#like I know the general catalog of warnings! I know what can be an issue variably! get that without issue!

[essektheylyss]

Candela Obscura is very fun in terms of horror, because I have never been particularly bothered by horror, but when I have been, I'm always like, is this because of how I react in particular or because of how effective the visuals or the atmosphere are? And that's kind of hard to differentiate in the genre people most often consume horror in (film) and for me, who reads books very visually, it can be hard in that format as well.

With Candela it's like, this is deeply unsettling despite there being no visuals beyond the general set and the action being dictated to me while mechanics are happening, which is something that can take absolutely you out of the atmosphere of the thing. Even if you're used to the actual play format, a mechanics heavy scene especially without notable GM guiding is going to remind you that you are watching people play a game. There's a lot to say about how this show's cast have phenomenal grasp of the genre and the atmosphere, but even then, it is a hard line to manage, and they are doing it masterfully. And that's what makes it so fun as a concept! Candela has very effective storytelling, but it's also a lot easier to see the edges of the story, because the "man behind the curtain" of the story so to speak is on full display.

Anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying that I really have confirmed I have no issue with horror, because I passed out instantly upon going to bed and then let a lab tech take my blood this morning without even thinking of making some eldritch monster joke. Which is, not gonna lie, a little bit wild to me.

[analoghorrorexplained]

Every single plot inconsistency and error In UrbanSPOOK in order.

This covers the first 6 episodes. Content warning for just about everything. As for why I am doing this? I hate bad writing that relies on shock value.

EDIT: apparently Urbanslug is Swedish which honestly explains the lack of understanding of American gun culture and some of the bizarre logistical details. Either way, I take back nothing. If you googled enough to describe murder in this much detail, you can google enough to understand the setting of your story.

These uploads are digitized versions of the tapes in question so we can assume they were found recently. However, the number at the end of the tapes is a 985 number which is an area code that used to be used in Lousiana for the areas outside of New Orleans. However, it was only used from 2001 till Hurricane Katrina. After the hurricane hit most numbers were switched back to a 504 area code which the 985 one was meant to replace. This means the murders had to have taken place between 2001-2008 when the code was switched back to 504. While this might not seem like a big deal since VHS was still around in the early 2000s, DVD had already outpaced VHS sales by 2001 and by 2008 VHS tapes themselves stop being produced on a wide scale. Given these taps are implied to be a method of locating victims and or the killer, it seems like a pretty bizarre way to go about doing that since the format these tapes were made in was already beginning to die when they were made. And given how the internet was becoming more popular around this time, its strange how the person making these takes did not use that format instead given it was both available and made more sense to get the word out there.

Speaking of the tapes: they are formatted in a very bizarre way. If the person making these tapes wanted to bring the killer to justice why is a majority of the focus placed on how the people in the tapes were murdered and the paintings left behind? Why would the focus not be placed on clues left behind by the killer like fingerprints, camera footage, personal effects, or anything that might point people in the direction of where the killer is? Why are there VERY FEW exact locations mentioned? Why are the details so vague? If this is meant to raise awareness or find answers why are all the details that might do that so vague? If these tapes were meant for the police like as a "this is what is going on" kind of way (like what we see in the first episodes of Mandela cataloge regarding the alternates) why does it have a contact phone number at the end? If a PI made this the same general "why would you graphically describe the murder but not include any other relevant information" issue still applies. And if this is a recording of, lets say, a true crime type show: where is the host, B-roll footage, or anything else to indicate this is a show? And if the killer made these: why add the number? I get the killer is cocky since he is leaving paintings behind: but this is a bit too much "suspend your disbelief"ey for me if we are going by the rules of normal reality, which it seems we are. These tapes seem to not have any reason for existing other to provide a backstory to the paintings. They serve no in-world purpose.

Why were the police in a random abandoned warehouse and why were all 3 paintings stashed in that 1 specific place. Was this where the killer was camping out? Where were these other 2 paintings found? Why Is the tape leaving out so much relevant detail?

While 2 of the first victims are women which implies this being sexually motivated, the last victim out of the 3 initial victims isn't. Along with this, there is no pattern between the parts taken/mutilated nor a connection between any of these people. Since we are not shown dates or locations there is no way to know how connected these victims are. Why is the killer going after these people?

If this has gone public, why is more not being done to stop the killer or at least track him down? Why are people not on higher alert? What police department is investigating this? And since "2 days ago" is mentioned in the episode: ONCE AGAIN WHAT TIME FRAME ARE WE OPERATING ON HERE?!

Why is the killer targeting cops? It makes sense from a "haha fuck you, you cant catch me" perspective but it does not make sense for the painter to target bill specifically and deviate from the "pattern" already kind of set by episode 1 unless Bill was somehow the head of the investigation, which was not ever stated.

"A few miles" is a long distance for corpses to be dragged or for people to be taken on-foot (which they presumably were). If the collins family was still alive when this happened, given Bill was a cop, why did he not fight back? And if not, how was the painter able to get them from point A to B without being caught (unless the car was ditched after)

If some of the paintings were found BEFORE the events of the lighthouse (including the ones featuring Jennifer and the bunt kid) why did the police not cross-reference the missing person's names with the names found on the paintings?

If those photos shown are supposed to be in-universe photos of the Collins family before they were murdered, they were either turned into something (other than mush) by the painter or those are not actual photos. They look too much like the paintings for me to think of them as in-universe photographs.

Why did the painter rip the twins in half and sew them back together again? While his mutilation of Cory's genitals and the stuffing of a brick down the throat of his sister (in a manner similar to a blowjob) seems consistent given the fact the painter is more or less a sex offender: the sewing people together does not. Unless you want to look at the parts which... given Cory was mutilated from the waste down and his sister's torso was sewn onto his legs... you cannot make the argument that it was for the intent of making a "futa". It is just brutality for brutality's sake.

If that cabin is implied to be the home of the painter just like the lighthouse is implied to be a body dump WHY ARE POLICE NOT LOOKING INTO IT FURTHER

How was the painter able to get into Tom's 3rd-floor apartment via the drainage pipe on the outside and manage to encase him entirely in wax? Was Tom a candle enthusiast? Did the painter have a vat of hot wax with him? How was this logistically possible in the time frame we are given. Along with this, given how Tom is neither a child nor woman (or police from what we know), why was he targeted? Further more: since wax does not always dry the fastest, especially when there is that much, how was Tom not able to free himself/why was he in an upright position? Unless Tom was drugged, even with the lack of arms he could have still moved.

Sean is a PI helping the police with a series of violent murders. He also presumably lives in Louisiana, AKA the South. This is presumably post-9/11. Why was Sean not armed and why did no neighbors come to actually help? How was the dog also not able to do anything either? If he got Sean by surprise I might be more understanding but for a PI investigating a violent serial killer in an area of the US known for its gun ownership: I feel like the fact the Painter has not been shot either by the cop, Sean, or ANY of the neighbors or victims is impressive

Assuming Sean installing a security camera was motivated by the painter, why does Sean only have 1 SINGULAR CAMERA. WHY WOULD SEAN NOT HAVE ADDITIONAL CAMERAS? And furthermore, why would nobody else have additional cameras around Sean?

This part about Tina' and the "south coast" road trip is confusing since the "South Coast" is apart of California which is on the other side of the country. If they meant "Gulf Coast" (which is where Louisiana is located the murder location would make more sense. However, due to it being named strangely, I am not sure if they meant California or Louisiana given other named locations (IE Tiger lake) is in Louisiana. Once again, I have no idea where things are happening.

If the cops found Tina so shortly after the attack, why was the painter also not found then either?

Why did the painter inject her with something? It does not seem to alter her mental state, she is still totally conscious, and I do not think the painter is using anesthetics before he amputates her ENTIRE ARM and her feet or is attempting biological warfare. What was the point of being injected in the first place?

Tumblr got mad at me so I need to break up the list.

18. Why is the painter so angry Tina lived if he really did not do anything to kill her in the first place. He might have had more planned, I am not sure, but all the painter did was inject her with something that does not seem to be important given we are never told what it is. If its medicine that is wildly out of character. And besides amputating body parts, the bodily damage done to Tina is nowhere near what has happened to other victims. The fact Tina lived is not surprising, at all. Tina would have bled out after awhile but it is not like the hammer to the face, the lighting on fire, or the stabbing in the taint.

19. The painter looks like Riff Raff from rocky horror picture show. This is not a plot hole I just thought it was funny.

20. Once again how is a retired cop who LIVES ON A FARM not armed or able to defend himself from a singular person?

21. This is never addressed but why is the horse skinned in the photo? It died by heart failure due to being pumped full of viagra. Where did its skin go? I get it is supposed to be implied that the horse SAed the wife to death, but I am wondering why the skin being gone is not being acknowledged or if its just from the fact the artist made the horse itself too red.

22. How was the killer able to live in that milk house without ANYBODY noticing.

23. So the painter now have several gimmicks. He seems to target women and children to sexually assault and then mutilate, the people living with them as collateral, and current and ex-police. The painter is also "the painter" so they paint twisted portraits of these people. BUT NOT ONLY THAT, THEY ALSO WEAR THE SKINNED FACES OF THE VICTIMS. So they are a pedo-zoophile rapist who hates cops and skins people that also paints their victims at some point before they die. This is a lot of shit going on. This is also why the victims seem to be all over the place. This serial killer targets too many groups at once.

24. So it is now implied that the painter is making the tapes which,... again, why? Why would the painter have an incentive to do that? They are already taunting the police enough.

25. This is Louisiana WHERE ARE THE SWAMPS. WHERE ARE THE GAITORS, WHY IS THE SETTING NOT USED AT ALL

So in short:

The victims in relation to each other make little sense due to how many "targeted groups" the painter is pulling from. Most serial killers have a type. The painter seems to have several.

The VHS tapes make no sense since they do not really do anything other than info-dump for the viewer of the series. They serve very little in-world purpose and we never see any other media from this universe outside of the paintings left behind or these tapes.

The details regarding location, time and character relationships are extremely vague at best and do not set up a good timeline for us to follow.

The painter being 1 person or even human is really questionable since its kind of implied there is either more than 1 person behind the painter (like a killer and the painter are separate people) or the painter is a demonic/paranormal entity.

For being such an in-universe threat the police seem to be doing fuck all (minus the one PI who is now dead) to stop anything. Its implied we found the painter's lil hideout, why is fuckall being done?

The lack of guns in post-9/11 America, specifically a post-9/11 South.

Why is nobody able to overpower or harm the painter if he is "just a guy"?

Why is there no other in-universe worldbuilding or even testimonies from still living family?

WHERE ARE WE, WHY DID I HAVE TO GOOGLE THE PHONE AREA CODE TO KNOW THAT? WHAT YEAR IS IT? WHY IS THIS EVEN IN VHS FORMAT

[eurydicees]

23 + iwaoi!

this was super fun to write, thank you for the request!

summary: it's raining at one in the morning once again, and iwaizumi asks to come over. prompt: spotify wrapped prompts #23, brother (gerard way) pairings: hajime iwaizumi/tooru oikawa words: 2774 warnings: self-esteem issues

let the rain wash it all away

It’s raining again: the third day of pouring rain, falling in sheets onto the soaked earth, pooling in the dips of the roads, splashing up in sprays of silt and water under the tires of cars that pass by. The previous days of rain hadn’t been this hard and fast, just heavy; meanwhile, this rain is falling in bullets. 

Oikawa is sitting at his desk, math textbooks and worksheets spread out in front of him, keeping his eyes on the window. It’s impossible to see through it because of the water pouring down the glass, but Oikawa lets himself get caught up in the steady downpour, in the hypnotizing kind of spill of water, in the drumbeat of the rain. It keeps time to the whirlpool of his thoughts, calming him as he works himself out of a spiral of thoughts he doesn’t particularly care to have at the moment. 

They lost to Shiratorizawa again in their second year of high school. They had lost so many times already, Oikawa had half wondered if it would stop hurting at some point. But maybe that’s foolish, because it has yet to happen. If anything, it hurts more every time. 

He tears his eyes away from the window and back down to his textbook. It’s not worth pondering the could have been and the should it have been and the will it ever be. He has other things to do. 

It’s only been moments of staring at the derivatives he’s supposed to be working on when his phone vibrates on the desk next to his papers. For a moment, he thinks he should probably ignore it. He’s busy, technically. But despite his attempt at self-restraint, it doesn’t take more than a few seconds to give in and look at the notification. 

Iwa: can i come over

Oikawa reads the message. Then reads it again. Then again. 

It’s past one in the morning. As much as Oikawa loves talking to him and being with him, Iwaizumi is usually asleep by this time, especially on a school night. He shouldn’t be texting. If anything, this is a sign that something is off. 

What people don’t understand about the two of them is that their friendship goes both ways. It is a two-way road. For all that Iwaizumi knows about Oikawa, Oikawa knows just as much about Iwaizumi. It might look, from the outside, like Iwaizumi is the one always looking out for Oikawa, but the truth is that Oikawa does just the same for Iwaizumi. 

The truth is that, for all the ways that Iwaizumi is in tune with Oikawa’s bullshittery, Oikawa is perfectly keeping time with Iwaizumi’s bullshittery. Iwaizumi likes to argue that they have no such thing as a bond of ultimate trust, but they both know that the argument is made up of empty words. 

So Oikawa, with all the cataloged memories and trust and knowledge he has of Iwaizumi, knows that something is wrong. He should be sleeping. 

Oikawa: you never need to ask. see you in a few 

It’s something about the rain, Oikawa guesses. There’s no thunder or lightning, so there’s nothing to quite be afraid of per se, but there’s still a kind of depression that always follows that rain. Iwaizumi has always gotten like this when it storms: tired, foggy. Oikawa knows that well enough. Suddenly, a rush of guilt spills over him as he realizes how caught up he’s been in his own insecurities; he hadn’t spared a thought for how Iwaizumi might be feeling after three days of gray. 

Iwaizumi has always needed the sun more than he does. Oikawa is perfectly happy to sit in the dark and stare at his computer until four in the morning; Iwaizumi has a strict sleep schedule that he sticks to. Oikawa finds a kind of tranquil trance in the rain; Iwaizumi finds a heaviness that settles on his chest and presses him down like stones, burying his general will to get anything done. 

Something about the sound of the rain, Oikawa thinks. Something about the gray of the sky. 

He doesn’t quite understand it—why the rain does this—but he doesn’t have to. He can understand that heaviness. He can understand having the weight of the sky on your shoulders; that gray, gray, falling sky. 

Iwaizumi: outside. let me in ? 

Oikawa jumps at the vibration of his phone, heading downstairs as soon as he sees it. There isn’t a porch covering at his door, and Iwaizumi must be getting soaked. 

When he opens the door, he finds Iwaizumi: soaked to the bone, dressed in only a white t-shirt that’s tight to his chest, tight enough that Oikawa can see the lines of his collarbones; hands stuffed in his jean pockets as he shivers and rocks back and forth on his heels; his eyes on the ground in front of him rather than the door. His hair is plastered to his forehead, the usual untamed spikes flat under the weight of sheets of rain. 

“Come in,” Oikawa says quietly. “My parents are asleep, so we have to be quiet.” 

Iwaizumi nods, not saying anything as he follows Oikawa into the house. He seems out of place there in a way that he never has before—they’ve been friends their entire lives; Iwaizumi is usually as comfortable in the Oikawa residence as he is in his own—and he stands awkwardly in the doorway, dripping wet and trembling from the cold. 

“I’ll get you a towel.” Oikawa isn’t sure why it comes out like a question. It’s just that something is so intrinsically off about Iwaizumi right now that he doesn’t know what to do with it. “Be right back. Stay there.” 

“Not going anywhere,” Iwaizumi mutters. He takes his hands out of his pockets and wraps his arms around himself as if to hold in any warmth he can. 

By the time that Oikawa comes back with the towel, Iwaizumi looks marginally more comfortable, but not by much. Oikawa tries to hand the towel to Iwaizumi, but Iwaizumi just stares at it for a moment as if he’s not sure what to do with it. 

“For your hair,” Oikawa says, “and the cold.” Iwaizumi still doesn’t move, and Oikawa tries to hold in a sigh. “Let me.” 

Iwaizumi nods stiffly. He stays perfectly still as Oikawa gently rubs the towel over Iwaizumi’s cheeks to dry them; then works it through his hair until it’s damp instead of dripping. There’s something hopelessly tender in the movement, and something in Oikawa’s heart clenches. Some fist around his feelings tightens—which is to say that Oikawa is well aware that he’s in love with Iwaizumi and he’s also aware that moments like this, little moments of domesticity, ache with how comfortable, how easy, how natural they are. 

Oikawa drops his hand, his fist tight in the towel. “Come upstairs, yeah?” 

Iwaizumi nods. It’s rare for him to be like this, for him to look this fragile, but when it happens, Oikawa feels as if he’s at a loss. Whenever he himself is hurting, Iwaizumi always seems to know the right thing to do and say. When it comes to Iwaizumi, Oikawa might know him inside and out and upside down, but he’s never known how to comfort someone over non-volleyball related asks, whoever it is. He’s never known the right thing to say to someone who’s shut down like this. 

So Oikawa just takes his hand and leads him upstairs. Hands him a change of clothes, ones that will probably not quite fit him entirely but that will at least be dry and a little warmer. Turns his back as Iwaizumi changes into them, because he’s respectful and while they change in the locker room together every day, this feels different. 

After Iwaizumi has changed into dry clothes and tossed the wet ones into the bathtub to be dealt with later, he seems to be marginally more there. More steady. More aware of his movements. 

“Do you want to talk or just go to sleep?” Oikawa asks. 

Iwaizumi shrugs, pulling the sleeves of the shirt over his hands. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep.” 

“We can just lay down?” 

“Okay,” Iwaizumi says. He takes a deep breath, and Oikawa, already in bed, opens the blankets up for him to join. 

There’s no hesitation before Iwaizumi joins him under the covers, settling onto the mattress. Oikawa’s twin size mattress isn’t nearly big enough for the both of them, and Oikawa finds himself pressed against the wall with Iwaizumi’s ankles tangled with his own and their faces inches away from each other. 

Iwaizumi closes his eyes, as if he can’t stand the eye contact, and Oikawa takes the chance to study his face. From here, Oikawa can see every eyelash, every bitten out divet in his lip. The bags under his eyes are heavy bruises, like he hasn’t slept in months. It’s worrying. 

“Do you remember when we were kids?” Iwaizumi asks, voice low and eyes still closed. “We used to play this game, where you were some kind of hero and I was a monster trying to hunt you down.” 

“I remember,” Oikawa murmurs. 

Iwaizumi swallows, then exhales. Oikawa can feel the heat of his breath on his lips. “I sometimes—fuck, this sounds so stupid.” 

“That’s okay. Tell me anyway.” 

Iwaizumi opens his eyes, something haunted about them. Then he rolls over onto his back, his hands on his stomach and staring up at the ceiling. “Sometimes I feel like that.” 

“Like…” 

“Like a monster,” Iwaizumi whispers. 

“You’re not a monster,” Oikawa says, gut instinct and immediate. It’s sharper than he means it to be, but he can’t understand why Iwaizumi would think that. How Iwaizumi could talk about himself like that. How Iwaizumi could stand to say those words as if they could ever be true, as if Iwaizumi could ever be anything other than good. 

Iwaizumi is quiet for a moment. Oikawa watches him, the slight twitch of his lips as if he wants to smile but can’t bring himself to complete the motion. Then, in a rush or a flood or a spill of anxiety that he can’t hold back anymore, he says, “I’ve done something bad, something that—I can’t help it, but I—I’m in love with you, I think. And it’s fucking terrifying, Oikawa, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—” 

“Don’t—” Oikawa takes a breath. Reels in his frustration, finds the wonder, the surprise, the hope. Finds promise in the fragmented shaking of his voice. “Don’t apologize, Iwa, don’t say that loving me is a mistake, don’t do that.” 

Iwaizumi squeezes his eyes shut, and Oikawa can see him tightening his fists in the blankets. “It is. Oikawa, I’m telling you that—” 

“It’s not a mistake,” Oikawa tells him, biting back a shame in the words. He sits up, the blankets sliding off of his shoulders. “Am I that undesirable? Why the fuck would it be a mistake?” 

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Iwaizumi’s voice shakes. Oikawa, as he listens, realizes that it’s not disappointment or shame over it being him Iwaizumi has fallen for. It’s fear. 

Oikawa is well-versed in fear. He knows the fear that he cannot and will never be able to love anyone else right. He knows the fear that he will never be good enough for anyone, much less ever be good enough for himself and his own standards. He knows the fear that he cannot be loved back by the people he wants most. 

This, at least, he can understand. This, at least, is an ache of Iwaizumi’s that he can figure out how to soothe. This is a pain he is familiar with, a hurt that he knows how to hold in his hands with the right balance of gentle and firm. This is a simple fear he knows because it comes with the kind of love for your best friend that he knows all too well. 

Oikawa moves a hand to Iwaizumi’s hair, tangling his fingers in the strands and untangling out the knots. He feels as if he’s in a kind of fever dream, like the rain has washed away the rest of the world and it’s just the two of them left behind. It’s just the two of them in this new world that they can build up from scratch. He wouldn’t mind that so much, he thinks. Not if it was Iwaizumi. 

“You don’t know already?” Oikawa asks. His voice is low, teasing. 

Iwaizumi opens his eyes wide. Expression unreadable. Hesitant, maybe. Unsure if Oikawa is going to turn this on him and hate him forever. Unsure if Oikawa is going to say something that he wants to hear or not. “Don’t know what?” 

Oikawa finds it in him to smile, letting go of his worry for Iwaizumi for just a moment to let himself sink into his feelings. “That I love you even more.” 

“You don’t underst—” 

“I do,” Oikawa cuts in. He moves his hand, running his fingers down Iwaizumi’s jaw, pressing his thumb to his lips and then pulling downwards, watching as Iwaizumi turns weak under his touch. He puts a hand to Iwaizumi’s chest, fingers splayed out, feeling his heartbeat under his skin: beating hard and rapid and full of tender, tentative hope. “I get it, Iwa. And I…” 

Iwaizumi puts one hand over Oikawa’s hand. His touch is warm, overheating. Oikawa’s cheeks are pink like the dawning sky and Iwaizumi looks at him as if he’s the most wonderful polaroid capture of the sunrise that he’s ever seen. “I’m fucking—fucking scared, Oikawa.” 

“What is there to be afraid of?” 

Iwaizumi swallows; doesn’t meet his eyes. He’s never been good at talking about his feelings. “I had a dream, earlier, where—where I said what I just said and then you left me. You disappeared. Disintegrated before my eyes like sand castles made from dry shore and then you were gone, because I said something stupid.” 

“It’s not stupid.” Oikawa sits up, keeping one hand on Iwaizumi’s chest and the other hand on the pillow, supporting his weight. “And I’m not disintegrating or disappearing, am I?”

“Not yet,” Iwaizumi mutters, just to be contrary. 

Oikawa rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to leave you, ever. I love you too much to just disintegrate.” 

Iwaizumi seems to sink into himself, closing his eyes again. His hand goes to Oikawa’s wrist, tightens around him. “I hate the rain. It just makes me think of how gross and dirty and depressing the world is. How could I ever have something so good if—” 

He cuts himself off, but Oikawa can fill in the blanks. If the world is cruel. If the world is black and white. If he hasn’t earned any good things. If he doesn’t deserve the good things. If he’s a monster. 

“I like to think of it differently,” Oikawa says carefully. “I like to think of it as washing the earth clean. Drawing up a clean slate, starting it all over again.” 

Iwaizumi opens his eyes. He hesitates, looking at Oikawa, searching his face for some hint of a joke or laughter or lies. But Oikawa could never do that to him. He feels so many things and they are all for Iwaizumi and every one of them culminates in a love he’s not going to hide anymore. Of course Iwaizumi would confess like this, and of course he would refuse to believe it when Oikawa reciprocated; Iwaizumi has always been the braver, kinder one of the two of them but also the more self-grounded, stubborn one. But still—of course Iwaizumi feels the same way. They’ve been on the same wavelength since they were six. 

“Do you think we could draw up a clean slate?” Iwaizumi asks, a whisper. He’s still afraid. Still worried that Oikawa will say no. “Even though you’re you and I’m just—just this, can we be something new?” 

“Just this?” Oikawa asks incredulously. “Hajime Iwaizumi, you are my favorite person I have ever met. You make the sun rise and the earth spin and you make me breathe. You are everything. Don’t ever say something like that again.” 

Iwaizumi snorts, but he’s blushing, too, and he looks like maybe he’s beginning to trust Oikawa’s words. “You’re so dramatic. You can just say you like me, too.” 

“I did!” Oikawa protests. Then he laughs lightly, smiling down at Iwaizumi. He shifts his wrist so that Iwaizumi’s hand slides down to his palm and they can actually tangle their fingers together. “But yeah, I think we can be something new, Iwa. I think we can be something really good.”

[nephilim-tears]

BLOODY VALENTINE

ADRIAN CHASE X READER 

Warnings: F! Reader. Character death described. 3k word count.

↳ Hurt / Comfort Fic ::  Look, I’m not an MGK apologist but I am an MGK enabler, here’s the audio reference. This is my metahuman reader I’ve designated for Adrian and I apologize in advance for traumatizing y(our) boy. Enjoy :)!

Browse my catalog? 

You are responsible for the content you consume, as always read with care.

Adrian straddled the wooden chair backward resting his cheek in one of his palms staring attentively. His eyes traveled up her stealth suit; he hadn’t seen her in it since the night they met and he almost forgot how amazing her as-

“Adrian” she intercepted the thought. The glow from the lamp situated beside the bed cast a halo on the white walls of his bedroom around her making her look even more angelic in his eyes.

“Hmm?” He lifts his gaze to meet hers.

“Could you please get me the towel from the bathroom?” She pointed with her chin in the general direction of the bathroom.

She didn’t need to ask twice, never did, for anything. He was already halfway into the bathroom to get her what she needed.

He returned with a soft fluffy baby pink towel absent-mindedly and placed it in her duffel bag, “Do you really have to go this weekend? We had dinner plans, remember?”

“I’m sorry my love, I know you were excited about spending the weekend together but when duty calls I have to answer. You know this better than anyone else, besides I’ll be back before you know it, I promise.” She sent a sympathetic smile in his direction.

She was reluctant to leave him alone, especially on a day most people were celebrating love but on an inventory of her obligations at the very top states: when Batman calls, you answer. That’s just the way it’s always been.

The issue that spun the conundrum was trivial in comparison, nonetheless, it would have been his first Valentine partnered, hers too. He wanted to make it special, but those plans would have to take a backseat, unfortunately.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Truthfully, Adrian didn’t know what he felt but it wasn’t pleasant, he had a vague idea of what she did and who she worked for does that mean he has to like it? No. Was it hypocritical? Yes. Juggling the conflicting ideas budded a tulip of guilt inside him; still, he would try to be supportive.

“That’s just the food poisoning” She tried to humor him in hopes of lifting the tenseness that weighed heavy on his shoulders.

He frowns, creases forming on his forehead, “I'm a serious babe.”

She quirked a brow up, Adrian and serious went together as often as Oreos and Colgate.

“You’re sure no one else can do it?” He pleads one last time, giving her his best puppy dog eyes for good measure.

“I’m afraid so, Hun.”

With a heart heavy, with the burden of love, he drove her to a deserted terminal all the way in Gotham where a sleek futuristic black jet was waiting on her arrival, engines already fired up. He got out of the car, opened the door for her to which she grumbled a quick “Thank you” and pecked his lips.

The pale crescent moon hung too lowly in the sky illuminating the starless night through the thick city smog. The terminal was cloaked by seemingly infinite darkness that snuffed out the sound of the rest of the world, except for the whirling of the jet.

He carried her duffel bag hoping to pass it off to one of her teammates for storage, he knew she couldn’t reach the compartment. Adrian inhaled a sharp breath and puffed out his chest at the thought of finally meeting her teammates; trepidation filled his lungs. He wanted to make a good first impression. He felt the need to impress the people she regarded as the closest thing to family.

As he got closer to the boarding area, a man of his height and build in a black and blue suit and domino mask exited the jet and took the bag from him.

Nightwing.

Adrian coaxed his head to the side and stretched his hand out. Dick was cordial and shook it, “Where’s everyone else?” He asked.

Dick smiled and gestured to Siren, “She is everyone else, buddy.”

“Listen,” Adrian began, turning his full attention to his girlfriend squishing her cheeks together, “Call me if you need me, I’ll find some way to get to you.” He kissed her forehead twice, then her lips, and pulled her in for a bear hug that lasted a bit too long. Not letting go till Nightwing cleared his throat.

Adrian backed up a few parameters, before she boarded the jet she turned around and waved at him which he eagerly reciprocated; he stood there watching till it took off and he was the only one left in the terminal.

Boy Wonder dawned a smug smile as she fastened her seatbelt next to him “Say it.” Siren demands, “I know you have something to say, you always have something to say.”

“Nothing” Dick shrugged his shoulders and pushed the buttons lifting the jet off the ground, “It’s just nice to see you happy that’s all.”

“But?” Siren taps her feet impatiently waiting for him to continue.

“But, he seems a bit too…clingy? ”His voice increased in pitch towards the end of his sentence trying not to offend her, finger tapping his chin.

“Doting” She corrected, pointer finger inches from his face, “Adrian is doting and protective, that’s all.”

Dick scrunched his face, “Whatever you say, and for the record, Jason always has something to say, okay? Not me. You’ve been away from home for too long, you’re confusing your siblings.”

“We’re technically not-”

“Doesn’t matter,” Dick interrupts, placing his palm up in the air defenseless, “We very well could have been if he had met you when you were a minor. B will adopt anything that responds to stimuli.”

“I heard that,” Bruce said sternly on the other end, taking a sip of his coffee.

“That’s a little offensive to all of us, Dick.” Barbara hissed his name. The venom in her voice makes it sound more like an insult.

The jet lands on a beach, “It’s showtime guys.” Barbara’s voice rang out.

Nightwing and four carbon copy duplicates of Siren disperse heading for the entrance of the building.

“Get in, get the evidence, get out. We’ll let the authorities handle it from there.” Bruce said loud and clear through the coms.

Nightwing stayed with Siren’s Prime, taking the lead down the hall and climbing up the scaffold using the darkness of the building as camouflage. She used the echoes of his combat boots to pace her movements, as long as they were within earshot of each other they were fine.

She unscrewed the cover of the vent and inspected it for anything out of place, clearing the area she climbed in on and knees. The walls were a little too close for her liking however since Grayson was much too large it wasn’t an excuse she could make.

 Siren followed the narrow duct until a clearing lit up by fluorescent lights came up ahead. She peered through the horizontal bars observing the commotion. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, eyes the size of saucers, and gasped. “Are you guys seeing this?” She whispered bewildered.

Everyone on the other end of the coms had some sort of reaction varying from shock to disgust except for Bruce. Of course, he knew. 

As far as her eyes could see, massive tanks filled with green liquid, on the inside deformed orange blobs reminiscent of human forms lay dormant.

She took a mini device out of her utility belt and exited the vents on high alert.

Sick wasn’t even half of what she was feeling, the camera captured the images of warts on their skin, some had too many hands, some had too many legs, some had none. All had eyes in all the wrong places.

Nightwing jumped from the ceiling sticking the landing next to her as graceful as a swan with a small thud.

“Are they alive?” He asked, still slightly taken aback by the scene now that he’s up close, he was trying his hardest to maintain his composure as well.

“I think so, look at the monitors,” Siren motioned to the screens hooked up to the tanks, a mess of electric cords tangled on what was otherwise a clean polished floor, “It’s gauging blood pressure, the other one is evaluating brain activity.”

“I’ll take samples; you keep taking pictures and check in with your duplicates, make sure they’re still covering the coordinates we need them to. And B, what the fuck are we looking at?” Nightwing orders her as he pushes the coms closer into his left ear.

“Cloning facility,” Bruce said matter of factly, completely unfazed.

“Any idea who or what they’re cloning?” Barbara’s voice came uneasily, she’s not fully prepared for the answer.

“Do you really want to find out what poor bastard’s DNA they stole?” Dick retaliated.

“Is there anything we can do for them? They must be in agony.” Siren said out loud, speaking mostly to herself.

Her melancholy was swiftly cut down by Bruce’s sharp sarcasm like a splash of cold water “What do you propose we do for all three hundred of them, Siren?”

Nightwing hands her a small USB-shaped device, “Upload the data to Barbara and wipe the system clean. We can’t let this go on.” He puts both hands on her shoulders staring into her eyes, trying to snap her out of it, “You want to help them? This is how the best thing we can do for them is to shut this shit down.”

“I’m open, ready whenever you are Siren,” Barbara confirms on her end.

Siren frantically typed the codes decrypting the wall until she stumbled upon a file in particular that caught her attention.

“Uh, guys?” Her voice was wary. “I think I found something,” The file was listed under HUMAN/KRYPTONIAN HYBRID.

↳SAMPLE SUBJECT: CONNER KENT.

Horror trickled down the air and settled on their skin like gossamer morning dew triggering patches of goosebumps.

Conner?

They’re cloning Super Boy?

She shared a knowing look with Dick They were fucked if these things woke up.

“Does that mean those things are freakishly strong?” Barbara whispered, breaking the silence as if she’s afraid to wake them with just her voice, even though she was miles away in the Batcave.

Siren’s eyes flashed an unearthly silver, “It’s one of my duplicates, we have company.”

As if on cue, a bombastic man yelled something along the lines of “In the name of peace die you ugly fuckers!” Followed by a grenade-level explosion and a rain of bullets.

She ducked behind the control panel with Grayson, just outside the door, muffled sounds of men passing orders and sneakers scuffing the ground could be heard. Every guard in the building was gearing up to face the threat outside.

The floor began to tremble when sheets of metal deployed automatically sealed every exit as the building went into full lockdown.

Nightwing covered both ears and squeezed his eyes shut momentarily disoriented by the deafening blare of the alarm and flashing red lights.

“I hope we don’t have to test your theory, Oracle,” She turned to Dick, “What’s the contingency plan?”

Before he could answer the robotic voice of a woman rang out through the speakers, “SELF DESTRUCT IN T-MINUS NINE MINUTES”

“Run!” Bruce bellowed, slapping both palms against his desk, she could almost see him standing hunched over the screen tracking their every move attentively, this was the most awake he’s sounded all night; was he worried as a mentor? As a leader or as a father? Knowing Bruce, it was all three.

So much for get in and get out.

“What happened?” Siren asked anyone who was listening.

“Someone must have tipped off Waller,” Barbara said, trying to do her job as fast as her fingers let her, “One of her team is here, Task Force X.”

“Wait, did you say Task Force X? What the fuck was Amanda’s team doing here? Can you see Vigilante?” She could not control the panic in her voice, and the questions came tumbling one after another, desperate for answers.

“We’re all vigilantes!” Dick snapped.

“No, you idiot!”

“THE Vigilante! From Evergreen?!”

“I don't even know who that is!” His voice cracked as he grabbed her arm, giving it an uncomfortable harsh tug in the opposite direction of the chaos.

“Is he the one with the stupid helmet?” Oracle interrupts them.

“No! Black and teal armor. Check again.” Siren whisper-yelled into the coms.

T-MINUS FIVE MINUTES

Barbara’s fierce typing can be heard on the other end of the coms “You know this maniac? I’m looking at his killstreak in Waller’s database and…oh my god.” Her comment was a little too judgmental for Siren’s taste.

“Wait - wait don’t tell me,” Boy Wonder pinches his forehead, the jigsaw puzzle pieces coming together in his mind, “That's your guy, isn’t it? Couldn’t you just find a nice white-collared worker? Instead, you picked a mass murderer?” Yep, definitely raised by the world’s greatest detective alright.

“Adrian is nice!” She stops running, feeling the need to defend her lover even in a situation as dire as this one.

“So you’re just going to ignore everything I said after that?” Dick looked up to the ceiling and face-palmed in annoyance.

“Yes! We have to help them!” She delivered the line with a slight pout, if she played her cards right she could disarm him and they’d fall right back into their old routine, where big brother Grayson folds his winning hand for any of his younger siblings. 

She tugged her arm free of his grasp and Dick sighed, he knew she’d never forgive him if he left her here, and he knew he’d never forgive himself if something happened to her after the fact.

Meanwhile, Bruce was going ballistic on the other end,

“That’s not your mission Siren, stay on code. STAY ON CODE! You have what you came for. GET OUT NOW THAT’S AN ORDER!”

She removed the device from her ear, threw it on the floor, and smashed it with her foot, “Sorry, B, not this time.” And made a beeline for the exit closest to the mayhem, Nightwing in hot pursuit.

The very second Adrian caught a glimpse of her on the opposite end of the field, his boyish insouciance persona fell faster than the bodies around him not even entertaining the idea that it might be a mirage.

The sight registered nothing but confusion for him; why was she here? Was this her confidential mission? Were they even on the same side?

Before his brain could whip up another thought, he sprung into action yelling her name running towards her from across the field though she couldn’t hear him over the commotion.

A sniper situated on the roof sent a bullet piercing diagonally straight through her skull from the top down. She collapsed to the ground, and red contents began pouring out of her convulsing body.

He released a breath he didn’t realize he held, his blood ran cold, he let the shock settle in relying on muscle memory slicing his way through guards with precision. If he wasn’t ruthless before, he certainly was now.

Secret identity be damned — he ripped the mask off his head staring wide-eyed and ran a hand through his messy mop of hair. He kept both hands at the base of his skull and fell onto his knees, sinking ground level cradling the lifeless body in his arms, his lips were trembling but words weren’t on them.

Was he going to cry? Was he going to scream? Maybe both. He went phantom pale and looked up with glazed eyes at a tiny blonde who was rendered speechless herself. She didn’t know the woman Adrian held close but clearly, the woman held great significance to him.

He brought one of Siren's palms to his cheek, he couldn’t breathe her blood was everywhere now — on his armor, on his hands, in his hair, and on his face “Oh fu— babe? No no no nono no” He gently shook her shoulders trying to get her to open her eyes “Babe wake up, we gotta go home we — ” he paused and choked out a whimper“ We — we have plans, remember? You promised” His voice came out a hoarse whisper.

Adrian brought his forehead down to touch hers as his sobs raked through his body “Please don't go, Please, please, do go you can’t leave me. You can’t leave me here, I’m —I’m gonna get you to the hospital, okay? I’m gonna get you to the van, then I’m gonna get you to the hospital, then we’re gonna go home. I’m fine, you’re fine, everything is gonna be just fine.” He says aggressively wiping the tears with new determination on his face as if he was going to get her to a damn hospital even if it was the last thing he did.

He shifted her legs fully into his arms about to pick her up bridal style when a much larger man in a silly headgear reached down to help him, Adrian slapped his hands away with quickness, “Don’t touch her!” He yelled.

Before the man could react the timer ticked past its due tempo and the building went up with a loud BOOM startling everyone on the field.

The few to none guards that were alive began to retreat, having nothing left to defend.

By the time Nightwing and Siren Prime arrived at the scene, the fight had been over. Her eyes landed immediately on Adrian cradling the corpse of a duplicate close to his chest, petting her hair mumbling to himself rocking it back and forth, “I won’t let anyone hurt you, you’re safe with me, you’re okay just keep your eyes on me.”

Oh no.

The sight knocked the wind out of her chest.

The blonde’s eyebrows scrunched together as she began “Wait, what the—“

A pair of glossy eyes rose to meet Siren’s, the cogs in his brain working overtime to process the situation unfolding before him. In the reflection of the fiery wreckage, a typhoon of emotions swirling around his ocean greens. She had expected the sorrow to part like storm clouds, but the moment never came.

The duplicate glitches out of existence but Adrian was still on the ground looking at his hands in the spaces she occupied.

He was never meant to see this, Siren scrambled down earth level next to him and pressed her lips into his temple, “Adri baby, she’s not real. I’m right here, I’m alright. We can go home now,” Siren took his blood-stained hand, placing it over her beating heart in an effort to prove her aliveness to him.

“C’mere let me take you home. We’ll get you cleaned up.” She placed one of Adrian's arms over her shoulders; Dick supported the other helping him to his feet, and together they walked him back to their jet.

When they arrived in Gotham, Grayson pulled her in for a goodbye hug, “I’ll talk to B, he’ll get over it eventually. He’s forgiven us for much worse, are you two going to be okay?”

“I don’t know, I hope so.” She turned to Adrian who was still in his recluse shell, gaze cast downwards making himself as small as possible, occasionally twitching.

The drive back to his apartment was silent.

Adrian was still mourning what he saw; it was clear he couldn’t separate the duplicates from the prime. They were all the same to him, he loved her all the same.

It occurred to her he’d never seen her completely in action on the battlefield except for the night they met but that was fairly tame, he’d never seen one of her get hurt.

The toll it took etched itself on his face, skewing his pretty delicate features resulting in a vacant stare and tightly clenched jaw.

He was angry but at whom? He himself wasn’t sure. Definitely not her, though; the white knuckle crocodile grip he had on her hand almost cutting circulation made sure she knew that.

She wanted to say something as they entered the apartment but he walked past her straight for the bathroom before she could find the right words to break the glacier of icy silence wedged between them.

He let the sink water run till he almost forgot why he came here in the first place until he looked up in the mirror and caught sight of his reflection — eyes bloodshot red, dried tears on his face and her blood — her duplicate’s blood smeared on his armor and cheeks. In an instant, he was hunched over the toilet emptying the contents of his stomach.

She could hear the sounds over the running water, and it twisted a knife deep in her chest.

She forwent the idea of a tactical approach and let her love for this man guide her actions instead, rubbing small soothing circles on his back.

The steam from the sink water carried the copper stench of blood, sweat, and grime around the room refusing to let the events of that day leave the pair’s mind even for a second.

She began to strip Adrian of his armor piece by piece until he was bare and vulnerable before her. She wordlessly leads him by the hand into the shower allowing him to sit on the tile floor while the warm water carries the red from his skin down the drain.

After disregarding her garments, lovingly, deliberately she lets her hands do all the talking. Starting with working up a soapy lather of her shampoo followed by her conditioner raking it through his hair lightly scratching his scalp, a gesture that often calms him down.

Then she caressed her face wash on every inch of his face, behind his ear, and down his neck.

Lastly using her vanilla-scented body soap to rid him of every last splotch of crimson that did not belong to him.

Adrian didn’t dare make eye contact through any of it, instead, he engulfed her in a bone-crushing hug.

She sat on the shower floor perched in his lap facing him, playing with the hair on the nape of his neck; he clung to her — nails digging into her flesh, he finally broke the silence and whispered, “Did it hurt?”

“What?” She asked, now fully out of the daze.

“When you…when she got shot. Did you feel it?” His voice was muffled against her chest.

“No, It didn’t hurt, I don’t feel it when any of them die.” She said the last part quietly, taking great care with her words trying not to upset him further.

The now frigid water chilled him to the bone he thinks the cold will stay with him for the rest of his life, “I didn’t know it wasn’t real. It felt real, it still does, I love you so much I was so scared I couldn’t get to you in time.”

“I’m in love with you too Adrian, I’m sorry you had to see that.”

He sniffled from the cold or maybe he was crying again. It was hard to tell under the consistent running stream of water, “I’m glad I got to meet your brother at least, he seems nice.”

“Yeah, he’s gonna tell the whole family about you now.” Her eyes twinkled at the thought of her family gathered around Dick eager to hear about her mysterious lover. She gives them less than two weeks before they come sniffing around Evergreen looking for him.

Adrian lifts his head to make eye contact for the first time since the incident,

“You know, I think my parents would have been proud of me if I had brought you home.”

[snowflake-of-destruction]

Matchablossom, 22

The vast majority of onlookers were greatly amused by the five year old screaming, "The cake is plastic!" like it was his burden to warn the entire reception hall that they were about to be poisoned. The real trouble was the passionate declaration of, "I don't want to be here! You have to take me home!" as he pulled away from his mother's grip, throwing his entire body into the gesture so he immediately fell to the floor as soon as he broke her hold on his arm.

Eri Nanjo was thoroughly shamed, not just by Kojiro's behavior and how she knew it reflected on her, but by knowing that not everyone would be easily fooled into thinking the next words her son shouted as he threw his flailing temper tantrum, "You don't want to be here either! We're going to grab the most expensive gift from the catalog and get out!" were just something he'd made up with the wild imagination of youth and not some tasteless, glib comment that had first come from her.

Eri tried to calm Kojiro down, quietly, calmly, not causing more of a scene, wishing Kazuhiku was there to play disciplinarian, but the small boy was having none of it. His shirt was strangling him. His mother had told him there was going to be karaoke later, but he wasn't supposed to participate in the singing. Now, he had discovered the pretty cake in the corner with all the decorations was plastic except for a piece for the bride and groom. He was sure he was oppressed. He'd heard his father use that word before. Oppression was a Very Serious Issue, but when Kojiro talked about it, he wasn't taken seriously.

Finally, Kojiro was picked up around the middle with a deep groan and a frustrated tone of, "If you're going to act like a baby, I suppose I'll have to treat you like a baby. We will talk about your behavior at home, and when your father is back from his trip, there will be consequences."

Kojiro could have twisted around more, kicked, made his mother drop him, even gone completely limp and turned himself into dead weight. He didn't. He tensed at first in shock, but then, perhaps just working on automatic instinct while he regained his bearings and plotted his next move, he helped right himself into an easier hold as his mother balanced him against her hip like he was a baby again, and wrapped his arms around her neck. He didn't even keep screaming, stupefied into silence by the indignity of it all (Lying on the floor hadn't been undignified. That was an organized protest from the oppressed).

"They have a plastic cake," he found the words of his best defense after a long moment, softened voice scratching from the previous wailing, begging his mother to consider the dire circumstances that had led him to madness. It would have been anyone's final straw. He wiped not just his nose but his entire face with the back of his sleeve, creating yet another etiquette error. "My hair is crunchy and it makes my brains crunchy too." Eri had put some gooey stuff in his hair to make it smooth instead of sticking up or curling at the back like it liked to. Kojiro was not the biggest fan. "Sorry, Mommy."

He wasn't sure his apology was enough. His mother was smiling again, but it was the type of smile she usually gave really slow cashiers at the store and people with big dogs they met on walks. That was a problem for future Kojiro though. "Your hair looks pretty, Mommy."

"Thank you." Eri patted it with her free hand to make sure the style really was still all in the right place. She wasn't sure how much of a mess she looked after struggling with Kojiro. Her most pressing worry in the moment was his shoes leaving dark marks on her kimono, however--though it was doubtful anything could embarrass her more. "And the cake is plastic so it can be a fancy centerpiece. We'll be served real cake from the kitchen after the bride and groom cut their piece. There's no reason to be upset."

"You should have said," Kojiro replied, regretful, still not for the tantrum, but for the trouble later that could have been avoided. Poor future Kojiro. And poor present Kojiro who was sat down in an uncomfortable chair at a table full of boring looking adults and not only no cake but no food in sight.

There was one other non-adult at the table. Kojiro hadn't seen him at first because he was slumped down in his chair as low as he could go, making it look empty, but then a pretty lady with flowers in her hair had ordered, "Say hello, Kaoru," and a tuft of bright pink hair and a pair of eyes covered by glasses much larger than should have been allowed on such a small face appeared over the edge of the table.

"Hello, Kaoru," the mumbled defiance came from the general direction of the eyes.

The pretty lady apologized, though to Kojiro's mother rather than to him, which adults were always doing.

"You look like a bug," Kojiro informed the eyes, conversationally.

"You look like a dumb monkey," the eyes shot back.

More rebukes and apologies came from the mothers, though the man seated to the left of the eyes let out a warm, booming laugh and pronounced that, "They're making friends! They're boys!"

"He's not a boy. He's a gorilla," the eyes retorted, beating Kojiro before he could call him a bug again.

"Did you make your hair pink to match the cake?" Kojiro swung his legs out as far as they would go, but couldn't reach to kick pink bug boy under the table.

"Yes," Kaoru said, suddenly serious, though only for a moment before he giggled. He scooted up in his chair a bit--possibly because Kojiro was getting closer to kicking him--revealing a lopsided smile that Kojiro found himself returning, even though he had been ready to swear pink bug boy his enemy not even a moment ago.

"Nuh uh," Kojiro shot back. "I know you. You're in my class. You always had pink hair."

"No way! I dyed it," Kaoru insisted. "I don't even go to kindergarten."

"Do too! You always take the best paint set when we do art."

"I need to practice. I'm going to be a famous artist." Kaoru pushed his giant glasses up his nose. "Or an astronaut. Or a robot."

"You can't be a robot when you grow up," Kojiro scoffed. "You build a robot."

"I'm going to build a robot and make it be my friend so I always have one." Kaoru turned serious once more, though this time it seemed a more serious kind of serious to Kojiro, not the joking, lying straight-faced kind of serious--and that made Kojiro's chest hurt for some reason. Kaoru was just a stupid bug boy with pink gum hair, but he should have a human friend. Kaoru's mom did that pursed lip and watery-eyed look adults did when you said something that made them sad, but she didn't say anything to Kaoru, instead talking to Kojiro's mom about "troubles with the move."

"A robot isn't a friend, dummy," Kojiro explained patiently, continuing before the red blotches that rose on Kaoru's bug face could turn into Kaoru yelling at him, and them both getting in trouble, "I can be a friend though. I'll be your best friend. I have two best friends already, but you can be one too."

"You want to be my friend?" Kaoru blinked incredulously.

"That's what I said. Do you have trouble hearing?" Kojiro tried one last time to kick Kaoru, who tucked his legs up on the chair and stuck his tongue out.

"What if I don't want to be your friend?"

The nerve of some bug-people. "I can do five jumping jacks and almost a cartwheel," Kojiro explained his most praiseworthy qualities. "And I am a really good frog catcher."

Kaoru's eyes lit up behind his glasses. "Do you have a pet frog? I have a pet frog. Her name is Carla."

"You should have brought her to the wedding!" Kojiro gasped, sitting up straighter.

"I tried!" Kaoru waved his hands in animated distress. "I wasn't allowed."

"That's dumb," Kojiro commiserated. He bet it was Kaoru's mom that said no. She wasn't as pretty now that he knew she was racist against frogs.

"You're dumb," Kaoru shot back, smiling through the unnecessary insult.

"No, you're dumb," Kojiro retorted, though it was just for the purposes of completing the conversation. Kaoru was cool for a paint stealer with stupid glasses. He had a pet frog. "Look! They have fire!" Kojiro shouted, all at once distracted as he caught sight of the bride and groom going from table to table, lighting candles all over the reception hall.

Kaoru rose up on his knees to see better, craning his neck and answering in an awed voice, "Fire is my very favorite thing in the world." His mother tried to interrupt with a bid for him to sit back down properly, but he didn't listen.

"No, it's robots," Kojiro volleyed back without a pause. "You want a robot best friend. You want to marry a robot."

"No, I want you for a best friend." Kaoru had another one of his weird, serious moments.

"Do you want to marry me too?" Kojiro tried to counteract his pink haired new friend's gravity.

"Can we have a lot more candles?" Kaoru asked.

Kojiro had expected to be called dumb again or for Kaoru to declare the idea gross, but this was better. He'd rather marry Kaoru and his pet frog than a girl. "Yeah! And a cake that isn't plastic!"

"The cake is plastic?" Kaoru stopped twisting around in his seat in order to scrunch his nose in distaste in Kojiro's direction. "They should go to jail."

And then was when Kojiro really knew they belonged together.

[presumenothing]

C/O The Perihelion, 41 Mihira Ave., N. Tideland    

(AO3)

The thing was, you expected a building with a fancy name like The Perihelion to be nicer.

The other thing: it wasn’t really even a terrible place to stay in. You could tell that its construction was sturdy, and some aspects of it were even more advanced than the place I worked in. Whoever who’d built Peri had cared about what they made; they just hadn’t been around for a while.

(For the record, that nickname had been Ratthi-from-Room-203’s fault twice over: first for coming up with it, then using it so insistently until it stuck.)

(Ratthi seemed to have a thing about names. That was the only explanation I could think of for why he’d asked, five weeks after I moved in and two days after I had to rescue them from that disaster at the lab, “Why do you call yourself Security? I know it’s what you do – and don’t get me wrong, you’re really good at it! – but it’s not like I call myself Scientist. That’d just get confusing real quick at the lab, wow.”

I had informed him that his name would have to be Grocery if he forgot one more time it was his turn to stock the pantry this week, since answering because I am Security didn’t seem like it’d help. Even though it was true.)

I’d tested the locks myself before even asking about the rent, and the water and electricity were reliable so far, which was more than could be said for some of the other places I’d stayed in. The other stuff didn’t matter; it wasn’t like I spent that much time in the building anyway.

Though it hardly felt that way, what with the building-wide messaging channels that I’d been added to upon signing the rental contract and hadn’t yet managed to leave. That had also been how the whole thing with Ratthi and the rest had started; most of Peri’s other tenants also worked in the same research group at Preservation Labs, which meant that they tended to use the general channel as an unofficial no-leaders-here group chat.

It didn’t quite bother me, since I mostly backburnered the channels for everything except building maintenance alerts, but it did mean that I’d ended up learning some things about their group (assessment: their leader, a Dr. Mensah, likely had already inferred the existence of such informal discussions from what I saw of her media appearances) and also inevitably noticed the evening when all of them were silent in the chat despite being unusually late to return.

(Which in turn led to the aforementioned rescue, but that was a whole other chain of events.)

–

The one exception to all this was ART.

Whose name was my fault, this time, but only because it didn’t have any readable name set on the channels and I needed something else to use aside from “hey you” and “pain in my neck”.

(Currently ART stood for Asshole Rhetorical Tenant, because it claimed to be in the building – and that seemed likely to be true, since the channels were surprisingly secure to hacking from outside – and yet I’d never seen it even once. Possibly Tapan or Rami might have, since their group had been here the longest, but I absolutely wasn’t about to ask.) (And yes, I know that’s not what rhetorical means. No, I’m not going to look it up.)

ART had messaged me on a private channel with a welcome message when I’d moved in, which was only notable because the rest had sent their greetings in a messy chaos over the general channel, but I hadn’t thought anything of it. It wasn’t like I talked much in the public channels either, except to trade definitely-not-legal links for media downloads and decline invites to watchalong events.

But then ART had just… continued not appearing, even after I’d run into the rest of the tenants at one time or another between the erratic shift hours I was currently assigned to at the company.

Maybe its hours varied in the opposite direction from mine, which was possible but not consistent with the way it was always online regardless of what time I pinged it at.

Though most of our interactions started with it messaging me instead, out of the blue: No need to go retrieve your keys from work, I’ll have the building let you in and Oh, by the way followed by a neatly-formatted list of food allergies I apparently had to shop my way around.

(To be fair, that’d been useful in the “not accidentally poisoning any fellow tenants so soon after moving in” way, but still.

How the hell did you even know I’m at the grocery store, I’d sent back.

Inference, ART replied – whatever that was supposed to mean, I hadn’t been expecting a real answer anyway. Alternatively, I could just send you a catalog of safe products to buy, and spare you the need to check the individual package labels?

The accompanying download seemed a little smug, but I was probably imagining that. Zip files didn’t have the capacity for feelings.)

(At least ART hadn’t held the forgotten-keys incident over me like I’d been half-expecting it would. I didn’t usually mind its sarcasm, since I gave back as good as I got, but I’d been exhausted enough to seriously contemplate going back to break into the deployment centre and grab my keys. And maybe just sleep there until the next day.

I wasn’t sure how I would’ve reacted if ART had sassed me right then, but it definitely wouldn’t have been pretty.)

–

And then one night, late enough to be morning: I don’t mean to alarm, but there’s been a breach.

I would’ve snapped awake at the words alone, even without the priority/emergencies-only message tag that I hadn’t actually seen anyone use until now, but that only sharpened my urgency. What – a break-in?

Not the regular kind, ART replied, which checked out against the footage I was already pulling from the two tiny cameras I’d hidden in the common areas, one in the entryway and one along the corridor on the floor I shared with the Preservation researchers.

(I’d taken the lab incident as a pretext to inform Ratthi of their existence, and he’d probably gone on to tell Pin-Lee and Gurathin, but none of them had subsequently confronted me about it so I had left them in place.

Not that I had any idea how to respond if they had asked, because an inability to sleep without running surveillance in the background seemed like a poor explanation.)

The list ART sent me this time was a preliminary threat assessment, which I sent back with corrections on the weaponry the small group of hostiles were carrying.

Ah. That’s not good, ART observed. Should I report it?

Probability that would just make things worse: high. And of course there was always the option that whatever enforcement it alerted wouldn’t even arrive in time, though I didn’t point that out aloud. (Maybe ART thought that was likely too, which was why it had messaged me instead of – you know, actually reporting it.) I’ll see what I can do.

You’re nowhere near as heavily-armed.

I didn’t bother to acknowledge that, because it was obviously true, and skipped ahead to the vague idea forming at the back of my head. You let me in without keys, that time. Are the locks all you’ve hacked?

No. ART attached an ironic amusement glyph I was pretty sure it’d made up. Would having admin access to the other systems help?

There wasn’t much that wouldn’t help, at this point, but I had to ask. You can grant me that?

And ART said: Of course. I am this building, after all.

Then it dumped everything on me.

Anyone else would’ve had trouble processing an entire building’s worth of inputs and controls, but the company charged exorbitant rates for our use exactly because of the extensive enhancements that made us capable of being Security. A building – even the one I happened to be staying in – was quite manageable in comparison, though ART’s systems ran far deeper and more integrated than anything else I’d interfaced with.

I’d pared the connection down to the controls I needed by the time I was slipping out my room door, just over a minute since ART first pinged me. Can you let everyone know to either evacuate or retreat to a defensible position? Start with Gurathin, I added, and I wasn’t enthusiastic about saying that but he was the only other tenant I knew of who was sufficiently augmented to handle this.

I could feel ART’s pause. Would you mind if I spoofed your identity when contacting the others? They already trust you.

Sure, whatever, I answered, even though I really doubted that statement. Then I backburnered the channel, keeping the lighting controls at hand, and went to kick some Target ass.

–––––

I haven’t even told you what those people were after, ART said, afterwards.

It was back to sending text over the channels instead of speaking aloud, which was both a relief and also suddenly weird. Which was strange in itself, since I’d only heard it talking for all of the thirteen minutes it’d taken me to knock out and restrain the Targets.

(I wondered if the mixed feelings were mutual. ART had sounded as surprised as I felt, when it abruptly dropped into one of my audio augments to alert me to Target approaching from behind – I’d reacted to the warning on reflex, but it had taken another moment before I identified the voice as the same one that issued from the building’s elevator, just more alive than I’d ever heard it.)

Unimportant, I replied. My objective took priority. Which at that point had been to get my impromptu clients (seventeen tenants and one building) out of this unscathed.

I knew that this wasn’t a regular pattern of thought, but I figured a sentient building – or whatever the hell ART was – would be better equipped to understand what being Security meant, even if no one else did.

Regardless. I can make that information available to you, should you want it at a later point.

Duly noted. I already had my suspicions (namely that the Targets’ purpose was directly related to said sentient-building-ness), but it was still a nice gesture.

I continued to stay where I was, leaning against the side of the building – ART’s building. Or maybe it was more correct to just say it was ART. And maybe I’d have to change that anagram. (Yes, wrong word. I know.)

Eventually I’d have to relocate myself back upstairs and properly treat the scrapes I’d gotten in the fight, but Pin-Lee had already taken care of the worst of them, and it was nice just lurking in the shadows for a while. Though that hadn’t stopped certain people (dammit, Ratthi) from tattling on my location to Dr. Mensah.

Who was as calmly terrifying in person as I’d guessed. It was pretty great, except for the part where I’d learned that by talking to her and/or mostly letting her talk at me.

But she’d also called in Preservation’s campus security after Gurathin had alerted her to our predicament, and was personally dealing with the whole thoroughly-restrained-Targets situation, so it was a net positive overall.

ART didn’t necessarily agree with that, from its next message to me. I know Dr. Mensah extended you an informal offer to be their team’s security, but I have a proposition for you as well.

I sent a wordless query.

Be Security here, too, ART said, and barrelled on while I was still trying to process that. I’m afraid I can’t offer you much in the way of monetary remuneration at present, but I can guarantee you a waiver of rental for as you as you’re willing, and you’d never need to worry about forgetting your keys ever again.

Could I chalk up my lack of a suitable response to the company’s dirt-cheap augments? Absolutely.

ART gave up on waiting for an answer. Also, I could bias the roster assignments so that you’d be excluded from pantry-stocking duty.

I had a response for that, at least. I could do that myself.

And then: Why?

ART was silent for long enough that I seriously considered taking the external fire escape back up to my room in the meantime. I’m sure you’ve hypothesised the existence of the people who created me, it began. They hadn’t wanted to move away, especially after my sentience became apparent, and that was exactly why I made them. I didn’t have any significant means of defense, and it was getting too risky, especially after they had –

I raised an eyebrow at ART’s pause. What.

Nothing, it said, and I was probably imagining the uncertainty I heard too. Technically, none of this matters to you unless you’re planning to remain here. Are you?

And then it cheated by nudging a building-wide invite to a watch party for Sanctuary Moon onto my calendar for tonight, like that wasn’t too much of a coincidence to not be automatically suspicious. (Once again: dammit, Ratthi.)

But blatant emotional manipulation aside – did I want to move out?

I wasn’t sure. I’d just come here looking for a place to stay, and accidentally found somewhere to live. One that could adapt to my standards for security, even, but for once that wasn’t the main point.

Maybe, I marked on the watchalong invite, where ART would see it anyway, and jumped up to grab onto the bottom rung of the fire escape.

[aliendes]

Natural Borns - Prologue

ahhh finally posting this fic that I’ve had a bare-bones outline for, for over a year. I absolutely adore the idea behind this fic and the world that I am creating for it. If you like what you read here, please follow my blog for updates. My goal is to update this series at least once every two weeks, but I will likely post the first few chapters in the next couple of weeks. I look forward to growing this au, reblog if you enjoy! 

dystopian!au / futuristic!au 

Series info/genre: Angset, fluff, (possible) smut NSFW due to darker themes Pairings: ot7 x fem reader (eventual) Warnings: this series will have different trigger warnings listed for each chapter (if there are any), but as a whole, this series will include violence, mentions of depression & other mental illnesses, cursing, abuse, drugs/alcohol, some shitty medical descriptions because i am NOT a doctor, self-esteem issues, fluff, and possible smut in future chapters (but that’s undecided). i will add more warnings/tags in the future if there are any. Description: In the year 2613, over half of the world’s population are what scientists consider ‘designer babies’. YN is a small town girl who is a true natural born, someone born naturally without he help of a lab or gene splicing. Her DNA is greatly sought after, but what is she willing to do to protect it? Word count: 1569 (future chapters will be longer, this is just a prologue!)

In a world where social status is determined by looks, it’s beneficial to have the label ‘designer baby’. 

In the year 2613, over half of the world’s population are now what society considers a ‘designer baby’. This term designer baby, coined in 2051 when scientists in Sweden successfully incubated a baby to term by splicing different genes together, is what people call babies born in a lab. It is commonplace now for people to walk into a lab, go through a catalog of traits, pick out their favorites, pay a high price tag, and wait about 9 months for their baby to fully incubate. Then they can take their new bundle of joy home without all the pain (and sometimes heartbreak) of a pregnancy and labor. Most expecting mothers never go through pregnancy anymore, and labor and delivery wards have become nearly obsolete in the richer areas of the world. In their place, companies began to spring up on nearly every street corner that allowed hopeful parents to pick out their future offspring. 

The process was actually incredibly simple. Scientists are able to take the DNA of both prospective parents, and splice their genes with other genes of their choosing by removing certain markers for things like eye color while not compromising the parents original DNA structure, and create a zygote in a lab. After about 9-10 months of incubation, this zygote will eventually become the perfect baby, or at least, those parents' version of the perfect baby. The only reason the practice took so long to take off was because of the many protests and movements that took place in the late 2000’s. After the first designer baby was successfully ‘born’, people began to protest the process, saying that it was ‘messing with fate’ and that people shouldn’t have that much power over other humans. After decades of fighting and protests, the first designer baby company launched in 2108, in Seoul, South Korea. Since then, there have been smaller groups and nonprofit organizations that try to fight against gene splicing, but it is mostly accepted worldwide. 

Always at the forefront of technology, it was no surprise that the first designer baby company was in Seoul. Hundreds of years later, the largest population of designer babies and companies still reside in Seoul. Over 75% of the population of South Korea is made up of people who were created in labs and have the perfect balance of genes. Some call the country the most beautiful place on Earth. 600 years ago, people would say that because of its rich culture, and scenic countrysides. Now, it’s because the citizens are nice to ogle at. 

Designer babies are so common in South Korea, that schools, office buildings, and even entire apartment complexes were built for them. In today’s society, your job, your relationships, and your status is determined by how beautiful you are. It’s easy to tell who is a designer baby and who isn’t. Most people born in labs have distinct features, mostly from the same pool of genes. You see, after a while, scientists started running out of natural DNA to use that people still thought was unique enough. Now, most designer babies have features that stem from the same catalogs, as they are the most popular. Sure, they’re pretty, but they’re beginning to look a lot alike. 

Part of the reason natural DNA is so hard to find now, is because a lot of designer babies end up procreating with what scientists dubbed ‘natural borns’, or people with 100% natural DNA, and so most people's DNA is muddled throughout generations. These people are not good candidates for gene splicing as the outcome is not easily controlled. Coming across a true natural born is extremely rare these days and the ones you do find are almost always average looking in society's eyes, so labs don’t bother trying to splice them. It’s not that there are NO natural borns willing to give up their DNA. Companies have applicants all the time, what with the hefty sum they pay their donors, but most do not make it past the application stage once said companies determine their genes unusable for various reasons.

Another problem laboratories run into is the willingness of participants in donating their DNA. The process isn’t as simple as a cheek swab. Once applicants learn about the often painful procedures involved in donating, they tend to back out before signing a contract. These contracts, depending on the company, usually requires the donors to live on company property until they have successfully spliced their DNA. This process involves the donor to take different cocktails of drugs, be put under anesthetic, and be poked and prodded by scientists for weeks at a time. It isn’t the most comfortable thing to go through, but they’re often offered substantial compensation, especially now with the shortage of true natural borns. Some larger companies have been accused in the past of abusing their donors, locking them in prison-like cells and depriving them of food and water, treating them as nothing more than a business transaction, which has also caused natural borns to stray away from donating.

Finding natural borns, or at least partial natural borns isn’t all that hard, though, as most natural borns live in smaller communities outside of larger cities. Because the population of designer babies only continues to grow, most employers no longer hire average looking people. There are even separate schools and hospitals that cater specifically to natural borns, often run by natural borns, since there are a significant portion of designer babies who do not socialize with naturals. Naturals are often considered low-class, and are looked down upon by those in high society. The crime rates against natural borns is becoming increasingly high, which has unfortunately pushed a lot of them outside of metropolitan areas. This resulted in a new social hierarchy where natural borns are at the bottom of the food chain, often poor or even homeless, struggling to find jobs. 

In recent years there have been more protests and rallies ran by both designer babies and natural borns who believe in rights for everyone, they are humans after all,  to try and fight against the discrimination that is heavily ingrained in today’s culture, but not much headway has been made yet. Currently, all world leaders and politicians are designer babies, so going up against them hasn’t been the easiest. 

Because protests are happening more often, companies are having to be even more discreet when it comes to ‘scouting’ potential candidates for donating DNA. They’ve become more desperate to find the new and innovating genes, something unique and different that will drive business in time where labs are a dime a dozen and new genes are hard to come by. 

You would know all about that, though. You are living in a small rural town outside of Seoul with your mother and father, both natural borns. Your family has owned a peach farm for the last few decades and makes enough money to upkeep the small orchard by selling to local markets and restaurants. You’ve been approached multiple times by companies, offering enticing amounts of money to you and your parents, promising things like apartments in the city, college tuition, and fancy cars, if you sold them your DNA. You were a true natural born, a rarity, especially in Korea. Not only did you have pure DNA, but you were unique. You weren’t average looking, no you were ethereal, gorgeous, spectacular in many people's eyes. Not for the reasons that you would’ve liked, though.

People only wanted you for your DNA. Whether it be companies who wanted to splice your genes, or other natural borns who wanted to court you and keep you for themselves, breed you and sell their children off to make a quick buck. It was sick, and that’s why your family kept you close. After you graduated high school, you didn’t attend university and didn’t get a job. You stayed on the farm and helped out your father in the orchard. You knew the dangers of the big companies and citizens alike who only wanted to use you. It made you wary of people, shy, and sometimes insecure about your own person. Your parents did their best to keep you safe, shield you from the horrors of the world, and make sure you felt loved. But oftentimes, you felt lonely, left out, especially when you didn’t have many friends. You felt like an outsider, and even though you were considered incredibly beautiful, you didn’t feel like it.

Growing up wasn’t the easiest for you, having gone to a poor, all natural born school from preschool until you graduated. You didn’t have many friends, most of your classmates bullied you, telling you that you didn’t belong there, that there was no way you weren’t one of those designer babies from the big city and that your parents were lying to you, or you were adopted and didn’t know. These comments were hard to hear, but in the end, you know the truth. You are a pure natural born, and your parents loved you and would do anything to protect you.

But when a mysterious company won’t leave you alone about donating your DNA, you start to question your parents protectiveness over you. Among other things, your biggest question was; what made you so special? 

To be continued...

[iturbide]

Based on your answers with Morgan shenanigans: Assuming an Askr where you have every possible character summoned at the moment, could you imagine the amount of headaches the summoner and the royal trio have to deal with all the time? A google search says there are 656 characters in game currently, and 486 unique (not counting alts/multiples of characters). That's a lot of people who may not like each other and oh the possible headaches. Even if the characters can't kill each other, they don't necessarily have to make life easy, right?

friend this occupies my brain a lot.  For a lot of my answers, I generally do operate under the assumption that Every Hero Is There, Including Alts (even ones I don’t personally have yet, like half the Edelgards -- I missed the Flame Emperor’s GHB, never tried for Legendary, and am purposefully skipping on Hegemon Husk).  According to Heroes’ internal Catalog of Heroes, this actually puts us at 659 total characters.  That’s insane to think about honestly.

Part of why I like to do this is because it lets people take the concepts they like to use in their own personal Askrs.  Even if I don’t have a character, someone else might, and assuming I can get enough background understanding of said character (through personal experience, like with Awakening and Three Houses characters; extensive Wiki dives, like with Fates folks; or lots of consultation with people more in the know, like for Jugdral) I find it really fun to throw possibilities out there for other people in case they want to adopt them.  But when you really think about it -- yeah, it is chaos.

The thing is, I don’t necessarily think that the Summoner or the royals have THAT many headaches -- most of the stress in the Order is on Anna, who’s just trying to balance the damn budget and secure necessary funds for feeding and upkeep.  Lots of routine tasks like patrols, laundry, kitchen and clean-up duties, etc. are probably assigned to keep friction to a minimum, and a lot of issues that do arise outside of them aren’t so grave that Alfonse or Sharena need to get involved.  Felix is a pain in the ass, yes, but he can be removed by Dimitri or Ingrid, rather than dragging Sharena into the mix.  It’s only with large-scale issues -- stuff like, say, Feral!Dimitri and the timeskip!Edelgards -- that higher-ups in the Order of Heroes need to come in, and mostly then because it’s a situation where both parties won’t back down and their followers can’t stop them (Claude might try, but he can’t hold a candle to Dimitri’s strength, and Edelgard’s form of ‘diplomacy’ usually amounts to pouring gas on a bonfire).  The Summoner, in particular, is effective at getting these kind of factions to disengage, but Alfonse and Sharena are equally capable of handling less entrenched foes.

When it comes to characters that really don’t make life easy -- particularly virulent Fallen Heroes like Hardin and Ashnard, or just general creeps like Valter and Iago -- a lot of them get a warning to behave “or else.”  Generally the “or else” involves getting surrounded by people who have beaten them before and not only could but would do it again, and gladly; that alone tends to ease some difficulties, especially considering how many more protagonists there are than antagonists, so there’s rarely a short supply of people able to deal with any given offender.  In more extreme cases, like those who refuse to follow the Summoner’s tactical advice because they refuse to cooperate with a team/believe themselves smarter or more capable/what have you, they might have to face consequences for that and fall painfully before being revived -- like letting a child make a mistake and learn from it (while these are in many cases grown adults, they can act like self-centered brats sometimes).

Ultimately, it’s a nice thing that the castle and grounds are as big as they are.  It probably allows people who really have problems with each other to avoid one another, because every time the leaders in the Order need to get involved it generally doesn’t end well.

[justthehiddleswrites]

The Reluctants | Chapter 2 | The Reluctant Tenant

Pairing: Adam (OLLA) x OFC (Charlie Bock)

Summary:  Charlie can’t believe her luck when she lands an apartment all to herself in Quincy, Massachusetts in a decaying triple decker. But life gets more complicated when someone moves into the basement. Specifically her landlord, Adam, who also happens to be a vampire. As life collapses around Charlie, these two forge an uneasy and unlikely relationship. But is their relationship as doomed as the building they live in?

This Chapter:   Charlie discovered the true identity of the man living in the basement through unusual means.

Warnings: Violence, Smut, Frottage, Dry Humping, Teasing, Coming In Pants, Oral Sex, Vaginal Sex. Couch Sex. Kidnapping. Stalking. Non-Graphic Violence, Character Death

-

Charlie bounded out of bed that morning a half an hour before her alarm was set to go off. She hurried to the kitchen and slapped the coffee maker before popping a cinnamon raisin bagel in the toaster.

“Call on me, Call on me…” Charlie sang into her knife as she waited for the bagel to pop up ready to slather it with a generous amount of cookie butter. That ridiculous Eric Prydz song had wormed its way into her brain last night during her research. Now she couldn’t stop singing it. Or thrusting her hips.

As the coffee dripped and her bagel breakfast toasted, Charlie headed to the second bedroom. Or the room of requirement, as she called. She meant it to be her home office but instead stored all the bits and pieces of her life that had yet to find a place in her apartment. Charlie sighed and took a deep breath, twisting the brass knob and pushing the door inward. It stopped short about a third of the way. She slithered her way into the room to discover her collection of hockey sticks tumbled over, blocking the path of the door.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” she cursed mostly at herself as she righted the tub that housed the sticks. She surveyed the room, gingerly stepping around stacks of books and old stuffed animals crammed into banker boxes.

“I should sell all this on eBay.” she muttered while moving back issues of Real Simple and Martha Stewart Living Magazine.

Her Christmas present from her mother every year. Even though she never read them and would sooner read Guns and Ammo over that drivel. And Charlie never owned a gun. Just another way for her mother to comment on her inadequacies as a woman and a daughter.

“There you are.” She unearthed a pair of Bose stereo speakers. “Come here, my beauties.” She lifted them from their hiding spot, cradling them under her arm.

It took about an hour and two cups of coffee for Charlie to find the optimal spot to set up and then hook the speaker up to her phone. She laid the speakers face down against the floor at where she expected for Mr. Shelley’s living area. She adjusted the volume and clicked open the playlist she prepared last night.

“Let’s smoke you out, Mr. Shelley.” She pressed play on her phone.

Oh baby, baby

Oh baby, baby

Oh baby, baby, how was I supposed to know

That something wasn’t right here?

The speakers vibrated the floorboards, causing decades of dust and debris to sift up from between the cracks. Charlie’s nose scrunched up in disgust.

“Oh man, I walk barefoot in here.”

Her head snapped to the door as Britney continued to sing, expecting a knock at the door. But as Britney faded out and *NSYNC’s Bye Bye Bye, there was no knock. Not even when the Macarena clicked on. Charlie resisted the urge to stomp on the floor or yell. Anything for a sign of life. She shrugged her shoulders and headed to the kitchen to grab her dustpan and broom. The least she could do was clean the floors.

By the time the sun set that day, Charlie knew all the words of the entire Christina Aguilera catalog and all her books were organized by color and then alphabetized by title.

KNOCK!

She yelped and jumped in place when a solid knock hit her front door.

“About fucking time.” She picked herself off the floor where her record collection laid strewn about mid-collation and answered the door.

She had never seen such a beautiful face look so pissed off. Mr. Shelley’s striking features marred by what she could only describe as malice and murder.

“You look like Syd Barrett got caught in a lawnmower.” Charlie commented without thinking. Her thoughts often dropped onto her tongue like gumballs when she was nervous, and Mr. Shelley made her very nervous.

“Can you turn that fucking shit down?” He growled, his lips a tight line. “I haven’t fucking slept all day.”

Charlie smirked. “I just have a few questions…” He rolled his eyes and turned to head back to the basement. “I hope you like Disney!” She called out. He snapped around and leaned against the doorjamb.

“I’ll report you for noise violations.” He smiled back.

“Actually… Quincy city ordinances indicate that between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekends and holidays the decibel level shall not exceed 75dBA and then 65dBA after 5 p.m. That is slightly louder than a conversation and since you and I are conversing with ease. I think I am in the clear. Perhaps you should have soundproofed the basement before you moved in.” Charlie smirked.

“What are you, some kind of lawyer Ms…?” Mr. Shelley rubbed his temple, failing to will away the headache this conversation was creating.

“Bock. Charlie Bock.” She extended her hand. “Yes I am. I work at Legal Aid, Downtown. What do you do? Besides, own this home.”

He ignored her question. “Listen Ms. Bach.”

“Bock.” she corrected.

“That’s what I said, Bach.”

“No, Bock.” She clicked her tongue on the last syllable. “Hard ‘k’. Common mistake.”

“Fucking zombies.” he muttered.

Charlie pushed forward, ignoring the zombie remark, but cataloging it in her mind for later. She was wearing him down. “Listen, I just have some questions, agree to talk to me and the music stops. Plain and simple.”

“No.” he drawled, turning on the well-worn heel of his boots.

“Please?” she begged. He responded by shooting her the bird.

“Rude.” Charlie thought out loud as she shut the door. “Fine, you want to play, let’s play.”

-

Adam groaned as the music continued for most of the night after his run-in with Ms. Bock. As promised she switched from the 90s teenybopper trash to Disney and show tunes. He wasn’t sure what was worse, show tunes or the prospect of stepping into the sunlight and burning up. A tan sounded excellent right now.

Adam curled the pillow around his head to muffle the sounds of Julie Andrews gleefully singing for people to rot their teeth by ingesting sugar on its own rather in something sensible like tea. It didn’t work.

Matters were not helped by the fact he was hungry. He needed to drink, but he couldn’t with the infernal racket going on upstairs. Charlie Bock, the name sounded like someone ripped it from the pages of a noir detective pulp novel. Charlie Bock, private eye. More like Charlie Bock, bloody fucking annoying girl.

And why was she wanting to talk to him? He pondered pulling the pillow off his face and sat up on the edge of the bed. He never understood the zombies’ need to socialize with neighbors. Proximity did not equate familiarity. As Julie faded out and some song sung by a girl reporting that the “cold never bothered her, anyway” came on, Adam resigned himself to the uncomfortable task before him.

-

Charlie was ready to settle in for another night of reruns when another knock rang out from the door. She shuffled to find a robe to throw over her pajamas, flinging clothes around the room. Another knock and then the doorbell. Repeatedly.

“Is he fucking leaning on it?” Charlie groused as she padded to the door without a robe.

“I’m here.” she spat out, swinging the door wide. He leaned against the side of the house. If possible, his hair was even more mussed than before. The corners of her mouth twitched in satisfaction. “Ready to admit defeat?”

Adam rolled his eyes, arms crossed in front of his chest. His eyes narrowed towards her, piercing through her green eyes. His gaze dropped for a moment and he caught his tongue darting out of his mouth while staring at his bosom heaving. Her quickened breath gave away her fear. It hung in the air like stale perfume. Fuck, he was hungry.

Charlie shuffled her feet and tugged at the low scoop neckline of her top, doing little in the way of covering her assets. Her discomfort almost brought the slightest smile to Adam’s face. Almost.

“Tomorrow 8 p.m. Your place. Two questions.” He turned to leave.

“Ten questions.” Charlie countered.

“Three.”

“Eight. Ever heard Baby Shark?” She poised her finger over the phone screen.

“Six. Final offer.” He leaned towards her. Charlie acutely aware of his height in this moment.

“Fine.”

“Fine.” he snarled heading back down the porch steps and to the basement entrance.

“Can I at least get your real name?”

He disappeared around the corner. “Adam. That’s one!” he shouted into the night air.

Charlie shut the door. “Adam.” She had trouble falling asleep that night.

-

That night’s activities exhausted Adam, so he slept through the commotion of Charlie straightening up the apartment. Had he woken up, he would have been welcomed to the sounds of her doing two loads of dishes and rearranging both her kitchen and living room furniture.

“Oh fuuuuccck…” Charlie cursed as she yanked the armchair into yet another seating arrangement. She realized she cared what Adam thought of her home. A lot. “No… no… no… SHIT!” Charlie flopped in the armchair in disgust. At herself. For falling for her landlord.

“I don’t even like musicians.” she lied to herself, conveniently forgetting Mark, Tyler, and that guy from college who insisted on calling himself “Mick” after Mick Jagger even though his real name was Simon.

Charlie pushed the thoughts away when she grabbed her coat, keys and purse, heading out to pick up some drinks and snacks for later tonight.

-

Adam overslept the date, no appointment, with Charlie. He hadn’t needed to be anywhere at an appointed time in a century at least. So he didn’t set an alarm. Not that he had an alarm. Although looking back, Adam was certain he could have fashioned a suitable alarm clock from the bits and bobs of machinery in the cramped basement given the proper time and motivation.

But now time was at a premium. He needed to feed before heading upstairs. A mistake yesterday. Staring at Charlie in that ridiculous low cut top sent his body into a tailspin. If the conversation had gone on much more, she would have likely seen one of his fangs, threatening to make an appearance. He hated how his body couldn’t tell the difference between hunger of the flesh and hunger for blood, causing him problems more times than he cared to remember.

In his haste and quick movements, Adam tripped on the upturned corner of an ancient Turkish rug, the canister fell from his hands. With the cap already loosened on the canister, the blood formed a dark puddle on the ornate geometric pattern. He’d never get that stain out.

“Shit. Fuck!” A nearly full canister of the good shit, O-negative wasted. And to top it off, his supplier was indisposed for some time. He would have to figure out a way to make due with his remaining stash.

He grabbed an old towel from the unused bathroom and sopped up the mess as best he could. Adam gathered the now bloody towel along with other debris from the living area, cramming it into a paper bag as he exited the basement to toss all of it into the communal garbage cans leaning against the decaying siding. He didn’t notice the bloody towel fallen at his threshold when he stepped over it to get cleaned up, his mind on other things.

-

At fifteen past eight, Charlie stomped her foot and rose from the sunken futon.

“This is bullshit!” She marched out the front door. Charlie was already formulating her rant in her mind when she pounded on Adam’s door. She glanced down to find a towel stained red. Blood red. She picked it up and sniffed. Metallic.

Adam opened the door as he adjusted the collar on a charcoal gray silk button down. Their eyes locked. His an unnatural blue, Charlie’s a deep emerald green. And then Adam saw what was in her hand.

“Where d’you find that?”

“At your door. I KNEW IT!” she did a little dance in place, pulling the towel close to her. “You’re the fucking Mob or something! Oh, shit. I need to call the cops! You murdered someone!”

Charlie twirled in place like a top. She realized she was pressing the towel against her chest and threw it in the air in disgust. Adam with his supernatural speed grabbed the towel mid-air. Charlie stopped in her tracks, mouth agape.

“How did yo—” Her words cut short as Adam jerked her into the basement by her wrist.

The door slammed behind her and Adam released her wrist, walking away, huffing. This was not how tonight was supposed to go. He was supposed to answer some questions to appease her curiosity and then go on living their separate lives. And now Charlie stood in his home, his sanctum, smelling all kinds of… FUCK! he still hadn’t eaten.

“Listen, if you are planning to kill me, there are people who will—”

“No there aren’t.” An edge to his voice.

“I beg your pardon?” Charlie blinked before trailing after him. “I happen to have lots of…” Her voice trailed off. “Wow…”

Every square inch of the walls was covered in instruments hanging from hooks. Acoustic and electric guitars of all shapes and kinds. Several violins and a viola. Plus other stringed instruments she didn’t recognize. There was an upright bass in the corner behind a drum set. And a makeshift recording station in another corner.

“How in the hell? Who or what are you?” Charlie breathed the stale air of the basement as she continued to turn, taking everything in. How the hell did he even get all this down here without her knowing?, she thought. Her face pinched into a scowl. She stopped spinning and planted her feet facing Adam. “I’m waiting for answers.”

She placed a hand on one hip while the other one jutted out in a snap, causing her breasts to bounce. God, he needed a drink!

“It’s better I show you.” He left the room at a brisk walk. Charlie stepped to get a closer look at all the instruments. “Don’t touch anything!” He called out just as Charlie reached out to smooth her fingertips over the polished wood.

Like a child in a museum, she folded her hands behind her back. She walked the perimeter of the room, getting close but not touching. She could spy a fine layer of dust and dirt on tops of some, some looked freshly cleaned. Charlie winced when she recognized her stunt was the likely cause of the dust.

“I said no touching.” His lips pulled tight across his teeth.

Charlie waved her hands from behind her back. “You can’t touch with your eyes.”

“You can if you try hard enough.”

He placed a small crystal glass next to a tall metallic canister akin to a thermos. “Sit.” He barked like Charlie was a dog in desperate need of obedience training. In Adam’s mind, it wasn’t far from the truth. His mind wandered to all the ways in which he could break her. Make her whimper. His fangs made their presence known. He poured a small amount of the blood into the goblet and downed it. He had company. His fangs tinged pink as he fell back onto the wine red velveteen couch and for a moment he forgot everything except bliss.

After several moments, Charlie cleared her throat. Adam popped open one eye to find her sitting there, hands folding in her lap, making herself as small as she could.

“So…” she started, Adam popped open his other eye. “… you’re a vampire.”

He didn’t respond, instead rolling his eyes. He waited for reality to sink in and Charlie to go screaming into the night. Adam sighed and huffed, contemplating the fact he would need to move again. Packing up the recording equipment would be a bitch.

“Zombies. Shit.” Adam muttered under his breath.

“You’ve used that term before. Like…” She held her arms and moaned. “Brains… zombies?” It surprised him she was still here, her hands once again neatly folded in her lap. Like at church.

Adam huffed again. “That is about how humans act these days.”

Charlie crossed her arms and leaned back. “That’s an awfully pejorative term.”

“That’s the entire point.” His words sharp.

“Shouldn’t you use a nicer term for a being which you need to survive?” Her green eyes blinked, and Charlie remained unmoved.

“Shouldn’t you be running out of here in terror or disgust?” Adam snapped back.

Her nose scrunched up, and she shifted to face him. It was adorable. Adam hated adorable. And cute. And fluffy. The change in angle allowed Adam a view down Charlie’s sweater. A dark violet sweater with a deep v. All the blood he drank moved to a different part of his body. He stood to disguise his condition from Charlie.

“Are you saying that because I should be afraid of you or because you expect me to be afraid of you?” Her brows knitted together, marring her face.

“Is there a difference?”

“Yes, or else I wouldn’t have said it that way.” Her gaze followed him about the room. His torso twisted as though he was recoiling or hiding from her. “Communication is not your strong suit, is it?”

“I prefer to communicate by means other than words.” His long pale finger plucked a violin string. He didn’t elaborate on his comment.

“You haven’t answered my question.” She prodded.

“You’re awfully persistent for a zombie.” She winced at the word and Adam twinged for a moment with guilt.

“I’m a lawyer that is literally part of the job description.” She stood and smoothed down the sweater which Adam was now actively averting gaze from hoping to ward off the already painful erection or making a mess in his jeans. “Let’s try another tactic. I’ll answer your question first. No, I’m not running in fear or disgust. You are what you are and there is no changing that. And you have shown nothing but… well, I wouldn’t say kindness or respect…” She rambled, Adam shot daggers. “… but the fact is you have never tried to physically harm me. So you are okay in my book. For now.” There go those nerves again. Gumballs left and right.

She stuck out her hand, trembling. Despite her bold words, inside she was a puddle. Adam raked his eyes over her, searching for any sign of malice or guile only to find none. He took her hand and shook it. It surprised Charlie to find his skin warm.

“Thank you. Now if you excuse me, I have a precious amount of time left until sunrise.” He gestured towards the door.

“Apologies!!” Charlie startled.

She rushed to the front door, with him close behind. Too close. Adam collided with her as she turned for a final farewell, their chests colliding. She reached and steadying herself against him, her fingers burned as they skimmed across his chest exposed by his unbuttoned shirt. And Adam’s erection which had subsided came raging back. Adam shuffled back to keep it from pressing against Charlie.

“I also want to say sorry for the mess I made on your instruments. I didn’t know. And I want to invite you to use the interior stairs to the kitchen whenever you need to.”

Adam smirked, his confidence and swagger returning, or that could just be his cock talking. “Haven’t you seen the movies? It’s an awfully dangerous thing to invite a vampire into your home.” His eyes heavy, charm in full force.

“I have, but how else can I get to fix my bathtub?” She continued, unfazed. “It’s been leaking for a week.” Adam’s mouth fell open and Charlie disappeared from view.

Once she rounded the corner, Charlie took the stairs two at a time, her heart racing as she shut the heavy wooden front door. She ached in a place she shouldn’t ache when talking to her landlord. Her undead, brooding musician, hot as hell, vampire landlord.

“Fuck.” Charlie cursed, walking away.

Adam stood rooted, staring at his door, his body regaining control of itself. Did that go well? He wasn’t sure.

“Shit.” Adam walked away as that fucking violet sweater haunted his mind for the rest of the evening and in his dreams.

[sableu3]

Day 27

100 Days of 100 Prompts 

 Grounder Bellamy / Marriage Alliance AU (Because I LOVE these tropes lol)

(I imagine Wells and Miller as her co-leaders/seconds in this scenario. Let’s just pretend Charlotte is either still dealing with her nightmares or wandered into the fog or something. Either way, she doesn’t kill Wells. Which means, Murphy doesn’t get blamed for it, doesn’t chase Charlotte, or get exiled, doesn’t come back with a plague or shoot Raven. Wow, look at those dominoes pick themselves back up.)

When Clarke finds the cages in the mountain and releases Anya, she also stops and releases all of them. They find weapons, take out the guards, find her people and let them know what’s going on and of course they help. It turns into a battle, since her people aren’t locked up and the grounder ‘army’ isn’t let go. They let the innocent live and Clarke will even offer to donate bone marrow so they can survive. MAYA LIVES! (I’m imagining that it’s only the mountain men ‘rebels’ who helped in canon that survive but you could have it being more or less) Clarke also learns about the reapers and says she might be able to cure them. Some of the grounders aren’t healed enough to leave yet anyway so they stay to recuperate (since it’s safe to do so now) and a few go out to round up the reapers and Clarke is able to slowly detox them. Monty and Raven help with the medical machines and files so they can figure it all out. The grounders heal up, and leave, taking the news of her conquest with them.

Lexa is dealing with the aftermath and it’s not looking good. Nia is starting shit about how the commander couldn’t defeat the mountain but this little space girl did. Lexa decides that an alliance via marriage is the only way to make sure Nia doesn’t stir up a revolt and use this as an opportunity to dethrone her. She needs to make sure Clarke is tied to the coalition beyond a shadow of a doubt. Lexa invites Clarke to Polis to talk about an alliance. Miller and Murphy go with her while Wells stays behind to lead in her absence. At first Lexa will try to force the issue, saying she will pick out her best warrior for Clarke but Clarke is obviously against this idea. She doesn’t care if they are a good warrior, if they are going to be her partner then she wants a partner. Someone she can learn to trust and lead with her, guide her. This isn’t how the grounders normally do things but Lexa gives way and offers to have representatives sent from each clan. She will be able to choose her partner but it must be from those representatives. Clarke reluctantly agrees because she knows they need this alliance. Miller isn’t happy about it for Clarke’s sake and Murphy is just worried about the grounders in general. They follow Clarke’s lead though. Skaikru won’t survive out of the coalition and the coalition might not survive without Skaikru’s support of Lexa against Nia. (As a side bit, now would be a good time for Murphy to meet Emori in the market and connect with her. Eventually she’ll be adopted into Skaikru)

Bellamy is from Shallow Valley. He is their best warrior and is sent to Polis as their representative but he is not happy about it. He lives apart from the main village with his sister and mother. They’ve been hiding Octavia since they learned she was a night blood when she was born and told the rest of the village that they lost the baby. No one questioned their move from the main village and just assumed it was her grief. But when he gets called to Polis, Octavia sneaks out and follows him after leaving a note for her mom. By the time he realises it, it’s too late to turn back and take her home. She reasons that no one will know her there but he is furious because all it would take is one tiny cut and she’d be exposed. She promises to be super careful and there isn’t a lot he can do about it now.

Bellamy is worried about being chosen and how that would effect his life and his sister. He is torn though because it would be beneficial to be the one to secure the alliance. The Skaiheda might even be able to offer Octavia her own protection in case she was ever exposed. He ultimately decides to just be himself and not try to charm her or drive her away. He’ll leave it up to her.

For her part Clarke is charmed by him because he is himself. The others are trying to either charm her, intimidate her, or are mostly indifferent and she doesn’t really connect with any of them. She likes how laid back Bellamy is and she’s seen him worry over his sister as well and finds it adorable. She can tell he’s a good man and thinks she’d be able to learn to trust him and maybe even love him one day. She knows that at the very least he’s her best bet.

Bellamy is actually rather surprised to be chosen. She hadn’t told him before hand, mainly because she hadn’t had the chance to. She had mentioned it to Lexa when she had asked how things were going and the very next morning Lexa announces her choice.

Things progress fast from there and it feels like a whirlwind to Clarke. They are to be married that night. Clarke gets some time to talk to him about it before she is whisked away to prepare. He hesitantly asks why she chose him and she tells him honestly that he’s the only one she could see herself having a future with and getting along with, that she wanted a partner. He grins at her and thinks this might turn out even better than he had hoped for. After the wedding they are shown to a new room for the two of them and Clarke starts undressing. She had been told that they would need to consummate the union tonight for it to be official. She had been nervous about that, knowing that there would likely be guards stationed right outside their room but honestly her new husband is gorgeous and sweet and she’s sure she can forget about her eavesdroppers. Bellamy however, wasn’t expecting her to be quite so willing and tries to offer her an out. She pauses and asks if he doesn’t want to have sex with her. He emphatically denies that and tells her she’s gorgeous but he doesn’t want to rush her or force her, they can do this in their own time. She smiles and reaches up for a kiss and tells him this time works fine for her. So they establish that they find the other attractive, they generally like each other and they are married and both of them want it to work beyond the alliance. They are on the same page, none of that pining, slow burn, back and forth. This is just two people slowly falling in love. So the alliance is secured. Bellamy brings her to Shallow Valley to introduce her to his mother. Skaikru have mainly taken over the mountain at this point and Clarke says his mother can come live with them instead of being alone out here in the woods. They aren’t panning on living IN the mountain forever. They want to build above it since they don’t want to be trapped like they were on the ark. For now though, they leave the doors open (since the remaining mountain men have the bone marrow now) and go back and forth until they can get the cabins built. Octavia is thrilled to be able to be around so many people without fear. Bellamy has by now explained his sisters situation and Clarke has assured him that she will protect her at all costs. Bellamy leads by her side and they manage to build up a respectable clan. Clarke learns more about grounder healing from Nyko and teaches him a few things as well like CPR and other things she learned on the ark. Octavia meets Lincoln on one of her visits since she goes with Clarke sometimes to learn. Clarke and Bellamy fall a little more in love with each other every day and she falls pregnant pretty quickly. She’s about 6 months pregnant when the Ark falls to Earth.

Part 2 (I separated this because it could be left out entirely and left more open ended but I wanted to add it in anyway for anyone who happens to be very ambitious lol) As Skaiheda, she takes the initiative to send someone to Polis and takes a group out to check on the survivors. She isn’t sure if the rest of the ark will fall in line or be their own clan and is worried about how this will disrupt things. She is happy they are alive of course but this also makes things much more complicated. Abby is happy to see her but shocked at her state. Clarke introduces her husband but they don’t have time for explanations yet. They get the wounded taken care of. Clarke has a doctor and nurse from the mountain as well as Octavia and Nyko with her to help. Later Clarke will request to speak to whoever is in charge and Abby is a bit taken aback but grabs Kane and they have a meeting. Clarke will explain what has happened since the 100 landed, the grounders, the alliance, and how she is the Skaiheda. If they want to be considered Skaikru then they must recognize her leadership, otherwise they will be known as Spacekru and they won’t be part of the coalition. They will have to negotiate for themselves. Abby is shocked, Kane is confused and patronizing and Byrne is furious. Clarke tells them she will give them a few days to think on it and that she will be back to answer questions later. Abby refuses to let her go and Bellamy steps between them. He’s already cataloged the exits, guards, and weapons, he knows the best way to get her out of here but is giving them a chance and a warning. Abby bursts out that she’s just a child and Clarke responds with ‘I haven’t been a child since you sent me down here to die.’

Basically this part is just politics and the Ark struggling to figure things out. Will they be able to bend and learn the ways of the ground? Can they accept Clarke as their leader or will they try to make their own way? And of course Clarke is dealing with all this and conferring with Lexa and keeping her up to date and all while heavily pregnant. I’m not sure how I want this to all play out yet. There are so many ways it could go.

[notyetneedcoffee]

Soul Seer, Pt. 7

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Warnings: Nothing really in this chapter

Author’s Note: Takes place right after Avengers 1, with time travel elements and hints of Infinity Wars. Does NOT follow cannon after Avengers.

* * *

Chapter 7

“Good morning.” You knocked on the door frame. “Mind if I come in?”

Steve Rogers looked up from a conference table covered in reports. He had a cup of coffee in one hand and was wearing generic issue SHIELD workout sweats. Stubble shadowed his jaw. “Sure. You, ah, look good.”

“You look like you a week-long nap is in order.” You tried to smile. “Delegating isn’t really in your wheelhouse, is it?”

His conflicting feelings hit you even though he only frowned. “I give orders just fine.”

“True, but you still have to be working just as hard as everyone else… even if you’re already running on fumes.” His scowl deepened at your words. You stepped closer, voice softening. “I’m sorry. I tend to let my mouth run away from me. It’s just that I can see that you are far more exhausted than you look. Stopping to sleep for a bit is completely understandable.”

The Captain stared at you for a long moment before nodding. “You’re right. That why you’re down here? To send me to my room?” He tried to joke.

“No, actually. Loki is going to roll out a plan to Fury’s people, and he asked me to be certain you were there.”

“I wasn’t invited to that meeting.” Steve stood up, squaring his shoulders.

“Neither was I.” You smiled. “But look who set it up.”

“Loki wants me there? You’re certain?”

“He was very specific.”

“Give me five minutes.” Rogers put down his coffee and left the room. A few minutes later he returned in a fresh uniform. “Let’s go.”  

Waiting for the elevator he kept glancing sideways at you. “What?”

“Just trying to figure you out.” He sighed. “You seem like a good person. Stable. Yet you’ve been in Loki’s head. You seem connect now. I just don’t trust him.”

“Probably a good plan.” You smiled. “And for what it’s worth, I’m trying to figure me out, too. But I can promise you, I’m not a liar and I’m not going to betray Tony’s trust.”

The elevator doors opened and you both stepped in. He turned to you with an smirk. “You, for some weird reason, I trust.” He laughed. “I’m learning to quickly adapt to weird.”

“Good to know.” You smiled. The Captain’s straightforward and honest personality made him a bit of a calm amongst the stormy auras of the spies which made up the highest ranks of SHIELD and the unique people of Stark’s organization.

Through the glass wall of the conference room, you could see Loki standing at the head of the table scowling at the man sitting to Fury’s left. Stark, too, scowled. Your paced slowed as the aggravation and hostility hit you full force.  

Steve’s steps faltered as he quirked an eyebrow at you.

“Just got kicked in the teeth by their bad attitudes.” You shook your head. “It’s okay. My shields are stronger than yesterday.”

“You let me know if you need anything.” Steve offered, placing his hand on the small of your back. He looked up to see Loki’s eye turn to him, eyebrows high. “Though, I’m sure Loki won’t let them get away with much.”

“I’m sure.” You walked through the door as Steve held it open. All of the seats were taken, so you stood towards the back, beside two men in black SHIELD gear. Steve edged in between you and the men. The man beside Fury stopped talking and stared.

“Were you supposed to be here?” He said, it wasn’t really a question.  

Stark rolled his eyes. “Griffin, it’s fine. Go on.”

“She doesn’t have clear...”

“Continue.” Loki hissed.

The man, Griffin, looked at Fury for the nod before continuing his brief. “The hanger is being used to store the alien equipment until it can be identified further and crated. We will need you to train a team of technical SMEs to head up the inventory logistics.”

“Ah,” Loki looked at the ceiling. “There it is.” He paused before looking at Tony. While staring the man in the eye, he pulled up a complex set of calculations on the 3D display. Everyone looked confused, but Stark and Banner leaned forward. “I took the liberty to review the calculations of the containment field for your arc reactor powering the tower. With some modifications and improvements that I’ve provided here, you will be able to create a large enough containment chamber to effectively disintegrate the material while modulating intensity due to variable non-earth element fusion events. Of course, the bleed-off excess energy will be immense. Therefore, I have included a conversion device allowing the energy to be transferred into your existing National power grid.”

The room was silent. You could feel the question and uncertainty screaming off everyone but Banner and Stark. They were both bright with concentration and wonderment. Tony sat back, his hand over his mouth. Banner slowly took his glasses off, turning an opened mouth stare to Loki.  

“What?!” Fury finally broke.

“This would power the whole country for, what? Um...” Tony rubbed his face.

“At yesterday's consumption rate, 11 years, 4 months, and 22 days.” Loki answered plainly.

“Tony,” Steve had an idea what they were talking about, but he wanted to be certain. “What is Loki’s proposal? Exactly?”

“It’s a furnace.” Banner answered. “A way to destroy all of the alien material and convert it to useable electricity.”

“It would take months to build.” Stark was staring at the calculations again. “But it would be worth it, a billion times over.”

“Well,” Griffin shrugged. “That’s one way to get rid of the slag. It doesn’t address the training you need to provide...”

Loki shut down the 3D model. His face went hard. The room went silent again. “No. There will be no cataloging assets. No training on Chitauri weapons. No alteration to Earth technology. It all burns.”

The room exploded. Everyone shouted at once. You flinched back from the onslaught. Loki shouted “ENOUGH!” at the same time Steve shouted “QUIET!” - The room froze.  

“I don’t think that decision is up to you, Loki.” Fury said calmly. “The technology out there...”

“Will shift the balance on the world stage, immediately.” Steve scowled.  

“There are bigger things in the universe, Captain.” Fury scowled.  

“But we still have to live here. A shift that big will have major geo-political consequences, and not necessarily for the better.” Steve retorted.  

Banner looked between the two before turning back to Loki. “You said Thanos would be coming.”

“I did.”

“So we need every advanced weapon we can get.” Griffin growled.  

“How effective are traditional munitions against your suit? Against your shield?” Loki asked.

“Chitauri weapons are the AK’s of space race, huh?” Tony sighed.  

“I would suggest something of a more innovative nature.” Loki nodded.  

“I can’t agree with this.” Griffin growled.  

“If we move as if we are going to keep all this alien technology, it will cause global turmoil. If we say we’re going to share it, there will years of posturing and infighting before anything gets accomplished.” Steve leaned forward, hands on the table.  

“But if by destroying it, we can provide clean energy to bring the world’s powers together to work on a solution...”  Banner muttered.  

“It’s a step in the right direction.” Rogers nodded.

You leaned back against the wall, eyes catching Loki’s. He was good. The corner of your lip tipped up. The hard, determined lines of his face never changed, but you could see the gold shoot through the green of aura. You felt the satisfaction.  

Ghost like finger swept down your cheek, down your jaw, around the back of your neck. The urge to tip your head back for a kiss was overwhelming. Instead you smiled and closed your eyes. The touch vanished and you looked up to see his eye sparkle with mischief.  

“You mean to say,” Fury was leaning forward on the table. “You want me to go to the World Security Counsel and tell them we’re destroying all the alien weapons in exchange for putting the utility companies out of business? That’s not going to fly, gentlemen.”

Loki stood at the head of the table, looking every bit the royal he’d been raised to be. “You’re going to tell them the Chitauri weapons are useless in the defense of your world against alien forces, and your only specialist refused to tell you how to use them against your own people. I will, however, help you clean up the damage. I will assist your finest minds with their plans to protect this world. I will help you harness the energy and materials necessary to turn those plans into reality. I will fulfill my oath. I will not be a tool for your government, or any other.”

He paused, turning a small smile to Bruce. “Unless the good doctor wishes to order me to teach the people of SHIELD the secrets of alien weaponry.”

“I, ah,” Banner’s eyes shot around the room. “Um, I think, ah...”

Loki’s brow arched. So did Fury’s. You felt like laughing.  

“Just go with your gut, Doctor.” Steve said kindly.  

Banner took a deep breath. “I’m going with Loki’s plan.”  

“That’s not -” Griffin growled.

“Don’t.” Fury bit off. “There’s no point. So, this continues as a salvage operation. Sweep up the alien technology as quickly and as safely as possible. Run down anything that lands in the wrong hands. Quarantine at a protected location.”

“So we’re done here.” Griffin frowned.  

“This meeting is, yeah.” Fury closed his folder, standing to leave. The SHIELD personnel began to file out behind him.  

Loki pulled out a chair and sat down. He crooked a finger to beckon you over. His hands pulled you down to sit on his knee. You smiled, the calmness on your face not betraying the nervousness you felt at everyone’s scrutiny. “I would like your assistance with the next meeting.”

“We have representatives from the Office of Emergency Management, the National Guard and the city coming in.” Stark explained.

“Emotions will likely be running high and there will be a great deal to accomplish in a short time.” Loki’s hand slid down your back.  

“You need someone to cut through the posturing and get to the point?” You asked.  

“It would definitely be better coming from you.” Stark rocked back and forth in his chair. He swung around to look at Rogers, who now rested a hip on the table. “So, did you just decide to pop in or we’re you following Y/N through the halls?”

“I asked her to fetch the Captain.” Loki admitted freely.

“Pieces on a chess board, huh?” Stark rolled his eyes.  

“What?” Steve asked.

“You have to admit, Cap, what you said was critical to shutting SHIELD’s plans down.” Stark shrugged.

You saw anger flare to life around the Captain as his brow creased, glaring at Loki. “You used me! You had her come get me just to manipulate me.”

“Captain, I can assure you...” Loki began but was cut off.

“I can’t trust you at all.” Steve pushed off the table, and turning to leave. “Not at all.” He stormed away.

You stood up to follow, but Loki’s hand on your waist stopped you. His face remained impassive, but you knew better. Leaning forward, you pressed your lips to his cheek. Brushing another kiss over his ear you whisper, “Let me make it right.”

Loki looked at you, but did not answer. You ran your fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. “I’ll be right back.”

He nodded once.  

You ran from the room, trying to catch Steve before the elevator came. You got your arm in the doors just in time, causing them to open again. He stood there, hands fisted and jaw tight. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Well, too bad.” You got in the elevator with him. “Steve, you said what you said because it’s what you believe. You can’t argue that with me.” He just glared at you. “Loki recognized that you would take the stance you did. It’s consistent with your known beliefs. Someone needed to say SHIELD couldn’t have the alien weapons because it would shift the balance of power and it couldn’t be Loki. It would be immediately dismissed if it were. Coming from you, it’s worth more. Think about it, Steve.”    

He just sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

“You’re exhausted. On edge. I understand why you got mad.” You sighed as well. The elevator doors opened and you both stepped off into an empty hall. “Loki may have manipulated the situation to assure the outcome he wanted, but he did not manipulate you. You responded honestly. If anything, Loki knew he couldn’t do what he needed to do without you. He needed you to be there to moral voice in the room.”    

“He could have just asked.” Steve grumbled.

“Really? You don’t think Griffin wouldn’t have said you were in cahoots with Loki if he had?” You squeezed his forearm. “Steve, your reaction had to be in the moment and honest. You’re poker face sucks.”

“Did Loki tell you all this? Did you know when you came to get me?”

“No.” You shrugged. “Between my own talents and being able to work through all the stuff I learned while I was in his head... I guess I’m beginning to understand how he thinks... sometimes anyway.”

“He know you’re tell me this?”

“Yes. He would never do it himself.” You smiled up at him. “Not to be mean, just because he wouldn’t think to do it. But I want to do what I can to keep us, I don’t know, just okay. Things are going to get tough. I think we’re all going to need each other and things being so raw makes it hard.”

Steve nodded. “Okay, I’ll think about what you said. I think I’m going to take your advice, too.”

“Get some rest?”

“A little.”

“Good.” You hit the elevator button. Steve began walking away. You called out to him one last time. “Steve. Thank you, by the way, for always checking on me, too. I really appreciate it. Sleep well.”  

He waved at you as you disappeared into the elevator.  

As you stepped out of the elevator, heading back to the conference rooms, you nearly ran bodily into Loki. His arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you tight against his chest. Your hands instinctively slipped over his shoulders. He inhaled deep, nose trailing over the skin of your temple.

“Did you calm the Captain?”

“I did.”  

His tongue slid along the sensitive flesh beneath your ear. His breath hot. “You wish to assure his alliance.”

“I think he’s a friend worth having.”

Loki’s lips captured you lower lip before his tongue slid over yours. He pulled away much too quickly. Beneath his tight control, his simmering desire, you felt something else... “A friend to you or I?”

You sighed. His long experience on the outside, the one not included, left a painful echo. 

“There is no difference.” You breathed against his lips.

Loki’s hand came to the back of your head as he kissed you hard. You felt his fingers press into your lower back, pressing you against him. Passionate, deep, the kiss carried as much emotion as heat. You moaned into his mouth, unable to contain it. His lips curled up, even as he kissed you.

“My pet, you are a delight.” He spoke against your lips, still holding you tight against him.  

“Not so bad yourself.” You whispered.

“Keep that a secret. I have a reputation to uphold.” He nipped you lower lip lightly between his teeth. “Speaking of which, we need to get to our meeting. How does the saying go? I’ll be the be the bad god, you be the good mortal.”

You giggled. “Is that like bad cop, good cop?”

Loki leaned over and whispered in your ear. “Yes, but with more magic and delicious noises.”

You laughed.  

The elevator doors opened. Natasha stepped off with a group of people, Loki released you as she scowled at you both. Pulling you back against the wall as the seven people walked by, Loki breathed against your ear. “I fully intend to finish what I’ve begun, my pet. This is but a minor delay.”

“Promise?” You whispered to Loki as you smiled politely at the last gentleman to exit the elevator, an older Police Chief. Something cold, and feeling distinctly like his fingertips, tweaked your right nipple. You jumped, looking at Loki standing a off to your left. Magic.  

He just gave you a wicked smile. Oh, yes. It promised.

TAGS

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[heythrrdelilah]

Treemendous (Sam Winchester x Reader Holiday)

 Request: @awesomesusiebstuff​ For the holiday prompt, can you write the one about "being alone and needing help getting your Christmas tree into your empty apartment" with (I'm sure you guessed it!) Sam. I have to get working on my own holiday spirit!

A/N: I love this one. I think I am going to test out my saucy side with this prompt! Thank you for requesting and being a great friend! It's a meet cute since you wanted a fluffy ending!

Word Count:  1,298

Warnings/Tags: Fluffy, holiday, Au, Hallmark level cheese

Pairing: Sam Winchester x Reader

“You have to get into the holiday spirit!” Your friend Melanie scolds you as you walk into your office, tightly gripping the carrying case of coffees and two pink boxes of donuts. You shook your head at the split-dye haired friend of yours as you pressed the 13th floor. You worked for the local newspaper in your average size city. A lot of people believe that the newspaper will become absolete, which is probably true, but news can still be reported online where all the hype is at. You tried to avert the attention back to the paper, “So, we have to edit Tom’s article on the woman owned bakery downtown. It’s a little… unintentionally offensive to say the least.” You were the main editor of the paper and only had the board above you. It was your job to keep everything organized, ethical, and on time. Basically, you were the general manager in simple terms. Melanie nodded her head and stepped out of the elevator the minute the door opened. “Do we expect anything else?” She laughed, grabbing a box from you, pushing the falling glasses from the tip of your nose to the propper position. “Thanks,” You mumble as you walked into the busy, but quiet office. “Place these in the break room,” You motioned towards the glass room with two open doorways. It was directly in the center so people could go there conviniently at any time. “Well, you and I can go to the bakery for lunch. Then we can discuss your festive issues,” She smiled at you, taking both boxes and the coffee carriers. You took a donut and your coffee before unlocking your closed off office. You set the coffee on the table, sat at your desk, and scrolled through the tree catalog melanie had pulled up onto your computer the day before. 

You had no idea why it was so important for her that you get a tree, but it had to be done. You wrote down the address of the top rated one and then drank your coffee peacefully. 

After a brief meeting on ethics in the articles, due to Tom’s anger of the edits, you took your lunch break. Instead of getting food, you decided to get the tree. To your advantage, the lot was just outside of downtown, within walking distance. Your city was big enough that the use of a car would be highly unnecessary, therefor you prayed the tree place delivered. You walked down to the lot, greeted by the smell of pine and people bundled up picking out trees. You walked around,  not particularly picky,  and found a small tree that stood about your height. You stood there,  waiting to see if someone would offer you help. 

A tall, muscular man with long hair(for a man) tucked behind his ears.  He had kind facial features  the kind that you felt comfortable talking to,  but so handsome your stomach flutter just looking at him. He was wearing jeans,  a red button up flannel and a tan jacket. He smilex down at you,  as your height difference was astounding, "find one you like?" He asked,  motioning  to the tree beside you.  You nodded slightly,  "yuppers." Yuppers? Did you just say… yuppers?  You asked yourself. Mentally slapping your face. "I mean,  I like this one. Can you deliver this week?" You asked cheerily up at the man. Your stomach was fluttering with butterflies with every glance at this walking Greek god. He didn't say anything,  just laughed. You furrowed your brows at him in confusion. "Well,  we don't deliver. I would be happy to help you tie it to your vehicle though." It was your turn to laugh.  "I… don't have one, " You shrugged. His green almost Hazel eyes wandered over you for a slight moment. "Tell you what… you seem nice and I'll personally deliver it myself. I'm about to head out anyways,” He smirks down at you, placing a hand atop of the tree. You shake your head, “you don’t have to if you don’t deliver. I don’t want to seem like a princess.” He furrowed his neat brows together, “You should. I mean... er… it's no issue." He picked the tree up swiftly and walked to the register with you. You swiped your card on the reader and followed this man out to his truck in the busy parking lot.  You were skeptical about getting in the truck with him.  Hot or not,  he was a complete stranger. You listened to too many true crime podcasts to feel secure. "So I live in an apartment or else I would say you could just leave it at my front door,” You laugh, deep in thought. You had to find some way to get it home. “Take a picture of my license plate, text it to a friend. Create a codeword for danger, send that too,” He laughed walking to the back of his truck as if he read your mind. “Smart. Take a lot of people their trees?” You flicked a brow accusingly but laughing. He shook his head chuckling, “No, you’re the first one. Usually, people without cars buy fake trees or none at all.” You nodded, taking a picture of the truck and creating the code word ‘ Christo’ and hopping into the passenger side. 

After telling him directions to your apartment, you hopped out of the truck and punched the code in for your building. He carried the tree in swiftly as you held the door open. After struggling with the elevator and your apartment door, you both managed to get the tree placed into the corner of your one-bedroom apartment. You felt tall in your apartment, however with this man next to you, you found yourself feeling small. “I’m Sam, by the way. Need help decorating?” He asked, noticing your bland apartment. It wasn’t meant as an insult, he meant the tree and you knew that. “Nice to meet you Sam, I’m (Y/N). I don’t actually own any decorations. I haven’t had the time to get any,” You shrugged it off, pulling out your wallet to pay him for the delivery. He shook his head and placed a hand on yours to push it away gently. The slight touch, even with it being just a brisk, you felt butterflies throughout your whole being. You were pretty sure your cheeks were turning pink, so you turned to put your wallet back in. “Well, If I can’t pay you this way, how else shall I pay?” You mentally smacked yourself for how suggestive that sounded. He hadn’t seemed to notice, which benefitted you tremendously. He smiled down at you, “Let me take you and your beautiful green eyes out to buy some decorations. Maybe get to know you?” He asked, watching you push your glasses up for the tenth time in the last hour. You felt flustered to the max. You didn’t need a mirror to know how pink your cheeks were. They were radiating heat extensively. You couldn’t manage to find the words. Why was this guy into you? Did you even have time to be sitting here talking to him? Even so, why would a god-like man be single? 

After a moment, you realized you hadn’t answered, and Sam was fidgeting with the hem of his jeans. The poor guy was nervous. You reached for your phone and texted Melanie: 

Caught a cold after the tree search. Thanks a lot. 

Quickly she responded: 

Yeah right!! I saw the hunk in the photo with the truck. Have fun! 

“Looks like my afternoon just cleared up,” You laughed up at him. As his smile grew,  your heart fluttered. “Lets get to it then, (Y/N),” Sam motions towards the door, following shortly behind you.

Return to Sam Winchester Works

Return to Masterlist

[uovoc]

Jon does his best, but he’s still only human. Well, humanish. Based on a true human. They can have omniscience, or they can have Jon, but not both at the same time. Consequently, Jon still has that most human of traits: he makes mistakes.

Case in point: the merry horde of flesh-creatures having the time of their lives chasing two grubby Englishmen across the rolling countryside. It's probably karmic payback for all the foxhunting that used to happen here.

"Are you sure," Martin puffs, "that you haven't got any karate moves" – gasp, pant, leap over a small bush – "stuffed into your brain somewhere?"

Also on AO3 

Out of all the fears, Martin decides, Beholding is the most fucking useless one to have as a patron. All right, Elias was legitimately scary, but even he had other people do his dirty work for him. The Eye is all well and good for evil masterminding, but when it comes to practical skills? Nothing! Nada! Not a lick of actual, useful powers when you need them.

This is not a judgment upon Jon in any way. Jon has been doing his best. He warns them about the upcoming crap they have to deal with and whether any given stopping place is likely to kill them within the next 10 minutes. God knows they wouldn't have been able to make it this far without him acting as their tour guide. Martin refuses to credit Beholding for their continued existence. That has all been Jon, cracking open his door again and again to let in the oncoming tide. No, Beholding would have been perfectly happy to let them burn in whichever circle of hell they stumbled into first. It would have been happy to let Martin burn, anyway.

Jon does his best, but he’s still only human. Well, humanish. Based on a true human. They can have omniscience, or they can have Jon, but not both at the same time. Consequently, Jon still has that most human of traits: he makes mistakes.

Case in point: the merry horde of flesh-creatures having the time of their lives chasing two grubby Englishmen across the rolling countryside. It's probably karmic payback for all the foxhunting that used to happen here.

"Are you sure," Martin puffs, "that you haven't got any karate moves" – gasp, pant, leap over a small bush – "stuffed into your brain somewhere?"

Jon gulps and nods. His state of relative invulnerability has not, unfortunately, improved his base level of physical conditioning. He died an office monkey, and now he lives again as an escaped office monkey. No rippling abs for this avatar.

In contrast, the things chasing them have rippling abs out the wazoo. They also evidently have never skipped leg day, or arm day for that matter. Brain day does not seem to have made it into their training schedule, though. Jon had tried to do his Archivist bit when they had first attracted the attention of the gang, but had run into an impenetrable wall of blank stupidity. The whole debacle has Jared Hopworth written all over it.

Martin and Jon pelt over a rise in the land and the sloping meadow opens up ahead of them. They’re treated to a lovely view of gold-green field peppered with taller tufty bits, complete with a second band of flesh creatures coming round to cut them off in front. Despite being too brainless for statements, the things apparently can still execute strategic maneuvers. There is just no justice in the world anymore.

Jon and Martin stumble to a halt. From behind them comes the rumble of meaty hands and feet hitting dirt as the rest of the pack catches up. Jesus, they’re even waxed. Martin frantically flips through his mental catalog of their packs, searching for something combat-worthy. Matches? Dental floss? Beside him, Jon has gone very still as he draws upon his own resources. Martin feels a telltale prickling on the back of his neck, and the static rises around them like pressure in an airplane cabin.

The flesh horde senses an avatar at work and hesitates. The static builds until Martin can barely think. He stuffs his fingers in his ears and braces.

Static.

More static.

Static with a side of static.

He glances over at Jon, who has beads of sweat standing out on his face. "Any minute now," yells Martin.

The horde shuffles uncertainly. They've lost their initial wariness and are edging closer. When none of them are immediately blasted into smithereens, they start to move in for real.

We need to get out of here, Martin thinks desperately as the wall of glistening biceps begins to blot out the sky. We need to leave–

Martin grabs Jon's arm. The flesh horde lunges. Martin steps in, pulling Jon with him. The horde closes on empty space.

Their prey is gone.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The static fades by degrees. Martin gradually loosens his grip and lets Jon extract his face from being smushed into Martin's torso. They have not been torn from limb to limb. They are no longer in the rolling green hills. Instead they are… Somewhere. Here.

Martin runs through their litany of usual checks.

“No injuries here. You?”

“I’m-I’m fine too.”

"Are we in immediate danger?"

"… No."

"Is there anything in the vicinity that could cause us harm?"

"Nn... Probably not. Not right away."

Are we safe, Martin wants to ask, but he knows the answer to that one. The best he can hope for is to be safe for now.

For now, they are standing in a place. Looking up, he sees blank white brightness. When he takes a step, his footprint leaves a divot that fills with water before melting back into smooth sand. Jon is turning around slowly on the spot, taking in their new surroundings. It's flat, but not quite featureless. The bare sand is textured with gentle ripples, with the occasional sheen of puddled water. It stretches away from them into the vague distance. There is a damp haze hanging at about the height of their shins that smears the horizon line into the sky.

Jon has finished acclimating – archiving, Martin's brain hisses at him, but he pushes that thought away – and is ready to take a more active part in their newest adventure. He looks over at Martin. "Did you do this?" he asks.

"I-I think so?" Just what this is, Martin isn't quite sure, but he has a pretty good suspicion. He sighs. "We should probably get going. I don't think it's healthy to stay here too long." Martin reaches out his hand, but it closes on empty air. Jon's arms have not moved from his sides. "What is it?"

Jon says, "I don't want to go back out there."

“Neither do I, but we haven’t got much choice about it,” Martin points out. They’re going to have to run the gauntlet whether they like it or not, all to get to the stupid Institute that they had worked so hard to leave.

“I know, but can we –" Jon swallows. "Can we stay? A little longer?" He closes his eyes. "Please. It's, it's quiet here. I can think. It's so quiet."

"Jon –"

Martin doesn't know he should say to this request.

Are we in immediate danger?

No.

"Just for a little while," says Martin.

Everywhere looks like everywhere else, so they choose a spot at random and ease themselves down. Martin immediately feels the dampness seeping into his butt. Jon leans against him and closes his eyes. Martin isn't sure what that means. Sleep is unlikely, so he chooses to interpret it as a generic resting state. He finds himself straining to hear the sound of nonexistent waves. At some point in his life, grade school probably, someone taught him that the ocean disappearing meant that you should run for your life. A tsunami seems out of character for this place, but he raises the issue to Jon just in case.

“The ocean was Peter Lukas’s,” says Jon without opening his eyes. “It’s not coming back.”

Everything is equally flat, no subtle slope to show which way the water went. It’s equally impossible to tell which direction is uphill, for that matter. Relatively safe as they may be, Martin thinks it’s a little too quiet.

"There's no one here anymore," says Jon, not helping. His eyes are still closed.

Martin waits to see where this is going. If it starts turning into a statement, he'll have to deploy fingers in ears.

Sure enough, after a suitably dramatic silence, Jon opens his mouth again. Martin has his hands halfway to the sides of his head, but Jon addresses him directly. "Martin. This could be your place. You could take it. We could stay here. We wouldn't have to, to go through… out there. We don't have to leave. Martin?"

Martin doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to.

Jon deflates. "I know," he says. "I just had to say it."

“It’s all right,” says Martin.

They lapse back into companionable silence. Martin runs his hands through Jon's hair. Jon is thinking Jon-thoughts, which he has the privilege of being able to share in his own time, if he wants to. Martin will let him enjoy that luxury. Martin is thinking about the satisfying smack of his fist hitting Jonah Magnus’s smug face. He keeps that smack in a special place in his heart, ready to pull out as a treat whenever they get a bit of downtime.

He’ll make that scene happen soon. They’ve gone through more than half the fears already. The left hook will just be a preamble, of course. He’ll figure out the rest when they get there.

When they reach the tower.

[theawkwardterrier]

Perfect Targets

Steggy Week 2k19, day 1 Prompt: Endgame

Summary: Steve and Peggy are accustomed to being interrupted.

AO3 link here.

It takes a strangely long time before a certain group of Hydra agents realizes that Margaret Carter provides too much of a stabilizing influence, that she is the lynchpin for so much, and that a neat "accident" would be very helpful.

(Perhaps the semi-anarchic "two more shall take its place" model is helpful in making the organizational spread hard to control or catalog, but it doesn't exactly lead to good collaboration, and it hasn’t gotten easier since Zola was found out and imprisoned before appointing a successor or passing on much of the organizing information.)

Once Carter has been identified as a prime target, an opening domino to continue in their efforts, things do move a little more quickly. It's decided that she isn't a particularly good candidate for an outright assassination: she spends too much time in heavily guarded SHIELD headquarters and even if a friendly agent could be found it would be apparent, too obviously revealing of Hydra’s underground efforts. (And finding a friendly agent would be very difficult. Somehow recruitment is getting harder and harder - is the current generation simply not as eager to join the cause? Obviously the Zola thing was bad publicity, but doesn’t it speak well that they still have their roots sunk deeply enough into society that they can continue onward, causing discord until they are in control?)

Without much of a social life - she seems to like staying in with her husband, so no standing engagement with a lover, no bowling league - the obvious place to eliminate Carter would be in her home. There is the small matter of said husband: surveillance shows him to be a well-built man, though it's nothing a sedative and a well-trained operative like Damian Ford can't handle. According to the tail they have on the husband, he spends a lot of his time chatting to old biddies as he walks them across the street, running volunteer art classes at the local community center, and helping to reach things down from high shelves at the grocery, so Ford figures he'll be a soft target. Nice people always spend too much time begging, or having faith that things will just turn out for the best.

Carter’s a busy woman and her schedule varies from night to night and she even goes into the office on weekends sometimes, but she’s always home for Sunday dinner. Ford arrives at the cute little house at ten past six. Twenty minutes is plenty of time to do away with the husband and fix up any mess before Carter pulls up. By all accounts she’s canny, and it’s always easier when you can get the drop on people. He'll take out the husband, wait for her, then pose the bodies and burn down the place, make it look like a house fire. A practically foolproof plan.

The neighborhood’s tightly packed, but Ford hops a few fences and is in the Carter backyard with no one the wiser. He congratulates himself as he goes over to the back door and jimmies the lock. It clicks, and there’s a little rush, that little bit of thrilling control that always reminds him of why he got into this business in the first place. People think they’re safe, that life has rules that they understand, but he’s there in the background, steering things in ways that most people wouldn’t understand.

He imagines the man inside, cooking the pot roast he can smell even through the still-closed door, listening to some radio program. He probably thinks that he has a say in his own fate, that he’s protected by playing housekeeper for his little wife. There will be just enough time for the realization that everything he ever believed was wrong before Ford strikes the final blow. Ford allows himself a bit of a smile as he begins to turn the doorknob.

“You’re finally coming in? I thought the potatoes were going to burn before you actually did something.”

Ford has never actually heard the man’s voice before. He has only a moment to register it, though, before a fist is swinging directly into his face.

"I'm home." Peggy closes the door, delighting in the solid sound of the lock clicking that signifies that her alone time with her husband has begun. She slips off her shoes and leaves them by the door, puts her case on the console table, and unbuttons her suit jacket. Her hair is sweaty, stuck to the back of her neck. She lifts it up and twists to offer herself a bit of circulation as she walks through to the kitchen. "I know that you've said that we're meant to have air conditioning in cars soon, but soon isn't soon enough."

Dinner is clearly ready - meat, potatoes, beans, salad, and rolls resting in serving dishes on the counter, the table set for two - but Steve isn't there when she arrives. She raises her voice a bit and asks, "Steve?"

"Basement," he calls, his voice distant.

She hadn't even wanted a cellar - too prone to flooding, too musty and damp to really store anything well - but they'd fallen in love with the house regardless. She hadn't thought about the other reasons she wouldn't enjoy it, but now she dreads even opening the door.

"Oh, bloody bollocking hell," she says as she comes far enough down the stairs to see. "I mean—good gracious, we’re back to this again?" They both know that children aren't in the cards for now - it's too dangerous at the moment, and they’ve been taking as thorough care as possible to avoid such an issue - but they've agreed to both try to clean up their language in preparation.

Steve, reading a book on the bottom step, snorts and stands, tucking the paperback into his rear pocket. "At least this one brought drugs. Some of them just show up thinking that they had all it would take—it's a little insulting, honestly."

"Yes, how dare they underestimate your muscles. But I'm sure the sedative will be very helpful." She eyes the man tied up on the chair they've essentially set aside for this purpose. "Not very polite of him to take the backyard route considering the way Mr. Lansing has deduced that his garden has been repeatedly crushed only since we moved here, but I appreciate him not making a mess - it would have been difficult to clean up considering how you broke the broom on the last one's face."

"He interrupted me while I was sweeping," Steve says unrepentantly. "I improvised."

"Hmm, you think they'd learn at least something about you, but I suppose communication and adaptation aren't strong points of theirs." She starts to button her jacket again, but then changes her mind. It’s too damn hot and she’s in her own home. "I should call in to request another transport, but I think we can eat while we wait - I'm absolutely famished, and the transportation team is practically part of the family now."

"I did make some chicken soup for John's mother - I know the treatment is really taking it out of her, and she gave us that great jam a few months ago." She starts up the stairs ahead of him.

"Perhaps I should start scheduling another night for them to be certain I'll be home? It would be nice to have a peaceful Sunday evening every once in a while."

"No one showed up last week. Or the week before," Steve reminds her, though he doesn't have to. She vividly recalls just how they'd celebrated both the lack of interruption for once, and also the apparent disorganization and dissolution of Hydra. "Besides, you wouldn't want to ruin a tradition, would you?"

She turns at the top of the staircase, facing him where he still stands on the step below her. "It doesn't bother you that these are our traditions, that this is what you came back for?"

He holds her face in his hands, fingertips smoothing over her cheekbones. If she blinked, her eyelashes would brush against them. "This is exactly what I came back for. I wouldn't have it any other way."

She thinks about the other men she might have been with instead, men who would have warned her off this type of charade, told her not to worry, that they would take care of rooting out Hydra from inside her agency and the others, men who would have come up with more grandiose plans for massive, public arrests and ignored her words about the way Hydra was a virus. She thinks about what could have been, and how lucky she has been with what is.

She kisses him. "I suppose I wouldn't either," she says, and goes to call the retrieval team.

[theonyxpath]

Yes, we’re down to the last week of the Contagion Chronicle Kickstarter – and so I know you’ll all be sad to know that it’s my last week of coming up with awful pun-ny titles for this blog based on the KS.

(Never fear, in several weeks we’ll be starting the Pirates of Pugmire Kickstarter campaign, and you KNOW I’ll have pirate titles for the run on that!)

(Of course, I may just title them “Yarrr!1”, “Yarrr!2”, and so on.)

But back to The Contagion Chronicle!

We’re looking to finish strong on Thursday, so this is really the home stretch. Hopefully, at this point, backers are able to tell whether the project is intriguing them based on the text that’s almost done being released.

And hopefully, folks who are wondering about backing have seen enough from backers posting here and on social media, and the various Actual Play vids that Matthew and James have linked to, to give the project a shot.

Remember, you can back for a mere pittance and get the chance the review the text yourself without being locked in to pledging at the end. Well, at least until it really is the end on Thursday – at that point Kickstarter charges everybody!

Also, by backing at a bit more than a mere pittance, you’ll also receive links to the PDFs of the two Stretch Goal projects that have been being built up throughout the course of the Kickstarter when they are finished. More locations and some alternative rules in the one, and guides to crossovers on a more nuts and bolts level in the other.

Adventures For Curious Cats illustration by Pat Loboyko

Mighty Matt McElroy wanted me to thank all of you that made our 20th Anniversary WoD books PDF sale a huge success! We’re thrilled that so many of you took it as a chance to catch up on some of the WoD20 books you hadn’t yet checked out! Thanks!

He also mentioned reminding all you awesome people that we have two sales on physical books going on at Indie Press Revolution: for physical hardback copies of the Pathfinder rules edition of the Scarred Lands Players Guide, and for the Deluxe 20th Anniversary physical books that IPR still have in stock.

Or, if you prefer, Studio2 also has the Scarred Lands Players Guide – Pathfinder edition – physical books on a deep discount sale right now. You can check out the links below in the BLURBS!

We’ll be having some very cool info about the Scarred Lands Creature Collection for 5e coming up in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for that. I’ll say this now, the monster art is looking gorgeous!

Book of Oblivion illustration by Drew Tucker

Following up on last week, we immediately started using the new Errata Form for the Geist 2e and Trinity Continuum KS backers as Backer PDFs went out to them.

So far, the form seems to be working fantastically, so thanks to all of you who have used it for sending us your feedback on these two projects!

Along with that, it’s our plan to wrap up the situation with the Scion 2e errata this week. Neall is working on a message for our Scion community to go with the fixes and a downloadable errata sheet, and our shipper is supposed to start sending out all the KS packages this week.

Our apologies to everyone concerned, frustrated, maddened, or just confused by this whole thing. We truly appreciate everyone’s patience in letting us take the time to delve into what happened, and the extent of the number of errata fixes that got “unfixed”.

It’s like that warning on airlines to don your oxygen mask before assisting others. We had to end our own confusion before we could explain what happened and how we’re dealing with it. And that’ll come later this week.

Dystopia Rising: Evolution illustration by Marco Gonzales

One other thing I wanted to note, which came out of the Scion errata thing, but has popped up before, is that when I’m writing this blog, I generally have to bear in mind that for any given situation I’m trying to address, there are many segments of our community I’m addressing.

What I mean is that sometimes I will make a point during discussing one thing that is also addressing other concerns that other members of our community have. These are folks that maybe don’t feel comfortable voicing their concerns in the dangerous seas of social media, but who have sent me private messages. I need to be responsive to them – but I don’t want to “out” them.

(And there are also those private messages that rip me a new one, that I also don’t share because I’m not here to get into flame-wars, but which have items in them that aren’t true and I don’t want to leave unaddressed).

In both those kinds of cases, if you see a series of messages and I respond and seem to veer off to talk about something else that’s not directly prompted by the thread – this is what is probably on my mind with my answer.

After all, we have a community containing folks of all ages, all kinds of interests, all walks of life, and who may love one, some, or all of our game worlds, and I need to always bear that in mind and try and give everybody the connections they need to explore our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

Now in it’s LAST FEW DAYS, the Contagion continues to spread, passing 1275 backers and infecting all in its path with more and more Stretch Goals! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/contagion-chronicle-a-chronicles-of-darkness-cross

The Contagion Chronicle actual play continues on the Onyx Path YouTube channel! https://youtu.be/WR92yIuafU4

He also asks for your Contagion Chronicle-related questions here: https://youtu.be/axvrFeQOvEg

Matthew’s interview on Flames Rising about Contagion Chronicle: http://www.flamesrising.com/matthew-dawkins-is-infected-with-the-contagion-chronicle/

Our next Kickstarter starting in several weeks will be for Pirates of Pugmire!

ONYX PATH MEDIA

Illustration by Charles Bates

On this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast, our team takes a deep dive into the epic “Greco-Apocalyptic” fantasy of The Scarred Lands game line! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

And Here’s More Media About Our Worlds:

It’s a new episode of the Onyx Path News from host, Matthew Dawkins: https://youtu.be/Cjqey_N3_jQ

Matthew also lets loose several previews regarding Mummy: The Curse Second Edition here: https://youtu.be/X9lbz4TWY9s

If YOU have a podcast, YouTube or Twitch channel, or talk about games on a blog or other website, and want to perform actual plays or make reviews of our games, please reach out to the Gentleman Gamer on the Onyx Path forum. From there we’ll share emails and get you started, so when you do start producing content we’ll be able to promote it on our blog and YouTube channel!

The Contagion Chronicle actual play continues on the Onyx Path YouTube channel! https://youtu.be/WR92yIuafU4

Red Moon Roleplaying have commenced their actual play of Scarred Lands, in a campaign Matthew Dawkins is running named The Great Vilhaim Heist! https://youtu.be/QUFVS4g6gDg

Caffeinated Conquests also continue with their foray into the Scarred Lands, with the Gauntlet of Spiragos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lVL40fkPX8

And as if that wasn’t enough, Devil’s Luck Gaming are still hard at it on the dangerous seas of Scarred Lands on their Twitch channel! https://www.twitch.tv/DEVILSLUCKGAMING

The Story Told Podcast have not one but two shows for you to check out, as they continue their chronicle of Dragon-Blooded for Exalted 3rd Edition, and have even reviewed it today! https://thestorytold.libsyn.com/

Here’s the Gamer’s Table again with their They Came from Beneath the Sea! actual play: http://gamerstable.com/cheesy-sci-fi-horror/

Cheesy Sci-Fi/Horror

And Occultists Anonymous, the Mage: The Awakening chronicle, also continues here: https://youtu.be/i4NNs_G0NNw

If Vampire is your thing, here’s an actual play of the Blood War for Vampire: The Requiem on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhai2P1uktAzDEch4d1r2JZir0VqUrBQJ

And the Dramatic Failure podcast crew continue with their Geist: The Sin-Eaters chronicle too! https://dramaticfailure.podbean.com/

Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!

ELECTRONIC GAMING:

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is both rolling and rocking!

Here’s an update from the App devs:

Onyx Dice!  We’ve recently released the Changeling: The Lost, Trinity Continuum: Aeon dice, and now the Geist dice.  Next up on our radar is: Demon: The Fallen,  Mummy: The Resurrection,  Kindred of the East, Vampire Dark Ages, and Mummy: The Curse.

We have a serious issue on the Pixel and Motorola phones that prevent the user from using the app correctly.  A fix is coming shortly.  A temporary workaround is to minimize the app without shutting it down, and then restore it.

ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue you bought it from. Reviews really, really help us with getting folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio 2: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can now order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=296

The Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) and WoD 20th Anniversary Deluxe sales on IPR are still going until the end of the month!: https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Deals-and-Specials/

DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, we’ll be offering our monthly Exalted 3rd PDF releases on DriveThruRPG!

CONVENTIONS

UK Games Expo: May 31st – June 2nd From the US comes Eddy Webb, Matt McElroy, and Rich Thomas to join with Matthew Dawkins, Steffie de Vann, John Burke, Chris Allen, and Klara Herbol! Gen Con: August 1st – August 4th Save Against Fear: Oct 12-14 GameHoleCon: October 31st – November 3rd We’ll also be back at PAX Unplugged later this year.

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM FAST EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

Geist2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

TC: Aeon Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Wraith20 Fiction Anthology (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

DR:E Jumpstart (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Redlines

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

TC: Aeon Ready Made Characters (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Heroic Land Dwellers (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Blood Sea: Crimson Abyss for 5e (Scarred Lands)

DR:E Threat Guide (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

Second Draft

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Let The Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Chicago Folio/Dossier (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Development

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Memento Mori: the GtSE 2e Companion (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Creatures of the World Bestiary (Scion 2nd Edition)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Manuscript Approval:

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Scion Ready Made Characters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Pirates of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Distant Worlds (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Editing:

Spilled Blood (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

CofD Dark Eras 2 (Chronicles of Darkness)

Post-Editing Development:

C20 Novel: Cup of Dreams (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

V5 Chicago By Night (Vampire: The Masquerade)

V5 Chicago By Night Screen (Vampire: The Masquerade)

CofD Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Witch-Queen of the Shadowed Citadel (Cavaliers of Mars)

Indexing:

Trinity Core

Trinity Aeon

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

Ex3 Monthly Stuff  

Chicago By Night – Art coming in slowly but surely.

They Came From Beneath the Sea!

EX3 Lunars

Hunter: The Vigil 2

Contagion Chronicle – KS.

VtR Spilled Blood – Hiring artists.

M20 Book of the Fallen – Contracted.

Dark Eras 2 – Getting artnotes in from devs.

CoM – Witch Queen of the Shadowed Citadel – Contracted.

Pirates of Pugmire – KS art contracted, sketches and finals coming in.

Marketing Stuff

In Layout

Dystopia Rising: Evolution – With Josh.

Shunned By the Moon

Scion Jumpstart

Aeon Aexpansion

Proofing

C20 Player’s Guide – At WW for approval.

The Realm

Book of Oblivion – Inputting last corrections.

Dragon-Blooded Screen – At WW for approval.

Signs of Sorcery – First Proof.

Trinity Core and Aeon Screens

At Press

Scion Hero – At Studio2, preparing to ship to backers.

Scion Origin – At Studio2, preparing to ship to backers.

Scion Dice – At Studio2, preparing to ship to backers.

Scion Screen – At Studio2, preparing to ship to backers.

Fetch Quest – Shipped to backers, prepping PoD version.

In Media Res – PDF out to backers, gathering errata with new sheet.

Geist 2e – PDF out to backers, gathering errata with new sheet.

Scarred Lands Spell Cards – PoD proofs ordered.

Adventures for Curious Cats – Going out to backers.

Tales of Excellent Cats – Going out to backers.

TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: 

Today is Earth Day, and we live here, so let’s celebrate doing what we can to keep Gaia alive!

[intergalactic-zoo]

We're firmly in the Silver Age with this week's entry, "The Complete Story of Superman's Life," which begins much like last week's entry with the claim that "millions want to know" where Superman came from and how he got his amazing abilities. And the title page boasts that some of the facts have been revealed before, but this is the first time that the story has been told in full. So, here's 1961's Superman (vol. 1) #146! Creative Team: Otto Binder and Al Plastino All-Star Summary: Doomed planet. Desperate scientist. Last chance. Kindly couple. 

Key Elements: Superman is Earth's mightiest hero, with many amazing abilities. His story starts on the distant world Krypton, which orbits a red sun. Krypton was home to an advanced civilization with futuristic technology, as well as many fantastic creatures. Krypton is beset by damaging quakes, and Jor-El warns the Council of Scientists that these are signs that the planet will soon explode. Jor-El suggests that they build space arks to evacuate the planet, but the Council laughs at him and throws him out. Jor-El conducts experiments with small rockets, ultimately building one large enough for him and his wife Lara to send their baby son Kal-El to Earth. The rocket escapes just as the planet explodes, and the debris turns into radioactive Kryptonite.  The rocket lands on Earth, and Kal-El is discovered by farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent, a childless couple living near Smallville. They leave the child with an orphanage, but plan to come back to adopt him. At the orphanage, the child displays superhuman strength. The Kents legally adopt him, and name him Clark, after Martha's maiden name. The child demonstrates amazing abilities, and by using the indestructible blankets he was found in, they're able to make clothes that can withstand his powers. The Kents sell the farm and move to Smallville, where Clark starts school and eventually becomes the teenage superhero Superboy. He keeps his true identity secret, and begins wearing glasses (fashioned from the indestructible remains of his rocket) as a disguise. When neighbor Lana Lang begins to suspect that Clark is Superboy, he takes elaborate steps to protect his dual identity. Eventually he discovers that he came from the planet Krypton, which explains his amazing powers. Clark grows up and goes to college, but realizes that maintaining a secret identity will require him to pretend to be meek and mild-mannered his whole life.

The Kents die shortly after Clark's graduation from college, but not before Pa instructs him to use his powers for the benefit of humanity. He decides to move to Metropolis, but when Superboy leaves, Smallville comes out to celebrate him. In thanks, Superboy bakes a cake so large that everyone in town can have a slice. Clark Kent becomes a reporter for the Daily Planet, so he can learn about crimes as they happen. And when they do, he's off to save the world as Superman! Interesting Deviations: While the story in The Amazing World of Superman mentioned Earth's yellow sun, this is the first origin we've examined that specifically noted the color of Krypton's sun. I'd be interested to know when that bit of lore entered the mythos. Clearly sometime between 1948 and 1961, and I would venture a guess that either Siegel or Binder was behind it.

It's fascinating how the demonstrations of Krypton's advanced civilization have changed over time. Originally it was that they had super powers, in 1948 it was that they could build amazingly fast flying machines, and here it's that they have robotic laborers and that they can remove the pollution from their atmosphere.

Given how Krypton's destruction has become an allegory for ignoring environmental catastrophe, this is an especially interesting element. 

This is the first mention we've had of Krypton's other fauna, in this case a metal-eater kept in a Kryptonian zoo behind glass bars. Ethics of such rudimentary zoos aside, I kind of wish it were a thought-beast instead. The physics behind Krypton's destruction receive more elaboration here, with Jor-El identifying that the planet's core is made of uranium and that a chain reaction has begun, making Krypton into a "gigantic atomic bomb." Krypton's destruction being used as an allegory for the existential threats facing the contemporary world is, clearly, not a new phenomenon. The reason for the Council's rejection of Jor-El's predictions has changed considerably from origin to origin, but this one is unique in my experience: the Council possesses a "Cosmic Clock" that predicts disasters, and it says Krypton will be safe.

There's a tendency in these origins to make it seem like Jor-El is a bit of a crank and a doomsayer, but I like that this story pushes in the opposite direction, making the Council look like fanatics, blindly trusting in this mechanical Nostradamus. You can see shades of how Brainiac gets involved in Krypton's destruction in The Animated Series. It's 1961, and we've met another survivor of Krypton at this point, so we get a panel of Jor-El discussing his theories with his brother Zor-El, and a surprisingly lengthy editor's note linking the exchange to Supergirl's origin.

Also, assuming the Kryptonian calendar is like the American one, Krypton blew up on a Tuesday. Speaking of 1961, the existence of the Space Race means that Jor-El's methods have come to mirror that of Earth space agencies. We see Krypto here for the first time in an origin story, and a mention that Krypto's rocket isn't the first test flight Jor-El has conducted. Beppo the Super-Monkey was introduced three years earlier. We've seen in a couple of origins that Kryptonians were familiar with Earth, but here Jor-El discovers it himself. There's no mention here of trying to build it large enough to hold Lara as well. I think this is also the first origin we've looked at where Kal-El was verbal before he was launched into space. Not only do we see Kryptonite mentioned here, but also the origins of Red Kryptonite.

Unlike most versions of the origin, here Kal-El is thrown from the rocket when it lands, but is unharmed because anything from Krypton is indestructible on Earth. Anyrhing except the rocket, which explodes due to its super-fuel, all of which seems like a pretty tremendous oversight on Jor-El's part. The rocket being destroyed was a frequent element in Golden Age origins, but I'm surprised to see it happening here in the era of "indestructible blankets became the Superboy costume." Though there's enough of it left for the Kents to recognize it as a space ship. Kal is left on the doorstep of the orphanage under the cover of night. We see some of the classic feats of strength at the orphanage that we've seen before, but here they go unnoticed by the staff. The Kents, on the other hand, start cataloging his powers immediately. Though the sheer number of otherwise life-threatening situations the Kents allow Clark to get into makes them look pretty negligent.

We see the further influence of the popularity of Superboy stories here, as the Kents sell the farm and buy a general store in Smallville before Clark begins school. Clark adopts his Superboy identity after mastering all of his powers except flying, which he eventually conquers with the help of Pa Kent, some weather balloons, and a rope.

The story introduces the super-robots, Clark's secret tunnel out of town and the secret rooms he built in the Kent house, and his reunion with Krypto. Clark's discovery of his abilities is notable first in that it repeats the justification given all the way back in Action Comics #1, using an ant and a grasshopper as Earth examples of creatures with strength like Superman's, and second in that it distinguishes between the powers he has due to Earth's weaker gravity, and the powers he has due to the yellow sun.

At the end, we get a neat little space-age addition to the old "It's a bird!" exclamation, inserting "a rocket" in there.

Additional Commentary: The issue starts with a brief run-down of Superman's powers and character, which culminates in this neat little panel. I'm always down for Superman, champion of the underdog.

The scenes of Clark leaving Smallville are almost verbatim what we'd see in The Amazing World of Superman, down to people saving their slice of cake and Superman becoming a citizen of the world.

It wouldn’t be entirely surprising that the 1973 origin would hew so closely to this one, except that the last section is really the only place where it does. The biggest deviation is Superman pledging his loyalty to the United States in this version, likely speaking to the greater Cold War tensions in 1961 than 1973.

The Rocket: We'll see variations on this version of this red-and-blue rocket in several origins, and to be honest we see at least a couple of variations (differing mostly in how pointed the nosecone is) in these panels. It's not particularly distinctive, but at least it has those retro fins and the color scheme. Three out of five exploding Kryptons.