nice," Cisco remarked the trio was left in the lab. "Homegirl gives us the scare of our lives, lives in Caitlin's place for free and…"

"Cisco," Caitlin settled a look on him.

"I don't trust her," Cisco came out with it, earning himself a suspicious Barry on his side. "Look, I know that she stole my meta-dampener cuffs, alright? I know it's her." He just had no evidence.

Caitlin gulped and busied herself on the monitor, while also pulling her sleeves down.

"Cisco, why would she take those cuffs? It makes no sense," Barry tried to be reasonable with Cisco, something he wished Cisco would try. "She's an alien. Her powers didn't come from any dark matter."

"I don't know how aliens think!" Cisco threw his arms in the air. "All I know is that she pops up and a couple days later my devices are gone."

"Cisco—"

"I'll get her for it, don't worry," Cisco warned them as he backtracked out of the room. "I'll get her in the act!"

Barry sighed and glanced at Caitlin, but the woman had taken it serious to pretend to do her work. "Cait, you okay?"

"Hm?" the brunette blinked up from her screen. "Oh yeah, definitely."

"You sure you don't mind Anais staying with you? I know it's a little weird, but...she doesn't exactly want to be with her two dead friends' doppelgangers."

Caitlin smiled and shook her head. "It's fine. She's actually a very neat person. She doesn't speak too much, though. I think she's still trying to process the fact she's never going home."

"Yeah, well...I wish she'd let us help…"

"Sometimes, a person just needs to figure things out on their own," Caitlin offered a word of advice, but it just got Barry on another matter.

"Now I know you and Bells have been talking," his playful suspicious stare was still enough to put Caitlin on red alert. "She said she'd talk about whatever was bugging her by the end of the week - that was last week," and there Barry didn't attempt to hide his irritation. "Now this morning she woke up with the sudden idea to go somewhere because she needed to do things on her own. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"No…" Caitlin buried her attention on her computer again. The guilt was probably radiating off her by this point, especially since it had been because of her that Belén suddenly traveled in secret.

Barry would've pressed further if his cellphone hadn't gone off. "It's Joe. I'll see you later, okay?" Caitlin nodded him and thanked God he left without another question.

She pulled up her wrists and stared at the glowing dampeners around her wrists. Killer Frost was making her presence known and it was making her even more desperate. She didn't want her powers, she needed them to go away. She needed them siphoned.

And there was only one siphoner in this world…

~ 0 ~

A diner was the stop Belén was forced to make courtesy of one annoying woman who knew how to pick her battles. She sipped on a milkshake at the counter while she was waited for the rude tardy woman.

"Sam, can I get the usual?" A woman spoke from behind.

Belén stopped biting on her straw and gave the dark brunette woman all her attention. It wasn't for a good reason. She swallowed hard, unable to control her immediate reaction of seeing her own face reflected back. Every time she was face to face with her doppelganger Datura, it was to fight. Now here they were, sitting side by side at a local diner.

Datura did indeed have the same face as Belén, but there were a couple differences between the two. Where Belén styled ombre-blonde tips, Datura's hard was a darker brown with red tips. She dressed in darker clothes and the biggest difference? Her voice. She was always more authoritative than Belén, confident (for better or for worse).

"And here I thought I'd have to hunt you down," Belén muttered, taking a big sip of her milkshake. She instantly regretted it when a brain freeze came over her.

Datura snorted. "Can't believe you ever beat me."

"Believe it because that's why I have your powers and you have nothing."

Datura wagged her finger at her doppelganger. She turned her stool to face Belén, planting an elbow on the counter then her cheek on her palm. "Don't be fooled, Belén. I can still kick your ass."

"Okay, let's just skip all this," Belén snapped, turning her stool to face Datura. "You gave me your location." She was up and ready to hunt down Datura, just like she promised, but last night she got a text message from Datura herself asking to meet. "What's stopping me from taking you into the pipeline right now?"

Datura smirked. God, Belén hated that smirk. "Common interests," Datura answered. She snapped her fingers at the employee — Sam. The teenager handed her a vanilla milkshake. "You won't stuff me in the pipeline."

"You really think you don't deserve to be there right now? Along with your Poison Ivy partner?" Belén shook her head.

Datura took a small sip of her milkshake then set it down on the counter. "Oh, I deserved a lot better but I was screwed from the moment Harrison Wells turned on his stupid Particle Accelerator"

There, Belén hated the doppelganger was right. Datura was bestowed by an uncontrollable siphoning power that made her involuntarily kill Mrs. Andrews of Earth 2. It set her to run away and fake her death to her husband and her family. But Belén would never condone what she did on behalf of Zoom.

"He may have turned on the Accelerator, but you did the rest," Belén pointed out.

Datura scowled. "Things didn't work the way they did here after the Accelerator went off. I didn't get offered the help that this Wells did."

"You mean the speedster who murdered my father and Barry's mother? Yeah, because that offer was so much better."

Datura glared at Belén. "Look where you are right now, okay? Look at where I am. I can't go back to my Earth because I'll be arrested, so I can never see my Barry again. I can't see Poison Ivy here either. I have to hide for the rest of my days, especially because you and I share the same face. But you? You get to go home tonight."

~0~

Barry had come to the unfortunate news that Alchemy was once again striking the city, but very close to home this time.

"So I did have powers? I was Kid Flash?" Wally breathed a sigh of awe once he got confirmation. He knew those dreams didn't feel like dreams. He had actually been a hero. "I knew that this was happening. Why didn't you tell me before?"

"Wally, it, look... in that timeline, you were fighting The Rival," Barry wanted to word hid ending very carefully. "You couldn't stop him. There was no S.T.A.R. Labs. There was no team to help you. It was just you and Iris. The two of you were a brother-sister superhero crime-fighting team."

Hearing her name mentioned got Iris scowling. "Why didn't you tell us this before?"

Now there Barry knew he was not at fault. He'd be given then all the opportunity to know what their lives had been in Flashpoint and they refused. "You didn't want to know about your Flashpoint lives. But look," he looked at Wally again, "Listen to me, you got hurt, all right? You got hurt bad."

"So what?" Wally shrugged. "That's that me, it's not this me. And I want to be a speedster. I... I want to be a flash."

"No, no, no, you don't—"

"Yes, I do—"

"You're not hearing what he's saying. He's telling us it's not safe," Joe spoke up with the air of a parent, not that it mattered for Wally.

"Who cares what Barry's saying? How do we even know he's telling the truth?"

"Wally, come on, this isn't because of the particle accelerator, it's because of Dr. Alchemy," Iris wanted to keep the peace at least for a while. "It's the same thing that happened to Frankie Kane."

"You don't know that!"

"Yes, we do. And we need to try to keep it from happening," Joe waited for Barry to give a solution for this.

"Why don't we just say what this is really about?" Wally began, the anger seeping through his teeth. "You're okay with Barry having powers; you're okay with Barry running into danger, fighting all these metas. He can screw up over and over again You're okay with all of it because he's Barry. But you won't give me the same amount of leeway because at the end of the day, you just don't trust me."

"You know that's not true, Wally," Barry tried to say but was shutdown.

"I don't need you fighting my dad's battles for him," Wally crossed his arms and waited for his father to speak. "Say it, Joe. You don't trust me, do you?"

Joe hated that everyone was staring at him. Hid mouth opened and closed several times. "Wally…"

"That's what I thought," Wally snapped and stormed out of the house.

~0~

Datura had herself an actual, thorough laugh when Belén told her of the situation the team was going through. "I warned you that Barry would do something like this." Belén glared deeply at the woman. "But anyways, now you've got Alchemy to deal with and metas from another world. That's more interesting, I'll be honest."

"Do you know who Alchemy is?" Belén tried her luck getting some honest information out of her doppelganger, but had very little hope it would succeed.

"No. But one thing I know is that he didn't exist in the other timeline. This is yet another consequence of changing the timelines."

"Here's the situation now," Belén dug inside her bag and pulled out a folder, to which Datura comically stared at, "Caitlin and I both acquired some of your powers and they are manifesting in ways we do not like."

"Hm, I bet," Datura's grin didn't exactly portray concern. "Are you hearing the voices?"

"Yeah, I heard them first," Belén answered just as she opened up the folder. Inside was a neat stack of papers she'd taken from her research and Harry's help. "I've narrowed down the victims that are now speaking to me, ordering me to do things." She spread about four different profile pictures of Earth 2 metahumans. "Terra—" she tapped the picture of a blonde woman, "—who controls earth elements. I broke someone's noise a couple days ago because she controlled me."

Datura laughed, slapping a hand to her forehead while Belén glared directly at her. "Terra was a clumsy idiot who I got from behind."

"Eclipsa," Belén then gestured to the silver-haired woman in the next photograph.

With her, Datura grew nostalgic and a bit frustrated. "I remember her. She's an interesting one considering she only came out at night, like a bat." She picked up the photograph and stared at it with contemplation. "Now she thought she could get away with stealing in Zoom's area so I had to end that. My only regret is that I never unlocked her full powers."

"Well, she's a quieter one," Belén remarked.

"She hardly spoke," Datura agreed and set down the photograph. "Made it a little harder to track her down."

"What about Flicker?" Belén picked up the brunette's profile picture. "She's the one I hear most."

"Yeah, I bet you do," Datura snickered. "She was a cocky one. She thought she could stop Zoom but Poison Ivy and I had something different to say."

"So, she was a good person?" Belén found it hard to believe considering all Flicker had done so far was push her to be impulsive.

"Oh yeah, she and Terra were good. I managed to get them both down," Datura said with the utmost pride. "But I bet after twisting and writhing in the back of the minds, they're not as happy as they once were."

"They are pushing me and making me lose control," Belén said. "I want to control them but I don't know how."

"There's no manual for this. Be glad you only got four of these people - I had dozens in my mind before Caitlin zapped me with her device."

"Three," Belén corrected, momentarily confusing Datura. "I only have three powers of yours. Caitlin has…" her eyes flickered to Killer Frost's profile, and when Datura followed she let out a long whistle.

"Well how's about that…" she grabbed Killer Frost's profile and turned it over to Belén. "The meta whose powers I wanted most. Now you gotta be careful with her. She's a sneaky one and probably the only one who can hurt a speedster."

"Caitlin isn't like me, she doesn't want to keep the powers. She wants to get rid of them. Do you...happen to know a way to do that?"

Datura raised an eyebrow, her lips forming a big smug smile when she finally realized the reason Belén made the unexpected visit. "You want me to siphon the power back."

"Caitlin does."

"Well, you're out of luck, sweetheart," Datura clicked her tongue. "Because as much as I would love to have that power back, I don't have the siphoning ability anymore. You can thank Caitlin for that," she ended with a bitter tone.

"What do you mean?" Belén blinked, now actually a little concerned.

"Caitlin's siphoning device shut away all the voices in my head, but at the same time it erased most of my powers - leaving me with only five plus my original power. I can't siphon anyone anymore."

Belén stared long at Datura, genuinely shocked to hear the news. "How long have you known…?"

"About a week after, I tried siphoning a teleporter," Datura smirked when Belén shot her an incredulous glare, "I thought maybe I could, at the very least, retire to Cabo or something. Turns out I couldn't."

"So…" Belén put a hand on her head, "...you don't siphon anymore and...you don't have most of your powers."

"All thanks to Dr. Caitlin Snow, feel free to pass that message on. Oh, and send her my regards about her situation," Datura laughed to herself and made to get up from her stool when Belén latched a hand onto Datura's wrist.

"You are going to stay right here and at the very least - since you can't help - you'll tell us how to control the powers!" Datura blinked in genuine surprise because Belén had made that order not alone, but joined by Flicker. "And if you don't then I'll just throw you inside the pipeline right now."

Belén gasped and released a shaky breath once she returned to normal. The fear on her face made Datura want to laugh probably for an hour straight. It was the revenge she didn't plan but would enjoy every second of the ride.

She sat back down and picked up a file to read

~ 0 ~

"I didn't take anything!" Anais' shout could be heard even before she entered the cortex. Her long blonde hair bounced with each hard step she took. "Stop accusing me without evidence!"

Caitlin, who sat at the desk, closed her eyes with guilt.

Cisco stormed in after Anais, fully intending on getting his devices back. "My evidence is that you have only been here a couple days and none of my work had ever disappeared up until then!"

Anais groaned and spun around, bumping into Cisco in the process. "I don't even know what I'm being accused of stealing."

"Meta-dampner cuffs! The same ones we need for when Barry catches the metahumans!"

"What would I even want with those?" Anais' looked lost of all causes.

"I don't know, you tell me!"

Anais' eyes glowed with a fiery orange, making Cisco take a step back and even Caitlin to rise from her chair. "I don't know anything!" Anais shouted.

"So when you get angry your eyes do that trick?" Cisco was momentarily curious about that.

Anais sighed and rolled her eyes. "You are unbelievable."

That got Cisco back on track. His eyes narrowed on the woman. "Well you are a thief and you're-"

But he never finished his insult. Barry had zipped in with the news of a new metahuman terrorizing the city. He handed Caitlin the evidence the precinct had so far of the metahuman so they could all come up with ideas first.

"He was killed by a shadow?" Cisco stared in disbelief at the profile picture of the victim Barry had dealt with earlier. "That's a new one."

"Maybe that's what killed Edward Clariss," Caitlin remarked since no one had yet to figure out how Clariss was murdered inside his cell.

"Clariss was a meta-human. This victim doesn't appear to be," Barry informed them, though he was still just as stumped as they were.

"Do we know if this shadow meta is from the particle accelerator explosion or from Dr. Alchemy?" asked Cisco.

"Dr. Who now?" Anais repeated, her eyes bouncing from one to the next.

"Did you do that on purpose?" Cisco suspicously squinted his eyes on her, but the woman remained blank.

"Do what?"

Caitlin put a hand on Cisco's arm to keep him from arguing once again. "Why don't we look at the evidence, alright?"

"Yeah...we actually haven't found any evidence to process yet…" Barry made a face at them.

"It's fine, we can use the security cameras," Caitlin smiled in return. "If he was attacked by a big shot company then they had to have caught the incident. Where was the crime scene at?"

"Chubbuck, uh, Palmer and Racine around 11:00 last night."

In about a minute she had found the camera that caught the metahuman and the victim. There they saw a shadow rising from the ground just behind the victim. Said shadow grasped the man by the neck and practically strangled him to death.

"That's gonna give me night terrors," Cisco blinked the video images away.

"Shade," Anais whispered, attracting the attention of the trio.

"You know it?" Barry thought to ask.

"U-um…" Anais' entire demeanor changed to fearful. She rubbed an arm with her hand and glanced at the screen again. "Th-there was a metahuman like that in my world. He was on the opposing side of the metahumans. He called himself Shade."

"What did he do, throw his side-eye at his enemies?" Cisco mumbled and received a nudge from Caitlin to settle down.

"The name was bad but his powers were good," Anais admitted. "But what Shade could do was vibrate at such a high frequency he created the illusion that he was a shadow. At least that's what the others said."

"It's how I phase…" Barry remarked to the side, though thinking they could work with that information. "Do you think he's doing the same thing?"

Cisco had taken a better look at the crime scene reports and figured they were right. "Heat signature's fluctuating. Red shift is ridiculous. So, definitely a yes."

"He must be slowing down his molecules whenever he attacks," Caitlin agreed. "So we just have to figure out a way to keep them slowed down, and that should be enough to grab him."

"All right, can you get started?" Barry moved over to the desk with a hopefulness that wasn't exactly matched by Cisco.

"Okay, but, like, right this minute?" he flickered glances to Anais, warning her their earlier disagreement was still not settled. She air-strangled him in return.

Barry was nonethewiser. "Yeah, I'm sor... we just... we gotta stop this guy fast so we can focus on Alchemy. Wally has been having dreams about being a speedster, Alchemy dreams."

"He was a speedster in Flashpoint?" Cisco paused. "Anyone else gonna have powers we should know about?"

"No…." Barry hoped.

"All right. I'm gonna work on Shade," Cisco turned but then stopped to point at Anais."And you girl have until the end of the day to return my cuffs or I'll vibe you back to Earth 19!"

"But I didn't take anything!" Anais exclaimed with frustration.

"Don't worry about that," Barry told her and noted to have a serious talk with Cisco to get him to drop the ridiculous notion of Anais being a thief.

Caitlin had pretty much the same intention.

~0~

Caitlin lightly cleared her throat as she walked into Cisco's workroom. The man smiled at her and put down his water glass.

"Cisco, Anais didn't take your cuffs," she said meekly.

"Cait, you don't need to lie for her," Cisco turned from his computer. "I get that Barry just automatically trusts her because of the freaky adoptive daughter doppelganger complex but I know she's a thief."

"She's not," Caitlin sighed and pulled up her sleeves to reveal the cuffs. "Because I took your cuffs."

Cisco paused to show utter confusion. "What for?"

"Because I need them," Caitlin dropped the cuffs on his desk.

"Is... is this some sort of, um, bold fashion choice 'cause you're not a meta-hu... hu…" Cisco's eyes widened till they almost popped from his head when Caitlin's hands hid behind icy smoke, "...human."

She grabbed his glass of water of crystallized it with ease. "Surprise…"

Cisco's mouth could have fallen to the floor at this point. "H-how…?"

"The siphoning device I made for Datura transferred Killer Frost's powers to me. It changed my DNA," Caitlin felt almost like crying because this was the fact of her life now. It was a terrible, fear worthy fact. "I have tried everything to reverse it - I even went to my own mother - and there's nothing that anyone can do. At least here."

Cisco popped his mouth back shut. "Here? What—"

"Belén is visiting her doppelganger to see if she can siphon them back," Caitlin admitted.

"She's-she's with Datura? You know where she is!?"

"No, but Belén does right now. She went to ask Datura if she could take these powers back."

"Caitlin…" Cisco really had no words of comfort. He probably felt a similar fear of Caitlin's. Earth 2 Killer Frost was no joke. She was ruthless and...evil.

"I need a favor. I need you to vibe me in the future because I need to know if I become... her," Caitlin asked. "If Datura can't help then I need to know where these powers are going to lead me."

"You're not gonna become her," Cisco immediately refused the idea. "Okay, just because you have these powers doesn't mean you're gonna turn into Killer Frost."

"I hear her voice, Cisco, her actual voice inside my head," Caitlin shook her own. "She wants to come out and control me. Please? I need to know if I become evil because if I do, I have to leave and never come back."

Cisco looked at her hand waiting to be vibed. As much as he hated it, he followed and joined hands with her. He closed his eyes and focused on...Killer Frost.

The scene around him changed to that of a city - the city's square perhaps? An icicle shot directly past him, making him turn to see Caitlin...as Killer Frost, threatening to shoot another one. Familiar vibe energy surged past him, trying to get her. Very slowly, he turned back and saw himself being the one to fight her. Not just that, however, he noted an ongoing fight around them with familiar people…

The vibe image disappeared before him. Caitlin waited with pure hope. "And?"

Cisco knew he couldn't say what he saw. For the most part, he didn't even understand who was fighting nor why. Caitlin could not become evil, it just didn't go. "I didn't see anything." Caitlin released a relieved sigh. "You're fine."

Caitlin threw her arms around him for a hug. "Oh, thank you. Thank you!"

Cisco hugged her back, incredible guilt. He would have to speak with Belén when she returned. The future could not be that.

Caitlin pulled away from Cisco and happily sighed. "Please, um, don't tell anyone about this yet, okay?"

"Of course," Cisco nodded and gulped when she wasn't looking.

~ 0 ~

Belén was led into a clean apartment belonging to Datura and sniffed her nose when the scent of a familiar poison hit her. "Daturas?"

There were bouquets of daturas sitting around the living room and possibly the kitchen. "It's my trademark," Datura waved a hand at her doppelganger.

"How on earth did you get an apartment?" Belén was flabbergasted with the sight. "And how are you keeping it normal and not like a lair?"

"Did I mention my psychic abilities are reaching to astral projections?" Datura gave a brief smirk. "Illusions. Now say you're proud of me for being a diligent civilian of this city, not that you gave me much of a choice."

"Please, I didn't make you do all this," Belén moved over to the closed window and looked down at the busy city. "You tried to escape once and you haven't made another attempt? You could be out there again trying to kill people - me for starters - and yet you're here, living a clean apartment."

"Please skip the whole part about redemption, I don't need it," Datura rolled her eyes. "You, on the other hand, need all the help you can get. The voices - how far apart are they?"

"They're...they're coming usually when I'm fighting," Belén leaned her head against the window, eyes following people walking by the building. "Telling me to stop being pathetic and fight back."

"Because the more you fight, the more active your brain is looking for strategies to win the battle. All that action makes the brain more susceptible to be taken over by the other metas."

"How do I make them stop?"

Datura's short laugh irritated the hell out of Belén. "If I knew how to stop those voices, I wouldn't be here, would I?" she gestured to her current situation. "The voices is how it starts. They consume you until they get the power to come and go."

"I don't believe that, I'm not gonna let that happen!" Belén snapped and detached herself from the window. "Caitlin will—"

"Is already on the way to losing herself," Datura cut her off, shrugging her shoulders. "The only question here is who will lose it first: you or her?"

"If you firmly believed all this then you wouldn't have brought me here," Belén stalked towards her doppelganger, pointed finger at her. "So tell me what it is."

Datura pretended to play with one of her curls for a minute or so. "Well...I may have some resources…" Belén smacked her hand off her hair, once again close to losing it to another meta in her head. "What? I can make friends."

Belén scoffed. "I doubt it."

"I did," Datura assured, "And you'll like her because she can be useful. Her entire family has built a fortune on engineering things. You might have hard of them."

"Who is she?"

"Lena Luthor."

"Wait…" Belén backtracked a couple steps, her eyes flickering to the side in thought, "Is she related to that delirious Lex Luthor?"

"Oh yeah, but she's actually one of the good people in that family. Let me talk to her, ask her what can be done about this situation," Datura walked past Belén. "She's a smart cookie that one - knew I was a meta even before I thought to tell her."

"She knows about you and me…?"

"No," Datura stopped by one of her datura boquets. "To her I'm simply Belle. But here's the deal—" she turned sideways, "—that I'm going to make and you're going to follow. Caitlin's powers? I'll gladly take them back if and when we create a device to siphon the DNA. But in return, I also want the powers you stole from me."

"I didn't steal—" Belén was on her way to shout when Datura waved a hand for her to stop.

"I am the siphoner here, those were my powers—"

"That you murdered people for!" Belén exclaimed. "Did you forge that part!?"

"Either way they were mine!" Datura overspoke her doppelganger. "And that is what I want in return! My powers - the ones you have and the ones Caitlin have - I want them back!"

"And then what? You want to me break Poison Ivy out of her prison so you and her can continue on your crime sprees?"

Datura rolled her eyes. "I want my powers back. I won't return to my ways but I want to be the Siphoner again. That's my condition. Will you help your dear Caitlin?" she pretended to pout.

Belén crossed her arms, a part of her dead angry she would be forced to give up these new powers she would have liked to keep...but the other part knew Caitlin needed this. She wanted to get rid of the powers because she was afraid. Belén never wanted to stand in the way of that. "Fine," she spat. "But the moment I get word of a crime you make - no matter how small - I will come for you. "

Datura's lips stretched into a wide smirk. "I'll call Lena."

~ 0 ~

Wally wearily looked at Caitlin as she finally backed off from her medical exams and hoped they were finally finished. Iris was right beside him, giving him support as he explained to the others what caused him to collapse at the precinct.

"I was Kid Flash again, but this time it wasn't a good dream. I was fighting The Rival at some abandoned sawmill…" he scrunched his eyes shut as the memories flew back into his mind again. At least this time, they were painless.

"That's what happened in Flashpoint before you got hurt," Barry sighed. "They're not just dreams, they must be memories of that life. More and more people are getting powers."

"And that's because of this Alchemy guy?" Anais had taken a seat on the railing itself of the speed lab stairs. "That's his power?"

"Apparently so," Joe mumbled, none too happy this situation was actually reaching his son.

"Okay, so how do we stop this?" Iris wondered.

"I mean, is there any stopping it even?" Cisco said just a bit too quick, earning himself a glance from Caitlin. "If Alchemy could reach you at CCPD, he could probably reach you from anywhere, right?"

"Maybe not in the pipeline," Caitlin offered as an alternative.

"You want to lock him up?" Joe gave her a look.

"I'm just saying maybe the pipeline could be a safety net," Caitlin elaborated. "If Alchemy tries to get him to come to him…"

"In the pipeline he wouldn't be able to," Iris saw where she was going with and agreed.

"I think that's a good idea," Wally admitted.

"I'm gonna cancel this movie with Cecile," Joe had enough wit the situation and turned to go call Cecile.

"Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa, wait, wait, you've got a date with Cecile?" Iris' voice pulled him back to the group.

"Yeah, I was gonna bring her to the movie in the park tonight…"

"Well, don't not go. You've put your life on hold for us long enough!"

"Yeah, Dad, she's right, I mean, go be Joe West; you're always Dad," Wally gave him a smile.

"Yeah, we'll stay with Wally, and make sure nothing happens," Barry added on had the agreement of the others.

"I told her all of you were coming with me. Am I gonna be the only one that shows up?" Joe made a face.

"Uh, I would love to see a movie!" Cisco jumped in just a bit too fast. Caitlin knew now something was definitely up. Cisco hurried up to Joe, however. "What movie is this?"

"The Shining."

Cisco clapped his hands together, hiding the strain behind a smile. "The Shining, oh, I love that movie."

Barry shot him a look. "That movie freaks you out. You have never made it past the part with the Grady twins."

"That's... that's... that was... I was younger," Cisco hoped he would just shut up and let him leave.

Caitlin cleared her throat and slowly stepped towards him. "Why don't I go with you?"

Damn, so close. Cisco lowered his hands and looked at the others. "You sure you don't want stay…?"

Caitlin shook her head. "No, I want to be with you."

"Either way, the more the merrier," Joe shrugged. "Let's do it. Wally, keep me posted?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine," Wally assured him even though he wasn't quite...certain. "Just go have fun. That's great."

~ 0 ~

The sun was just beginning to set down at the park when the group trudged into the field. Joe had already left with Cecile and left the seating arrangement to Cisco. Caitlin watched him like a hawk as they set up their seats. Cisco was practically doing everything in his power not to touch nor look at Caitlin.

"Alright, Cisco," she finally stopped him when she had enough. "What's going on?"

"Hm?" Cisco blinked and rapidly tried looking for something else that needed to be set up.

"You've been on edge ever since you vibed me. Are you gonna tell me what you saw?"

"I told you...what I saw…"

"Yes, and that lasted all for but a minute until you started acting strange. I can tell when you're not being honest with me. Am I her?"

Cisco now knew there was no getting around the truth. He swallowed hard and gave a nod of his head. "Yeah, you're her. I... I saw the both of us fighting in the middle of this bigger fight. We were, like, full-on Vibe versus Killer Frost. It's like we're meta-frenemies."

Caitlin slowly looked down, particularly at her palms. "Well, have you ever vibed anything from the future that didn't come true?"

"Just Earth-2 being ripped to shreds. But that doesn't mean that can't happen again…." he walked up to her and got her gaze off her palms. "Caitlin, you have to tell them. You have to tell the team. We have to figure out what's going on—"

"No," Caitlin immediately refused. "No. It's too late. There's nothing you can do. And if Belén can't get Datura to help then...I'm leaving."

~ 0 ~

Anais felt someone walking into the cortex and looked away from Belén's and Barry's suits on display. She found only Barry coming in.

"Iris went to go check on Wally, but, uh...are you okay?" Barry knew that question was hardly going to be answered. Anais had been hearing it ever since she got there.

Anais gave a meek shrug. "I...it's difficult," she left it at that and turned back to the suits. "So you and her...you're heroes too, huh?"

"Uh, partners, but yeah," Barry came to stand beside her. "And then there's Nina."

"Back on my Earth, there was no Tempest," Anais admitted. "It was...just different."

"Well maybe, stick around and you can feel at home…"

Anais shook her head, giving him a sad smile. "That's just it, I can't. I can't ever feel like I'm at home because it's not. Because on this world, most of my friends are alive. Do you know how hard it is to look at you and Belén and not remember that...you're dead? You're plain dead. And that it was my fault."

Barry could somewhat understand that. He thought of his father and Jay Garrick - the first time he'd seen Jay's face...he nearly broke down. And it was a good part of the reason why he went back to change the timeline. He couldn't take it.

"I have nothing against you nor this team Barry, but asking me to stay...it's just incredibly painful," Anais crossed her arms and glanced at the suits. "I lost everyone back there...I need time to heal."

"You need time to yourself," Barry understood that. That had been his original plan too…

At least Anais was just going through it in a better way.

"Can you just do us one favor?"

Anais gave a nod. "Sure?"

"Don't disappear on us."

Anais smiled, thinking that wasn't too much to ask. "Okay."

"Wally is doing okay," Iris came into the cortex but not alone.

Belén had returned and was more or less confused by the fact Wally was in the pipeline. "What did I miss?"

Barry moved over to greet her with a hug. He didn't realize how much he missed her until then. She had been radio silent all day and that was unlike her. "Where have you been?"

"I told you, I just needed to do something," she smiled up at him.

But 'what' was the question Barry was itching to ask. He just didn't get the chance to ask because the alarms went off. They hurried back to the desk and Barry got the location off Cisco's metahuman alert.

"It's Shade! He's at Hofherr Park," he looked up.

"Shade? Who's Shade?" Belén blinked.

"No time, just stay here, okay?" Barry didn't necessarily give her the chance to think about it. He sped for his suit then left.

"Well, thank you for your consideration," Belén bitterly sat back down on a chair.

At the same time, they heard Wally through the pipeline security feed scream in pain. Iris quickly called to him but since he wouldn't respond, she dashed out of the cortex.

"What is going on!?" Belén was left to shout.

"It's that Alchemy guys you keep talking about," Anais hurried to the desk. Belén was not going to sit there cluelessly. She tried getting in contact with the others.

~ 0 ~

At the park, Cisco and Caitlin had already gotten into the STAR Labs van to help Barry outside. They received Belén's incoming demands to know what was going on and how she could help.

"Shadow man! Literally shadow man, Bells!" Cisco exclaimed. "He's going—" but he stopped when he and Caitlin witnessed Barry be thrown up and down like a ragdoll.

"Ouch," Caitlin said with eyes screwed shut.

"Attaching the security cameras was a more or less interesting idea," Cisco muttered. "Barry, we're in the van. Can you hear us?"

The speedster pulled himself back to his feet but stumbled around for a bit after the fall. "And I just got tossed on my ass like a rag doll…" he shook his head and tried to find the Shadow meta again. "Alright, guys, I cannot do anything if I can't see him. Can we light this place up?"

"Light's gonna slow down his molecular vibration so we can catch him," Cisco remembered.

"How are we gonna light this place up?" Caitlin asked since Shade had turned down nearly every street post lamp.

Belén, in the cortex, looked up from the computers to Anais. "We might have a way…"

"I…" Anais' widened eyes looked around, "...I'm not sure…"

"You're a hero, you've proved it to be since you got here. Just...do what you do best. Light things up, girl," Belén encouragingly smiled at her.

~ 0 ~

"What are you doing?" Cisco saw Caitlin pulling the dampener cuffs off her wrists.

"He's gonna need these," Caitlin said and hurriedly got out of the car.

In the park, Barry was unable to catch sight of Shade. "Just...I guess...wait for my mark…" he dreaded exactly what that meant and muttered, "And by mark, I do mean next time that I get punched." He heard a noise behind and whirled around only to get punched right across the face just like he predicted. "Mark…"

"Let's turn on the lights, shall we?" Anais swooped down from the sky, putting her hands together in the process. She raised them above her head and created a bowl of bright light which was then shot up. It illuminated the entire area and forced Shade to dissolve into his human form.

"Flash!" Caitlin came running into the scene. She tossed him the dampeners and he quickly got them on the meta.

Anais lowered herself to the ground, her orange cape slowly waving to a stop. "Are you okay?" she came running to Barry.

"Yeah, yeah, just fine," Barry sucked in a breath and turned to the two women. "We need to get him to Iron Heights."

"Guys?" they heard Belén, except Caitlin. "Wally's acting...Alchemy-possessed-like…"

~ 0 ~

Wally's body was transferred to one of the side rooms of the cortex after being put down by Iris and Belén.

"Wally wasn't himself. He was possessed," Iris explained to the others. "Alchemy was calling for him."

"I knew I shouldn't have left," Joe shook his head and put a hand down on Wally's shoulder.

"It's okay, Joe, nothing happened," Barry said, although they all knew that wasn't exactly the truth.

"He's not okay, Barry. This thing's coming after him, and... and there ain't a damn thing we can do?"

"Well, we stopped Shade. And now we can focus on Alchemy, all right?"

"Unless he sends another meta to Central City to attack. Then there'll be trouble," Anais blurted and received some worrisome looks. "Sorry. I just...The opposing side did that a lot on my Earth."

"You think Shade was a distraction?" Belén wondered out loud. It wouldn't be the first time they'd fallen for a trick like that.

"If that's true, that means Alchemy's gonna sending another one of his metas soon," Joe dreaded.

"We don't know that…"

"Barry, we found six husks. So besides Shade, Magenta, and Clariss, there's still three unaccounted for."

"Okay, well, if more come, then we'll stop them," Barry was just running on the short-presence time and it was failing. "But Alchemy can't get Wally if he stays in the cell."

"Barry, we can't just let Wally suffer in there. And besides, burying our head in the sand is not gonna make Alchemy go away."

"Ignoring the problem does not get rid of it," Cisco said, somewhat distant yet eyes on Caitlin. "You're gonna have to face it."

Caitlin could not believe he was actually intending on doing this. "Cisco…"

"What?" Barry looked between the two.

"Nothing," Caitlin waved him off but Cisco came towards her.

"Come on, Caitlin…"

"Not right now, Cisco!"

Belén blinked, her heart beating fast as she started to make assumptions. Had Caitlin…

"I... just... I can't just keep this in. You have to tell them!" Cisco exclaimed.

"Tell them what?" Barry watched Caitlin nearly go red in the face from anger.

The brunette snapped the dampener cuffs off her wrists. "That I have powers," she snapped.

"What kind of powers?" Iris asked.

Caitlin turned her palms over and allowed the ice to smoke over. "The cold kind."

Everyone gaped, but Barry let his head hang. Belén, on the other hand, was dreading what else Cisco knew.

Caitlin shook her head at Cisco. "Happy now?"

"So, what, we're just gonna keep secrets from each other?" Cisco wondered about it but not enough.

"Yeah, well, this wasn't your secret to tell, was it, Cisco?" Caitlin gritted her teeth together.

"I did that because I care about you," Cisco tried to explain but Caitlin waved her hand at him.

"If you cared about me, then you would have let me tell them all when I was ready. Because this is happening to me, not you!" Caitlin got more worked up the more she thought about. "I'm the one turning evil! I'm the one who's gonna have to leave soon!" she stormed out of there.

"Cisco...how did...how did you…?" Belén slowly, and very cautiously, moved to him.

"I vibed the two of us fighting each other in the future," Cisco revealed, the images still haunting him like a nightmare. "She was Killer Frost."

"No, she's...she's not going to be," Belén put a hand on his arm, but he shook it off and received a rather accusing look.

"And you knew!"

The woman pulled her hand back and let her eyes widened. "I—"

"You knew and you didn't make her tell us so that we could help her!"

"Bells, is that true?" Barry was stunned, possibly even more so. However, that began to make sense out of every strange thing happening between the two women.

"Even if it is, like Caitlin said - it wasn't my secret to tell," Belén snapped and sent Cisco an equally-charged glare. "No one has the right to disclose something that doesn't belong to them!"

Get angry, more angry!

A light gasp slipped through Belén's lips. "I gotta go!"

"No - Belén!" Barry called after her but she waved him off too and stormed out of the cortex.

~ 0 ~

Caitlin was in the middle of putting back the dampeners on her wrists when Barry walked into the room. "I didn't mean to pull Belén into this," Caitlin said, though she would probably have to tell that to Belén herself.

"Uh, yeah no she doesn't want to talk to Cisco, specifically," Barry cleared his throat and took a seat across Caitlin. "How long have you known?"

Caitlin bit her lip, putting one hand against her cheek. "I...it was just after we took down Zoom and Datura. The-the siphoning device I made, it...it accidentally transferred Killer Frost's powers."

"Cait...I'm sorry," Barry ran a hand through his hair. "I don't...I don't know if that was how it was supposed to be, I…I don't remember that happening in the other timeline."

Caitlin lowered her head. "We figured that, trust me."

"Caitlin, I'm so sorry." Barry didn't know what else he could say, much less do, to help Caitlin. This was truly his fault. "I've changed everyone's lives and brought in new dangers. Dr. Alchemy. Wally. You getting powers. Even Dante being dead in this timeline. It's all because I created Flashpoint."

"Hey," Iris poked her head into the room, "Wally's up."

The group regathered in the side room where Wally was now wide awake. Belén and Cisco stood across from each other, neither looking at each other.

"You have to use me," Wally was telling them. "Alchemy is calling me to him, so use me."

"Hell no," Joe wondered if being punched by Iris had put Wally into a different state.

"C'mon dad! Follow me wherever he is, and we can stop him!"

"But sorry for my interjection here—" Anais cleared her throat, "—because...do any of you know how to take down this guy?"

"We hardly ever do," Belén patted her arm down.

Wally yelped when he heard Alchemy's voice once again seething in his mind. It was as if someone scratched glass back and forth against another."He wants me! He's hurting me!" he writhed in pain.

Find me, Alchemy called.

Wally's entire body wriggled with no stop. Caitlin hurriedly ran to one of the desks. "Turn him on his side!"

Joe and Barry both moved Wally on his side just as she returned with a needle in hand. "This should help! It's a mild sedative," she told them just as she injected it into Wally.

"What is that?" Cisco asked her.

"Lorazepam. It works on seizures. Hopefully it'll work on whatever this is."

"These episodes keep happening more frequently," Iris remarked once she got to thinking about it.

"Yeah, and this is just a temporary fix. If we don't stop it too, he could suffer from permanent brain damage," Caitlin warned them. Keeping Wally in the pipeline would definitely not help in the long run.

"So then we don't have a choice. We have to do what Wally wanted; we have to use him to find Alchemy," Joe sighed.

"No, we're no... it's too dangerous," Barry wanted to argue more about it but there really wasn't another option.

"So is doing nothing," Joe countered.

"Need I remind everyone that Dr. Alchemy has a rock that shoots lasers, so who knows what he has up his sleeve?" Cisco cleared his throat, hoping that would be taken into consideration.

"Cisco's right. What if we're walking into a trap?" Iris thought that was logical.

"You guys aren't walking into anything. You guys are gonna stay here," Joe warned her along with the others. "If we're gonna do this, we're gonna do it right."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that if I'm gonna put Wally at risk, I'm gonna use everything in my power to protect him."

~ 0 ~

"You don't have to help," Belén came over to Anais, both dressed in their suits.

Anais shook her head. "I have dealt with possibly every metahuman on my Earth except for a Dr. Alchemy. I'm a little curious, honestly."

"Well then, thanks," Belén chuckled. The more backup they had, the better.

Both turned just as Barry came into the cortex, also dressed to go. "The police are ready."

"Well, which one of you is going to give me the lift?" Belén looked between the two speedsters curiously."

Anais apologetically smiled. "I don't do lifts...sorry…"

"It's not like I weigh much," Belén mumbled as she moved towards Barry instead.

Barry took the lead by hand and purposely pulled Belén a little quicker towards the elevator. "I talked to Cait…" He started, watching Belén's immediate reaction. She seemed nervous.

"Did she say something?" Belén swallowed hard.

"Uh, no, just...she's just very scared," Barry said, wondering when, oh when, would Belén get the courage to tell him the missing part of the story.

~ 0 ~

An old abandoned subway was where Wally ended up bringing the police and the three heroes. Wally entered first and soon spotted several cloaked men on their knees, surrounding one cloaked figure who stood on their feet. Wally gulped when the standing figure turned around and revealed a golden metal mask underneath the hood.

"Hello, Wally," Alchemy greeted but Wally's eyes flickered rapidly to one thing and the next, eventually landing on the white-glowing stone set on a rock pillar behind Alchemy.

"Are you him? Are you the voice I've been hearing inside my head?"

I am Alchemy."

"I've been having visions of another life. Where... where I have speed, where, I'm…" Wally slowly made his way around the figures, acting awed as he took in the cloaked followers. "The Flash."

"I can give you that back, should you desire it."

"I just want the pain to stop."

"It will, child. Whatever you desire, I will see it so. Now tell me, do you wish for the life that was taken from you to return?"

"What I wish for... is all of you gone," Wally's smirk said it all.

"It's a trap!" Alchemy shouted at his followers. The figures rose and tried to make an escape, one of them even pulling a knife and going towards Wally.

Both Anais and Barry sped into the room and began tying some of the followers up. Belén, on the other hand, swooped in as vines and rose in her figure. Vines shot out of each of her palms, smacking two followers against the walls. Anais easily grabbed one follower by the arm and turned him over like a pancake.

"Child's play," she smugly said then reached out for another to do the same.

Barry went straight for the Alchemy. A mere second before he reached Alchemy, the cloaked figure drew the stone on the rock pillar through telekinesis and immediately used its light beam against Barry.

"The boy has been chosen, Flash. And you will not stand before what must be...ever again!" Alchemy hadn't given Barry the opportunity to get up and fight back. Each beam of energy struck him and raged pain in his body.

A bullet shot and knocked the stone out of Alchemy's hand. Joe and his backup had gotten through and helped put the followers all on their knees.

"That was a grave mistake," Alchemy warned them despite their situation.

"You weren't kidding when you said it was a monk," Anais remarked to Belén when the two women circled the followers.

"What do you want?" Belén couldn't help but ask Alchemy straight up.

"I'm simply preparing the world."

"We had a premonition guy like that back on my Earth - spoilers, they lost," Anais smirked.

"It's over Alchemy," Barry came towards them, a little wobbly on his feet but he knew he would heal.

"Over? You have no idea what's about to begin," Alchemy's voice drawled with exceptional condescension. Right after, there was a rumble underneath everyone's feet, rocking them to the side.

For a second, Belén wondered if it was somehow her who was losing herself to the powers. But she didn't feel at a loss...nor did she hear the voices…

Suddenly, Alchemy and his followers dispersed around the room just as a white light struck. Barry saw it zigzag around the room, hitting one thing and causing another to fall and crash.

"Are you guys seeing that?" Barry followed it, whirling around as it cross over him.

"It's a...light…" Anais' own hands glowed with light energy ready to make an attack if need be. However, it appeared only she and Barry were able to see the light.

"What's going on?" Belén looked around cluelessly. All she saw were things crashing but nothing that would cause it. "What is it?"

The light made its way across the police-force Joe brought and started sweeping through them like ragdolls.

"Go!" Barry shouted at the others frantically. "Get the hell out of here!"

Joe cocked his gun to whatever the light was - not that he could see it - and pulled Wally towards the doors. "Wally, move towards the door! Stick with me!"

The three heroes tried to keep track of what exactly was going through them, but every time they blinked one new co-worker was taken down.

"What is that!?" Belén screamed, her hands reaching to her head. Attack. Attack them! Now! "Not now!" she scrunched her face. She already risked herself with Anais who thankfully hadn't taken notice of her powers switching from earth manipulation to botany but a second time was sure to raise some suspicions.

Barry yelled as he was suddenly swept off his feet and thrown across the room. Joe ran over to help him up.

'Wallace' Alchemy's voice rang inside Wally's head. 'Wallace West. Take your power.'

Anais began taking her shots at the light but with no success. This was far beyond what she dealt with on her Earth.

"Wally!" Joe spotted his son nearing the stone left behind on the floor.

"Wally, don't!" Barry groaned and tried getting up. "Azalea, stop him!"

Let them take it. Fight back! Belén couldn't hear anything but the swirl of voices in her head telling her to act against her own friends.

Wally walked right past her and grabbed the stone. As soon as he touched it, a cocoon encased him from top to bottom.

"NO!" Joe screamed.

Barry's body was swooped right beside him and pinned against the wall, high up by an invisible force in Joe's and Belén's perspective. For Barry and Anais, however, there stood a metallic suited (presumably) meta glowing blue.

"Who are you?" Barry could barely breathe the words out from the metallic hand clawing his neck tight.

"The God of Speed," the metallic figure raised its free armed hand to unsheathe blade.

#ocappreciation #arrowverseocs #fd: the flash #the flash #barry allen #barry allen fics #barry allen imagines #barry allen x oc #the flash fics #the flash imagines #the flash x oc #arrowverse ocs #arrowverse fics #arrowverse imagines #oc: Belén Palayta #oc: Belen Palayta #oc: Anais Mjorkland #fic: make you stay

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sweetarethediscords · 1 year ago

Text

“Fool Me Once” - Part 3

Pairing: Kacchako, Bakugou Katsuki/Uraraka Ochako

CW: Cheating, Underage Drinking

<- Previous Part | From the Beginning

~~~~~~~

“Jeez, Bakugou,” Frog Face croaked. “You don’t look so good.”

Katsuki stabbed his chopsticks right through the heart of the egg yolk in his bowl and swirled its golden blood into his gohan.

“Are you sick or something?” Tsu added.

“Sick of fucking bullshit,” he grumbled under his breath, trying not to glare at Deku across the room.

He was sitting with Tenya and Shoto and Ochako like it was just another bright and shiny UA day.

Tsu was about to join them too judging by the extra chocolate anpan balanced on an extra cup of tea made with cinnamon and honey just how Ochako liked it.

Bitterly, Katsuki noted that Deku should be the one getting her breakfast. Especially if he liked her enough to keep dragging her along while going on museum dates with brainy blondes.

His breakfast turned tasteless in his mouth.

God how he wanted to think of anything else.

“His bad mood’s my fault I think Tsu,” Eijirou said, stepping between them, shielding Tsu from the miasma of rage slowly oozing off of Katsuki. “Tetsu crashed at my place last night and we might have gotten a little rowdy watching old Schwarzenegger movies.”

“Schwarzenegger?” she questioned.

“He’s this super manly Austrian bodybuilder turned American Actor turned American Governor.” Ei flexed his bicep. “You should see his guns. The man’s an inspiration!”

“How does being muscly qualify someone to be a politician?”

Ei shrugged. “Don’t know. America’s weird like that.”

“I guess.” Tsu walked off to join the rest of her happily ignorant crew.

Katsuki hoped Eijirou would follow suit and leave him to stew in his misery, but the redhead was not so easily shaken.

“Bro,” he said as he sat down, “I don’t want to tell you how to feel your feelings. But you gotta at least come up with some sort of excuse or else you’re gonna start raising suspicion.”

“Maybe I want to raise suspicion,” he snipped, stabbing at his breakfast. “Maybe if people were a little more suspicious around her, people would get away with window shopping girls like their trying to pick a new pair of stupidly priced, stupidly big sneakers to wear on their stupidly freckled feet.”

“Kats, we went over this. It’s not like—”

“I know what it’s not like.”

Katsuki grabbed some hot sauce and dumped it liberally over the rice. Maybe that would bring some taste back to it.

Eijirou sighed. “So what do you want to do?”

“It’s not about what I want to do. If it was about what I want to do, it’d already be done and I’d be arrested.”

“Then what can I do to help?”

Katsuki huffed a laugh. “Make numb nuts over there fucking choose a chick.”

Eijirou stroked his chin in thought. “I don’t think I can make him but I could probably hype up one of the girl’s a lot. Question is who?”

“Who what?” Mina asked.

The bubbly pink gossip also known as Eijirou’s girlfriend sat down beside the pair. Antennas and curls bouncing. Katsuki swore they gave her a super hearing quirk none of the knew about.

“Who Kats is going to be for Halloween!” Ei quickly lied. “He doesn’t have a costume yet.”

“Oooo!” Mina squealed excitedly. “He could be our Subotai!”

“You’re what?” Katsuki growled.

“Ei’s going as Conan the Barbarian, I’m going as Valeria. I’ve still got enough fabric to whip up one more toga for ya if you want to be out trusty archer,” she smiled.

“Yeah, bro! We’d have to find you a wig and stuff but I’d bet you’d look damn good in a handlebar mustache,” Ei added.

Katsuki shuddered at the thought, recalling the patchy handlebar ‘stache his dad had sported for way too long, insisting it would eventually grow into a beard.

“And want to scratch my face off all night? No fucking thank you,” he said. “I ain’t going to the party anyway.”

“What? Why?” Mina asked.

“Because why the fuck would I want to be surrounded by a bunch of drunk, screaming idiots all night?”

“Because you’d be drunk too?”

“Tch. And deal with feeling like fucking shit the next morning?” he washed the newly added heat of his breakfast down with his coffee. “No fucking thank you.”

Mina pouted and looked down at her breakfast forlorn. “Guess a certain brainiac will be disappointed then.”

His coffee soured.

Mina peered up at him and smiled, clearly misreading his pursed expression.

“Gotcha there. Bet you’re thinking twice about going now that you know Miss Shield will be there,” she mocked. “Denki told me all about y’all’s little study dates. So cute!”

“It wasn’t a date,” he grumbled. “I’m just helping her out with her apprenticeship project.”

“By flexing your muscles?” she tugged her earlobe playfully. “News travels fast around here.”

Not fast enough, Katsuki thought.

“Do you know who Mel’s going as for Halloween?” Ei asked

“No clue,” she said. “Which means she might be open to doing a couples costume with someone.”

Katsuki chugged the rest of his coffee and stood. “I’m going for a run.”

“Awww come on Kat! There’s no need to be bashful!” Mina called after him as he walked away.

He flipped her off and headed outside to clear his head with the crisp morning air.

🔍🔍🔍🔍🔍

He had managed to avoid direct contact with all three of them for most of the day, thank god.

Did it mean he had to be an absolute jerk all day to do it? Sure. But honestly it felt good to be a—

“Jerk,” Ochako smacked him in the back of the head, surprising him and jolting him to his feet.

“What the fuck?!”

Ochako released her quirk, letting herself down to the ground slowly. “I should be asking you the same thing! What the fuck crawled up your ass today?”

“Nothing crawled up my ass,” he snapped back. “And how the fuck did you find me anyway?”

Barely anybody knew about his spot in the woods. Only Ei.

Had he told Ochako? Was he setting this up as an excuse for him to tell her what Deku was up to?

“I followed you!”

Oh.

“You followed me? Why the fuck would you do that?”

“Because you’ve been acting like a jerk all day, avoiding me *and* Melissa, then next thing I know you’re randomly stomping off into the woods,” she threw her arms up in the air. “I was worried!”

“About me in the woods?!”

“About you in general! You only act this off and jerky when something’s really bothering you. So what’s up?”

Katsuki chewed the inside of his cheek.

“And don’t say ‘nothing’,” she added with a huff.

He couldn’t tell her outright.

But she would know if he lied.

“I think Melissa’s seeing someone else,” he said. Not a lie.

Ochako’s eyes widened, the angry furrow in her brow softening a bit.

“No,” she said so shocked and softly, he would’ve found it comforting any other time.

But now it felt like a twist of a knife.

“Oh no.” All the anger melted from her face. “You��re sure?”

Katsuki kept his eyes to the ground and tapped the toe of his shoe against it. “Pretty fucking sure.”

“Who is it? Someone from UA or—”

“Someone from her past, I think. So—”

“So you’re gonna win her back, right?”

He ran his hand down his face and sighed. “Cheeks I don’t—”

“If it’s someone from her past, then they’re probably from the US, right?” she said. “Which means they’re all the way over there and you’re here. Looking hot, making her laugh, being there for her… you can’t give up!”

“Look, it’s alright. I—”

“It’s not alright!” she insisted, stomping her foot for emphasis. “Bakugou Katsuki doesn’t give up! Not in the face of deadly villains and certainly not on winning the heart of a girl he likes!”

“Cheeks if she likes—”

“If she liked this rando so fucking much she’d just be with him instead of flirting with you,” she huffed.

Katsuki ground his teeth subconsciously, cutting into the side of his cheek and drawing a bit of blood.

Her footsteps crunched across the leaves towards him.

A pair of sparkling, kind, brown eyes blocked his view of the dying grass.

“What I’m saying is you still have a chance, Bakugou,” she smiled softly. “You’re here, they’re not. She won’t feel so lonely with you.”

“Tch. I don’t wanna be just a body to keep a bed warm.”

“You won’t be,” she said. “It might start like that, sure. But over time she’ll see how wonderful you are and fall in love with you slowly, then all at once.” She took his hands in hers and ran the soft pads of her thumbs over his knuckles. “But it won’t happen unless you try.”

The thought of winning Melissa back was far from his mind. He wanted to get even.

He wanted her to hurt just as much as he did, as much as Cheeks would if she ever found out.

Deku too. Fuck however innocent or love torn he was. The nerd had to choose.

He’d make him choose.

His churning thoughts had a new target to focus on, the sparks of a plan already starting to smolder in his mind.

Ochako smiled. “There you are.”

“What?”

“There’s that Dynamight determination,” Ochako cheered. “You want to win now, don’t ya?”

Katsuki smirked. “Yeah, Cheeks. I wanna win.”

🔍🔍🔍🔍🔍

There were a lot of ways to win, but the right way to win was what his mind couldn’t settle on.

Threatening Deku to choose head on wouldn’t work. After the war he’d unfortunately (in this case) developed a spine. Fucker wouldn’t willingly hurt someone but Katsuki wouldn’t be surprised if he kept dragging his feet just to spite him. Or worst would tell Ochako that he’d pressured him to choose. Or worst worst, end things with Ochako super messily because he would be scared shitless and respond stupidly.

Or he could end things with Melissa super messily. But something in his gut told him that wasn’t going to happen.

Deku was going to pick Melissa, he just needed the balls to do it without worrying about what their classmates might think.

He needed a challenge to do it.

He needed to feel like he was going to lose her. Which was easier said than done when Melissa was into him enough to ask him on a date.

Katsuki groaned as he flopped back on his mattress, finding himself at another obstacle.

His phone pinged, a welcome distraction before he saw that it was a message from Melissa.

A selfie even. Her with her glasses hung low on her nose, wearing a dark curly wig.

Think I should go brunette? 😉

Shouldn’t you ask Deku that? he considered texting back.

Was this part of her Halloween costume? Why would she—

At once, two voices echoed in his mind sparking inspiration.

The first belonging to a well meaning Alien Queen.

“…she might be open to doing a couples costume with someone…”

The second belonging to a pair of kind brown eyes and plump rosy cheeks.

“…she won’t feel so lonely with you…”

Katsuki rose from his bed and opened his dorm door just a crack, listening, quickly picking up Deku’s high, breathy laugh trickling down the hall.

Game night was tonight. Deku never missed a game night and was intense as hell the entire time.

God themselves could be texting him and he wouldn’t answer.

Katsuki’s phone pinged again, pulling him back towards his bed.

MS: What are you doing tonight?👀

Katsuki smiled wickedly.

She *was* lonely. Deku’s attention was elsewhere so she put her attention elsewhere.

Not a healthy coping mechanism by any means but one that could be exploited.

BK: Checking out this new cute brunette that just texted me.

BK: Still waiting to see her in that white wig and blue skimpy outfit though.

MS: 🤔🤔🤔 I’ll think about it. Would need to find a cunning linguist to sell the costume though.

Katsuki cracked his knuckles and leaned back on his pillows, readying himself for spiteful flirting.

BK: I think I know a cunning linguist 👅 but what about the brunette? What does she need?

MS: A brawny, brainy explorer to help save me from an evil mummy.

So she was going as that librarian from The Mummy.

BK: Well, I definitely think I can help you out of those wraps.

A picture followed, angled a little lower. The button up blouse she was wearing had opened up a bit, exposing her cleavage and the crimson lace of her bra.

MS: These wraps? But I worked so hard on my Halloween costume. 🥺

Katsuki closed his eyes and took a deep breath, calming himself, maintaining his focus. She was hot, no doubt about that.

He didn’t have the chance to give a witty response back before she texted:

What are you dressing up as?

Fuck.

He didn’t have an answer for that one.

He looked around his room for something, anything to claim was a costume that would be enticing enough for her.

A shirtless pic was the obvious choice, but saying “a washboard” was too much of a douche reply for her. And he wasn’t a fucking cosplayer pulling props out his ass.

His gaze fell on the pair of reading glasses resting on his nightstand. Ochako had dragged him out to get them after catching him squinting at their history textbook one study session.

She had picked out the style too, nerdy round shaped frames that she said looked good.

Really they made him look like a dork.

And Melissa liked dorks so…

He whipped off his shirt, threw on his glasses then posed with his signature scowl for a mirror selfie.

BK: The perfect blend of brains and brawn.

MS: 🥵🥵🥵

MS: Those glasses tho 🤔🤔🤔

BK: 🤔?

The fuck was that emoji for?

MS: Those glasses look familiar. More like a cunning linguist than just some brains and brawn.

Katsuki looked at himself in the mirror. They looked familiar? Did Deku fucking wear glasses too or some shit? Or…

He smiled wickedly.

BK: Dunno. Guess you’ll have to wait til the Halloween party to find out.

Katsuki didn’t give two shits what she texted back, he was too busy searching up the perfect picture and knocking on Eijirou’s door.

Mina answered, just as he expected.

“What’s up Bakubro?”

Katsuki shoved his phone towards his face. “This.”

“What?”

“You said you’d help me with my Halloween costume. I need you to make me a sexy version of this motherfucker.”

Mina knit her brow and took the phone from him. “Really? I didn’t even know you knew this movie.”

“I don’t, but Mel loves it.” He exchanged a knowing glance with Eijirou as he joined Mina at the door.

Ei raised a doubtful eyebrow. Katsuki smiled impishly for a moment before dropping back into a scowl as Mina looked up.

“Ohhhh. I’ve got an idea.”

She handed the phone back to him, a smug grin on her face. “What do you think about that? I’ve got enough fabric and some leftover festival face paint we can use for it.”

He nodded. “I think she’s gonna love it.”

🔍🔍🔍🔍🔍

Mina took his costume idea and fucking ran with it.

The other guys however.

“So run us through this plan of yours one more time,” Hanta said beside him, having made his way up next to him mid-run.

Shoto, Eijirou, Shoji, and Tetsu all fell in stride him, annoyingly crowding the track.

Katsuki rolled his eyes and snarled.

“How many times do I have to fucking go through this?” I’m making Deku choose.”

“By helping Melissa feel less lonely at the Halloween party?” Hanta clarified. “That’s the part we’re hung up on.”

“The party’s gonna be packed with people,” Shoto said. “Why would she be lonely?”

“And she’s got 2 guys competing for her heart,” Tetsu added. “That seems like a lot of attention coming her way.”

“I ain’t competing for anything of hers,” Katsuki snapped. “She’ll be lonely because Deku’s will be fucking busy saving face with Uraraka the whole night.”

“Saving face?” Ei asked.

“Everyone knows he’s supposed to be seeing Uraraka, right? It’d be weird if they didn’t spend the Halloween party hanging out together. Which means Melissa’s gotta watch them spend the whole party hanging out together.”

“She’ll be jealous,” Shoji noted.

“And drunk probably,” Katsuki added. “And surrounded by people she’s only sort of friends with. So when the guy she sends titty pics to whenever Deku’s busy walks in looking like her fantasy, I’m sure she’ll be giving me a lot of attention.”

“Thus making Deku jealous,” Shoji concluded.

“Exactly.” Katsuki turned to Hanta. “Now 3M if all of a sudden IcyHot started flirting with another guy in front of you what would you do?”

Shoto frowned. “I would never.”

“It’s a hypothetical, Peppermint, calm down.”

Hanta narrowed his eyes at Katsuki. “I wouldn’t let that happen.”

“You’d cause a scene, wouldn’t ya?” Katsuki snickered.

“Not a scene but,” he glanced towards Shoto, “I’d handle it.”

His boyfriend blushed and Katsuki groaned in disgust.

“Anyway. What is Deku gonna do then?”

“Handle it?” Shoto asked.

“Bingo.”

“But this all rides on Midoriya liking Melissa more that Uraraka,” Ei said. “And I’m not sure—”

“Ya don’t skip out on a date with the girl you like more to hang out with the girl you like less last minute,” he stated. “The moment he chose that museum date over pumpkin picking with Uraraka, who he likes more was clear. He just needs to fucking own up to it now.”

Their footfalls against the rubber track underscored their processing as they considered Katsuki’s argument.

“How can we help?” Shoji asked.

“Keep Melissa and Deku from talking one on one with each other tonight, and make sure Deku and Uraraka stay together in Melissa’s line of sight as much as you can,” Katsuki instructed. “I’ll handle the rest.”

“You’re sure this is a good idea?” Ei asked.

“You worked real hard to get over you and Midoriya’s past bullshit. I don’t want you throwing that away over something like this.”

“Tch. I’m doing this because I fucking know the idiot doesn’t even realize what he’s doing is messed up,” he replied. Either way it goes him and I will be fine. I’ll still be fucking pissed at him for it. But I ain’t gonna beat the shit out of him or something over it.”

“Good,” Ei sighed in relief. “Last thing we need is another Aizawa lecture because of that.”

~~~~~~~

Next Part ->

#kacchako #kacchako fanfic #angst #cheating #romance #friends to lovers #bakugou katsuki #bakugou #uraraka ochako #uraraka #bnha #third years #aged up characters #fool me once

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honeypiehotchner · 2 years ago

Text

We Used To Be In Love (Hangman x Fem!Reader) — part four

This took me WAY longer than I wanted but I weirdly couldn’t figure out how to get here. SO this isn’t my best but I do weirdly love it. Sorry I’m so busy 24/7 :( I miss y’all sm

Warnings: nothing really, just some angst!! (this one is basically all fluff :))

WC: 2.5k

You’ve created a monster, you texted Jake. The shower head he installed lights up. I hope you plan to chip in on the water bill.

He said he will, and for the first time, you think you actually believe him.

The girls are in heaven with the damn shower and you wouldn’t be surprised if Amelia asks Maverick to put one in at her house. If they can get it past Penny.

Ever since that day, Hangman and Rooster have been hanging out here a little more often. Rooster still gives you that same weird look, and you still choose to ignore him.

You tell yourself it’s different this time because it isn’t just Jake at your house. Rooster is always here too. You’re not hanging out with just Jake alone. You’re also hanging out with Rooster. And Amelia and Belle.

Game nights are frequent, movies sometimes follow after the girls have gone to bed, and you’ll indulge in a glass of wine.

None of that negates the fact that Jake comes a little earlier and always stays a little later than Rooster, though.

Like right now, when Jake is ringing your doorbell, arriving an entire two hours early from what the three of you agreed on in the group chat with Rooster.

Amelia and Belle are at a friend’s house to work on a school project and spend the night, so tonight is supposed to be the first adults only hangout night.

“You’re early,” you comment, pushing the screen door open for Jake.

“Early is on time,” he replies like usual, and he’s hiding something behind his back. He uses his free hand to take his Stetson off his head when he crosses your doorway. “Hi,” he smiles.

“Hi…” you raise your eyebrows. “What are you doing?”

“What do you mean?” he says, immediately defensive, albeit playfully.

“You have that look on your face.”

“What look?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Jake,” you scold him gently. “What’s behind your back?”

“Oh, these?” He pulls a bouquet of flowers out, a shit-eating grin on his face. “I just found these at the store and figured I’d bring them over, you know, in case there was an empty vase lying around.”

You sigh, shaking your head at him as a smile crawls its way up your neck. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Thank you,” he says. “So… Do you happen to have an empty vase?”

You give him another look and walk off toward the kitchen. He follows you quietly, leaving his hat on the back of the couch. It’s not like Texas, where every house has hooks for hats by the front door.

In the kitchen, you bend down and grab an empty vase from underneath the sink. When you pop back up, he’s standing right behind you, his face much softer now.

“Seriously,” he says, being serious for once. “I got these for you.”

“Why?” You can’t help but be suspicious, even though you appreciate the gesture.

He shrugs. “For putting up with me.”

You scoff, setting the vase on the counter, crossing your arms over your chest. “Really?” That’s a cop out of an answer if you’ve ever heard one.

“I’m sorry,” he says, backtracking slightly. The two of you have talked about this, about how you want him to stop making a joke out of everything. “Truth is, I know they’re your favorite, and I wanted to get them for you. Because I just wanted to. And because I love you.”

“Jake…”

It’s the second time now that he’s said that— That he still loves you. You haven’t said it back, even though it’s true. You do.

There’s just that thing about first loves: you’ll always feel some level of love for them. Especially if you share a kid with them. And if you’ve never loved anyone else.

“I know,” he says, still holding the bouquet tight in his hand.

With his hat hair and his sad eyes, you’re almost transported back to high school. The day after your first big argument, when he showed up on your front porch looking a mess, with flowers in hand and apologies overflowing.

“I know,” he says again, quieter. He doesn’t know what else to say.

The two of you stare at one another for a second. You search his face, his eyes, looking for any ounce of insincerity, but you find none. You find genuine sorrow. Genuine regret. And somehow, that’s harder to deal with.

“What are you really doing?” you whisper, finally taking the flowers from him and putting them in the vase. You turn your back to him to run water into the vase.

He takes a moment. “I’m asking for a second chance.”

You sigh, almost shake your head as you turn back around. “I…”

“I know,” he says again. “And if you say no, I understand. I don’t deserve one. I know that. But I also know I love you and I never stopped and… I just want one more chance. To make it right this time. I can’t expect forgiveness for leaving you like that and making you raise Belle all on your own and I can’t understand how hard that was, but I know it was hard, and I want to make it up to you. Or at least try to, if you’ll let me. Please let me.”

“Jake…”

He takes a step back from you, expecting the worst, but he continues. “I just want you to know that the time I’ve spent here with you and Belle has been amazing, and if anything, I’m grateful that you opened that up to me and let me spend time with the both of you. Because Lord knows I don’t deserve it.”

You watch him for another moment, chewing on the inside of your cheeks. You’ve longed for this moment for years, and now that it’s here, you’re scared.

You’re scared, but you love him more than that. And you’ve seen the smiles he’s put on Belle’s face — and Amelia’s too. He’s good. He feels too good to be true, but you can’t let that fear stop you.

“You get one chance,” you say, and he lifts his head. “One, Jake. That’s it. That’s all I have left to give.”

He rushes forward, smiling like an idiot, bliss written all over his face. “That’s all I need. You don’t need to give anything else. Nothing else. You’ve given enough.”

“And I can’t do any back and forth. For my sake and for Belle’s. You’re either in right now or not at all.”

“None of that. I’m staying. I know what I’m getting into.”

“And I’m still waiting to tell Belle about you. That’s still my decision.”

He nods. “Yes ma’am, it is.”

You narrow your eyes. You don’t know what to do when he dodges all of your defenses like this.

“Okay,” you finally say. “One chance. That’s all you’re getting.”

“Thank you,” he breathes, and he sounds genuinely relieved, like he did that day in high school when you forgave him for the argument. “Thank you, honey.”

“Mm, be careful,” you warn, but jokingly now. “You still need to take me on a date first.”

“Of course,” he replies. “How ‘bout right now?”

“Isn’t Rooster coming over?”

“Well…”

“Jake.”

“I may have told him what I was up to.” And as if on cue, Jake’s phone buzzes with a text from Rooster. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and reads aloud, “Hope you two have fun. Hope you didn’t get punched in the dick. Wow.”

You laugh loudly, and Jake looks up and grins. He’s missed that laugh.

“Where do you wanna go?” he asks. “Your pick. What’s your favorite place around here?”

“We don’t go out to eat that much,” you chuckle.

“What about a place you’ve always wanted to try?”

That still brings no ideas. “How about,” you start, “you find the place while I go get changed.”

“Deal,” he nods, grinning like he’s won the lottery.

+++

What Jake ends up picking to eat is a small, hole-in-the-wall, family owned restaurant that mainly sells burgers and hotdogs. The tables and chairs are old, the tile flooring looks straight out of the seventies, and it’s perfect.

As with everything else that has been happening, it brings back memories of high school, when you and Jake first started dating. One of your first dates was exactly like this, except both yours and his parents were sitting in a booth together just across the room. Everybody knew everybody back home, so that wasn’t the first time the four of them had met. But it was the first time they all talked as future in-laws.

Or, at least, that was the idea. It’s just how things were. A lot of relationships that began in high school ended in marriage -- or, at the very least, engagement -- right after graduation. It wasn’t a surprise to either of your parents to hear you and Jake talking about marriage after being together for just a year.

The real surprise was when Jake ended things. And, of course, your subsequent pregnancy, but that wasn’t much of a shock, either. Lots of girls were pregnant by graduation, some showing more than others.

And pregnancy was seen as beautiful. A gift. You agree. Belle is and always will be a gift. But you and Jake had talked about this. You both wanted to wait. You’re glad he remembers those conversations enough to apologize about it today.

Now, the days you used to long for are here, but they look different. Now you’re sitting here with Jake, on a second “first date,” laughing like you used to and remembering what it felt like to be in love with him, wondering if it always felt this good.

He reaches across the table to hold your hand, and you feel butterflies for the first time in thirteen years.

“I love you,” he says, and he means it, and you believe him, even if you can’t say it back just yet.

The two of you don’t talk about anything serious at dinner. You let dinner be dinner, carefree and like a real first date.

He tells you about the planes he flies and who he flies with, outside of Rooster. He tells the funny story of the night he met Maverick and threw him out of Penny’s bar. He does most of the talking because you’ve missed him and because everything you have to tell involves Belle, and you don’t want to risk any unfounded arguments.

The anger inside of you has dimmed a great deal compared to the first day you saw him again. But it hasn’t fully gone, and you don’t know if it will, not until Belle meets him -- as her father. Until then, the protective mother inside of you will always harbor some anger. Toward him, but also, toward yourself.

When Jake walks you to your front door, you want briefly to let him inside, but you know better. Instead, you kiss him on the cheek, and you let him go.

“Thank you for tonight,” you say as he steps back.

“Thank you,” he says, smiling gently with his hat over his heart. “I appreciate the opportunity, darlin’.”

He makes it so hard to keep a level head.

You pull him back in for another kiss on the cheek, only this time, with your faces so close, you can’t help yourself.

You press your lips to his, taking a step further into his arms. You hear his hat hit the floor before both hands circle your waist, tugging you closer. You cup his jaw, holding his face the way you used to all the time. He feels and smells and tastes exactly the same, but grown up. He’s still yours, despite the time and circumstances that separated you.

When he pulls away to breathe, he squeezes your waist, as if to make sure you’re real.

“I’ve missed you,” he says.

And you nod. “I’ve missed you too.”

+++

For the next few days, Jake is over as often as before, but for a different reason, and it has been too easy to get used to.

When Penny and Maverick return from their honeymoon, the first thing you do is highjack Penny for some advice.

“Am I a horrible mother? I feel like a horrible mother.”

Penny drops the clothes she was holding and stares at you. “What?”

You’re supposed to be helping her unpack, which has really turned into her listening to you talk about everything that has happened while she sorts through her clothes.

“For keeping Jake from Belle,” you cry. “For telling her nothing about him.”

“Okay, listen to me, you are not a bad mother,” Penny says seriously. She pauses unpacking and sits down on her bed, facing you. “You did the right thing. You needed to protect her -- and yourself -- and that doesn’t make you a bad mother. Sure, things are more complicated now than they maybe needed to be, but that’s not your fault.”

You nod, listening to her words and taking them in. You know she’s right. “I really never thought he’d be back like this.”

“Believe me, I know that one,” Penny exhales, standing up to resume her task. “It’s confusing.”

“That puts it lightly.”

“Yeah,” she chuckles. “But it’s worth it, and I think this is too.”

“I just have to figure out how to tell Belle,” you murmur, taking one of Penny’s shirts out of her suitcase, just to do something with your hands. “I don’t know what to tell her.”

“She’s old enough to know the truth,” Penny shrugs. “Tell her that. It might help if you’re both part of that conversation.”

You hadn’t really thought about including Jake when you tell Belle the truth, even though it makes perfect sense to do so. “What if she hates me?”

“She’s not going to hate you.”

“What if she does?”

Penny stops again, and waits for you to look at her. “She won’t. And if she does, it won’t be for long. The two of you are close. She’ll talk to you.”

“Okay.”

“Have you talked to Jake about this?”

“Not yet,” you sigh. “But I will.”

“You should,” Penny says. “Talking helps.”

You snort. “You sound like his mother.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It is,” you smile. “But that’s enough of me. How was the honeymoon? Tell me everything -- almost everything. Don’t tell me about the sex.”

“Why not?” she teases. “It was good.”

“Don’t!”

+++

Because Amelia and Belle somehow didn’t get enough of one another after their long sleepover, Belle is spending the night at Penny’s.

Which means you and Jake have the house to yourselves, and like the grownups you are, you spend the night in pajamas, watching movies on the couch with an obnoxious amount of snacks. He puts an arm around your shoulders and pulls you closer, and you steal most of the blanket.

You say you won’t let him stay overnight, but then it’s 1am and he’s carrying you to bed, crawling under the covers next to you and holding you close. You let him stay, tucking your head into his chest, where you sleep soundly through the night.

#We Used To Be In Love #hangman top gun fanfiction #jake hangman seresin #jake hangman seresin x fem!reader #jake hangman seresin x reader #jake hangman seresin x you #jake hangman seresin fanfiction #hangman fanfiction #hangman x reader #hangman x fem!reader #hangman x you #glen powell #top gun maverick fanfiction #top gun maverick #hangman angst #hangman fluff #jake hangman seresin angst #jake hangman seresin fluff

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smallestapplin · 2 years ago

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I think it would be cute if a newbie pokemon researcher was trying to put a Pokemon that belongs on Mount silver back into it's natural habitat after they were stolen by poachers/learn about Pokemon on mount silver without disturbing them and like...ended up nearly dying from the cold trying to protect said/a Pokemon bc the cold is evil and I hate it

And Red stumbles upon this poor idiot, and notices that they're not:

1) trying to prove themselves

2) trying to find him

3) being a general overly proud dick about things

So decides to bring them up back to his cave home so they can study more pokemon (nicely and unobtrusively to the Pokemon's lives) instead of just dropping them at the bottom like he usually does with any idiot that climbs his mountain

Local mountain idiot gets a visitor but this person is be completely unconcerned about his existence (aside from studying his ice type traits) and he's living for being practically ignored

:D!!! Baby bro! It’s nice to have you here!!

First time writing in third person! So I hope I didn’t mess that up lol.

Red has never been so dumbfounded in his life.

Staring at the person with the same blank expression, but he couldn’t help but think they must be dense.

They come to Mt.Silver ill prepared, it’s obvious to Red this person has never been up a mountain like this before.

Yet as he gets closer to their fallen and shaking form, he sees what they are holding.

A Larvitar? The poor thing looks rough, but is hanging onto you for dear life.

Red looks to the sky, the blizzard won’t be letting up anytime soon. He silently sighs, he can’t exactly just leave you here.

He pauses in front of them, their eyes locking with his.

Yet they don’t move, they don’t say anything, only holding the Pokémon closer.

Do they not want to battle him? Is that not what they came up here?

He knows the Pokémon lives in the caves around here, so what are they doing?

He can’t just leave them here to die.

With a muted grunt he lets out his Charizard, letting the fire type carry them and the smaller Pokémon.

Looking at them, they seemed so weak, too weak to speak.

By the time they awake, they are in a warm den, surrounded by a Charizard and Snorlax keeping them extra warm, while the Larvitar sleeps on their lap.

Red offers them some soup he made. He watches their face morph into one of confusion, looking around, as if trying to find something.

“Thank you.”

They take his soup carefully as he nods.

Red finds the den much too warm, but he doesn’t know what this person wants, or even why they are up here.

Yet they sit in silence.

They seem a little antsy, but Red doesn’t seem to care.

Even after they were finished eating, they sit there anxiously.

“Um…thank you again, sir.”

Red nods and waved his hand, it was no problem.

“Actually I uh, I came up here to return this Larvitar to its home, and maybe study some Pokémon that live up here too.”

He eyes them suspiciously.

They haven’t done anything, haven’t challenged him, haven’t sassed him like that one brat, and have been polite.

What’s the harm in letting them stay a bit? Or at least visit?

When he signed this at them, he was expecting them to ask for paper.

But they grew excited.

“Really? Thank you! I know I’ve said that a bit now, but really!”

For the first week he kept an eye on them, making sure they don’t hurt any Pokémon, or get hurt themselves.

But they watch from a distance.

Half the time Red forgets they are there.

But when he catches them, it’s like they are studying him too.

He guesses it is weird, he is on a mountain top in casual clothes.

You’re probably trying to figure it out.

He silently snorts to himself.

This person is a strange one.

But he can’t help but find their company amusing.

Especially since you don’t realize what he’s frozen.

You’re a good kid.

You don’t question when his den is much colder than it should be, you only cuddle with his fire type more.

#don’t ever ask me for third person again/lh #bestie tags #pokemon #pokemon imagines #pokemon x reader #pokémon #pokemon red #pokemon x reader platonic #and they are friends #pokemon fanfic

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theveryworstthing · 4 years ago

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So over on patreon Trevor asked for my take on the Addams Family and I grew up LOVING the Addams family movies so here we are. Instead of doing a straight up style interpretation, I decided to do a full on design challenge, using the characters as bases to make a black southern gothic Addams au. I actually drew the kids first, using the character bases of Wednesday and Pugsley to create some delightful kiddos I'm calling Sunday and Blanche. I of course then redesigned Gomez and Morticia into Carlisle and Mortesha.

The Addams have a very specific high aristocratic goth aesthetic (they've got a butler and nobody really works among other things) so in this re-imagining I wanted to go with vibes that run a little more middle class/upper middle class. I thought it would be interesting to think about what would be considered weird and off-putting in an entirely different culture, and how being a big ol' goth is way less controversial than it used to be.

I tried to keep this short (HAHAHAHAHAHA) so I didn't spin off into an essay about villain coded families, black people in the horror genre, and normalcy as it pertains to social survival, but just...bits of that are in these designs and lore. Keep that in mind.

Also I made the kids twins because they've flip flopped in age so much in different media and also twins run in my family (i'm the daughter of one). And let's face it, I'm pulling a lot of their southern gothic traits from living as a southern goth so *shrug*.

10 thousand pounds of lore incoming loooooooooool.

The Parents

From the moment he saw her he knew that there was a 50/50 chance of him either never making it out of that swamp alive or marrying the figure that was creeping out from under the distant willow tree in a black cocktail dress. The third time she found him trussed up in one of her traps, he complimented her rope work and asked if she'd like to go out sometime after his head wound stopped bleeding.

Or while it was still bleeding.

If she was into that.

Some kids and a mysteriously burnt down Piggly Wiggly later, their love is still as strong and inescapable as a bear trap in a sink hole.

Carlisle Guillermo (now Addams through marriage but I wanted to give him two first names for a name since Gomez has two last names) makes a vaguely described living practicing ‘law’ around town. A loophole king, people come to him from miles around with contracts signed in blood, fights over chunks of hair buried in their rivals’ yard, dehydrated primate hands, memories that seemed like dreams until the evidence of their happenings became too real, and other regular Legal Items asking for counsel which he is all too happy to give. For a price. Sometimes that price is a homemade pie and sometimes it’s a million dollars, depends on who you are. Whatever you’re asked to pay it’s worth that price, and if you try to scam him out of work or he just plain doesn’t like you? Well. He knows how to twist a contract better than anything at the crossroads.

And he always gets his due.

He doesn’t just serve the local (living)humans though, there are many things that need proper legal representation in this day and age. You wouldn’t believe how many city councils try to build on sacred burial grounds even after he lets them know that his ghostly clients are totally gonna haunt the FUCK out of the ensuing shitty condos and curse their families for all eternity. At least 50% of his energy goes towards dealing with real estate bullshit.

Carl is an excitable and good natured(?) man who loves his family, cigars, dancing, and his many knife-based hobbies. People find him very charming once they get past the feeling that they’re talking to a sultry gator badly disguising itself as a human. I didn’t put a ton of deep thought into designing him, mostly I wanted to make a middle aged dude who looked like he would have been voted ‘most likely to smooch the literal devil’ in high school. Tbh he probably has, but no demonic ex’s can compare to his lovely wife~

Mortesha Addams(her name was already perfect so I just tweaked it)is a woman of many talents. A self proclaimed homemaker, she prides herself on a greenhouse full of Concerning Foliage, a beautiful wasp apiary, and a coop full of what are probably chickens that she keeps for what are probably eggs. She’s also an avid creator of the outsider art that can be seen around the estate. She has taken on the family business of selling her homemade goods in a little stall by the road just outside the swamp with her mom, and makes pretty good money doing so. A surprising amount of poison gets bought in quaint southern towns.

Speaking of poison, people who come out to the edge of the swamp to buy it are usually carrying a lot of secrets around, and Mortesha knows most of them. It’s not like she pries the truth out of people, it just so happens that many nervous hellos eventually turn into the tragic backstory power hour if she’s alone with a client for long enough. She supposes that’s just how people are. Despite the fact that the Addams are very active in the community (whether the community likes it or not) she especially, as a direct descendant of the first Addams matriarch, is seen as…Well not an outsider because the community feels A Certain Way about outsiders and despite it all the Addams are their people, but maybe something like an exception. They feel like whatever weirdness they’re hiding can’t be weirder than any given Addams, so they get a little loose with their words.

This is amusing to her, since Addams’ don’t naturally keep the kind dramatic secrets that their surface level prim and proper neighbors do. It’s much more fun to openly talk about those things.

Do they have a sadly decrepit yet terrifying grandma up in the attic? Yeah, like three. They got a tv, all the creepy porcelain dolls they could want, and they’re close to family. Where do you keep your gram-grams?

Any bodies buried on the property? Yeah some, but most are thrown to the gators.

Any creeping through the balmy summer night with ill intentions? Yeah dude, everyone loves a nice family stroll.

What about dangerous forbidden love? If an adult Addams isn’t incorporeal then they’re either queer or in a torrid romance with some person/thing mysteriously drawn to that awful swamp. Sometimes both at the same time. Most times actually.

Mortesha would know.

The current head of the Addams family is just as outgoing as her husband but a lot quieter and harder to read. She never really seems to get mad about much and always has a genteel smile for everyone whether they deserve it or not. A seven foot tall human shaped “Oh, bless your heart”. A perfectly composed Lady even when she’s, oh I dunno, burning down a Piggly Wiggly. You know. A regular southern mom. Chat her up at the hair salon for 50% off a jar of wasp honey with your next purchase of a mysterious but foreboding packet of herbs.

Designing her was pretty easy because I just drew a lankier Grace Jones and called it a day. I had some problems with her outfit simply because if we were going HARD southern gothic then she’d probably be wearing a white/cream dress with a fuller skirt but I thought keeping the silhouette and the black was more important. She’s supposed to be an anti southern gothic southern gothic character anyway. A woman who looks like she has a million secrets who is actually the most open person you could meet. For better or worse. The red hair came from a coloring error that I really ended up liking (my mom had red hair her whole childhood that only darkened up in high school so I can buy that an Addams can be naturally fire engine red) and the veil was to get more of that classic Morticia silhouette in there.

The Children

Sunday and Blanche are the twin children of Carlisle and Mortesha Addams. Some say the Addams clan got their cursed homestead when a wealthy local businessman made a deal with the devil and lost, leaving his grand mansion to his least favorite maid and cutting his losses once he realized that the swamp would do everything it could to drag the house into the water and take what was owed with its horrible curse. Others say that the family has just always squatted there and no one really cares because man, fuck that particular swamp. Have you been in there? Absolute horror show.

Anyway.

Blanche is the more outgoing sibling and quite the engineer/mad scientist in the making. He started going grey at 2 weeks old but considering he was also rocking some extra fingers, toes, and a tiny tail (he takes after his dad), his parents just put it on the 'not life threatening' pile and decided not to worry about it. He's the kind of smart that teachers find utterly infuriating, less a dog eagerly learning and obeying commands and more a hyena who keeps teaching itself how to pick locks. He has a few friends in his school's robotics club (which they honestly allowed him to make so the school could contain his... creations) but mostly hangs out with his sister exploring the swamp. They find all sorts of neat things in there! wedding rings, suspiciously lumpy garbage bags, cloaked cultists who can't read private property signs, it's an adventure every day!

Blanche is all about experimentation with his creations, his look, and his tether to this mortal coil. Is lipstick a cool thing to try? Let's find out. Can he get out of a strait jacket fast enough after being pushed into the depths of the swamp by his sister? let's find out. He's not dead yet and confused local doctors can attest to the fact that he's rarely attained more than a bad bruise so he's pretty set on continuing to kiss rattlesnakes on their cute little heads and have his sister practice her knife throwing at him until that fact changes.

Blanche is very much a country goth. Cowboy boots (customized by his mom), knife, and lighter are daily accessories. He likes to wear the crusty swamp jewelry they find (the rust adds a splash of color!) and despite appearances he does try to keep himself neat. He's just got natural Grunge Colors and a tendency to wear clothes he likes until they fall apart. Pugsley always seemed the most modernly styled to me (which might just be because little boys clothes have been the same for a long time) so I wanted Blanche to be the most purposely fashionable Addams. Everyone else is goth by nature, but he's the only one truly familiar with goth as an alternative fashion.

I got really into designing Blanche because honestly, I find Pugsley to be the most boring member of the family. And he was hard to design! I had to mess with his vibe a lot to get him looking how I wanted. I know he's supposed to evoke an " 'evil' little boy next door who's parents never reign him in", but that's just goth Dennis The Menace. I's 2020. We can at least go queer goth Calvin.

Sunday was much easier to design. Wednesday was my favorite as a child (of course) and I really wanted to keep the spirit of her look while adding things like billowy sleeves (it gets HOT down here), big poofy twists instead of braids, and a nice tie. She's a professional after all, been running the local pet cemetery since she was 6 and the previous groundskeeper met with an unfortunate accident after telling her that tarantulas don't have souls. Her specialty is creating beautiful naturalistic animal funerals similar to those that Maquenda (https://linktr.ee/artofmaquenda) makes, and she takes pride in creating miniature dioramas of her subjects after each burial which she uses as a kind of 3D catalog for future clients.

She really wants to try out her skills on humans one day. Well. Publicly try out her skills. Lotta random bodies float into the swamp. None of them have turned down her requests for diorama models so far. Most seem downright flattered. Plus, she usually figures out which graveyard/crime scene they floated over from and gets her parents to give them a lift back. She'll even help enact terrifying revenge from beyond the grave on whoever put them there if she's not, y'know, busy.

Besides arts, crafts, and pet based funerary arrangements, Sunday is an avid lover of archery (any ranged weapon really), books where little fantasy adventure animals die dramatic deaths, and history. She is That Kid who eagerly raises her hand when asked who Christopher Columbus was and ends up being sent out of class after 15 minutes for making 'a scene'. Her favorite party trick is just picking an item in the room and talking about how it relates to either some obscure historical figure with a buck wild life or a horrible disaster. At least one charity pancake breakfast ended with children in tears after her vivid description of the Great Molasses Flood of 1919.

Social-wise, while Wednesday is the girl that people ask to smile because they think she'd, "look so pretty", Sunday is rarely asked anything at all. People just kind of assume from her quiet nature (in between horrible history facts) that she's angry all the time and that she hates everyone. This is untrue. She hates some people but she's ambivalent to most everyone else and even downright friendly if you bother to talk to her like a person instead of a terrifying cryptid. Like, she IS a terrifying cryptid but she's also a little girl.

That’s about it for now. One day I might do the other family members but for now I’m happy with the four I’ve redesigned. Making an au! Lurch in a family that doesn’t do butlers could be interesting. Over on patreon I put forth that he could just be Motesha’s mute little brother (similar bone structure) but Amy Crook had the nice idea of quote: “ a mysterious "cousin" that "helps around the house" whose origins are both long in the past and faintly unsettling. He's good for lifting heavy things, like that tank of propane you're about to throw into the burning Piggly Wiggly... “ which i now consider canon. Who's kid is he? How old is he? Not important. Anyone willing to commit arson with you is family.

Annnnyway. This challenge was a lot of fun! I love indulging in AU’s.

#long post #the addams family #Character Design #au #design challenge #i am incapable of doing a design challenge like a normal person #oh god i forgot the cut lol

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