#jess the mod!dragon thing

[shadowfoxsilver]

A visual guide on scam spotting ft many ocs.

(If reposting any image here please credit me, thanks!)

[the-admin-but-dumber]

Silly little AU kinda

SrGrSo I know I usually post MCSM here but like, I LOVE Ark, it’s one of the many games I play and its definitely my favourite in terms of survival aside from minecraft. I love playing with mods and so on. Anyways I wanted to show off my most favourite tames and I guess ‘tame’ I have.

Rudy and Ech0! They’ve been with me for a few months at this rate, I’ve been playing a huge mix of mods and I was lucky to get them. 

Rock Drakes are my FAVOURITE dino on the game, they’re so fun to glide around with and are just so cool, anyways onto the AU thing. Would you call it an AU? Meh. Anyways, I started thinking about a possible Ark AU with MCSM a while ago, when in doubt use the portal network for your weird AUs and make it a new adventure. I love the portal network and its sad we only saw so much, but anyways the whole gist of the story is they get caught in the portal network and end up in a world with dinosaurs and all these funky creatures, cool right, not too special. Anyways, the portal leading OUT of the world is actually right beside them when they step through, but it is horribly disfigured and needs to be repaired. The entire worlds is inhabited by survivors and tribes who’d already long since made their claim on the world, one of these tribes attacks Jesse’s gang because well new people.       They’re rescued by this other tribe that takes them back to base on this floating rock in the sky. They’re given a run down on what’s going on with the world, all of them came from the portal network to be faced with a destroyed portal. The tribe they’re in has a pink flint and steel thats grown damaged in the years they’ve been there.      They’re told that the only way to possibly figuring out how to get home is to find all these artifacts and fight the one that basically made the realm. The world’s admin if you will, I imagined her as a dragon or one of the main boses.   They stay in the tribe’s camp for a couple days/weeks, learning how to make stuff, new crafting recipes, how to tame the dinosaurs and so on.       Kind of a list of what creatures the order mostly use. This is all really off the top of my head since I never really made a solid list. Lukas; Sabertooth Jesse/Jessie; Argentavis (?) Or Wyvern? Petra; Griffin (?) Axel; Maybe a large apex? Like allo, or Carchar, Dire Bear? Olivia; Deinonychus/Raptor Radar; Rock Drake, but def wanted a dire wolf Characters that might NOT be in the AU but could be? Jack;  Def smth that can passanger carry for Nurm (Shadowmane? He seems badass enough to successfully tame one) Romeo; Rock Drake too? Kind of had an idea that he and Radar were the ones to fall into the abberant area together. Minus the deadly radiation LOLL Xara; Also seems like a Shadowmane, or a snow owl. Ivor; Griffin maybe, he and Petra can having matching LOL (Gimme your ideas of what you think they’d have, this was just a sudden choice with not too much thought put into) Anyways, I was thinking of making this into a fanfic which could be fun, would that be an interest to read. Ark and MCSM are some of my biggest hyperfixations and I would LOVE to make content of the two games combined in this fun little AU.

[mcsm-rewrite-project]

What is the MCSM Rewrite Project?

It's exactly what it sounds like!

I'm making what is essentially a new version of Minecraft Story Mode. The characters will be reimagined, keeping core elements alive, but making them overall... better. I believe the original MCSM had a lot of potential, but fell flat in execution. I am attempting to rectify that, more or less, but in book format.

The Important Bit

I'm posting this on tumblr just to sort of say "Hey, I'm making this thing. I think it's really cool, and any ideas would be appreciated." So, that's that! I'm looking for some ideas. Specifically ideas for episodes 6-8.

Things I have planned and established already:

Jesse is nonbinary. It makes sense considering I'm adapting a game to a book.

The main cast are actually competent. Because there's no reason for them to act like they've never existed in this world when they've been here for forever?

Servers exist. This is most important for the second arc (Eps 5-8). I've got some information established regarding servers, but basically all that I'll say here is that they vary in game mode, how many people live there, server operators, and some of them may even be modded.

About episode six... No, I'm not doing the YouTuber cameo thing. I am using original characters for this part of the arc, specifically mine and some friends'.

What about season two? I haven't officially decided if I'm doing anything for the second season. I probably will. But for right now most of my focus is on season one. That being said, I have done some thinking on it thanks to my good friend. We'll see where it goes.

Also, custom skins are going to be a thing. Not nearly enough completely inhuman characters in this game. I've even got it planned how they create these custom skins as well.

The big threat is also different. So I sort of replaced the Wither Storm as well. The new threat is a respawned Ender Dragon, except it's much stronger and also much larger. It also tunnels the way dragons do in the actual game.

If you hadn't figured by Jesse being non-binary, this book will be very queer! I am planning to also make Jesskas (Jesse x Lukas) canon. Sorry, Jetra fans!

I think that's all the important information that I'll be putting in the pinned post here. So that being said, feel free to send me any questions, or ideas for this.

Thanks for reading and taking interest! I'd love to hear quite literally any ideas or concepts anyone may or may not have. Please, I don't bite!

I'm posting the rewrite to both AO3 and Wattpad in hopes of reaching a wider audience. I also know some people may have a preference for either site. Here's the AO3 link, and here is the Wattpad link.

[artofshadowfoxsilver]

latest @ask-keystar sketch

i accidentally drew Authal too small.

[a-lost-crow]

Lukas in the storymode!Jesse au. Since I don’t have any other drawings here’s Lukas being scared of a command block

This has a longer list than the Discord mod Romeo post so I’ll keep it brief 1/746

Lukas can do Minecraft commands. And it’s exactly what you think of.

Lukas is only person in Beacontown who can use Minecraft commands

Everyone can use Minecraft commands but so little have access to it because it’s impossible to get it.

You have to think “outside of the box” to get commands. Example, The Dragon Prince spoilers btw, is when Callum is a regular human who can’t do powers who thinks “outside of the box” and suddenly he has air powers I think

Lukas was a little child when he first discovered it.

It started by his love of reading in the library, then he found an old shabby book about commands. People who usually pick that book would stop reading as soon as people read one of the passages.

But Lukas kept it with him, as a secret.

If the librarians found out who stole the book in the present, Lukas would have to pay a LOT because of that overdue book.

Anyways, Lukas read one of the passages that people usually stop on

It had to do with seeing the world as some kind of hack. Not a simulation, but in a way where he has to see reality as something else.

Being a child, he didn’t care. So he continued and eventually it worked.

Considering, as my recent headcanon, how his life as a kid was already a mess (and that he has gifted child syndrome) he keeps it a secret

People who can do commands usually get a bit upset because of this newfound information, thinking they can use it for greed. They instead felt despair.

For Lukas and a couple of others it was an act of curiosity.

Like him and the others, they can manage keep balance between the world he lives in and with the commands.

There is actually a quote written in the book for people who have the power.

“Treat this power as if it were another trait. Don’t treat it as any more than what it already is.”

So Lukas didn’t have a hard time managing with his power.

He sees it like it was any other duty like fighting, being the leader of the Ocelots, baking, etc. It’s just that the commands can become more deadly

Petra knows his powers after Lukas had to use a command to save Petra

She’s the only person to know pre-MCSM

It’s because Lukas doesn’t trust people. How people can use him for gain.

And that’s why he fears command blocks

He doesn’t want to see the power people will do with it

He just doesn’t want more attention and the aftermaths that come after it.

Because people don’t know how command blocks are made, and that the Order of the Stone lied to them, they were seen as a mere concept or a myth and it stayed like that for a long time

People who use commands don’t recommend it but there’s always people who let curiosity and personal greed drive them

Just like Ivor

In the au, Lukas doesn’t show it but he fears Ivor because of the command block

I don’t promote keeping secrets but Lukas not telling people he can use commands as a child is a smart choice

Nothing much he uses the commands for any personal gain

He mostly uses commands if he’s lazy to do something

Teleport items, automatically wear things (in Minecraft logic it’s just changing skin), generate a missing item

He doesn’t use it a lot because he doesn’t want to live his life full of cheats and being power hungry

Jesse is one of the other people he could trust telling him about the commands

It is because both have an understanding between their world and what lies upon it

So Lukas told Jesse about the commands as an exchange

In one of my posts it explains that he knows that Jesse can rewind because of Lukas’ knowledge of commands that can give him awareness.

IT WEIRDS HIM OUT SO MUCH

“It makes sense now, on why the world feels a bit weird.” - Lukas

“Why is that?” - Jesse

“Because you rewind at times at the most unnecessary moments. Seriously I felt weird trying to eat my sandwich the second time since you rewinded. Next thing you know I started having a migraine.” - Lukas

“It’s not my fault Aiden messed up my favorite jacket.” - Jesse

“But still. You don’t want to know what it felt like eating the same sandwich bite again.” - Lukas

You can kill live things if you have access to commands

But people who have commands would rather not

Most people who have access to commands test it on a random live thing rather than humans. Each death is different but it’s already enough for the person to never do it again

Lukas was lucky that he used a chicken for that command.

Poor chicken. Lukas didn’t even eat it >:/

The reason the kill command scares command users is because once you kill something, it won’t come back.

You can give or reduce health bars/hearts from other people but you will never reverse death.

That applies to Jesse’s storymode powers also.

(About the pick Magnus or Ellegaard’s armor option, yes, Jesse can rewind time to pick another person but the same fate will come.)

A similar thing happened to Jesse, when it comes to death. Always choosing to choose which mob should be killed. It caught him off gaurd that when it comes to choosing which human like Ellegaard and Magnus.

Lukas will not win a fight against Romeo even if he gives himself OP commands.

He doesn’t use his commands much, prefers to fight with no powers, and that he would lose by default

Months after the events of season 2, Lukas decided to write another book that will help people with commands

Instead of how to get commands, it’s how to handle having them.

Lukas publishes the book with a pen name that doesn’t give his real name away. For reasons of not wanting people to ask him how he got the command powers. But it is nice hearing people talking about him and his influence from time to time.

There are more things I like to address with Lukas’ command powers or what he does with it but that’s like if someone asks in the ask box or something.

[saturniandragon]

Palestinian accounts, please kindly read first:

I'm getting multiple Palestinian accounts coming to my inbox recently, and I just have a message for you reading this.

I need time to do research on your account and make sure you're vetted/verified as an actual Palestinian/Gazan refugee seeking help. That itself is already a fact that there are numerous illegitimate/fake accounts seeking to make a profit in the middle of the crisis.

Secondly, my blog is not popular enough for my personal posts to get reblogs. My followers will instead reblog posts that I reblog from other people (if that makes sense), not my original posts (including asks). That's the pattern of my blog, I've observed it countless times, and yes I hate it. Most of them don't care enough to reblog my own posts, it's always when I reblog someone else's posts.

I'm not refusing you at my door, I'm just stating facts about the nature of my blog. Once I've confirmed that you're a legitimate account (or when I have a pretty good feeling about your legitimacy), I'll share your ask. That I can promise. But I can not promise it will attract attention after it's posted to my blog.

Now that that's out of the way

New to my blog, or a recurring visitor? In any case, hello! My name is Adra (short of Adrastea, my dragonsona name). Here you'll find various things of my interest, which you can check in list of my major interests!

I'm a digital artist, a fic author (none officially published atm), and also a staff in Indonesia's statistics bureau (Badan Pusat Statistik, BPS)! I'm 23 (as of 2024) years old cis bisexual man who uses government-assigned he/him pronouns.

My sideblogs:

@su-35bm-flanker-e for Ace Combat and aviation stuff

@2017-mclaren-675lt for cars and motorsport stuff

Secret sideblog #1 containing horny stuff, unlock at friendship level 3 (or just, you know, ask me nicely)

Secret sideblog #2 for my darkest fetishes and kinks, unlock at friendship level 10+

Why not check out my most popular posts as a starter?

Some of these aren't that "popular" but I just love revisiting them from time to time.

Enjoy your stay, and don't break nothing!

Don't talk to me or your daughter ever again

teldryn

hazard to society

onion scrolls

responses to fuck you

onion scrolls part 2

lady elenwen that's a mirror

skyrim + tumblr

the elder tweets

the elder tweets part 2

back on my bullshit

spell tome: yeet

nb dragonborn mod

skyrim + discord

unashes your yam

bonjour (not exactly my post but i contributed)

picks up a potion i will never use in the game

my child is fine

oc: merri'sa

thu'umblr

hermaeus mora plush

zanri al-anaqi: short bio

zanri al-anaqi: story

Update 2

bread seller miraak by jirosan

responses to i love you

fictional alien race part 1

fictional alien race part 2

receiving asks in tumblr

love language

ace combat + screenshots of despair

f1 + screenshots of despair

stealth archer appreciation post

ebony blade

Update 3

ahravani al-karim

oc: adrastea

oc: aeryx

ask about aeryx by saxhleel

Update 4

a new face touches the beacon

vestige did you put your name on the amulet of kings

oc: adrastea (updated)

oc: mira

skyrim mod concept

can't sleep babe

music ask

dragons and dragons

oc: adrastea (eso)

oc: jesse

Update 5

systema saturnium (lore about my alien dragon characters)

systema saturnium, extras

future PC specs

Merri'sa megapost

skyrim writing prompt

why is everything so loud

eso: opposites react

inspiration behind my TES ocs

shutterstock alternative for stock images

oc: martin revello (maned wolf)

oc voices!

how soft are my ocs

Update 6

New gaming laptop!

tumblr sexy lizardman/woman poll

Adra's french toast recipe

incorrect summary of ace combat by adra

so, have you found a reason to boop yet? buddy.

Adra's trance music collection

eso fanfic: shadows of the past

ac7 fanart: magic spear

suffering from a disease called indonesia

Update 7

the myth of AK-47

DMDE file recovery tool

Furaffinity murdered Andrew Tate

the MTD

[writingwithcolor]

So I’m trying to write a story where the main love interest can turn onto a Chinese dragon and I was wondering if he would be able to use the powers in human form as well as dragon. I’ve read that it’s mostly water and weather powers that they use. Also, would he be able to use lightning? The second thing is how can I describe him without being offensive? Because he’s supposed to be half Chinese, I’m having the girl see him before actually talking to him and hearing his name. (I looked into this stuff but nothing was helpful, most said not to worry too much about it and just use the name as an indicator of the race (this was just something I came across when looking, I personally didn’t ask it in this case.))

Half-Chinese Love Interest who can Shapeshift into a Dragon

There aren’t exactly any set rules on forbidding magic in human form. Chinese folklore does have a lot of animals that are trying to cultivate to become human that already use magic in their human forms, and from what I remember, dragons can still utilize magic as humans, too, even lightning. As for your second question, we have an entire category devoted to how to describe PoC, so we ask that you look through that for ideas. –mod Jess

[purpledragonrp]

Purple dragon friend, do you have any blog suggestions for new RPers? Like blogs dedicated to show new RPers stuff about RP? Or develop their characters? Or help with terms? (Like, I am confused what the difference between a starter call and an open starter is..) Maybe some helpful resource lists too? (It would have stuff like reverse dictionaries. I saw one of those one time and can't find it now.)

Oooh - a hefty request, OP.  LOL!  I think any active, RP-related blog would be happy to answer questions you might have as you navigate the chaos that can be tumblr roleplay.  ^_^  First, let me start with some of the blogs I follow on this account.  Please note - some of these blogs may not be active anymore, but that doesn’t mean they don’t still have good/useful resources.  These are also in no particular order.

Roleplay Advice/Help

@rpedia​ - @rptoolkit​ - @fuckyeahroleplayadvice​ - @publicservicememes​  - @confessionsofa-roleplayer​ (While not technically an advice blog, the mods do a great job of answering questions when they have the time)

Writing Advice/Help

@writerswritecompany​ - @the-write-ideas​ - @s-graves-writes​ - @yeahwrite​ - @writersrelief​ - @writingquestionsanswered​

Roleplay Memes/Ideas

@historical-rp-memes​ - @sexlessrpmemes​ - @needsmorememes​ - @rp-ask-memes​ - @plotsforall​

Blog Themes

@linthm​ - @octomoosey​ - @borntobewildcodes​ - @glenthemes​ - @hunterthemes​ - @nonspace​

As for help with terms - while certain word meanings can vary from person to person, I did find a couple that might help:

Roleplay Terms - Roleplay Terminology

If you’ve got a Discord account, you might also consider joining the Confessions of a Roleplayer discord server.  It’s got a section for resources and there’s almost always someone around to help with any issues or questions you might have.  :)

And to answer your question:

A starter call is when you make a post offering to write starters for anyone who faves the post.  Some people will limit things - for example, only writing a starter for the first 5 people or only writing starters for people they haven’t written with before - but unless that’s stated, it typically means if you fav the post you’re going to get a starter.

Ex:  I’ve been getting a bunch of new followers lately.  If anyone’s interested in getting something going, like this post and I’ll write us a starter!

An open starter is when you write the beginning of an RP and do your best to leave it open for as many of your followers as possible to respond to if they’re interested.

Ex: Jesse wove his way through the bookshelves, checking his phone as he went.  Not really paying attention to his surroundings, he rounded a corner and ran right smack into someone standing on the other side.  Fumbling to keep his phone in hand, he offered an apologetic smile.  “Sorry ‘bout that.  Should've been payin’ attention. You alright?”

As for reverse dictionaries, a quick Google search pulled up a few for me:

One Look - Reverse Dictionary - Wordsmyth

I hope this is a good starting point for you, OP, but if you have any other questions, please feel free to ask!  ^_^

[shadowfoxsilver]

Gonna leave a trail of glitter stardust wherever I goooo.

My art fight profile is linked in my pinned. This time I have an iPad, so I can do digital art attacks again! Hope to see you all there too~

But here’s the link too!

[butchhesbian]

21 tag game

tagged by: @spectrophilias (thanks for the tag!!!)

rules: answer 21 questions and tag 21 people you want to know better .. uh yeah thats like...... a lot. anyone who wants to do this tag me!!

nickname: jesse, its always been that lol

zodiac sign: virgo 

height: 5′3″

hogwarts house: no idea

last thing googled: uhh probably something skyrim related yesterday. i downloaded dragon age follower mods and one looked funky so i was trying to fix it. i gave up

favorite musicians: i dont listen to music much these days, but im super stoked about missy elliot coming back

song stuck in head: old town road after watching a little video lol

favorite time of the day: dusk

favorite color: black, dark green/purple

following: 226

followers: 115 on this one lol 822 on gaming

do i get asks: yeah and i love them all :3

amount of sleep: at least 8 or im completely useless

favorite numbers: 22 and 42

wearing: a white/grey striped dress

dream job: don’t have one :(

instrument(s): i used to play piano, now i cant, its been too long

language(s):  english

favorite songs: uh like 90% of music from 80s-2000s lol

random fact: i miss being able to eat anything so f’king much.  i’m the type to try anything once and having to eat the same things otherwise i go through so much pain is awful and i cant wait until its over

aesthetic: cheesy 80s vibes, nicely decorated room surrounded by plants, the forest, rolling hills with lots of different farming oh god i dont know what its called lol something like this

[imthatpeculiarone]

Tagged by both @willowywings and @thursdays-fallen-angel so apparently I’m popular, thx guys.

Nickname: Jess

Zodiac: Taurus

Height: 5′9″

Last movie I saw: Gone Girl, but only half of it?? As you can see I rarely watch movies.

Last thing I googled: Crash Course: Utilitarianism because I’m learning NOTHING in my lecture. 

Favourite musician: Why ask me this question? There are too many. My top 5 are Imagine Dragons, Coldplay, The Fray, One Direction and Panic! At the Disco. 

Song stuck in my head: The Greatest Show cover by Panic! At the Disco.

Other blogs: My other blog is @imthatpeculiarone. I’m also a mod for @profoundnet & @profoundzine so check them out! @deancasfanficnet - I was asked by my amazing friend to be a mod for and it was just recently launched! So please show us some love (only if u want).

Do I get asks: every now and then from my friends.

Following: 104

Amount of sleep: On average... six hours. Sometimes less, sometimes more. Differs on time of year and mood.

Lucky number: 108, weird lucky number I know.

What I’m wearing: Sneakers w/ socks. My work uniform shirt and black shorts. I also have a black scrunchy holding up my hair.

Dream job: Teacher.

Dream trip: I’m already going to London, Amsterdam and Italy which are dream places. But I want to travel all around Europe and visit the U.S. and Canada. 

Favourite food: Sushi

Play any instruments: Piano and can sing a lil bit

Languages: English and a bit of Auslan

Favourite songs: “Moondust” by Jaymes Young, “I Found” by Amber Run, “The Scientist” by Coldplay, “Whatever it Takes” by Imagine Dragons,

Random fact: I have two titanium spinal rods! All courtesy of the wonderful condition called Scoliosis.

Describe yourself as aesthetic things: mochas, warm century old library, colourful mugs, collection of photo frames, fairy lights, colourful books, polaroids, beaches.

I tag: @ravenscat-tumbler & @magicstars

[faorism]

hot oil spit (fic)

He was always a wuss, but now he’s a wuss with a gun and a twisting dragon that his soulmark has burned haunting, frightening, impossible into his hand and wrist.  

read on ao3 →

i’m doing things a little differently for my mchanzine fic entry. i am proud of the fic i contributed, which told the story of gabe saying goodbye to jesse as he’s about to leave blackwatch. but… honestly it would make me a little queasy to be reminded of this episode whenever i got a kudo notification. so! instead! i will expand the 1.5k fic by many thousands of words by weaving its worldbuilding into my gritty realism meets bildungsroman afterschool special of a magnum opus, hot oil spit.

hot oil spit is a wip soulmark au—but otherwise canon-compliant—character study of jesse mccree. to judge the pace of the backstory, we’re 30k in and jesse is only just about to enter blackwatch. 

perhaps needless to say, this is a slow burn. (but there will be young mchanzo! so the wait won’t be forever.) unlike the zine, this fic is rated r and there are some serious content warnings (all listed in the ao3 tags with more to be added as the fic progresses). it’s a pretty intense list, but i promise that this is not, like, a thoughtless whump fic meant to exploit jesse’s pain. instead, this is a tender story of recovery, found families, and growing up.

to support me at this moment, the best thing you can do is give hot oil spit a read. thank you to everyone who has supported @mchanzinecontributors. it means a lot to me as the blog mod and as one of the zine contributors.

[reallypheelingit]

Happy birthday @shadowfoxsilver! Have a Jess

Day 206/365 (/)vv(\)

[fuckyeahasexual]

This is Scottasaurus, not my childhood stuffed animal but my ace friend got him for me this year. The trio of us are *noncommittal wiggly hand movement* Anon said: Plushie story! Okay so when I was 6 or so, I got this brown cat plushie. Truly adorable. Never decided on it's gender. Today Kitty is a she, tomorrow he is a very happy Kitty, and sometimes Kitty is just Kitty and doesn't care what they are. (Bonus: now my sister has a black cat plushie and it's either Pudding the girl kitty or Jess the boy kitty depending on the day) Anon said: as a kid, I definitely thought my stuffed animals (and blankets haha) were guys. I referred to them as he/him, etc. but my parents and other kids my age thought it was weird, since I was a girl, after all. even to the point where the other kids wouldn't let their animals play with mine. too bad I was a Total Rebel and preferred to play by myself anyways so I guess it all worked out Mod Rose: Hey some people do gender blankets after all. Also wow your toys were just too punk lol Anon said: That stuffed animal ask though. I never thought of mine (which I still have today at the age of 27 ahaha) as being either male or female. It was neither, and I always called it 'it' when I had to define it's gender, although I thought that seemed a bit impersonal. But other people's stuffed animals always seemed to have a gender, and I felt like mine just didn't have or need one (and still feel that way today). Rose: I have mine too at 27 and my dads. I can't just get rid of them. Lisasaegyo said: I have a a plushie in form of fox, he is dress like a sheep lmao he even have a hood with the sheep little ears you can put and take off. I always struggle with his pronouns, right now I see him as a he but... sometimes I call him she and it feels totally fine and right to call him that way. Like... I know it's odd but to me it totally normal. Also his name is White Fox and I can't sleep without him Rose: Cutee Anon: I have a stuffed animal dog that used to change genders whenever I felt necessary. I could never decide which so it just changed randomly. R: Tbh I bet this would be a good way to practice pronouns if you needed Starshipcaptainjojo: My mother used to be quite alarmed that my Giraffe is male (I'm female.) She was shocked I wanted a male stuffed animal. As if I made that choice, amirite??? He just happens to be a dude. Like my car is a dude too. Just the other day she expressed surprise when I referred to Giraffe as 'him'. I'm 28 years old. He's still male. So... guess I'm sleeping with a man every night :D R: Oh my god lol that's great Anon said: If we're still talking about stuffed animals, I had a huge dragon toy that I never gave a gender to because I didn't like how I felt when I tried to call it either. I would always switch between pronouns because I didn't know what else to call it. Anon: this is sort of related to the gender/childhood toys discussion? when i was little i loved princess and romance movies, so most of the time when i played with barbies (often) i would make up romantic stories (which, uh, Messed Me Up when i realized i was aroace tbh). except i didnt have any "ken" dolls, so i would designate certain barbies to be boys, and just say that their boobs were "bruises on their chests". it was only recently i realized id made them trans boys R: I'm torn between hell yeah trans men and how we gender things is really interesting Anon: I had a stuffed brontosaurus named Steve, and when my mom said "Oh, so he's a boy dinosaur" I told her "Nope, Steve's a dinosaur, they aren't girls or boys", and looking back I don't know how tf I didn't know I was agender. I also had a stuffed lion named Roary who was a girl, but king of the jungle Anon: I have s stuffed tiger named Tiggy (pronounced tag-Ee). I am a girl, but I knew this stuffed tiger was a boy the first time I saw him. I don't know why. When I was younger he was my best friend. I often imagined he was real. Everytime someone was mean to me he could yell, swear, and do other unladylike things. In a big way he was an extension of myself. He held my anger and rage. I don't know how much gender played into that but it is interesting to think about. R: this could be a kids book

[gabriel-the-warrior]

Looking at the old order vs the new order and pretty much all the characters that come after them and I noticed the old order kinda sucks But I just realized that the old order is based on older versions of minecraft. In older versions defeating the ender dragon was pretty much the craziest thing you could do. But as minecraft evolved so did your experiences. The new order is based on the more modern minecraft where it's a lot easier to use command blocks and mods and such So comparing the old order to what Jesse is doing now is the same as comparing the newest version of minecraft to all the other older ones

[onlymorelove]

Fic: this is not a love story (1/1)

Title: this is not a love story (1/1) Fandom: Timeless Ships: Lucy Preston/Garcia Flynn AND Lucy Preston/Wyatt Logan but no Garcyatt Rating: PG-13 Summary: Written in response to the following prompt from @timeless-fanfic-prompts : “Not all love is gentle. Sometimes it’s gritty and dirty and possessive, sometimes it’s not supposed to be careful or soft at all. Sometimes it feels like teeth." — Azra T. [Lyatt. Garcy. Yes, both. No Garcyatt.]

Read under the cut, on AO3, or at FF.net.

Tagging @timeless-fanfic-prompts even though I couldn’t get this finished before the contest deadline. :) Thanks, mods, for posting prompts! Also tagging @garcynetwork .

If you read this, thanks. Feedback is treasured; constructive criticism is welcomed.

Once upon a night in 2016 a Homeland Security agent whisked Lucy Preston away from a bitter conversation with her sister about how the university had denied her tenure, to an industrial gray and black waiting room at Mason Industries. A man, a stranger, leaned back in a chair on the other side of the room, his eyes closed as if asleep. Short, dark hair stippled his jaw. His booted feet lounged on a glass-topped table as if he was just someone relaxing at home. She envied him his obvious ease. Why had Agent Kondo brought her there? Had she done something wrong? She fingered her locket and tried to ignore the way her nerves pinged, her stomach churned, and her knee wanted to jiggle up and down. OK, so maybe she had an unpaid campus parking ticket lying in the console of her car, but— “Are you asleep?”

In her head, she’d already dubbed the man in the jeans and boots Sleepy. “No, ma’am,” Sleepy said.

“Oh. Okay, good. This is Connor Mason’s company? Do you know why we’re here?”  

“No idea, ma’am.”

“You know, we're pretty much the same age, so you can just stop calling me ma'am.”

Sleepy’s eyes opened, beaming all their blues at her.

Lucy blinked. Oh, she thought. Maybe she’d have to reconsider that nickname.

His mouth arced in a slow, lopsided smile. Lucy inhaled sharply. Oh, she thought again.

The first time she saw him it was on a computer screen. Coal-dark hair, green eyes, and a slender, unsmiling mouth. She shivered but could not look away.

“Garcia Flynn, ex-NSA asset in Eastern Europe,” Agent Christopher said.

“Ex since when?” Wyatt asked.

“Since he killed his wife and child and went off the grid. That was a year ago. We thought he was holed up in Chechnya, but apparently not.”

What kind of man murdered his wife and child?

It was with the flaming skeleton of the Hindenburg dying next to them, pandemonium and screams puncturing the night air, that she stood with Garcia Flynn for the first time. He loomed out of the darkness, a tall creature wreathed in shadow.

“It’s time we talked,” he said, and the charcoal-smudge impression in front of Lucy resolved into a man. A tower of a man holding a gun trained in her direction. She had to tilt her chin up to meet his blistering gaze, while he tipped his down. Firelight burnished his hair red. The two-dimensional image Agent Christopher had shown her had not prepared her for the weight and vibrancy of Flynn’s presence. “You need to understand who and what we’re dealing with,” he said. His eyes traced her face as if seeking an answer to a question she didn’t know how to ask yet.

His voice, she knew it—had heard it ring out across the barren landscape of her dreams, even if she had never met its owner before. The rough timbre of his speech and the way he elongated his A’s—all of that was familiar to her in a way that defied understanding. “I understand that you’re a psychopath trying to burn everything to the ground,” she said, ashamed at the tremor in her voice.

“Well, that depends on your point of view, Lucy.” Her name slipped from his lips like a caress—the murmur of a thumb stroked over the top of her hand.

Babylon burned all around them, and this man, this stranger with the voice and the eyes she knew somehow— This man was responsible. Terrorist, they called him. Danger, her mind whispered, here there be dragons. Ignoring the klaxon that blared in her head, shoving aside all common sense and logic, Lucy stepped closer to him. “How do you know my name?”

“I know everything about you.”

He held open a book, a journal, and showed her pages filled with her own handwriting. Of course she recognized her own penmanship, but how could that be, when she possessed no memory of writing the words? Impossible, and yet… Hadn’t she journeyed on a ship back through time?

“Do you believe in fate?” Robert Todd Lincoln asked her at a train station in 1865. Did she?

Flynn found her there, fresh from her encounter with Lincoln. Lincoln, upright and handsome in his dress blues. Lincoln, with the soft gleam in his eyes.

In daylight Flynn was all formidable lines and stern angles, his hands folded stiffly behind his back. His nose was a touch too long; his mouth sat tense and unforgiving. Only a few feet separated them as she cursed him for being the reason for her sister’s disappearance.

He didn’t hold her there with a gun this time. No, this time he pinned her with only the electric flare of his eyes. He arrested her. The elegant score of his eyebrows beneath his creased forehead captivated her in a way it should not as he threw around words like Rittenhouse, war, and future.

If there was any softness in this man, her eyes could not find it.

But her ears heard it every time he uttered her name.

“Lucy, one day you are going to help me,” he said and wrapped the sound of her name in that silken familiarity. A wave of warmth, wholly unwanted, cascaded over her as if Flynn had touched her.  

She wanted him to touch her.

Beyond all logic and reason, in defiance of all the sense her mother had tried to instill in her, Lucy wanted to touch Flynn, this strange man with phantoms and future trajectories and vengeance in his eyes. She could cut herself on the dagger point of his lips and not care that she bled. The skin on her palms craved the harsh geometry of his face, so she argued twice as hard, her tone strident and brutal, teeth snapping, antagonizing Flynn even as she questioned the wisdom of doing so.

His large hand closed hard around the fine bones of her wrist, light catching on the gold ring that encircled his fourth finger. Thus manacled, Lucy fought back the tears of humiliation that suddenly clouded her vision.

If there was any softness in this man, her eyes could not find it.

In 1865 Lucy flirted her way into an invitation to Ford’s Theater with Robert Todd Lincoln. She donned a white gown sprinkled with silvery blue flowers, and when she came out from behind the changing screen she watched Wyatt’s lips echo that same half-smile from the night they met. Strands of his hair slashed down across his forehead, and her fingers twitched with the traitorous impulse to push them back.

Flynn shot Abraham Lincoln in front of her that night; his blood christened her dress in a macabre series of Rorschach blots.

Blood brutalized her dress.

Blood marked her skin.

Blood thrummed thick and fast in her ears.

“I decided I was gonna let it happen. But then I called out to warn him. It was too late. It's one thing to talk about history like this abstract thing. But when the man gets shot right in front of you… I tried,” she said in an effort to convince herself she had done her utmost to save Abraham Lincoln’s life. The words offered her no solace as she recounted her tale to Rufus and Wyatt in the half-dark interior of the Lifeboat. Lucy’s throat closed up and she found she couldn’t continue. Wordless and heavy, she floundered in a vast sea of guilt and grief.

Until Wyatt’s hand curled over hers, knuckles resting on her blood-stiffened clothing.

In the welcome pressure of his hand, the steady warmth of his gaze, and the steadfast bow of his mouth, she found an anchor.

In 1962 she listened to Wyatt dictate a telegram to send his dead wife in 2012. (Time travel—its risks, its paradoxes, all of it—raked her thoughts into hopeless knots. But the human heart and its capacity to expand, to contract, to shatter, and continue beating, well, these were timeless things.) Over the irregular click clack of the typewriter keys, Wyatt’s voice trudged on, its cadence shaky and tinged navy with sadness.

This moment, she hadn’t meant to witness it, and the guilt of intruding on her teammate’s privacy licked hot at her skin. Then he turned around and caught her watching him; he donned his armor, made a joke and strode away from her. But his eyes shone too bright; his head hung too low, and he had no other easy quip or crooked smile to offer her. All his other masks fell away while anguish sheathed his features like a second skin, and she could not let him leave.

“Wyatt.”

“I know what you’re going to say.”

“No, you don’t. Look. I understand. I would do anything to get my sister back.”

“Look, I’m sorry about before. I get it’s your job, keeping history the way it’s meant to be. I don’t believe in ‘meant to be,’ though, or fate, or anything like that, and if you knew how Jess died...You would know there’s no such thing. It’s all just dumb luck and random chance. It’s just a roll of the dice.”

Wyatt’s voice reverberated with old pain; she recognized it. With her sister’s loss still a fresh injury, she felt a certain kinship with him.

That was when Lucy began to believe in ghosts.

1836 found Lucy and her team chasing Flynn to the Alamo Mission in what was then still Mexico. Hundreds would die there. Hundreds of souls burned white-hot and true, souls just like hers or Rufus’ or Wyatt’s, then flickered, before they were finally snuffed out. It didn’t get easier, riding a metal bucket of bolts and vibrations through history to witness life’s end over and over again and knowing she shouldn’t do much, if anything at all, to alter history’s tragic outcomes. Contemplating these ethical dilemmas for too long would lead, she knew with a bone-deep certainty, to insanity.

There in 1836, while the dry wind flicked sandy soil into her skirts, Lucy peeled back more of the mysteries that lay behind Wyatt’s blue eyes. Six men—his men—all soldiers like him, had died so he could complete his mission and carry out crucial intelligence. She overheard him confess this to Colonel Bowie. Yet another private moment she shouldn’t have witnessed, though honesty made her admit, if only to herself, that she didn’t regret it. Couldn’t regret it. Because she wanted to know Master Sergeant Wyatt Logan, and every piece of his history she learned was a dot in the Pointillist painting that would eventually reveal his complete image.

Fine grains of soil clung to Lucy’s skin as musket and rifle fire thundered around her. Until recently, war had seemed an abstract entity, a mirage shimmering hot in the distance: something fought in distant lands or at least distant times. Now, though, war was this, a man who could not forget:

“I'm not going,” Wyatt said.

“What? No. What do you mean?” “You don't need me. They're getting rid of me anyway, right?”

Lucy looked at him in horror. “You can't stay here. Everybody dies.”

“No, I know. I can't leave good men like this, not again.”

Wyatt Logan was a good man, too; he acted as her sword and her shield and Lucy would not leave him behind to perish with everyone else left at the Alamo Mission. “No. No, Wyatt.”

“What difference does it make? Jessica, everyone I care about is gone. Let me do one good thing. Let me buy you the time to get out.”

Jessica. He was so mired in his own grief and memories that he had called her by another woman’s name.

“What about us? We're counting on you,” Lucy said, desperate to convince him.

“The next guy's gonna handle it.”

“I don't want anybody else. Look, I trust you. You are the one that I trust. Rufus needs you. I need you. Okay?” Her lips formed the words she thought would be the right ones to persuade him. Underscoring her words, she fit her hands to his face and let their warmth and pressure guide Wyatt out of the past and forward into the present. I need you.

1934 took them to Arkansas—and Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Their love affair was doomed, Lucy knew, and seeing them together was... difficult. Their desire for each other was so stark, so vivid, that Lucy had to ignore the hot blood she felt flood her cheeks and force herself: to look at them when they spoke and to go through all the right motions to maintain her and Wyatt’s cover. Bonnie and Clyde wanted each other, and that want was almost a tangible, visible thing, a circuit of raw hunger cycling back and forth between them. Watching them was torture. Wyatt spoke up in a low, gruff rumble. He spun a tale about himself kneeling on a hill in West Texas in front of the woman he loved, with a ring box in his hand and the sunset as a witness. There was a kiss, he told them, a kiss he’d never forget. Lucy knew he told the truth; this story was his story—his and Jessica’s. It was— It was something about the way his eyes turned remote, suspended in memory, and his body grew still. Finally, when Lucy was sure she could not bear it any longer, Wyatt turned to her and said, “You remember that, honey?”

It was all she could do to stutter out a “Yeah” and hope her nervous laugh didn’t give them away to Bonnie and Clyde.

Then he kissed her, stealing her surprised breath into his lungs. His palm found a home on the curve of her cheek as if they had done this a thousand times before. Through the whirling chaos in her mind and her body Lucy reminded herself that this, this was pretend. She fought to remain academic. She fought to divorce herself from the intimacy of pressing her mouth to Wyatt’s, especially since she couldn’t even count how many months it had been since she had last shared space and breath with someone like that.

It didn’t matter that Wyatt tasted faintly of hooch and of light—of sunlight filtered through a damp forest canopy of green leaves awakening in springtime. The grains of light hair on his jaw tickled her fingertips. Lucy wanted to slide her hand into his hair and curve it around his skull. I need you so much closer.

It didn’t matter. Her fingers quivered on the hard line of his jaw. This was acting. Nothing more.

In 1780 Lucy, Rufus, and Wyatt teamed up, unbelievably, with Flynn. Crisp early-autumn air slid its cool fingers under Lucy’s wine-dark cloak while she listened to Flynn murmur to their horses as he helped them slake their thirst. “Hey, buddy.” She blinked at the gentle, slip-slide lilt in his voice.  Perhaps she’d imagined it. But, no, there it was once again as he tended the animals. Those tones, overflowing with affection and warm splashes of color, were ones she had never heard from him before.

If there was any softness in this man, her eyes could not find it.

But her ears, oh her ears, they found it.

She swallowed hard and tried to shake off her desire to curl up against that kind voice like a cat dozing in a puddle of afternoon sunlight.

“I wanted to be a cowboy growing up,” he said. Growing up. They’d all had to do it. She’d never considered, though, that Garcia Flynn had once been a child, too. Did he have nightmares when he was little? Who had stroked the dark hair from his forehead and soothed him back to sleep? His mother? His father? And what had he looked like as a little boy? Had those solemn green eyes always held so much torment? His face must have been fuller and held more softness back then….

Flynn continued speaking, tugging her from her musings as he told her about some comics he’d read as a child. Terms like “good guys” and “bad guys” fell from his lips, and Lucy silently asked, Which do you think you are—a good guy or a bad guy?

Lucy discovered she hungered for more knowledge of him. It wasn’t fair that he knew so much about her from a journal that she, or rather some version of her, had written. It added a strange, one-sided layer of intimacy to their interactions. The imbalance troubled her. This was the most open he had ever been with her. Who knew when he would slam the door shut and bolt it from the other side?  She decided to take advantage of the moment. “If we take out Rittenhouse, then what will you do?”

“Go home to my family. They'll be alive again. Let my little girl jump into my arms. Hug my wife. And then say goodbye and walk away forever.”

That he had responded at all rather than shaking off her question altogether sent a surge of shock through her. “What? You would just... you would just leave them after all that we've been through?”

“Chasing Rittenhouse, I've done horrible things... become something else. How can I bring that into my home? What kind of husband or... or a father can I be after what I've done?”

Without meaning to, Flynn had even answered the question she had not dared to ask aloud: Which do you think you are—a good guy or a bad guy?

Flynn had immolated history and stood ready to throw himself on the pyre as well simply to put his family back in the world. He didn’t intend to share a life with them; he only wanted to know they were alive. Without him.

A pang of melancholy sounded somewhere in the deep recesses of the small muscle that pumped blood through Lucy’s body. Had anyone ever loved her as much as Flynn loved his wife and daughter? Would anyone? Would she ever love someone that much?

Flynn pointed his gun at John Rittenhouse, a boy, a person whose only crime was being born to the wrong man.

There was no other choice: Lucy put herself between Flynn and the boy. Though she had no sword, she could be a shield; she would be a shield. “I’m not letting you kill a child,” she said, and that was it: She understood now that the war she and Rufus and Wyatt fought was against Rittenhouse, not Flynn, but she could not remain a bystander in that moment. She wasn’t fool enough to think she was Flynn’s conscience, but she believed— She had to believe that he still had his own conscience, buried beneath layers of silt and rock and the misery of someone who had lost everything and found that yes, he could go still go on living.

She searched his face—absorbed the lines of strain around his mouth and eyes, and the unsteadiness of his shooting arm. “You have a choice right now. We all have choices… You can go back, but not if you do this.”

It was finished, or nearly so: Ethan Cahill, her grandfather, had come through for her. For all of them. Because of his meticulous notes and records, the authorities had arrested 150 Rittenhouse members. She’d make one last trip on the Lifeboat and get her sister back. Soon she and Amy and their mother would be reunited. Life would go back to normal, and they’d be a real family, a whole family, once again. The thought should have filled Lucy with exhilaration and joy, and it did. But those emotions sat side by side with a sensation of dread as she remembered her final exchange with Flynn when he’d been arrested and dragged away to a military prison:

“No! No! I trusted you, Lucy. I trusted you with my family. I trusted you with my child!”

“I’m sorry!” she’d said, aware of how hollow the words rang even as she spoke them. She hadn’t known that Agent Christopher had followed her to her rendezvous with Flynn, but she should have. Her naivete had cost him his chance to get his family back.

“Oh, you're sorry? You're sorry? You have no idea what you've done!”

The situation had twisted so quickly, and Lucy had no power to fix it. Only minutes before, he’d handed her the journal, her journal. His lips had curved in a smile then, a real smile that wiped the harshness and rigidity from his face and replaced it with something soft and almost...vulnerable. It was so unlike the dangerous copy of a smile he usually wielded like both a weapon and a wound that Lucy had smiled back, helpless to do anything else.

No matter what paths her future might take, that smile would haunt her.

“How do you think I met your father?” Lucy’s mother said. “We both come from good, strong Rittenhouse families. And that almost makes you royalty. Sweetheart, you've made me so proud. You've made everybody so proud. You have such... such an incredible future.”

Her mother was Rittenhouse. Her father was Rittenhouse. Ergo she was Rittenhouse as well. Her mother said there was a Rittenhouse agent on the Mothership. Nothing was over. Nothing was finished.

Lucy’s stomach roiled, the sour taste of bile surging inside her mouth. Her hand clapped over her mouth as she wrenched herself away from her mother and the obscene sheen of pride singing in her opaque blue gaze. She raced upstairs to her bathroom, silently cursing her clumsiness when she stumbled on a step and went down hard, her knees and shin taking the brunt of the damage.

(Everything she and her teammates had done, every life they’d either taken or been unable to save,  every single principle Flynn had violated—all of it had been for naught.)

When Lucy made it to the bathroom the porcelain of the toilet was a cool benediction under her clammy fingertips, and she clung to it as she lost the fight with her stomach and everything she’d eaten that day poured out into the toilet bowl. She retched until she was sure nothing lingered in her stomach--nothing but a tangled skein of betrayal. Still, her body heaved, the floor unforgiving against her kneecaps. On shaky feet, she stood, the ground beneath her rolling like a boat on choppy waters.

Run, said a voice in her head. Just run. But where—and to whom? Flynn would understand her confusion and her anger; he would feed the latter until it sent fingers of flame reaching to the sky. Moreover, he would know what to do next. He would know best how to attack Rittenhouse.

But Flynn was no longer an option; he sat in prison, and it was her fault, at least in part. She couldn’t blame him for thinking of that, even though she hadn’t knowingly betrayed him. Oh god, Lucy thought. What if her parents were directly responsible for the murders of Flynn’s wife and daughter? Nausea crashed over her again, so she shoved those thoughts aside and stuffed them into a box to examine later. Or maybe never.

Lucy trudged to her bedroom and yanked at various drawers until she found her journals, both the one Flynn had given her (returned to her?) and the one her mother had gifted her. She threw them in a bag and left the house, not pausing again until she sat behind the wheel of her car. Sweat beaded on her upper lip, and her blazer felt like it was strangling her.  She tore it off as quickly as she could and tossed it on the passenger seat. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel until the leather creaked and her knuckles whitened with strain.

Lies. Lies. So many lies. Her grandfather had lived a life of lies, danger, and subterfuge, all because she had asked him to. He had sacrificed his happiness. And for what?

She breathed through her nose, scrambling for calm; she didn't find it. With a sigh that ruffled the locks of hair that had fallen into her sweat-damp face, Lucy released the steering wheel and fumbled for her phone.

She sent Wyatt a text.   Pls meet me at your place.

It felt like years passed while she waited for his response. What’s up? You OK?

Eyes closed, she pictured Wyatt sitting in the upstairs conference room or maybe the locker room at Mason Industries, eyeing his phone with a frown creasing his forehead. Was she OK?

She typed a response before she could think better of it. No. I need you.

Her phone chimed with his reply mere seconds later. On my way.

Why bother with preamble? Lucy thought, pushing past Wyatt into the hallway of his apartment as soon as he opened the door to her rapid series of knocks. “My mother is Rittenhouse.”

Wyatt blinked rapidly. “What?”

“My mother”—she shoved her hands into her hair and tugged until her scalp smarted and tears sprang to her eyes—“is Rittenhouse, Wyatt. I'm an idiot. The world’s biggest moron. God, how could I not see it? She’s been lying this whole time. She’s been lying my whole life. ” Lucy tossed the last words over her shoulder like a grenade as she stalked to his living room. She knew she was talking too fast, everything rushing out in a confusing torrent, but she couldn't stop.“My mom’s Rittenhouse. My fa—” Eyes screwed tight, she paused in her tirade and shook her head before continuing.

“Whoa. Take a breath. Slow down, Lucy—”

“My biological father is Rittenhouse.” Her voice shook and she hated it—hated herself—for the weakness. She folded her arms in front of her chest and paced in front of Wyatt’s brown leather couch. Head down she stared at the worn hardwood floor and stalked five steps one way before she spun on her heel and stalked five steps the other way. Click click click click click went the heels of her sensible, low-heeled black shoes. The floor started to blur into a golden brown streak. She inhaled an unsteady breath. “It’s in my blood…And my sister is gone and my mother doesn't care. She's known all this time and it doesn't matter to her. How can her daughter not matter to her?”

A floorboard creaked. There was a shift, of energy, of presence, then Wyatt stepped up behind her. Gentle fingers curled around her biceps; warm breath stirred her hair. Wyatt turned her until she faced him. Still, her gaze remained downcast, focused on the contrast between the curved toes of her shoes and Wyatt’s naked feet. They looked...oddly vulnerable, in a way that made her throat tighten. “Is my whole life just a series of false choices my parents designed for me?” Lucy asked, her voice quiet. “Have they… Has Rittenhouse been the puppeteer all this time, and I've just been the fucking puppet?” Her voice rose; Wyatt’s hands tightened on her arms. “I don't know what's real and what's a lie. I don't… I don’t know who I am,” she said, an unwelcome catch in her voice. Her gaze finally lifted to meet Wyatt’s.

His eyes were somber and calm as they watched her steadily, and she was glad she had gone there—gone to him. “We’ll figure things out,” he said, and she nodded, because she had faith in him, even if she couldn't quite believe his words just yet. “It’s OK, Lucy. Luce,” Wyatt said, moving a hand from her arm to the back of her neck, “hey, I know who you are.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “I know who you are,” he said again, his breath puffing against her skin as he tilted her chin, leaned in, and kissed her.

She made a small sound in her throat, then stumbled backward in an effort to put some distance between them. Her hand rose to her throat. “No,” she said into the horrible silence, pained by the stark lines of shock and embarrassment she caught on Wyatt’s face. Right before her eyes, his expression shuttered, the openness that had been there scant moments before hidden by one of his masks. She was responsible for that, and she hated herself despite the necessity. Something aching and hollow opened in her stomach. “I'm...I’m so sorry, Wyatt. I just—” It had been their first kiss or at least the first one that wasn’t done for show, and she had ruined it because she had to. “It’s not you. We just can't do this right now.”

A few hours ago Wyatt had talked about focusing on the present and being open to possibilities. Of course she'd known what he was hinting at, and a part of her had been happy, even as Flynn’s face had flashed into her mind, filling her with sadness, guilt—and something else she might never be ready to face. That was before, when they had thought their work as a team was complete. That was before she had talked to her mother. Squaring her shoulders, she looked him directly in the eyes; they owed each other that much. “My mom said she and Rittenhouse are proud of me. I don't trust myself or my actions right now. How do I know I'm not doing exactly what they want me to do?”

“Lucy why would Rittenhouse care if we...if we kiss?”

“I don’t know.” She rubbed at her forehead, at the tightness there. “I don’t know, Wyatt. Maybe they wouldn’t. But I can’t… No, we can’t focus on”—Lucy waved a hand between them—“this right now.” She gasped and raised a hand, intending to touch his arm, but he retreated a step. Her hand dropped back to her side, heavy as a boulder. “We need to call Agent Christopher. Wyatt, my mother said someone from Rittenhouse is on the Mothership. ” It should have been the first thing she’d said when Wyatt let her into his apartment, but she’d been upset and… No, there was no good excuse. She’d simply messed up.

Wyatt’s phone rang. Lucy’s followed a few seconds later. “Logan,” Wyatt answered, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah. Uh huh. Got it. Lucy’s… here. On our way.”  After he hung up, he said, “That was Agent Christopher. Your mom was telling the truth; someone does have the Mothership. Emma. Let’s go.” He turned and started to walk away, shoulders hunched, and every step he took seemed to take him miles from her. “Wyatt,” she said softly, and he paused, “I really am sorry. I’m not trying to hurt you. It’s not the right time, and—”

“Forget it, ma’am,” he said, interrupting her and waving away her apology. He smiled, but it was brittle and didn’t reach those beautiful blue eyes she— “We’ve got a briefing to get to.” With that, he disappeared into his bedroom.

Like a puppet whose strings had just been cut, Lucy collapsed onto the couch and closed her eyes, her body and spirit leaden, and waited for Wyatt to return so they could head back to Mason Industries.