#just a friendly little shootout

[southern-stark]

Aggressive Negotiations

My Mando OC, Elayne, having a “civil” conversation with some rather friendly pirates.

[Artwork done by Rowan on Instagram]

[solannn]

Hi!! Can I request a male! reader x boten Where the reader is a waiter at their favorite restraint for gangs/mafia whatever and Mikey takes a liking to him but they find out he’s only doing the job because he’s a single father, and they want to keep him (not super good with translating my ideas sorry)- 🦇 anon

ᥫ᭡ 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐋𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑! ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁

⤷ male reader and single father of a child named “Myrei”, she is kind, and love her father.

[Name] saw a potentially dangerous man enter the bar, with his gang members, he assumed. It was the first time they had visited the large and incredibly beautiful bar where he had worked here for several years. The boy's men probably hide a weapon in their pockets if there's a problem, most of the gangs do this, and sometimes it's just that he has a shootout because of a quarrel started by a drunk man who ends up dead. the end. [Name] thought their boss was the man with short white hair, he was short but his appearance could be deceiving, but they could also be wrong about him being a boss.

The waiter tried to concentrate on his customers, but the imposing aura of the armed men scared him. He was used to this kind of situation, but he felt like he'd seen it somewhere on his television late at night. After wondering their name its suddenly came to mind, Bonten, something like that. They were one of the most dangerous organizations in Japan, inviting prostitutes and killing them after having pleasuring time them, cruelty towards others human being, and much more. For them it was like a hobby that entertained them, but [Name] hated that kind of person. So, to protect his life he decided not to say too much that could cause a general fight.

He wanted to avoid them at all costs before his manager told him that these men were men who deserved lust and merit to flatter their immense egos, so he asked him to serve them drinks, food, and everything what they wished they had. [Name] was flattered that his presence was lustful, but he was also uncomfortable talking to them but his manager comforted him by putting his hand on his shoulder telling him. "I know how you feel, but unfortunately you are the only one qualified to talk to people at such levels." [Name] sighed, he puffed out his chest a little and thanked his comrade who had just comforted him. He walked towards the table of men, they were all different from each other, one seemed drugged to the point of stupidity, one depressed, one who was probably arrogant, one with a neutral expression and others.

“Hello gentlemen, what can we offer you today.” He asked them and made his famous smile known by his comrades or the customers who came each time. He tried to appear friendly, and pretended to be pure and innocent, he wanted them to have pity for him but they probably didn't have any, but he still tried to seduce them. He waited for their answers for a few seconds before a man with long, white hair asked him. “what is boeuf bourgignon?” he pronounced the word wrong, but with a smile [Name] answered him. "boeuf bourguignon is a dish of beef braised in red wine, and served with a garnish of pearl onions, mushrooms and bacon. It is one of the most popular dishes in France made by a French-Japanese chef." he replied, detailing the appearance of the meat and its garnish. the man nodded and said "I'll take that then." he grinned back, [Name] noted as he took out a paper and a style from his pocket to wrote it.

“I would like a dorayaki.” No, it wasn't a request but an order, he could tell the difference between that. It was simple to distinguish, he kept a smile and wrote his order. After taking their orders one added. “Get me some wine, one of the best from here.” [Name] scratched his neck, and nodded. “of course sir, everything will be in order.” he addressed them before leaving towards the restaurant counter. "Hey Boss, I'm not feeling this place. I'm not having fun." He stretched while taking another drug, to relax. "Their boss didn't say anything, he was just hungry. He glanced to his left, and saw the waiter talking on the phone with someone. He had a smile soft, and not forced when in front of him.

“Kokonoi.” He called one of his members coldly. The boy became tense, he looked at his boss and said. “Yes, sir?” Who is this waiter we saw a few minutes ago? "mhm, I think his name is [Name] Bonavich, he is 27 years old, he has been working in a bar, restaurant for a few years so that his daughter has a good education and other things. He is a single father we will say." he tells Mikey, his boss, the boy's information. Before coming here, he looked for data on the people working in this popular place.

the waiter came towards them again after about thirty minutes of discussion with their meal in hand. Their dish was quite heavy to bear but he pretended it wasn't and placed their meal on the table. “Enjoy your appetite, sir.” He smiled but before leaving, the person who wanted to avoid everything grabbed his arm to say something to him. Their members were surprised by Mikey's sudden gesture, maybe he had a deal with him and was going to kill him. [Name] stressed a little, praying that he wouldn't ask anything strange like being his prostitute or something. “Yes?” he cleared his throat at the same time.

“after i eat you will come in my car, you will be my own waiter for bonten only.” The boy with dark circles under his eyes ordered him shut, without any expression on his face. "oh! ohm..of course." His day was ruined, his daughter was probably waiting for him at home and maybe she wanted to play before going to sleep. He walked towards the bar counter and went into the break room where his friends and his manager were. "people! I'm a dead man!" He whispered, carrying his voice a little so he could hear it. “ehh why.” a girl with extravagant makeup that stood out from the criteria of the Japanese beauty standard stated it was gyaru makeup. She dyed her hair red, to stand out even more. "what are you doing darling? probably isn’t someone as coolish as me ihh" she spoke mockingly not taking the situation to heart. “Shut up Ameyru! Let him talk.” An androgynous boy told her to shut up, she did but she rolled her eyes. "you see the Bonten, they are here and their boss asked me to become their personal waiter--" Ameyru laughed.

"lol! wait what! kyaaaa... these guys are creepy if you don't do your right job you're ekkkkk" at the end of her sentence she made the zombie noise, and with her thumb she pretended to slit her throat. The manager was shocked at the revelation and didn't know what to say. "I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do about it," he felt unable to say another word. The androgynous boy next to him put his hand on his shoulder. "Kyoru.." he whispered, making him smile a little. Ameryu stopped laughing and took it seriously. "I'm sorry too, yikes! they are the most horrendous human ya know.." she said, knowing that if he left, she would miss him immensely. "wahhh!!! it's horrible.!" she said running towards her friend and grabbed him with a hug

"I'm sad, super. Hey Ryuba you will console me right." the haired boy nodded. "I'll try if you don't break my mind," he sighed and rushed to hug his friend, Kyoru joined them too. "mhh, and to think that you've been here for 9 years, we could have reached 10 years of anniversary of you working here.. “awhh guys." [Name] was touched by their words almost having tears in his eyes. when he was released from the hug, he greeted them, perhaps for the last time and left. "Ameyru is depressed.." tears ran down her puffy cheek "ugh.."

When he returned to the room where the gang was he saw blood on the floor. Someone was eliminated, but he had not heard the sound of a gun, perhaps a knife murder. The man was a customer who was probably drunk, he walked over and noticed that Bonten had finished eating. Mikey waited patiently for the boy, he walked towards the leader without saying a word.

He left the restaurant, letting himself go for fear of dying. One of the members opened the door for him, and he stepped inside and sighed. He moved to the back of the car, and the others got in. They were almost all crammed in, but the car was wide enough to fit a little. Stressed out by this long, boring moment while the driver drove the car, he needed something to sink his teeth into. He wanted to take his cigarette but unfortunately he'd left it on the counter.

He left the restaurant, letting himself go for fear of dying. One of the members opened the door for him, and he stepped inside and sighed. He moved to the back of the car, and the others got in. They were almost all crammed in, but the car was wide enough to fit a little. Stressed out by this long, boring moment while the driver drove the car, he needed something to sink his teeth into. He wanted to take his cigarette but unfortunately he'd left it on the counter.

It was a long trip, and [name] was worried because he recognized the road he was driving on his way home. The driver stopped in front of his destination, his apartment building. His heart stopped and his eyes widened as he wondered what would happen to his child. One of the members got out of the car and went to the apartment. [Name] started to speak, but a man put a gun to his head. "He said, "If you dare say anything, I'll shoot you in the face.”He threatened to shoot him, but he quickly shut up. In the back of his mind, he sighed so as not to draw attention to himself. The minutes were long, very long, he felt as if they had stopped an hour ago. He looked out the window to his left, watching the people passing by, afraid of the car. Probably wondering if they were going to die too.

A few minutes passed and the tension grew. When one of the members returned, he had a sleeping child in his arms. He walked around the car to the left door, opened it, and handed [name] his child. He took her under his shoulders and put her on his lap. He rested his head on her chest, but a question lingered in the back of his mind: did he kill the babysitter he'd hired years ago, or was he showing compassion? Preferring not to answer, he stroked his child's head with a faint smile.

His child was sleeping peacefully, as if someone had rocked him to sleep. This made [Name] happy, but he didn't want to show it to a gang, so he decided to save his smile for his daughter. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw the dejected look on the boss's face, so he quickly looked away, not wanting to see his expression. The gang began to talk among themselves, fed up with the tension caused by Mikey's pressure. The little man said nothing, remaining completely silent.

He felt a sudden urge to sleep. His eyelids grew heavy with each blink, and he put his hand over his mouth and yawned. He told himself it was late, 23 in his opinion. At 11 p.m., the lights went out in the small town and he could see people enjoying themselves with their friends. He sighed one last time, clutched his child, and fell asleep, unable to help himself.

──────

He woke up suddenly, his eyes wide open. "Is this a nightmare?" he asked himself, but no. The place he was in wasn't his home; it was too big for a one-person room. The room was almost as big as his apartment. "They're filthy rich...after all, they're a mafia..." he muttered and looked around, not seeing his child. He stood up and rushed to the door. He opened it abruptly and left the room, nothing as he stepped out onto a wide red carpeted staircase. He also had a view of the living room. "..." he didn't know what to say, amazed at the size of this mansion. He heard a child's playful cry at the bottom of the stairs. Running up and down the stairs as if his life depended on it, he looked to his left and saw Myrei, her child playing with one of the members? He wasn't sure if it was a babysitter, but it had a remarkable tattoo. He walked towards them, his daughter smiling as she saw him approach. "Daddy!!!" She couldn't help but scream.

She was so overly excited that she gave her trust to the person in front of him. A man with black hair and a huge scar on his face, [Name], glared at him while carrying his child. "I assure you, I'm not here to hurt anyone on behalf of the boss." He was admitting the truth, their boss? No, he wasn't dreaming, and he didn't seem to be lying. [Name] sighed and let go of Myrei. "Oh dad, no need to worry, he's super super nice the Mr.!!! The others were cool with their shots too!!!" Myrei was only 6 years old, she didn't know what she was saying, she was just a child and she was being manipulated. Negative thoughts invaded his mind and lowered his impressions of the Mafia, even if they were already low enough.

After a brief discussion between the two adults, [Name] felt an icy hand on his shoulder and arched his back at the sensation. He was about to say something insulting, but he stopped himself and turned his head to see Mikey, the boy with short white hair. "I put your clothes that were at home in the closet and the uniform is on your bed, if you've seen it." He said his coldly, showing no mercy, but deep inside he was interested in him without realizing it. “Oh okay.. I’ll prepare myself than.”

──────

After getting ready in the bedroom, the boss waited patiently outside his door. He gasped slightly and bowed in respect. Mikey told him there was no point in bowing and asked him to follow him to his office. He followed with a fake smile on his lips. When they entered the room, Mikey sat down on a rather large and comfortable chair. While [Name] sat on a chair probably made of rusty metal because it creaked. Mikey handed him a piece of paper that showed how much he would be charged. [Name] looked at it for a moment before taking it and reading it. He was shocked, the amount was huge, he could live luxuriously on it every month. The man in the black t-shirt and pants didn't know what to say, but he appreciated [Name]'s smile, it reminded him of someone so close to him. He pushed his memories away, trying not to connect the past with the present.

"I like your genuine smile." Mikey stated it bluntly. [Name] stopped celebrating the money in his head and tilted his head, surprised by the remark. Had he been smiling? He hadn't even noticed. "Oh, thank you!" He smiled even more, a pink blush appearing on his cheek, he didn't know why he was blushing because he should be used to this kind of compliment, but coming from him, it felt strange.

[caspiansinclair]

TKM KANDREW QUOTES:

- Andrew being described as being: "fiercely protective and territorial of Kevin”

- "He wanted to send Kevin away, but Andrew would never let him get that far without a guard."

- "He'd trusted Neil with Kevin because Kevin was important to both of them"

- "Kevin became a permanent fixture at Andrew's side"

- "Andrew collected Kevin on his way back to Neil's side"

- "The last time Andrew looked a breath away from killing someone Neil had used Kevin as a distraction"

- "If Kevin got pounced Andrew would get involved. He dragged Kevin around the brawl instead so Andrew could see he was all right."

- "Andrew flicked his fingers in dismissal. ‘He knew what would happen if he laid a hand on Kevin, yet he was stupid enough to do it twice. If he does it again I will not be as friendly.’”

- "The last time Andrew looked a breath away from killing someone Neil had used Kevin as a distraction."

- the whole choking thing. sobs. kandrew angst

- "Andrew stayed behind to keep an eye on Kevin,"

- "Andrew stayed behind like Neil knew he would; Kevin needed Andrew more than Neil did today."

- " Andrew was conserving all his energy for Kevin's quiet meltdown,"

- "This wasn't a practice anymore; it was a fight. Andrew was trying to cut Kevin off at the pass, and Kevin was daring Andrew to keep up somehow. Exy had been a raw point between them since they'd met. It was the critical part of their friendship Andrew refused to acknowledge and Kevin couldn't fix, a dream Andrew wouldn't believe in and Kevin couldn't give up on. This was a shootout years in the making, and Neil could barely breathe as he watched them struggle. Neil could see their tempers starting to flare in the little things, a jerk of Kevin's racquet here and there and the increasing viciousness of Andrew's deflections. It was inevitable that Kevin would win. Even left-handed, Kevin put too much of himself into his practices to lose to Andrew here. Andrew had all the raw talent to be a champion but none of the finesse; he couldn't beat Kevin with sheer force alone. When Kevin landed five shots in a row, he dropped his racquet and stomped toward the goal. Andrew put his racquet to his shoulder and watched him come. Neil expected Kevin to start yelling. Instead Kevin caught the grill of Andrew's helmet and slammed him back against the goal wall. Neil flinched and started for the door, knowing he'd be too late to stop Andrew from gutting Kevin but needing to try. Halfway there he stopped, because Andrew hadn't moved. His fist was at his side in an aborted punch and he hadn't even thrown Kevin off of him. He simply stood there and listened to whatever Kevin was snarling in his face. At length Kevin let go and turned away. Andrew shoved him in the back with the butt of his racquet hard enough Kevin stumbled and stepped up to the goal line again. A few seconds later they were back at it as if nothing had ever happened, and they kept going until Kevin finally had to sit down."

- idk. but i felt the need to put this in here: "Kevin turned and walked away. The interviewer stared after him for an endless moment, then spun back toward the camera and started rambling away about everything Kevin had just said. Neil and Andrew didn't stick around for the recap or bewildered speculating but followed close behind Kevin. Kevin didn't slow or look around on his way to the locker room, and he pushed right past his celebrating teammates in the foyer. He dropped his helmet and gloves on his way across the changing room and caught hold of the edge of the sink. He swayed a bit like his legs wanted to give out from under him and his hands were trembling so violently Neil could see it from the doorway. Instead of falling he leaned forward and pressed his forehead to the mirror. "We're all going to die," Kevin said at last. "No, we're not," Neil said. Kevin thought about that for a minute, then straightened. After staring at his reflection for an age he lifted his hand and covered his tattoo on the glass. The result sent an odd tremor along Kevin's shoulders. Neil didn't know if it was approval or fear. All that mattered was that Kevin nodded and turned back to them. He looked at Neil first, then Andrew. "We have a lot of work to do." "Tomorrow," Andrew said, and ignored the way Neil looked at him. Kevin accepted that promise with a nod, and he and Andrew headed for the showers."

- "Neil looked back at him, but Andrew was studying Kevin. Andrew crossed the room to stand at Neil's side and caught Kevin's chin in his hand. He turned Kevin's head to inspect the new ink."

- "He doubted either Kevin or Andrew noticed; they were too busy staring each other down. At length Andrew smiled, slow and cold. It was the first time he'd smiled since coming off his drugs, and Neil couldn't help but stare. "Now it's getting fun," Andrew said. "Finally," Kevin said, equal parts exhaustion and exasperation." (JDKSSNAJ)

- “Choose us,” Neil said. It was enough to shut Andrew up—maybe only for a second, but Neil would take any opening he could get. “Kevin’s going to retake his spot on Court before he graduates. He thinks I can make the cut with enough practice and fine. Come with us. Let’s all play in the Olympics together one day. We’d be unstoppable.”

[randomfoggytiger]

The FBI Landscape from 1980-2001

Candice DeLong's Special Agent was not only a compelling, addictive read but also a great peak into the regular life of an FBI agent... an experience, I found, that Mulder and Scully's singularities in sharpened perspective.

TLDR; the experiences of a female agent in the 80s to early 00s: from recruitment to expectations, from professional detachment to necessary humor, from sexists to competitive women, from "boys club" FBI agents to friendly cops and DEA agents, from sex and marriage and family on the force to loneliness in suburbia-- with a similar, familiar Paper Hearts case thrown in.

THE WHOLE KIT AND CABOODLE

Hoover's edict against women was squashed mere hours after his death.

...Ness [FBI agent Candice and her father revered] had to do a lot of "rough stuff" with "tough customers" who no woman could handle. That's why women weren't allowed into the FBI. Indeed, J. Edgar Hoover had decreed: "Because of the nature of the duties our Special Agents are called upon to perform, we do not employ women in this position." That edict remained in effect until 1972, when Hoover died, and within hours, legend has it, a few brave women finally scaled the walls of the impenetrable male preserve. After the lukewarm reception I got a few years later, I have to tip my fedora to those intrepid pioneers.

All FBI agents are adrenaline junkies.

Anyone who has ever ridden a roller coaster knows what a physical thrill you get from danger-- and when the risks are real, the surge of exhilaration is that much greater. My first arrest seemed like a baptism, and I recognized that at least part of what had drawn me and so many other to law enforcement was that adrenaline rush. I wanted to feel it again.

Candice DeLong was shocked after meeting her first female FBI Agent.

There were several women FBI agents working in Chicago, and through Clay [then FBI boyfriend] I got to meet one. I was shocked. She was a tiny little thing who could barely have weighed 100 pounds, not the muscle-boudn female equivalent of Clay I was expecting. Diminutive as she was, Clay (who was one of the good guys) assured me that she was well trained and plenty capable enough to deal with the "tough customers" and the "brought stuff." I was astounded!

...Though i was only five feet five inches and weighed 110 pounds, I knew that if this little gal could join the FBI, I could too.

Candice DeLong aimed for recruitment after a nine-year career as a nurse in the psychiatric ward. She was already mother to her four-year-old son.

Back in 1980, most married women quit their jobs when they had children. Divorce was still a stigma, and single mothers had much less of a presence in the workforce than they do now. Those who thought women were unfit to be agents were even more outraged that a mother would be admitted to the Academy-- and I was the only one in my class.

I would be scolded because of the physical risks of the job: "Haven't you ever thought about what would happen to your child if you were injured or killed in the line of duty?" Of course I had, and I had agonized about it.... The fact is, more parents are killed in car accidents each year than while working as cops or FBI agents-- but more to the point, male agents faced the same potential risks that I would.

There is no such thing as "shoot to maim"; and law enforcement agents aren't big on guns.

Before I entered the Academy I, like so many other laypeople, wondered why police officers don't "shoot to maim" rather than "to kill," unless absolutely necessary. now I knew the answers-- even after twelve weeks of superb firearms training and daily practice, virtually none of us could aim and consistently hit the limb of a stationary target, and never one that would be moving and shooting back. You just don't have that much control of a handgun, even up close. About 90 percent of shootouts take place between cops/agents and suspects who are six feet apart or closer. ...The extremity most likely to get hit at close range is the gun hand, especially when you're shooting in the dark. The muzzle flash of a weapon will draw your eye, and your aim will automatically follow. Both you and your opponent, unconsciously, will be firing at the other's gun hand, and so one of you is likely to get clipped.

...Still, you can't reliably aim to shoot a gun out of someone's hand. That's a Hollywood myth. And that TV show finale that has the "policeman"... trading shots with an assailant during a chase down an alley, then from a block away infallibly winging the perp in the leg or arm as he scales a fence-- thanks to his righteous intent only to maim-- is utter hogwash....

The truth is, law enforcement agents often have a certain antipathy towards handguns and tend to see their own as a necessary evil... There are some notable exceptions: marksmen who have elevated shooting to a fine art, and the undeniable bad element, male and female, who see their weapons as penis extensions. But you're not going to find many cops and FBI agents-- who took often find themselves facing down squirrelly or crazy armed amateur-- out campaigning on behalf of the NRA.

FBI agents no longer wore fedoras by 1980. They weren't big on disguises either.

I had decked myself out in navy three-piece suit-- every agent owned such a suit, nostalgically called his "Hoover Blues," after our late leader-- and yes, a trenchcoat and a fedora, shades of Eliot Ness. I had always loved hats... and I was disappointed to discover they were no longer standard FBI agent gear. But now that I would be wearing a suit to work every day, I could justify investing in a sharp black felt fedora....

For the police, it is standard operating procedure to use disguises and switch cars to foil detection, but such strategies-- though common sense might dictate their benefits-- were less entrenched in the culture of the Bureau at that time. J. Edgar Hoover never believed in "deep cover" work, preferring to cultivate informants inside investigated groups than to plant his own people. Since his death, it has become an important area of specialization, with its own training program at Quantico, but in the early 1980s, "deep cover" and its trickle-down tactics... were relatively new and discomfiting to many of the old-line veterans.

Life as a single female agent is lonely.

Civilian men were too intimidated by my job, so... I had been dating badges, mostly cops. ...Cops and DEA guys loved female agents, whom they say more as a charming novelty than as emasculating competition-- I can't speak for their view of the women in their own ranks-- and seemed to appreciate how free the give-and-take could be with someone in a similar line of work. And they were certainly a lot more fun than the average computer jockey or financial analyst....

Of course, there are plenty of staunch family men in law enforcement. But the ones who are available in their thirties and forties tend to be single for a reason. More than in other fields, it seems, cheating comes with the territory-- which is why some of my female colleagues wen through men like pantyhose, then gave up on badges altogether....

Law enforcement is a target-rich environment, to be sure. Definitely a field where you can find a lover-- and probably have the wildest, most passionately romantic affair of your entire life. But to find a husband-- someone faithful, devoted, and home- and hearth-building, with whom you could spend the rest of your life? You'd probably stand a better chance of winning the lottery. People do it, but not very often.

*****

Much as I loved the town's charm, it did make me feel self-conscious about not exactly being a Norman Rockwell mother. ...The first time I showed up in my suit and high heels, the other mothers, huddled together talking in their sweat suits, hardly spared me a glance. When one peeled off from the herd to retrieve a Diet Coke from her bag, I pursued her. "Hi!" I said, in my brightest, friendliest voice. "hi," she dutifully responded, then fled back to the safety of the huddle. I was like an I'll wind blowing into the wives' inner sanctum from the threatening realm of divorce, single motherhood, and men's work.

*****

For the second time that day, I was struck with a powerful sense of incongruity. Here we were-- a man, woman, and child-- in a picture-book town, so charming that it could have been the movie set for It's a Wonderful Life, spending an apple-pie American Saturday, with Daddy working on the house and Mommy upstairs making a snack to cheer him on. Only we were colleagues, not Mommy and Daddy. The man working on the house, a former Navy Seal and Congressional Medal of Honor winner in Vietnam, was a team leader of the FBI's famous Hostage Rescue Squad; and the woman in the kitchen dedicated her weekdays not to canning, baking, and darning but to hunting the vicious rapist terrorizing her perfect little Eden. Seth was the only element that fit naturally into the picture-- if Norman Rockwell were painting it, that is.

He'd have to add some extra brush strokes to depict our lives.

*****

I was surrounded by men all day long, of course, but the guys I worked with were like brothers to me. ...Now and then a "civilian" had asked me out, with disappointing results. one was the male equivalent of the "badge bimbos" who chase men in law enforcement. He couldn't stop bragging to everyone we met, including waiters... as if nabbing me somehow proved his virility....

The flip side of badge-bimbohood was "badge-bolting." Badge-bolters would be thrilled about your job when they first met you-- "You're an FBI agent? How cool! What's the most exciting case you ever worked?"-- only to get cold feet once it hit them that catching bad guys sounded a lot more macho than selling ad space. If they had the nerve to ask me out at all, more often than not they'd stand me up, perhaps scared to risk feeling even for an evening that they might not be wearing the pants in a relationship-- not that I wanted to put on anybody's trousers.

All FBI agents had to learn detachment, often through humor.

Jim Reese was another gifted, natural teacher as well as an excellent profiler, a tall, handsome man who would teach us important lessons about the limitations of professionalism. With all the repellent acts you may be exposed to in law enforcement, there is a tendency-- even a necessity-- to become inured to the unspeakable. There is a certain macho toughness that comes with the territory, a belief that if you act as if nothing can touch you, nothing will. But the price of denial, for too many, is very high-- addictions, withdrawal from intimate connections, or even violent acting out with loved ones, leading to divorce and isolation, and sometimes, in the saddest cases, suicide.

*****

I felt almost haunted by the crime scene photos I was handling-- mostly women, many around my age, savagely butchered in their own homes. Much as it embarrassed me-- I was no frail, fainthearted little girl after my near decade as a psych nurse-- I found myself sticking my gun in my pocket just to take out the garbage. But when I confided in Gene Stapleton, the chief profiler in Chicago, with whom I had worked the Burlington rapist case, he was wonderful. "Candice, he said, "if that didn't happen to you once in a while,you wouldn't be human. We all get that way."

He took me in hand and, kindly and patiently, sat with me in his office for an entire day, talking me through hour upon hour of horrifying slides with alternating wisecracks and matter-of-fact assessments, showing me how to zero in with the analytical mind before the emotions got a chance to kick in. "But the real key," he told me, "is plain old exposure. If you look at enough of these, they come to have less of a visceral effect." It was like being treated for a phobia-- being force to look... until desensitization sets in, and the stimulus loses its paralyzing power. And the technique worker-- within a day or two I was over that speed bump and back in action.

*****

Among our regular instructors, Ken Lanning was a world-renowned authority on the sexual victimization of children.... Lanning's lectures were down-to-earth and nonsenationalistic but they held his audiences spellbound. He was revered, and he was also a good sport. Each class at the Academy had a pregraduation banquet, to which souses who had come for the ceremony were invited, but not children. There was always a scramble for babysitters, but counselors would assure their classes: "We've got some good news and some bad news about banquet night. We managed to line up a babysitter for all of you-- but it's Ken Lanning."

*****

But like all instructors, Hazelwood [who pioneered criminal sexual profiling], though always professional and respectful of victims, made sure to offer us a little comic relief. He came up with a real groaner, as I remember, when someone in the class brought in the shot of a strange crime scene, a far filled with feathers. The student explained that a passing cop had stopped to investigate the car because he heard sounds of struggling inside and saw feathers clinging to the steamed-up windows. When he opened the door he found a lifeless victim lying on the floor-- a dead duck, which the half-naked perpetrator had obviously been engaged with sexually. At this point we were all dutifully jotting notes, shaking our heads at the absurd range of human sexual deviations. "Well, folks," Hazelwood said, pausing for effect before delivering his punch line, "that's what we call 'gettin' down'."

Dopey as the joke was, we all screamed with laughter.

****

...By the time I reached the house, I was in severe pain and limping. I was sure my foot was blue. So, propping my foot on the lowest step of the communal porch, I tore open the Velcro-- relief!-- and quickly slapped it back down.... I got the information we needed and then shuffled back to the car.

"Whew," I said to Rick, tearing the thing off. Beneath it my panty hose were shredded, utterly ruined.

"These panty hose were brand new," I cried in protest. "They died in the fight for truth and justice!"

"Voucher it," Rick said. "A good agent can always get a new pair of stocking out of the U.S. government."

The guys all laughed at my story, especially the punch line about the voucher. "Man, it's touch being a woman in the FBI," one of the cops said.

He didn't know the half of it.

The FBI conducts intense background checks; and agents are not allowed to fraternize with criminals (Ed Jerse is out)

Agents are expected to be models citizens. Every five years, investigators will call on people who live nearby to ascertain whether you are a "good neighbor." If you fall behind on your rent, your landlord knows that he can call and get you reprimanded by the Bureau. Association with anyone who has a criminal record is forbidden; any roommate of more than thirty days and anyone you plant to marry will be subjected to criminal record checks. Any contact with law enforcement-- a moving violation while driving, a visit from police if you're playing the stereo too loud at a party-- must be reported to your supervisor. You are obliged to list any traffic tickets you have received on your five-year "reinvestigation" form.

The more intrusive investigations are aimed at discerning whether you are vulnerable to bribery or extortion. ...Lest you be subject to coercion or blackmail, you must be legally and morally aboveboard. Legend has it that in the Hoover days, unmarried agents might be placed under surveillance. A bachelor spotted coming out of a woman's house early in the morning would be called on the carpet for "conduct unbecoming an FBI agent," and be told, "Marry the girl."

...Any breach of the Bureau's myriad rules-- from piddling offenses to felonies such as heroin-dealing, selling classified documents to fringe governments, and murder (all of which agents have been known to commit)-- can lead to an investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility, so called OPR. One of the worst offenses an agent can be accused of is "lack of candor," which encompasses the full spectrum of the rules. Big discrepancies, say, between the number of traffic tickets and agent claims and has actually received will prompt an inquiry to determine whether "lack of candor," a much more serious offense than the tickets themselves, was the cause. ...The agent may be asked to take a polygraph test and be suspended without pay for a time or even be dismissed.

Love, sex, and babies on the force: rather straightforward compared to other issues, surprisingly.

In those days, the Academy was run like a paramilitary boarding school, where the authoritarian instructors were called "sir" (there were no Ma'ams"). Trainees bunked two or three to a room, and for every four there was one shower. If you wanted to soak your aching muscles in a bathtub, you had to rent a motel room on the weekend. There was no drinking and no swearing. For single people, sex on campus was taboo and grounds for dismissal. But if amorous parties were married (to other people), we were unofficially warned that the man would squeak through-- probably with a wink and a slap on the back-- while the woman would pay the price. However, the only expulsion I ever heard of involved a couple who was caught trysting in the swimming pool-- and to me, that made perfect sense. Anyone too dumb to find a better hiding place than that isn't someone you'd want to entrust with national security.

*****

...I knew of women who had braved the gossip and would up married to Bureau colleagues-- we called them "double agents."

*****

Its [a drug squad] supervisor was a woman-- the first and only one among the twenty-five in the division. Elaine Smith was half of one of the Bureau's first "double agents" couples. She and her husband, T.D., had grown up in Chicago and attended the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana together. Legend had it that she used to sit on T.D.'s back, smoking a cigarette, while he did push-ups in dorm form room.... She was a head-turner, an always beautifully turned-out woman who loved clothes. T.D. was known as the "iron man" of the fugitive squad. He was once shot in an accident on the firing range and, with an injury so severe that he would need extensive surgery, managed to run to the hospital. As he once explained it to me: "Candice, I knew if I stopped and lay down I might not get up. So I just kept running."

But Elaine didn't achieve her position by riding on her husband's coattails. She was famous in her own right for her tremendous skill at developing informants and would often guest lecture on the subject at Quantico.

*****

Over the past fifteen years, agents have been allowed much more privacy in their personal lives. Cohabitation-- never mind an occasional sleepover Fate-- is far too common to raise eyebrows anymore.

...Homosexuality remains somewhat dicier. Even today-- given that the Bureau is an 85 percent male, paramilitary organization with members who are, for the most part, politically conservative and religiously observant (there's even a sizable faction known as the Mormon Mafia)-- few men openly profess to be gay. Women tend to be less intimidated. Recently, two lesbian agents fell in love and asked to be transferred so that they could live together as a couple. The Bureau complied with their request, though it continues to require heterosexual couples to marry in order to quality for "togetherness" transfers.

*****

I knew of a few husband-and-wife teams who sometimes worked cases together. There was a "double-agent" couple on the Bronfman abduction case in New York.... When they [an FBI team] tried to radio the couple to close in [on the case], what they heard, according to Bureau myth, was a heated argument. The double agents had accidentally left the mike open, apparently, and though no one could break through to them, all the other cars were treated to a veritable three-ring circus of a marital spat.

*****

If you are pregnant, you can be assigned to light duty (and the Bureau has one of the most generous family leave policies around), but there's really no such thing as a desk job in the FBI.

... I don't know of any female agents who have born children out of wedlock, but presumably that would no longer be a violation of the rules.

FBI agents get no breaks.

The FBI is less a place to work than a way of life. Unlike the police, who are "off duty" when their shifts are over, FBI agents are required to be armed, available, and "fit for duty" at all times. That means that we must carry our guns everywhere, even on vacation, and there's no quick dashing off to the cash machine at the bank, leaving your gun at home. ..."Available" means that you must always be within two hours of the office unless you are on some officially approved leave, such as a vacation. But even then, you are required to file an itinerary at the office with CBR ("can be reached") numbers. The Bureau's arm is long.

Having more than one or two drinks, even on weekends, will make you "unfit for duty." In major cities, there are "reactive squads" that respond to emergencies such as bank robberies and kidnappings, whose members are "on call" and must be clearheaded at all times. Agents will do reactive duty in weekly rotations, so no one bears the onus of constant demands. But in smaller satellite Bureau offices, agents don't have that luxury and must always be alert and ready for action.

The FBI can't ask about sexual orientation.

The FBI is no longer allowed to ask about sexual orientation, but should the question come up, you can't lie to conceal it. Because gayness is still viewed as a potential blackmail issue, the Bureau will ask whether an agent's parents know of his or her homosexuality-- that's the degree of openness believed to make coercion unlikely. To be sure that the parents know, investigators will follow up.

FBI agents are often each other's worst enemy.

A great many complaints leading to OPR investigations originate not outside the Bureau but within-- from agents informing on other agents, sometimes anonymously, which allows for the proliferation of minor, bogus complains. ...But there are supervisors who will routinely report their own people for violations most would consider minor, just to look like they're on top of the activities of their staff. There are also, inevitably, agents who will tattle to the OPR just to make trouble for others-- a practice so common that there's even a term for it in FBI slang: "jamming." All such reports must be taken seriously, so countless man-hours and, no doubt, vast sums of money are spent each year on unfounded and minor complaints agents plant to "jam" others.

...This is the kind of intramural terrorism that tends to go on in closed systems like academia, the military, and the FBI. Academic tenure-- or in government jobs, the pension you're guaranteed if you last twenty years-- is too good to make quitting an attractive option, even if you're unhappy. It's not like you can jump ship and go work for the competition, and your skills are too specific for most other lines of work. So, while jockeying for power, backstabbing, and slacking off are all rampant in the private sector, they become recreational for some people in jobs that nobody leaves. In an environment like the FBI, where secrecy reigns, rules are ironclad, and the culture no only gives you myriad opportunities but actually requires you to turn on others, unhealthy kinds of rivalries can develop. Adrenaline junkies who aren't generating enough excitement in their work... will often whip up waves. Harpooning colleagues can become their gladiator sport.

Mulder's Season 2 and his and Scully's Season 6 assignments were grunt work given to newbies.

Squad 5C, my first assignment, was a white-collar-crime squad of roughly twenty agents focused on wire fraud-- any fraud perpetrated via "wire service," such as telephone lines. Most of its senior members were accountants and stockbrokers, and it was a popular launching pad for new female agents. The handful of rookies did a lot of scout work-- combing through records, doing background investigations, and the like-- and learned the ropes by being paired with more experienced "training agents."

...Rookie agents belong to their entry-assignment squads but they could be tapped by any case agent in the division to assist on an operation. We were encouraged to vary our experience as much as possible.... So we were all eager wannabes, circling the office and trying to chat up senior agents, telling them, "Look, if something comes up, I'm available...." In those days the Chicago office didn't have walls or even partitions. Each squad was a cluster of twenty desks, with two phones for every four, separated from the next by a six-foot aisle. When you heard rumbling or laughter across the room, you'd make it your business to ferret out the cause, just in case it meant something exciting was in the offing that you could assist on, like an arrest.

Stakeouts are intense; and food is essential.

Most of the other assists I did were less dramatic, usually involving surveillance, one of the most challenging and important jobs we do. Surveillance may seem like a passive observation, but it can escalate in seconds to deadly confrontation if the agents get "made" or must intervene to prevent a serious crime.

There is a specially trained surveillance squad (SOG, short for Special Operations Group) that handles surveillance on major operations.. The SOG will be called in, for example, to track suspects of kidnappings or big heists... or probable serial killers.... On more long-term operations or for more routine activities such as watching known associates of fugitives, tracking garden-variety suspects, and monitoring racketeers, case agents tend to run their own surveillance.

It takes at least two people-- to work an effective stationary surveillance, one to have "the eye"-- that is, to hold his or her gaze locked on the objective-- and the other to assist with surveillance and keep the log, a detailed record of every action taking place in the target zone. This is not just busywork, for the log may become the foundation of an agent's testimony in court and because, sometimes, a seemingly insignificant observation can hold the key to an entire case. A major breakthrough in a foreign counterintelligence case came with the discovery that two Thursdays in a row, a man chucked an empty pack of Salem cigarettes into a garbage can. The garbage can was a dead drop, and the cigarette pack was the signal summoning the spies to a secret rendezvous. So logs are scrupulously kept and analyzed to detect patterns.

No matter how many hours you are stuck on surveillance, you can't read the paper or do your nails to pass the time, for your full concentration must stay focused on the target.... You can't even look around much, and that singularity of focus is one reason why surveillance can be dangerous. Agents have been shot to death sitting in cars, too intent on their targets to sense the approach of danger.

About the only thing you can do to starve off boredom on a lengthy surveillance is to eat. The longer you'll be sitting, the more sensory stimulation you'll want from your snacks, making potato and tortilla chips, popcorn, candy, and that beloved law enforcement staple, doughnuts, the foods of choice. When a surveillance drags on for weeks or months, you can easily pack on twenty or thirty pounds. (An agent greeting another who has obviously bulked up will ask, "Oh, so how did the surveillance go?")

*****

...The novel Hannibal by Thomas Harris opens with Special Agent Clarice Starling on surveillance in a mirror-windowed van, trying to forestall suffocating in the Virginia heat with a 150-pound block of dry ice. I've been in that situation myself-- real agents don't get ice-- dripping sweat for hours in triple-digit temperatures, thankful that my partner was female so I could strip down to my panties and bra, keeping my shoes on and my shirt close by in case of action.

*****

Surveillance gets in your bones. If you have any gift for it at all, it quickly becomes automatic.

Female agents had to learn to differentiate the good guys, the sexists, well-intentioned "part of the guys" pranksters, and threatened-but-could-be-won-over coworkers. Most of the guys didn't mind women agents.

At the time, most people didn't realize that the Bureau employed women as agents. After a few months on the job, I was already out of patience with patronizing smirks, comments-- ranging from, "Well, well, since when are there gals in the FBI?" to "Who do you think you're kidding?"-- and calls to my superiors to confirm that such an improbability as a female special agent did exist.

...It seems that my new colleagues on Squad 5C had "enhanced" the head shot on my credit. Below my proud, smiling face, they had attached the reclining body of a voluptuous nude. It was a perfectly slick, professional-looking job-- so well executed that I remain convinced that the graphic artists in Special Projects at FBI headquarters were involved. The bank president and I laughed ourselves sick at the gag. ...There were female agents who saw the credentials prank as so sabotaging and offensive that they urged me to file an official complaint. Not a chance.... There would be bigger battles ahead, I suspected, and I figured I had better pick my shots. Besides, being the butt of a practical joke suggested that I was gaining a measure of acceptance on the squad. And it was funny!

*****

...I achieved acceptance at wire fraud breakfasts early on, but there were other squads where rookies (especially women) could suffer months of exclusion, signifying their colleagues' mistrust.

*****

...I applied to terrorism.... The only catch was that the Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force, a coalition of FBI and Secret Service agents and specialist cops from the Chicago Police Department's intelligence wing, had never employed a woman. ...With only fifteen women in the entire Chicago Bureau-- many of whom, because they had families to raise or had special skills, such as languages, tended to gravitate towards the white-collar-crime and foreign counterintelligence squads-- there were precious few of us to go around. But terrorism's two-fisted masculine self-image was undeniably a factor, as was the personal view of the task force chief, whom I soon nicknamed the Grinch, a male chauvinist of the patronizing stripe. Devoutly religious and the father of many children, he was particularly unsettled by me, an Irish Catholic girl who was divorced-- which was bad enough-- and was also the mother of a child. ...But the Grinch had been told that he had to hire a woman, and my friends on the squad went to bat for me. They cited my assists on surveillance and my single-handed arrest of the Croatian terrorist, kindly committing my errors. An arrest was a shining accomplishment for a fledgling male agent, but for a female it was seen as a fluke. "yeah, but can you rely on her all twenty-eight days [of the month]?" the saying went-- as if at any moment hormones could drive the woman to distraction, rendering her hysterical or flighty or trigger happy, and jeopardize their lives. ...To my delight, I was admitted to the Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force as its first female agent.

...At a staff meeting when I wasn't present, he referred to me as "lame." Though my performance reviews were uniformly glowing-- he couldn't put in writing what bothered him about me, even if he consciously knew-- he never stopped carping, though always to others, not to me. The stream of criticism was so constant that one of the case agents who was overseeing me directly felt obliged to come to my defense. "She puts in sixty, seventy hours a week. She works nights and weekends. Sometimes, even though it's our case, she's the only FBI agent out there on surveillance with the cops. The guys pack it in for the day, but she stays..." But even that didn't satisfy him-- try as I might, there seemed to be nothing I could do to overcome the Grinch's antipathy.

*****

One of my strongest advocates was Rick Hahn, a slender man with thick, eye-magnifying glasses, who by appearance seemed the antithesis of the tough-guy terrorist tracker but who was in fact one of the most formidable, canniest case agents in the division. It was a patter I would see again and again, with John Slone (a black FBI agent) Rick Hahn, and others-- the more accomplished and effective the agent, the more generous he would be at "bootstrapping" rookies and the less likely he would be to sandbag others, especially such easy targets as women.

*****

I rarely had trouble with the veterans, who had come up in the Hoover era but seemed adaptable when it came to working with women, but did with men closer to my own age. One of them, forced to acknowledge that I had done a good job, actually said to my training agent: "Admit it, you're sticking her, aren't you?"-- as if competence were a bug communicated by sexual contact and only by "catching it" from a man could a woman do well.

The younger guys' attitude didn't spring from misogyny, exactly. It was more as if recognizing that a mere woman could do their job dealt a devastating blow to their self-image.I once I realized that pride was often the problem, I tried to handle every contretemps with humor, and often it worked.

...There were other agents who I just couldn't win over. A few refused to speak to me for two full years. One morning, as I headed out for breakfast with a bunch of squadmates, I overhead a particular young fogey declare, "Well, if she's coming along, I'm not."

The colleagues I was with had the grace to look embarrassed and, urging me to ignore the snub, insisted on treating me to breakfast. So that wound up being his loss-- or so I told myself.

But every woman in the division knew that she was under pressure and that if a coup, such as an arrest, would allow a man to coast for a while, a woman would soon be asked, "So, what have you done for us lately?"

*****

One of her [Elaine Smith] triumphs involved cultivating a prominent gangster who had been shot in the head and left for dead by the mob. Over the years, seven or eight FBI agents had tried to recruit him, to no avail. Despite the truism that no one in the Mafia would ever deal with a woman, Elaine went to see him in the hospital, managed to persuade him to become an informant, and through him, sent a lot of mob guys to jail. As you might imagine, some insecure guys, who couldn't bear to give a woman her due, said, "Well, sure, Elaine was able to turn him-- he had a bullet in his head."

That was unfair-- and untrue. Elaine had been cultivating him before he was shot, and when he got ready to talk he chose her over all the other agents.

*****

"Hi there," I greeted the cop who had stopped me, handing over my driver's license and credentials. "I'm with the FBI and I'm on the job."

He didn't acknowledge me as a sister in crimefighting. Instead he said officiously, "Your license is expired."

It was the day after my birthday, and it had slipped my mind that this was the year I had to renew. "Oh, right. Sorry," I replied. "But look, I'm on my way up to Area Five, homicide and sex crimes. I'm working a case with Detective John Smith."

"I don't care," he said.

"But it's a Chicago Police Department case," I informed him, certain that would set me free.

I wondered why he was even giving me an argument, for he must have known full well that as a government agent on duty, I didn't even need a license. Federal law supersedes state regulations. In case he really had some doubt about it, I asked him, more nicely than he deserved, to call his boss.

Instead, he put his on hand on his gun. "Miss," he said, "the only call I've to make right now is a judgment call-- whether to put you in my squad car or let you follow me back to the station, since legally, you can't drive."

...At the station, the kindly, big, burly, red-haired desk sergeant urged my captor to let me go. "this is ridiculous," he told him.

"No way," the jerk insisted. "It's a solid collar-- she was driving on an expired license."

...The big goon kept bringing his buddies back, one by one, to look at me, like an animal in the zoo. "Check it out," he delighted in saying. "I busted an agent. Look at her-- the feebs."

...I was soon sprung, but the good would go on to pull the same stunt with a black male agents. It was obvious that he had a classic "white guy" problem, but I wonder what he had against the FBI.

Speaking of food, Agents bond over snacks and meals.

Jim [her training agent] would not only educate me in tradecraft but would also initiate me into the Chicago division's rites and customs, many of which involved food. Though we were required to clock in each morning at 7:00, our official workday began at 8:15, so the squad breakfast-- by invitation only-- was an important daily ritual.... The breakfasts were held at a nearby dive, where agents in that pre-health-conscious era would wolf down five-egg omelets deliciously gooey with cheese, towers of toast or pancakes drenched in butter, and logpiles of sausage and bacon. No girlish muffin nibbling was allowed. I once tried to order tea and dry toast and was scoffed and booed.

Jim loved sweets, and once while we were stuck for hours on stakeout, bored and hungry, he tried to trade me to another surveillance team for a doughnut-- he wasn't kidding. He was irredeemably addicted to the chocolate cream pies at Baker's Square. Several times a week, he would reach over and tap his pen or a ruler on my desk, raising an eyebrow suggestively. That meant, "Strap on your gun. We're heading out. It's Pie Time!"

*****

My consolation [of the workplace sexism] was the camaraderie I shared with the talks force members, agents and cops, with whom I worked on the FALN case. WE formed an exclusive club called the Wonderful World Police, which was headquartered at Mike's Bar, a popular place for cops. From the roof of Mike's, initiates were told, the Freedom Beacon glowed, but it was visible only to those who were "True of Heart, Pure of Mind, and Willing to Do the Right Thing." ...The club held informal meetings nearly every week, at which members could unwind, laugh, swap lies, and salute one another... declaiming our motto "Le that Beacon of Freedom Shine Brightly!"

Women in the FBI would flip either friend or foe.

Unfortunately, our scarcity in itself did not breed sisterly camaraderie. We were all struggling to maintain our footing among the men. For some female agents, the ongoing battle to be perceived as equal seemed to necessitate shunning other women-- as if being "one of the girls" would draft them down. There were some who were hyperconscious of the women's potential to fail, as if all the rest of us in the division would be tarred with the same brush. When I was in the midst of the Candy Store caper, trying to persuade our radio Lothario to call on the phone, one of the young female agents listening in contacted me to say, "You know , you're not a trained negotiator. I am-- why don't you let me take over? Here's how you need to talk to him..."

...And where had she been all day? The hard part was just about over by the time she called.

*****

In the meantime, I found myself some new allies. One was a new female agents on the squad, who was nicknamed the Ice Woman, because with her long, lean, blond good looks, she could have passed for a fashion model from some frigid Nordic land. But her personality was more spirited and adventurous than chilly. Just out of the Academy, she had the same wide-eyed enthusiasm and eagerness to please that I'd had as a fledgling agent. The guys were taking advantage of it, essentially using her as a secretary. So I took her under my wing, warning her, "Don't let them do that. They'll make you a doormat if you give them half a chance."

...It was pushing seven o'clock. I hoped there was another woman somewhere around the office whom I could press into service. All of a sudden there she was, in tight black pants and a pink satin camisole with spaghetti straps. In her high heels, she looked six feet tall. The Ice Woman. Shad wanted to help out [on on Candice's hooker longshot ruse] enough that, just in case she was needed, she had gone home to change. At that moment she became my friend for life.

*****

When it all shook out, because the fugitive squad made the technical collar, they got credit on paper for the arrest, while I got the assist, instead of the other way around, as I had been promised. It was still a great professional victory for me. Besides, everyone knew the truth-- including the [toe-kissing, ladder-climbing] Blue Blamer's boss. When the Blue Flamer came by the SAC's office to crow about his squad's latest conquest, the boss dismissed him out of hand, saying, "oh, come on. That was Candice DeLong's arrest."

Elaine [Smith] had gotten there first. She knew how to play the game.

*****

Some women had an unhealthy sense of competition with others, reflected in the "queen bee syndrome." Early in my career, I worked briefly on a squad where not one but two women were already entrenched. How grateful I would have been had either of them deigned to take me under her wing. I had no role models to speak of, no one who could help me navigate the often confusing male bastion of the FBI. Instead, while they had made common cause with each other, to them I was a threatening interloper.

Cops prefer nurses to FBI agents (perhaps Scully got along with the locals?)

Whether on profiling cases or in my police-training lectures, I immensely enjoyed working with the cops. In those days, I would very often be the first female FBI agent they had ever seen. Early on, I discovered that cops love nurses-- maybe it was because they spend more time, in the course of their work, in emergency rooms than FBI agents, or maybe they felt that nursing required the same idealism that had attracted most of them to law enforcement. Whatever the reason, when I came to spread the good news about profiling to a roomful of skeptical male cops... I would mention my nursing background and faces would brighten. From then on I was well received.

The FBI and DEA have bad blood.

But the conflict ran deeper than just my-badge-is-bigger-than-your-badge competition. There were major cultural differences between the agencies, which had long been highly suspicious of each other. Unlike the FBI, which required applicants to have both a college degree and some kind of managerial work experience or an advanced degree in law, accounting, or computer science, the DEA took its agents right out of college. They would work only a few violations, primarily drug offenses and money laundering, while the FBI worked more than two hundred different crimes. They even dressed differently, tending more to jeans and leather jackets--- street fashions-- than to the FBI's suits and ties. So FBI agents felt superior and looked on their counterparts in the DEA as cowboys-- reckless gunslingers, constantly in shoot-outs, immersed in a brutish underworld-- while the DEA guys regarded FBI agents as effete, desk-bound "sissies."

...But I found the DEA training course to be impressive. After half a century of working drugs, the agency obviously knew the business inside out-- better than we did then, having come so recently to the field. Unlike the male agents, many of whom were threatened by the DEA guys's more-macho-than-thou swaggering, I was attracted, not repelled, by a little swashbuckling flair. And like the cops I had worked with, for the most part they did not see themselves as playing on the same field as female FBI agents and so were inclined to think of us as an interesting and potentially advantageous novelty. There were a few jerks, of course, but overall I found the DEA agents welcoming and open to working with women and less likely to put us through the girls-have-to-prove-themselves rituals than some of my own male colleagues.

...So I was thrilled when Tony and Rick [two DEA agents] asked me to come along as a "date" on an undercover intelligence-gathering mission at a nightclub and recruited the Ice Woman to make up the fourth member of our team. She was surprised, having already been indoctrinated with the us-against-them attitude of the squad. "Are you really going to work with them?" she asked. "I hear those guys are bad news."

...So that night, the Ice Woman and I-- wearing a silk slip dress and a skin-tight black spandex tube, respectively-- met up with Rick and Tony....

...For the first time I began to see that being assigned to a drug squad wasn't necessarily exile to Siberia-- that it might actually be fun.

One cop had a Paper Hearts-like epiphany on a similar missing child's case.

Some two weeks after the abduction, *Melissa's body was finally found. A sheriff's deputy got a nagging hunch that he should return to a place he had already searched, a small grove of oaks standing in an open field about a hundred yards from the road. A stream ran through there, choked with tall grasses and spanned by a small footbridge. It was there in the stream, her feet barely visible under the bridge, that he found *Melissa.

Sometimes people do get uncanny flashes like that, which look almost clairvoyant. This deputy got out of his cruiser and, without even having to do much poking around, walked straight to the site.

Pedophiles don't usually have a sex preference.

Overall, about 22 percent of rape victims and 33 percent of sexual assault victims are thirteen- to seventeen-year-old girls. But this offender also, surprisingly, assailed a few boys, a kind of gender flip-flopping that is extremely peculiar. Pedophiles, who target children, often do not discriminate between the genders because prepubescent male and female bodies are fairly similar, but the vast majority of rapists of adults focus exclusively on one sex.

The drug cartel was a crazier form of the Mafia.

...The drug world is an ultra volatile criminal environment-- far more than old-fashioned organized crime, with its careful apportionment of turf, strong lines of allegiances, and internal policing mechanisms. The Mafia has traditionally been more focused on running businesses and establishing rackets-- prostitution, extortion, and the like-- that bring in a steady income over time than on making quick, huge scores. But in the drug world, obscenely large sums of money are always changing hands in individual transactions, so the Rick of a rip-off-- a buyer or a seller simply blowing away the other party and making off with both the money and the drugs-- is very great.

Then, too, drug dealers are more likely than other criminals to try to shoot their way out of arrest situations. The federal government has established a mandatory minimum twenty-year prison sentence of anyone caught ten or more kilograms of cocaine.... There's no plea bargaining, no chance for a judge to go easy on an offender, and no early release on parole.

Civilians constantly waste precious law enforcement resources for revenge, fantasy, or money.

John and I walked out of her house in disgust. We had invested two back-to-back, around-the-clock weeks running down that lead she had given us, and we were tired and angry. Fake tips aren't Al all unusual, but they tend to blow up quickly. It's rare to get one that has enough true elements to hoodwink two investigators for that long. It never fails to amaze me that people-- actually believe they'll be able to pull off such stunts. And why do they do it? For the attention? To bring drama and color into their pallid lives? Why would they want to tie up the resources of the very law enforcement agencies they depend on for their protection?

I keep a mental file cabinet that I've labeled "If the Taxpayers Only Knew..." In it is a big folder for cases like this... and the other boondoggles I've gotten stuck with over the years. If the taxpayers' only knew how much time and how many millions of their hard-earned dollars law enforcement agencies must waste each year on phony leads, they would demand that their imaginative fellow citizens be billed-- or that we bring back the pillories!

Kindness is the most powerful tool.

No one could deny that Elaine [Smith] had the magic touch. Even as a new agent, she had made a multimillion-dollar securities fraud case. I once asked her the secret of her success and she told me a story: She was assisting on a massive arrest, and amid the entire hullabaloo, she saw a black woman being handcuffed and placed in a car. Elaine went over, opened the car door, and sat down beside her in the backseat, asking whether there was anything she could do to make the woman more comfortable. They started talking, and a few days later, the woman called her from jail to say, "Can you come over here? I'd like to talk to you."

It wasn't even Elaine's case, but she rushed right over, and what the woman told her cracked the case wide open. "Why did you pick men?" Elaine asked, certain that the woman had already stood up to hour-upon-hour of interrogation. The woman answered, "Because you were the only one who was really, really nice to me."

*****

I rode in the backseat with the fugitive. "So, how are you doing?" I asked him. "This must all seem a little abrupt. You want something to drink? A Coke?"

He did, so I offered him the one I had been saving for myself in my bag. Since he was handcuffed, I fed the suspect little sips as I read him his rights, then quizzed him, "So what did happen back in San Francisco? Was it for the money?"

"Yeah, I needed the money," he admitted; and then it all came out....

"You're so nice," he said. "I thought those guys with shotguns were going to blow my head off."

:From what I know of those guys, you're lucky they didn't. We're trying to cut down on that as much as we can. "

He laughed. By the time we got back to the office, we were on more cordial terms than I was with the fugitive squad. After his fingerprinting and mugshots, we even had our picture taken, side by side, with the suspect pointing as if to say, "She got me."

QUANTICO TRAINING

Not only was admission and training grueling, but the process is riddled with vindictive, petty tyrants who will try to flex their power.

Competitive admission.

The FBI, then and now, only takes a small fraction of its applicants; in 1999, the figure was 6 percent, while Harvard, by comparison, takes a full tenth. The vast majority of agents in the late 1970s were former accountants and lawyers, the professions that Hoover preferentially recruited, and transferees from law enforcement and the military, some of them highly decorated Vietnam vets. There were a handful of teachers, and I believe that I was the first nurse to be admitted, more likely because of my psychiatric specialty and managerial experience running a ward than because of my healthcare training....

...[Clay and his partner Phil] had me training like a demon, convinced that I'd be expected to run two miles in ten minutes and do 100 perfect military-style push-ups. When I got to Quantico, I was amazed to learn that thirty-five pushups was considered excellent, especially for a woman, that not many Olympians can run two miles in ten minutes, and that plenty of my fellow trainees were so unfit that they'd have to hail a cab to catch the bus.

Quantico training ground.

The FBI Academy, aka Hoover high, is a magnificent facility located on the U.S. Marine Corps base at Quantico, Virginia, about forty miles south of Washington, D.C. It was completed and dedicated in 1972, the year J. Edgar Hoover died. For fifty years, FBI agents had trained in an old converted post office in the shadow of the Capitol, and the world-famous Hogan's Alley, a simulated village street where agents could test their judgment and reflexes in "true-to-life" crisis situations, was a block-long stretch of wooden store facades, with pop-up figures.... Today the Academy is a modern campus set on 385 acres of towering pine forest, complete with classrooms, dormitories, a thousand-seat auditorium, state-of-the-art physical education facilities, include the Marine obstacles course, a forensics lab, a library, indoor and outdoor rifle and firearms ranges, a high-speed-chase drivers' training track, and much more. Hogan's Alley is now a realistic facsimile of a small town, where rescue and capture scenarios are staged using live actors.

...You were required to excel in all three of the program's disciplines: academics, physical training, and firearms. The only acceptable excuse for less than peak performance was injury. A passing grade was 85 percent, and if you scored lower than that on any major test you got one shot at a makeup exam. Should you flunk again, that was the end-- you were put on the bus to National Airport with a government-issued, one-way ticket home.

For most of us, the academic courses were the easiest-- having been to college, we knew how to study-- and utterly fascinating.... Being a nurse I was less overcome than most by the gruesome slides John Douglas [who pioneered criminal profiling] and Ray Hazelwood showed of chopped-up murder victims, but I realized with horror that they could have depicted the handiwork of some of my former patients....

Physical training (PT) and firearms proved much more challenging. Trainees are tested for physical conditioning their second day at the Academy, at the six-week point, and again before they graduate. The test involves a two-mile sprint, sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups, and a shuttle run; and to pass, the trainee must earn enough points in each activity to reach a certain cumulative minimum score. To earn maximum points on the two-mile run, the trainee has to finish in less than fourteen minutes, a fairly fast clip. Scoring the maximum number of points on push-ups requires thirty-five military push-ups done with perfect form-- with a ninety-degree angle bend to the elbow, each and every time. No "California" (weird) push-ups were allowed.

...We began each day's session with a run, followed by some kind of workout. One day we did an exercise with medicine balls, which are like six-pound leather globes. We lined up in columns, and then the last person in line would run forward, catch a tossed medicine ball, and fall back into place at the front. ...Getting clobbered with a flying six-pound weight is not joke.... ...Even losing consciousness couldn't win you a reprieve from physical training.

...After our workout came defensive tactics class, in which we learned how to disarm an assailant, to prevent an attacker from wresting away our own guns, and to take down someone twice our size with a swift kick. Once we had seized the advantage, we were taught to subdue our captive with a "reverse-wrist-twist-lock" or the infamous "chokehold," which is now illegal and no longer used. For most of us women, the hardest part of the physical training was the boxing. ...For my partner I chose Frank Evans, the most gracious gentleman in our class, in the hope that good manners would deter him from flat-out clocking me.... I laid into him like a madwoman, hammering at him, throwing my upper body into my punches, just as I had been taught, parrying his blows. He endured my slugging as if it were the annoying buzzing of mosquito-- and then with on left hook put me down for the count. ...Late in our training one of the instructors took the "ladies" aside for a frank talk. "Everything you're learning here in PT is important," he told us. "One day it might even save your life. But don't get cocky. In a fight, any little guy is going to have the physical advantage of weight and muscles you'll never have. So always depend on your gun--- you don't have to shoot the creep. Just aim it at his balls. That'll yank any guy into line might fast." That was, bar none, the most valuable streetwise piece of advice I received in all those weeks at the FBI Academy.

...Gun are hefty, and we spent hours each day out on the firing range, learning to shoot. Nowadays the weapons are a lot more user-friendly-- if that term can be applied to guns-- nine-millimeter Sig Saur semiautomatic pistols, which hold fourteen rounds an released a hail of fire with very slight pressure, making them very dangerous. We used six-shot Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolvers, for which you squeeze hard on the trigger each time you want a bullet to eject. ...Just coming to grips with our weapons was one for the challenges of our firearms training.

...Our firearms session usually started in the classroom and finished out on the range, where we each shot hundreds and hundreds of rounds at a male silhouette drawn on a target at the end of a fifty-foot lane. The shooting drill was choreographed, like a dance recital. We would begin "proned out", lying on our bellies, practice-firing with both our weak hands and our strong hands. Next we shot two-handed from behind barricades, then holstered our weapons to dash up to the twenty-five-foot line, where we dropped to our knees. Kneeling, we fired off some strong-hand rounds, then jumped to our feet to shoot switching off between hands. The movement would conclude with us kneeling, shooting from strong-hand and weak-hand positions, before breaking to reload.

...After handgun training came the roughest stretch of our firearms course, shotguns and rifles. ...Accuracy isn't the problem with these-- it's the kick. ...It's hard enough for a big man to absorb the shock of a gun butt slamming with sledgehammer force into his shoulder, but the impact can nearly knock an average-size person off his or her feet. ...You learn to anticipate and compensate for the kick of a shotgun, though only the burliest macho types will ever claim to like them.

...Once we became proficient with firearms, our drills became fun, racing through Hogan's Alley... jumping over fake walls, and playing "Shoot/Don't Shoot" with targets that looked like bikers, housewives, kids, pets, and cops.

...We also had to master the infamous Marine obstacle course, which involves maneuvering over and around a series of barricades, avoiding booby traps, and-- worst of all for me, being afraid of heights-- climbing what looked like a huge jungle gym, far above the ground, inching over its gaps on narrow beams, climbing lattices, and swinging from precipice to precipice on ropes. ...One day we were divided into competing teams for a "capture the flag" exercise that had us running through woods and jumping off diving boards into pools, fully dressed in fatigues and boots and carrying our M-16s. Though I am an expert swimmer, keeping afloat is a lot harder when you're trying to keep a rifle dry.

...Every year agents are required to "qualify" both on the firing range, meaning that they must shoot at least an 85 percent, and at physical training, running a mile and a half and passing sit-up, push-up, and stair-step tests. (However, since the physical training requirement isn't strictly enforced, many agents wiggle out of it.) Until recently, being overweight would make you "unfit for duty," and there were rigorous standards. If you exceeded them at your annual physical, you would get a "fat boy" or "fat girl" letter, giving you a deadline and requiring you to weight in monthly until you got the weight off. If you didn't, you could potentially be fired, and I do know of people-- who were demoted for being too fat. ...These days the standards have been relaxed, after legal challenges-- and, according to Bureau gossip, thanks to some high-ranking officials who had trouble keeping their own weight down. May agents don't applaud these changes. ...Do you really want your backup waddling and huffing and puffing though an emergency situation?

Brutality from power-hungry higher-ups.

The agent-training program was a notoriously rigorous proving ground, with instructors who considered it their job to flush out the weak and winnow down classes to the very best. Many took the adversarial approach to teaching-- the old tough, abusive, boot-camp-sergeant style (though our ex-military classmates liked to insist that the FBI Academy was just summer camp with guns.) Today, the philosophy is different. The standards are just as stringent, but the thinking goes that having chosen you and invested the taxpayers' money in your training, the Academy had better man an agent out of you. But back then the program was a trial by fire, on the theory that if you could survive it, you could make it on the street.

...For women, especially, who had to sweat to achieve the upper-body strength of the puniest man, the [physical] tests were arduous. They also brought out the sadism of the more despotic breed of instructor. Many of these petty tyrants were agent wannabes who couldn't cut it on some aspect of the program but who were brought on staff because of their exceptional physical prowess. They lived to bully trainees, and women were the special targets of their resentment. ...Later, a few of us heard the instructor [who flunked a woman with a master's in computer science] boasting that he had "washed out one more female"-- a chilling hint that we might be in for a browbeating. ...Since then, there have been lawsuits challenging such arbitrary and discriminatory dismissals of trainees, and no single instructor could make such a categorical ruling. More important, the Bureau today [2001] is much more attuned to the overall value of its candidates to flunk out a CPA/computer expert over one questionable push-up! But that's not how it was back in the bad old days.

...But so much depended on sheer luck with instructors placements. There was one fiend with a black belt in karate who routinely had people sent-- or carried-- to the infirmary with broken wrists and ankles or delirious from heat stroke after hard runs on sweltering, 100-degree Virginia summer afternoons.

...Firearms, like PT, had its share of tyrannical instructors who thrived on persecuting the weaker candidates and, especially, women. There was one who liked to grab a woman from behind by the nape of the neck, shove his knee between her legs, and bark, "Spread 'em." To him this was "improving her shooting stance," but today it would be called intimidating verging on sexual harassment-- and he would be gone.

..It was almost graduation before I discovered that there was no such thing as "certification" by an instructor or being judged as a "safe shooter." All you had to do was hit the target enough times to pass. The whole thing-- calling me out of class to make the matter seem urgent, his earnest look, the "concern" he expressed-- had been a cruel mind game, aimed at sowing the seeds of self-doubt and inadequacy in a brand-new, eager, and impressionable trainee. What a power-trip!

...Everyone in our group who was still standing at the end of training managed to "qualify" with both shotguns and M-16 rifles by scoring their 80 percent. But as our last day on the firing range approached, one of our more sadistic instructors assigned us the challenge of shooting seventy-five rounds of rifle slugs and double-ought buck from the shotguns. ...Nothing short of all-out trench warfare in some postapocalyptic Mad Max realm, with modern rifles unavailable, would ever approximate this experience in real life. But a fledgling agent never says, "I can't." ...After a dozen rounds, even big men were crying out for ice packs to dull the ache of their bruised and battered shoulders. Moans resounded, and with continuing fire, some shooters wept in pain-- but kept on plugging. Eyeglasses knocked to shards by the pounding recoil lacerated brows and cheeks. One by one, with our throbbing bodies black and blue and bloodied, we dropped off the firing line. I did enough damage to the brachial nerve, which runs through your shoulder, that I still can't sleep on my right side, even to this day. No one could shoot the full seventy-five rounds. ...Since that injury, I've had to shoot with the shotgun on my hip, which makes it harder to control. I still score my 80 percent, of course, but how ironic that a training exercise that was probably meant to toughen us up-- that's the most charitable explanation I can think of-- instead compromised my ability to use a shotgun for my entire career!

FBI ranking (post-graduation.)

At the head of each field division, as the regional satellite bureaus are called, is a Special Agent in Charge, or SAC. IN a city the size of Chicago he or she would serve primarily as chief administrator, with broad discretionary powers, and as liaison to other branches of government and law enforcement, as a well as the press. Below him are Assistant Special Agents in Charge (ASACs) who oversee the major programs, such as white-collar crime, foreign counterintelligence, organized crime and drugs, and Violent Crime/Major Offender (VCMO). Next in the pecking order are the squad supervisors, who do the day-to-day management of agent takes forces dedicated to specific criminal activities such as fraud, terrorism, and, in the case of the macho squad, fugitive apprehension, as well as expert service squads, specially trained in such skills as surveillance, who are farmed out to help with individual operations. In 1980, there were some 350 agents working in Chicago, only fourteen of whom were women. I was the fifteenth.

CONCLUSION

What a great reading experience.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

[allzelemonz]

Man’s Man: Bill Williamson X Male Reader

Pronouns: he/him, Reader is very heavily portrayed a conventional masculine man and is referred to as ‘man’ Physical Sex: AMAB heavily implied Rating: E/Smut Warnings: Incredibly gay and closeted Bill, period typical homophobia, Reader is very masculine and Bill is a simp, masturbation, pining, this is self indulgent Summary: Bill can’t get over you and he feels silly and wrong for every thought that comes into his mind, but he can’t help it.

He feels wrong. Bill knows it’s wrong, it’s very wrong. But when you pat his shoulder after a successful robbery he decides he doesn’t really want it to be wrong. He shouldn’t watch you when you walk away, but he does. He does and he enjoys every step you take. His mouth has gone dry and his heart is too fast to ignore so he goes to the fire and tries to forget what he’s imagining.

He stares into the fire, a half empty bottle of whiskey in his hand as he tries to forget all the things he likes about you. Your thick arms that have pulled him out of shootouts more times than he can count, your broad chest that he’s felt against his back when you’ve given him a friendly clap on the shoulder, your voice that rumbles in his mind as he recalls every nice thing you’ve said to him. It all feels sappy to him, like he’s some lovesick girl, so he turns his thoughts. A man doesn’t think like that, if he can’t forget you then he can at least think the way a man like you would.

So he finds a place in the trees and turns his thoughts to the handful of times he’s seen you without a shirt. The time you were changing and he happened to walk by, the time you were hurt and Charles had to look at the wound while you were all away from camp, and that hot day when you were doing chores around camp. He can feel it now. So he thinks of the time you held him back from getting in a fight at the saloon. Your arm wrapped around his waist and you pulled him back like it was nothing.

“Shit…” Bill mutters.

His hands fumble as he drops his whiskey and stuffs one very shaky hand past his waistband. He finds himself quickly and he grips tight, giving himself a squeeze. Then he remembers to spit into his hand so he can lean back and let his mind wander to you again. He doesn’t last long when the images from the job come to mind. Your mask hides your features as you force the bank manager to unlock the safe, the shotgun in your hands pressed to the man’s back.

Bill shutters, biting back a moan as he cums over his hand and stains his pants. “Shit…” He mutters again.

He wipes his hand off on the inside of his pants as he tries to get control of himself again. His legs are a little shaky so he stays put until he can stand properly again. Then he rushes to his tent and changes his pants before he returns to the fire, hesitating a bit when he sees you there talking to Javier. But he sits and you look at him with a smile.

“Hey, Williamson.” You say, making a shiver go over him. “Tell Javier he’s wrong about all that shit in Valentine.”

“What’s that?” Bill asks, trying to sound like a man who didn’t just get off to the thought of the man in front of him.

“He was sayin’,” Javier sways, drunk in his seat. “That I was the one that got us arrested.”

Bill smiles to himself. You had to come and get them from the saloon when Dutch got worried, you took his arm and pulled him out while you pushed Javier ahead. It was Javier that punched a deputy in the street and got the three of you thrown in a cell. He slept just a few inches from you and it took every ounce that remained of his drunken sense to not put his head on your chest and hope you put your arm around him.

Bill shakes his head. “It were you, dumbass.”

“Lies!” Javier laughs. “You’re both liars.”

You chuckle and it makes Bill’s heart skip. It’s such a comforting sound, he wishes he heard it more.

“Let’s get you to bed, Escuella.” You say, pulling Javier from his seat.

“No, no…” Javier mumbles.

You pull him up and get him somewhat steady on his feet. “Take care, Bill.”

Bill wants to say something but his mouth has gone dry again. He watches you pull Javier along like a ragdoll, half wishing it was him you’re taking care of.

[ejzah]

A/N: After an extremely long break, I’ve returned with this story after someone on ff.net requested an update.

***

There’s Nothing Friendly About It, Part 4

“Hm, maybe I should have picked a different book,” Kensi mused, flipping to the next page of a worn copy of “Jane Eyre”. She’d just finished narrating a heartbroken Jane leaving Mr. Rochester. “I remember it being less…depressing last time I read it,” Kensi continued to Deeks, even though she knew he wouldn’t respond.

From everything she’d read, reading was supposed to stimulate brain activity, and Kensi would do anything that might help Deeks regain consciousness. It had the added benefit of filling the silence and keeping her mind occupied. Nell had dropped off a small stack of books, including a couple Harry Potters, a terrible looking romance, and a couple of fantasy novels the other day.

“Why were crazy wives in old books always from tropics? Maybe we should switch to Harry Potter. Right now He Who Must Not He Named seems a little less dark. What do you think?”

“Not the fifth one.”

Kensi’s head snapped up at Deeks’ croaked request. His eyes were slightly cracked, his head turned towards her.

“Deeks,” she whispered, all but falling out the chair in her desperation to be at his side.

“Mm,” he grunted.

“Oh my god, you’re awake!” She cupped his cheek, needing to confirm what her eyes were telling him. His skin was just as pale and cool as before, but she saw the spark of light in his eyes.

“I’m guessing it would be in poor taste to joke right now?” Deeks said, pausing every few words to catch his breath. When he was done, he cleared his throat.

“You’ve been unconscious for six days,” Kensi told him carefully. “Do you remember what happened.

“Something not good.” He coughed a couple times and winced. “I remember something about mechanic and fraud, but nothing else. Did I get shot or stabbed this time?”

“How about we talk about that after I get a nurse?”

Deeks narrowed his eyes at her, but it didn’t have its usual affect since he blinked halfway through.

“I’ll be right back.” She hurried off, grabbing the first nurse she found (they all new her at this point), who immediately grabbed a car and accompanied Kensi back to Deeks’ room.

The nurse performed the usual checks and asked Deeks a series of orientation questions. For once, he wasn’t actively flirting, but Kensi could tell the nurse was charmed by all the same. Especially when he recalled her name.

“Well, your blood pressure, oxygen, and heart rate are in a good range,” she said. “I’ll ask the speech pathologist come around to assess you and

let your doctor know you’re awake.”

“Thank you, Renee.”

“Oh, you’re going to be trouble.” Smiling at Deeks, she patted his arm, then added to Kensi. “Don’t give him anything to drink or eat until the speech pathologist is by. Ok?”

Any worry Kensi had about Deeks insisting she answer his questions turned out to be unnecessary since his eyes started slipping closed again shortly after Nurse Renee left. He slept restlessly until the speech pathologist came.

She brought in a tray of various liquids and foods, giving Deeks a little of each to try. After that, she asked him a variety of questions and story problems. Even with his energy clearly waning again, Deeks answered them with little difficulty.

In the end, she determined that Deeks didn’t have any trouble with swallowing and aside from some confusion with the date and time, his cognition appeared to be unaffected. Kensi quietly sighed in relief.

Once the room was empty again, Deeks patted the side of his bed, waiting until Kensi gingerly scooted in beside him. He looked thoroughly exhausted and in pain, but determined.

She curled around him as best she could, automatically threading a hand through his hair.

“Ok, what happened?” Deeks asked.

“We went to the mechanics garage, just like you remembered and it turned into a shootout,” Kensi started. “You were hit.” She paused, needing to steel herself against the pain of remembering him laying on the ground, trying to stop his bleeding, and then watching him lose consciousness.

“Hey, it’s ok. I’m here,” Deeks murmured, shaking her free of the memories.

“The doctors said the bullet hit a small artery. You nearly bled out.” She shuddered, and Deeks kissed her temple.

“I guess that explains why it feels like several elephants walked over me.”

“Deeks.”

“I’m sorry.” He tried to slide his arm around her, but gave up when he couldn’t figure out the tangle of IVs. “Did we catch the guys who did it?”

“Um, yeah, they’re either dead or under arrest,” Kensi said. She knew what he was asking, and that she was lying by omission. She also knew she couldn’t tell him the truth. She hadn’t even come to terms with the reality that he’d been shot by a teammate.

“Good,” Deeks sighed. He closed his eyes, then squinted one back open almost immediately. “You’ll stay here?”

“I wouldn’t dream of leaving.”

Closing his eyes again, he settled into the pillow. Kensi ran her fingers through his hair, relief overshadowing every other emotion.

The truth could wait until later.

[daenystheedreamer]

do u have a great bastard oc

i dont i should make one.... ok its twins. rylene and roy waters are born to rhea waters, the natural daughter of lord celtigar by a tyroshi merchant. pre-king, maybe between meg and casella or just after cassella. rhea is a bit older than aegon, maybe a lot older... she's her father's treasurer and lord celtigar is lord treasurer for the king so maybe they meet that way :) or aegon is lured like in a cartoon with pie smell.

i hc the celtigars having watery blue eyes but theyre like NAUR ITS LAVENDER ITS VIOLET ITS THE LIGHT IT CHANGES!!! born silver haired blue eyed. rhea dyed her hair bright red and the kids do it too and also rhea is called the crayfish so theyre called the crayfish twins. (eagle eyed viewers will see where they will be headed...)

anyway theyre raised mostly out of the spotlight to avoid getting sent off to the faith like meg's daughters. hair dyed red to avoid talk but everyone knows♡♡♡ rylene is lord celtigar' cupbearer and roy is a squire, later knight of the city watch.

after aegon is crowned, the twins show up at court and petition for a small loan of a million dragons which they use to open a beautiful night club in king's landing. they are gangsters♡♡♡ rylene is the brains and roy is the muscle. they're a bit robin hood, stealing and blackmailing from rich nobles to help out flea bottom. its rhe hottest nightclub in KL and they franchise it theres a couple in the riverlands and a bunch in the reach and westerlands. they try to expand to dorne but aegon does sanctions so they cant :/

they have no ambitions for dragons or the throne. the throne is nothing to them its an illusion the throne is there to beg for money which they MAYYY provide for a cost.... rylene becomes an unofficial mistress of whispers 👀

they think their siblings are annoying jocks or emo tryhards. they do fund the blackfyre rebellion a bit on BOTH sides. they dont get arrested cos no one can prove anything. later roy kills a guy in a duel (lovers quarrel) and rylene nearly successfully gaslights everyone during the trial but roy gets imprisoned for a little bit rip. rylene pulls in favours tho so they get him out, it was basically just a gaycation for roy.

still alive by egg's time, at least rylene. maybe roy got killed in a medieval shootout. dunk n egg get free drinks♡♡♡ apply juice for egg tho. both twins hit on dunk and he doesnt get it hes like damn these targs are friendly... so weird.... probably not aegons kids ig

[softnsquishable]

My only negative takeaway from the meet and greet with Joe and Rick was the fans. And not the Fall Out Boy fans.

Joe and Rick sat together at a table, and the way we lined up, it was Joe first, Rick second. Rick is a much bigger name than I thought, and it was a slow moving line, but what I saw when I got towards the front was totally disheartening.

When I went to the Dying Inside event, I did not know who Hannah or Lisa were beyond the book, but I stopped to talk to them, complimented their style, etc. I didn't beeline for Pete, as this was also their work.

Joe was sitting there, sweet little smile on his face, greeting everyone that came by. And people wouldn't even look at him. They turned away, facing Rick, and ignored him even when he said hi and asked how they were doing. I can't say that every single person did this, but I was there for over an hour, and every interaction I saw that wasn't with a Fall Out Boy fan was the same.

I understand that they don't know who Joe is, but I feel like this was totally ignorant and rude behavior, especially when Joe was friendly and trying to engage. These people chose to stand there right in front of Joe and start at Rick talking to the next person in line for five minutes instead of even saying hello back. I know it's your hero, but none of the Fall Out Boy fans did this the other way around - after we chatted with Joe, we moved down and said hi to Rick, even those of us who had never read a single comic.

This is not an attack on anybody in particular, and I'm not saying "we need to be defending poor Joe for this". And I get it that Joe was just some guy to these people. But I don't think it possibly could've felt good to be there ready to meet and greet with all your free comics out on the table to have people just turn their back to you and completely ignore you. And Rick did try and bring Joe into his own conversations when he could, so shootout to Rick for that!

The pro to this was when the fans got up to Joe, we got to have a nice conversation and a relaxed experience chatting with him. But at least say hi to the guy when he's sitting right there, and he says hi first!

[butterflyintochains]

Finding Out

Sequel to 'Those Small Details' - except this time the team finds out about Kris and Erik. Hilarity and chaos ensues, because it's them, of course it does.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Intuition - Jake, Jarry, Rusty

Training is odd today, especially where the four musketeers are concerned. As if there's some grand secret the four of them are sitting on. Jake watches Kris and Erik skate laps around the rink, two streaks of white with raven black hair flying behind them both. They stop at the blue line and talk about something. ''Oh, hey, Erik, wanna recreate Raleigh?'' Kris says.

Erik projectile spits his energy drink out, looking flustered. ''Kris, are you...''

Kris smiles, and rolls his eyes. ''Oh, no, no, not with the kids around. The other thing from Raleigh, with Duncan Keith?'' Erik smirks, and downs his bottle. ''You're on.'' Rusty watches as they set up a race, Jarry notices the electric gaze they share. They take off, skating backwards in a lap around the rink, Kris just barely beats Erik out. Erik doffs his helmet, Kris says. ''Still got it.'' Erik nudges his hip, and says. ''Never lost it, Legend.''

Jake blinks first, looking to his two best friends. Rusty and Tristan both nod, there's something there, there has to be something there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Languages - POJ, Rakell, and Dragon

Pierre-Olivier, Ricky, and Marcus are in a rather unique hockey position. Serving as common tongue confidants to two absolute legends of the sport. PO being Tanger's sounding board in French, Raks and Dragon being the same in Swedish for Erik. The trio have kinda bonded over this, and learned from their leadership core along the way. That doesn't mean they're particularly prepared for everything. As they learn twice in one day. The boys are getting ready for a big game against Vancouver, Erik looks over to Kris. ''Ready, hjartat?'' Marcus and Ricky have to contain their shock. PO almost spits his mouth guard out when Kris responds. ''Let's do this, amour.'' Okay, okay... what the fuck?

The game ends with a 6-5 loss in a dramatic shootout, with Sam Lafferty of all people ending it with a ripper. Kris, like he always does, blames the loss on himself. Erik kneels in front of him, comforting him in near perfect french. ''Kris, regardez moi, sil vous plait. Je t'aime, mon coeur.'' PO sends Sid a slack jawed look, Sid is misty eyed. Kris asks, in near perfect swedish. ''Lova mig, alskad?'' Erik nods, and says. ''Oui, je vous prometre.''

This is when Marcus nearly faints, because Kris says, eyes shining with something older than his little Frans. ''Jag alskar dag ocksa, Erik.'' Ricky looks to Geno - who was closest to Horny back in the day. Geno just smiles, and shrugs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sleep - Gravy, Ned

The team are about an hour and a half out from a game against Minnesota, and are all assembled for roll call in the lobby. Except for the two most important defencemen on the team. Sully sends Gravy and Ned to wrangle them down for the bus to XCel, they first try Erik's room. Ned knocks on the door. ''Hey, Karl, game day, remember?'' Nothing, he tries again. ''Erik, we kinda need you up for the game, dude.'' A friendly hotel maid, Kayla, Ned remembers from this morning, says. ''Mr Nedeljkovic, Mr Karlsson isn't in that room.'' Gravy asks, feeling Sully's frustration three floors up. ''Where is he, then, Kayla?''

Kayla smiles and says. ''Room 15, Mr Graves.'' She goes back to her work, Gravy quickly realizes. ''That's Tanger's room.'' They go down the hall, Ryan looks in the peephole, seeing the duo in Kris' bed, arms wrapped around each other tight. ''Oh... my God, Ned, look.'' Alex takes a look, they look so peaceful, and on any other day he'd hate to disturb them. But, it's a work day. So, he knocks. ''Kris, game day, we're all waiting for you.''

Kris says, sounding half asleep. ''Okay, I'll be right down.'' The duo head down, and inform Sully of status. A few moments later, both Erik and Kris appear in the lobby, suited and booted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jealousy - Flower

It's become tradition by now, ever since 2017, for Flower to hang out with his three brothers after games against each other. Erik, for all his novelty, has slotted in nicely to that tradition. Erik knows Kris and Flower used to be partners in crime, and loves seeing his partner with his old best friend. But, that primal part of him still thinks they're sitting way too close together. God dammit, Kris is his. So, Erik slides up next to Kris, who instinctively wraps an arm around him, allowing Erik to lace their fingers together. ''You jealous, amour?''

Erik says, free hand placed on Kris' thigh. ''No idea what you're talking about, hjartat.'' Flower looks perplexed, fluent in two languages, and competent in two more. He knew they were a thing once upon a time, but that was ages ago... wasn't it? ''Uhm, so... what the hell? I thought you two were broken up!''

Kris nods, and kisses Erik's temple. ''We were, we've been back together since 2019, we live together now.''

Flower turns to his old leaders. ''So, uhh, did you two know about this or...''

Sid nods, looking bashful, any other season Flower would no doubt have known well before anyone else. ''Yeah, we've known for a while.'' Geno adds. ''We were like this too, Flower.'' Erik grins like the fucking cheshire cat when he jokes. ''No sniffing around my man, Fleury, cool?''

Flower smirks, already planning his family initiation prank, maybe asking Tags to put 'Lovebirds' on their jerseys. ''Got ya, Karlsson.''

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kiss - Everyone Else

Team lunch after a long training session is brotherly as always. The older guys on the team sit and eat together, talking about other games and potential strategies against their rivals. Kris dumps his lunch dishes, when his phone pings - PA zoom meeting. ''Alright, boys, the PA needs me. I'll be in the media room for the next hour or so.'' Kris zips his team hoodie up, adjusts his hat, and - as if they're at home and not in front of the whole team - leans down to kiss Erik on the lips. They come up for air to stunned silence. ''Uhh, Kris, I think the cat's outta the bag, hjartat.'' Fuck, right, they're not at home, but he's the conscience of this team, so fuck it. ''I think it's been out of the bag for a while, amour.'' He kisses Erik again, and says. ''I'll see you at home, have fun on powerplay drills.''

Erik smiles as Kris strides away to his meeting. ''You're cooking tonight!'' Kris, pleased as punch with himself, spins around to say to his partner. ''You love me, don't deny it.''

Erik nods. ''Damn right I do. You love me too.'' Kris finally admits it in public, after all these years of secrecy. ''Oh, fuck yeah I do.'' He goes off for his meeting. Carts looks to him for some kind of explanation, so do Eller, Nieto, and Acciari. ''Well, when did this all happen?'' Noel asks. Erik just vaguely says, finishing his lunch. ''Raleigh 2011.'' Because neither of them feel like rehashing their story, it's time for writing its new chapters.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just a quick ficlet, it's twin felt unfinished, so I just had to have the rest find out - including Flower, because there's no way he wouldn't. And, these two are just utterly shameless when everyone does find out.

[inafieldofdaisies]

WIP Whenever / Weekend | Tagging @thesingularityseries @socially-awkward-skeleton @direwombat @adelaidedrubman @strafethesesinners @strangefable @nightbloodbix @aceghosts @madparadoxum @g0dspeeed @trench-rot @josephseedismyfather @josephslittledeputy @euryalex @sstewyhosseini @detectivelokis @purplehairsecretlair @jinfromyarikawa @shegetsburned @clicheantagonist @locustandwildhoney @fourlittleseedlings @poisonedtruth @vampireninjabunnies-blog @cassietrn @wrathfulrook @jacobsneed @voidika and anyone with something to share <3

*chanting* Leslie, Leslie, Leslie, babyyy.

Dropping a little snippet from Chapter 10 that totally got hijacked from John (and Sabrina) by Leslie and Calahan, which I find so ironic, because John would SO hate that (payback for butting in with his flashback chapter at the beginning of the WIP, js). Am I living for the chaos these two bring to the table, absolutely. # did someone say bromance?

September 1, 2018 | The night of Joseph Seed's arrest

Leslie sighed as he parked his jeep in front of what could be barely described as a motel. Just as he was promised over the phone, the sign out front announced they had vacancy. It had seen better days, with most of it's letters unlit against the darkening sky. After driving for so long, though, he wasn't going to be picky about the place he'd be catching a few hours of sleep at before heading off to find Sabrina. He had to admit, the County she had chosen to call her new home had an appeal. He could picture himself living here had she accepted his offer, finally given him a chance. It's all in the past now. Friendly visits is all you're getting, Rina. He got out of the vehicle, striding over to the motel's entrance, already feeling beckoned by the promise of a hot shower and actual bed to rest on. He pushed the wooden door open, the bell above it announcing his arrival to the older woman that was standing at the reception. The rustic interior looked far more promising than the outside of the building and he felt a twinge of hope that maybe his night wasn't going to go so bad after all. The feeling was short-lived the moment he was greeted by a sudden loud shriek and series of curses. What the fuck? "I ain't talking to you, get out now! Fucking Seeds. OUT. We're not selling."

Leslie eyed the angry woman in confusion, speaking out in the calm tone he used anytime he'd have to interview a diffucult witness, "M'am, I'm here because I have a reservation." "BULLSHIT. John GODDAMNED Seed has no reservation here. I SAID, GET OUT.", she practically screamed the last words before reaching underneath the reception desk and pulling out a shotgun. The stare she gave him was full of complete loathing, something he had only experienced from suspects to that point, the fact she cocked the weapon didn't help matters. He tried again as pushed his black jacket aside, revealing the detective badge that was attached to his belt, "My name is Leslie Parish. I called about a room few days back, I'm not sure if I spoke with you, m'am…maybe this is why you're confused." Seconds passed by in silence with the woman glaring at him in suspicion before she slapped a hand over her mouth, then let out an embarrassed laugh. "Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry. I have to say, I confused you with somebody else.", she muttered as she put away the shotgun and Leslie released the breath he was holding in anticipation of a shootout.

"Are you having trouble with someone, m'am? If I can be of any assistance-", he was tired, but not one to ever refuse help to citizens, especially with how on edge the woman seemed. "No. No. It's all just peachy. I'm Abeline, we did speak on the phone, Detective.", she reached out a hand for Les, which he shook. The whole time she eyed his arm with a strange expression. "Glad to hear that. But I have to ask about your extreme reaction…" "Ah, no offense, it's just that you're a dead ringer for a person not liked at all around this parts, so don't get shocked if folks look at ya strange or pull out their guns when you approach.", Abeline pursed her lips as she considered him, "Damn, boy, even your eyes are blue." Why am I not liking any of this? "M'am?" "Don't mind me, silly old me. I'm going to get your room ready, dear, give me five minutes.", she gestured to an old couch by the window overlooking the motel's entrance, "Sit. I will be right back." Leslie took a seat as instructed, finding himself lost in thought as he ran a hand over his dark beard mindlessly, wondering if everyone in the County was that level of direct and trigger happy, and how Sabrina was settling in. It didn't take long for Abeline to return, a cheery smile pointed his way as she came downstairs, though he swore he heard her mutter under her breath, "Something ain't right." "I'm sorry?", he spoke up, set on clearing up whatever was bothering the woman about him once and for all. "Dear, I just have to ask. Are you sure you have no connection to anyone with last name Seed?", her tone was dead serious. "Uh, no, m'am." "Call me Abeline, dear.", she laughed, "No need to be so formal." "Okay.", Les replied as he smoothed down his hair, wishing the strange conversation would be over. I'm too tired for this. "Good, good. I hope you got here without any issues. This is", she dropped an old looking key in his palm and pointed in the direction of the stairs next to the reception, "the key to your room, number's on the tag, you're on the second floor. If you need anything, I will be right here." "Thank you, m- Abeline. Have a nice evening. ", he smiled and grabbed his bag from the floor. "Good night, Detective.", she called out as he climbed up the stairs.

In a couple of minutes, he was unlocking the door to his room and with a sigh he dropped his luggage by the entrance. The space was small, but cozy, with a bed that called his name. He stripped off his jacket and shoulder holster, leaving both on the comforter. The rest of his clothes followed suit until he found himself down to only his boxers and headed off to the bathroom for a shower. The hot water did wonders to his tense muscles after the long drive from Portland. He stepped out way too soon, wrapping a towel around his waist and pattering over to his bag to grab a fresh pair of underwear. In record time, he sorted his belongings, feeling content as he crawled in bed, contemplating how Sabrina would react when she sees him in the morning. Over the last few months, they had managed to stay in touch, even agreed he'd visit her sometimes in the future. Anytime they talked, he couldn't help but hear worry in her voice. It was the reason why when Captain Buchanan offered him to take some of his saved vacation days, he had accepted. He needed to make sure she was actually doing okay, that she wasn't putting on a show for him like she used to back in Portland, always refusing to rely on anyone. Despite his weariness, he found himself unable to drift off, staring at the ceiling for hours in wait for sleep to come. It was then that he heard a plane flying overhead and he looked at his watch in curiosity. "3 am. Who is flying that early? Are we back in the city or what?", he muttered as he stifled a yawn. He turned on his side, staring at the shadows formed from the dim light coming in through the windows. Back in Portland when he would find himself struggling to fall asleep, it was usually Sabrina who kept him company over the phone, another reason why the last few months hadn't been too easy to navigate. He missed the routine they had going, her friendship. Leslie couldn't pinpoint exactly when he had finally drifted off, but the next thing he heard was a loud knock on his door. "Detective. There's a situation.", Abeline's muffled voice carried in from the hallway. "M'am, can't this wait?", He groaned in protest, looking at his watch with blurry eyes. He expected it to be an early morning, but to his shock he realized he had overslept. 2 pm? Fuck. "I'm coming.", he muttered as he dragged himself out of bed and cracked open the door, not even realizing the woman would be getting an eyeful of his bare chest as he peeked outside. "Oh my goodness. I assumed you would be awake, I'm sorry.", Abeline shifted her gaze back to his face with an embarrassed smile. "It's alright.", he rasped out. "I- It's kind of hard to explain, but there's something you might want to see, Detective." Leslie nodded, "Give me some time to get dressed, and I will be right down." "Of course." He closed the door, releasing a tired sigh as he ran a hand over his face in hopes of chasing away the sleepiness that was still lingering. He rushed over to the bathroom to freshen up and quickly got dressed.

As he got back down to the lobby, Abeline was waiting with a steaming mug of coffee. She passed him the cup with shaky hands, "An apology for the rude wake-up call, dear." "Thank you.", he took a sip, feeling grateful for the much needed doze of caffeine, before he asked, "What do I need to see?" She pointed to a TV at the corner of the reception and wordlessly moved behind the desk and turned it on, fidgeting with her fingers as a well-dressed man appeared on the screen. "This is the man I mistook you for, Detective.", she whispered as the stranger spoke of sin and saying yes. He didn't see much resemblance between himself and the man. Leslie rubbed his eyes, wondering if he was still dreaming, the words coming from the TV certainly made little sense to him. He half-paid attention to the religious ramblings until the man took hold of a woman dressed in law enforcement attire. Her face seemed familiar to him, and to his horror soon, he realized why: he'd seen her in pictures Sabrina had sent him. They worked together. He knew that uniform. Her injuries paired with the distressed look she wore made his blood freeze. "What the hell?", he muttered, getting closer to the TV, his blue gaze glued to it now. "…don't worry, we will come for you. Welcome to Eden's Gate.", were the last words the man spoke before the recording ended, only to begin all over again. "Eden's Gate?", he turned to Abeline, "What is this?" "They're a cult, dear. Have been plaguing the County for ages, but our good old Sheriff couldn't do much about it. The man you saw, John Seed, his brother is the leader. We're used to their propaganda, but this broadcast is different, has been looping all morning." "A cult?", his tone took an incredulous note. Sabrina hadn't mentioned anything to him. Fucking hell, Rina. You were hiding this so I don't worry for you, I know it. "Yes, dear." "That woman… she's a Deputy, is she not?" Abeline nodded, "Joey. Poor girl. I fear how she ended up there. Detective, there's more… all communications are down." Leslie strode over to the landline, picking up the receiver and dealing 911. "Dead. The line is dead.", he whispered. Next, he pulled out his phone, his eyes narrowing at fact he had no service. All of his most recent notifications were from around 3 am, then nothing. "I told you we're cut off. Lost count how many Eden's Gate trucks have been passing by on the road since I woke up." "What are you saying, Abeline?" He abandoned his coffee cup at the desk, reeking a hand through his hair as he paced around the lobby. Worry of the unknown gripped him, fear that Sabrina and her sister were in trouble too. He held his breath, waiting for the woman's reply. "I- I think what we've all been fearing is gonna happen, is happening: Joseph Seed kicking his people into action. That his brother is taking over the region."

[shesintoomanyfandoms]

“Ari,” I nudge her. “Customer!”

“Right!” she says, jolted into action. It’s her first day working here: my family runs this place, and I help out when there isn’t too much homework. But it’s summer now, and we both need jobs, so here we are.

Seaside Sandwiches: barely seaside, but they’re the best sandwiches in the city. And everyone knows it.

Including, as it happens—

“—Marco Aiello! And you would be?” a friendly voice booms out.

Oops.

I may have forgotten to mention to Ari the fact, that, well: the mafia frequents this place.

Yeah, I should probably intervene. I dash up to the counter and Ari gives me a Look like girl what have you gotten me into and I respond with my own Look, a Look that says I’ve got it under control.

“Mr. Aiello! Lovely to have you back,” I greet him, and he grins. “Sage! Your parents have you holding down the fort, huh? Working hard or hardly working?” he jokes.

“Working hard! Speaking of, would you like the regular?” I ask him.

“You got it!” I give him a thumbs up. “Ari, that’s just a bacon, egg, and cheese. I can man the register.” Ari shoots me grateful look and flees the scene as Mr. Aiello hands me the cash (“Keep the change, Sage, I insist,”) and finds a table. The door opens again, and this time it’s—oh, great.

Officer Jackson.

Officer Jackson’s a nice guy, okay? Don’t get wrong. He tips extra, he’s polite, and he’s patient with us.

Unfortunately, he’s also employed by the NYPD. And the NYPD and the mafia—to no one’s surprise—aren’t exactly on good terms.

And yeah, the NYPD happen to know we make good sandwiches too.

Hmm.

Yeah, I’m starting to think that I probably should have gone a bit more in-depth about the job before Ari started working here.

“Hi, Officer Jackson!” I say a little louder than necessary, trying to get him to break the mutual dirty look he’s currently sharing with Mr. Aiello. “So! What’s your order?”

He looks back over at me, but he’s (thank god) back to being polite. “Just a BLT, thank you. That and a small coffee. Milk, no sugar.” I salute him, swipe his card, and take a step towards the kitchen to tell Sage the other sandwich order, but I hesitate. Mr. Aiello and Officer Jackson aren’t having a shootout right now, so we should be fine. Hopefully.

I dart into the kitchen. “BLT too,” I tell Ari. She looks up from where she’s preparing the bacon.

“When were you going to tell me the literal mafia orders here? Girl, I’m like ninety percent sure that I saw his face in the New York Times the other day. And not because he was saving any kittens.”

I sigh. “I’m sorry I forgot to tell you! It just seems kind of normal to me now. Y’know?”

She rolls her eyes, but chuckles. “I swear, only you. Only you would be accustomed to the mafia head honchos showing up in a sandwich shop.”

I shrug playfully. “Carpe diem. I’ve got a day to seize and hell to raise, plus a tip jar to fill. And Lord knows the mob practically lines their coats with Ben Franklins.”

She rolls her eyes once more. “Get out there and serve customers! It’s your job.” I raise my arms in mock surrender and head out to the main shop again.

And Mr. Aiello and Officer Jackson are… sitting at the same table?

They’re talking in low, hushed whispers. There’s some agitated hand-flailing. And if I listen closely enough, I can barely hear them.

“…don’t try pulling anything…” Officer Jackson is whispering, to which Mr. Aiello seems to take offense.

“—been coming here for years, you strut into this place and all of a sudden I’m Satan, (…) just looking for an excuse—”

“No! I’m not!” Officer Jackson says, seemingly a little louder than he intended to. He quickly lowers his voice. “Look. The shop is neutral. If neither of us do anything here, there’s no reason for the other to understand. Clear?”

“Crystal,” Mr. Aiello says through gritted teeth.

But my mind isn’t on the antagonism between the cop and the mobster in front of me. All I can think is, thank god.

I really didn’t wanna clean up from a shootout.

Note: I literally did not realize Officer Jackson and Percy Jackson… whoops. They aren’t the same dude. How I forgot to switch the name, seeing as the book series is literally called Percy Jackson, makes me question my brain’s ability to brain… but whatever.

You run a quaint deli that’s beloved by the Italian mob. The NYPD have also become frequent patrons. Neither want to start a confrontation in your shop.

[familyofpaladins]

For the ask game, 2 and 10 right back at ya ;)

~noodletoodledoodles

hi @noodletoodledoodles !!! Thanks for the ask! :D

I answered 2 in this ask :)

10. Who’s your favorite turtle? What's your favorite version of them?

I say tough question because I love them all in their own ways, but really it always comes back to Leo. Theres just something about how he's leader and looking out for his brothers and being serious but also has his little moments of being carefree. He's also just very very whumpable, and that increases the favorite value lol. 03 Leo I think is at the top of my favorite list, because he's decently serious but has his silly moments. In season four he faces his demons of feeling like he's not doing enough to protect his family, and eventually realizes he did the best he could, and is lighter after that. He may butt heads with his brothers occasionally but he's never outright mean or rude. And he gets whumped. A lot.

Rise Leo is also so good because he gets to be silly!!! He is free from the leader role for a while and gets to be a silly quippy teenager! But you can see the leader/strategist in him throughout the series and that's very cool.

Raph is a close second fav, because I love the "tough guy with a softy and squishy heart of gold" trope. He may be tough and act annoyed by his brothers a lot but he loves them so much and is so protective of them. I mention in my answer to question 2 that when I was little I actually hated [03]Raph because I thought he was too mean. But as an adult I can see his good traits and past his tough guy act (it also helps to see more than just random episodes that I happened to catch on tv lol). I love 03 Raph (and 12 raph) for all the traits previously mentioned. But a special shootout to Rise Raph for being the friendly giant that made me learn to love a Raph.

[stormikins]

holiday 👀

from this ask game!

holiday is jenn/kal post me3 where they met again on rannoch during the first anniversary of the geth/quarian war ending. And kal gets to be jenn's bodyguard hehe

“Sorry, Shepard," Tali says. "If Wrex managed to come, I would have just told them he’d do it.” That gets a laugh out of Shepard, and it’s a truly beautiful sound even if short. “So, who is the unfortunate shmuck who gets to be my shadow?” “I wouldn’t consider it unfortunate, ma’am” Kal states. Shepard’s gaze snaps to his and he straightens under it, grey eyes seemingly piercing through to him. “It’s you?” “Yes, ma’am.” Shepard’s face gives nothing away as she continues to stare at him for another moment. When she turns her head back to Tali, her jaw clenches. Did he do something to upset her? To make her not like him? They’ve only had three conversations, and one of them was in the middle of a shootout. He would have thought that holding his own against a colossus that long would leave little doubt to his abilities. When he looks to Tali, it’s obvious she’s grinning even through the mask. “I thought you would appreciate the friendly face.” “Sure, that’s what you thought.” It’s obvious something unspoken is happening between the two of them. Something that Kal is not privy to.

[meme-archivist]

...hmm.

Sometimes. Sometimes there's a temptation. There's iron in your pocket, a last resort. It isn't iron, it's a handgun, from a future that wasn't. Caseless, no traces, hollowpoint bullets. They'll kill someone quite dead.

Never fired. You hope it won't ever need to be fired. You know it'll have to be because it was addressed from yourself, with very specific instructions.

That thought sits at the base of your spine like some unpleasant charring, the forbidden act. Caution, caution-

And yet it's so tempting to try. The theory, circulating still that maybe every action is already written in, and that there's some meta-time, maybe you could save that storyteller who died on friendly shores, maybe help that college man along his path, see where he can take his ideas-

It's too much sometimes.

There's a lot of dark corners to sit and wait and think and cry and-

...meet others.

Not travelers. Strict rules. Never others. But... The peoples of those times. Sometimes, unpleasant. Other times, comforting. Rarely, helpful. Where to begin? Where to end?

They look lost, you look lost, you are lost. Drifting through time, in a sea of cultures. And yet maybe this is where you're supposed to be.

It's easier to go from place to place, to walk in the endless shadows and corners, the edges of the history pages. Decent work there too, few have gone for the "boring" parts of the world. Where the camera of history doesn't look. Easier, in some ways. Simple to slip away from the world.

There's a young man in 1925, America. You remember him well. Whipcord of a man, tired eyes and a wide smile. He manned the desk of a general store, and always was ready to talk when the days were slow. He laughed well, though any ideas of being a comedian were out the window. You don't know how he dies. You don't really want to know. But you check anyways. It's unsurprising, a gang death. Shot by accident, automatic sprays of gunfire during a surprise hit by one group on another. A bystander with two bullets in the chest.

A finger nudge. You talk with him a few times about the violence. He's worried, not too much, most of the shootouts are in Chicago according to the papers. Besides, they're slugging it out with the feds in the big cities. A small one like this...

You buy something that'd be known as a bulletproof vest in the future. It's a body defense according to the label, one of the good ones. The seller looked sleazy but you knew he just didn't come off well.

A little talk with the young man, and then one day, pass him the armor. It's silk and manganese steel, not proof to machinegun bullets but the submachine guns? Convince him to wear it. Wave off the money. Call yourself an eccentric with too much fear and too little sense. Tell him he can repay you by wearing the damn thing because armor doesn't help much at the bottom of a cupboard.

Eventually, leave for a while on a trip to Wyoming. Say a friend's promising something, though she won't say what. Say your goodbyes. Check the scene a month later, from a room inside a tall building.

It all comes down the same way, but for the one young man who survives.

...

The itch comes elsewhere. A middle aged woman who wouldn't get any further, finds a battered textbook. She reads it every day, until the pages come apart. It doesn't go further than that, the choke of society pulls her to heel, but her children and friends become well versed and embarrass a few crooked merchants.

A man-at-arms guards a village. Worn by time and coming close to retirement, he's overworked by a good amount. You pose a little, talk a young woman into caring for him, clear some bad air between him and one of his fellows. Instead of falling asleep at his post at the moment of a surprise raid, he's well rested and his gear is oiled. The raid pierces the defense, but you see him fight a retreat instead of dying in the muck.

A wandering swordswoman with too many dreams and too big of a heart. She happens across another, a little older, a little wiser. Instead of dying for nothing, they manage to stay hidden, passing themselves off by day, helping who they can.

Eventually, there's a hand on your shoulder, coming back home. But there is no security team, and there is no locked door. There's only a new office, and a new title.

People don't realize how liminal it is to be a time traveler. How you don't ever really feel like you're in the time you are. Even when you're in your own time, everything is off, your coat was something you bought in interwar France, the book you're reading on the train is from a bookstore you had to visit in Victorian London, even your necklace was given to you by a Neolithic shaman, from a culture the rest of the world can never know. You find yourself acting strange even when in the present, much less in the past you have to work in.

You remember meeting a eunuch in 10th century China, and having him be one of the only people smart and observant enough to realize you were from a diffrent time. You could talk honestly with him, though still you couldn't reveal too much about your time. And it was still so strange hearing him talk casually about work and mention plotting assassinations. You're not allowed to but you still visit him sometimes.

You remember that the few times you were allowed to tell someone everything it was tragic. You knew a young woman who lived in Pompeii, who you had gotten close to, a few days before she would inevitably die. On your last day there you looked into her eyes, knowing soon they'd be stone and ash, that the beauty of her hair would be washed away by burning magma. And you hugged her, and told her that you wanted her to be safe, and told her she was wonderful and that you wanted her to be comfortable and happy. And you let her tongue know the joy of 21st century chocolate, and her eyes see the beauty of animation, knowing she deserved to have those joys, knowing it wouldn't matter soon. And you hugged her the last time, and told her she deserved happiness. And when you left without taking her it was like you were killing her yourself.

You want to take home everyone you're attached to. There's a college student you befriended in eighteen fifties Boston. And you can't help but see him try to solve problems you know humanity is centuries away from solving. And you just want to tell him. And it's not just that, the way he talked about the books and plays he likes, his sense of humor. There's so many people you want him to meet.

You feel the same way about a young woman you met on a viking age longship. She tells stories to her fellow warriors and traders, stories that will never fully get written down, stories that she tells so uniquely and so well. She has so many great ideas. You want so dearly to take her to somewhere she can share her stories, or where she can take classes with other writers, where she can be somewhere safe instead of being out at sea. She'll talk about wanting to be able to do something, or meet people, and you know you're so close to being able to take her, but you never can, unless she accidently finds out way too much then you can't.

You remember the longship that you met that young storyteller on. You were there before, two years ago for you, ten years later for the people on it. The young woman who told you stories wasn't there ten years later, you had been told why then but you only realize now, her uncle, who ran the ship, had been one of the first people to convert to Christianity in his nation. He killed her, either for not converting or for sleeping with women, you're not sure, but he killed her, and bragged about it when you met him ten years later.

You talk to the storyteller on the longship, ask her about the myths you're there to ask her about, the myths that she loves to tell. You look into her eyes knowing it's probably less then a year until her uncle takes her life. You ask her if you think that those who die of murder go to Valhalla. She tells you she hopes not, she doesn't see Valhalla as a gift but as a duty, she hopes for herself to go to Hel, where she wouldn't have to fight anymore. You slip and admit you're talking about her, telling her that you hope that's where she goes when she's killed. You hope to yourself you'll be forced to take her to the twenty first century, you're tempted even to make it worse, you want to have ruined her enough to be able to save her.

[universe-in-the-void-in-the-cube]

I did a bad thing. I did a REALLY BAD thing!!!

I got board and had GPTChat write a Hetalia crack fic of Denmark and Norway based off the Loony Toons cartoon Duck Amuck with Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny. I am just testing the program to see if it could write a basic plot/fic for me so that I could turn around and write a better version of it to help me get out of this bit of shitty writer’s block I am having.

Denmark was feeling great as he strutted onto the screen, ready for his big moment in the cartoon. He was the star, after all, and he was sure that this was his chance to shine. The scene was set in a beautiful countryside, complete with lush green fields and a gentle breeze blowing through the trees.

But as soon as the scene started, things started to go wrong. The background changed suddenly from the countryside to a dingy city street. Denmark looked around in confusion, wondering how he had ended up in such an unsavory location.

Just as he was about to ask what was going on, he felt a sharp pain in his backside. He turned around to see a pack of angry dogs chasing him, barking and snarling. Denmark ran as fast as he could, but the dogs were closing in.

Suddenly, he was whisked away to the moon. Denmark's eyes widened in shock as he looked around at the barren landscape. He couldn't believe what was happening - how had he ended up on the moon?

As he wandered around, he found himself shrinking smaller and smaller until he was no bigger than a mouse. A hungry cat appeared out of nowhere, and Denmark was forced to run for his life once again.

All the while, Denmark was completely unaware that he was in a cartoon. He thought that all of these strange events were really happening to him, and he couldn't understand why things had gone so wrong.

But finally, after what felt like an eternity, Denmark stumbled across a familiar face. It was Norway, standing behind the scenes with a mischievous grin on his face.

"Norway!" Denmark cried out, relieved to see a friendly face. "What's going on? Why is all of this happening to me?"

Norway just smiled and shook his head. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Denmark," he said innocently. "I'm just here to make sure that everything runs smoothly."

Denmark was confused, but he didn't have time to dwell on it. The scene changed once again, and he found himself in a wild west shootout. He ducked and weaved as bullets flew past him, trying to stay out of harm's way.

As the chaos continued, Denmark started to realize that something was off. He couldn't put his finger on it, but everything seemed just a little bit too... random.

Finally, as the scene came to a close, Norway revealed the truth. "Surprise!" he said with a chuckle. "You've been in a cartoon this whole time, Denmark. I was just having a little bit of fun."

Denmark was shocked, but he couldn't help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. He had been the unwitting star of Norway's twisted cartoon, and he couldn't believe that he had fallen for it.

But as they walked off set together, Denmark knew that he and Norway were still the best of friends. Even if Norway had just spent the last few minutes torturing him for his own amusement.

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