#let Johnny rescue his daughter

[purplerakath]

Cobra Kai S6 - Devon and Kenny

This is the one part of S6 where I just find it... weird, my guess is it's a matter of doing something with the characters, but it still just feels like an overall off call for the narrative.

Right, anyway, Spoilers and all that.

Johnny Lawrence's Little Girl

For starters, love the father-daughter thing the two have going on. Devon being the only student who is completely Johnny's makes her important to him, and his full faith in her is very heartwarming. This isn't really important to the overall analysis.

I just think it's neat.

So Devon was introduced as raw talent and attitude. Willing to learn, quick witted, and absolutely down for all of the mad gremlin training Johnny had for the Eagle Fangs. Tie her arm to her body, she's good. Fight blindfolded, no problem. She's loud, and brash, and fully ready to kick ass.

So where the hell was that girl!? Devon "I've been training for three months, wait till they see me next year" Lee should not be this insecure about her abilities. Maybe she could be insecure about the scales being rigged.

If her concern was that the game wasn't fair, I could maybe buy what she did. Or if she believed that was what's going on. They could have leaned into Danny pushing for Anthony a bit more, having that be what concerned her. But if the goal was to just win, Devon was introduced on confidence.

However we needed her to be on the team, and Kenny to not be on the team. So here we are.

Cobra Karate Cult

Kenny is walking the same path as Hawk, more or less. And the season has still been leaning into Kenny's insecurity and need to win. I loved his brother talking sense into him, and I enjoy he isn't fully out of the Cobra Kai mindset.

Which is why I also firmly believe he's the sixth man on team Cobra Kai. (That and fighting Kenny will be much better drama than fighting another random miniboss.)

I'm not sure what the endgame is for his plot, he doesn't have the same amount of time Hawk did to work through his crap. And I don't know how it'll tie into Devon's little stunt on him.

Especially with that stunt of Devon's not making any sense for her, I don't know how you make it make sense for a resolution for either of them. But Kenny needs to work through his anger, in a better way than what Terry had him doing.

So Overall...

I love these characters and wish they got better to work with.

[not-totally-a-wizard]

One thing that I find interesting about jojos is its heavily familial theme surrounding a fairly broken family.

From the very beginning, Jonathan loses his mother, is bullied by his adoptive brother, and is viewed as less favorable by his father. After his death, Erina must raise their child on her own, only for him to pass away and leave her in the same role once again. Joseph doesn't know his mother. Jotaro's father is missing from the story. Josuke is an illegitimate child who reconciles with his absent father. Giorno severs all ties to his family after their abuse. All of them have few family members that are actively in their lives. And yet, they all bear the Joestar curse. They are fighting the battles of their family members that they never knew, simply because they are part of the Joestar family. Their stands manifest at the same time; they are literally connected by fate. All of this culminates in Stone Ocean, as Jotaro, caught up in pursuing the Joestar family problems, neglects his own daughter and takes on the role that his father did when he was a child. Jolyne hated him for not being there, yet always knew he would be there for her. She stole a car. Why did she do that? So he would come save her. "The Joestar family, through their bloodline, have seized victories by drawing strength from honor and courage. However! Your bloodline is also your weakness. Jotaro Kujo, your weakness is your daughter" - this is what Pucci tells him the moment that Jotaro chooses his daughter over the universe. Their familial love is strong, yet distant. They repeat the mistakes of their parents before them. They are struck by tragedy before they can become parents. They can't connect. And yet they'd doom the world for each other.

I think that, in the second continuity, this theme is very literally personified through the rock disease. Before that, we get gut-wrenching lines like "God took the wrong son" from Joestar fathers, before Johnny marries into the Higashikata family. It is the rock disease that leads to Johnny digging up the saints corpse to protect his family. He was willing to go against the entire goal of sbr in order to save his wife, and when his son was afflicted with the same condition, he was willing to lose his life. The rock disease serves as a physical embodiment of the danger that led to the tragedy of the Joestar family. It is literally passed down through the Higashikata family, similar to the way that "destiny" and "fate" were almost inherited by the Joestars. In the Higashikata family, each generation was forced to choose to let their eldest son die, or kill someone in his place. This death and tragedy is inherited, and everyone knows. Norisuke has to live with the fact that his mother died so he could live. He is willing to do the same for his grandson. Jobin's life was heavily influenced by the fact that his mother wouldn't die for him, and it leads him to pursue the same for his son. The Higashikata family has this extreme inherited trauma that they can never truly escape.

The rock disease even reaches the Joestar family, with Holy becoming afflicted with the same condition. Holy, a single mother like her counterpart, also serves as a guiding force of the story. The fact that she rescued Josefumi when his own mother wouldn't is what leads to him helping Kira save her. Even after they become Josuke and lose their own memories, Josuke understands that Holy is his mother. She was such a strong comforting presence in both of his pasts, that even though he cannot remember anything about his life, he understands how important she was to him. In the same way that Joestars inherit their battles and traumas, Josuke inherits his mother's love. He is welcomed into the Higashikata home. He is given a family. And I think that is the true message in all of this. Josuke literally has no connection to his past, much like previous Joestars who are disconnected from their family, yet the efforts that they made still affect him. It is the people that he chooses to surround himself with that matter, as even when presented with Kiyomi, he would rather go to his real family. Family can pass along a great sadness, but family is also the people you choose to surround yourself with. Love transcends fate.

[padfootdaredmetoo]

Hello! So I have this request. Imagine Tommy has a daughter who's very cocky and isn't afraid to argue with anyone. It doesn't matter if you're 2 or 50, and she's her to be a teenager. ( preferably 13 ) If you can, and want to, of course. ( this is my first time asking for a request, and I'm so nervous, Idek why )

Hey Love,

This request is awesome! Thanks for trusting me with it! Hope you enjoy!!

Warnings: Kidnapping / peaky themes

Tommy felt his vision start to swim and the words on the phone became inaudible. The man hung up the phone and he knew he needed to move. These feelings uncovered old wounds. That time he had to rescue Charlie when he was just a small boy. He got one kid back and he could do it again. 

He pulled himself together and immediately without thought sought out Arthur who was sitting at his desk reading the paper. 

“He’s taken her hostage.” The words barely made it out of Tommy's mouth. 

“Told you that would happen,” Arthur grumbled but Tommy could see the pain and fear in his eyes. “JOHNNY!” Arthur called out over his shoulder into the back room.

“Again!” John said running his hand through his hair. “Fuck.” 

__________________________________________________

You were not very comfortable in the trunk of the car. Something you felt your capture needed to understand. They had not taken your criticism and had begun to ignore you. 

You weren't entirely sure they could hear you up front with the engine turned on and everything. If there was a small chance they could hear you, you were going to take it. 

You started singing God Save the King at an ungodly volume. Why that song? You didn't know. But you were sure it would annoy the piss out of anyone in earshot. 

You mentally counted every turn the car took. Trying to make a map of how to get back to school, back to safety. You sang so loud your lungs and throat burned. 

Eventually, the car came to an abrupt stop. Clearly done so your body would roll around in the trunk. You let out a little scream then lay still. 

Somewhere in your mind, you realized they could have driven to the river. Maybe they would open the trunk and shoot you immediately then dump your body. 

Jesus and the last song you would have been singing was God Save the King. Fuck, that’s not how you wanted things to end. 

The trunk opened and thankfully no one had any weapons drawn. The men looked weathered though you were happy to see they were enjoying your company. 

“Who the fuck taught you to drive.” You looked at the man with the keys in his hand. “Jesus Christ you suck.” 

“Look here you little twerp. Shut your mouth.” He grabbed your arm shaking your whole frame. “And keep it shut. Tight.” 

You felt that lovely sense of rage cloud all of your senses and leaned into the man's face. Your eyes were wide and you knew that he knew just where those icy blue orbs came from. 

“Make me.” You said softly. You could feel the discomfort run through the man. He didn’t want to be here, he was holding you for ransom no doubt. The reluctance to follow through with any violence was clear in his features. He gave the man next to him a look. 

“Get her in the fucking building.” The other man ordered avoiding your gaze. They moved you into the abandoned warehouse and sat you on a chair.

“Look at the two of you!” You said as they bound your body with rope. “Real classy people. I’m sure your mothers are very proud.” 

The man rolled his eyes. 

“Stuck with a couple of real winners.” You could see the man's jaw tick and you decided to simmer down a little. You needed to think up a plan. 

“So do you believe in God then?” You asked and he sat down in the chair across from you. A bright light turned on overhead and you realized with a spark in your eye that they were going to interrogate you. 

“I’ll be asking the questions here.” The man said in a sturdy voice. 

“That hardly seems like fun. I’ll trade you a question for a question. How bout that?” The man sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“Told you we should have taken the boy instead.” The man standing in the shadows said. 

“Charlie. Great man. Great brother. You want to know why he is such an excellent -” 

“No. What I want to know is why your dad stole from Mr. Crowe.” 

“Mr. Crowe, he sounds ominous. If I were writing a book I’d definitely make him the villain.” You tried to look around at all the exits. “What did my dad steal?” 

“Money and a shipment of drugs headed for New York.” 

“Doesn't sound like my dad. He’s a politician, a man of the government.” You explained. “Have you ever been to New York?” 

The man slapped his hand down on the table next to him. You wanted to avoid listening to more boring threats so you plowed on. 

“I have thought about going to New York, but America seems so dull. Their art is sooo boring. Do you like art?” You asked him honestly. 

“No.” 

“Really? You strike me as a man of higher education.” You smiled like a cat. “Surely there must be an artist or era you like. Everyone likes art.” 

“Shut up.” He growled. “Just shut up.” 

“Well, I don't know if you know this, but I just turned 13. You know what that means?” You looked at both men. “Means dating, and while I’m here I might as well practice small talk.” 

Both men let out a groan and one of them came over and landed a blow across your cheek. You could feel the fear radiating off of him as if God himself had told him what the cost of hitting one of Thomas Shelby’s kids was.

“My aunt hits harder.” You sneered. “Now you're not art people, that’s fine. How do you feel about sports then? You gamble?” You prattled on. Even if they did kill you, you wanted the satisfaction of annoying them.

________________________________________________________

Tommy negotiated with the man, sending him to an empty shipping yard. He didn't steal any drugs or money. Stuff like that was so far behind him that it was almost laughable. His daughter being held captive was not laughable. 

Alfie came up from London to storm the building with him. Alfie’s extra men went with Arthur and John to ambush the men going to the shipping yard. The whole thing was unbelievably stupid on Mr. Crowe’s part but he would meet the consequences nonetheless. 

As they parked outside the warehouse Tommy painfully waited until the rest of the men had the building surrounded. He knew better than to run head-first into traps these days. 

“No, see that’s where you're wrong. The issue is far more complicated than workers' rights. The aspect of the government being heavily involved in the lives of the people -” 

He followed the sound of your voice and found you tied to a chair with a large white light shining down on you. Two men looked possibly exhausted and frustrated. She prattled on about her views on Communism and shot down their defenses easily. 

“Not to late to leave her here mate.” Alfie joked and Tommy gave him an icy glare. He watched your eyes dart towards where they stood in the shadows. He saw the bruise forming on your cheek. 

Alfie wasn't in a joking mood anymore. 

“Boys I hate to change the subject as we were getting close to some interesting ideas. But we should move this back to religion. If you have one, I think you should make your peace.” They gave her a confused look. 

Tommy watched as Alfie went to untie you letting him start to have his way with the two men. 

______________________________________

“Put me down.” You growled. Alfie placed you down on the wet concrete in front of the building. 

“Not exactly a warm welcome.” He said looking at your cheek with anger in his eyes. 

“You suggested leaving me there!” 

“I just put 100 men on this mission to get you back, love. Leaving you there wasnt an option.” He answered easily 

“Then why did you say it.” Your eyes narrowed at him. He was your favorite person to argue with other than your dad. 

“I just thought it was funny that even when kidnapped you don't shut up.” 

“Do you want me to shut up?” A slight bit of hurt washed into your tone. 

“You wouldn't be my favorite niece if you did.” He ruffled the hair on your head and you were grateful he helped your dad.

________________

“So I started a re-read of the old testament.”

He let out a groan. 

Lizzie cried and threw her arms around you when you walked into the front door. You fought back your own tears as the reality of the situation hit you. Her embrace melted away all the anger that held you together. 

It was just you and her as your dad had to make phone calls to sort out the rest of the conflict. The tears started and she helped you upstairs to your room. 

“I just argued the whole time. I don't know why I’m crying now.” You tried to wipe your tears on the back of your hand. 

“Because you're still a girl at the end of the day.” Lizzie shrugged and helped you get into the bath. 

“Well, it’s stupid and I am not stupid.” You said trying again to stop the tears. 

“Darling, there is nothing stupid about your ability to feel. It’s what makes you exceptional.” She placed your robe and pajamas on the counter before leaving to give you some space. 

You got yourself sorted and were happy that the house was mostly empty. You stuffed yourself between your parents on the couch in the study. 

Your dad’s arm wrapped around you and you felt him hold on to you tightly.

[melancholicheart]

All This Time- Chapter 3

cw: trans male pregnancy (past, mentioned), angst, miscommunication, fluff and happy ending

CHAPTER 3

The morning comes soon enough. Johnny and Simon talked well in to the early hours of the morning, Johnny asking about the 141, Gaz and Price specifically, whilst Simon learnt everything possible about his daughter.

He learns that she loves dinosaurs, especially Pterodactyls, and that she loves to colour in. Her favourite film is Cinderella (Johnny’s favourite too) and she loves pride parades (Johnny took her with him last year).

Simon poured over photos of her the entire night.

He saw that at the age of one, her curls started to show in her thick brown hair, just like Simon’s curls did. He sees her bright blue eyes staring at him in each photo and his heart leaps every time he looks. He notes the little scrape on her chin when she was 2, Johnny telling him that she fell and hit the coffee table with her jaw.

Simon has lots to say, lots of thoughts flying through his mind, but he doesn’t voice any of them. There’s too much, so much regret and anger, excitement and joy. He doesn’t know what to think or what to feel so he falls quiet and just listens to Johnny speak.

They got about three hours of sleep, Johnny putting Simon up in his room whilst he slept in Elizabeth’s bed.

Whilst they may have shared before, numerous times, Johnny thinks the space will be appreciated.

When morning comes, the sun peaking through the blinds and Johnny half hanging out of his daughters little single bed, Simon busies himself in the kitchen.

He familiarises himself with family life. Drawings on the fridge, child safe locks on the cupboard with the knives, stepping stools to help kids reach the worktops.

A throbbing in his heart, guilt and pride together, as he sees everything that Johnny and Elizabeth are. Everything that he’s missed.

Johnny joins him before too long, rescuing him from his own thoughts, and spitballing ideas for what they could do with Elizabeth.

“I want her to know you, Simon, not just have a day out with you. We can get some food, maybe go to the park? She would like if you pushed her on the swing and lifted her onto the slide.”

Simon hums and nods, “I think we should ask her, see what she thinks. I want her to feel comfortable around me.”

Johnny smiles and nods. They rush through breakfast and morning showers, Johnny desperate to get his baby back, and before long, Simon is waiting by the door with a nervous sweat gathering on the back of his neck.

“She’s going to call you Dad,” Johnny says, “Or Daddy, I suppose. If you don’t want her to, I can tell her to just call you Simon for now?”

“It’s okay, don’t confuse her. Not her fault I’m an absent father.” Simon scoffs.

Johnny hears the distaste in Simon’s voice, his eyes that scream ‘useless, just like your own old man’ and Johnny just melts, “Simon, you didn’t know. I believe that if you knew, you would’ve been here.”

“Should've been here anyway,” he huffs, “Never should’ve left- you know what? Let’s not do this right now. Let's go get Elizabeth.”

Johnny nods and leads them out the apartment, locking up behind him, “She has many nicknames. Lizzie, Liz, Beth, Liza, Eliza. Call her whatever you want and she’ll respond.”

Simon says nothing as Johnny locks up and, within seconds, they are outside Sarah’s door.

Johnny only manages to knock twice before the door swings open and Elizabeth is there, her hair neatly plaited and clothes perfectly ironed for once.

“Papa!” She shrieks, jumping into Johnny’s extended arms as he picks her up and sits her on his hip, “And Daddy’s still here.”

Johnny looks to Sarah to thank her and sees how she is having a glare-off with Simon who looks baffled but guilty.

Elizabeth wriggles and reaches out for Simon. Johnny holds her close, “Sweetheart, give Daddy a minute to wake up properly.” He excuses.

“It’s alright, Johnny,” Simon smiles, holding his arms out for her, “I’d like a hug.”

Johnny smiles softly and hands her over with ease.

He goes about thanking Sarah for caring for Lizzie, suggesting they have an ‘adults only’ get together soon with Simon.

Meanwhile, Simon is holding onto Elizabeth like a practised parent, her sat on his hip and cuddled into his shoulder as he clutches her.

They walk to the park in near silence, Elizabeth nattering away but no sense being made by her. She stays in Simon’s arms, cuddled close, and he seems to just exist with her. She talks, he listens, and Johnny watches.

He isn’t sure what to say, what to do, so he just watches.

When they arrive at the park, Elizabeth asks if she can rush off over to the swings, her favourites, but Simon seems reluctant to let her go.

“Maybe Daddy would like to push you on the swing, hm? See how big and high you can go!” Johnny suggests and Elizabeth yells in delight.

Simon strides off with her, placing her down and racing her to the swings before picking her up and placing her onto the seat. He’s talking to her now, a smile on his face as he crouches down to her level in the sand.

Johnny takes his time catching up, giving them a second.

He looks from afar at the wild grin on Elizabeth’s face, a smile he’s never quite seen on her before.

That’s not to say she doesn’t love him, oh no, it’s just she’s never been this excited before. She’s never met her Dad, her other parent, and now here he is, like he never left.

He anticipates the next few days, weeks, maybe even months and he knows that some serious conversations are going to arise concerning Simon’s involvement in their lives but right now, Johnny would do anything to live in this moment forever.

Where his daughter is full of joy.

[certkidwhocantdomath]

The Lin Kuei's Grandmaster vs A Soul-Stealing Sorcerer

Additional tags: Shang Tsung is an Asshole, Blind Character, Blindfolds, Collars, Leashes, Slight BDSM, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Bottom Johnny Cage, Top Shang Tsung, Top Bi-Han, Slight Humor, Tomas is a Sweetheart, Kung Lao is a Dumbass, Tomas & Bi-Han friendship

💙⑅*˖•. ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙·̩̩̥͙*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .•˖*⑅💙

Shang Tsung was in love with his fiance.

The sorcerer hadn't made it obvious but he had a sneaking suspicion about his feelings towards his fiance.

Bi-Han wasn't sure for how long but he heard Takahashi say something about the sorcerer looking at Johnny with desire, greed and hunger ever since he was blinded.

Just the mere thought filled Bi-Han with rage. He hasn't been this angry since his argument with Takahashi.

But now, he finally gets the opportunity to beat Shang Tsung black and blue during this very mission. Johnny had taken the last stand, according to Takahashi, and allowed himself to be captured to save his allies; getting stabbed through the stomach by General Shao and nearly dying in the process.

After hearing this, Bi-Han's eyes were full of uncontrollable rage and his aura was enlaced with murderous, baneful, bloody and destructive intent. Tomas and Kuai Liang had sent him concerned looks as even without the ability to sense auras, they could still feel the murderous aura he was letting out.

Bi-Han was brought to the present by a hand on his shoulder.

Ashrah.

Johnny and the demoness had gotten closer after their mission on Earthrealm and defeating Ashrah's sister.

"You should calm yourself, Bi-Han. Being so full of rage will not help us rescue Johnny." She politely advised.

Truthfully, she was not supposed to join them on this mission. She was supposed to watch Cassie(for she is the only other person Bi-Han trusts with Cassie, besides Kuai Liang and Tomas) as Kung Lao, Kenshi, Bi-Han, Kuai Liang, Tomas, Syzoth and Raiden are all going on this mission.

But Liu Kang himself had offered to watch Cassie in their absence. It was surprising but not unexpected. Bi-Han knew the god was fond of his daughter.

Liu Kang opened a portal in front of them leading to the outside of Shang Tsung's castle.

"Dad?" He heard his daughter call out from behind Liu Kang's leg, "please bring papa back safely." She quietly begged.

Bi-Han walked over to Cassie, kneeling to her height and removed his mask.

"I promise, Cassandra. I will bring him back to us." He promised his daughter with a kiss to her forehead, she smiled at this action.

Her smile was a copy of Johnny's.

Bi-Han could feel the eyes of everyone on him, not used to the usually so cold and stoic Grandmaster showing affection so publicly.

Bi-Han stood back up and put his mask back on, turning back and walking towards the portal with the other kombatants moving aside to make way for him, some slightly bowing their head.

Time to save his fiance.

─────────ೋღ💜ღೋ─────────

Johnny was in so much pain.

He hasn't been in this much pain since he was blinded by Mileena. Or since Alala trained him.

The heavy golden collar around his neck was a pain and he had nothing to do but play with the gold chain of the collar or sleep.

Ever since his capture, he was forced to wear a yellow crossed turtleneck crop top, a gold body chain attached to his neck and right shoulder, black high slit harem pants with another gold chain wrapped around his waist, a gold bracelet with rings on his right hand, a gold with three rings on his left hand and black leather shoes with straps that crossed over his feet. Hell, even his blindfold was replaced with an acidic green one.

The color scheme perfectly matched Shang Tsung's and Johnny had to admit; he looks good in this outfit. But he'll look even better if it had Bi-Han's color scheme.

Johnny was brought out of his musing by the door opening.

"Did you miss me, my dear?"

Shang Tsung.

Oh yeah, did he mention he has been forced to sleep in Shang Tsung's room?

"No. I was actually in peace when you were gone."

"Hm, shame. I quite missed you."

The sorcerer walked over to him and his hands clung to the star's waist.

Johnny felt the sorcerer's hot breath caress his collar bone and suddenly his mouth was suddenly sucking on it.

Johnny wanted to punch him or at at least push him off but he knew he couldn't.

The whip marks marring his back proved that.

So he just layed back and allows Shang Tsung to do whatever.

"Get the fuck away from my fiance." A very deep voice said.

✧༺💚༻✧

Shang Tsung stopped his advances and turned to look behind himself.

Bi-Han.

"Always trying to ruin my fun, Sub-Zero?"

"Fun? That is my fiance you are currently touching.."

The sorcerer pushed himself away from the star, despite his displeasure to do so.

Fiance?

They were to be married? In such short time?

That made Shang Tsung's blood boil.

There was silence for several seconds before they dashed at the other, slamming his forearm with his claws deployed against the Grandmaster's ice engulfed one.

"You insolent little-"

"Are you jealous I am to marry the greatest man in Earthrealm and you do not?"

The sorcerer sent a strong surge of fiery energy that pushed the Grandmaster far, but he stopped himself by creating a spear of ice which he pulled out of the floor and thrusted at him.

The sorcerer taunted him by swinging and slashing around the air before stopping and getting into a battle stance.

Bi-Han was the first to give a hit but it was swiftly dodged by him.

✩.･*:｡≻───── ⋆💜⋆ ─────.•*:｡✩

Johnny felt the surges of energy and listened to the sounds of punches and kicks being exchanged.

The star coats his hands in a thin layer of red energy and he places it on the chain of the collar. When he heard the collar crack, he coats his hands in much thicker layers of energy.

Eventually, the collar broke off entirely. He massaged his neck for a bit before turning back to the two who were still fighting.

"Johnny, help the others! I'll deal with him." Bi-Han told him and Johnny nodded before engulfing his entire body in red energy and attemped to use super speed to get out but was stopped by other collar wrapping around his neck.

"You cannot leave now. Not after all the effort I put into capturing you." Shang Tsung said.

The chain was frozen by a thick layer of ice and was kicked broken by Bi-Han. The Grandmaster punched the sorcerer square in the cheek, breaking his skin causing him to bleed.

"Get out, Johnny!" He firmly told the star.

Johnny got up again but Bi-Han was sent flying to the far right wall by a strong surge of energy and was stopped again by cuffs around his wrists and was dragged right back to Shang Tsung.

Johnny, on his knees, looked up at the looking figure that is Shang Tsung. "You are not going anywhere, my dear." He said with a lascivious smirk.

Shang Tsung was then aggressively tackled to the floor by Bi-Han and there they wrestled.

"Go Johnny!" Bi-Han yelled.

Johnny got up once more but instead of running off he tackled Shang Tsung, who was on top of Bi-Han.

He repeatedly punched Shang Tsung in the face. But was sent back by a green surge of energy.

Quan-Chi.

"It seems your sweetheart is angry." He mockingly told Shang Tsung.

"Keep your mouth shut." The sorcerer firmly told his colleague.

Bi-Han grabbed Johnny by the hand and pulled him up.

"Why didn't you leave?" Bi-Han firmly asked.

"There was no was in hell I was letting you fight him alone." Johnny replied just as firmly.

Johnny could feel Bi-Han looking him up and down, either judging the outfit or because of his response. But he heard him turn away and get back into a fighting stance, Johnny did the same and surrounded his body in red energy.

The two sorcerers at the opposite side of the room also got into fighting stances.

Johnny sent an energy blast towards Quan-Chi but the sorcerer created a portal and sent it outside.

Bi-Han created spikes of ice at the Shang Tsung but he quickly dodged and sent a surge of magic to Bi-Han but was absorbed and redirected by Johnny, causing it to hit Quan-Chi instead.

They continued to exchange blows for a bit before they were interrupted by someone yelling.

"Bi-Han!"

Kenshi Takahashi.

▬▬ι═══════>💀<═══════ι▬▬

"Bi-Han! You and Johnny have to get out! Tomas placed two bombs within the castle!" Kenshi yelled to the Grandmaster and Seido Warrior.

Tomas in question looked proud of himself, arms crossed with a smirk, for bringing a fucking demolition bomb and C4. Apparently, those bombs have been sitting in Tomas' pockets, waiting to be used, for over four-fucking-weeks.

No one bothered asking why, how and when Tomas got those bombs.

Syzoth looked like he wanted to ask because he opened his fanged mouth but was quickly stopped by Scorpion.

"Don't. You do not want to know." He told the Zatteran.

Syzoth was silent for a few beats. "Very well then.." He then said.

Kenshi rolled his eyes, "The bomb will explode in 15 seconds!" He yelled once more to the soon-to-be married couple.

"Wait- 15 seconds? I thought it was 20 seconds!" Kung Lao asked, or rather, yelled.

Kenshi face-palmed while Scorpion dropped to the grass in pure agony of Kung Lao's stupidity.

"Kung Lao, my dearest friend, my most loyal companion, my greatest ally.. 5 seconds have already passed." Raiden explained to his friend.

Kung Lao looked like he just found out the biggest secret in all of the timelines. "Ohh! Okay, sorry guys!" He rubbed the back of his neck with an awkward smile.

Suddenly the sound of glass shattering caught their attention.

In front of them, Johnny glowing red with Bi-Han in his arms; being held bridal style.

....::::**•°❄❇☸❇❄°•**::::....

Wha- two bombs?

How? Wh-why??

Did they not think about the people inside the building???

Speaking of such, Shang Tsung and Quan-Chi left the room when Takahashi yelled; probably to find and dismantle the bombs.

"Bi-Han," Johnny called, "I have an easy way to get down but you won't like it." His fiance admitted.

.

.

.

"No."

"Bi, c'mon! You seriously want to take the stairs?"

"I would much rather take the stairs-"

"And die?! I don't know about you but I would like to live until our wedding and have children with you."

Bi-Han blushed at the idea of having children with Johnny.

"Fi.. Fine..." Bi-Han quietly agreed.

Johnny glowed red and he picked the Grandmaster up like a sack of potatoes, slightly stepping back to create momentum and Johnny sprinted.

Bi-Han hid his face within Johnny's neck to shield his face from the glass shards.

Johnny hit the ground on his knees with a light thud.

Strangely enough, Kuai Liang was on his forearms and knees, Kung Lao was rubbing his neck with an embarrassed and awkward smile while Takahashi had face-palmed himself.

Johnny gently put Bi-Han down, allowing the Grandmaster to get on back his feet.

"Brother! Are you alright?" Tomas asked.

"Yes, Tomas, I am quite alright." Bi-Han replied.

Suddenly a loud explosion was heard.

Actually, scratch that.

Two loud explosions were heard; one to the left and the other to the right.

Everyone watched as the explosions destroyed Shang Tsung's castle.

Deserved.

-----HEADCANON W/ AUTHOR'S NOTE-----

• Johnny's powers are multi-colored with each color giving Johnny a certain power.

- red = battle

- orange = strength/super strength

- yellow = speed/super speed

- green = healing

- blue = empathy(Johnny can feel what a person is feeling but he can also manipulate emotions)

- indigo = mediumship(Johnny can basically talk to ghosts)

- violet = pain(Johnny can cause third, maybe even fourth, degree burns if he is violet)

- black = destruction(Johnny can destroy anything)

The reason for this is because I'm indecisive. I wanted to give Johnny his green powers but a different color and I couldn't decide which one. Also, I know black isn't in ROYGBIV but I googled "colors that mean destruction" and that's what popped up.

These are what inspired Johnny's outfit:

This one is yellow☝️

The outer part is black while the inner is acidic green☝️

Just remove the flippin' Nike logo☝️

Now for the accessories:

This one's gold☝️

this one's gold and is on his other hand☝️

I might make a fic explaining how Johnny was blinded, how he was stabbed by General Shao and revived by Shang Tsung and the argument between Kenshi and Bi-Han.

And another thing. This isn't canon to my headcanons; after Johnny was stabbed in the chest(yes, chest not stomach), he was supposed to face Shao's army alone, fight Reiko, die for two weeks, get saved by my demonic OC, revived and reunited with his friends.

And one more thing. Alala is an OC- she was the one who trained Johnny when he was in Seido. She is also a member of the Karlatun Clan. Alala's name is a Greek name meaning "war-cry".

[jaymber]

My OCS

⌈Vaea⌋ | | ⌈Silver⌋ | | ⌈Linda⌋ | | ⌈Flavio⌋ | | ⌈Amy⌋

Vaea Temarii (V)

Born on a farm from Tahitian parents who fled their sinking island, Vaea was abandoned at age 8 at a gas station. The owner took him in but had no good intentions. He was rescued by the Bakkers three years later but never fitted in the nomad clan. He only trusted a girl, Amy, whose name sounded like "Friend." She became his sister.

In 2074, Vaea, who was taught combat netrunning in his teens, inadvertently caused the death of Amy. Riddled with guilt, he left the clan and ended up in Night City. He met a soon-to-be best friend, then roommate, Jackie Welles, as they tried stealing the same car. Together, they dreamt of becoming renowned mercs, but the events at Konkepi Plaza took that dream away.

Fearful at first of the engram eating away at his mind, V quickly fell for Johnny's charismatic personality, and softened the rockerboy's heart just enough to make him care about the merc. As he felt like he was living his last days, V made more and more reckless decisions. He pushed the limits of his netrunning skills and dated music legend Kerry Eurodyne without even knowing if he actually liked him that way.

In the end, V couldn't let go of Johnny, and tricked him into keeping their body while the netrunner joined Alt beyond the Blackwall. She spared him so he could share his knowledge with her. V eventually tricked Netwatch into believing he had secrets worth their time if they broke him free and let him come back as an AI.

With Kerry's money, and Lizzy Wizzy's ripperdoc, they built Johnny a new body so Vaea could regain his, losing his netrunning abilities and half his brain in the process.

Vaea now owns the Atlantis with his two inputs, Johnny and Kerry. He works as a programmer, and a fixer. Always trying to be useful, he's also learned to drive AVs.

Silver

Silver grew up in an anarchist, netrunning community that took refuge in a ghost town. Trying to reach the Blackwall, an AI fried every person connected to the server, killing Silver's parents instantly. They roamed the Badlands, using their netrunning skills to hijack trucks. That is, until they tried to take over a convoy owned by Netwatch. They got caught, and spent the next 15 years of their life working as a hunter tracking down any netrunner that tried to breach the Blackwall.

After Bryce Mosley's disappearance, Silver was sent to Night City to keep an eye on the Voodoo Boys.

During a mundane dive, Silver sank too deep within Cyberspace and met with an AI they now carry with them. It calls itself Ghede, and somehow knows Mr. Blue Eyes. After learning they were infected, Netwatch fired Silver and tracked them down to end them. Ghede made a pact with MBE, and Netwatch left its host alone ever since.

Trained hunter and killer, Silver is now MBE's assassin. No one can stop them from getting things done, except Ghede, who can take over the body whenever it wants. This cohabitation has a cost: Silver is losing their sense of self.

Linda Llorente

No one knows much about Linda, not for lack of her talking. Her story changes. Sometimes, she's a rich kid who fled the corpo lifestyle. Others, she's the daughter of a joytoy and a legendary merc. It doesn't matter, her past is behind her, and she aims to keep it this way.

When the Atlantis reopened in 2079, she took the job as a bartender. Charismatic, but not so customer friendly, she got hired by beating Johnny Silverhand at arm wrestling after they both got high out of their minds. That's the only reason she got in. It has nothing to do with her self-centered personality and her addiction to Glitter, making her a raging asshole who keeps hurting everyone, even herself.

She's often dating multiple girls at the same time, just for the thrill of getting caught and the assurance that she's got a place to crash. She's also evading her feelings for childhood friend Bea, better known as 8ug8ear.

Flavio Llorente

Flavio Llorente is Linda's older brother. He lives in Rancho Coronado, in the family home he recently bought with a loan he'll carry his entire life. He enlisted for the NUSA Armed Forces at age 16, living behind his sister and their grandma, who raised both kids after a car accident that took their parents. After training, he'd come home and leave on missions periodically, but Linda never forgave him for leaving her behind.

While participating in the Unification War, he realized something about himself. He left as a tomboy and came home as a man after burying his old dog tags and ordering new ones with his new name: Flavio.

He now works in construction but doesn't earn enough, so he's taken to street fights, using drugs to distract himself from the hemophobia he brought with him from the war. He's trying to reconnect with her sister, who's doing her damndest to avoid him.

Amy Withers

Amy was born in the Bakkers clan to loving parents that might have given her too much freedom. She spent her teens with her adopted brother, Vaea, and whoever wanted to tag in, roaming around ghost towns miles behind the rest of the clan. Motivated by the anarchist theory shared by the older nomads, she dreamt of living in the most chaotic city of them all: Night City. In the meantime, she distracted herself by annoying the corpos they met along the way.

That is until a fateful day in 2074, when she and Vaea failed to hijack a convoy stopped at a gas station. The station exploded, as Amy was getting into the truck.

She survived, somehow, and was found by the Wraiths who were klepping what hadn't been destroyed in the explosion. It wasn't a rescue, no. Amy was treated as a guinea pig, a toy to pull apart and back together, using all sorts of broken cyberware. The experiment turned against them when her mind broke, and she let her hands be guided by cyberpsychosis.

Fully aware there was no going back now, with too much blood on her hands, Amy officially joined the Wraiths, living a life in which her pulsions guide her every move.

[chaosrealm]

Aella x MK Characters Intros: Part 1

Summary: A little compilation of the intros I have for Aella so far!

Aella: Every day I think about the warrior our child would have been. Reiko: As do I, my light. 

General Shao: How goes healing our wounded?  Aella: They will return to the fight in no time, General. 

Aella: You would send your best soldier to tame Onaga?!  General Shao: You dare question me, Aella? 

Aella: You will most likely not survive Onaga’s fury.  Reiko: If I don’t, know it was a glorious end. 

Reiko: I will have Quan-Chi’s head for what he did to you!  Aella: Better yet, let’s open up his stomach. 

General Shao: Do not distract Reiko from his duties!  Aella: Whatever you command, sir. 

Quan-Chi: Your daughter will be a welcome addition to - Aella: It doesn’t matter. She will be reunited with her family soon. 

Aella: I wish to rescue my daughter from Quan-Chi’s clutches.  General Shao: You will have to do so alone, Aella.  

Nitara: I was to feed on Reiko! Aella: Find your next meal elsewhere, Nitara. 

Smoke: You and Reiko are -   Aella: Choose your next words wisely, Earthrealmer.

Liu Kang: Your powers should be used for something greater.  Aella: Your feigned care for me can be shoved elsewhere. 

Aella: Reiko and I’s story is not for sale, Cage. Johnny Cage: Ah cmon! It’d make for a great drama! 

Sindel: I know how hard it is to lose someone you -  Aella: Stop pretending to care and fight me. 

Mileena: Reiko will be devastated to hear of your death.  Aella: Only if I go down without a fight.

[dragon-kazansky]

His Little Dragon

Doc Holliday x OC

Dedicated to @callsignscupcake

[Masterlist]

[Previous Chapter] - [Next Chapter]

Doctor John Holliday hasn't seen his darling Little Dragon for many years. Once as thick as thieves, they were quite the pair, but that long since ended when he left. Now, with opportunity blooming in Tombstone, it would seem they have a second chance at the love they lost. However, a threat looms over the town, and if he wants his Dragon back, he has to win the heart of little Baylie too. Nothing is ever easy.

Word count: 1.4k

Chapter Thirty Two - Follow your heart

♡♡♡

Wyatt knows that Rachael isn't happy with him. Not only had she openly expressed that to him in the house, but the look on her face makes even him fear what she will do if he poked the dragon too much.

They ride out as quickly as they can. The more distance they put between the house and them, the better.

"I'm coming Baylie," Rachael whispers.

She has her eyes focused straight ahead. Baylie on her mind. She was going to rescue her daughter. Even if it was the last thing she did.

Dreams of a wedding, a home, a family. They were nice, but at the end of the day, Baylie is what mattered. As long as that girl was alive and well, that's the important thing. There is nothing Rachael wouldn't do for that girl.

They ride for hours.

Rachael wonders if Doc has realised what's going on yet. Working on the ranch would buy her a few hours, sure, but he would grow suspicious if she didn't show up to see him.

Poor Alana. That poor woman would have trouble on her hands once Doc clocks on.

"We are almost there," Wyatt says.

Rachael barely spares him a glance as they eventually approach the ravine where the cowboys are holed up. Everyone dismounts their horses and gather on foot.

"Curly Bill and Johnny Ringo."

"You gonna get your revenge?" Rachael asks Wyatt.

"Yes. For Morgan. For Baylie."

"Baylis isn't dead," she hisses. "She can't be. They're using her to get to you."

Wyatt falls quiet.

"You didn't work that out," Rachael looks surprised. "Baylie was to lure you to them. They knew you were going to come after them if they took her. Baylie is my daughter, Doc is my sweetheart, you're Doc's friend. They will be waiting for us."

"But it won't be our blood that spills here tonight," Wyatt states.

"No?"

Wyatt regards Rachael with a cautious eye.

Rachael steps away from him and looks over in the direction of their camp. "Let's see what they have, shall we?"

Wyatt says nothing as he follows her to a hiding spot nearer to the camp. They peek carefully, taking in what they see.

The camp isn't huge, but Rachael isn't about to take that for granted. Curly Bill has definitely got more men in the surrounding area than what she can see now. He wants a fight, he was going to make sure he gets one.

Curly Bill was sitting by the campfire. He was sharpening a knife. His leg bounced lightly the tune of a guitar which was being strung casually from behind him.

His men were milling about the camp. They had nothing to worry about, it would seem. They didn't know Wyatt was here yet.

There was no sign of Baylie.

Rachael scans the camp a little more, but still sees no sign of her dear girl. However, she does catch sight of Johnny Ringo lingering at the edge of camp.

"You can have Bill to yourself," Rachael comments.

Wyatt glances at her.

"Be careful."

"You're the one who needs to be careful, Wyatt. Not me."

Rachael leaves their hiding spot.

Wyatt let's her go.

Doc has fallen asleep not long after Rachael had said she was going to help Alana on the ranch. His body was screaming for rest, so he gave in. Rachael would only worry if he kept pushing of away.

He must have been out for some time because when he woke up the house seemed noisy. They must have finished their work on the land. He could smell something good cooking. The faint sound of footsteps and voices could be heard through the door.

He looks around the room to find it had been left much the same as when he fell asleep. No sign of Rachael, but he liked to think she had checked on him while he was sleeping.

She must be out there with the others.

John reaches up and lightly brushes his hand along his wounded shoulder. An intense ache has him wincing. That damn kid. He should have paid more attention to the boy.

Doc sits up in the bed and stretches out slightly. He feels stiff and sore. And he was missing his Rachael.

Just as he thinks about getting up to join the others, his door opens. He looks up with a smile expecting to see his darling little Dragon. However, he is met with the sight of Alana and his smile diminishes.

"Afternoon, Mr Holliday."

"Ma'am," he watches as she puts a tray down beside him.

"I brought you some lunch."

"Thank you. Where is my darlin' Rachael?" He asks.

"Oh, she went back out with the others. They've been a real help. She's a hard worker that one!" Alana smiles.

Doc smiles back.

"That she is. Pity. I miss her voice."

Alana holds her smile.

"I'm sure she'll come straight back to you when she comes back."

Doc just smiles a little before taking the tray.

"Thank you again," he says.

Alana smiles and takes her leave.

Doc eats and sits back on the bed. He turns his head to the door. He could, at least, get some fresh air. Maybe he would see his darlin' working hard.

He gets up off the bed and grabs his coat, wrapping it around his shoulders. He is mindful of his injury. John leaves the bedroom and heads for the front door. He notices that some of the men are hanging around the house.

He steps out onto the porch and looks out at the land. The afternoon sun is beating down. More of Wyatt's men come and go, doing chores around the ranch.

He does not see Rachael.

He does not see Wyatt either.

"Oh, you're up!" Alana gasps, coming around the corner. "I thought you'd want to rest more."

John looks at her with a slight wary glance.

"The room was becoming stuffy. I needed air." Just as he says that, he coughs. Doc lifts his fist to his lips. It's nothing to be concerned over.

It's nothing, he tells himself.

Alana doesn't say anything, though he does notice the way her lips turn downward. He chooses to ignore it.

"Take a seat on that bench," Alana offers.

Doc glances behind him and sees the seat. He takes up her offer and sits down, leaning back slightly. The cool breeze that comes his way is nice against his warm skin.

Alana comes over and gently presses the back of her fingers against his forehead. John looks up at her with a frown.

"You're running a slight temperature."

"I'm fine."

Alana disagrees.

"Are you sick?" She asks. "This can't be just because of the wound. As much as your shoulder is gonna bother ya, I did everything I could to not make it worse."

Doc just glares ever so slightly.

"You are and she doesn't know."

John closes his eyes.

"Are you... sick sick?"

He doesn't respond to her.

"Oh..." Alana looks up across the grass. "You should tell her."

"What good will that do? Just more reason to make her worry. She's done enough of that. She's done enough worrying for a lifetime."

"You can't keep that from her."

John stays quiet.

Alana sighs and steps away from him.

"Where is she?" He asks, not letting her go to far.

"Working. She didn't specify what she was doing next. She'll come back to you when she's done."

Alana walks away.

Doc stares out ahead of him. Some of the men were watching him. He frowns. They turn back around and carry on. Doc stands from the bench and leans against the bannister of the porch with his good arm. He sca s the area.

No Wyatt. No Rachael.

No horses.

There's not enough horses in the paddock for everyone here. He frowns as his eyes settle on his own horse. Where's Whiskey?

Where's Rachael?

"Damn it all to Hell," he mutters.

Alana was gardening when one of the men come rushing over. She looks up at him and shock at his sudden arrival. He says nothing as he points to the hill. Alana stands and dusts her hands against her skirt. She looks up just in time to see Doc riding off on his horse.

He knows.

Alana sighs and watches him go. She can only hope she bought them enough time.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

Only time will tell what happens next.

♡♡♡

@bayisdying - @callsignscupcake - @mrsjaderogers - @cycbaby - @gracespicybradshaw @kiichirose - @askmarinaandothers - @themusingofagothicsoul - @gizmodear - @beaner-life-23 - @luckyladycreator2 - @scissorhandsgirl2000 - @mclintocksdaughter - @ice-doc-val -

[cherokeegal1975]

Unexpected Cargo, Ch. 1, Part 1 By Meriah Smith (Author's note below chapter pages)

Running

Johnathan fled through a desolate landscape east towards the safety of the weathered stones ahead. With any luck, he had lost his persuers for good this time. The new day was already promising a blistering heat as his dust colored robes and pants billowed back in the rising wind. He worried that a sandstorm might be approaching. It would be a blessing if he found shelter in time.

He didn't know why King Richard's guards were still perusing him so determinedly across the Red Sands desert. He was just a political nobody that transported cargo and occasionally passengers.

His last commission seemed a mere kindness at the time, he reflected as he tried to run even faster despite his exhaustion, cursing his bad luck and poor judgement.

Last night they had captured his sand ship. He'd been leaving the trading post when they'd spotted him and he had led them on a harrowing chase along a dirt road at breakneck speeds.

To the casual observer, his long, rust colored vessel looked like a boxy and neglected hovercraft, but it could zip over terrain that most wheeled vehicles would have found impossible to traverse. It could turn on a stone, stop dead in a heartbeat and accelerate from zero to one hundred and eighty in sixty seconds flat. Best part was, no matter how fast his ship sped above the ground, its body and his cargo never suffered from the additional g-forces. A series of spells kept gravity ad a steady normal, as if it were standing still.

Damn, how he missed his sand ship, he thought as he panted though parched lips, it had been his home as well as his main source of his livelihood and he was uncertain if he would ever get it back.

However, he was not so blinded by the loss of his possessions that he couldn't remember to be grateful that he escaped before King Richard decided on the best way to kill him. And he thanked the Goddess of all Creation with every fiber of his being that they didn't catch Goldie and Little Girl.

They would have killed Goldie outright and sold Little Girl back into slavery as a gladiator in the worst blood sport events of the oasis towns had to offer. The very thought of Goldie dead and Little Girl winding up mad and broken of spirit from the abuse of her captors, squeezed his heart with worry. He would die to protect them both.

His thick leather boots kicking up sand with every running step as he pared a glance up to the sky, to where the form of a young dragon followed him on towards the safety of the rocks and water just ahead. She carried what little supplies she managed to recover in her claws and his rat Goldie who was clinging to her feather mane at the base of her neck.

This was his dragon that he rescued from slavery and then adopted as his own daughter. He called her "Little Girl" because he couldn't think of what else to call her and she refused to respond to any other name.

She would have let him ride her across the skies along with the rest of what she was carrying if she could have, but the mastiff sized dragon was still too small to carry his weight.

Johnny staggered up a long steep grade that led up to the huge rock formation he was headed for. A little farther...just a little farther...then they could rest.

When the cave entrance came into view, it didn't look wider than a larger crack, but he knew there was good shelter inside and a pool of spring water.

He stumbled and fell gasping; another one of those damned cramps had him in its grips again. He didn't know the source of what ailed him, though he had his suspicions. Could it have been a spell cast by that princess eight days ago?

Princess Elena had been recently widowed when her husband's brother had killed for the throne. She had fled for her life, found Johnny and asked for his help.

Warning bells went off in his head, but one look at those big dark eyes tearing up after his initial refusal and he had to relent. Johnny was resourceful and tough as nails, yet by no means was he heartless. It was both his strength and sometimes weakness. His good nature got him into trouble more than once in his thirty years of life.

A competent white witch, the princess had drugged him somehow or cast a sleep spell on him shortly after he agreed to help her. When he had awakened, she gave him the royal seal, then asked him to keep it safe for her until she requested its return.

He accept ed the task along with twenty-five pieces of gold as a retainer. Yet he had sensed some other motive and keeping the seal safe was a cover for the real reason she needed his help.

Before he could discover the truth, they had been attacked by King Richard's guards. He made his escape at her barked command to go while her own guards fought to protect her.

He liked the princess, but he wanted nothing to do with politics. Getting to much attention from royalty meant they might discover illegal cargo he sometimes carried. He would honor the contract that the made with her to the best of his ability; he did have a reputation to maintain. Besides, she could take care of herself. In addition to her personal guards, she was powerful in her magics.

Johnny had no knack for spells himself, so he could not divine what she had done to him while he lay in his enchanted stupor. Since agreeing to help her, every time he stopped for more than a day, the king's guards would find him again. Why did Richard want that stupid seal so bad? Why not get another one?

The cramps started just twelve hours after he had escaped capture, which started as annoying twinges he forgot about as soon as they passed, but they steadily became worse. They would go from a dull pain nothing would fix, to so agonizing that it left him sick until they passed. The constant dull pain eased in a couple of days, but the sharp, periodic attacks would come and go without warning, leaving him breathless.

After four days of this, he reluctantly admitted he couldn't continue running his cargo business under these conditions. So, he stocked up on extra supplies and headed out into the deep desert intending to stay there until the king lost interest in him.

For three days the ruse seemed to work; relatively few people dared to live in the largely unmapped and untamed wilderness where water sources were unknown to the city dwellers and royal houses of the Red Sands. But Johnny had grown up there and lived with a nomadic tribe of honorable thieves since he was twelve.

Somehow the guards located him again on the way out from a tiny trading post and they chased him with their heavy wheeled vehicles, Johnny driving his sand ship as fast it would go.

He might have gotten away if they didn't have a powerful armor piercing-rifle that took out his main engine before he could make it to terrain too rough for them to cross at any great speed.

Little Girl had been sitting in the passenger seat in her child form holding Goldie in her lap when the sand ship suddenly dropped out of the air and skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust, nearly tipping over sideways more than once as it came to rest.

"Get out!" Johnny had ordered desperately as he leaned over them and shoved open the passenger door. "Take Goldie and fly away!"

"Daddy, no!" she cried in protest as she hugged the frightened rat to her bare chest, terrified tears running down her cheeks.

Already he could hear the guards approaching though the rapidly dissipating dust cloud.

"GO!!!" he shouted at her with a gentle shove toward the open door.

With a sob, the brave and beautiful child tumbled out of the passenger door and shifted into her true form with Goldie still in her arms, flying into the sun as guards fired their guns at her, causing them to miss their target. In moments she was out of sight altogether.

They hauled him out of this broken ship and attempted to subdue him with great difficulty. He couldn't fight them all, but he was determined to kill as many as he could before they killed him. He could at least buy Little Girl and Goldie some time to get away.

He managed to break free of the first guard that grabbed him, killing that one first with his pistol and then several more. They rushed him before he could reload, so he withdrew his curved short sword and killed three more. He might have escaped despite the odds against him if those damned cramps hadn't caught him by surprise and double him over in agony.

Johnny cursed the princess under his breath, face pressed in the dirt, as they pinned him to the ground and took his sword. They tied his hands behind his back with rough hemp ropes and hobbled his sand ship's cargo holds, tore up his and Little Girl's few personal belongings and maliciously blew small holes into his ship's hill with their firearms after they finished their reckless search of his ship.

They found the seal. He didn't have time to hide the troublesome thing while he busy running and hiding in the oasis town s that were his usual haunts. They "officially" declared him a thief, a murderer, and a traitor to the crown and he was to await judgement by his Highness King Richard...blah, blah, blah...

He didn't care, all he wanted was to escape and find his family. He wasn't loyal to any established government. How could he be a traitor to a kingdom that he was not a citizen of?

The sun was setting when he had finally been captured. He soon learned that King Richard himself was coming in person to see him. The guards' orders were to remain until he arrived early the next morning.

(This is the first three pages of my first chapter of this book. If it goes over well enough, I'll put in more pages. I just want to see if anyone would care enough to actually read it and leave an honest comment. I'd put in the whole chapter all at once, but Tumbler won't let me do that. So, I'm having to break it up and it's slow work because I can't just copy paste, much to my annoyance. Tumblr won't let me do that either. So, I have to type everything in. A lot of work for maybe getting no response. This book is available on Amazon. The little bit of editing I managed to get and forever be grateful for in the first five chapters does not appear in the book or the audiobook. Sorry about that. I'll do something about that when I can afford to hire someone, which isn't cheap at all. So, if you want to read more, let me know. I'll post three more pages. I know the narrative wanders a bit for the first chapter, but that's my way of opening with a bang for this book. I did keep things mostly linear the rest of the story. This is a lot of work for nothing if I don't get any feedback. Please, give it a chance.

Post Script: response or no response, I might just type some more anyway. It's something to do. And yes, I can illustrate some. Creativity is my thing. And, yeah there's child nudity in this story, but it's all innocent. I promise. Besides, the girl isn't human. You can see her caring Goldie in the first drawing in her true form.)

[adultswim2021]

Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil #7: “The Busboy” | October 15, 2007 - 12:15AM | S01E07

It’s a shame that the most positive feeling I can muster for this show still involves me being bored by it. There’s no question in my mind that the formula is off; at least for my taste. I don’t know. If you took the same radio play and animated it differently and maybe changed the cloying music to something else you could maybe envision an improved experience. But these scripts wind up being mildly amusing at best and it’s as if the producers have tricked themselves into thinking that the terrible animation is what’s gonna make the show shine. But at the end of the day the animation is my least favorite part of the show, by far. 

This episode involves the Senator guy and Satan butting heads. Satan expected the senator to run (for president? I think? right?) as the first open Satan-worshiping politician, but the senator’s strategy is to downplay that. This makes Satan angry, so he engages in mild mischief by hacking the sex offender registry with his magical Satan powers. The punchline of the episode is that he arranges the dots on the sex-offender registry map to form a big picture of the senator’s face. He also moves a bunch of sex offenders to a condo across a school where the senator is giving a speech and kissing children. By doing this, Satan makes the senator seem less like a Republican and more like a Democrat.

Meanwhile, his sex-offender son Tad (played by Todd Barry) is given a job at Satan’s restaurant as a bus boy. He likes fucking meat, and sculpts a full-sized fuck doll out of Lucy. When she finds this, he captures her in the walk-in, and won’t let her go, and does disgusting things to the made-of-meat version of Lucy while Lucy watches. This is barely resolved; the episode ends with Tad casually mentioning to Jesus that Lucy is just “in the back”, but we don’t see her get rescued. It’s sort of wild how little role Lucy plays in her own show, and each episode comes up with new ways to exemplify that. 

I hesitate to call this a stronger episode. It feels weirdly low-stakes, even though the concept of moving a condo building of sex offenders across the street from an elementary school would be a pretty terrible disaster. The show doesn’t treat this was much gravity; it’s just a funny prank Satan is pulling. The whole mood of the show is “we’re just playin’ around”, even the music is sorta circussy during the final scene. Downplaying the horribleness of the dark humor doesn’t really do the show many favors. This is a drum I’ve beat before, but it bears repeating: You imagine the kids who shop at Hot Topic and read Johnny Vazquez comics loving this. Not me, man.

Squidbillies Volume One DVD (October 16, 2007)

I’m going to do this DVD release a terrible disservice. I actually own this DVD set, but I don’t think I ever once dug into the surprisingly copious special features available. There’s multiple rough cut pilots (most are just radio plays with no or rough animation) and I seem to recall watching the featurette where a bunch of cast and crew bullshit on a porch while talking about the show. I remembered Jon Wurster being part of this, but maybe that was for the season three DVD release (I think he was more involved in that season? I don’t want to look this up). 

I read a review of the DVD extras and my interest was piqued enough to retrieve the DVD and check it out; only to discover that it no longer sits on my DVD shelf. I must have weeded it out and stuck it in storage to sell or reshelve when I one day have more space. Oh well.

[dabacahin]

Snowfall and scissorhands

[I wrote this little memory piece on Christmas Eve ten years ago. Obviously, the world has changed a lot since 2012. My ways of looking at this world have changed, too. But some things remain bittersweetly the same. So here I am again revisiting places in my mind, memories in this blog. Here’s a slightly revised version of that piece for these changed and changing times.]

Edward Scissorhands will always be my Christmas movie, my winter’s tale. It begins on a snowy evening with a little girl being put to bed by her grandmother. She asks, “Why is it snowing, Grandma? Where does it come from?” And the old woman tells her the story of how a strange, lonely creature continues to do his thing—making the most of his solitude by creating ice sculptures, letting the crystal shavings fly out the windows of his castle, showering the world with magic that eventually melts.

But I’m telling this tale the wrong way. I’m loading it with my usual baggage. Loneliness, solitude, impermanence, hmm . . . Let me put it this way instead. Once there was a great inventor who lived alone in a castle on top of a mountain. His grandest design would have been a human being to stand tall among his cookie-cutters, his other gadgets and gizmos. Two hands (you know, those things with fingers, palms, and wrists) would have been his Christmas gifts to Edward, his work in progress. Sadly, before Edward is completed, his maker dies. From then on, the poor unfinished creation has to fend for himself, with crucial parts missing. He is stuck with scissorhands, which can create art and inflict pain.

Nah. That’s not it, either. Director Tim Burton and screenwriter Caroline Thompson would stab me with scissors (or pins or icepicks or whatever comes in handy) to deflate all this so-full-of-myself babble. The truth is, I’m so full of fond memories of this film. Memories of the kind Avon lady (Dianne Wiest) rescuing Edward (Johnny Depp) from that dark castle and taking him home to her family and her neighborhood of gossipy wives and bored husbands. Memories of Edward as a Goth-inspired Charlie Chaplinesque man-child, landscape gardener, hairstylist, sex object, TV celebrity, and town scapegoat. Memories of him as the ultimate Rorschach inkblot test—a blank screen onto which a whole town can project its hopes and fears, ambiguities and contradictions. He’s pure innocence and/or a double-edged sword. He’s a Christ figure and/or the scourge of Satan. He’s Frankenstein’s monster and/or a portrait of the artist as an ageless semi-human.

I’m fond of that scene in which Kim (Winona Ryder), the Avon lady’s teenage daughter, takes a break from decorating the Christmas tree and goes out into the yard to find Edward high up on a ladder, sculpting a huge ice angel. She is thrilled to look up, her arms lifted and palms open to the falling swirls and specks of ice shavings. She dances under this momentary fountain. In Danny Elfman’s glorious music, I hear a chorus of lost souls lamenting all the things that are fleeting. But I also let some of the rapture overflow into my head. Until, as in Edward’s case, it’s time to run back to the dark castle, where I can continue to do my thing—chiseling my way through the cold, hard truths.

Like Edward, we all just want to be loved despite our bad-hair days, our ugly scars, and these hands that can both caress and cut. “You can’t touch anything without destroying it,” Kim’s jealous boyfriend (Anthony Michael Hall) snarls at Edward. Sounds like nature accusing us humans. Or like any self-blaming person looking in the mirror. Like Edward, we sometimes feel like parts of us are missing—we’re incomplete. We yearn for things we never had. Or we’re nostalgic for parts of us we used to have. I know these are not exactly the kind of Christmas sentiments we need right now. I really have to find a better way of telling this story. Or maybe sometimes there is no story to tell. Snow falls, ice melts, the world spins. Time passes, that’s all.

Meanwhile, I think of Edward up there alone. I imagine him still alive, snipping away at chunks of ice to perfect his sculptures or trimming leaves and twigs to shape his topiaries. It’s enough to make me want to open my arms and hold out my hands for remains of ice. Yes, true story: even I have learned to live with what sometimes feels like endless snowfall. As Grandma says in the end, “Sometimes you can still catch me dancing in it.”

[percontaion-points]

Fearless (HMA 4) chapters 7 & 8

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Click here for the rest of the series!

Chapter 7

“We’re mates,” Jasper said before I could respond. “I plan to feed her every day for the rest of our lives.” 

Iris dabbed at her mouth with a napkin, then leaned towards him, her voice cool. “That’s quite a commitment. But ultimately, a promise you may not be able to keep.” Jasper sat up straighter, but she waved a hand between us. “Do you know what this looks like to a woman of my age? Foolish first love. You overthrew your father, took control of the clan, and began kicking over stones others were happy to ignore. But have you solidified your power base? Used the resources now in your control to make my granddaughter safe?” She shook her head, her disdain obvious. “You are two children playing at mating. And quite likely going to get yourselves killed in the process.” 

YES, FUCKING THANK YOU!

They’re literal children! Vail isn’t even 18 yet, and I don’t even know how old Jasper is. 

Not one single thing about this series has been in any way romantic. They’d only known each other for like a month before Jasper killed his father because of her! It’s only been like 3 months since then!

“Is this a reunion, or an interrogation? If you’re here to grill us, you’re wasting your time. We don’t need your approval.”

Oh, so you were sold to a school full of sadistic werewolves and you did nothing. You let them bully and sexually harass you and you did nothing. You let multiple men lay claim to you, and you did nothing. You were collared and traded around like a fucking Pokemon card and still nothing.

But grandma calling out the fact that high school relationships hardly work out in the long-term is where you’re suddenly deciding to grow a fucking spine? 

“His friends provided a distraction, they disappeared, and we never saw Allie again.” 

Quick question: is Vail’s mum still alive, but she’s been in hiding this entire time?

“But I understand the need for family. If you really want to meet them, we’ll find a way. Just give me a little time to sort something out.”

Chapter 7 summary: Now face to face with her grandmother for the first time, Iris Marrow begins by scoffing over how stupid and foolish that Jasper and Vail are. However, when Vail suddenly grows a spine and is like “Okay, bye.” over the entire thing, Iris laughs and says that it was a “test”. 

Vail pulls out the bracelet, the one with the cat, wolf, and bear on it. Iris begins to tell the story of her second child. 

Alana was raised as the little princess that she was, but also as a daddy’s girl. However, when she hit her teen years, Jonathan (her father and Vail’s grandfather) began to put restrictions on her. Alana rebelled in the typical teenage ways. 

Along comes Parker West, who was part of a research team on banes. He and Alana were friends, a relationship that Johnathan encouraged because “Parker was a useless omega” according to Johnny. 

Alana ran away from home, but was picked up three days later in a bane raid. Nobody knew who she was, and she didn’t tell them. She was then tortured at the testing facility… Which I’m imagining was something along the lines of what Vail experienced. 

Michael rescued her, but thought that she was something that needed to be “cured”. She shifted into her cat, to show to him that there was nothing wrong with her at all. (How the fuck she’s a cat is never goddamned explained, but whatever.) However, Vail understands the reason why Johnny was researching this shit was because, again, he was trying to “cure” his daughter. After that, they never saw Allie again. 

Vail asks about the bear on the bracelet, and Iris explains that the wolves used to interbreed intentionally with them. Like can you imagine how powerful a wolf-bear hybrid would be? One of Alana’s cousins was a bear, but he was killed not too long after she disappeared. 

Vail then asks about those cousins she’s heard about, the ones who supposedly have a sanctuary for different people like Vail and Alana. Iris tries to warn her away, but Vail takes out Johnathan’s party invite. However, between Vail’s cousins and her grandfather, Iris would rather send Vail to her cousins. 

Chapter 8

“It’s just… my dad never got back to me about the invitation.”

I know that you guys are kind of on a time crunch and everything, but I’m not sure that it’s even been 24 hours!

I was still chewing over Iris’ description of Michael Warren. It fit the way I saw him – a borderline psychopath with a secret research room, and an obsessive desire to protect his daughter…

Considering the way that Johnathan tortured Alana under the guise of “curing her”, I’m honestly not surprised that Michael is a little bit over-protective. 

Is Michael truely a “psychopath”, or is this simply all in response to the ACTUAL psychopath, Jonathan Marrow?

“It doesn’t matter. I’m glad I met my grandmother, and I still want to meet my cousins, but that’s it. I’m done with the Marrows. If my dad shows up, we’ll talk. But it’s pretty obvious my real family is right here in front of me.”

Chapter 8 summary: After Iris leaves, they stand around and think about everything that had been said. Then Jasper takes Vail to the private pool for the penthouses of the hotel, where he gives her another present: a super skimpy bikini. He says that this one is more for him… Wink wink. They bang, but this isn’t important.

After, Vail starts to talk about wanting to take up Iris’s offer to join her in Europe, but obviously doesn’t want to travel thousands of miles to visit a near-stranger. 

He explains that wolves usually don’t travel too far from their territory. But they’re still partly human, so they do go on holiday. He’d love to take her to the beach. Vail has never left this immediate area. The thought of that makes Jasper mad, because Michael seemed so devoted to protecting Vail, yet did such terrible and abusive things to her. Vail brings up the containment collar she found in her dad’s lab, and says that she can’t stop thinking about it. And why Michael told Jasper to put a collar on Vail, too. 

Vail goes on to say that she doesn’t want anything to do with her grandfather. She’s done chasing after her father as well. And while she still wants to meet those cousins, she finds that her only family is now Jasper. 

[ofdoomedalters]

              ❝ you all need more therapy than i do, and i’m the crazy one . ❞

                𝑐𝘩𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑟⧸𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑒 : jane   ››   metahuman   ››  diane guerrero .

―   ◜   ❏  . ―   « diane guerrero , 31 / 78 , gender non conforming , doom patrol » ∙∙ loading case file for kay challis. known aliases, if any: jane + various others . current location: gotham.  current occupation: primary host / unemployed .  their current status : civilian / anti-hero .

🇧​🇦​🇸​🇮​🇨​🇸  ››

full name : kay challis .

alias : jane  + various others .

place of birth : unknown .

age : 31/78 .

date of birth : june 21st .

zodiac : gemini .

affiliation : doom patrol .

language(s) spoken : universal .

hair color : brunette / depending on alter .

eye color : brown / depending on alter .

notable scars : many scars .

🇮​🇳​🇹​🇪​🇷​🇮​🇴​🇷 ​ ››

positive : protective  ,  action girl .

negative : blunt  ,  moody .

moral alignment : chaotic .

deadly sin : all .

element : all.

emotional stability : questionable .

alcohol use : socially .

prone to violence? : yes .

habits : losing her temper .

drives / motivations : protecting kay .

🇫​🇦​🇲​🇮​🇱​🇾​​  ››

chosen family :  Rita Farr  , Cliff Steele  ,  Larry Trainor  ,  Doctor Niles Evelyn Caulder

🇧​🇮​🇴  ››

―   Kay Olivia Challis is a girl who developed 64 'personas' (also known as alters) from the trauma of being abused by her father. Each of Kay's alters have a meta-human ability of their own, residing within her psyche in a place known as the Underground. After being abused past a point she couldn't handle, Kay gave up her primary role to Miranda and withdrew into her subconsciousness. .

―   Jane became the primary alter after Miranda, Kay Challis's former primary alter, destroyed herself at the Well in the Underground due to following advice from the Sisters as a result of being coerced into sex. When Jane surfaced, she punched Miranda's boyfriend, Johnny, and told everyone present that she didn't know who was worse - the men, for taking advantage of the women, or the women, for letting the men take advantage of them. Jane promptly left, and insisted on being called Jane when Johnny called after Miranda .

―    Jane regularly lived in a sanatorium and would often sneak to go outside. In 1976, she was experimented on and her alters were given the powers they now possess. Alters such as Katy and Hammerhead would try to assist her but at the expense of Jane getting accused and punished for it. In the year 1977, Jane was at a punk rock concert in New Jersey when she was assaulted by two men in a mosh pit. However, she fought them off but was soon apprehended by police officers and dragged back to the sanatorium where she sustained further abuse from her keepers such as Doctor Bertrand. As a result of sustaining such abuse from her keepers Dr. Harrison awoken.

―  In the year 1978, she eventually met a scientist named Niles Caulder who rescued her body and took her into Doom Manor. He conducted numerous interviews and documentations with her to understand her disorder. She enlightened him on the Underground, following the discussion of a hostile alter named Katy. 

―  Jane revisited Doom Manor and obnoxiously made a scene as Sylvia and Hammerhead emerged. Later, Jane was personally introduced to Cliff Steele while painting outside. Jane mentioned that Hammerhead had told her about her altercation with Cliff. Cliff, however, apologized to Jane, explaining that he had been a "little on edge" with the approach of his deceased daughter's upcoming birthday. Jane spent the rest of the day painting, until the Hangman's Daughter took over and conversed with Cliff in the rain. 

―  When Niles left to go on another one of his travels, Jane suggested that Cliff, Larry, and Rita sneak out into town. After some convincing, they all agreed. Once there, Jane accompanied Cliff and walked with him to a toy store, to get a gift in memory of his daughter. They both sat on a bench afterward where Cliff shared some of his past with Jane. She eventually lit a cigarette and blew smoke in his face to see if any of his senses would react, to no avail. Jane eventually brought up that Cliff's daughter was still alive, but he refused to believe it, causing Hammerhead to surface and attempt to start an altercation with some police officers. Jane returned, however, when they noticed that Rita had lost control of herself, rampaging and causing massive destruction to the town. Jane and Cliff ran after her to stop her. Through Jane's failed attempts to get through to Rita, Hammerhead took over yet again. 

―  When they all returned back to Doom Manor, Niles did as well. He scolded all of them and warned them of incoming danger. The majority, including Jane, voted that it would be best to move someplace safer. As Cliff stayed behind to help Cloverton, Jane voiced wanting to help him. Everyone, but Niles, sided with her and she eagerly turned back around. They met with Cliff in the streets of Cloverton and encountered an albino donkey. A sinkhole suddenly formed in the road,[4] and began to swallow everything within its perimeter including the group's bus, which Niles was aboard. The sinkhole began to attract the bus and although Jane tried to stop it, it was successfully swallowed. Denying Cliff's pleas, Jane jumped into the sinkhole after Niles .

―  Jane was eventually spat up by the very donkey they encountered in Cloverton into gotham . 

going to be playing jane after the first episode of doom patrol . 

[restlessmaknae]

it ends in blood & betrayal

When your father’s birthday party turns into a murder scene, everyone is suspected including you and your secret love - Ten.

➳ Characters: rich!Ten x chaebol daughter!reader/you

➳ Genre: murder mystery, drama, angst, romance

➳ Words: 11.4k

➳ Warning: mentions of the following: blood, stabbing, minor character death, smoking, casinos, implied infidelity, terrorist attack

➳ A/N: Dedicated to my favourite person on Earth @dat-town​ 💖

Click here to be added to the TAGLIST and to let me know about your fic preferences.

You swore that if you heard ‘long time no see, Miss Kim’ again, you would go feral.

All these rich businessmen and chaebol family members thought that they knew you so well, and that they had anything to do with you apart from the fact that you were of the same social status. Much of the crème de la crème was invited to your father’s 50th birthday party that was held at your mansion which meant that you needed to fake enthusiasm when the tenth CEO came over to you to talk about how their business was doing. You were looking for only one person, but those deep dark eyes were nowhere to be found in the crowd.

“Fancy some champagne?” Your best friend, Nayeon, came to your rescue with two glasses of champagne in her hands. Thankful, you gave her a weary smile.

“Ah, you know exactly when to show up,” you remarked a bit more loosely, and reached for one glass of champagne. You chugged it in one-go. You desperately needed some alcohol to pull through this night. “I’m glad you could make it,” you added after putting the empty glass onto a waiter’s tray who came by, and thanked him with a polite smile.

“I’m glad I could make it, too,” she mentioned before looking around, watching all those familiar and unfamiliar faces become one big mass of chaos. It was always like this; whenever someone rich celebrated something, everyone had to be there, and being the daughter of a chaebol CEO, you were obligated to present yourself at any given event. Not that you weren’t used to it by now. In fact, you were all too used to it, but that didn’t mean it was any easier.

“Has your father made up his mind?” Nayeon blurted out, lowering her voice a bit to not attract any unwanted attention. Even though there was a bit of a buzz at the main scene - the grandiose ball room with multiple tables of gourmet foods and both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks alike -, you knew better than anyone that someone was always watching.

“Do you really think he would?” You quirked an eyebrow, not judgemental, more like bitter. “He thinks I’m only an asset that he can just give away to anyone he pleases,” you scoffed, rolling your eyes. While it would have been flattering for probably anyone to be offered a marriage proposal with Johnny Seo, the son of an IT company’s CEO, you were far from flattered. Not because he was a bad guy, or so you reckoned he wasn’t, but for a different reason.

“I mean, Johnny Seo isn’t the worst option.”

“Well then, you should marry him yourself,” you joked playfully, nudging your best friend in the side, but Nayeon looked away as if the words had bit into her. You jerked away, pressing your lips into a stern line. “I’m sorry. It was a bad joke.”

“No, no. Don’t be!” She put her hands into the air in defeat, then smiled gently when she caught sight of something behind you. Or rather someone. “Ten is here. You should go talk to him,” she suggested kindly, and you automatically turned around, your lips raised into a lopsided smile when you caught sight of the boy with the darkest, deepest, most fascinating galaxies in his eyes.

There was something about Ten that was like a magnet, he kept attracting you, and you didn’t find the will in you to push him away anymore. Or more like you didn’t want to push him away. Like gravity, you kept circulating back to him, crashing and falling and feeling high.

“I’ll come back for the cake cutting,” you promised as you turned back to Nayeon, but before you could say more, she already shushed you, smiling at the sight of you two. You knew that she would be fine on her own, especially when you caught sight of your brother, Jungwoo, going in her way. Ever since you had become friends with Nayeon, Jungwoo had been treating her like a little sister, and despite Nayeon not coming from an especially rich family, she could always feel at home beside your family members. Even if you didn’t feel comfortable beside them, they treated her like their own family.

You walked past Ten with a knowing smile, oh so obviously checking him out in his black and white tuxedo before you made your way upstairs, right towards your room. In the maze of rooms and corridors, there were people scattered all over the mansion, but the further you got, the less scarce people were. That’s because the living rooms of the family members were separated from the rest of the celebration with all its glorious rooms, marked by a burgundy-coloured glass door. You let yourself inside the door before continuing your walk in another corridor, looking around for possible unwanted visitors, but found none. As expected, everyone was busy talking about business and forcing smiles in the ball room or the garden, no one came to this wing of the building.

You walked into your room, letting the door slightly ajar, sitting down onto your bed with one leg crossed over the other. You fixed your hair a bit while checking yourself out in the body-sized mirror, but other than that, you found no flaws in your appearance. The tight black dress with the lacy chest part you had chosen for the event was both elegant and chic. It was long enough not to scandalise your parents, but short enough to earn a cheeky smile from the one you wanted to impress that night.

As Ten made his way into your room and closed the door behind him, you knew that you managed to impress him just as much as you wanted. With that lazy, almost smug smirk of his that made him look like he knew exactly that you were his and his only, he was hella attractive, and the fire you felt inside yourself was nothing compared to the burning kiss of his when he leaned down to capture your lips.

“I hope you didn’t dress up like this just to mess with Johnny Seo. It would be a shame if he deserved a dress like that,” he teased, dropping his voice low before leaning in for another kiss. You grabbed onto his shirt to pull him closer, resting your other hand on his chest. You savoured the rare moment of having him all to yourself without having to act around the other rich people, or without having to fear that you would be caught. This time, you highly doubted that anyone would be searching for you, especially because Nayeon had reassured you that she would say that you were outside, getting some fresh air.

“Oh no, it’s just for you,” you whispered into his lips before pulling away and adding: “I’m not even sure Johnny is here tonight.”

“Was he not invited?” Ten quirked an eyebrow in question, his words coming out a bit hastily and impatiently. He wanted you just as much as you wanted him.

“I guess so, but my father hasn’t told me. He refused to talk to me since I told him that I don’t want to marry Johnny,” you admitted bitterly, and Ten caught onto the change in your behaviour. He reached to your lips, trailing its edges with his index finger, his warm touch sending a shiver down your spine. You just wanted to forget about this whole fiasco and kiss him breathless, but he was always so attentive, and he didn’t fail to notice your tenseness this time either.

“Is the situation that bad?” He asked quietly, gently, his eyes boring into yours. You felt your heart leap at the sight of his tenderness, reminding you yet again just how much you loved him. Even if it meant stealing kisses at university between lectures or walking away from others at such events to talk amongst yourself or texting each other late into night because at least there were no witnesses when you messaged each other.

Yet, nothing could be compared to having him so close (physically close), and you felt dizzy under his hungry yet loving stare, your head spinning with all the scenarios you two could be if given other circumstances. Having his hands cupping your cheeks, his heart beating under your touch, and his breathing mingling with yours made you feel almost drunk, and you knew that it wasn’t the alcohol.

“I don’t care. If my father doesn’t change his mind, I’ll play just as dirty as Doyoung. It’s not like he’s innocent,” you replied with a scoff, knowing all too well that daddy’s perfect little son Doyoung was nowhere near as perfect as your father thought him to be.

“Wouldn’t it be dangerous?”

“For the truth to come out?” You asked, looking away for a moment before looking back at Ten. “I think if I shake him just enough, he might refrain from forcing me to marry Johnny,” you let him know about your plan, and despite the clear concern in his dark orbs, you could see that he was secretly happy about you being so fierce. He wouldn’t have even started flirting with a fragile little girl, you reckoned.

Wanting to shift the atmosphere to a more pleasant one, you sat a bit closer to him, your upper bodies being impossibly close, leaving little to no air to breathe without your lips touching again. That’s exactly what you were aiming for, but as you were about to devour his lips, the door flew open.

“Huh, so Doyoung was right,” your father huffed, putting his hands on his hips. “You dare to reject the marriage proposal with Johnny Seo, only to play with this Thai kid?” He spat, fury painting his words, making them appear like well-directed punches. You felt the boy tense beside you as he let his hands fall into his lap, but you squeezed his hands nevertheless.

You needed all the courage in you to not shiver under your father’s disapproving glance, but hell no, you couldn’t just let him insult the boy because he wasn’t Korean. You knew how much your father despised foreign businessmen, and he had always told you to marry into a Korean family, but you couldn’t care less about the boy’s nationality. It was his heart that mattered.

“Oh, because it’s so bad of me to do so? Do you even know what Doyoung is doing? Have you just decided to turn a blind eye to his night motel visits?” You threw the questions at him like daggers, but much to your surprise, he dodged them as if he had a shield that could protect him from any kind of weapons.

“Yes, I have. He’s my first-born, and he will inherit the company one day, so he got his punishment for that, but I’m not willing to let you off the hook so easily.”

“What? You really knew about it, and turned a blind eye?” You shrieked, your hope of turning the tables for your own sake diminished to ashes. Your only hope was to reveal to your father that your brother was going to motels ever so frequently just to spend the night with the rival company’s daughter, Jeong Jaeyi. It would have made such a mess if it had come to light, but your father had decided to punish him without anyone else knowing?

“Are you really that stupid? Should I just let my first-born go down the drain for one mistake?” Your father exclaimed, and his raised voice only made you angrier.

“Because you should just let your daughter go down the drain for the same thing?”

“You’re a girl. The only way you can be of use to me is to wed you off. Doyoung will inherit the company, so he can have his fun with girls, but you must stop this before I physically force you to sign the marriage proposal yourself,” he warned you as he took more and more steps towards you. You felt Ten’s fingers slipping away from yours, the coldness he left behind leaving you heartbroken even without saying a word.

“Sir, you…”

“You stay out of it! Don’t ever come close to my daughter!” Your father turned to Ten who visibly shook by the venom in your father’s voice. You felt tears pricking your eyes and something scratching your throat, but the previous words still rang in your ears, making you go weak in the knees. 

You’re a girl. The only way you can be of use to me is to wed you off.

As you rose from the bed to protest, you felt a rush of blood going to your head, and you almost fell if it weren’t for Ten.

“And you’re also weak. How do you expect to be of any use to me?” Your father continued, his eyes turning from threatening to pitiful. He ordered you to pull yourself together and escort Ten out because if he were to see him for the rest of the night, he wouldn’t go easy on either of you. Then, he turned around and left the room.

You were still shaking from the conversation with your father when you made your way back to the ballroom, joining a circle of chaebol girls who were oh so interested in your dress. You had done what your father had asked of you, and you had no idea how final your goodbye with Ten had been when you had watched him walk away from the front door. As you had made your way back to the guests, you had caught sight of Doyoung with an almost eerie smile, and you had felt the need to go up to him and shout his head off, but he had been talking to Jeong Jaehyun, the brother of Jaeyi - the girl he had been seeing. Huh, just what kind of a punishment your father had given him, you had wondered as you had tried to find familiar faces instead.

Soon, you managed to find your best friend by the French entrées, and Nayeon looked so worried seeing your expression that you almost felt like crying. However, the unshed tears were replaced by missed beats of your heart when someone shouted from the top of the stairs:

“Call an ambulance! Mr Kim is bleeding! Someone stabbed him!”

You shared a glance with your best friend before chaos erupted. People whispering, then frantically shouting. You saw your mother rushing up the stairs and your brothers exchanging glances with you. You even saw how Jeong Jaehyun appeared flabbergasted before joining the group of people who were exiting the scene. You, on the other hand, had no idea what to do, so you just stood there, frozen, letting the people who pushed past you toss you around as if you had been nothing but a mere puppet.

That’s how your father’s birthday party turned into a murder scene, and that’s how you found yourself at the police station as a possible suspect.

You were suspected of murdering your father after you had been heard quarrelling with him lately over the marriage proposal to Johnny Seo. Doyoung had even mentioned that he had heard your conversation with your father just before he had been stabbed, and now, detective Moon was trying to use that against you.

“I’m telling you, I haven’t killed him!”

The words felt like a mantra at this point as you had been repeating them all too frequently ever since you had been called in for the interrogation. Since it was going to take some time to take everyone’s testimony (around a hundred guests plus the staff who were working during the event), they started with the ones who had the most connection to the one who had been murdered (and who could know about possible enemies), meaning that your family had been called in on the night of the birthday party that had ended up in blood and chaos. Someone had stabbed your father in the stomach judging by the depth of the cut, but they hadn’t managed to find any bloody item they might have stabbed him with.

“Miss Kim, please, calm down!” Detective Moon pinched the bridge of his nose, his patience wearing thin. What could you do though? Just because your brother was trying to throw dirt on you, it didn’t mean that you had killed your father! It felt unfair, to be questioned as if you had really done something so horrendous, and it felt unfair to be called out for not wanting to marry a man you didn’t know and for telling that to your father face-to-face. Huh, as if Doyoung hadn’t caused you enough trouble, he just had to use his witness card against you.

“How can I calm down when you suspect me of killing my own father?” You bellowed frantically, yet leaned back into the uncomfortable metal chair when the man shot you a glance.

“We are trying to get to the bottom of this murder case, so please, cooperate with us, so we can gather enough evidence.”

Evidence as in telling him the last time you had seen your father, the last time you had talked to him (and why you had talked to him), and if it hadn’t been enough that Doyoung had mentioned your argument with your father about half an hour before the announcement of his death, he had also spilled the beans about you and Ten.

“Your brother, Mr Kim Doyoung, says that you have a secret relationship with the son of a Thai businessman, and you have rejected a marriage proposal to be together with him, and that’s why you resent your father? Is it true?” Mr Moon asked sternly as he was typing on the laptop in front of him, occasionally looking up to see your reaction. He had his partner, Mr Lee, who observed your every reaction anyway and his stare gave you the creeps even though you knew that your testimony was recorded anyways, so you had more eyes on yourself than you could actually see.

“It… it is, but that doesn’t mean that I would kill him. I wouldn’t have cared even if he had disowned me, but I would have never wanted to kill him. I’ve just wanted to be understood,” you explained honestly, in detail, so that they would know that you took their question seriously, but they didn’t stop there.

“Is it true that you have been on bad terms with your father, even quarrelling with him lately?”

With a sigh, you had to admit your defeat, so you were about to answer when the detective cut you off:

“It is but-”

“You didn’t kill him, right,” he noted, his voice and face lacking any kind of emotion, but it was better this way. At least he wasn’t pitying you or looking down on you after what he had heard. Though maybe loving a Thai businessman’s son and not wanting to marry someone else didn’t seem that outrageous to him as other crimes people had committed. But then again, that just meant that you might have been more suspicious; because when love was involved, people could be capable of anything.

More typing, the annoying ticking of the clock on the wall. You felt like your heart could explode any minute, and your brain was foggy, almost numb from all that had happened, and all that had followed. Yet, you tried your best to appear stronger than you felt because that was the last thing you could do. For yourself.

So you kept your eyes on detective Moon who looked up from the laptop a few seconds later and asked:

“Is there anyone you suspect who might have wanted him dead?”

Finally, the question you had been waiting for. Now it was your turn to raise suspicions regarding Doyoung - the first-born who might inherit the company one day, and now with your father out of the picture, he would inherit it very soon, probably after an emergency meeting of the stakeholders. He had also been slipping into bad habits that weren’t supported by your father, and going to the motel with Jeong Jaeyi was just the tip of the iceberg. He had also been going to casinos and caught smoking, and your father had also mentioned punishing him for that, so they had not been on good terms recently either.

Then there was Jungwoo who had always been rebelling because he wasn’t the first-born, yet he had still been forced to work for the company because he was a male heir. He had never wanted this life, he had even voiced it out, threatening to leave the whole family behind only to have his money withdrawn by your father not too long ago, so he was stuck with the family, money tying him to your father.

You didn’t suspect your mother since she had been given everything she had wanted, and she had seemed to be on good terms with your father. Other relatives might have envied your father, but you didn’t know them well to suspect anyone, plus you didn’t remember any of your cousins showing up, only your aunt and your mother’s sister’s family.

You also mentioned Jeong Jaehyun whose little sister Doyoung had been seeing, and who had also attended the party. His family’s company would benefit the most from your father’s death since the sudden news would definitely shake the trade enough to make the stock prices crash, and might even give the no. 1 position in the South Korean IT sector back to their company after your father’s business had taken over it 5 years ago. Plus, he could have avenged your father for looking down on their family, especially Jaeyi who had been sleeping with his first-born.

The detective asked about any staff members that might have something against your father or co-workers and subordinates, but you couldn’t think of any, so you concluded briefly what you thought. However, your stomach dropped and churned with nausea when detective Moon posed a question that felt like a dagger digging deep into your flesh:

“What about your boyfriend? Haven’t you been planning on avenging your father for not letting you be with him? You were both present at the party, and according to the front door’s camera, he was seen leaving the mansion not long before your father was announced to be stabbed.”

You felt anger slowly boiling inside of you, and it burst into one big flame of defence, hurt and disappointment when you finally had the chance to speak up.

“What? No way! He would never do that! He left immediately when my father told him not to come close to me,” you defended Ten, almost rising from your seat, but managed to make yourself stay with your nails digging deep into your palms instead. It helped to focus on the pain in your skin instead of the pain in your heart (so hollow, so poisonous), but you could almost hear what the police officers were thinking:

She’s blinded by love. She can’t see straight.

While it might have been true, you could never, not even in your wildest dreams, dare to assume that Ten would be capable of killing a man. You might not have known him for long - half a year, to be exact -, but he had seemed nothing but sincere all along. A rare gem in the big charade of fake glitter, artificial smiles and hidden intentions. In this world where you felt like trust was as scarce as empathy while back-stabbing and two-faced people were everywhere, you had never doubted him and his love for you.

However, when the detective asked if you had any proof to back up what you had said, you knew you had nothing. You didn’t have CCTV cameras inside the house, only by the front door and the back garden, but even the latter one hadn’t been changed, so it didn’t work for some time now. Otherwise, how else could you have backed up your claims? You hadn’t recorded your conversation with your father for God’s sake!

You were asked a few more questions, but everything seemed like a blur by the end of it, and you were so weary that you nearly collapsed onto a chair in the corridor when you finished. Nayeon immediately showed up by your side with a cup of coffee, and you took it with a thankful albeit exhausted smile, inquiring when she would be called in.

“They said that I would need to come by only tomorrow because it already takes longer than they expected,” she explained, and you nodded, glad that she wouldn’t need to stay here for the night. They probably didn’t have much suspicion about her anyways, but she could back up your claims - or at least the ones she knew as well such as Doyoung’s behaviour lately.

“Thank you for staying, but you can go home now.” you suggested gently, hoping that she would take the time to rest after what had happened. She had been close to your family ever since you had become best friends, and it sometimes seemed like your family loved her more than they loved you - taking the fact into consideration that she had always been smarter than you, thus she had even helped you prepare for your CSATs. Her tutoring sessions had seemed more useful than any private tutor’s could, maybe that’s why your parents had decided that she would be more useful than harmful - letting you invite her to fancy parties and letting you actually become friends with her. She was your only real friend and the only one who wasn’t a chaebol.

So for her to witness everything today and to be dragged into this mess made you feel guilty, guiltier than you would have liked to admit. Especially because you had asked her to lie for you because of Ten. 

“Will you be alright? With you suspecting your brothers, would it be safe to stay with them at home?” Nayeon inquired instead of worrying about herself. You were rendered speechless for a moment, letting the words fall off your tongue like a sin:

“I… I haven’t thought of that,” you confessed, suddenly aware of the possibility of staying under the same roof as the murderer of your father. Since no solid proof had been found and the deadly weapon hadn’t been discovered either, they couldn’t keep anyone at the police station without only suspicions lacking any solid proof. Though there were probably still more police officers at the crime scene - at your mansion - for you to enter freely.

However, before you could think it through or ask your mother who sat a bit further from you with her head in her hands, Jungwoo pacing in front of her waiting for his turn and Doyoung sitting even further, your phone beeped, signalling a message. You reached into your purse, seeing a message from Ten, asking if you were alright.

 “I need to make a quick call,” you announced to your best friend who gave you a worried albeit disappointed smile as she nodded, turning to examine your family members currently in shambles instead of keeping her eyes on you. Then, when she looked back at you, you caught worry flashing across her eyes, but before you could ask anything, she bobbed her head and left the scene as you had advised her to do so. Still, her expression lingered a bit in front of your eyes, and you started wondering what it could be about. Was she afraid of you now? Of your family? Of maybe… Ten? You couldn’t tell, yet there was no use pondering over it because you knew Nayeon would tell you if something was bothering her. She had always done so.

Hence, you rose from your seat to walk a bit further from anyone else because the last thing you wanted was to gain your family members’ attention by talking to Ten. You could tell by the icy stare of theirs and that suspicion in their eyes that could cut through metal that they suspected the boy just as well. Honestly, you felt like going against them just because of their silent treatment, but you didn’t know anymore.

What you knew though was that you wanted to hear Ten’s voice, and through the phone, he couldn’t hurt you in any way.

“Hey! Are you okay? Did you get hurt? What happened?”

Ten’s voice was as concerned as it could be; you had never really given him a chance to be so worried about you, but the way fear and affection mixed in his tone, you wondered if he could have really been the murderer.

“I’m fine. I really am. I’ve just finished giving my testimony, but my family is a mess,” you sighed out, sparing a short-lived glance in the direction of your family members. Doyoung just managed to catch your gaze, and cruelly slowly, his lips raised into a sly smile. It gave you the creeps, so you decided to turn back to face a dirtywhite wall instead. “It seems everyone is suspecting the other and… they are suspecting you, too,” you confessed, letting the weight of your words weigh down on his shoulders too, not just yours. Not that it helped, especially with that clear hurt in his voice, but you wanted to be honest. Maybe to test out his reaction. Maybe not. Who knew at this point?

“Me? But I wasn’t even there after your father had asked me to leave.”

“I know. I’ve told them the same thing, but since I have no proof, they don’t believe me,” you continued, letting your words pour like rain. You felt like you were standing in a thunderstorm, waiting for the next one to tear down the sky and shake the ground, your heart in your throat as the seconds passed by. Anxiously, you bit into your lower lip. “Haven’t you been called in?”

“Yeah, I’ve been called in for tomorrow morning, but I thought it’s just because I was at the party,” he replied instantly, and you wondered whether he was so impatient to answer (not even stuttering over his words) because he had practised it over in his head.

Because he had been willing to kill for you, and he had done so.

“Well, Doyoung spilled everything. About our quarrel before my father…” You let the thunder strike, sending cold shivers down your spine. Your voice trailed off by the end, finding no will in you to actually say the words out loud. Was killed. Was murdered. By someone who had been there at the party. It could have been anyone.

“Are they still going through your house?” Ten changed the subject, probably to ease your nerves. You hummed, not knowing either how much it would take for the detectives to go through every room and examine everything, taking fingerprints and all that. “Do you want to stay with me for the night?”

The question shouldn’t have bothered you. It should have mended your heart that was slowly falling apart like a glass bead that slowly breaks after it gives in to the pressure of the cracks. On the other hand, you had never felt so dizzy, so uncertain, so lost… As if the ground had splitted under you, and you found yourself falling into a bottomless pit.

“You don’t suspect me, right?” He asked tentatively as you were trying to gulp down the nervous knot in your throat. He was probably just as wrongly accused as you had been. You had even seen him leave the mansion, he couldn’t have had the time to come back and kill your father. He would have never been able to do so anyways. He had too much of a kind heart for that.

“No, I don’t! I really don’t!”

“Then, I’ll come pick you up,” he offered gently before asking if you needed anything else before he would come pick you up. Maybe it was a good idea to be with him for the night, maybe he would need your presence after getting to know that he was suspected just as well even if there was no proof against him, maybe it was the safest option anyways.

Though the look in your family members’ eyes said otherwise as you were leaving the police station, and you wondered if you were walking straight into a murderer’s arms.

Since you had been taken to the police station in a police car, you wouldn’t have had a chance to go home with your own car, so Ten picking you up was a reasonable choice anyways. Plus, seeing him made you feel relieved, him alive and well, his strong arms embracing you the moment he had walked up to you, whispering soothing words into your ears before retreating back and holding the door for you to prompt you to get into his car.

You hadn’t hesitated, you hadn’t hesitated to inquire about his well-being either while you were going to his own house, you hadn’t hesitated to step inside and make yourself feel at home, but as he was standing behind the kitchen counter with a knife in his hand, cutting up some fruit for you because he had insisted that you needed to eat something since you hadn’t been able to for the past half a day, something in you twisted.

He caught you staring at his hands, and he let the knife fall onto the cutting board, turning around, so that his body would face yours. You were leaning against the other side of the kitchen island, too restless to sit still after sitting through the past few hours, scenarios rushing through your head every other second, questions that you had been keeping down like the need to throw up after eating something bad.

“Do you still doubt me?” Ten asked straightforwardly, and his gaze was more hurt than threatening, but your heart still acted as if you had been on a carousel, going faster and faster until you could feel the wind in your face and feel the thrill, the excitement and the fear.

“No. I just…” You started, trying to find the right words to say, yet you found a dead end, your words dying on the tip of your tongue. Ten’s shoulders hunched, his lips pressed into a thin line, and for a moment, he looked away, then back at you. Something hardened in his stare, and you knew his coldness was directed at you. The one who should have trusted him the most.

“Just think about it! Why would I hurt you if I killed your father?”

You knew the question was theoretical (it had to be), but still, you couldn’t help your numb hands from shaking a bit when the words left his lips. As if it was so easy for him to say something like killing someone. As if it was an everyday thing for him. He was the forbidden fruit you shouldn’t have wanted for yourself, so could it be that he was the one poisoning you from the inside, searing into your veins until you had finally trusted him, and that’s when he had decided to betray you? Would he have been able to kill for you?

Or… you were just overreacting, and that’s what you had been seeing into his words when it was far from the truth. So far.

“I’m sorry, Ten,” you mumbled shakily before breaking down, sinking down onto the floor with tears in your eyes, hugging your legs to your chest and starting to rock yourself back and forth in hopes of calming your nerves. You swore that you were going crazy, doubting someone who had opened up to you, shared their fears and doubts with you, dreamt a dream with you, held you close when all you had wanted was to push people away, stayed with you despite the difficulties, and loved you with all his heart, his soul and his body. You had never felt that anyone could have understood you better than he had done so. Sure, you had your best friend, but Nayeon didn’t come from a rich family, she wasn’t tied to chaebol kid duties and the cage such a life came with. Though she had her own misery anyways with a runaway father and a dead mother.

“Hey…” Ten croaked out at the sight of you falling apart, and walked closer to you, crouching down to be at eye-level with you. He reached out for your hands, slowly peeling your fingers from around your shins, and reaching to tuck your locks behind your ear that were falling into your face, covering your tears. “I’m sorry to make you feel worse. I’ve just… I’ve just thought that at least you would trust me,” he admitted bitterly, and when you looked up at him, you could see sincerity shining in his orbs. How could you have doubted him for a second?

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…”

“Shh, it’s okay,” he shushed you as he leaned forward to kiss your tears away. You felt like melting away under his warm, gentle touch. You felt like he was slowly putting back the pieces you had fallen into with each loving stroke along your arms, with each squeeze of your hand and with each kiss you two shared.

After a while, you didn’t know who wanted the other more, who needed the other’s love more desperately than the other because you were both in the dark, you were both in deep in this story, and your love had never seemed so ill-fated before. Now everyone knew what you had been doing, but you didn’t want to give them the chance to see you doubting each other. So that night as you shared kisses through tears, you decided that you would trust him if no proof came to light to claim that he was a murderer.

For that night at least, you could fall asleep in his loving, protective arms, not searching for proof to prove his innocence.

The next morning, you woke to a knock on the door. You could barely rub the sleep out of your eyes when the first wave of shock arrived: the sudden visitors being police officers. Why would they have come directly to Ten’s flat so early in the morning?

“Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul?” One of them asked, voice stern and neutral like always.

“Yes, that would be me,” Ten confirmed although you could hear the uncertainty in his voice. You looked over your shoulder, slowly rising from the couch, but you stopped dead in your tracks when the other police officer announced:

“You are under arrest for the murder of Kim Dohwan.”

Even though you had had your doubts, the words felt foreign today. After yesterday evening, you had managed to reassure yourself that if anyone, the boy wouldn’t have anything to do with your father’s death. Not only because he was one of the kindest souls you had ever met, but also because he would have not been able to choose violence, especially after his brother had been a victim of a terrorist attack in the past.

So to hear the police officer's words felt like a wave of shock, numbing your senses and freezing your whole body.

“What? No! I didn’t kill him. What are you talking about?” Ten protested immediately, his voice rising in panic. Even though he was protesting, he still let the police officers put him in handcuffs as they explained the reason behind their sudden visit.

“There is a witness who saw you re-entering the house from the back door, then going into Mr Kim’s room and coming out alone just before Mr Kim was announced to be dead.”

Your feet found their strength at this moment, and you bolted forward, appearing behind the handcuffed Ten in a matter of seconds. The police officers seemed taken aback for a moment, but they didn’t say a word. As if they hadn’t even thought of accusing you. Interesting after what had happened yesterday in the interrogation room.

“What? No! That can’t be! He wouldn’t even have had enough time to do something like that. I was the last person who talked to him, and I was the one who escorted him out, so there’s no way he would have been able to do something like that in such a short span of time,” you insisted, your hands balled into fists by your side as you were trying to defend the boy. “Who would say something so stupid?” You couldn’t help but ask, already having a feeling that it would be one of your family members trying to throw some dirt on you after no proof was found that could lead to the actual murderer.

On the other hand, when the police officers didn’t mention your family members, you felt like you were swept off of your feet, the air punched out of your lungs.

“It was Miss Park Nayeon. She thought that wasn’t a useful piece of information, and that your boyfriend wouldn’t be capable of such a thing, but then she said she feared your safety, Miss Kim.”

The more words were thrown at you, the more you bled. They were daggers aimed at your heart, your heart at a war with your brain, and it seemed like neither part could win. It was a losing game from the beginning. It meant that you had to choose whether you believed your best friend of 8 years or the boy you loved with all your heart, and who understood you the most. One of them was lying. Or worse: both of them. Maybe Nayeon was blackmailed, maybe Ten was just afraid to tell you that he had gone back inside the house, but hadn’t met your father, maybe your family members had been behind it all along…

Too many maybes and no proof, still no goddamn proof which meant that the police officers had the right to arrest him because he had been claimed to be the last person to see your father, and if no further proof were to be revealed, he would be released in 72 hours anyways. Or at least, it was something along the lines the police officers were telling you, but the rest of the morning was a blur with you going after them to the police station with a taxi, fervently calling your best friend to ask her about her statement, but to no avail. She didn’t pick up. The only person you met at the police station was none other than Doyoung, and upon seeing him, you had this eerie feeling that he knew more than he had shown. Why else would he be smiling so cryptically?

“Well, well, well, it looks like someone’s boyfriend is not so innocent after all,” he mused out loud, loud enough for you to hear his words clearly. After everything that had happened in the past not even 24 hours, you had no patience for his groundless arrogance.

So you halted in front of him, arms laced in front of your chest as you were about to confront your oldest brother.

“Shut up, Doyoung! There’s no proof that he went back to the house and met up with my father,” you spat out, fighting with the only weapons you had left: words. On the other hand, Doyoung was a businessman, a clever one on top of that, and he knew very well how to negotiate and how to debate someone.

“So you say that you don’t believe your best friend?” He quirked an eyebrow, almost amused, but then he pressed his lips into a thin line. He gave you a dubious look before he continued. “Then again, why would you?”

Doyoung liked talking in riddles, and both you and Jungwoo hated that ever since you had been young. Doyoung had always made it seem like he knew something you hadn’t, thus he had wanted you to respect him as an older brother, but neither you, nor Jungwoo had ever given him the satisfaction to appear any more superior than he could have been due to his age. Respect was earned, not forced, or at least you thought so.

However, this time, you didn’t care. You had been thrown into doubt time and time again ever since your father had been murdered, and it definitely didn’t help either that it took some time for the forensic team to analyse the fingertips in your father’s room and on his body in hopes of narrowing down the list of suspects. The murderer might have been out there, already preparing for another crime while you were sitting around, waiting for something to happen. Clearly, whoever the murderer had been, they knew your mansion very well, they probably knew that the back door CCTV didn’t work, and they knew exactly where to find your father and how to hide traces. They might have even prepared for the murder in advance.

There were so many questions unanswered that you even gave your brother the chance to see you trust him for once. Or at least, to listen to him, so that you could decide whether you wanted to trust him or not.

“What do you mean?”

After your question, Doyoung took a step closer to you. As he was towering over you with his built, you gulped. There was something in his eyes that you couldn’t pinpoint, but you kept the eye-contact anyways.

“Don’t you see the way she’s looking at you? As if she’s jealous. As if she wished she could have your life,” he said and took his time delivering each word as if they were ticking bombs, ready to explode. They did feel like it for you would have never dared to doubt your best friend. Why would you? You knew very well that she wouldn’t have wished for your life. Maybe for the wealth because her mother had raised her alone after her father had run away, but not the excessive amount of pressure and chaebol duties.

However, you knew deep down that it was either her lying or Ten doing so. You didn’t know which one was worse.

“You’re imagining things,” you insisted still, but you couldn’t stop your voice from shivering.

“Oh, am I?” He elevated his eyebrow in a comical way, his lips slowly turning upwards. You felt the need to punch him in the face because you couldn’t believe that he could be enjoying this situation. No matter how much you despised your father, he had still been murdered mercilessly, and the murderer was still on the run. Or currently arrested if your best friend proved to be telling the truth.

However, you were left frozen in place when Doyoung took another step closer to you, grabbed your wrist and looked you in the eye, his facial expression cold as ice.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you though.”

His words lingered even after he had left you alone in the corridor, wondering just yet again who to believe and who to fear.

After Doyoung had left for the company’s emergency meeting, you were left alone, anxiously sitting in the corridor, waiting for the detectives to be over with the interrogation with Ten. You didn’t know what you hoped for anyways; that you could see him again? That you could see for yourself that he wasn’t lying? That he admitted that he had been lying, and he had been the one who had murdered your father?

You felt a shiver run down your spine at the thought. Could he have been that good of an actor that he had deceived everyone, even you the night before? Could he have had an ulterior motive, and you had been just too blind to see it? After all, you hadn’t known him for as long as you had known your best friend, and no matter how much you loved him, Nayeon could have been telling the truth. Yet, what Doyoung had just told you lingered, it lingered like a shadow that followed you everywhere, and it fought its way into your brain, forcing you to actually think about the possibility of Nayeon being the one who had lied.

All these possibilities made your head and heart ache, all this doubt inside you was slowly eating you up alive, poisoning your memories that kept repeating in your head. Where had the signs been? Where had the red flags been in the months and years behind you? Nayeon was different from you, that was true, and she had been the one to approach you back in the days, but why would she had murdered your father who had treated her almost like a family member? You couldn’t have made up a reasonable explanation, nor could you have done so with Ten who would have never been able to kill anyone. The day before had been the first time he had met your father face-to-face anyways, so could he have been that impulsive? Could he have really killed for you, for your love?

Or maybe it was someone else, and Nayeon had merely mistaken him, and there was someone else behind it, someone who might be enjoying this chaos from afar.

No matter what, lacking anything to do on this Sunday morning, you stayed there in the corridor, still in Ten’s oversized shirt and pants he had given you the night before, and you kept calling Nayeon. You couldn’t reach her for about an hour, so when she actually picked up, you almost didn’t believe that she did. Especially because she was sobbing on the other side of the phone.

“I’m so sorry, Y/n. I should have told you beforehand, I’ve just…” Nayeon admitted immediately, her voice trailing off as another wave of sobs erupted from her. “I’ve just… I wouldn’t have assumed that Ten could have done it.”

At this point, you felt like you went numb at the sounds of her crying. You felt so detached from reality that you couldn’t feel sympathy anymore. Someone was playing with you, with your family, with the detectives, and you weren’t having any of it even if your best friend was telling the truth.

“Are you sure you’ve seen him right? Couldn’t you have mistaken him for someone else?” You reasoned, asking the question you had been meaning to ask if you had managed to reach her. Her sobs stopped as she exclaimed:

“Are you doubting me? I’m your best friend!” There was panic in her voice, something that seemed so abrupt, so out of place, especially compared to her miserable crying from a few seconds ago. You lost all patience as well, raising your voice as you counter-attacked her, feeling fury and desperation take hold of you.

“Why? What do you expect me to do? It’s either you who’s lying or Ten, and I don’t even know which one is worse. I’m doubting everyone and everything around myself, but could you blame me? My father was murdered yesterday!”

“Can’t you just believe me? Is it so hard after what we’ve been through? You know Ten for less than a year!” Nayeon kept accusing you, and you huffed, something in you boiling. There was some deep, some dark mass inside of you that was slowly coming together, growing and growing, and you didn’t know how to tone it down anymore; it was doubt towards your best friend, and how she was reacting only added to the fire. It just didn’t feel right. She should have told you the day before if she had been that afraid for you.

But still… why would she have killed your father? Or who could be behind this shitshow, making everyone doubt the other and telling lies? Maybe she was blackmailed? Maybe Ten was actually the killer?

Gosh, your head was splitting, you didn’t know how much more you could put up with. It was already too much, the endless cycle of doubting one person and then another exhausting you like nothing ever before.

“Look, I don’t want to argue,” Nayeon announced wearily as her breathing evened, and you felt your frustration dissolve a bit as well. “Can we meet up? We could talk about it in a calmer manner,” she suggested and you found yourself agreeing even before you could think about what you could be doing. You were either going to meet your saviour or a devil in disguise. It was 50-50.

You were just about to leave for your best friend’s flat when you met Johnny Seo in the hallway, and catching his gaze, you furrowed your eyebrows in question. He came up to you, panting as if he had been running here, and put his hands on your shoulders. It was almost like he was trying to protect you, but you didn’t know what for because you had never been close, yet you kept yourself back from shrugging off his hands when he finally spoke up:

“I’ve got footage about the back door!” He blurted out seriously, and you felt your lips parting at his words. “I have a camera in my car because it’s a pretty expensive car, and I don’t want anything to happen to it, so it recorded the whole period of the party yesterday because I was parked not far from the back door. I still have the footage from it because it stores 72 hours,” he explained, then went on to add that the detective on the site had told him that any footage could be useful since the house didn’t seem to have CCTVs inside, only a camera by the front door. Just as he had gotten inside his car that day, had he realised that his car’s camera could be useful.

It didn’t take long for a police officer who worked on the case to come and get Johnny’s camera, and while you were waiting for the results - to prove that Ten entered or didn’t enter the house from the back door -, you were impatiently walking up and down in the corridor, chewing on your lower lip. Johnny tried to initiate a conversation with you while he was staying to see if he needed to give a testimony as well or not, but you were more nervous than you would have liked to admit, and your answers were cut rather short. Whilst waiting, you also sent a hasty text to Nayeon, telling her that you need to answer some more questions, so you would arrive later than intended. She didn’t need to know that it wasn’t true.

You didn’t know how much time had passed before detective Moon came out of a room, his lips pressed into a thin line when he came up to you and Johnny.

“Miss Kim, it seems that Miss Park has lied. Your boyfriend hasn’t entered the house from the back door which means that she couldn’t have seen him in your father’s room either. Since this was the reason we kept him here as a suspect, we will release him, but he has to be cooperative in the future. And about Miss Park…” The detective’s voice trailed off, the shift in this game of suspects and innocents making your stomach drop. Now it seemed that your best friend was a suspect or at least someone who firmly believed something that hadn’t happened. When had it came to this?

“Has she ever seemed suspicious? Have you ever noticed a tension between her and your father?” He continued, eyes alert and questioning. You shook your head, telling him that your father had seemed to treat her as almost a family member, someone close to him, so they had never seemed to not get along well. “I’m afraid we can’t arrest her over a lie, but we will continue on with her interrogation as expected. We will call her in right now,” he let you know, and you nodded, too confused to even begin to think about going against his words. You were already so tired of this; people making you question their intentions, then getting mad at you for suspecting them… It was just too much.

So you let the events happen; Ten being released and crushing you into a hug, suggesting to go somewhere to have breakfast together. You knew that you couldn’t wait forever to get to the bottom of this mystery, so you gave in, thankful for his considerate action. Johnny promised that he would keep you updated though because he was being questioned while your best friend was on her way.

Or well, she was supposed to.

Ten took you to a brunch place downtown, and the last person you expected to see there was your best friend.

“You forgot about our talk,” Nayeon remarked rather bitterly when you walked to your table, and you couldn’t help but exchange a suspicious glance with Ten. How could she have known that you were there?

“Shouldn’t you be supposed to be at the police station?” You raised an eyebrow, trying to keep your voice even though it was becoming more and more difficult to keep your cool when your best friend let out a snicker. Something so mundane as a snicker had never come from your friend, not the elegant, always obedient Park Nayeon.

“What I’m about to tell you is more important,” she announced before taking a seat at your table. Ten rose from his seat to stop her, but he stopped dead in his action when your best friend continued. “Sister.”

Your blood froze in your veins. Clearly, she wasn’t in her right mind. Why would she come to the place where you were with Ten, then strike up a conversation in a public place and call you sister?  You supposed that she wouldn’t do anything at a public place like this, nothing that would gather too much attention. Or maybe that’s exactly why she was there? Everything was so puzzling, no wonder you were rendered speechless.

“Yeah, I was pretty dumbfounded, too. Turns out that your father has never been a good person, especially not to his first daughter,” she broke the silence instead of you, looking down at her intertwined fingers before looking up at you to catch your perplexed gaze upon the implication. First daughter. Nayeon was two months older than you. Which meant that if she was telling the truth, she was your father’s first daughter. “Turns out that the runaway father of mine was very much alive, my mother just forgot to mention that until she was on her deathbed. She told me when I visited her at the hospital before she died. After that, it was all too easy to become friends with you, and to see it for myself.”

The more she talked, the more unfamiliar she seemed. That anger she had been bottling up, those hardened features of hers, that rigidity about her… It was a completely different person. Not your best friend. Or maybe it was who she had been all along. You merely had been too blind to see it.

Or she merely had been too good of an actress.

“And turns out that he didn’t want to accept me as his daughter even though I was so much better than you. So much smarter, so much more obedient, so much more willing to live up to the family now. So I killed him,” she shrugged as if it was nothing, but you literally froze in place, unable to process everything. Your heart was beating so fast against your ribcage that you didn’t hear anything else properly, and you wondered if you heard it right when she continued. “And I’m going to do the same to the one who took my place.”

It was so wrong of you to doubt her intentions until the very last minute because that hesitation of yours was enough for your best friend to pull a knife out of her pocket and to stab it into your stomach.

Your vision went blurry. You looked down at the blood oozing out of the cut, mirroring the one on your father’s body, and the thought crossed your mind if he had felt just as betrayed as you did so in that moment. Despite the cacophony around you, your world went quiet, your body becoming more and more weightless as you fell to the ground, your fingers shakily hovering above the bloody pool. So much blood. So much burgundy. Such warmth.

And such pain, you could scream if you hadn’t been so weak, so defeated, so striked. Instead, your body went numb, the edges of your vision narrowing as you faintly heard Ten calling your name, and the rush of regret was enough to send you to the ground immediately, a teardrop rolling down your cheeks as your eyes shut closed.

“What was your motif for murdering Mr Kim?”

“He was my father who left my mother and me behind when he got to know that she was pregnant. Because it’s that easy to throw someone away when you’ve been the one who slept with a woman who might have been pretty but lacking any wealth? Huh, he was such a scumbag.

My mother always told me that my father had run away, and I believed her. Then, when she was involved in a car accident and the doctors were fighting for her life, she wanted to see me, and called me into her ward. There, she told me who my father was. She died the next morning, her organs giving up the fight. But I had a plan: to avenge my father for what he did, so I began looking up where he was, what he was doing, and that’s when I came across his children. Three of them, one girl. It was so easy to get info on them since they are wealthy, and soon, I got to know where Y/n was studying, and managed to be accepted at the same high school because I’ve always had good grades. My plan was to get close to her, and to see how she was doing and how her father was doing.”

“Miss Kim has said that she has never sensed any tension between you two. How come you have not made any moves before?”

“Because I was careful, waiting for the right time. Also, I was flattered that they asked me to be Y/n’s tutor. I felt so good just thinking that I was smarter than their precious, accepted child. At times, I did feel bad for her, but no one can have everything, right? So I befriended her, enjoying the luxury they showered me in as I was helping her to prepare for her CSATs, and soon, it did feel like I became a part of their family. I became comfortable with that. They paid me enough money for the tutoring to get by well, and I’ve enjoyed my new life.”

“So why did you decide to murder your father that exact night?”

“Oh that? It’s because Y/n was complaining that she had to marry Johnny Seo while she was in love with Ten, and I got fed up with her complaints. So I told her father where his daughter and the boy went, and I’ve thought that it would be enough for him to disown her, so that I could reveal my secret and take her place. But when I went into my father’s room with a tray of food to please and told him the truth, he didn’t want to change his mind. He believed me after I told him who my mother was, but he kept saying that I was still not his daughter. He told me that I would never be able to be a real Kim and not just because I had my mother’s family name. He also said that I could never be like Y/n.

I got angry. That shallow-minded, no good girl who lied to her father and was with another guy when all she had to do was to marry someone for her family’s sake was more accepted than me? So I grabbed the knife from the tray I brought him and stabbed him while he was sitting on a chair. I didn’t even leave a fingerprint on him, he already fell after just a stab. I picked up the knife, hid it in my purse, and washed my hands. Since no one would have suspected me, I could actually throw my whole purse into the bin in the kitchen and not be questioned.”

“And so you tried to put the blame on Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul because he seemed like a likely suspect, and you wouldn’t have thought that there would be footage to go against your claim regarding the back door? I assume you knew that the back door’s CCTV was broken.”

“Of course I knew. I was like family, they told me everything. And yes, that’s right. If it hadn’t been for my plan falling through because of Johnny Seo’s car footage, I would have been able to kill Y/n in my own flat as I was telling her my story. Too bad it had to be in public, so I had to cut my story short because I was afraid Ten would call the cops on me.”

“How did you know Miss Kim would be at that place with her boyfriend?”

“Oh, I’ve long put a tracking app on her phone. I was just waiting for the right time to use it against her.”

“Why did you have to murder them? Didn’t you think money or a nice place to live in would be enough after they have showered you with luxuries as you have mentioned?

“Someone like you wouldn’t understand. The family you’re from determines everything. I would have been doomed if it had been for only my mother because she was poor. But look at me! I was smarter than that stupid girl who couldn’t see through my lies for years, and who only got into university because of me. I’ve long deserved my place in the family, but no… It’s because I didn’t grow up with them, I couldn’t be seen as their family. Those fucking rich people.”

“I think we’ve heard enough… Miss Park, you’re under arrest for the murder of Kim Dohwan and the attempted murder of Kim Y/n. Anything you’ve said during the interrogation can be recited during your court hearing.”

“Huh, so that bitch is still alive? How unfortunate…”

Some stories are written in burgundy blood-stained ink. Some stories are about betrayal and doubt. Some stories are about the hunger for fame, power and acceptance. Some stories do not have happy endings, and you were sure that yours couldn’t end in one the moment you were born. However, you would have never thought that there was someone else who thought the same when she got to know whose daughter she was. Or maybe she fell from so high because she assumed that she could have her happy ending. Which would eventually mean that you needed to be out of the way.

Though for now, even if the loss of blood left you unconscious on the brunch place’s floor and you needed to be resuscitated while you were being transferred to the hospital, you were alive. In a lot of pain, that was for certain, but you were alive, holding Ten’s hands even while you were sleeping, holding on for dear life.

You had to hold on. Because even if Nayeon was put behind bars, the best revenge you could get on her was to live well, to move on. To thrive and to wear the Kim name proudly. After everything that had happened, no one would have deserved the title more than you did.

[bellamer]

Couldn't sleep so I made a new Mortal Kombat OC using this picrew

His name is Flurís, skilled and powerful cryomancer.

Long ago when Sindel ruled with her husband, Jerrod, Flurís was an advisor and protector to Sindel and her husband and their young daughter Kitana and was close to the family, especially to Sindel.

Many questioned Flurís and his intent, spreading many malicious rumors that he was planning to secretly and discreetly take over the Kingdom, since he influenced many of Queen Sindel's decisions and had a high standing with the cryomancer community.

Flurís was then framed, when a cryomancer assassin attempted to take Sindel and Kitana's lives. Flurís was believed to have orchestrated the attack and King Jerrod wanted him sentenced to death, but, Queen Sindel sensed truth in her old friend's eyes but continued to banish him and all of the other cryomancers out of Edenia and into Outworld.

The Cryomancers were then hunted down and almost exterminated by Shao Khan, after he had taken over Edenia and merged it with all of Outworld. Some escaped into Earthrealm with the help of the Spatiomancers. Unable to cope with all of the loss he had experienced and feeling unable to protect what was left of the once abundant cryomancer population, Flúris sealed himself inside of an ice crystal, never to be found.

Thousands years later, Flurís' crystal was discovered by explorers and was taken to be presented as the "greatest preserved corpse" they had ever seen and even tried to break him out of the ice but were unsuccessful.

When news of Flurís' crystal broke, Johnny Cage happened to mention it, showing a picture to the rest of the special forces, including Raiden, who happened to recognize Flurís as Sindel's old advisor, who he had thought perished when Shao Khan took over. Raiden immediately suggested that they go rescue his body, which was being shown off like a spectacle, Raiden deeming in disrespectful.

When his crystal came into possession of the Special Forces, Raiden still sensed life with the crystal and tried to free Flurís, even having Liu Kang try to melt the ice, only to discover that Flurís put a special curse on the crystal that only permitted other cryomancers to break the ice. So they contacted the only (sane) cryomancer they knew. Kuai Liang.

Kuai Liang accepted to free this cryomancer with little hesitation, shattering the ice with an ice sword flawlessly. Flurís immediately opened his eyes and sat up, looking immediately in Kuai Liang's direction. He smiled at Kuai Liang and reached out for him before passing out in the grandmaster's arms.

Days later, He woke up and immediately requested to see Kuai Liang, ignoring the miso soup, rice and tea in front of him, wanting to know how many of their people survived, only to be disappointed when he was told that a small handful of them were left. A very small handful. He immediately broke down in tears, blaming himself, wishing to put himself back in the ice but Kuai Liang wouldn't let him, saying that he'll get through this and that he shouldn't run and hide anymore.

After telling his story to everyone and his situation, how he was framed and banished from Edenia by Sindel, how they were hunted like dogs by Shao Kahn and how only a small hundred of them made it to Earthrealm, he decided to stay with Kuai Liang for a moment at the Lin Kuei Palace, to tell him the history of their people, forgotten Cryomancer techniques and much more, so that Kuai Liang could be in touch with his roots.

He eventually departed on his own quest to find the remaining descendants of Cryomancers, hoping to form a community again, often returning to the Lin Kuei Palace for Kuai Liang's help with clues and navigating the modern world, the two eventually becoming close, with Flurís eventually falling in love with the other man because of his kindness and their connection, but not knowing if Kuai Liang would ever reciprocate his feelings.

[penaltybox14]

First meeting fic

Oh shit it’s an E! fic that’s not Brice and Bellingham. 

Anyway, Roy meets Johnny, take 4,732.

The county wanted experienced firemen.  That's what they said - men on the rescue, if you please, men who know their way around a scene, a rope, a ladder, a body.  Nevermind the rescue was a young man's game, like war, where once you got death in your mind and over your shoulder you quit for something more glamorous, like eating smoke and busting up automobiles. 

Trouble was all those bodies inside all those automobiles getting chewed up by the new interstates and locked up in three-thousand-dollar Detroit caskets.  Trouble was, the federal government and the state government wanted something done about all those souls they got busy scraping off Eisenhower's curves and there was this idea that maybe you could do something.

 Paramedics, that was the plan, if anybody could get behind firemen with stethoscopes over their bunkers, because the county department had the stations and the men and the trucks up to do it, and it was worth a shot, because you could only throw so many bodies up at a guardrail and cart them away in hearses without people starting to complain. 

Give us experienced firemen.  But there was just the dozen of them, at the start, for near three million people and a couple thousand square miles and everything from farms and brush to tenements and railyards.  Some men had come from the army, and they were skittish of another war, or they had war inside their hearts already.  Roy had done his service peacetime, such as it was, and counted himself lucky each and every morning he woke beside his wife and night he kissed his son and baby daughter off to sleep.  Roy had pushed paper and he was patient and he could grind right back against the wheels of any bureaucracy and Peter Breen said, flat out, Roy's just plain nicer than any of the rest of us (he was not sure that was true or how he felt about it), it fell to him to do most of the recruiting. 

The captain at 10s had called him up and said you know what, I got this rescue man, he's good, he might just be crazy enough for this stunt of the county's, I'll send him by your way. 

Roy thought maybe a high school had let its students go early.  John Gage was young, christ, younger on the face than on paper, even.  Young and leant just-so in his chair with arrogance that sat on him like a haute-couture coat, something expensive, something impractical.  His eyes were worried.  His voice said, sure and steady, convince me it's worth it, I'm no doctor I'm a fireman, but his eyes belied him, his eyes were earnest and considerate and Roy said: think about it, in the firm sort of way you let your kid or your kid brother think about making a better choice and not a damn fool one. 

He called back up the captain at 10s.  Got anyone else?  Go fish.  No, the captain said.  No, I know he'll drive you crazy, but I know he's the one you want.  Kid spent an hour, solid, rocking on his heels after we had a DOA at the construction site - kept saying there had to be something, had to be something, had to have just been something we could've done, if only we could've done.  I think Ken Brown was set to drown him in the coffee pot.  No, he's the one.  If it's any rescue man I know John Gage is the one you want. 

The hands that held the pen that signed the paper were callused, startlingly, for a young man who looked as if he had yet to hold his high school diploma.  And his eyes were wary as the veterans.  Prove it to me, he seemed to say.  Prove it to me it's worth it.  Roy let him sign as if to say: prove yourself.