#leon mark photographer

[alicerosejensen]

Warning: mention of blood, mention of ptsd in the reader, mention of miscarriage, the reader has encountered a bioweapon in the past, scars, irritated Leon.

synopsis: Despite the fact that three years have passed, the past does not leave you alone. Your nightmares and scars are always a reminder of what you were able to survive.

Note: I tried to play this scenario with Leon but I never managed to bring him to the emotions that I wanted from him. Therefore, there will be one very tense moment with the reader and Leon.

It was not worth starting a relationship with a person if you yourself still can not deal with your demons.

All the horrors experienced have remained officially documented by the BSAA and are marked "classified". For three years now, a thick folder has been gathering dust in the archive with all the photographs from the scene of the incident and, probably, more than a hundred sheets of a written report with dry statements of facts. But the paper will never convey the emotions that you experienced. It even looked like a mockery from the guys from the Alliance, although you actually owe Chris Redfield a lifetime for the fact that he was able to save you, but you didn’t feel a ny gratitude to him after all these interrogations.

Some part of you was even angry at him for some reason, although you didn't understand what exactly you were angry at him for, but you were under a special protection program because the bastard who gave you a personal hell was still alive.

You have so many scars… not only on the soul, there are a lot of them on the body. The largest was left to you by a creature that dug its claws deep into your shoulder and part of your back. It's a miracle that you survived after meeting him. However, your friend and fellow student Lucas was able to sew up the wound without anesthesia, which is why you now have a terrible scar with uneven edges. Sometimes, in particularly rainy weather, it even seems to hurt.

You once joked that if you got into a house with monsters, you would be the very character who would have died at the beginning of the movie. It's just the will of fate, on the contrary, you were the only one who survived in that hell, while others died a cruel death.

On nights like these, you wake up in a cold sweat. You shivered from the cold as you jumped up and down in bed from another nightmare. The TV was illuminating the dark room, showing some kind of comedy show. Outside, thunder rumbled with might and main, and heavy rain poured down so that the neighboring high-rise building across the road was hard to see. Cool air circulated through the room through the open window, forcing you to put your arms around your shoulders and get out of bed to lower the glass. In one sweat-soaked T-shirt and shorts, you were uncomfortable, especially since your heart was beating wildly, trying to cope with fear. Leon wasn't around and you had no idea if he was in his apartment or still on a mission he never talked about.

But it was even better. You don't have to see his sour face, because you don't understand the reason for these nightmares, because you never told him about it, even though he was a government agent, and you couldn't help but think that Leon had long ago requested all the information about you, right down to dental records. He just respects your boundaries, so he doesn't talk about it, however, no matter how much pressure he has exerted trying to find out the truth over the past few months, now he is telling you that he doesn't own this information. Not yet. Apparently, he respected you very much and that you did not want to talk about what happened to you. He sees such horrors almost every day, and you still cannot forget that sick bastard who dipped your pregnant friend in a solution of piranhas. Her screams and the picture frozen in front of your eyes still make you curl up into a ball, trying to survive another trigger, after which you cannot recover for several hours from the fact that your stomach is turning inside out, and blood is pounding in your ears along with other cries.

Right now you are sitting on the bed, rubbing your face with the palm of your hand, startled by a sharp knock on the door. Nausea kicks in again as you get to your feet and look at the clock on your nightstand at 1:23 a.m. You did not expect guests, but someone very persistently knocks on the flimsy door, and when you finally open it, you see Leon, who is soaking wet through, who also sees that you are not in the best condition.

Nothing new.

You let Leon inside your very small apartment in which you have been living for three years, and he immediately took off his leather jacket, hung it on a hook, and put the gun on the cabinet next to where the vase with the keys lay.

You wrapped your arms around yourself, rubbing your shoulders, silently looking at him as he took off his shoes and placed them next to yours.

"Are you okey?" he asked in an unruffled voice. Almost annoyed, looking straight into your pale face. You were still shaking and your bedding was completely disheveled.

"Yeah" Your voice gave out a completely different intonation. you haven't been fine for a long time "I'm fine".

"I see," he almost quipped, but you ignored the sarcasm. "Do you even sleep without me, my little china?"

"When you came back?" quietly asked you ignored his question.

"A couple of hours ago. Got caught in the rain"

He stood up to his full height hugging you. His hands were ice cold, but Leon himself remained warm, like a heating pad at the perfect temperature. His scent entangled your nose and strong arms inspired a sense of security. He put his hand on the back of your head, feeling that even your hair was sweating.

Officially, you have not parted, and his presence testified that he still cherishes you. Leon's lips touched your right temple, while his hands pressed you closer to it.

"I could run the bathtub for you. You're all wet and shivering"

At one time, you thought you could drown in the feeling of love. As if the awe at the sight of this man could help to displace all this horror and help you start life from scratch. But it was only a short-term effect. Leon Kennedy is like a good painkiller that temporarily dulls your post-traumatic syndrome so that you can sleep peacefully for at least one night without twitching, screaming or jumping out of bed. But like any other medicine, it has the property of stopping the miraculous effect. Leon had angelic patience, he did not rush you, hope that in time you will tell him everything yourself, but it was no longer enough. To be more precise, his patience was almost over two months ago, and then he was called on a mission and you did not discuss this incident in such a way.

Maybe it was his belated "forgive me?" You thought about it when you heard him draw water in the bathroom, it's even a little funny. Because about four hours ago you were lying on the tile trying to cope with another attack after which there was a huge mess. You could literally feel this oppressive atmosphere on your skin when he opened the door and saw the scattered shampoos and shower gels along with various lotions and other things. Leon even put a little order there, although sometimes it already seemed that it was easier to burn down this apartment and repair it again.

And yet he didn't say anything. A couple of minutes later he found you sitting still in the semi-darkness on the bed. It would have been worth turning off the TV, but you couldn't fall asleep in complete darkness, so Leon did it instead of you, holding out his hand to you to get into the bath with you and warm up a little. A chill ran over your skin causing a herd of goosebumps when he helped you take off your wet T-shirt and throw it into a full laundry basket along with the rest of the things that should have been washed long ago.

His head was resting on your shoulder while his hands, warmed in hot water, were hugging your belly. Leon didn't ask any questions, but you could feel all his fatigue. Not only from the mission that ended, for the most part, you and your distrust were the cause of fatigue.

There were no words at all, even when, after bathing, he wrapped you in a terry towel, finding clean things in a half-empty closet. Leon straightened the bedclothes while you were sitting on a chair in only your panties and his old red shirt, which was too big for you. In fact, you were literally drowning in it, but at the moment it was the only clean thing in your wardrobe.

"Will you sleep with me?" - an awkward question that stumped him for a second when he looked at the battered you, but Leon came to his senses pretty quickly with a quick nod of his head. "I promise I won't kick painfully in my sleep"

You tried to smile but he didn't seem to appreciate your attempt.

"You're mad at me right?" You knew without his confirmation that yes. But he was most likely not angry, but offended by your distrust, however, if you started telling him, in the end you would only drown even more in those bloody memories that haunt you.

And you knew why. Leon's face was completely haggard, but at the same time his gaze became completely empty. He didn't even look at you. He threw a pillow at the head of the bed and was silent because he knew that now, touching on this topic, in any case, everything would end in a quarrel. Because Leon is tired of losing.

On the other hand…he still loved you and it's not so easy to do something with his feelings. You didn't get an answer from him, but you felt the man's fingers gently tracing along the line of your scar on your back, smoothly passing to your shoulder. He saw similar ones, knew that he could leave a similar trace, but he only assumed that you saw some kind of bioterrorist attack. Maybe you've been to Terragrigia? hunters left similar scars.

Leon continued to look at your back, running his finger over other small marks, so you tried not to flinch from his touch, although they evoked unpleasant memories from three years ago. It would be better if he shouted at you, but kept silent! This silence was more frightening than quiet rage. Leon put his hand on your stomach, and you felt him pressing you to him, nuzzling your neck. Of course, it doesn't take a lot of intelligence to understand that you didn't sleep, just like him, but he still needed time to digest your miscarriage in his head, while you had already let go of this situation.

You remember the delay and the two strips on the pregnancy tests that Leon found later. In fact, you didn't even have time to get used to the idea of motherhood because there was such a mess in your head that there was simply no place for a child there. Well, Leon's work practically excluded the presence of a family, but this did not mean that somewhere in his contract a similar clause was written. He wanted his family, even if at least one child, but your pregnancy was definitely not planned.

It just happened that way.

You thought that he would be angry, that he would shout at you and destroy you completely, but the second he knelt down in front of you, his hands closed on your lower back and his head pressed against your belly. He was scared, but Leon was glad. He is not the kind of person in whom happiness spills over the edge, his work has made him quite detached and stingy with emotions in a sense, but you saw in these blue eyes a dream and hope. Leon wanted to give his child something that he himself did not have, and at the same time hoped that this circumstance would help you let go of what you never told him.

Peace flowed through his veins, allowing him to build bright dreams in his head about a small family to which he could return and seek healing after meeting BOW. However you needed healing too!

Constant fear, lack of appetite against the background of strong emotions from these rolling triggers, incessant stress… Leon fell in love with this child when he could not be called such yet and he took care of you trying to hold you tighter at night so that nightmares would not touch you.

Leon understood what happened when you curled up in a ball again and screamed in your sleep. The lower abdomen was pierced by pain, but in a dream you were torn to pieces by one of the monsters, whereas in reality the whole bed was covered with blood from what you lost baby. He didn't need any words from doctors to understand that he wouldn't become a father. The doctors said that it was possible, that it was not worth dwelling on what had happened and that in the future you could still have children, but Leon turned away and barely held back tears.

Because it wasn't an accident. Not the rejection of your body from a new life because of some incompatibility with him. No, it was because you were still living in a horror that you hadn't told him about until now.

Then Leon got really drunk.

"I'm sorry," you squeaked, watching as she poured the amber liquid into a glass, grinning crookedly. Your miscarriage was just the last straw. You were discharged from the hospital, but you still felt terrible and not so much physically as emotionally.

And Leon was angry. Something inside him snapped…you could tell by the heavy look in his eyes and the way he was clutching the glass in his hand. It wasn't a miscarriage. It was your secret that you didn't want to tell him so much and that you didn't want to plunge into again.

No one had the words. There was only one anger inside Leon that he needed to vent somewhere. You heard his mocking laugh as he turned away from you, pouring himself another shot of whiskey.

"Are you sorry?" he asked again and everything inside you turned cold from his intonation "Are you fucking sorry? Are you serious?! How long is this shit going to go on? What the fuck happened there that you lost my baby because of it?! We've almost become a family!"

It was the end.

You froze when he threw the glass into the wall and it broke into small pieces, making you flinch from the noise. His blue eyes darkened with anger and his lips tightened into one thin line because Leon wanted this child even if you never discussed starting a family. Kennedy wasn't just angry, he was furious. At you.

"Speak!" he ordered, and the tone of his voice made your legs shake, but you still took a few steps back. "I'm tired of this shit. So you either tell me everything yourself or I'll find out for myself."

An opaque hint that he would take advantage of his position as an agent without a second thought and Chris Redfield would lay out that thick folder in front of him. It wasn't a crime. It wasn't your fault when you thought you had pulled out a lucky ticket to the desired trip, but in fact this ticket turned out to be hell. It's unlikely that Leon will get angry at you through what you've been through, he still loves you, he just really hoped that this baby would be healing for you and him.

You just want to forget it.

"Where did you get these scars? What are you so afraid of?"

He asked the same questions over and over again, but now he was doing it so bitterly that in the end your back rested against the wall and there was nowhere else to pay off.

"I can't.." you whispered with your lips almost without making a sound, after which you shuddered when Leon's fist hit the wall and his knuckles broke to blood.

The pictures of what happened rise up again before your eyes, as well as that animal fear of death with which it is impossible to part. Leon doesn't understand that it's hard and scary, but he himself has never really talked about Raccoon City, so you hoped that he could understand why you can't get along with him. Tears are streaming down your cheeks, but he ignores them as well as his own pain in a bloody hand. You both walk on thin ice that is about to crack, dipping your bodies into the icy water of rejection to each other.

Leon is tired of secrets and your "I can't" only spurs his anger.

"Tell me now!" His grin is frightening.

Loen feels the same surge of energy when he saw Patrizio come running to ask him for help after the betrayal. Of course he has no desire to beat you or hurt you in any other way, but he NEEDS to know the truth why it happened. Why your injury prevents you from living.

"Because of this, you lost my baby and I want to know the reason. I could have become a father, we could have become a fucking family if not for your eternal silence! I respected your decision when we met, I was waiting for you to open up to me, but it can't go on forever! I don't have endless fucking patience!"

Then you felt the adrenaline mixed with rage injected into your blood, giving you such strength that you easily pushed Leon away from you, from which he recoiled in surprise, albeit only for a few seconds. He blamed you for what happened, even if he didn't say it out loud, and you tried to overcome the bloody memories that rolled over you in heavy waves. All these terrible deaths…. which your classmates and teacher didn't deserve such a cruel death, their screams that wake you up almost every night, you literally survived all the hell rides before Redfield pulled your ass out of there, but mentally you're still there.

He was partly right when he suggested that you start seeing a therapist to deal with this. But you couldn't go because you were trying to escape from your own fear.

"This is my personal!" With the same rudeness in her voice, you shouted in his face. "This is something that only concerns me! You also never talk about what happens on your missions!"

You tried to hit him with words in response, but Leon easily parried you.

"Don't confuse my work with my personal life! I don't even have the right to tell anyone about it, but we are together. I wanted to help you! You know, that's what people do when they love each other - they help each other, provide support! But you always push me away, but now I have the right to know what happened to you. I respected you and your desire because I understood that you needed time, but this time was more than enough. MY BABY DIED BEFORE IT WAS BORN!

He blamed you for it. Not directly, of course not, but it was even worse. You recoiled from him, felt this pang of guilt that he was trying to instill in you, and you yourself stopped understanding whether it was your fault or it was just an unfortunate coincidence. You were able to say so much shit to each other without insults in a short time, but then when you needed his support the most, Leon cracked.

"I want to hear it from you and not from Redfield," he said, but hot tears of resentment were already flowing down your cheeks, "I tried not to mix work and my personal life, so I never climbed further than I could, preferring to wait for you to trust me with your pain, to share it with me, but what happened…" His the voice became calm, but there were still notes of irritation in it. "I need to know. It's not just your personal anymore, it hurt both of us."

At that moment, it seems that time has stopped. You heard the slow sound of the hour hand on the clock and even his heavy breathing, feeling at the same time a piercing look to the depths of your soul at yourself, the onslaught of which you could not withstand, lowering your eyes like a guilty child.

It was too much for you to handle. Swallowing saliva, you sat down on the couch, hearing him exhale noisily while closing his eyes.

If only you could turn back time… but it's not even that Leon finds out what happened there, but that he doesn't understand how much it hurts you.

"I need to know." he repeated again.

The minutes of silence seemed like an eternity. You continued to cry, biting your lips until they bled, just not to sob. For a brief moment, you really tried to force yourself to tell him everything, but your brain put some kind of blockage, which made the words stuck in your throat and thoughts began to get confused turning into porridge. You just couldn't do it, and in the end, without hearing the answer, Leon just slammed the door.

You knew that when he came back, the truth would come in soon. On the one hand there was a feeling of betrayal and on the other of lightness.

But in the end, all the tears and sobs finally burst out, forcing to drown in this abyss of suffering again.

Leon had his own experiences and demons that he encountered at work, but that year destroyed you forever and no love with support is able to glue the broken parts of the soul.

He was a government agent.

You are a student who fell into the clutches of a mad psycho who turns people into monsters. These rivers of blood in which you had to swim to escape did not make you an invincible armada. They've made you a shadow of your old self.

Leon Scott Kennedy was not on your side and you were slowly burning in this flame alone.

And then he sent a short text message in the morning that he was urgently called and he would not be home for a while. You noticed this message only after two days of mutual silence. Then you went back to your apartment.

This folder is on his desk. Closed, although he tried to open it and find out the reason. It only took a couple of calls and a little bit of annihilation for Hannigan to get all the information on you. Leon did not expect that besides this yellow folder you had some dark spots in your biography. They weren't there, but the way Redfield gave him the papers made him realize that the case was rubbish.

He didn't open it. He was given a copy that is lying and gathering dust at his house. Three months of no connection and Leon just hugs you to him like before and you fall asleep while he tucks his wet hair behind his ear. Of course you won't tell him anything, but for the first time in many months, your dream turns out to be dreamless, which is why in the morning, despite the cold walking around the apartment and the same disgusting weather outside, you wake up refreshed, enveloped in the warmth of Leon's body.

Part of him still thought he had a right to be mad at you, but the other part hated himself for that night. Leon hated to see your tears and preferred to do everything possible to make a smile appear on your face, but after that the split in your relationship was too strong.

And yet you somehow strangely influenced each other instilling hope for the best. Inside, the long-awaited peace immediately spread, forcing all experiences to retreat.

The dampness outside the window, the quarrel, the loss of the child that Leon wanted so much that he even started looking for a house where the three of you could live - it's all left somewhere behind. It was just him and you right now. His lips gently touched the scar line on your back, kissing it. Maybe you just need more time, some people sometimes take several years to finally reveal their secrets. However, it would really be easier to pretend that Leon miraculously found out everything himself. You thought that was why he behaved like that.

However, he could never look into this part of your life without permission. Instead of questioning, you felt his kisses on your cheeks and temple, and the way his hands gripped you tightly as you lay wrapped in a blanket.

"I thought about breakfast but we overslept it" he smiled.

Indeed, the clock on the bedside table showed almost noon. You would actually sleep a little more like this in his arms and luckily for you, Leon allowed your brain to enjoy the long-awaited rest.

A few more tender kisses and a change of position in bed made you doze off listening to the falling raindrops outside. Leon also seems to have closed his eyes from accumulated fatigue.

now his palm is stroking your back under the covers gently soothing you. Even breathing and trembling eyelids in a dream testifies to the sensitivity of your sleep, but Leon knows how to be quiet. His thumb draws circles on your back as his lips caress your forehead. He really regretted his words but not his actions. He needed to talk about what was going on. This may not be right, but his patience is by no means unlimited, so he was going to open that folder with your information soon.

Leon believed that this now applies to him, too. His lips smoothly touch the small scar on your forehead peeking out from under your hair. You startled but didn't wake up.

after about a couple of hours, Leon still made you get out of bed and eat despite the lack of appetite. A couple of sandwiches and coffee to cheer up, in fact, there was little in the refrigerator for cooking something more complex. Therefore, you ate what was. Then you asked him a question.

"Have you...been with Chris?" asked awkwardly as Leon tapped his fingers on the tabletop.

again that heavy look of his. Sometimes you thought he didn't need any weapons. It is enough just to look at the enemy and he himself surrender to him.

"I still want to hear the truth from you and not from a dry text"

He didn't lie. You looked at him thinking that it would be better if he did not come at all. Leon never shared his experiences and you didn't want to load him with yours.

He didn't say a word about Raccoon City, so why should you share what you've been through with him?

"Chris gave me all the papers but I didn't have time to go through them." he answered honestly.

He thinks that you will hate him if he crosses this line. It is worth opening that folder once and everything that you have built together will finally collapse.

"So maybe you shouldn't stick your nose in my business?" The way you snapped at him made him smirk.

"Your business or yours with Chris?" counter attack. Redfield has kept you on top of his head ever since in case they want to take you again. "Let's settle this issue once and for all"

You startled. Unpleasant vibrations ran through his body from the intonation in his voice.

"It was a bioweapon. Hunters?" Leon assumed it was because of the scar. He was right when he suggested that it was a bioweapon, only you had no idea what this fanged creature with razor-sharp claws was called.

"I have no idea," you still rudely replied. You weren't even lying though.

The only major unpredictable monster was the man behind it all and not these creatures.

"Haven't I even earned a drop of your trust? We've been together for quite some time. We ate, we slept in the same bed, we had sex... we have a relationship with you and this relationship implies trust between partners!" Leon raised his voice, gripping the tabletop with his knuckle-whitened hand. You narrowed your eyes at him while he did not understand this stubbornness.

"This is what I want to forget and not remember!" you raised your voice in response, thinking that he was going too far. "Stop it! Just because Redfield knows everything doesn't make him special, he got me out of this shit, that's the whole story!"

"I want to know what the hell was that! Where the hell did you get in that you jump up every night and lie like a beaten animal?!" He believed he had a right to know. He waited too long, he calmed you, put you in order, but any patience comes to an end.

Leon spent a night in Raccoon City that changed his life forever. You spent almost a year in the wilderness watching friends and innocents die.

One has only to think about these nightmares, as they cover with the head. At some point, obsessive thoughts of suicidal content even began to creep into you, and there was a moment when Leon even took the knife from your hands, fearing your gaze. The same knife that Redfield allowed to keep.

"I can't..." Your heart rate increased so much that it seemed to jump out of your chest. Maybe you just need more time. "You can't even imagine what it was like for me there. What I experienced ... it's not that it's so easy to tell, even if years pass, I won't be able to"

Leon took a deep breath. On the one hand, everything was clear to him and he didn’t want to extort the truth from you, knowing that it causes you tangible discomfort, but how to help you if you are silent all the time? It is necessary to treat the disease and not get rid of the symptoms.

"If you can't live without this information, then you can use your government agent connections. I wonder why you didn't do it sooner."

"I want to hear it from you, I want you to trust me." Leon grabbed your hand, lightly squeezing your palm "I hoped that this child would help us, but if we want to move on we must do it together. You and me, not separately"

He was partly right, and that pissed you off. You just wanted to climb somewhere and sit quietly until he left. You've been fighting for so long that now there's no strength left and all you just want is to forget… Leon wants to go through this stage together, but It Can't Last. You can't go forward because you're stuck there. Leon gives you a helping hand, but does not give you the keys to the cage in which your mind is locked.

Mirthless days in which all hopes have passed. You wonder what Leon really wants from you - he's seeking some truth while you continue to grieve for that innocent part of yourself that died. As a result, you meet eyes and Leon offers you only two options for the development of events

"Either we go together or separately"

No third option.

Leon is ready to take nine steps forward to you if you take one step towards him, but he can't drag you on endlessly, no matter how much he loves you. It's right to fight together against common nightmares, Leon is sure that he can help you, only you need to open up to him and trust him. Let that damn folder lie in his desk with all the details, the main thing he needs to learn from you.

You have a choice and you look at him with eyes full of tears standing at a crossroads like then. The butterfly effect where your decision will easily affect the further outcome of events. You rub your shoulders feeling a slight chill and in fact the tea that Leon made for you has been cold for a long time, you had no idea how long you had been sitting at this table.

To remember everyone who died there, and how at some point you were left all alone with your main fear - loneliness. While Leon is patiently waiting for your answer, you want things to be completely different. He wants it too, but you can't change the past. You can't resurrect the dead, and your hands still remember how to reload weapons, although you had to learn it right away in practice.

It makes no sense to measure your injuries, Leon faces this almost every day, but he never considered your injury to be nonsense. He's realized what it's like to live with a nightmare inside of him, and the last thing in the world he wants is for it to ever ruin you, but when he reaches out to you, he hopes that you will grab him tightly so that he can pull you out of this sucking swamp.

In the end, you look back at him after making a decision. Gathering your thoughts, swallowing a bitter lump that prevents you from speaking, you get up from your chair and go to the bookshelf from where you take out a worn polaroid photo of your group from the book. A photo taken three years ago shortly before all the traumatic events. Five smiling successful students and a respected group leader. He was almost sixty, but he looked very good… true, you do not remember his gray, well-groomed beard, but his body dismembered in two.

Then you didn't know that you would be the only one alive in this photo.

You hand it to Leon, sitting back down, wiping the tears from your cheeks. Thoughts are confused, as are words. Leon seems to look at the extended photo without emotion, recognizing only you on it, but understands that you will go through this together.

"It's hard, but I'll try. Maybe not right away, but I will"

Leon puts the photo on the table and nods at you, taking your hand in his, after which you feel only warmth and peace helping to start a long, hard story.

[byneddiedingo]

Joe Pesci and Barbara Hershey in The Public Eye (Howard Franklin, 1992)

Cast: Joe Pesci, Barbara Hershey, Stanley Tucci, Jerry Adler, Dominic Chianese, Richard Riehle, Richard Schiff, Jared Harris. Screenplay: Howard Franklin. Cinematography: Peter Suschitzky. Production design: Marcia Hinds. Film editing: Evan A. Lottman. Music: Mark Isham. 

Before they were paparazzi, they were shutterbugs, and the most notorious of them was Arthur Fellig, known as Weegee. Fellig's ability to get to a crime scene first, often before the police, made him famous, but he also thought of himself as a serious documentary photographer. Howard Franklin based the protagonist of The Public Eye, Leon Bernstein, aka Bernzy (Joe Pesci), on Fellig/Weegee, including the character's willingness to cheat a little to make his pictures better. Bernzy, for example, coming upon a corpse before the cops arrive, rearranges the body a little to make the composition of the shot better. Once, he asks a bystander to toss the victim's hat into the frame: "People like to see the hat," he says. Weegee likewise knew how to pose and frame his pictures: One of his most famous documents the arrival of a pair of bejeweled and befurred dowagers at the Metropolitan Opera opening night in 1943, while a drab and frowzy woman gawps at them. It was published in Life magazine and in the following year was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, where the reaction to its comic juxtaposition gave the shutterbug a reputation as an artist. But it was not a candid photograph: Weegee and his friends had found a barfly, plied her with wine, and shoved her into the frame at just the right moment. Franklin gives Bernzy some of Weegee's duplicity, but he's more intent on making his shutterbug into a hero who uses his street smarts to foil a plot by the mob to muscle in on the distribution of gasoline rationing coupons -- the film takes place in 1942. He also falls in love with Kay Levitz (Barbara Hershey), a beautiful nightclub owner. In short, the movie is slick when it should be gritty. Pesci gives a restrained performance, almost as if he doesn't want to repeat himself, having just won an Oscar as the volatile Tommy DeVito ("What do you mean I'm funny?") in Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990). There are good performances by Hershey, Stanley Tucci as a young mobster, Jerry Adler as a newspaper columnist friend of Bernzy's, and Jared Harris as a doorman at Kay's nightclub. But the movie never builds the tension it needs for the story to have much payoff at the end. 

[tangledinink]

Chapter Fourteen of I'm Sorry, Teenage Mutant What Now? is up! Everyone has a great time and continues to experience emotions and situations. Raphael has an anxiety attack in a Chuck E. Cheese. Read it on ao3 or below the cut!

[ prev ]

When Donnie next woke up, they realized quickly that they were somewhere cold and dark, and, upon shifting slightly, also realized that they were incredibly sore.

“Ow,” he muttered dryly, and immediately, four (almost, mostly, kind of) familiar faces were moving into his field of vision.

“Guys, he’s awake!” Mikey gasped.

“Oh, thank god,” Raph sighed.

“How you feeling, Dee?” April prodded gently, her brows pinched together with worry.

“Nasty,” he mumbled, beginning to sit up. “But it’s not that bad. Just sore.” It was worse with the movement, however, and he winced slightly. Ugh, whatever position he had been sleeping in had not helped. He realized vaguely that he was no longer wearing his hoodie or his backpack, and he wondered if his family had removed it or if it had been taken from him. 

“Whoa, hey, slow down, dude,” Leo scolded. “I’m, like, 80% sure you’ve got a concussion or something, and your back looks gross, so chill.”

“Oh, good, Leo isn’t falling anymore,” Donnie deadpanned, leaning back slightly and rolling his shoulders a bit. Ow. He kept doing it anyway. “How long was I out? What the hell happened? And where are we?”

“Not that long. You’ve kinda been in-and-out for the past, like… I dunno. Half hour,” Leo explained.

“Please don’t pass out again!” Mikey added.

“But, uhhh, I think we’re in a literal dungeon?” Leo added, looking around thoughtfully.

“We’ve been jailed? Oh joy,” Donnie sighed. “This is no fair. If I’m going to be thrown in prison, it should be for my scientific advancements…”

“Donnie, that’s not something you’re supposed to hope for--” Raph hissed.

“Did we get our asses kicked?”

“Okay, well, look at the bright side,” Leo said instead of answering. “You gave, like, at least three of the guys on the other side concussions, too! And they probably look just as fucked up as you do right now!”

A loss, then.

“Let me see.”

“See what? Your back?” April raised a brow. “I dunno if that’s a good--”

“It’s my back,” Donnie defended. “Let me see.”

April sighed deeply, rolling her eyes. “Okay, fine. Hang on, I’ll take a picture…”

Donnie shifted a bit to allow room for her to photograph, frowning to himself. He was quietly surprised that their phones hadn’t been confiscated when they got thrown in here, but he was sort of willing to bet that they wouldn’t have any service down here, wherever they were. He’d have to check later.

“Okay, here. See?”

He did see.

He did not like it. 

There were no lacerations or mangled bones or anything-- the injury really wasn’t that bad, all things considered, just horrendously bruised. That wasn’t really what bothered him. If someone showed him a picture of his own shoulders looking like that, all discolored and black and blue, it really wouldn’t be an issue. But they weren’t shoulders. Instead there was this plane of a vaguely leathery, flesh-like surface, gently bumped and freckled olive green-- not quite skin, but not exactly carapace like his brothers now had, either, just something in between, all dotted with little markings. His spine was clearly outlined, and, in this moment, darkened and mottled with bruising.

“Right. Thank you,” he said quickly, looking to the side and scowling. April sighed a bit, almost visibly resisted the urge to say ‘I told you so,’ and pocketed her phone again, settling back down beside him.

“You gotta be more careful, Don! You coulda been seriously hurt!” Raph pressed.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Donnie scoffed, rolling his eyes. “In the future, I’ll simply allow enemies to curbstomp our little brother! Silly me!”

“I would have been fine! You don’t have to protect me!” Mikey immediately protested.

“Look, hermano, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but apparently, literally all the rest of us have straight-up built-in body armor,” Leonardo said with an accusing gesture. “You don’t!”

Donnie bristled a bit, hunching his shoulders. Right. Of course.

Of course it would work this way.

Turtles. They were, apparently, literal fucking turtles, of all goddamn things, and so of course he would be the only one who didn’t have the signature feature that turtles usually had in the form of a hard shell. Of course he would be different and vulnerable. Why was he surprised? When didn’t things work out this way? Story of his goddamn life!

And it made sense, too! Wasn’t he the only one out of all of them who had ever been, like, actually injured? He had watched Mikey fall down three flights of cement stairs one time and pop up at the bottom with a thumbs up. Raph was basically an immovable object. And how many times had Leo wiped out on his skateboard with no consequences? Or, perhaps more pointedly-- how many times had Leo literally kicked his ass in martial arts tournaments? Admittedly, Donnie was still, generally speaking, hardier than the average high-schooler, but…

He was still the only one in the family to have ever broken a bone. The one who fell ill the most frequently. He was the only one who had ever cried and thrown up because the hems of his pants got wet and nasty, for god’s sake--

He vaguely remembered that Draxum guy from earlier, their so-called creator, claiming that they were experiments. He wondered what exactly his intention was, and if he would meet expectations if evaluated or if he would objectively be classed as a failure. Clearly there was a gap between himself and his siblings.

“Look, it’s fine, Don. We just don’t want you to get hurt,” Raph said, resting a hand on his uninjured shoulder. “Just… let us take the heavy hits, okay? That’s all.” 

“Fine,” Donnie muttered.

---

Donatello whined softly, burrowing his way further into his Dad’s arms, hanging onto fistfuls of his shirt. Yoshi sighed, idly running his hand up and down the child’s spine. 

“I know, Purple,” he hummed, adjusting his grip on the other slightly, rearranging the blankets they were all but nested in. “The medicine will start working soon.”

The child sniffled miserably, peeking up just enough to give their father a rueful look. “You lied,” he accused, and Yoshi couldn’t resist a tiny laugh at the amount of rage his six-year-old could manage to put into his eyes. 

“When did I lie?”

“You said that if I took the medicine I would feel better. And it was disgusting. And I still feel bad,” he whimpered petulantly, burying his face into his dad’s shirt once more, and Yoshi chuckled softly, stroking his shoulders.

“That was ten minutes ago, Purple. It takes a little bit longer than that.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Maybe a little.”

“I’m gonna invent better medicine that works right away.”

“I’m sure you could.”

Purple always got this way whenever he managed to pick up any sort of bug from their various classes or after-school activities. Given how many children he had, how busy they were, and the fact that he, too, worked with a bunch of germy kids, they were, quite frankly, blessed with how rarely they were brought to their knees by some virus or another. Yoshi had always attributed this to the whole ‘mutant super soldier’ thing, and considered himself lucky that he hardly ever had to deal with nastier things like strep throat or bronchitis. Thank god. He didn’t think his heart could take it, quite frankly. But there was still the occasional cold, flu, or stomach bug, and almost invariably, it was either himself or Donatello who ended up bringing it home when they did.

And every time, Purple would be so damn pathetic about it.

Yoshi did feel bad for him, really, each and every time, because he knew that his kid didn’t feel well and wasn’t able to do all the things he usually did, and that was distressing to him, but oh my lord, was he dramatic. He’d always whimper and whine and carry on like he was dying, even if he just had a cough and a small fever, clinging to his dad and refusing to walk anywhere. Now, snotty, hacking children were not exactly Yoshi’s favorite things to snuggle up with, but he would admit that, as he so rarely received any physical affection from his purplest child on a day-to-day basis, it was a little nice to have him so clingy now. Especially given that when he was ill, Donnie was much more inclined to lay around and watch Lou Jitsu movies rather than science and math documentaries, or, even worse, partake in activities such as attempting to rewire the house, as he was apt to do. This was by far Yoshi’s preference. And though he did wish Donnie could enjoy it properly, he wouldn’t sit here and pretend like he didn’t enjoy spending the day curled up in his bed with his child in his lap watching movies together (now that he had been assured by their pediatrician that it was just a bug…) Even if he was sure he was going to get sick, too. 

It should be noted however, that even in his feverish, clingy state, Donnie was still quite particular about exactly what touch was and was not okay, which was evidenced by him literally hissing at his twin brother when he snuck into the room and attempted to join the pair on the bed.

“Use your words, Purple One,” Yoshi hummed, even as he redirected Leonardo to the foot of his bed, giving the two children a wide berth. Donnie only grumbled in response, but given the fact that he was sick, Yoshi let it slide this time. He couldn’t help but always feeling so… sorry for Donnie like this. It always scared him a bit when he got sick, even once he was sure it was only something minor. Just another reason he relished being able to bundle him up and hold him close. “I don’t think Purple wants to be touched by anyone else right now, Blue.”

“When’s he gonna be done being sick?” Leo sighed loudly, flopping down over his father’s legs. “I’m bored. Mikey and Raph don’t play right.” 

“Since when? You love playing with Mikey and Raph.”

“Yeah, but I wanna play Hot Wheelz and Donnie is the best at that game!” He complained. “Mikey and Raph are playing ‘Ninja Horse Tea Party Orphanage’ and I don’t wanna play that!”

That did sound like the type of game those two would play.

“If you give him a day or two, I’m sure he will be ready to play Hot Wheelz then.” 

“But that’s so LONNGGG!” Leo groaned loudly, sulking. “Can’t you make him better faster?”

“No, Donatello has not invented the medicine that works right away yet. It’s on his to-do list,” Yoshi explained calmly, squeezing the purple child just the tiniest bit. 

“Can I invent it, then?”

“I’m sure you could try,” Yoshi said with a shrug. 

“I want him to get better. And not be sick,” Leo explained, just in case it wasn’t clear.

“That’s very nice, Blue.”

“I bet I could find out a way to fix him.”

“Oh? Are you going to be a doctor, then?”

Leo wrinkled his brow, scrunching up his mouth and considering this for a moment before he shook his head. “No. I’m gonna be an actor. Or a ninja. Or a magician. One of those.”

“Ah. Well, you know what would probably be helpful right now?”

“What?” Leo immediately questioned, his eyes lighting up slightly.

“If you got your brothers to help you draw some get-well cards for Purple. I bet Mikey would be excited to help you if you asked.”

Leo latched onto the new ‘task’ right away, over the moon to do something to be helpful for his brothers, like he always was. It was one of the easiest ways to distract him. “Okay!” He replied, jumping back down off the bed, scampering off to go and find his remaining siblings.

He was almost gone, in fact, when Yoshi sneezed.

Leo stopped short, whipping back around and gasping loudly, pointing an accusing finger.

“YOU SNEEZED!”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“YOU DID! I HEARD YOU!” He shrieked, taking off down the hall. “Guys! GUYS! Dad sneezed! I heard him!”

“Dad sneezed!?”

“Code Green! This is a CODE GREEN!”

Yoshi sighed softly, his head flopping back down against the pillow. Leo came skidding back into the room a moment later, his eyes wide.

“DAD! Can we go to April’s house!?”

“What?” He scoffed. “No! April and her parents are not even home!”

“Yeah but we gotta QUARANTINE!”

“It was just one sneeze--”

“LEO! Leo, you gotta disinfect! I found Donnie’s hand sanitizer!”

“Hey,” Donnie picked up his head to whine.

This always happened.

“Donnie, you have to get better quick so you can take field notes! We need your research, okay!? You’re the only one who can spell ‘pathology!!!’”

Donnie mumbled in reply, laying his head back down, but gave a tiny thumb’s up before Leo went sprinting back out the room to re-join his healthy (for now) brothers. His other three boys never brought home sickness. But they always caught it when it came from him.

Well, at least they were not bored anymore.

---

April was having a bit of trouble keeping track of time now that they were in prison. 

She didn’t think they had actually been here that long, though she wasn’t exactly sure. She had long ago shut off her phone to conserve battery once they realized that they may be a while. Maybe 24 hours?... It was just that at first, when they still weren’t sure if Donnie was going to be okay or not, everything seemed to happen so fast. And now that they were all just cooped up here with nothing to do… everything happened so slow.

They had already formulated and executed multiple escape plans now, to no avail. They had attempted to teleport to freedom with the help of the yellow yokai, who April had recently begun referring to as “Mayhem,” but were sorely disappointed to find that the prison was teleport-proof. Leo had tried unsuccessfully to talk their way out. Raph made an effort to physically break them out, attempting to smash the bars that held them, but this too resulted in failure.

The only thing that really clued her into the passage of time was her and her brothers’ internal clocks. Donnie had gone down first, though his head injury may have had something to do with that. Mikey had followed shortly after, curling up with Raph’s flannel tucked under his head as a makeshift pillow, and then the oldest brother, too, eventually succumbed to sleep, until she and Leo were all that remained.

“Okay,” she whispered, keeping her voice low, careful not to wake anyone else up. “I’ll admit it. You were right.”

Leo hummed softly in response, and neither of them took their eyes off of Mikey, suspended peacefully in the air, just a few inches off the ground, a soft orange glow coming off of him in waves as he slumbered.

“It’s a little weird to watch,” she sighed, tilting her head slightly to the side. “Sort of spooky.”

“At least he’s getting some rest,” Leo mumbled, resting his head in a cradle of his arms and knees, all curled in on himself.

“Yeah,” April agreed, smiling a tiny bit. “We should probably try that too, huh?” She leaned over, just barely nudging Leo’s shoulder with her own.

He flinched, a visible shiver running up his spine as he immediately stiffened, pulling sharply away from the other. April frowned.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Leo muttered, drawing his arms even tighter around himself.

“You’re not hurt, are you? Because I swear to god, if you got hurt and didn’t tell anyone--”

“April, I’m fine!” He bit out, a bit sharper this time, hunching his shoulders. “I’m not hurt, okay? I just… I’m not in the mood to be touched right now.”

April’s brows pinched together.

“Leo…”

“Don’t ask me if I’m okay again,” he hissed.

“Alright.”

“I’m not.”

“Okay.”

“Obviously, I’m not!”

“That’s okay.”

“Everything is so fucked up,” he hissed, digging his nails into his arms, drawing his head down to his chest. “Jesus christ. This-- fuck. And I got us all stuck in here!”

“Leo, you didn’t get us stuck in here. It’s not your fault.”

“I did!” He insisted, and April could see a few tears lining his eyes before he squeezed them shut. “This was my stupid plan. And Donnie-- Donnie almost got really hurt, and Mikey could’ve gotten hurt, and-- and I couldn’t help at all. I couldn’t help him at all when he was panicking. I can always help! I’m supposed to be able to help him when he’s like that! And I-- I can’t even help my own brother because I look like a fucking freak now!”

“Leo, you’re not a freak. It’s gonna be okay.”

“It’s not!” He snapped, bristling. “It’s not going to be okay. Stop saying it’ll be okay. How is any of this okay!?”

April bit the insides of her cheek. She didn’t have a good answer.

“I hate this,” he hissed. “Everything feels fucking awful. I can’t walk right, I keep falling, everything feels swollen and clunky and I-- I miss my face. I miss my body. And it’s just gone. I didn’t even like my body to begin with!” He laughed ruefully, struggling to keep his voice quiet. “I didn’t even like what I had, and-- fuck, April, I was so fucking excited. I was so fucking excited to change it. I’ve been waiting since I was fucking five to change it. I didn’t even know what I wanted to change then! I just-- fuck. Dammit. We had-- we had an appointment--”

He paused just long enough to draw in a heaving, shuddering breath that shook his entire frame.

“God. I just. I thought-- I thought I was used to this. I thought! I thought that I knew what it was like, to be quote-unquote trapped in the wrong body or whatever the hell, and I thought-- and it sucked and now this is just. This is just a million times worse, April. And it’s still wrong. Now it’s just more wrong!” He hiccuped weakly. “We were gonna fix it. We were finally gonna start fixing it, like, for real fixing it. We had an appointment. And. And Dad was g-gonna take me, and now it’s-- it’s just so much worse. Everything is so fucking bad now.”

“I know,” she whispered. “... Maybe you still can. You guys could still change back! I mean,” she glanced down at the silver bracelet still circling Leo’s wrist. “... We don’t know for sure that they’re broken. Maybe you just have to… to turn them back on…”

Leo bit back a sob.

“But now I know it’s not real.”

April was almost relieved when Leo fell into her side, hiding his face against her to cry, because she wanted so, so desperately to grab him and hug him and hold him tight, but he had said he didn’t want to be touched. But now that he was curled up against her, she wrapped her arms around him, and they sat quietly for a while like that. 

It took a while, but eventually the sobs died out, and Leo just laid with his head in her lap, all wrung-out and tired. 

“I meant it, you know,” she whispered. Leo didn’t reply, but he glanced up at her.

“I don’t care if you guys are freaks or mutants or whatever,” she continued. “That doesn’t matter to me. You were already sort of freaks when I met you, anyway. You’re my brothers, alright? No matter what. Even if things change. I’m not going anywhere.”

Leo sniffled a bit, staring at her for a bit longer before his gaze fell back down, staring off into the middle distance, looking at nothing in particular except for the pale orange light that lit up the room.

“Do you think he’s dreaming?” Leo finally spoke again, his voice scratchy and raw as he watched his baby brother sleep.

“Probably,” April said, leaning her head back to rest against the wall. 

---

“Daddy! Daddy!”

His father looked up from the dishes he had been washing, turning off the faucet to instead greet his youngest as he came excitedly racing into the house.

“Ah! Hello, my son. How is skateboard practice going?”

“Good!” Mikey chirped, excitedly holding up one leg so that he could proudly show his father his bloody, scraped knees. “Look! I did a kickflip.”

Mikey watched as bright red blood dripped down his younger self’s leg, and he thought to himself,

“So you did,” Dad said, sighing softly. “Go sit at the table. I will get the first aid kit.”

How strange.

“I want the orange band-aids! With the stars!” He yelled from his seat in a pulled-out kitchen chair, leaning over to call out his demands down the hall.

This was one of his dreams. Mikey was sure of it. Well, not a dream, exactly. A memory. Both. A memory inside of a dream. 

“Ah, yes, of course. Orange for Orange,” Dad assured, returning to the kitchen with first-aid kit in tow.

But this one was different from the rest.

“That’s my life color!” Mikey said happily, settling in the chair, sitting properly so his dad could clean and bandage his wounds.

The perspective had changed.

He wasn’t up above anymore, watching his father and his memory down below.

He was right here. He was standing right here on the same level-- right next to his dad, watching him tend to his younger self. No more than a few inches away from him.

He could almost touch him.

He reached out to try.

“Dad…?”

Mikey woke up with a gasp, falling heavily onto the floor and immediately sitting stark upright, scrambling a bit and looking around wildly. Donnie and Raph were asleep, but he quickly spotted April and Leo huddled together in the corner, both seeming slightly startled by his sudden trip back to the waking world.

Thank god someone else was still up.

“Guys!” He bit out, near breathless. “Dad is here! I can feel it! He’s really close by and-- and I think he might be hurt.”

---

Yoshi was getting very tired of the taste of blood.

There was a time, back when he was young, within his first year in the Nexus, when he could actually find joy in it. There was a time when he would face down unbeatable odds and come out the other side victorious, and would feel pride at what he accomplished, and not worry about those on the other end of the equation. There were times, in fact, when he would beat other competitors to unconsciousness just so that he could turn around and lounge in the luxury box, above it all, with his girlfriend-not-girlfriend in his lap. Just so that she would be pleased with him. Just because he wanted her to be happy. More specifically, happy with him.

He was still tempted, even now, now that he had gotten tired of the taste. Tempted to want her to be happy. It was so much easier when she was happy. When she was upset, he would always be miserable, but when she was happy things had always been so good.

It would be so easy to sit here and pretend like he didn’t feel that way anymore; to simply wave a hand and call his younger self a fool and distance himself from him, as if he were someone else entirely. But it wouldn’t be true. No matter how much he was loath to admit it at times, that young man was still him, and every action and stupid decision he had ever made was his to hold and wear on his chest.

He didn’t like the way blood tasted anymore. He had gotten tired of the taste years and years ago, way before he had returned to the Battle Nexus, before he had even become a father, back when he couldn’t even begin to imagine his path leading in the direction it had, before he could even picture himself raising children--

(Though, god, hadn’t there been a time where he thought, ‘but if she really wanted them, if it was with her…?’)

But he still couldn’t so definitively say that he didn’t like her, and that was what really upset him. Here he was, slumped against a wall in an empty locker room, not completely convinced that he wasn’t bleeding out given the increasingly unsettling blotch of color beneath his skin climbing steadily up his abdomen and the tell-tale lightheadedness, and he still wasn’t sure. He would kill to be sure either way, which was almost funny, given how many times he had killed for her. But to this day he didn’t think he’d actually be able to decide when it came down to it.

He didn’t want to be here. He wanted, desperately, to leave. He had wanted so desperately to leave for years the last time he had been stuck here. He had tried to escape so many times-- but then again, there had been so many opportunities to run that he hadn’t taken… 

He missed his children. It wasn’t a matter of choosing between them. If it were a contest, he would choose his kids every single time, and this he knew for certain. That was the only reason he was here to begin with, after all.

But god. The emotions were all so much easier when they were apart. When he wasn’t around her, it was easy to remember all the reasons why they didn’t work, to remember all the ways she had hurt him and how awful things had been-- to pretend that nothing lingered between them, that he didn’t care about her anymore despite all his best efforts. But when they were face-to-face again?...

He hissed softly, letting his head fall back against the wall with a dull thunk. Everything felt fuzzier than he would like it to. Colder, too.

Jesus.

He had really been in love with her.

“To the left a little.”

“Like this?”

“Mmmm… no. Now that’s too far. Move it just a smidge back?… No, that’s a skoosh, I said a smidge-- ooh! Ooh, yes, perfect! Just like that, Muffin!”

“Okay, alright. Just like this. Can you pass me the nails, Bug?”

It had taken them hours to get all their things moved in, even with the movers, and to re-arrange everything that allowed space for both of their extensive wardrobes and shoe collections. Divvying up space in the bathroom alone had been a nightmare, despite the sheer size of it, and they had had to make a detour to drive to the nearest department store and invest in a storage cabinet that could house all their hair care products. And Yoshi had been so confident that he was completely capable of putting together their new bed frame by himself…

“Okay. It says we need part 3-E… It has… The little spinny part at the top, and, ah, the spiral bit…”

“I don’t see it.”

“Well, it has to be somewhere.”

“Cuddlekins, hon, didn’t we use that part earlier? To screw the two corners together?”

“What? No, that was part M. With the cross-y bit at the top.”

“But isn’t this one part M? See. Look. It’s the same as the picture here, isn’t it?”

“Shit…”

It had taken a bit longer than he had originally anticipated. But it had, eventually, gotten done, despite the blood, sweat, and tears that it had cost them, and was now hosting their new, California king-size mattress, an absurd number of blankets and sheets, and many, many throw pillows. The kitchen had been unpacked already, (the easiest job of the entire move, given that neither of them cooked,) the TV hooked up in the living room, and all the furniture arranged just so…

And thus they had embarked on the last leg of their journey. And the one, Yoshi was well aware, that his girlfriend was the most particular about.

Decorating. Or, as she might say, interior design.

All he had needed to be happy was a few of his favorite movie posters framed and mounted on the wall, and she was perfectly willing to comply, even adding a few of her own selections to the collection in the living room they now shared. After that, she had free reign-- and reign she did indeed do. Of course, they could have easily hired people to do all this for them, but it just wasn’t quite the same as handling it on their own like this. Maybe she wanted the control. Maybe he wanted the experience. But either way, here they were… and they had been at this for a while now.

“Alright,” Yoshi sighed, taking a step back into her waiting arms so that they could examine his handiwork together. “What do you think? Good?”

She hummed happily, leaning over to press a kiss against the side of his jaw. “You didn’t even do it crooked this time!” She teased. He snorted softly in response.

“Sassy,” he mumbled, even though he kissed her forehead in return.

“It’s perfect, Noodles. Doesn’t it just ribbon up the whole room together so handily?”

He laughed, giving a shrug. “Something like that.”

“It matches the couch throw!” She insisted.

“I still cannot believe you insist on keeping that thing.”

“I adore it! It was a gift from you!” She protested.

“It is ugly!” He laughed. “I don’t know why I thought it would be a good gift. I just wanted to get you something and it was the best thing I could find.”

“It’s not ugly! It’s precious,” she insisted, as if lovingly defending a child, slipping out from his arm so she could stroke it affectionately, smoothing it out over the couch and straightening its corners. “I love it, cuddlekins, really, it just has this certain… crinkum-crankum to it, you know?” She said with a fond sigh, glancing back over at the other. “Besides, you got it for me. It always reminds me of my handsome cuddlemuffin whenever I see it.” 

He chuckled, holding out an arm with an inviting gesture. She agreeably returned to his side, fitting easily under his arm, looping her own around his waist in turn and resting a hand on his hip. “If you say so,” he hummed, leaning his head against hers. “I do enjoy the painting. I like surrealism… It’s a bit like, uh, René Magritte, don’t you think?”

“If you say so,” she echoed, shooting him an almost mischievous grin, and he scoffed in response, still smiling.

“Okay. What is next? Anything you need, my darling lovebug, and I will handle it for you!” He declared boldly, pulling away in order to strike a dramatic pose, knowing it would elicit a snort of laughter in response. “I have at long last mastered the ancient art of hanging pictures on walls! Just say the word!”

She snorted softly, plucking the hammer from his hands, placing it to the side.

“Noodles, that was the last one.”

He blinked in surprise.

“The last one?”

“Yes. That was all.’

“Then… we are all done moving?”

“Mmm-hmmm.”

“We are moved in?”

“We are,” she confirmed, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, letting her body relax as she leaned into him-- trusting him to keep her steady and hold her up against him. He did.

“Then…” He paused a moment before a wide smile slowly, surely stretched itself across his face, his hands moving to rest on her waist. “This is officially our apartment.”

“Officially.” 

He grinned, the two of them swaying back and forth in the middle of the living room of their new penthouse apartment, rocking to the rhythm of nothing but the distant sound of the city as a backdrop. Their feet shuffled against the carpeted floor, echoing the motion of each other. He spent a bit of time just looking at her, memorizing how she looked in this moment and what joy looked like on her face and reminding himself that this person belonged to him, and he belonged to her, and now both of them belonged to this apartment, together, before he leaned in to close the close the gap between them. He could feel her smile against his lips.

Right now, Yoshi could not think of a single thing that he would want to change about his life. If things could stay exactly like this forever, then he would surely have everything he could ever need. For the first time ever, he thought, this is something I built for myself. He thought, this is something I choose. He thought that, for the first time ever, that he had finally found his person and his place in the universe. What more could he ask for than this, really? What more could he ask for than to be loved with no strings attached, with no expectations or traditions or sacrifice or ‘destiny’ tied to it?

This was perfect. Just the way it was. 

The moths in the painting he had hung for her stood a silent vigil over their celebration from their new perch.

---

Yoshi’s vision was fuzzy when he opened his eyes, so he closed them and tried again, repeating the process until the world came into shape around him. His body was sore, but, surprisingly, less sore than it had been lately. A quick glance around told him that he was in the Battle Nexus’s medical ward. He had been here many times in the past, though this was his first visit on his most recent tour. It was an odd place, equal parts necessary and ironically useless given the line of work of its clientele. Sparsely stocked and staffed, yet equipped for the most dire of emergencies all at once. 

He supposed he must have passed out, then. 

He winced a bit, looking to the left, catching sight of a Nexus Nurse, already busy with some other poor soul who had found themselves down here. A glance to the right, however, surprised him, and Big Mama looked up at the movement, immediately catching his eye and making her way to his bedside.

“Oh, Muffin!” She tsked sympathetically, a hand reaching out to cup his face. “Are you alright?”

His heart absolutely swelled. Quite frankly, his head was still spinning, all stuffed full of cotton, and he didn’t have the presence of mind required to feel disgusted with himself for how excited he was that she was here. How fucking thrilled he was to have her attention-- to have her eyes on him, let alone her skin. He forced a very weak laugh, waving her off her concerns. 

“I am fine!” He mumbled with a shaky grin, his voice slurring slightly as he tried to get his tongue to move properly in his mouth. “A little internal bleeding never hurt anyone…!”

And she smiled, actually smiled at him, patting his cheek gently. “Oh, of course you are. That’s my handsome, fearless warrior,” she cooed. Yoshi chuckled very softly.

She had always done this. Laughed at his stupid jokes, raved over even his dumbest of movies, and showered him endlessly in praise. And, admittedly, he had always loved it. He had always soaked up the attention. 

That was what scared him the most, really. The thought that, maybe, that was all this ever really was at the root of it all-- just him wanting someone to pay attention to him and give him compliments. Maybe that’s why things were like this; because of his own selfishness poisoning something good. Because he was too broken and greedy for anything else. Maybe moments like these were the most he could ever hope for, realistically, and he just had to accept that.

Her hand left, and he heard her move away. Pathetically enough, it broke his heart. He was dimly aware of her hailing down one of the nurses out of the corners of his vision. 

“Make sure he’s well enough to perform in tonight’s line-up, understand? I want him in tip-top shape as soon as possible. No jiggery-pokery or bafflegab or anything else. And fetch me if anything else happens with him, won’t you?...”

He sighed, letting his eyes slide shut again.

---

“Okay, Red, listen to me very closely, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I will be gone for three hours. Okay? Three hours. Do you know how long that is?”

“Uhm…”

“That is the whole Scooby Doo video tape played twice.”

Raph nodded a bit, his eyes wide. Right. Dad would be gone for two Scooby-Doo’s.

“I’m going to go get some more food and things for you and your brothers, and then I will come back.”

Raph blinked widely up at his dad. “More tuna?”

“Yes, I am going to try to find more tuna cans for you,” his dad assured. “But listen. Okay? This is very important. I need you to watch your little brothers while I am gone. Okay?”

Raph glanced back over at his three younger brothers, who were all still asleep in their respective boxes. He was the only one who had been rudely awakened by their father, much earlier than they would usually arise on their own, but he had been gifted a peppermint candy for his troubles, so he couldn’t be too upset about it. 

“If you’re quiet, they should sleep until I get back. But if they wake up, I left breakfast out for you all. Right over there where we usually eat. Remember how I’ve shown you how to help feed Orange?”

Raph nodded. He’d fed Mikey lots of times before, repeatedly begging his father to let him hold his littlest brother in his lap and give him his breakfast. He knew how.

“And make sure Purple does not eat all of Blue’s food.”

Raph frowned.

“But… Donnie’ll bite me…”

He heard his father sigh, very softly, under his breath.

“I have told him not to bite today, okay? But Blue needs to eat, too. And besides, you are very tough and brave, aren’t you, Raph?” He hummed, smiling a tiny bit, leaning over just enough to rub his son’s scaled head. Raph beamed at the praise, nodding excitedly. Tough and brave? Of course he was! He wasn’t afraid of Donnie! Even if he did bite really hard.

“Good boy,” he said. “The Scooby Doo tape is already in the TV. Purple will help you rewind it and play it again when it’s over, okay? So you boys can watch while I am gone.”

“Okay.”

“But you have to make sure none of your brothers wander off, okay? You have to stay right here in this tunnel the entire time I’m gone. Understood? No exploring. You must be sure to watch Mikey.”

“Okay.”

“Red?”

“I’ll watch, Daddy.”

“Good boy,” he said again. “And if I don’t come back before the timer starts beeping--” he gestured to the kitchen timer that lived by his bed. Raph wasn’t that great with numbers yet, but he recognized the “eight” at the front. “Then bring your brothers and come find me, okay? But not before the timer goes off. Understand? Only if you hear the timer beeping. Do you understand, Raph?”

“Yeah.”

“Repeat it back to me, please.”

“Uhm…” He chewed on his fingers, looking to the side and shuffling his feet a bit. “Uhm, if the time… beeps. I’ll come find you…”

“By yourself, or with your brothers?”

“With my brothers...”

“But not before the timer, okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Their father sighed very deeply, leaning over and kissing his forehead. “I will be back soon, my son. Take good care of your brothers.” 

---

“Come ON.”

“Raph, stop. It’s not gonna work,” April sighed.

“It will if it knows what’s good for it!” He snapped, reeling back and throwing himself at the bars of their literal cage once more with a loud crash, the very walls shaking in response. “Come on! Open already!!!” 

“Raph--”

“We’ve gotta get outta here!” He hissed, his tail whipping behind him, and the sharp movement threw him off balance, nearly making him stumble to one side. Goddammit. He swore softly under his breath, bristling, the anger scratching underneath his (foreign, strange, uncomfortable) skin only pitching higher in response. They had already been here for-- what?! Two days? Three?! They were so close, and now they were just stuck here, completely vulnerable, completely at the mercy of an actual, literal crime boss--

“Raph. Stop,” April said again, firmer this time, reaching out to grab his arm. “You’re hurting yourself.”

Raph yanked his arm away from her, whipping around to look at her, growling, his lips drawn back over his fangs in a snarl. April didn’t flinch away or back off. Her hand chased after his.

That was almost worse, and Raph’s snarl almost immediately gave way to a cracked little half-sob. His body slumped slightly, unclenching tight muscles to instead wilt in exhaustion.

“I have to get us out of here…” he insisted weakly, looking away from her again, hiding from her eyes out of shame. He didn’t want to look at her. He didn’t want her to look at him. Jesus, what did he look like right now…? His clawed feet scraped against the ground beneath them. Earlier today he had accidentally stabbed Leo with one of the spikes of his shell after moving too fast and left a bruise. A fucking bruise.

Yeah, sure, fine. Maybe his brothers were freaks now. But he was even worse. He was a monster. A useless one.

He sobbed properly this time.

“Raph, it’s alright,” April tried to comfort, moving close enough to rest her hand on his arm, and looking at how tiny she was compared to him made him feel sick. He was pretty sure he could bite off her hand if he really wanted to. Even if he didn’t want to-- what if he still did somehow? “We’ll figure a way out of here--”

“It’s not alright!” He hissed, his chest tightening. “I have to fix this.”

“Raph, we’ll fix it together,” Mikey spoke up, almost cautiously moving to Raph’s other side. “I’m sure we can figure out--”

“No!” He snapped, and he hated to interrupt Mikey, and he felt bad as soon as he did it, but he couldn’t help it. He wasn’t-- panicking, exactly, but he was close to it. Next to it. “I’m-- I’m supposed to protect you guys, and I can’t even--”

“Raph, you don’t have to always protect us!” Mikey protested.

“But I want to!” Raph cried in protest. “I want to protect you guys, I wanna keep you safe, and I-- I didn’t! I’m supposed to take care of everyone! I’m supposed to be in charge when Dad isn’t here, and I-- all I did was bring us to some magic crime city, get us locked up like animals, and turned into mutants!--” He barked out a strained, teary laugh. “And I can’t even get us back out!”

A few tears tracked down his face. “Dad trusted me to take care of everyone when he wasn’t here and I just let him down.” He could feel the panic breathing hotly down his neck. “He’d be so disappointed in me--”

“Raph, stop.” Mikey hissed, his voice hard, so very much so that it quite nearly surprised Raph out of his spiral. 

“That’s not true at all,” his younger brother hissed, his own face kind of flushed and teary as well. “None of that is even your fault! And even if it was, I still wouldn’t care and neither would Dad! And you are protecting us! We’re all still here, aren’t we?” 

“More or less,” Leo mumbled softly, bitterly, and Raph looked ruefully down at his claws, shifting his joints closer and biting down a hiccup. Mikey glared.

“We are!” He insisted. “Look, we’re still the same people, even if we do look different now! Right? None of that other stuff matters so long as we stick together--”

“Mikey, stop it!” Donnie snapped, bristling a bit, his head jerking up so sharply that it was likely painful. “Just stop, okay!? Stop saying it doesn’t matter! Stop saying that we’re ‘still the same people on the inside,’ stop trying to find the dumb silver lining, okay!? Just admit that this sucks! Okay!? Just because you’re apparently all hunky-dory about being a fucking box turtle--”

“You think I like this?!” Now it was Mikey’s turn to snap, rounding on his siblings, his hands clenched into angry fists. “You think I’m happy about this!? Because I’m not, okay!? I hate it too! Does that make you feel better!? I’m fucking miserable. I hate this. I’m scared and I don’t know what’s going on and I’m really, really sick of falling over because I don’t even know how to walk anymore!”

Mikey sobbed loudly, plopping back down on his rear.

“I hate this,” he hiccuped weakly. “I hate it too. I’m just. I’m j-just… I’m trying my best…”

Another sob wretched itself from his throat as he buried his face in his arms.

For one long moment, quiet veiled the space.

Raphael was careful and calculated in his movements, taking care with the spikes and sharp edges of his body as he scooped his brother up in his arms, wrapping him up tight. Mikey wept, clinging to his brother in return.

“Sorry,” Raph mumbled, very softly.

Leo joined them quickly enough, burrowing in against his brothers’ side. “Me too,” he whispered.

Donnie didn’t join the embrace, but he did sit close by, hugging his legs to his chest and staring to the side, down to the ground. “Me… too,” he sighed, frowning a little, twitching uncomfortably. “... Sorry. This. This just really sucks.”

“It does suck,” Leo agreed.

“Yeah,” Raph mumbled.

“I keep dropping things b-because I-- I only have three fingers,” Mikey warbled softly.

“Me too,” Donnie admitted. “And I can’t really sleep, because I don’t know how to get comfortable anymore.”

“I keep accidentally biting my tongue,” Raph said.

“Every time I sit down, I crush my own tail under my ass, ‘cause I’m not used to it being there,” Leo confessed with a small laugh. “Isn’t that stupid?”

“My back hurts because of the shell. I’m just not used to it being there. It’s so heavy.”

“Everything smells so much stronger now. I hate it. It’s nauseating.”

“I still can’t figure out how to balance like this.”

“I just feel so stupid. How could we not know?”

“It’s all so overwhelming. I mean, just, everything. I can’t believe there’s so much that we forgot.”

“It seems so obvious now, looking back…”

“My skin is so thick now. It’s awful. I feel all swollen all the time, like I can’t bend any of my joints properly. I feel stiff.”

“If that guy made us, if we’re his ‘creations,’ experiments, then we’re not yokai, right? We’re something else. Mutants, I guess. Is there anyone else like us?”

“How did Dad even end up with us? What happened?”

“Do you think he’s a mutant, too? God. What else don’t we know? What else didn’t he tell us?”

“Do we still count as Hamatos? Are we Hamatos at all…? Do you think Ghost-Sensei knows?”

“I’m glad we know. I mean, mostly. We should know, but I just… part of me wishes we didn’t.”

“We can’t ever go back.”

“Our entire life was just, like, a lie. It was a trick. The whole time. And we fell for it. I can’t believe we all fell for it--”

“We just have to be different now.”

“We were always different, but at least before, we didn’t have to… to carry it. I don’t even know how I could even talk to people now. Even if we do fix the bracelets. How am I supposed to just talk to normal people when I’m in the back of my mind, like, ‘oh my god, they don’t know I’m a turtle’ the whole time?”

“I think I’m sort of glad Dad didn’t tell us. I mean. I’m upset, too, but I just… I dunno. Everything feels so complicated now.”

“I can’t believe we forgot.”

The longer they talked, all five of them bunched up together, the less tears there were, and eventually, during a moment of quiet, Mikey sighed, taking Raph’s big hand in his own smaller one.

“You hurt your knuckles,” he observed, noting the swollen, occasionally bloodied skin around the joints. Raph gave a very soft huff of laughter.

“Yeah, well, guess we match, then,” he said, though Mikey’s own knuckles were mostly healed by now, only bearing a few small scabs. Mikey smiled, just the tiniest bit, just for a second, before he sighed, laying his head back slightly. 

“I know this sucks,” Mikey mumbled. “... Like, it really, really sucks. But at least we’re still together. And that counts for something, doesn’t it? I think so long as we’re together, then we… we’ll be okay.”

Leo gave a wry smile, elbowing his brother ever-so-slightly. “Wow, Mikey, when did you get so wise?” He teased.

Mikey grinned, chuckling a bit and laying his head back again to stare at the ceiling, and then stare out the bars of the door that contained them. Raph sighed, his gaze following after his little brother’s, gazing out into the empty halfway. He had no idea why they were being kept here or what they were planning on doing with them. None of the guards would even speak with them. It was terrifying, if he was being honest.

But they had come here for a reason.

He believed what Mikey said. He did. If they were all together, they’d be okay. But that meant all of them.

“We’re gonna find Dad,” he finally said. “We are. And he’ll know how to help fix it. I know he will.”

---

“Raph.”

He wasn’t meaning to ignore his Dad. He wasn’t. He just--

“Raphael.” 

Mikey whined loudly, pulling against his older brother’s grasp, attempting to wriggle away from the iron grip Raph had on his wrist.

“Raphael.” This time, his father reached over, physically removing Raphael’s hands from his younger sibling. Mikey immediately went darting off, and Raph’s heart jumped up into his throat, his eyes growing wide.

“Dad--!”

“It’s okay, Red.”

“Dad, he’s too far!” He hissed, his voice strained with panic as he turned desperately to his father, grabbing at his pants leg. 

“No, he’s not. It’s okay, Raphael. Here. Look.”

He hoisted his child up in his arms with just a bit of effort, holding him up to his chest.

“See, my son? We can still see him from here.”

From up in his dad’s arms, Raph could watch Mikey throw himself into a pit of brightly colored foam balls with a squeal of excitement from across the play area. Leo wasn’t far off, immediately moving to join his little brother’s side, eager to show him all the blue balls he had collected. Dozens of other children scampered about nearby, clambering over play equipment and chasing one another. Raph frowned, grabbing fistfuls of his father’s shirt and fidgeting, chewing on his fingers nervously.

“What if he gets lost?”

“He won’t.”

“What if… there’s somethin’ dangerous?”

“There is nothing dangerous here, Raphael.”

“What if there is?” He pressed. “It’s big.”

“It’s okay, Red,” Dad soothed, readjusting his grip on his child, drawing him a bit closer. “I promise it is safe here.”

Raph looked down at the floor, clenching and unclenching his fists, the tiniest whine escaping from him. His father sighed softly.

“You have done a very good job looking after our family, Red,” he hummed, rocking them back and forth just the tiniest bit, idly swaying as he spoke. “But things are different now. Okay? Nothing here is going to hurt Michelangelo. And even if it did, I am right here to help. I am not going anywhere. I will not leave you alone. I swear I will take care of you and your brothers. Alright?”

Raph sniffled a bit, nodding the tiniest bit.

“If we are ever anywhere where it might be unsafe, I will tell you, okay? So you can watch out for your little brothers. Like when I tell you all to hold hands when we cross the street, right? Would that help?”

He nodded again, swallowing the lump in his throat as he laid his head down on his dad’s shoulder.

“Good,” he sighed, rubbing a few small circles along his back. “Do you want to go and play? There are lots of things here that I think you would like if you tried them. I think you’d have a lot of fun if you would let me handle looking after your brothers.”

Raph shook his head, burrowing further into his father’s embrace. He did want to go play, really. They had never been anywhere so cool before! They had been to the playground a few times now, but this was like a playground inside-- and they even had video games! And prizes! And he wanted to follow after his brothers, to stay close to them, but…

They kept going in opposite directions. And this place was so big and he couldn’t follow all of them, and, and--

“Okay. That’s fine,” Dad assured. “How about this? How about we sit and watch together for ten minutes, and then we can try going and playing something with one of your brothers. Do you think that would work, Raphael?”

Raph sucked in a deep, shaking breath, wiping at his eyes a bit before he finally nodded.

“Uh-huh.”

---

Though he had, in fact, performed in the Battle Nexus as scheduled that same evening, and then the following day as well, he was not actually ‘released,’ so to speak, from the infirmary until now, three-and-a-half blood transfusions later. Yoshi supposed he had no real complaints, given that the infirmary had actual beds in it to sleep upon, but the staff there were not exactly friendly, and he had quickly tired of being awakened at all hours of the night by other screaming patients. Not to mention that it was very awkward to share the same sleeping space with someone who’s leg you had recently broken in four different places…

But Big Mama had visited him each evening he was there. 

The guard escorting him was really a formality at this point, Yoshi suspected, and he almost dared to hope that he would be allowed to move freely through the Nexus in the near future. Surely Big Mama knew he would not try to run away with his children relying on her protection, right?

If he were permitted to wander without supervision, he might be able to corner a spectator and inquire about the current state of the Hidden City police’s hunt for Baron Draxum. He didn’t expect Big Mama would be informing him of such things, but if Draxum was apprehended, then there was a chance he might be able to find a way out of here and get himself back home, get those four remaining years like he had planned, or at least go visit his children and make sure they were okay… he hated that he had left without saying goodbye first, and had no doubt scared them with how he had disappeared.

 He had been researching for quite some time now, in between parenting and managing dojos, alternative sources for cloaking crystals. If he was able to pay for new ones, he could return Big Mama’s to her and perhaps argue to lighten his ‘sentence,’ or maybe even get out of it somehow. It was a long shot, but worth a try. Maybe this time could count towards that? He had had the crystals for ten years… did that mean he owed ten years time as a champion in return…? Ten years was still not as bad as a lifetime, assuming he lived through it all… 

He frowned as he calculated, shuffling his feet through the cold halls. 

The deal had still been worth it. He didn’t regret it. If a lifetime in the Battle Nexus was the price for his children’s lives in the world, then it was a price he was more than willing to pay.

He just regretted the pain he knew he inflicted on his family. It had always bothered him, sitting on his shoulder and hissing in his ear for the past ten years of his life. Every wonderful moment, every birthday, every movie night and dance recital and field trip, he still thought about it. Thought about how he would have to leave one day, and how it would hurt them. 

It was a shame. They deserved better than that. He had already done everything he could, even now, to prepare and to soften the inevitable blow as much as possible. Tucked away in the back of his nightstand back home, he already had hand-written cards for each of his sons’ college graduations, wedding days, and the birth of their first children, preparing for every scenario, just in case, since he knew he likely wouldn’t see most of them should they come to pass. He had had everything prepared, legally, for years now, so things would be taken care of in the event of his ‘death’ or ‘disappearance,’ and so that his children would have to shoulder as little of that burden as possible. He had invested in a hefty life insurance policy back when they were still in elementary school, ensuring that they would always be taken care of financially in his absence. 

He had even penned a letter, years and years ago, that could be delivered to his children once he was gone. He had been ready to die for a long time now.

But he still wasn’t prepared for how heavy the guilt would feel.

He, likewise, was not prepared for the shriek that pierced through the air a moment later as he passed by one of the dungeon’s many hallways, so sharp and sudden that he stumbled slightly.

“DAD!!!”

He absolutely froze in his tracks, his heart stopping still in his chest as he whipped around to face the familiar voice. His eyes widened so dramatically he was half afraid that they would fall from his head.“April!?” He cried, spluttering slightly. “Boys!?”

[ next ]

[fortune-fool02]

In Her Grasp

Leon Kennedy x Serial killer female reader

Summary: The rookie policeman finds himself in the claws of a notorious serial killer. 

Warning: Angst. Blood. Kidnapping. Dark themes. Torture. Serial killer themes. 

Word count: 2,373

Thank you for reading this. I've been planning this for a bit now and wanted to write something angsty for this baby boy. Please leave feedback and reblog as it really helps and is very appreciated. Thank you. 

Please enjoy. 

The door opened and [Name] stepped into the house, softly humming as she closed the door behind her and took her shoes and jacket off, setting them aside. She carried the bags into the kitchen, setting them aside and pulling out the contents she had purchased. A visit to the D.I.Y shop had given her some rope, thick, black cloth and some other bits and pieces. 

After putting away her shopping, she gathered the rope and cloth, heading towards the cellar door. Darkness completely encased the cellar, making the steps leading down to it appear to vanish beyond the first two. Unfazed, she continued down them, flicking a light switch at the base of them. A weak flicker sparked, casting a small pale yellow light out, doing little to brighten the room. Her guest remained secured to his seat. The man was stripped of his clothing, rope tied securely around his ankles and wrists, binding them together to prevent any attempt of escape. Noise-cancelling headphones over his ears with thick cloth around his eyes, blocking out his vision and hearing. 

He was no one. Someone she picked up a few days ago and had been keeping him here since. Walking over, she stood in front of him and looked at him. Black and blue blotches covered his skin, the hard strike of a bat or metal pole leaving their mark. The rope burns gnawing away at his wrists and ankles, an ugly red raw against his skin. She had her fun with him before, hearing him cry out and beg for forgiveness for something he hadn’t even done. Hell, she didn’t even know the man’s name. There was truly nothing personal about this. He was just there at the wrong time. 

Moving around the other side of the chair, she held up the piece of rope in one hand and used another to drag a stool over, securing the rope to a hook in the ceiling. Giving it a firm tug, she was satisfied with its security before using the other side of it to wrap around the man’s neck, feeling him whimpering behind the gag in his mouth. Once it was on, she tied the other side of the rope to a heavy weight on the table before pushing it off, letting it fall to the floor. The man was lifted up into the air and held there, pained gasps and cries were cut off by the rope. [Name] just stood there and watched his legs try and kick around for a few minutes before his body went still. Pulling on some disposable gloves, she walked over and pulled the cloth off his eyes to confirm he was dead, a small smile tugging her lips at the sight of his hollow, empty eyes. 

A sense of fulfilment flooded her body, a comforting sensation that made the smile on her lips grow more. She savoured it for a bit longer, looking into those empty eyes, imagining how they must have looked in their final moments of light as the life slowly faded from them. Regardless, she turned herself away, her attention now on a new prey, a new target. A photograph was pinned on the wall, those sweet, baby blue eyes staring at the camera with such vibrant light with the shadows casting due to his hair. The policeman uniform peaking just above the bottom edge. The rookie policeman at R.C.P.D. At the bottom of the picture was a name: 

‘Leon. S. Kennedy’ 

Her latest target. It had been chance that they had crossed paths, a man had tried to mug her in the street and he swooped in to her aid. Something about him had made her whole world freeze in place, like the frozen film of a camera. A streak of vibrant colour in her bleak, bland world. From that moment on, Leon was the only thing in her mind, haunting her thoughts like a siren’s song. Any other target was nothing to her anymore, very little enjoyment pulled from their time together. None of them had that look in their eyes like Leon did. That sweet little glimmer, a twinkling star in his eyes. 

There was something about him being a policeman that made the whole ordeal that more enticing. A man in uniform, ready to serve and protect innocents from people like her, and yet, he was oblivious to the threat that stood in front of him. The fly gazing at the spider, falling deeper and deeper into her web.

[Name] disposed of the body, wiping everything down and scrubbing it clean to ensure there was nothing left behind. Nothing of that boring thing's presence as even an indication he even existed. Once done, she picked up her phone and dialled the number Leon had given her.

Her voice soft and sweet as honey as she spoke to him, wishing to speak to him in person to discuss something of importance before hanging up the phone. Grabbing her bag, she headed out. 

- 

Leon sat in his car, looking down at his phone, reading over the text messages. This was the spot [Name] told him to meet her at. The street was quiet, especially at this time of night. A knot of worry irritated his stomach, [Name] wouldn’t say what was wrong, just that they needed to meet in person and it was important. He was off duty so he made his way over as soon as he could. 

His window was rolled down, allowing the night’s cool breeze to brush through his hair, past his cheeks with a gentle touch as his eyes scanned around again for the [Hair colour] woman. He brought his phone back up, his fingers moving along the screen as he sent her a text message and sent it off. A ping behind him drew his attention, the sudden feeling of cloth shoved in his face brought a pang of concern and worry. The grip held the cloth firmly in place while the other hand latched onto his arm, keeping it down as the chemicals entered his system. 

Muffled cries and yells soon grew quieter, his attempts at fighting slowing as his muscles grew heavy, his vision swimming a little before encasing in darkness. 

When he awoke, his head ached. A pounding in rhythm of his heartbeat that made the back of his eyes hurt. He turned his head, trying to bring his hand up to his eyes but found it held firmly in place. The rough texture of rope chewing into his wrists, panic shot through him, forcing the drowsiness away as he took in his surroundings. Darkness filled every corner, making it difficult to make anything out. His clothing had been stripped away, leaving nothing but his underwear, as was his handgun he kept on him at all times. The coldness seeped into his skin, raising goosebumps along his skin. 

He couldn’t panic now. He had to think and try to figure out how to escape. The rope was secured tightly, restricting movement. Faint, light taps could be heard above his head, settled in a steady rhythm. Footsteps. Followed by a click of a lock before the door opened, the footsteps making their way downstairs. A light was turned on, casting a weak light around him. 

“...[Name]?” Confusion was thick on his voice, his eyes locked on the woman. What was going on? 

“Oh, I thought you’d still be asleep.” Her voice held that sweetness to it, the same sweetness that Leon has ever known from her since the moment he met her. She passed by him, setting a bag down somewhere behind him. Leon tried to follow her but he couldn’t turn his head far enough. 

“What’s going on, [Name]? Let me go!” He demanded, trying to keep his voice firm but those little cracks in it gave him away. He felt vulnerable. Weak. He couldn't escape these binds, he couldn't defend himself. Left at the mercy of the woman with the sweet smile.

"I can't do that, even if I wanted to, Leon." She moved around, settling back in his line of sight. A chair scrapped across the floor and she seated herself directly across from him. Their knees touching. There was something unsettling in those pretty eyes of hers, as if he was gazing into the eyes of a viper ready to strike. Dread coiled in his stomach.

"You see, for a policeman, I was kinda expecting you to put up a little more of a fight. Or at least have been more alert, especially when there's a serial killer on the loose." [Name] lightly scolded, as if talking to a child who was misbehaving and being reckless. "But I can't blame you. You're the new rookie. Things like this don't happen to the rookies, eh?"

Leon tried to keep his breathing steady, gripping his bindings a little as he tried to assess the situation and tore his eyes away from her, tried to think of an escape. Something metal flashed in the low light, and he felt the cold kiss of a steel blade under his chin, tilting his head up lightly. "Don't look away from me, Kennedy." Her voice, just like her eyes, held a venom to them that was sharper than this knife under his chin.

"[Name], please. You need help-" The tip of the knife pressed itself into his skin, just enough to draw a single droplet of blood, a stinging sensation followed.

"I've been told I've needed help my entire life." She slowly pulled the knife away from him, her eyes not once moving off of him, "This, all of this, helps me." Her other hand rested on his knee and she leaned close to him. He could feel her warm breath against his lips. She brought the blade to her open lips, gently smearing the droplet of blood on her lips like it was lip-gloss before grabbing a fist full of his hair, yanking his head closer and pressing her lips onto his.

A surprised sound spilled his lips, the taste of his blood on her soft lips, lips he had dreamed about kissing time and time before, but not like this. [Name] held him there for a few seconds, savouring his lips before pulling away with a smile.

"If you behave, like a good boy, then this won't be as unpleasant as I can make it." Beneath that soft, honey-laced tone, beneath those twinkling eyes, there was a threat there. A promise of danger if he doesn't listen to her. A mouse trapped in the claws of a cat.

-

Despite his best efforts to keep track of time, it was hard to do so in this cellar. [Name] had set this little routine of sorts. Whenever she would leave him, she would cover his eyes with a blindfold, and cover his ears with headphones that played different music, music that he loved, all of his favourite songs, at a comfortable audio. All the times they had hung out together, all those moments they shared, she had been learning about him, studying him, picking out information to use in her favour.

But this time, [Name] had something else in mind for him. Leon had attempted to try and escape while she had been "gone". He had gotten free of his restraints, he had made it up the stairs and out the front door, only to find the woman herself sitting on her porch right outside the front door. She had been waiting for him to try and escape. She knew he would try to escape. And the second her eyes met his, and he saw that disappointed look in them, he felt his blood run cold.

Now, Leon was back in the cellar, his body secured so he was laid bare before her on the cold, stone floor. His wrists and ankles tied to prevent any form of movement, any form of resistance was impossible.

"You know, I really didn't want to do this to you, Leon." [Name] spoke, her back facing him as she set something up on the desk across from him. In her hand, she held an old leather belt with a large, metal buckle at the end. Her hand motioned to the clock she had set up. An old pendulum clock. Confusion chewed at him at the sight of the clock.

"Every sixth tick from the pendulum, I am going to hit you with this belt. Every seventh tick, I am going to kiss you." She explained calmly to him, her fingers gently brushing strands of his hair from his face, she wanted to see his expression as she did this.

With that, she pressed the key on the back of the clock and allowed the pendulum to begin swinging.

"Wait, [Name], I-I didn't-" Before Leon could finish his sentence, a piercing snap of leather filled the room, followed by a burning, biting pain in his side from the belt buckle. A pained cry ripped from his throat as his body tensed, the pain throbbing in his side. But not a moment later, her lips were on his cheek in a gentle, almost loving kiss. The two opposite interactions conflicted with one another. Her loving kiss on his cheek was warm compared to the cold bite of the belt buckle. Each time it struck his flesh, her lips were on his skin without fail.

Six strikes. Six kisses passed before the pendulum's dreaded ticking finally fell silent. [Name] setting the belt down beside the clock and moving over to Leon's side, her hands gently on his skin as she stroked his cheek, smiling at him.

"See? If you behave, I won't have to do this. I don't want to hurt you, Leon. So please don't make me, baby." [Name] leaned down and kissed his lips, humming softly as he tried to pull away from her. He only looked at her, his eyes filled with a mixed concoction of fear and unease at her.

She loved that look, but she wanted to see something else in those pretty eyes of his.

"Don't worry, baby." She smiled at him, "You'll learn to come around. Then we can be happy together."

[phoebepheebsphibs]

CROSSOVER NEXT PART WHEN please

So this next update is the BIG FINALE and as such it is... uh... really long. There's a lot of extra characters in the story (because I am DEAD SET on having an Avengers Endgame moment lol) so that means extra introductions and explanations for a few and etc. etc. etc.

Remember the last really long update I gave? The one that was over 7000 words? I crossed over that mark a while ago, and I'm only ONE THIRD OF THE WAY THROUGH.

yeh,,,

It's a big update, so it's taking a while.

Snek pek! ↓↓↓

"...Very well, then," rhg!Donnie exhaled, finally admitting defeat. "In that case, I'm not sure I know how to tend to 'mystic' injuries."

"I got it," Ghost volunteered, searching in the first aid for anything especially sparkly or glowing. That would be a good sign. After some rummaging, he managed to procure some mystic cream and began to salve the cuts and sores.

rhg!Donnie watched with interest and concern. He studied the label for future reference. He memorized the patterns in which Ghost anointed the child. He took internal photographs of the angles and shapes of Mikey's scars... and prayed that he would never have to see them on his baby brother back home. He had been concerned that this was the same Mikey he'd met earlier... they looked very much alike upon first glance. But after closer inspection, he saw that they had some differences. The scars were obvious. But this one was younger, and much smaller. Not just shorter, but skinnier too. He looked a lot like his brother in that sense. As for the Leon beside him -- the one that kept giving rhg!Donnie dirty side glances -- he looked like his twin brother. Except bald. No sign of the beautiful and soft hair that rhg!Dee used to braid and style for him before he'd left. He was frightfully thin, too. A thick scarf surrounded his neck to help insulate the miniscule amount of warmth his body could provide. rhg!Donnie happened to glance over at him when he didn't expect it, and saw him pocket a few extra medical supplies, subconsciously stuffing them into his pants. There were quite a few things already in his pockets, rhg!Dee realized. This kid was a thief. Not that it bothered him, he and his Leo had been sneaky like that on more than one occasion. District 12 wasn't a very generous place to live.

rhg!Donnie found himself reaching for his hand the next time he went to snatch something. Not so much to stop him as to simply just... hold something that was so similar to his brother. He knew he wouldn't get a chance like this again for a long time. If ever. It might be stupid, but for a moment he wanted to pretend that this was his Leo. It worked for half a moment, he could almost see his brother here in the room with him.

Leon turned to him as he grabbed his hand, wide-eyed in surprise before realizing that he'd been caught.

"Oh... Old habits die hard, I guess," he explained, sheepishly dropping the tube of ointment he'd taken.

"Next time, try it like this," rhg!Donnie whispered, showing him how to take the tube with better efficiency, while simultaneously distracting the victim while you repurposed their possessions. But he got the feeling this teen already knew all the tricks of the trade.

Leon smiled weakly at him.

"Thanks, but... well, there's not really supposed to be a 'next time'," he explained, while looking back at DvD and 'Phael. "I kinda have a family now... and a home."

"Congratulations," rhg!Donnie said, hoping the genuine delight that this Leon had his family all around him came through, despite the monotonous tone in his voice.

"The kleptomania just sorta... flares up when I'm stressed," he mumbled. "When I feel like I'm not safe. I take stuff so I can pretend that I have everything I might need in an emergency." He laughed as he pulled out all the band-aids and alcohol wipes and gauze from his pockets. "I don't even know what I'd do with half of this stuff!"

"It's better to have most of this than not," rhg!Donnie mentioned, taking half of the pile and stuffing them into his own pockets, despite knowing that if he were to be portalled home again the items wouldn't be going with him. "Just in case..."

@daboyau @boots-with-the-fur-club @amevello-blue

[bowsonmyblunts]

Mercenary

The dimly lit ceiling light burned a soft pink through your eyelids. You didn't want to wake up, not yet,

Your whole body bolted forward to the ice cold water that trickled down your body. You blinked at the shadow in front of you. Your handed down dark army green tactical vest drenched in water. "talk about rude awakening..." You grunted out squinting at the person in front of you; or more specifically people. "Whatever it is no. I'm not interested." You spit in a raspy voice looking down at your ashy black boots. Your hands shuffled against the burning ropes on your wrist.

"Come on Oliveria you haven't even heard what we had to say." Your eyes shot up venomously at the blue eyed women.

"Don't you fucking call me that Jill." Your voice was small but dangerous. Your eyes darted around the room: Rebecca Chamber, Chris Redfield, Claire Redfield. Jill opened her mouth to spit an insult at you but any irritation in her body left as she saw the gilt of Carlos in your eyes. You saw the way her eyes softened. You sighed and rested your arms on the top of your vest.

"Whaddaya want?" Chris's eyes widened and he swiftly brought his hand to his gun. Claire quickly grabbed at him and shook her head.

"We need help," She hands you a folder.

Twelve cases wherein people had died after being mysteriously infected by an advanced strain of the T-virus and were found with needle marks on their bodies.

Claire followed your eyes interrupting as you had gotten the gist of the operation.

"I discovered an orca infected with the same T-virus strain as the victims from Chris's case swimming near the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, which there had also happened to have been several missing whales." She handed you another folder; this containing photographs. Your face remained still as you looked over the grotesque imagery. Your eyes caught the name of an island.

"The victims had visited Alcatraz Island before they died..." You finally concluded. Jill nodded slowly and cautiously. She knew that if you refused they'd barely be a chance they would make it out alive without a serious amount of casualties. The tension around was thick. You stood up and dusted off your clothes.

"Alright let's do this, and maybe next time you could just tap me on the shoulder, thought I was gonna get tortured or something." You grinned walking through them and out the door.

SORRY I HAVEN'T POSTED just wanted to write down this idea sorry i know the beginning is a little shitty, I changed my idea

Another short story cos I have no motivation to write a full one. maybe part 2 with leon.

[rainwaterapothecary]

Memories All In A Row

#serennedyprideweek Day 2 Prompt - "Raccoon City"

The only way to describe the sound that emitted from Luis Serra’s mouth would be ‘a joyous shriek of unmasculine pitch’. (Which was a feat for someone quickly approaching 78 years of age.) Leon felt it was a mark of how far he’d come since retiring that he didn’t immediately reach for a sidearm at such a noise coming from his lover.

“Amor- Amor look!” The former researcher-turned-professor lept into the room with a small, rectangular object in his hand. His husband squinted to get a better look as Luis waved it around. “Amor were you really that small?” He cried with delight, slapping the photograph down like a finishing argument.

The small, affectionate smirk that always crept up on Leon whenever his partner was doing something particularly boisterous and benign began to fall as he took in the damning 4x6 image of his younger self. He breathed a sigh.

“Yeah, kinda hard to believe, looking at me now.” He motioned at his head as if to use his graying hair as evidence. Luis’ smile softened and pulled at the wrinkles around his eyes.

“¡Silencio!” He buried his fingers in his partner’s hair where it would eternally flop over his forehead. “You know I love your hair.” Leon smiled sadly up at his man. “And your face.” Luis added with a slight nod before kissing the retired operative softly on the lips.

That garnered a huff of a laugh though Leon’s eyes stayed mournful. Luis sighed and waved the man backward on the chair so he could settle on his husband’s thigh.

“What is it? You look like a kicked dog, mi vida.”

Strong, scarred hands came around Luis’ waist as the blond rested his cheek on his husband’s shoulder. The photo remained staring up at him from the desk. Luis received a small hug before Leon’s arms went back to just holding him.

“That might be the only photo I have in uniform. It’s the day I graduated from the Academy, one week before I went to Raccoon City.” He laughed dryly, barely a noise. “Well, I was supposed to ship out the next night,’ he tapped the photo and returned his hands to his lover. ‘But I got the strangest call to ‘stay away’.”

He shook his head as if to clear it. Luis muttered some sort of consolation in Spanish that served more to remind Leon of where he was, when he was, than really meaning anything in and of itself. Leon sighed.

“It’s been…Jesus, forty? Fifty years?”

“…And you can still smell the fresh paint?”

Leon swatted the chortling academic but continued his musings. This was a topic they had gone over a few times over the years – Leon’s memories, the city that got wiped from the map, Luis’ unknowing part in it all. When they were young, the scientist had panicked and shut down on him when they put the pieces together, thinking his friend (and freshly boyfriend) would hate him and want him banished from his side. Leon had merely sat in silence with himself, stewing in his memories and finding within himself not disgust or betrayal but genuine awe at the things his lover had created. How powerful and smart this beautiful man was. Is.

Over time it had been something they had accepted about the past and Leon had only flung it at Luis once during a fight. It hadn’t even been a nuclear argument until he dug up the filthiest hurt he could think of and spat it like venom at the love of his life. Luis had panicked and left; Leon didn’t blame him. With his vile words, the scientist had cause to think that he hadn’t forgiven him for anything ever and thought of him as the evil cultist he’d first met in Spain. All of their shared friends ripped Leon a new asshole for that one.

He pressed a kiss into his lover’s shoulder at the reminder.

“Where did you even find this, amore?”

Decades later, Luis still brightened when Leon used a nickname on him – English, Spanish, Italian, he was giddy. He snuggled closer into his husband’s chest and took in the baby face looking up at him.

Leon could have been a model, truly. Instead he had gone into the police force to try to protect others…a decision that lead only to government manipulations and pain, years of using his body as a weapon and a meat shield for the weaker and the defenseless. Luis’ gaze softened.

This was probably the final photo left of Leon’s innocence.

“It was in a box of photographs in the attic- Oh! I finally found the perfect albums, Leon! Look look look-“

Forgetting the topic at hand while his husband became an amalgamation of hair and legs where he squirmed out of Leon’s grasp, the ex-agent laughed.

Luis smiled at the sound once his back was turned and he had begun running down the hallway.

Smile still on his lips, the older bookend to the man in the photo looked down at his likeness.

“Sometimes I don’t recognize you, you know. Feels like a lifetime ago.”

“You say something?” Luis returned with 3 thick, black leather photo albums in hand. Leon whistled appreciatively at the gold banding and solid heft.

“Those look nice, babe.”

Luis giggled at the endearment and settled them on the desk near the Kodak keepsake. It wasn’t even a picture taken by a loved one – by that point he’d had no one left. His grandmother had passed away after he’d left high school and after the whole mess with his parents he’d decided he was quite set on family tragedy, thank you very fucking much. (To this day his worst nightmares tee off with something happening to Luis or Rose or Ashley, he doesn’t need that shit again. He had his people and he was keeping them.)

“Is that background real or a green screen?” Luis’ chuckles brought him out of his death-grip on the man’s waist. Leon raised an eyebrow.

“Pretty sure it’s just an office wall they did up all nice for our photos. It’s the official Academy one so it has to be…nice, I guess.” Luis looked at him like he hung the stars.

“We have an official Leon Serra-“

“Scott-Serra-“

“-Kennedy merchandise?! This is a one-of-a-kind, Leon!” Luis playfully shook him by the shoulders, really playing up the excitement of the moment. “In fact, I think this deserves a place of honor-“

“Luis no-“

“¡Luis sí! I think it belongs innnnn this one.” He pulled out an empty album and began unpeeling the very first page. Leon rolled his eyes at the theatrics of the beautiful, silly man he married.

“Why this one, Luis?”

“Hm?” The professor hummed while pulling out a small pen from a pocket and neatly writing something below the picture. Leon pressed into his back, resting his lips against the man’s neck.

“Why this album, babe? What are you planning?”

Luis capped the pen with a flourish and waved over the writing to dry the ink. He purposely kept an elbow in the way of Leon’s view.

“Oh, just future Christmas cards.” He said distractedly. Leon jostled him. “Kidding! Kidding, this is the one for our lives before we met. Baby pictures, polaroids from birthdays, top secret family recipes that certain señoras have threatened you to keep under pain of-“ He broke off cackling as Leon tickled him.

“Oh yeah? And where are we gonna get these pictures, Luis?”

Leon did not like the grin his beloved shot him over one shoulder.

-*-

A/N

Listen the longer I write this man the better I hone in on his pet names. I hold Luis' has got 3 he uses depending on the situation. Apparently 'my life' is one of them which I think is just 🤌 considering how they saved each others' lives in this timeline.

Everything will be crossposted to ao3 at the end of prideweek, and give wisecrackingeric-2 all the love for putting this whole event on!

[hollywoods-angel]

azizi <3

azizi johari is an american model and actress who was featured in playboy magazine in 1975 and landed roles on tv shows and films alike! her name is in fact a pseudonym and since i couldn't find her legal name i'll be referring to her by her stagename!

due to her father's career in the military azizi spent her childhood moving around before the family eventually settled down in seattle. during her years at school she joined a group called the marvelles and they released a song called "call me back." later on she moved to san francisco and was a stewardess for united airlines.

azizi then joined the black arts west theatre group and started off getting roles in plays, and then small movie roles. around this time she started using the name azizi which is Kiswahili for 'precious jewel.' she then posed for a 1973 poster called Supernatural Dream (the poster is also seen in a scene from the shining!). sammy davis jr saw the poster and featured her in his touring show.

in 1975 azizi got her big break by posing for playboy in june, and the following year she was photographed for leon ware's LP, Musical Massage. in the following years she was put in magazines such as Jet and Player which were popular magazines for african american representation. she continued to get small roles in films- even in rocky ii!

azizi's legacy is marked by her beauty and style that captured people and placed her on numerous magazines. she embraced her natural beauty which helped cement her as a style icon to many. Supernatural Dream has been a popular poster for 50 years, helped cement azizi's legacy alongside her apperance on Musical Massage.

[lunarwildrose]

Commander Erwin Smith and me aka Nabi Ackerman ~ sister of Lee-vee!! @octobernocturne :3 ~ a self-indulgent illustration to mark one year (April 28th, 2023) since I first dreamt of Erwy, hehe. 🤍

That was the dream where me and him worked on a court case together, and had good rapport between one another akin to Rachel and Harvey from The Dark Knight ~ which is funny, cos we used to say, "Oh, there's the Leon guy and Connell guy" about Levi and Erwin, cos Robbie had the Leon haircut years ago, and his author avatar works in the Knight Academy in MQ the webcomic with Connell who is our expy of Harvey from The Dark Knight and a real life neighbour we had at one point, but now Micky is Levi, and Erwin stands out on his own ... unless you count Erwin being an expy of Adrian Alexander Veidt aka Ozymandias from Watchmen, and me twinning with Erwin starting with his voice actor also being born on May 4th and Adrian's name being similar to my long-lost fictional twin brother, Alexander Adrian Amaranth, in MQ the webcomic ... then there's that. ^^;

Anyways, I'm glad I got Micky's input on what colours would work best in the background, cos I ended up lifting a photograph he sent me recently from the art gallery in NYC, and Micky said he loves it! =^-^= 🤍

(And, yesh, my hair in real life does look like Rogue from The X-Men, lololol)

~ ♡ ~

{Commander Erwin Smith (who, to me, is also Adrian Veidt aka Ozymandias since Erwin is an expy of Adrian) is my unofficial twin/boyfriend in dreams.}

[fctedivided]

Muse Aesthetics:  Horror Edition.

Chosen muse: Leon

Gothic Horror: 

Gaslights. Corsets. Ballrooms.  Candlelight.  Mist.  Starless nights.  Full moons.  Cobbled streets.  Horse-drawn carriages.  Mysterious strangers.  Bogs.  Moors.  Forests.  Mountains.  Castles.  Velvet.  Silver.  Brass.  Gold.  Jewels.  Domino masks.  The opera.  Dangerous romances.  Tragic romances.  Violins. Roses.  Lilies.  Empty graves.  Crosses.  Cemeteries.  Snow.  Ice.  The gallows.  Crows.  Milk-white skin.  Ambiguous illness.  Fangs.  Pointed nails.  Something howling in the night.  Capes.  Gloves.  Top hats.  Straight razors.  Lightning.  Pipe organs.  Underground caverns.  Bats.  Mice.  Rats.  Ravens.  Cats.  Pearls.  Attics.  Talismans.  Axes.  Wood.  Isolation in a room full of people.  Vampires.  Werewolves.  Ghosts.  Coffins.  Western Europe.  Eastern Europe.  Bones.  Churches.  Catacombs.  Mausoleums.  Spiders.  Books.

Classic Horror: 

Powder puffs.  Icy blue eyes.  Black and white.  Red lipstick. Winged eyeliner.  White kitten heels.  Black lace lingerie. Rain.  Abandoned cars.  Skeletons.  Acid.  Poison.  Voyeurism.  Switchblades.  Strangling.  Overcoats.  Looking over your shoulder.  Trans-Atlantic accents.  Private detectives.  Dinner parties.  Haunted mansions.  Alcohol in glass decanters.  Cobwebs.  Perfect blonde curls.  Kitchen knives.  Shock.  Cellars.  Dust.  Dark alleys.  Empty streets.  Driving at night.  Horn-rimmed glasses.  Radiation.  Zombies.  Serial murder.  Paranoia.  The city.  Witches.  The devil.  Cannibalism.  Conspiracies.  Amulets.  Abject terror.  The American south.  The American northeast.   England.  Analog cameras.

Slashers:

Bloodbaths.  Massacres.  Wanton nudity.  Newspapers.  Leather jackets.  Letterman jackets.  Converse sneakers.  Obscured faces.  Social unrest.  Bonfires.  Lakes.  Babysitters.  Suburbia.  High school.  Lockers.  Dead leaves in the fall.  Jack-o’-lanterns.  Outdated television sets.  Nightmares.  Psychiatrists.  Hospitals.  Unstoppable forces.  Gunfire.  Police.  Character masks.  Landline telephones.  Household objects turned into improvised weapons.  Halloween.  Secrets.  Revelations.  Scrunchies.  Fire.  Queerness.  Wild curls.  Jeering children.  Parties.  Swearing.  Revulsion.  California.  The American Midwest.  Ambulances.

Paranormal Horror:

Wells.  Malevolent spirits.  Seances.  Spells.  Missing bodies.  Hidden graves.  White noise.  Static.  Flickering lights.  Cold air.  Rings of salt.  Black ooze.  Faces you swear you’ve seen before but can’t for the life of you figure out where.  Demons.  Poltergeists.  Dark histories.  Old buildings.  Mausoleums.  Urban exploration.  A dog barking at something you can’t see.  Black ooze.  Old photographs.  Dark bodies of water.  Crucifixes.  Priests.  Possession.  Exorcisms.  Dolls.

Cryptid & Urban Legend Horror:

Dark woods.  Aliens.  Blinding light.  Driving at night.  Claw-marks.  Bite-marks.  Men in black.  Memory loss. Dismembered bodies.  Sewers.  Flashlights.  Cell phones.  Video cameras.  Bugs.  Big cities.  Cars with tinted windows.  Abandoned houses.  Unlabeled cassette tapes.  Urban crimes.  Glowing light.  Clowns.  Something rustling outside your window.  Unsolved mysteries.  Suburbia.  Mirrors.  The American pacific northwest.  The American Midwest.  Hiking / backpacking.

Thrillers:

Morgues. Daylight.  Fluorescent lighting.  Asylums.  Paperwork.  Unwavering eye contact. Tension.  Federal agents.  Lit rooms with no one inside them.  A dog digging in the newly-planted flower bed.  Steely gazes.  Anagrams.  Codes.  Convicted killers.  Missing persons.  Law enforcement.  Small towns.  Suspicion.  Paranoia.  Subdued terror.  Dimly-lit parking lots.

Tagged by @eternalbxtterfly (thank you for tagging me!)

Tagging: @petalseas, @boomermania, @narvvhal, @vixlenxe, @doloniadiegesis, @frzndesires, @sncwlight, @prettyboywarrior, @cursedfortune, @inseparableduo, @kitxkatrp, @mysticallities, @charroblanco, @ancientforged, @shichishi-chii, @theyvefallen, @emystic, @idealseekxr, @jardinae, @juwul, @grislyintentions, @pinklocksoflove, @slayingblades, @ofliminalities, and anyone who wants to do this OR steal it from me!

[therefpoint]

• Maison Margiela Artisanal 2024 Collection by John Galliano, Look 1.

• Young Couple Wearing a Two-in-One Suit at the Bal de la Montagne Sainte-Geneviève by Brassaï, 1931.

• Mr Pearl by Photographer (Maybe Adrian Green)

Brassaï was a Hungarian-French photographer, sculptor, writer and filmmaker who gained international attention in the 20th century for his black and white street photography, he captured the alluring and mysterious streets and underbelly of Paris with his voyeuristic approach.

In 1933 Brassaï published a book of his nocturnal photographs of the dimly lit Parisian streets titled ‘Paris de Nuit’ (Paris at Night), he would stroll the streets visiting cafés, bars, dance halls, opium dens and bordellos photographing those on the fringes of society, such as transvestites, gay couples, prostitutes, madams and Parisian lower class. The book was very successful and helped launched his career in photography.

When Brassaï attended one of the large balls held in Paris in 1931, he noticed a diverse crowd of every class, race and age. That night he photographed a gay couple at the event. He wrote about the occasion, “Every entrance and every costume gave rise to shrieks of surprise, cries of astonishment, of joy. . . . Two young men wrapped in each other’s arms had to demonstrate the perfect union of their souls, their bodies-dressed in a singlesuit: one was wearing the jacket, with his legs and buttocks naked; the other wore the pants, his torso and feet bare, since he had given his boyfriend the only pair of shoes.". There is a resemblance to the style and look in the Maison Margiela 2024 show when fashion model Leon Dame came out posing and featuring Look 1 of the collection.

Mark Erskine-Pullin famously known as Mr. Pearl is what one could say is a 21st century genius, he was a committed corsetier training his waist down to 18 inches, not only did he wear corsets but he became a sought-after corset maker working with fashion designers such as Alexander McQueen, Christian Lacroix, Thierry Mugler and John Galliano. From conception to materialisation, a Mr Pearl piece can take months of hard work and craftsmanship. No wonder he became an eternal reference for designers today, especially Galliano having worked with him previously. The inspiration is apparent in the look that first walks out on the runway of the Maison Margiela 2024 show, featuring the model wearing a white boned corset and black trousers baring similarities to a photograph of Mr Pearl and his extremely small waist.

Follow and keep your notifications on for more posts on this current Margiela collection and other runway, art, film and media references!

Sources:

Maison Margiela 2024 Collection Look 1 image: https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2024-couture/maison-martin-margiela

Brassaï photograph of a homosexual couple image: https://www.vintag.es/2021/07/one-suit-for-two.html?m=1

Mr Pearl image: https://www.per-spex.com/articles/2019/6/7/mr-pearl-and-the-history-of-corsetry

[piratewithvigor]

Regal The Professional: Chapter 1

It isn't professional to spy on one's neighbors. It isn't professional to take in their son. It isn't professional to teach him the finer points of assassination, but William Regal does it anyway Leon The Professional AU but make it found family

AO3 Link

For as long as there was a street corner for a building to sit on in Little Italy, there was a Schiavone serving pasta. Authentic noodles, hand-pulled every morning, served with a bolognese made from tomatoes that had been grown by someone in the family. Bartolo Schiavone had set down the first dish in front of the first customer what must have been 150 years ago. Ettore Schiavone had been the first to expand the business into canned products when the Great Depression hit. Noah Schiavone had been the first to decide to go by his middle name instead and Tony Schiavone was the first to expand the family business into a second enterprise.

There’s a plate on the table in front of him. Well, in front of his guest. Untouched. Alongside it is a glass of milk. It’s half emptied. With any of his other regulars, Tony might take offense with an untouched meal. A mark of a poor guest, as his mother would chastise. The man in front of him is an exception. The only exception. The only one he knows well enough to know that a refused meal is an indication of preparing to go to work and not an insult. Tony’s set him to work numerous times and provided a meal each time. It never leaves the table having been touched. They could stop the charade of an offered meal, but no one leaves Schiavone’s without at least an offer and the man only eats once he’s completed a job.

The one being presented shouldn’t take long.

Beside the plate is a photograph, obviously taken by a security camera if the grainy black-and-white quality is anything to go by. It depicts a man with hair as shamelessly bleached as his face is shamelessly spray-tanned. He’s on the move, looking over his shoulder. No one is accompanying him, therefore an anxious man. One with someone he’s trying to avoid. He’s wearing a cowboy hat (therefore from Tennessee or Texas), but it’s perfectly clean (therefore for show only). The clothing indicates a wealthy man, but the grooming indicates insecurity. He’s new money, but not by legal means. New, illegal money has a habit of pushing a little too hard a little too fast at the prospect of obtaining more money.

“Double J,” Tony explains, tapping on the photograph. “He comes to town every Thursday and he’s been stepping on toes every time.”

In perfectly polished, dust-free cowboy boots, if a guess had to be made.

“The client just wants to talk to him.”

“Just to talk?”

“Just to talk.”

“That can be arranged.”

There were no doubts about the potential to be arranged. It was why Tony had made the particular call for the job. The issue arose with the details that could be garnered from the photo. New money didn’t just make an appearance out of the blue with a nepotism fund. It required brains (to a degree) and caution (to a significantly higher degree). Once the money started to appear, then guards did as well. Arranging a chat could be done by anyone. Arranging a chat with a paranoid criminal who more than likely had amassed a small army to follow him at all times would require Regal.

He finishes the milk and takes the photograph on his way out.

***

“Double J” Jeff Jarrett fancies himself a man of caution. On Thursday, his drop day, the schedule is precise and unchanging. To deviate from the schedule would mean to risk losing control over the events of the day. Losing control over the day meant losing control over the week, which resulted in a slippery slope that his boots had nowhere near the traction for. The only thing that ought to change from week to week, the only thing that he allowed to be a surprise, was what Karen would be wearing at the hotel.

Two cars would arrive at the hotel at 11:36am. He’d be in the second one, just a few feet behind the first at all times. Satnam would be in the car with him, the biggest of his muscle, and Lethal and Sanjay in the first car. They would keep an eye on his surroundings and Satnam would keep an eye on Jeff and the briefcase nestled snugly between them.

When parked, places would be taken. Lethal and Sanjay would exit first and do a quick sweep of the surrounding area. Diligent, but speedy. Checking for anyone who could take the briefcase before Jeff could get it to the elevator. At 11:38am, the all clear would be given and Jeff would make his way to the elevator, surrounded on three sides. From there, Satnam would wait in the lobby, one hand on his radio and one hand on the small gun that was easily concealed in one of his jacket pockets.

By 11:40am, Jeff would stroll into the hotel room and be greeted by three people. His primary interest would always be Karen. She wore something different every week in order to throw off her husband, but whatever she wore, he always enjoyed taking it off. The other two would be Dax and Cash. Jeff was damn near certain those weren’t their real names, but he also didn’t particularly give a shit. They brought him the creatine and had reliable dealer systems that ensured everyone got paid well. More importantly, they knew how to cut the coke he brought. He’d never admit so, or even insinuate it out loud, but no attempt he’d ever made at cutting had gone half as well as what they were able to pull off in an hour.

So he’d give them the briefcase and an hour, heavily supervised by Lethal and Sanjay, and he’d enjoy Karen’s lunch break with her. At 12:30pm, he’d send Karen on her way, take a shower, get redressed, inspect the coke, get the money he was owed for the previous week and be on his merry way. He and his boys would find lunch outside the city, then fly back to Memphis. An in-and-out operation. So quick, no one would even know he’d gone into the city at all.

On Thursday the 8th, everything is going perfectly according to plan until 11:52am. The little digital clock on the bedside table tells Jeff so when his radio beeps from its discarded place on the floor. He knows his men well enough to know that they know not to disturb him outside of an emergency. It had been a learning curve, but they figured it out in time. No inane questions had disturbed him in almost two months. Which meant whatever this was meant an emergency, or he would have to do some firing once they got home.

He leans over Karen and pulls his radio from its cozy nesting place. “What is it?”

“There’s somebody here who wants to talk to you.”

Satnam sounded much more calm than Jeff would have been for an unexpected visitor, which could only mean one of two things: an unfriendly he’d already overpowered (likely) or a friendly coming to visit (borderline impossible; Jeff didn’t have friends and Karen is still giggling from underneath him).

“What’s he look like?”

“Serious.”

For a split second, Jeff considers chastising Satnam for being purposely cryptic. It serves no one and it wastes his time. A split second is all he has before a gunshot rings through the radio. There’s no time beyond that to consider that maybe Satnam was the lucky one who got off a shot. He’s dead and whoever killed him knows that the operation is in the hotel, probably even knows which room. Jeff had spent these last few months hoping that staying in the same room meant he could be familiar with every inch of the building and every escape route. It’d been a ridiculous oversight to assume that anyone who wanted a slice of his pie wouldn’t begin learning the same things.

He climbs off Karen and scrambles for at least a bathrobe and hopefully the gun he keeps in his other jacket pocket.

“Lunch isn’t over yet,” Karen protests, sounding all the more obviously like she was doing some partying by herself before he’d shown up. Another damned unpredictability.

“Just gotta handle this, darlin’, I’ll be right back. Take a nap or somethin’.”

Karen, to her credit, doesn’t ask questions. She may not be as cautious as Jeff wished she were, but at least she isn’t stupid. She lets him stalk into the main room where his men are about to get started on the first brick.

“Somebody’s coming up,” he interrupts them. “Somebody serious.”

It’s all they’ve got to go on. Could be one man, could be an army. All they know for sure is someone unfriendly to their organization is on their way, likely ready to kill. The coke is temporarily abandoned as the four of them step lively to take their positions around any entrance that could be found. From the 16th floor, a balcony entry is unlikely, but either the fire escape or the elevator could be entry points.

The only sounds for a few moments are safeties on guns clicking off and the labored breathing of nervous adrenaline. Up until the elevator begins moving. Coming up. A soft mechanical whir and the even softer ding of passing floors. Dax nudges Cash’s attention towards it, leaving Sanjay and Lethal’s attention on the stairs, just in case the elevator’s only been activated as a diversion. A more prolonged ding hits on floor 16 and the doors slide open. All Cash needs is a glimpse of a hand before he starts shooting. Dax only gets off two of his own before the realization hits him.

“Hold on!”

Without the bullets ripping through clothes and skin, the body is able to drift back into view, held aloft by a hand tied to the roof of the car. Satnam’s body.

“They’re in the elevator shaft… fuckers could be anywhere,” Cash murmurs, backing away from the elevator as much as he can.

“Get the driver to pull around back, we’re leaving,” Lethal instructs Sanjay. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how unbelievably stupid it would be to split up, but with a brick open on the table, a car 16 stories below and the enemy closing in, options are limited at best. Cash and Dax more or less scramble back into the hotel room to clean up, leaving Lethal to keep watch over the exits.

It’s an army, it must be. Satnam is damn near seven feet tall on a good day, and definitely no stick. There’s no way he could be maneuvered into the elevator and strung up by just one guy. His wrist is tied to mechanisms above the car, leaving a wide open hole in the ceiling. Plenty big for someone to crawl through.

Lethal’s examination of the elevator is interrupted by another gunshot, this one sounding like it came from a few stories down. The elevator is still wide open, but if the army is coming by stairs…

He backs away gently, taking only one step at a time and trying to peer over the railing down into the fire escape in between. 16 stories of metal, concrete, and probably trace amounts of asbestos with a gap just wide enough to fall through down the middle. It’s disorienting enough that Lethal doesn’t see the mop of aging blonde hair tugging him over the railing until he’s fallen 4 stories down. All his colleagues hear is his scream.

“They’ve got the hotel exits surrounded.” Jeff’s not quite panicking yet. Cash and Dax always bring enough firepower to hold off an army if need be. Regular sidearms are all well and good, but the semi-automatics are what keep him from being pushed around by the bigger dealers. He just needs to get them set up in time and somewhere he won’t be boxed in by whoever is coming. “Check the balcony.”

The balcony can be sealed off, of course. One of the details he paid for personally when he started using the room and made an agreement with the hotel. A single button press lowers a solid steel door over the windows, blocking out almost all the sunlight.

Jeff didn’t press that button when the door lowers. No one pressed that button. As soon as it locks into place, all he hears is a handful of gunshots that punch holes in the steel and let in 9mm beams of near-noon sunlight. He doesn’t make a move until one of the beams is blocked out. The hole is just big enough for him to see a steely blue eye, one that doesn’t belong to any of his men, dead or alive.

He starts emptying the magazine of the automatic he’d barely noticed he was clutching for dear life. Each window shatters and the door begins letting in more and more sunlight. It’s bright enough that he can tell it must be noon when the magazine is finally empty. It’s one down, but how many more?

There’s more guns in the side room. Fully loaded and ready to go. He just has to get them and find any sign that he’s making progress. A handful of mini Ks sit along the table, finishing their lineup with the hotel room’s (thankfully cordless) landline. If he’d been thinking clearly, Jeff would have taken one gun and kept the other hand open for the briefcase and made a run for it. That would have been if he’d been thinking like a professional, like someone who had been in the business for longer than six months. He’s still thinking like a good, law-abiding citizen as he calls 911.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Someone’s tryin’ to kill me!”

“Sir, please stay on the line, I’ll connect you with an officer.”

An officer. Someone who’d probably enjoy catching a drug dealer as much as a murderer. Anything to brag about at the bar after their shift. Jeff isn’t thinking about that as he sweeps the room, checking every dark corner for an assailant. His breathing is still ragged as he settles back into a corner himself, confident he’s alone. Ragged enough that he doesn’t hear the footsteps behind him until a tiny blade is at his throat.

“Detective Jones, may I help you?” The phone asks, as if it doesn’t care one way or the other.

Jeff’s feeling stupid for calling the cops, but he’s at least got the sense to know that hanging up would be in his best interest. He ends the call and drops the gun in his other hand, not moving a muscle beyond that.

“I’ve got half of Bolivia in th’ briefcase over there– yours if you wan’ it,” he whispers. “Ain’t even cut yet.”

The man behind him doesn’t respond. Just pulls out a scrap of paper with a phone number scrawled across it. He holds it up to Jeff’s face. It’s a clear order: “dial the number.” Jeff doesn’t think twice about obeying. He only pauses when Karen stumbles out of the bedroom, mostly dressed, but clearly shaken.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll call you later, sweetie,” she decides, swiftly making her exit. The knife at Jeff’s throat doesn’t move an inch. At least the man has an agenda he’s sticking to. Whoever’s on the other end of the number doesn’t waste time in picking up.

“Hello?”

“It’s McMahon. Remember me?” In a different time, Jeff would probably have a smartass remark. For some reason, he’s not feeling it for this particular call. “I see you’re back in town.”

“Yeah– I mean, no! I mean… just for today.”

“So it’s safe to say today’s your last day in town and we’ll never see your cabbage patch face again.”

“You got it.”

“Lemme speak to our mutual friend.”

An interesting way to put it, but Jeff obliges, tilting the receiver back. “He wants to talk to you.”

The man takes the receiver and gives no indication of the transfer besides a soft grunt.

“Make sure he understands, then let him go.”

McMahon hangs up, leaving the two of them alone, save for rapidly approaching sirens.

“Do you understand?”

The man’s voice is a deep northern English burr. A voice that would almost be pleasant if it weren’t threatening him. Jeff nods his acceptance, his relinquishment of his small kingdom.

“So say it.”

“I understand.”

“Good.”

The receiver is handed back to Jeff, from steady hand to trembling, and the knife traces, but doesn’t cut, a line across his neck. Jeff hears no footsteps, but when he turns, there’s no one standing behind him and no retreating backs. Simply him, four bricks of coke, a can of creatine, five dead bodies and the cops on their way to save his doomed life.

[taintedblud]

―   ◜   ❏  . ― . / / 𝚄𝙽𝙻𝙾𝙲𝙺𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙰𝙲𝙲𝙴𝚂𝚂 𝚃𝙾 𝙲𝙰𝚂𝙴 𝙵𝙸𝙻𝙴 ’1985’, subject: feyrah demir. according to our records, they are 35 years of age and their last known status of employment is pathologist. our sources in the field have described their behavior as stubborn, but assure us they have the potential to be fervent. we've observed they seem to have a personal attachment to the necklace given to her by leon & heckler & koch usp match pistol , though our research on feyrah has only just begun ―   ◜   ❏  . ― tw : murder , death , serial killer .

𝗚𝗘𝗡𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗟 ⸻

FULL NAME﹕ feyrah demir .

NICKNAME(S) / TITLE(S)﹕ fey , morticia addams .

D.O.B﹕ december 21st .

AGE﹕ 35 .

ZODIAC﹕ sagittarius-capricorn cusp .

GENDER﹕ cis woman .

PRONOUNS﹕ she / her .

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION﹕ heteromantic .

SEXUAL ORIENTATION﹕ heterosexual .

OCCUPATION﹕ pathologist .

𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘 ⸻

FACECLAIM﹕ hande ercel .

EYE COLOR﹕ brown .

HAIR COLOR﹕ brown .

BUILD﹕ slim .

HEIGHT﹕ 5’8’’ .

WEIGHT﹕ 54 kg .

MARKS / SCARS﹕ n/a .

𝗣𝗛𝗦𝗬𝗖𝗢𝗟𝗢𝗚𝗬 ⸻

TROPES﹕ beware the nice ones , daddy issues , violently protective girlfriend , dark is not evil , i am not my father , little miss snarker , wise beyond her years .

MORAL ALIGNMENT﹕ neutral good .

TEMPERAMENT﹕ sanguine .

DEADLY SIN﹕ lust .

ELEMENT﹕ water .

MENTAL CONDITIONS / DISORDERS﹕ unknown .

EMOTIONAL STABILITY﹕ good .

FEAR(S)﹕losing the people she loves .

ALCOHOL USE﹕ socially .

PRONE TO VIOLENCE?﹕ no , but she will get protective .

HABITS + QUIRKS﹕ biting her lesser lip , playing with her necklace when nervous .

DRIVES / MOTIVATIONS﹕ people she loves .

POWERS + SKILLS﹕high-intellect , some-marksmanship , knife mastery , multilingualism , photographic memory , engineering .

𝗕𝗔𝗖𝗞𝗚𝗥𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗  ⸻

―  born the youngest daughter of the demir family , feyrah was born as the favored child of mustafa demir , a well known doctor and morgue owner in his community , all while secretly moonlighting as a serial killer . still he never faltered in showing love to his only daughter or at least what was thought to be love .

― as a baby ,  mustafa would work around his daughter until she was old enough to retain memories and he stopped  brining nadia down to the basement . at  7  feyrah , had gone to her father’s ‘workshop’ where she  discovered a Girl in a Box after a study session with her father .  feyrah would then proceed to tell her mother what she saw but her mother regard it as a nightmare and imagination due to her father’s line at work .

―  When nadia was around 10 years old, Mustafa took her on a camping trip with his friend Paul . There, he had decided he was going to kill his daughter because he was remembering too much information about mustafa’s victims ( essentially, the chloroform he was using to regularly sedate feyrah with was no longer working ).  struggling with the knowledge that his daughter seemed to be realizing that he was a serial killer . However, mustafa had a sudden change of heart, and so Paul decided to take care of feyrah instead, a plan that was thoroughly botched when a 10-year-old feyrah successfully stabbed him. After this incident, mustafa decided to keep feyrah around, and they both returned from the camping trip, mustafa getting rid of his protagee and wanting to make feyrah his new one .

―  Of course secrets cant stay hidden for long when her mother discovered her husband’s doing which unfortunately forced mustafa to kill her . unknowingly feyrah was awake that night and watched as her mother bled out before her father took her into the basement .

―   a week after she called the police with her findings, which was initially assumed to be a prank call. The responding officer was invited in by feyrha's father, who fixed him a cup of coffee. feyrah entered the foyer where the officer was waiting, aware of her father’s tactics. she informed the officer to take out his gun, as her father was getting ready to poison him. Fortunately, the officer took his warning seriously, and this led to the arrest of the wanted serial killer . However, after making a deal with with the judge, he was sentenced to spending his life sentence in the Psychiatric Hospital, instead of a regular prison

―  feyrah would visit her father, despite what happened and their somewhat fractured relationship . she went on going to college and getting her degree to inherit the family morgue which she ended up selling and would go on with her career as a pathologist .

― At the start of her career she met leon . someone she loves and could see her future with and while she never knew his actual work and what he did, she knew they were dangerous and unfortunately seemed to love the job more . Feyrah tried and she understood loving the job but it got too much and she left . she would never make leon decide : the job or her ... thus she made it easier and decided for him .

― feyrah would move from place to place , working wherever she was needed. this time being called by a friend for a consult on the dead bodies in buffalo . not knowing what she is walking into .

― despite her upbringing and who her father is , feyrah is kind hearted and has a strong sense of right and wrong. she is an extremely confident, brave, and smart individual with a great sense of dark humor, who has a tendency to see things others do not due to her high intellect. she also has an unshakable loyalty and love for the people closest to her. although , her faults would be her stubbornness and temperament when pushed far enough. most who don't truly know her would think she is cold-hearted and at times brutal. The fact is, she tends to be pragmatic and a keen observer, focusing on what needs to be done instead of her emotions . Putting the needs of others ahead of herself .

[usafphantom2]

Supersonic baby? Pregnant B-1 pilot received permission from USAF to continue flying

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 03/01/2023 - 23:10 in Military

Major Lauren Olme, assistant director of operations of the 77th Arms Squadron, and her husband, Major Mark Olme, pose for a photo. (Photo: Senior Aviator Leon Redfern/USAF)

The U.S. Air Force pilot, Maj. Lauren Olme married Maj. Mark Olme, seven months after graduating from the USAF Academy. Now, a much smaller new member of the family is going into action with the couple graduated from Top Gun school.

The duo was deployed around the world, flying on overseas missions in B-1 Lancers before returning to the United States to complete the elite course of the U.S. Air Force School of Arms.

Last August, Olme found out she was pregnant. But when a new U.S. Air Force policy was announced in April, allowing aviators to fly voluntarily during pregnancy, Olme consulted the doctors and their command and received the green light to continue flying.

“I can’t express how amazing it is that pregnant women now have the opportunity to fly on all types of aircraft,” Olme said in a statement from Tinker Air Base. "It's a very personal decision that Mark and I made together because there are risks involved in flying the B-1 during pregnancy, but after consulting the Air Force and civilian doctors, we felt comfortable with me flying for a few weeks."

To resume flight functions after becoming pregnant, the military must submit a Voluntary Air Crew Risk Acceptance form, which allows aviators to make informed decisions. A waiver is then reviewed by the flight surgeon, obstetric care provider and squadron commander.

“This policy is a great benefit for the U.S. Air Force,” Lieutenant Colonel Charles Armstrong, commander of the 77th WPS, said in the statement. “They deliberately made a change that offers female crews the same opportunities as male crew members. This allows aviators to continue developing their qualifications and flight hours to progress in their career during pregnancy."

Baby Olme, in turn, should be born in April, the statement said. If a career in aviation awaits you, it is not known. Regardless, the child now holds the distinction of being one of the first babies in the history of the Department of Defense to spend more than nine hours on a supersonic aircraft.

Tags: Military AviationB-1B LancerUSAF - United States Air Force / U.S. Air Force

Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. Uses Canon equipment during his photographic work throughout the world of aviation.

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[grieverled-moved]

He's used to stares, at least from people he initially meets. The scar crossing the deceptively delicate bridge of his nose tells a complicated story, one that's unfortunately misconstrewed or wrongly guessed upon first glance. Curious eyes linger, before they drift, temporary interest lost like the flickering of a flames wavering light.

The usual. Normal - it's why he doesn't pay any mind to the burning feeling of pins bristling along his sensitive spine, telling him he's being watched still. Even among the rare quiet calm of the evening air post battle, he's relaxed, willing to brush it off & ignore it as he goes about his business in patching up his own wounds. Knowing the other was well acquainted with his own fair share of fighting, Leon expects him to understand, to know not to gawk or stare. Evidently not.

It isn't until he's finished rolling the bandage around his forearm, securing it in place neatly, that he lets it fall against the bend of his knee with a huff & an exasperated raise of his brows. His hair sticks to his forehead from the sweat still beading along his brows, & before he can tell the other to buzz off, a curious hand wanders in close to helpfully swipe long chocolate locks from his field of view. he isn't a fan of how the other seemingly shows an uncharacteristic bit of care in how he tucks the few strands behind his ear, ensuring they won't slip free again or shield his field of view, if only because he swears the other is only being so effective because his curiosity drives him to want to touch the indented mark slashed into his skin so cleanly.

He presses his lips together, a deep set frown etching itself across his lips, but his expression grows more of a conflicted edge as he directs glacial sights the other swordsman's way. He’s used to people staring at his scar. But not touching.

"You know, normally I'd say to take a picture, that it'd last longer, but something tells me you'd actually follow through with it." Or get his photographer friend to do it for him. He snorts, swatting away the hand when it remains a little too close to the ridged edge of his scar, diamond eyes connecting with spice-warmed sights. The other fighter had helped him out in a lot of skirmishes & missions since he'd come across their little rag-tag group. He wouldn't go antagonizing him over the breach in space, space the Hunter truthfully liked to keep well curated, but he was going to brush the whole thing off for the very same reason.

Amicitia was a good man. In his line of work, you came across either the best of people or you witnessed the worst of them. He didn't want to tarnish anymore relationships then he needed to, & would like to cling to the rare good ones held. Arching a brow at the brunet, he jerks his chin, eyes flicking over to the large scar lining itself along the larger man's eye. Scar for a scar - maybe not the same extent, but . . . he figures if Gladiolus touched his, he could ask a question about his own.

"Speaking of . . ." The gun-blader trails off, lets his sights reconnect with Gladio's own. "Story behind that or?"

Send “trace” to purposely touch one of my muse’s scars ➤ @stovthearted [ ; ] “trace” // gladio

[ulkaralakbarova]

A trio of female soul singers cross over to the pop charts in the early 1960s, facing their own personal struggles along the way. Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Curtis Taylor Jr.: Jamie Foxx Deena Jones: Beyoncé James “Thunder” Early: Eddie Murphy Marty Madison: Danny Glover Effie White: Jennifer Hudson Lorrell Robinson: Anika Noni Rose C.C. White: Keith D. Robinson Michelle Morris: Sharon Leal Wayne: Hinton Battle Magic: Mariah Iman Wilson May: Yvette Cason Max Washington: Ken Page M.C.: Ralph Louis Harris Tiny Joe Dixon: Michael-Leon Wooley Jazz Singer: Loretta Devine Jerry Harris: John Lithgow Sam Walsh: John Krasinski Ronald White: Alexander Folk Aunt Ethel: Esther Scott Miami Comic: Bobby Slayton Teddy Campbell: Jordan Wright Melba Early: Dawnn Lewis Talent Booker: Jaleel White Joann: JoNell Kennedy Charlene: Sybyl Walker Stepp Sister: Lesley Nicole Lewis Stepp Sister: Eboni Nichols Stepp Sister: Arike Rice Stepp Sister: Fatima Robinson Little Albert: Aakomon Jones Tru-Tone: Bernard Fowler Tru-Tone: Anwar Burton Tru-Tone: Tyrell Washington Dave: Rory O’Malley Sweetheart: Laura Bell Bundy Sweetheart: Anne Elizabeth Warren David Bennett: Ivar Brogger Jimmy’s Piano Player: Daren A. Herbert Elvis Kelly: Jocko Sims Rhonda: Pam Trotter Janice: Cleo King Club Manager: Eddie Mekka Case Worker: Alejandro Furth TV Reporter: Dilva Henry American Bandstand Producer: Vince Grant Nicky Cassaro: Robert Cicchini TV Director: Thomas Crawford Carl: Charles Jones Technical Director: Robert Curtis Brown Tania Williams: Stephanie Owens Man with Gun: Gilbert Glenn Brown Stagehand: Marty Ryan Detroit Reporter: Michael Villani Chicago Deejay: Gregg Berger L.A. Deejay: Daniel Riordan Photographer: David James Promo Film Narrator (voice): Paul Kirby Security Guard: Derick Alexander Curtis’ Secretary: Yvette Nicole Brown Go-Go Dancer: Nancy Anderson Go-Go Dancer: Joelle Cosentino Go-Go Dancer: Lisa Eaton Go-Go Dancer: Clare Kutsko Go-Go Dancer: Tracy Phillips Go-Go Dancer: Kelleia Sheerin Campbell Connection Dancer: Mykel Brooks Campbell Connection Dancer: Johnny Erasme Campbell Connection Dancer: Cory Graves Campbell Connection Dancer: J.R. Taylor Bad Side Dancer: Corinthea Henderson Bad Side Dancer: Craig Hollamon Bad Side Dancer: Reginald Jackson Bad Side Dancer: Chuck Maldonado Bad Side Dancer: Anthony Rue II Bad Side Dancer: John Silver Bad Side Dancer: Larry Sims Bad Side Dancer: Black Thomas Bad Side Dancer: Kevin Wilson Bad Side Dancer: Adrian Wiltshire Bad Side Dancer: Earl Wright Bad Side Dancer: Russell “Goofy” Wright Disco Dancer: Dominic Chaiduang Disco Dancer: Jose Cueva Disco Dancer: Omhmar Griffin Disco Dancer: Sky Hoffmann Disco Dancer: Trevor Lopez-Daggett Disco Dancer: Leo Moctezuma Disco Dancer: Gabriel Paige Disco Dancer: Terrance Spencer Disco Dancer: Tony Testa Disco Dancer: Quinton Weathers Disco Dancer: Jull Weber Disco Dancer: Marcel Wilson Jimmy’s Band: Stevie Ray Anthony Jimmy’s Band: Matthew Dickens Jimmy’s Band: Jerohn Garnett Jimmy’s Band: Mario Mosley Jimmy’s Band: Jimmy R.O. Smith Film Crew: Casting: Debra Zane Set Decoration: Nancy Haigh Executive Producer: Patricia Whitcher Producer: David Geffen Foley Artist: Catherine Harper Foley Artist: Christopher Moriana Producer: Laurence Mark Director: Bill Condon Musical: Tom Eyen Director of Photography: Tobias A. Schliessler Editor: Virginia Katz Original Music Composer: Henry Krieger Production Design: John Myhre Costume Design: Sharen Davis Digital Intermediate: Stefan Sonnenfeld Dialogue Editor: Kimberly Lowe Voigt Sound Effects Editor: George Simpson Stunts: Dick Ziker Makeup Artist: Judy Murdock Stunts: John Cenatiempo Second Unit Director of Photography: Dino Parks Assistant Costume Designer: Lizz Wolf First Assistant Editor: Ian Slater Casting Associate: Jeremy Rich Casting Associate: Tannis Vallely Music Arranger: Harvey Mason Gaffer: Newton TerMeer Assistant Art Director: Jann K. Engel Costume Supervisor: Elaine Ramires Sound Effects Editor: Donald Flick Script Supervisor: Carolyn Tolley Choreographer: Aakomon Jones Camer...