#like he has his fingers in other pies now and he's probably going to pursue less acting projects soon to work on those other pies

[astrovian]

can I just say that I love Richard's new seemingly-devil-may-care attitude

[devouredbyflame]

I know praying isn’t always about a “request” but out of curiosity, when they do, what do people pray to Loki for? When people do the request kind of praying. When people pray for fertility or things to go well money wise or for health it seems like it’s cause that God is known to have power over that thing in some capacity, like Iðnn for health or Freya for love or fertility, but I don’t actually know what Loki is supposed to be able to affect. I’m fine to just talk to him sometime, I mainly want to contact him out of curiosity, maybe ask some advice at some point if he’s willing to give it. Im just kinda wondering. I know Gods don’t just have power over One Thing a piece, they’re not that limited or one-dimensional, but as far as general associations go, I’ve tried to research but people just say God of chaos or transformation. People mention “working with” him in witch stuff, so I assume there’s like, a specific area of that he’s more helpful with? But I could be wrong. Just wondering, and haven’t been able to find anything yet.

You’re going to find varying ideas with different results each. It really depends on what you look at “praying” as. For any Deity, you can pray to give thanks or gratitude, pray for guidance and support and things to work in your favor. Offerings are also of value that backs the request of your prayer. I wouldn’t look at offerings as a bartering system because that can go sideways with Loki, but rather just a way to emphasize your gratitude and replenish the God in question for Their deed.

Now, I only work with Loki so I pretty much go to Loki for everything but He goes to other Gods and makes requests on my behalf like a representative. If it isn’t within His specific domain, He will find Whomever it is and convince Them for support.

That being said, you can go to Loki about anything you desire. His specialties seem to be in getting people their just desserts, luck, bargain shopping, protection, and manipulating seemingly impossible events to go in yours and His favor. Do be warned that Loki also tends to make sure whatever He does for you, He has a reason to share in it. He usually only functions if it goes in His favor, and not just in yours. So sometimes that may mean your request can go sideways whether you want it to or not. He tends to take things into His own hands and make them complicated so it typically doesn’t go the way you might think it should.

The only time He gets iffy is if it’s about death and dying in which case He isn’t terribly interested in responding to that and will refer you to His daughter Hel sooner than making good on any request. Outside of that, He is known to have many fingers in many pies and will vouch for anything should He believe it worthy of pursuing.

Be as specific as possible and do not mince words with Loki. He is the best lawyer you’re ever going to meet and will manipulate wording to reflect something that is completely different from what you expect.

However, He is impeccably impressive when it comes to giving people gifts. He is well-known for making good on His promises and paying back tenfold whatever you put in. He goes above and beyond and is lovely when it comes to thoughtful gifting.

Praying isn’t as formal as some people seem to want it to be. Loki is incredibly informal and would prefer conversations to be casual and authentic rather than a formalized planned ritualized saying. I wouldn’t be like “hey, fucker, listen here” if you’re just starting to know Him, but be respectful in the very least because He is still a Deity. Don’t dish what you can’t take with Loki. Disrespect tends to be be grounds for more disrespect regardless of your relationship or how well you think you know Him.

That was probably more information than you’d ever ask for. But there it is.

[sapphire-weapon]

“sleeping with Ada was the inciting incident behind Leon’s drinking problem and he doesn’t even know it” theory/analysis - wait have you talked about this before? I missed it if you did :(

No, I haven't. I meant to. I actually have a half-finished post about it sitting in my drafts, but then the ADHD kicked in and I got distracted and wandered off and haven't bothered to go back to it since.

The thing with this analysis is that like... it's both not that complicated and also very complicated and abstract, and so just the thought of explaining it feels daunting.

To put it in the simplest terms possible: Leon spent RE2 and RE4 chasing an idealized version of Ada that didn't actually exist, so when he finally got the actual Ada in bed and realized that it didn't bring him the catharsis that he was looking for -- and that he actually still felt incomplete/damaged -- his brain just kind of shut that down and rejected that reality and didn't want to face it, which then led to a drinking problem that culminated in a damn near full-blown emotional breakdown in RE6.

It all sort of ties back to my analysis of the relationship between Leon and Ada as it exists in OG -- where Leon has tricked himself into believing that Ada is the only thing that's keeping the memory of his old self alive. We as the audience know that that's objectively not true, and that it's Sherry and how she's modeled her life and her worldview after him that's keeping the old Leon alive -- but that's also really painful for Leon to think about, because he's under the impression that he fucked up Sherry's life so badly that he doesn't deserve to be in it anymore, so it's easier for him to just project all that shit onto Ada.

And so chasing Ada was about more than wanting to romantically/sexually pursue the pretty lady who makes his heart go dokidoki. Despite the bond that they have, Ada is still mostly a mystery to Leon and always seems to be 20 steps ahead of him -- and so, on some level, chasing her was less about getting the girl and more about finding the answers that he's been looking for.

But Ada is just a person. She has her fingers in a lot of pies, sure, but she's not omnicient or omnipotent. She doesn't have the answers to how or why or when things went wrong in Leon's life, and she doesn't have the answers as to how to fix them or make them better.

So, when Leon slept with her and found that divine inspiration didn't enter his consciousness through the tip of his dick and travel its way down his boner and then up his spine and then into his brain like the weirdest venereal disease ever -- instead of feeling relieved at finally having taken care of the sexual tension between them, or comforted by her physical presence, or humbled by her intimacy -- he probably just felt... empty.

This was something he'd wanted so badly. He'd been chasing it for so long. And now that he'd finally gotten it, it was nothing that he'd hoped/thought it would be.

Because he wasn't really chasing Ada. He was running from his own demons, and Ada just happened to have been in front of him.

And instead of face that, instead of deal with that, his brain shut down and went NOPE DIDN'T HAPPEN and reached for literally anything that could distract it from that truth -- regardless of the form it took. Whether it was a slavish devotion to his job that was quickly leading to burnout or the flask he always kept in his back pocket -- it didn't matter what it was.

A lot of this theory/analysis/whatever you want to call it really comes from how fucking weird and bizarre their conversation about it is in Damnation. It always struck me as weird. This isn't how normal fucking people talk to each other about setting up a booty call.

Ada: By the way, when are we going to, um... carry on from where we left off that night? Leon: Any time but now. Ada: You're angry with me, aren't you? Suits you.

Something happened that night that: A) left things feeling unfinished and B) was emotionally charged enough that Ada is under the impression that Leon's mad at her for it, but C) wasn't a turn-off enough for Ada to not want to try again.

It almost seems like Ada had picked up on a weird vibe coming from him and didn't let him stay the whole night through. It probably went something like:

sex happened -> lying in bed together in the afterglow -> something about Leon's general demeanor post-coitus just doesn't feel right -> Ada pulls a "you should probably go" -> Leon gets butthurt but leaves without a fight -> Ada spends the next however many months going "that dick was bomb tho" -> they meet up in Damnation -> Ada decides "no the dick was worth it idc how weird he got" -> propositions him for a round two

I don't think that round two ever happened, though -- or, if it did, it just made things worse. And that's why, by the time we reach RE6, Leon's attachment to Ada has become so unhealthy and unhinged that he damn near has a total break from reality towards the end.

Chasing Ada had given him a personal goal to work towards -- it gave him hope that there was still some lost, forgotten part of himself that he could reclaim. And now that he knew that that was all just a massive cope and none of it was real, he didn't know what to do with himself.

It's not dissimilar to the idea of a character feeling empty after finally exacting the revenge they'd been planning for so, so long. Without that goal to work towards, what else do they have?

This is why the progression of RE6 to Vendetta to Death Island is so important.

In RE6, Leon finally comes to terms with the fact that he doesn't know who Ada is and probably never will, which is why he tells Helena "No" when she tells him to go after her.

And with the Ada thing resolved, Leon throws himself into his work, because what else does he have? But his job makes him completely fucking miserable, so it doesn't fix or stop the drinking habit he's developed.

But then in Vendetta, here comes Chris to drag Leon to his feet and tell him he's not alone -- which is the first time ever, in Leon's entire adult life, that that has ever happened. Ever since Claire left him and Sherry on the side of the road outside of Raccoon City, Leon has been going through this nightmare hellscape alone. So, for Chris to actually come around and help support that weight is a massive, massive fucking deal.

And now, by Death Island, Leon has finally started to really wake up to the reality that is his life. He's more grounded and self-aware in DI than he has ever been at any point in his entire character arc.

And I just so badly want to believe that a massive breakthrough is coming for him in RE9 and he actually puts his foot down and takes control of his life for the first time ever. Because, remember: Leon gave up years and years ago. His life is the way that it is because he allowed it to become that way.

It's long since past due for him to finally stand up for himself.

But we'll see how it goes.

[supersonic-womanofyou]

My first attempt at an interview fic! Read this on Ao3, or under the cut. 

Spotlight on Eric Bittle

 Interview by Elizabeth Chu

Photographs by Jack Zimmermann

  The internet personality, author, and baker talks about his childhood, his relationship with Providence Falconers captain Jack Zimmermann, being a LGBTQ role model, why he struggled with his overnight success, and his upcoming cookbook.

 I meet Eric Bittle in person for the first time on a Saturday afternoon, in a trendy coffee shop in downtown Providence. Even though I’ve heard of it in passing, I’ve never been inside. Eric obviously has, since when I approach the table where he’s chosen to sit, Eric is already chatting familiarly with one of the waitresses. 

 But after a couple minutes talking to Eric, I mentally revisit that assumption. Eric Bittle has a way of putting people at ease, of making even the most distant strangers feel like long-lost friends-- through his warm personality, but also through his seemingly-never ending supply of homemade baked goods. By the time I sit down across from him, I’m already in possession of a whole pie and two jars of jam. 

 Most of the celebrities I’ve met have on screen personalities that are vastly different in person, but the Eric Bittle I meet that Saturday could have been pulled directly out of his Netflix series or one of the episodes from his vastly popular vlog. He’s perennially bright and cheery, with a Southern drawl that’s been blunted by years in New England, but is still very present. When I mention it, Eric laughs. “I used to hate my accent, but I think it’s become as part of my brand as pies are. I’d probably lose all of my followers if I started talking like a Yankee,” he jokes.

 The source of Bittle’s accent is his hometown-- Madison, Georgia, a town of barely four thousand people. When I ask what drove him to move up north, he gestures to himself as a whole. “Not too many opportunities for a baking, skating, Beyonce-loving gay boy in Morgan County.” He turns more serious, though, when he continues: “I was bullied a lot as a child. When I think back to my childhood, to living in Georgia-- for people who looked or acted different, it could be suffocating. I remember feeling like my future was just so starkly outlined for me-- going to a state school, settling down with a nice girl, spending the rest of my life just pretending. It sounds like overdramatic teenage angst now, I know, but I always knew if I wanted to live honestly, I needed to get out.” 

 And so Eric applied-- and was accepted to--Samwell University in Massachusetts, which touts itself as one of the most LGBTQ friendly schools in America, under the motto “one in four, maybe more.” According to Eric, it’s where he began to come to terms with himself and his identity, where he finally said the words “I’m gay” out loud, where he continued to bake and vlog and began to think seriously about a career in both, and where, perhaps most famously, he met his now-husband, Providence Falconers captain Jack Zimmermann. 

 “We both played on the hockey team, but we weren’t exactly friends at first,” Bittle says about his relationship with Zimmermann.

 So, of course, I have to ask him-- what is it like, being a baker married to a hockey player? Eric and his husband seem like almost comical counterpoints in every aspect of their careers and personalities. Eric makes his living through baking and cooking, Jack plays in the notoriously-macho NHL. Eric has built a brand and a food empire off of cheeriness and Southern hospitality, Jack has a reputation of being a “hockey robot,” with his cold, generally disagreeable demeanor during interviews.

 “Well, with it all laid out like that, it really does sound like we’re night and day,” Eric laughs. “But honestly? We just work. We both love skating-- that’s what we bonded over in college, actually. We also both technically majored in history, even though we have very different specialities and did so for pretty different reasons. But even our differences are compatible. Like, I love talking, he doesn’t, so we’re never talking over each other or silent. Also, pro hockey players have to eat an insane number of calories, so Jack’s always there to eat my cooking, and that’s really all I can ask for.”

 Eric and Jack, who played on a line together briefly at Samwell, took the sports world by storm seven years ago when they kissed on the ice after the Falconers won the Stanley Cup, making Jack the first openly LGBTQ player in the NHL. The pair broke yet another barrier for LGBTQ people in hockey soon after, when Eric became the first openly gay NCAA Division I hockey captain. 

 When I ask Eric if he ever thought about following in his partner’s footsteps and pursuing a career in professional hockey, he just laughs. “Oh, definitely not. I love being on the ice, but I don’t think I would have made it very far in the NHL or AHL.”

 His fame may have started out in the (relatively niche) world of professional hockey, but since graduating from Samwell, Eric has found incredible success beyond the legacy of that historic kiss. His first book, published five years ago, spent several weeks on the New York Times Food and Diet bestseller list, and was applauded as a fresh, vibrant take on Southern cuisine and desserts.  Check, Please  reads as seventy percent cookbook, thirty percent memoir, with every page infused with Bittle’s indomitable, ubiquitous personality. His vlog, which he started in high school and has updated continuously ever since, has millions of subscribers, who tune in every week to hear Bittle talk about everything from pies and cookies to relationships and family. Finally, and perhaps most famously, Bittle hosted his own Netflix series last year, applauded as a combination of Marie Kondo and Queer Eye, in which he taught baking with his usual brand of positivity and universal appeal, interspersed with feel-good moments and life lessons.

 It strikes me that while Bittle’s career may have been jump-started by his relationship with Jack Zimmermann, he’s certainly managed to make a name for himself in the years since. To the hockey world, he may still be an afterthought to Jack Zimmermann, but to the baking world (and a good portion of Netflix’s viewership), the name Jack Zimmermann is an afterthought to that of Eric Bittle. 

 “Jack definitely gets a kick out of it when we’re in public together and I get recognized, and he doesn’t,” Eric says. “It’s kind of crazy, actually-- I definitely couldn’t have imagined all this ten years ago, back in college or in high school.”

 And what did Eric imagine himself doing? “To be honest, I don’t think I had any idea. When I decided to go to Samwell, I didn’t even have a major in mind or anything. I just wanted to get out of Georgia. And at Samwell-- I mean, I majored in American History, of all things. Talk about a useless degree! I literally just chose the major that let me take the most baking or baking-adjacent classes.” He pauses, and laughs. “It drives Jack crazy, actually-- I never have a plan for anything, really, big or small. I’m the kind of person who just crosses my fingers and hope it all shakes out for the best.”

 His husband’s opinion aside, this tactic seems to have worked out pretty well for Eric. His next, eagerly anticipated cookbook, which follows much in the vein of his Netflix show, is due to come out in two months this August. “It’s going to be focused on easy, cheap cooking and baking that’s still healthy and fulfilling. I think there’s a mindset that to make tasty, healthy food you need to have expensive ingredients and tools, or a lot of time on your hands, or have a lot of experience. But like-- I made food for an entire hockey team in a frat house on a college student’s allowance for four years, so I know something about cooking healthy on a budget,” he jokes. “I really just want to make good, healthy food accessible for everyone.”

 Well, he’s managed to do that, and more. Eric Bittle’s career so far has certainly been a whirlwind. He’s gone from publishing his first cookbook to hosting his own show in what’s only been a matter of years.

 “I do have to pinch myself sometimes, “ Eric says about his dizzyingly quick ascent to fame. “Like, Carrie Underwood tagged me in a tweet about hockey husbands the other day. Carrie Underwood!” The disbelief is clear in his voice. “I mean, Jack’s always been the bigger fan of country music, but the Georgia boy in me had to lie down for a moment when I saw the notification. So I think-- I still can’t really believe all of it, you know? It feels like yesterday I was still about to graduate college, with barely any plan and procrastinating on my thesis. And I guess sometimes-- sometimes I do feel a bit guilty, you know? Like-- there’s so many people fighting for this, fighting for what I’ve got-- getting books published, getting a show, everything else. I definitely had a leg up in name recognition because of Jack and hockey, and even when Jack and weren’t married yet, I never had to worry about having a roof over my head if the vlog wasn’t bringing in enough money or the cookbook wasn’t selling well enough.” He pauses, pensive, and it’s not the first time in this conversation that I mentally reassess my first assumptions about Eric Bittle. Behind the nationally famous smile and welcoming accent is a thoughtful young man still grappling with becoming a public figure and a role model, with a sprinkling of imposter syndrome, who doesn’t understand exactly what millions of people across the country see in him. 

 But perhaps that as well is an unfair assessment. It’s clear that Eric has a refreshing genuiness that few public figures possess, and that this is part of what has managed to speak to so many people from all backgrounds. That on some level, his modesty about his own fame is part of what constitutes his appeal. 

 When I mention this, Eric flushes a bright shade of pink. “Oh, aren’t you a flatterer. Well, I suppose so.”

 So after this cookbook, what’s next? Is fatherhood on the horizon? 

 “I did mention that I never have a plan, didn’t I?” he quips. But he does confide that he and Jack have been talking about having a family. “We’ve always wanted kids, but there’s always been something going on. Jack’s job and being on roadies all the time, me trying to get my career started. We don’t want our kids to be raised by babysitters and nannies, you know? We want to be there for them, so while it’s definitely something we’re considering, we’re trying to balance timing. But it has been a couple years, so.” He blushes. “We’re revisiting the idea.”

 “But other than that-- I have been approached about the possibility of some other projects and shows in the future, but I probably can’t talk about those,” he says. “And though it’s always been a dream of mine to own a bakery, that would be a pretty huge commitment. So I guess I’m just trying to say that I’m not really sure exactly what comes next.” Nevertheless, he grins, as if to say,  and isn’t that exciting ?

 Fatherhood or his own bakery-- I’m sure that no matter what comes next for Eric Bittle, he’ll forge ahead with his characteristic positivity and Southern grace, with plenty of baked goods along the way. *

[sons-of-the-morning-star]

I've put this off long enough

This is Chapter/Episode 2 of Sons of The Morning Star: Habilitation

It is a very nice morning in the Wagner-Thorn-Langdon-Kline-Young house, FROM THE OUTSIDE, AT LEAST.

Inside, emotional tensions are high, with Michael and Lucius having another glare down, Jack struggling to get Dog to let go of a plate, and Damien struggling to get Adam out of his room. It has been less than a week, and the news don't know about the future Senator's new home life.

Yet.

Damien gives another knock on Adam's door, trying his damndest to not lose his mind.

"Adam, come on. We're about to eat breakfast, the food's gonna get cold, and you need to eat. GET. UP."

"I'll eat later," Adam calls from on his bed, though if this was an actual TV show, we'd only see Damien at the door. "Leave me alone."

Damien groans, "Fine." With a twitchy eye, he joins the others for breakfast.

Michael and Lucius avoid each other as best as they can while Jack smiles at Damien, successful at getting his plate back.

"Still no luck with him. He won't come out."

"Let him starve, then," Michael scoffs. "Maybe Crowley and Azriel can come pick him up and adopt him."

"Aziraphale," Jack corrects.

"Whatever."

Jack deflates, but finishes his breakfast and turns to Lucius.

"So anything interesting planned today?"

Lucius writes a message and slides it to Jack. 'Just a couple meetings. Nothing special.'

"Well, you'll always have us to call, if you get bored. And Damien."

Lucius groans as Damien grabs his things.

"Okay, I'm heading out. Michael, Jack, please don't kill each other and make sure Adam eats, got it?"

Both nod, though Jack is more enthusiastic, and Damien turns to Lucius and gives him a one armed hug.

"Have a nice day at work, honey!"

Jack and Michael burst into a fit of laughter as Damien dodges a punch from Lucius and leaves the house.

Lucius leaves soon after, telling the two to keep an eye on Adam and Dog, and to keep the radio on incase they hear anything new.

Michael nods and Jack full on agrees, waving his phone to Lucius and offering again that if he gets bored, he can call.

Lucius leaves and Michael gets up and grabs his coat.

"Where are you going? We're supposed to stay here and keep an ear out for any news."

"Lucius is not our father."

"He is now. And Damien," Jack states matter-of-factly.

"Neither of them are here. And what will you do to stop me from leaving? Flood the continent? Cause a plague? Start a world wide famine?"

When Jack doesn't have answer, Michael smirks and leaves.

If this was a TV episode, the camera would follow and face Michael as he leaves the house and revels in his small victory, and would show that the window to Adam's room is opened, something for astute viewers to notice.

CUT TO LUCIUS!

Lucius is having a time of it as he can barely concentrate, but still tries to listen.

It TOTALLY has to do with the fact he is now a father.

One of his campaigning partners is talking about people's sightings of people with wings and graffiti of pentecosts(THAT'S the evil, devil, Satan symbol, not a pentagram. A pentagram, the avatar/profile pic for this Tumblr, is a wiccan, pagan symbol for protection) on court houses and churches, when his phone rings.

He puts it on silent, and shows himself doing it, but he still gets phone calls.

His 'staff' tell him it's okay, and he opens a FaceTime-esque call from- guess. Just guess.

"Lucius? Is that you? Can you hear me?"

Lucius nods as he fights the growing urge to smash his cellphone on the ground.

"Michael left. He told me not to bother telling you, but I am anyway because he's not listening at all."

"Mr. Wagner, who is that?" One of his campaign advisers asks.

Before Lucius can hang up, Jack shouts out, "Who are you talking to? Are you working? CAN I SEE!?"

More advisers speak up and Lucius cringes as he turns his phone and reveals Jack, who's covered in flour and chocolate and some peanut butter; a surprise for Lucius when he gets home.

"Who are you?"

"Jack Kline," Jack replies. "Lucius adopted me and the rest of our broth-"

Lucius hangs up, turns off his phone, and tosses it on to a near by table with coffee and refreshments on it.

'What were you saying about all the vandalism recently?'

His staff, however, isn't listening, now more eager on the fact that Lucius has adopted someone, or multiple people, and taken them into his care.

"Mr. Wagner, what if we show the public you're caring these orphans? Your brothers? We have heard complaints lately that you're coming off as an 'iron fist' sort of guy."

Lucius is literally speechless, groaning into his hands as they pitch more ideas, even noting that if he stops the vandalisms and shows his 'soft' side to the public, he'll get more supporters.

CUT TO DAMIEN!

On the topic of these vandalisms, Damien has to take pictures of the symbols for the newspapers and online articles, noting that he could draw some better than what the 'artists' have done.

One in particular makes him freeze, and makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end:

A message written in white paint and surrounded by crosses and with what looks like blood underlining the letters. Beneath it is a bowl, a really large bowl, of water:

God help the sons of the devil. Save them from damnation, or let them battle for eternity.

It unsettles him, to say the least, and he goes to wash it off with the water.

ONLY TO BURN HIMSELF AS HIS FINGERS DIP INTO THE BOWL.

Yes. Someone put HOLY WATER under this message.

Damien resolves to simply take a picture, with his phone not his camera, and leave, running into Michael.

"What are you doing here? You're supposed to be home watching Adam and Jack!"

"Sorry, Brother dearest, I don't really HAVE to listen to you."

"If I get home and the house is in ashes-"

"Relax," Michael shrugs as he begins to walk away. "Knowing Jack, he probably doesn't even know how to blink."

He chuckles, but stops as he passes by the creepy, holy water message, not looking at it, but feeling the holy water and the crosses.

And the blood, which he inspects, and finds is from a lamb.

It goes from bad to worse when they notice a pair of men striding toward them.

Damien leads Michael away, warning him, "Ignore them. Hopefully they just walk away."

Neither do, even when the two begin walking faster.

When the two males start gaining, and when one unsheathes a flaming dagger, the brothers make a run for it, but the men give chase.

"What the hell is they're problem!?" Michael snarks, "Why are they following us!?"

"Just keep running!" Damien barks back.

They round a corner, and Michael throws a ball of fire, hitting the unarmed male in the arm, the fire making him howl more than the average person.

The armed male, however, manages a slash across Michael's chest, just enough to leave him heavily wounded.

With Michael now useless, Damien slings him over his shoulders and races for a store full of people, using some telekinesis to throw a stream of water in a foutain to throw off the armed man pursuing them.

He stops when everyone is staring, the man, who I'm aure you've realized by now is an angel, stands in place, unaware of what to do.

"Go 'head," Damien eggs on. "Do it. You can kill us, but wanna try doing it infront of everyone here!?"

The angel eyes all the people, who are whispering and have their phones out, before glaring at Damien and a now standing Michael, sheathing his dagger, and storming away, miracling around a corner to avoid detection.

Both breathe a sigh of relief as they take a seat.

"Any idea on what just happened?"

Michael huffs and rubs some hair out of his face. "Take a guess. Why do Crowley and Aziraphale want was to stay together?"

TV perspective time as the camera zooms in on Damien, who looks over at the wall the angel vanished behind and then down at his feet.

With growing dread music, CUT TO JACK!!!!

Jack is humming as he takes out a tray of chocolate chip cookies, where we that he's also baked 'Welcome Home' cakes, pies, cupcakes, and just about anything else he can think of; don't worry, he made sure to keep the kitchen spotless.

He sets the cookies on the stovetop to cool and admires all the pastries, which makes Aziraphale applaud; he decided to pay Jack a visit because he's the most pleasant, and is closest with Adam.

Speaking of whom, Jack notices the time and calls out to him.

"Hey, Adam! You getting hungry?" He knocks on Adam's bedroom door, ever the good big brother. "I can make you a sandwich, if you want. Grilled cheese, PB and J, bacon-lettuce-tomatoe, even a breakfast sand..."

Jack opens Adam's door to find there's no Adam or Dog in sight and the window is wide open.

CUT TO LUCIUS, who's screaming into a bathroom sink full of water because his campaign officers won't shut up about painting him in a good light to appeal to people's emotions.

He pulls his face out of the water and dries off, growling on frustration when he gets a call from Jack(possibly the hundredth call that day).

This time, when Lucius answers, he sees Jack running with Aziraphale beside him.

"Lucius, hi! How's your day? Great! We're fine! I don't know where Adam is, so Aziraphale and I are looking for him!"

It hits Lucius like a ton of bricks as he writes, 'I thought he was in his room!?'

"So did we, dear boy," Aziraphale replies. "However, he must have left while no one was looking!"

Lucius starts to wonder why no one's kept an eye on him, until he realizes who ALSO left the house and hangs up on Jack, who objects to the action, to call Michael.

CUT TO MICHAEL AND DAMIEN! The two are having lunch in the food court of the mall to shake off the adrenaline of being chased by killer angels, when Lucius calls.

Michael, reluctantly, answers and waves at him, not talking because his mouth is full.

'YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO WATCH ADAM AND JACK! WHY DID YOU LEAVE!?'

"Calm down, Lucius," Damien groans. "In case you haven't noticed, we've been having a bad day, too."

'Where are you!?'

"Having lunch at a crowded mall because we got attacked by angels."

Lucius furrows his brow in confusion and Damien sends the picture of the creepy graffiti he found.

"Saw it while I was working on an article. Guess we're not as evasive as we thought."

As Lucius inspects it, Michael explains, "The red is lamb's blood, and there's holy water in the bowl. I think someone or something doesn't want us around."

Lucius shakes his head and writes/sends/signs, 'Do either of you know where Adam is? Jack said he ran away.'

"And where's Jack?"

'Looking for him with Aziraphale.'

"So now Jack AND Adam are gone?" Michael gapes.

All three jump out of their skin when Crowley shouts, "WHAT!?" and throws open the bathroom door.

Michael hisses out of emotional-esque pain and Damien groans into his hands as Crowley takes the phone from Lucius and gets really close to it.

"Where are those two right now!?"

"Like we just said, we don't know," Damien replies. "Adam ran away with Dog, so Jack and Aziraphale are going-"

"AZIRAPHALE'S OUT THERE, TOO!?"

Crowley drops the phone on the floor, something we see from Michael's and Damien's perspective, as he shouts, "Hold on, angel, I'm coming!"

With Lucius, the Wagner senator picks up his phone and gulps as he puts all the pieces together:

The message sent by Damien was written by angels, who know that all five brothers are on Earth, and are now planning to wipe them off the face of the planet, whether because of the grand plan or because each can cause the apocalypse, or because Jack and Adam fucked up bringing the apocalypse.

Eother way, he writes to Damien and Michael to, 'FIND THEM NOW.' and hangs up before he sprints out of the bathroom and out of the building, telling his lead secretary to cancel every single one of his plans because of a family emergency.

Now, I lnow what you're wondering, "Where's Adam right now? Did Gabriel get to him first?"

No, silly goose, he's fine.

Adam is walking through the streets with dog at his side, growling at anyone that gets too close. He's been crying for a while, but has stopped now because he just wants to walk and not think about London, which is hard because it's everyone's favorite subject at the moment.

He also wants to get away from his new brothers for a little while. In his mind:

Lucius is not around at all, and when he is, he's kimd of creepy with the whole "not talking" thing.

Damien's too pushy and doesn't give him space to be emotional or get used to his new environment.

Michael's just an asshole- not his words, but true all the same.

And... well, there's no real complaint with Jack. He's okay.

But not even Jack's good nature can change Adam's opinions on the rest of his new brothers.

It doesn't help that Aziraphale and Crowley can't just adopt him, either, because they don't know how his powers fully work, hence why they gave him to the other four.

Too lost in his head, Adam does not notice a trying-not-to-be-angry Gabriel walk up to him from behind, hiding a bottle of holy water as he says, "Hello, Adam."

Adam turns and pales. "Gabriel!? What are you doing here!?"

"I just wanted to check on you. See if you were ready try again with armageddon, all things considered."

Adam backs away, now very disturbed. "Stay away from me," he stammers.

Thank goodness Dog is more observant and bites the bastard, which gets Adam to focus and makes him realize NOW is a good time to run like hell.

He smacks Gabriel with his backpack and flees with Dog following. Gabriel is behind as he clutches his hand before giving chase, cursing that he can't miracle to Adam, that power being taken away from him since his 'falling out,' so he's left to run to chase after Adam, which draws a lot of negative attention, I must say.

Doesn't matter, though, because Adam is simultaneously loosing Gabriel and seeing that he's gaining on him.

That's when a hand grabs his arm and pulls him into a nearby store, throwing him behind a shelf of souvenirs, i.e. knickknacks and plushies, and a rack of keychains.

Gabriel looks through the window and bamgs his forehead against it before leaving, scowling as he trudges away.

Adam watches him as the male that pulled him whistles at the pouting angel.

"I knew Gabriel was always too eager to wear his big boy pants. Glad to see he hasn't changed. Evn though I knew he wouldn't."

Adam looks up at him, a sort of short, kind of stumpy man that looks kind of like if Aziraphale had actually taken being an archangel seriously; culry hair that's a dirty blond-ish, brown, alert eyes that see nothing and everything all at once, dark, sharp clothes, and a know-it-all smirk as he holds a hand out for Adam.

If you watched the show Lucifer on Netflix, you know EXACTLY who this guy is.

Dog doesn't growl at this guy, sensing that he's not going to hurt them.

"Sorry to scare you like that, Adam. I'm your uncle, but please just call me Uriel."

Adam lets Uriel help him up, now really confused.

"How do you know my name?"

"Father's talked a lot about you and your brothers, and I just wanted to see you myself. See just how busy my brother got while he visited this planet." Uriel looks out the window and fights a smirk. "Speaking of brother..."

Cue Jack and Aziraphale racing down the sidewalk as fast as they can before Jack spots Adam and sprints into the store with Aziraphale on his tail. Both are tired, both are a litttle sweaty, but they're so happy to see Adam is okay.

"Adam, there we are!" Jack cries as he and Adam hug and Jack spins him as they do. "We were so worried! I didn't hear you in your room, I'm so sorry!"

Aziraphale lants and simply gives a wave before pushing both boys behind him.

"Uriel."

"Aziraphale. Nice to see you."

The two have a stare down before Aziraphale asks, "Are you going to lead us to a trap or some kind? You know as well as I do there isn't any sort of plan to-"

"Don't talk to me about plans, Aziraphale. I'm the guy who actually MAKES them."

It silences Aziraphale and the brotjers a little on edge.

"Anyway, your brothers will be walking aroumd the corner a block away in about five minutes in the same direction you and Aziraphale were running down. Better get going."

Jack nods and thanks Uriel, leading Adam down the street.

Aziraphale eyes Uriel for a little bit before following the boys, to keep them safe.

Uriel's power holds true as the three meet Damien and Michael.

They all catch each other up as they walk to try and catch a bus.

There are angels in the city and a lot of them don't want the brothers around.

"But Uriel helped me hide from Gabriel. I don't think he wants to hurt us," Adam wonders.

Cue some major confusion from Jack and Michael not wanting to deal with all this because, "We've already got London and the Southwest to worry about. We don't need a bounty on our heads."

The brothers don't have time to think on it because every parent's worst nightmare happens when an angel strides up behind them and throws something down, maybe a holy water bottle and powdered salt to make the brothers back away before flying off with Adam.

The only one to see it happen is Aziraphale and Dog barks at the sky where his master was taken.

The brothers compose themselves and are silent as they realize what's happened.

Not all is lost as Michael gets a text from Crowley on his phone: an address to an old church that was closed down because of poor funding and evrn worse staff that didn't practice what they preached.

Transition from a taxi cab to A few minutes ago and a jet black car SPEEDING down the street fast enough to make Crowley proud, which he is, as Lucius gets filled in on the situation by Damien.

He's actually heading to what could be a very solid guess to where the angel has taken Adam, and Crowley shouts at him to, "Step on it!" when Aziraphale brings up Gabriel and Uriel.

Funny he brings up Uriel, because Lucius has been following him wherever he appears, the archangel having told him about finding Adam and that Lucius needs to trust him to keep Adam safe.

They wind up at an abandoned church, which Crowley hisses at and makes Lucius gag from the sudden nausea, and the senator steps out, gesturing for Crowley to wait in the car.

"Be careful in there."

Lucius gives a thumbs up and leaves, though, TV perspective, the camera would linger on Crowley as he notices a car approach through the rear view mirror.

CUT to Lucius carefully walking up to the church doors as he forces back coughs and gags as he tries opening the door. Key word is tries because it's locked, though he does here someone complaining about how, "The brat has sharp teeth," and, "He won't stop kicking."

To which Gabriel replies, "Just hold him down and keep him quiet."

Stealth time as Lucius ditches the door and walks to the side of the church and climbs up a pipe to reach a window, damn near falling to his death as the pipe gives and falls and leaving him to grab onto and dangle from the leadge of the window as two angels come to inspect.

Lucius scrambles inside and just barley avoids getting caught as he hides against the wall, having a clear view of the inside of the church.

Two angels are working on a salt and lamb's blood symbol much like the one Aziraphale made, the one that sent him to Heavan on accident, as a third angel holds onto a struggling Adam and Gabriel supervises.

The two 'scouts' report that they didn't find anything, just a pipe that broke, which Gabriel comments may have been because of a fat raccoon, and even smells the air a little, before turning to Adam.

Lucius sneaks closer as he watches Gabriel take a small amount of blood from Adam and drip it onto the angel symbol, activating it so it can rid Adam of the devil inside him, aka remove his soul, aka kill him.

LUCIUS IS HAVING NONE OF THAT.

He shakes his head and leaps off the upper level he's been hiding on, landing directly ontop of Gabriel, who throws him off and onto the ground

Lucius wheezes as he sees the abundance of crosses around them and a large bowl if holy water, one that used to be used for baptizing children. He also sees Gabriel dip his fingers into it before kneeling down to get a better look at this new demon that arrived univited.

"Lucius Wagner. I thought I smelled smoke." He flicks his fingers at Lucius, who hisses at the holy water as it touches his skin. "You're oddly more... pleasant to look at than I thought you would be. Then again, evil has a way of looking good, doesn't it?"

Lucuis smirks and signs to him, 'No wonder Heaven doesn't want you either, then.'

Gabriel smacks him for this and checks to see if the symbol is done, which it is, so he orders the three free angels to scout around the church, so no one else interrupts the brothers being exorcised.

Too bad the three can't seem to get the door open, even though they're the ones who locked it.

When the door doesn't budge, Gabriel and the other angels join, leaving Lucius and Adam unguarded, the former crawling towards the bowl of holy water as Adam scooches away from the angel symbol as much as he can, even toward the bowl as well, despite the blistering he feels all over.

Cut to Gabriel trying to open the door and suddenly feeling a little weak as he tries breaking the door, wondering what's going on.

CUT TO OUTSIDE AS AZIRAPHALE AND A SNICKERING URIEL HOLD THE DOOR, HAVING MIRACLED AHEAD OF DAMIEN AND JACK, AS MICHAEL REJOINS THEM, SAYING HE WILL NOT BE PLAYING SANTA CLAUS AGAIN ANYTIME SOON!!!😁

Cut back to inside the church, where Lucius pulls a cross down on the alter and starts getting a little more strength back before he picks up Adam.

Two fallen crosses will have to be enough to allow him some strength as he holds Adam and kicks the bowl of holy water, which washes away the angel symbol and seeps away through the floor boards.

Gabriel sees and hear this and shouts, "No!"

Lucius switches his grip on his brother as he holds up a flaming hand, glaring at the angels.

They retaliate by snagging crosses and charging forward.

Too bad Lucius is good at thinking on his toes and fans some fire out to the back wall behind the alter, which is lined with tapestry and wood.

The flames catch at rise, scaring away the angels and a scowling Gabriel, who has a glare down with Lucius as he carries an unbound Adam in both arms.

Cut to outside as the fire grows. News reporters, police officers, and our squad are outside as firefighters rush in.

Jack is racing between people to get a better look at the tragedy and then holds his hands out before Damien stops him.

"Relax, they're going to be okay."

"But how do you-"

The firefighters race out with an unconscious Gabriel and a coughing, hunched over Lucius, who's still holding Adam. All three are covered in soot and everyone notices that Adam and Lucius are a little injured, but Gabriel is unharmed.

When news reporters crowd Lucius, who is seated in an ambulance and given a shock blanket as he refuses to have Adam taken out of his arms, they start asking the basic and REAL questions:

"Mr. Wagner, were you attacked just now?"

"Did you jump into a burning building to save this boy?"

"Do you know the man that attacked you?"

"Who is the boy you saved?"

"Is it true you adopted three boys into your care?"

"Are you in any ki d of relationship at the moment?"

Before Lucius can answer, Jack plows through with Michael and Damien in toe, Jack hugging a now conscious Adam and Lucius and apologizing for not being a good brother.

Also cue Dog jumping up and kissing Adam and even Lucius.

The press gets a lot of pictures of this, and Damien hugging Lucius, calling him, "snuggle-bug" as he hugs him.

The police see Lucius giving the, 'I'm done, make them stop' signal, and start pushing everyone away, telling them he'd like time alone with his family.

But not after one more question:

"Mr. Wagner, is this your family?"

Lucius nods with a smile, nodding at Jack, Damien, Michael, and Adam.

He also types on his phone to them all, 'No more running away, okay?'

They all agree.

The "episode" ends with Gabriel being locked up in a jail cell for araon and assaulting a politician and a minor and the brothers returning home from the hospital after Lucius and Adam are checked out at the hospital.

There they see all the desserts in a spotless kitchen, surprising Michael and making Lucius start warming up to having a family.

[matrixaffiliate]

Endeavor

Chapter Update! FFN and AO3

Next update will be on Saturday, Oct 10th! Have a wonderful weekend my friends!

Chapter 13

"What do you mean this entire chapter is out of character?" Vic demanded as she read Ted's comment on the chapter heading.

Ted set her soda can on the coffee table and sat down next to her on his couch. Vic prudently moved the can further away from her laptop.

"She isn't brave in this chapter." He shrugged.

Vic stared at him, "Yes she is."

"Nope, she waits for her group to solve the problem. She doesn't take any action of her own. You're near the end of the book here, she needs to be brave, she needs to show that everything you've put her through has paid off and she's ready to be the hero now."

Vic sighed and looked back at her laptop screen. All of Ted's comments on her story were like this. He seemed to think that she was holding her heroine back, not allowing her character to live up to her potential. Vic usually passed off comments like this from others because she felt like they didn't know what they were talking about. But having Ted defend his reasoning with the sharp knifepoint of cold hard logic made Vic less sure of her insistence that she was right and everyone else was uninformed, or that they didn't understand the story.

"But we were going to look at your mum's list and talk about what Harry said to you." Ted knocked her knee with his.

Vic stared at her laptop for a moment more before nodding and shutting it down.

"Here," she handed Ted her notebook, "This is what they both said."

Ted leant back against the couch and kicked his feet up on the coffee table and Vic wondered if maybe she could get him to set this rather terrifying task aside in exchange for some more pleasurable activities. But before she could pursue that line of thought, Ted set the notebook in his lap and dove right in.

"Well, your mum's words seem accurate, but I'll admit that Harry's comment worries me a little bit." He frowned down at the notebook. "What on earth brought up a comment like that?"

Vic bit her lip and looked at her black laptop screen. Ted's hands gently but firmly grabbed hers, stopping her from trying to rub her skin raw.

"Vic, you can talk to me. I'm still the goof that got you chatting all day at work instead of doing our jobs. I'm still your friend. I just now also happen to be living my fantasy of being your boyfriend as well." He teased, and Vic gave a small laugh despite her nerves.

"Come on, Vic," Ted tapped her chin up with his finger, trying to get her to look at him. "You can tell me what happened. You can tell me anything."

She bit her lip harder and dropped her gaze lower. She might as well tell him; it wasn't like they hadn't already talked about this to an extent before.

"I, I was sort of worried that, that Harry and the rest of your family were going to try and convince you to break up with me."

"Vic," Ted shook his head, "You've got it all wrong."

"Well if Uncle Harry is right, then it's me we should apparently be worried about anyway." She huffed.

"We're not going to worry about either of us walking away, alright." Vic jumped as Ted's normally playful voice had gone very firm. "If it happens, we'll deal with it when we get there, but right now we're both committed to being with each other, so let's not start talking about who's going to walk away."

"I'm sorry," she tried to fold further in on herself.

"No, I'm sorry," Ted sighed and pulled her into him. "I spent so much time wishing that you were mine and now talking about that ending brought me up short. I don't like thinking about you not being in my life."

Vic took a deep breath in his embrace and tried to ignore how much these hard feelings seemed to be ruining everything. They held each other for a few silent moments, breathing each other in, before Ted's voice sounded in the quiet.

"Is Harry right? Do you not love yourself?"

Vic closed her eyes, afraid to look that question full in the face.

"I," she whispered. "I don't know."

Ted's fingers moved into her hair, combing through it from the base of her neck to the ends.

"I still love you." His voice was a quiet rumble, and his lips were very close to her ear.

Vic felt a small smile pull on her lips. It was comforting that hearing him say those words now made her heart flutter and her spine tingle. When he said it to her the first time all she had felt was guilt and panic. But now, now those words filled her with hope.

"You don't have to say it back," Ted continued in the same low rumble. "But I want you to know that didn't change. And if it helps you love yourself at all to know that I love you, then I want you to know that I never stopped loving you."

Vic gave in to the smile that had been pulling on her lips and turned to face him.

"Thank you, that does help."

And it did. Vic didn't know if she really didn't love herself or if she'd spent the last little while tearing herself so far down that she forgot what it felt like not to. But hearing Ted say he loved her seemed to awaken a part of her soul that had gone dormant, hiding from all the internal berating that had become her inner voice.

Ted leant in, gently brushing his lips along hers.

"Good," He smiled against her. "And would it help if I said it more often?"

Vic kissed him again as she answered. "It certainly wouldn't hurt anything."

"I'm going to act as if you said yes," he gave her a cheeky grin.

She laughed and laid her head against his shoulder, letting the warm comfort of his embrace envelope her. It felt right to sit here with him like this. When it was the two of them and she wasn't worried about anyone else, everything about being with Ted felt right. And that realization opened her eyes just a fraction more to the possibility that this page in her notebook might be worth exploring if for no other reason than to try and create a life where she always felt right with Ted, a life where she didn't try to sabotage her own happiness.

Vic glanced over at the page and saw the first line.

You and your desires are important.

Well, right now her desire was to be happy with Ted without her brain trying to ruin it. She would just have to start giving that priority, that's what you did with important things after all.

"I think maybe I just needed to take a look at Mum's list in a new light." She let her thoughts vocalize.

"Yeah?" Ted kissed the top of her head.

"Yeah, those lines seem a bit less terrifying now." Vic looked up at him and smirked. "You're fully to blame. What am I supposed to do with a boyfriend who helps me see that my mother is right?"

Ted laughed and pulled her closer. "There's the woman I fell in love with."

"Don't try to sweet-talk your way out of this," Vic stuck her tongue out at him. "Boyfriends are supposed to tell you that you're perfect and need no improvements."

Ted tipped forward and kissed her.

"Boyfriends who don't plan on sticking around, sure. But I want you to be happy, and I'm realizing in my short life span that growth tends to help with happiness." Then he smirked. "And if you'd rather I didn't talk my way out of this, I could probably find some other entertaining ways to distract you."

He slid his fingertips under the hem of her shirt and Vic leant into his hand, a quiet hum escaping her lips.

"I knew you practiced witchcraft," she sighed when Ted moved to kiss her neck, his lips lingering behind her ear and his warm breath sending shivers down her spine.

"I could go back to talking my way out of whatever metaphorical hole you dropped me in." He whispered before pulling back entirely and leaning against the arm of the couch.

The smirk he offered her made Vic want to simultaneously smack him upside the head and snog him senseless.

"See!" She threw her hands in the air, "Witchcraft!" Then she laughed and moved to the opposite arm of the couch. "There! How do you like it?"

Ted smiled, "I'm rather enjoying the view. I could get used to you sprawled out on my couch like that."

Vic rolled her eyes. "I'm sure you've got a magic wand somewhere that could make me float to you if you needed it."

"I don't know if I'd call it magic, but…" He smirked at her, his warm amber eyes taking on a honey cast as they seemed to bore into hers.

"Oh, shut up!" Vic felt her face grow hot but she forced herself to hold his penetrating gaze. "I'm sure you learned that one your last year of primary school too."

Ted continued to smirk at her, "That pink on your cheeks says it doesn't matter when I learned it."

"You're ridiculous!" She gave up and looked away and shook her head, trying to clear away her blush.

"Nah, I'm just in love with you."

Vic couldn't stop the smile that claimed her lips.

"You're not going to let me win, are you?" She tried to pout but from the look on Ted's face, she was failing miserably.

Ted laughed and then moved to her side of the couch. He leant into her, bringing his face within a couple of inches of hers.

"Better?"

"Is this what me winning is?" Vic suddenly found it a little harder to take in air than normal.

"Did you want something different?" Ted ran the tip of his nose along the side of her own and Vic felt the desire to bring her lips to his run through her whole body like an electric current.

"I think I can make do with this," she smirked up at him.

Ted's chuckle rumbled in his chest and Vic let out an audible sigh when he finally brought his lips to hers.

You and your desires are important.

The words echoed quietly in her mind, and as Vic lost herself in snogging Ted, she knew she could face this list now. Because now she could see that while Ted joked about being thrown in holes, she actually had dug one for herself and climbed in, and it was time to climb back out.

Just as soon as she finished kissing Ted like her life depended on it.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

As it happened, it took almost another week for Vic to find the time to sit down with the page in her notebook that had nearly given her a stomach ulcer when her mum first wrote out its contents. She curled up against her pillows on her bed and took a deep breath as she read through the list again.

You and your desires are important.

You are a good person.

You are brave.

You must decide your life's story.

If you can't believe that you're worthy of being loved, then sooner or later, you'll be the one to walk away.

Vic reasoned that if her desires were important then she ought to know what her desires were. She'd never really put a lot of thought into what she wanted, mostly she did what was expected of her. But she was done pretending that was enough; she was going to go after the things she wanted.

Just as soon as she figured out what that was…

Vic turned the page in her notebook and grabbed a pen. She wrote down the epiphany she'd had back at Ted's flat.

I want to stop trying to sabotage my relationship with Ted. I want to let myself be happy with him.

"Well, there's something at least."

Vic looked at the line and tried to figure out what else she wanted. She looked around her childhood bedroom and pursed her lips as memories tried to intrude on her attempt at figuring out her life. Maybe she'd get Dom to switch rooms with her just to be able to look around and not feel like everything reminded her of her childhood. Then she laughed and put her pen to the next line.

I want to move out.

Maybe this wouldn't be as hard as she originally thought. Vic smiled at the two lines she had so far. And those two things felt somewhat complete. Maybe she'd add more to this list, but right now, being on her own, and not undermining her relationship with Ted felt like enough. She turned the page back and read the next thing on her mum's list.

You are a good person.

Vic sighed. She wasn't so sure about her being a good person. She was just about to skip over this one when a thought occurred to her. Ted loved her. Her family loved her. And she trusted them. She trusted their opinions and advice. If they loved her, then she couldn't be a horrible person, could she? Vic admitted that she still felt a bit like she wasn't a good person, but if she trusted her dad to love her, and her mum to love her, and Ted to love her even though she didn't treat him the way she should have at the beginning, then maybe she could trust that they at least thought she was good. Maybe that could be enough, for now, to just trust that she was a good person.

You are brave.

Vic actually laughed. Brave? Why on earth would her mum put something like that. Vic shook her head and decided to skip this one. Maybe it was a French thing?

You must decide your life's story.

Vic thought she understood this one now. Her mum was trying to get her to see that she'd more or less just been floating without a whole lot of direction. There was a moment where Vic wondered if she should try and make those decisions of what she wanted her life story to look like, but the moment of anxiety that hit her was enough to tell her that maybe she should take this in pieces. She knew that she wanted Ted in her story, and she knew she wanted her own place. Right now, that would be enough. She'd write more chapters as she worked through these, but Vic resolved that she was going to be the star of those chapters. She wasn't going to wait for others to write her story for her anymore. The fact that she didn't have total control in her life wasn't going to be her excuse anymore. What she could control she would, and everything she couldn't control wasn't going to stop her from making her life the way she wanted it.

Vic's eyes drifted to Harry's advice.

If you can't believe that you're worthy of being loved, then sooner or later, you'll be the one to walk away.

Thinking about it now, Vic realized this was a lot like her mum's words that she was a good person. She would just have to trust for now that she was worthy of being loved, especially by Ted. Every time her brain told her she wasn't, she'd choose to trust that she was. She'd choose to believe that Ted was with her because he wanted to be. She'd choose to believe that she was worthy of his love. And she would tell those thoughts that she wasn't to get lost.

Vic almost laughed at herself. This page in her notebook had nearly made her sick with anxiety, and now she was smiling down at the words on the page.

"Quel magnifique sourire, ma chérie." Fleur stood within the door frame.

"Merci, Maman," Vic scooted over as her mum came to sit on her bed with her.

"Ah, and you even have my few words of advice with you."

Vic laughed, "Yeah, I guess I should say thank you. I didn't realize it at first, but they've been helpful. I don't feel so lost now."

"Merveilleux," Fleur wrapped her arms around Vic's shoulders, "and what will you do now?"

Vic bit her lip and looked up over at her mum. "Look for a flat of my own?"

Fleur laughed. "Don't ask me, this is your story."

"Alright, then," Vic gave her mum a sheepish smile. "Maman, I'm going to look for a flat of my own."

Her mum hugged her tight, "I'm proud of you, ma chérie."

"Thanks, Maman," Vic took a deep breath. "Think you could help me?"

"I would love to help you." Fleur turned to look at her daughter. "And what of your Ted?"

Vic looked down at the notebook and smiled. "I'm going to stop undermining myself. He says he loves me, and I'm going to believe him."

"And perhaps now we could get to know the one so dear to your heart?" Her mum gave Vic a rather pointed look. "I've been ever so patient, ma chérie."

Vic laughed. She had definitely avoided the step of introducing each other's families into her relationship with Ted, but maybe it was time. They'd been together for three months now, and if you counted how she behaved like he hung the moon while they worked together, then you could add another six months on to that.

"I'll talk to Ted about it when I see him on Friday."

Fleur squeezed her shoulders. "Merci, and what of work?"

"Work is good," Vic chuckled. "Who knew I'd enjoy editing other people's writing? Or that I'd be good at it?"

"I did," Fleur kissed her cheek, "but now you know it too, and that's more important."

Vic rolled her eyes and laughed, "Thanks, Maman."

"It is what mothers are for, ma chérie," Fleur teased.

Vic hugged her mum and smiled down at the notebook in her lap. It may have been a roundabout way of doing things, but she was glad that her mum had helped her to see what she needed to change in order to be happier. With this new chapter of her life beginning, Vic was sure that while it probably wouldn't be easy, it would definitely be worth it, if for no other reason than she would be the heroine of her own life. And if she could be the heroine of her own life, then she could probably figure out what was wrong with her book heroine as well. At the very least, she was going to try and accomplish both of those things while she found herself a flat.

[five-wow]

considering what we now know, one of the last of these i might ever get to do: i watched 10.18! thoughts under the cut.

the previously on reminds us of adam’s yakuza problems, so i was braced for that, and then we get an establishing shot of the mcgarrett house instead! and suddenly steve is ironing a shirt on a towel in his kitchen again, and for a moment i was extremely confused because this is very clearly not the same shot as in the valentine’s episode but it’s also... the same thing?

BUT THEN, of course, we get steve raising a finger and going “don’t” just before we’re shown that danny is SITTING ON THE KITCHEN COUNTER WATCHING HIM, again i might add, and danny hasn’t even said anything yet but steve is already defensive and claiming that he likes ironing (which i love, that is a wonderful headcanon) and as far as déjà vus go, this is one i do not mind in the slightest. this is, in fact, the exact content i come here for.

okay wait, EVEN BETTER, danny seems to be sitting on the counter... reading a book? he is... in the kitchen, reading (writing in? idk) a book (in a room where there are zero chairs, which is usually where people locate their asses when they read books), while steve is also in the kitchen, ironing a shirt? dear lord. danny moved in and suddenly eddie wasn’t the only guy following steve from room to room in his own house anymore, i guess.

waiiit, steve is going on a date with emma. that is. not bad, just, so very confusing. (potentially very much a lie, omfg. that kind of confusing.)

HAH. i’m not the only one who went “?”, because danny doesn’t believe steve either.

fdjkfd steve asks alexa for his schedule to prove he’s telling the truth but what this really proves is that if it’s a lie, steve had the foresight and intention to put a fake appointment in his calendar, which i would in no way put past him. that’s the easiest thing in the world.

also, danny casually dropping in that he bought alexa for steve? i??? danny is just “casually” hanging out in rooms steve is hanging out in while it makes no sense for danny to be there, buying steve presents, pulling steve’s pigtails by questioning everything he does when he gets the chance, and that’s? that’s normal now?

junior!!! junior pops into the kitchen!

and he’s GOT A DATE TOO, which is a) WONDERFUL and b) a reason for danny to start describing tani which is fascinating and c) a reason for steve to say “well you know what, i think it’s great that you and tani are giving it a go, bud”, which is super cute and it’s A+ to know they have steve’s official stamp of approval (i mean, he’s their boss, that could’ve somehow gotten awkward), but also leads to a shot we get of danny pulling a face that’s kind of “ugh” and “yeah right” mixed into one and just. you know where i’m going with this. if you’re on this blog and you’ve read this post all the way to this point you definitely know where i’m going with this, but yes, this is absolutely danny mentally yelling that it sure is great THEY’RE giving it a go, steve, and doesn’t that potentially inspire you to ruminate on something going on in your own life, like, say, how you feel about your best friend and partner who also works on the taskforce with you and has a big mouth and whose name is oddly close to tani, actually, for that matter?

steve gets a call about shots fired at adam’s building and i’m just now realizing i’m only two minutes into this episode. i’ve spent at least ten times the amount of time rambling that i have watching anything. gonna need to shake that up a little bit.

fdjkfd lou and hpd enter adam’s apartment and they find at least three guys in actual gear, all dead, and adam curled up on the floor in what looks like sleep clothes, with blood all over him, and a) is adam literally superman now? but also b) even if i do accept that it’s possible he killed all of those guys before they managed to hit him anywhere vital even once, then how did he get smeared in blood that evenly all over? did he roll around on the floor before he curled up in the corner? i’m not an expert, but i feel like that’s not how a person would look after fighting off three attackers and presumably shooting most of them.

oh BOY. adam, with a crazy glint in his eyes: “i’ve been trying to dismantle kenji’s operation for months now. and i finally have the evidence to do it.” i both unexpectedly like this, and already low key hate it for how it’s probably going to be used as the show’s way of clearing adam from all the completely bonkers things he’s been doing all on his own with zero authorization or backup and bringing him back into the fold of five-0 as a somehow still trusted team member.

oh dang. opening credits do their thing, and then there’s no pause to check whether there’s even actually any actual evidence on that thumb drive adam was holding, but we just jump to swat, adam, lou and junior rolling up to kenji’s house and engaging in a huge shootout.

adam is now the lone dude pursuing kenji through the dark woods, who is also alone, of course. they brawl, adam gets the upper hand, and he gets a chance to shoot kenji which he doesn’t take, and then he calls for emts (good! this is good!) and extremely dramatically tells kenji “you were right not to trust me. i was working for five-0 the whole time”, and it just sounds like such a weird brag at this point. so i guess adam never went to the bad side again, suddenly? he just... keeps pretending he does over and over, and the criminals on this very small island keep being stupid enough to trust him, which honestly, is on them.

adam keeps bragging and oh gosh, tell me there’s a twist here and this is not just his victory lap. there’s so much of the episode left that something has to go very wrong about adam’s nice plan to wrap it all up neatly.

aha! it’s implied that letting kenji live might go badly for adam because kenji has information about adam that is bad for him. they did not completley forget that adam did crime stuff!

noelani seems to be at a funeral and we meet her parents and they don’t exactly seem super proud of her achievements, which i think we were told in the past, but now we’re shown, and it hurts my heart.

oh noooo. noelani gets to the open casket and immediately finds marks on the body that she clearly thinks are suspicious. that’s! not going to go well, gosh.

fdjkfdjkf adam and steve are in steve’s office and steve basically just went “so your plan to fight the yakuza was to join the yakuza” and adam very seriously goes “yes.”

steve is very not happy and adam doesn’t truly seem to grasp why and then steve’s phone rings and there’s a case, which is very nice timing for adam. saved by the bell.

so five-0 is on a ship that got robbed by pirates but it’s all very mysterious, and then they realize there might still be a pirate on board and they split into search parties and it’s junior and tani as one (who start talking about their missed date), and steve and danny as the other (who are not shown talking about dates, but who knows), and just. i love watching both of those duos work together, and the junior-tani vs steve-danny parallel is once again very in your face, hah.

tani gets locked in a kitchen with the pirate and junior is outside freaking out and that’s angsty but then junior and steve finally break through the door in a combined effort and they and danny rush in, only to find tani has already solved the problem without their help. YES. GOOD CONTENT.

jkfdfjdk over on the island, quinn is now helping noelani intimidate the coroner who wrote a bad report on noelani’s uncle’s death and that is ALSO very good content.

dfjdk lou welcomes most of the team back to hq and asks “anybody left pining”, which he follows up with the rest of a sentence about the high seas, but UH. YES. i know some people who might be pining.

lots of plot stuff happens and it’s genuinely interesting to watch, but also, oh my god, quinn and noelani are making me cry.

fjdkfd tani goes to meet one of the guys from the magnum pi crossover and he says he’s still waiting to hear back from quinn about the dinner he was hoping to have with her, and i like that because my lesbian quinn headcanon is still going strong.

quinn and noelani encounter a teen trying to get out of gang life who might be on a wealthy person’s hitlist, and my first thought is just. put the kid in the mcgarrett house. not only will he be instantly adopted by steve (and thereby gain a complicated network of siblings), but he’ll also be living in a place where he’s protected by not one, not two, but three members of five-0, two of whom are former seals. just. aside from the dire lack of beds, it would be so good.

jfkdslf, steve, danny and junior find the pirates and a room full of bags of powder that looks like drugs but probably isn’t, seeing as it killed the pirates, and then a small army rolls up outside and starts shooting at them, forcing them to take cover in the room with the powder, which starts dusting the air as the bags get shot. i love how the writers made the circumstances work here, omg.

I LOVE THE WAY THAT PLAYED OUT EVEN MORE, because it made a) for a very interesting shootout with clear stakes, and b) for a somehow both hilarious and potentially super angsty moment when danny is fairly affected by the powder, which has to bring up some bad sarin gas memories for him, and then steve shoots one last bad guy right over danny’s head and danny’s ears are ringing and he yells something and steve doesn’t understand him and just kind of pats his back in comfort, which in turn gives me strong driving-a-nuclear-bomb-through-the-woods, name-your-restaurant-Steve’s-please flashbacks, oh my gosh.

tani makes a REALLY LAME PIRATE JOKE and i LOVE HER.

quinn got the whole team together at a bar so noelani wouldn’t be sitting at home alone!!! the type of supportive female friendship i want to see!!!

and then quinn wants noelani to come dancing with her, but the magnum pi guy shows up and noelani tells him that maybe he could take her place. GAY QUINN IS SOARING. also, poor woman. this has strong vibes of danny setting steve up half against his will.

tani and junior watch quinn and the guy dance and decide to join and/or dance fight them in the best conversation ever, and it looks they’re all having SO MUCH FUN and it makes my heart happy.

what ALSO makes my heart happy is how much i enjoyed this episode, because i thought there would be a lot of yakuza stuff after that “previously on” and the beginning, but adam just kind of disappeared after his talk with steve, and suddenly there were two entirely unrelated plots which were both very neat and gave me so, so many character interactions i adored, ahh, how wonderful. i love season 10 so much.

[whatdoyouexpectthistime]

Blood Spatter - Part 4

Part 1 : Part 2 : Part 3

________________________________

As anticipated, I look and feel like shit the next morning, and it’s already after ten before I finally get out of bed. My whole schedule is off now. Normally I’d be sleeping through the day so I can open the club for its first night of the week, but I need to get my ass down to the police station to harass Inspector Parker with what I’ve learned.

It's not much, but it’s more than I had before.

Kiril’s warning about his father plays back in my mind as I get off the bus. He seemed most vehement about me not pursuing that line of inquiry… but then again, he’d seemed pretty interested in getting into my pants, too, and we all know that didn’t quite get to where I wanted it to.

“No, you fuckin’ didn’t,” I growl under my breath, skipping up the steps and pushing through the glass doors into the precinct.

There isn’t as much activity inside as television and film would have you believe, but that suits me just fine. I know Parker thinks Jazz has just eloped with Konstantin, and I shouldn’t worry – but that is dumb. How the hell could he possibly know what Jazz would and wouldn’t do?

Okay, so disbelieving cops are pretty weak plot devices in the face of actual, potential crime, so maybe I’ll be able to convince him to actually do his job properly this time. That doesn’t mean they’re not going to make me wait.

Frustrated by the desk officer, I slump down in a chair to wait. I suppose there’s no telling what other cases Inspector Parker might be working concurrently, so I should try to be a little more understanding.

Because I’m really good at being patient.

Resting my head gently back against the wall, I close my eyes and breathe deeply. There’s little I wouldn’t give for Jazz to just come waltzing in and tell me this was all some very unfunny joke. What filters through the darkness beneath my lids, however, is a voice, one that stands out among the rest – and instantly my brain painfully clenches.

Her words are hushed; I can’t really tell what she is saying, but a terrifying familiarity carves its way through my skull and pushes in behind my eyes.

“What’s yours is a matter for me to decide,” I hear her sniff, a commanding sound spoken to the night and my imminent death, not there in the police station.

My stomach lurches; my body is heavy, lethargic.

“Did you feed on her? Here? Are you fucking crazy?” the woman snarls, and my eyes open to fix on the motionless lips of a woman standing with a uniformed police officer on the far side of the reception desk.

Though I know, I know I haven’t seen her before, I am absolutely positive she is the owner of the voice in my head, that somehow and somewhere I have heard her speak those words.

Then, her name roars from the unseen lips of a furious man, and I pitch forward as his possessive howl scrapes through my mind with animalistic claws.

“Get out of my way, Narumi!”

“Gah, Narumi,” I hiss through my teeth, holding both sides of my head and digging in my fingernails.

Fear swirls in, a rapidly moving tide as eyes fall upon my predicament, and I stumble to my feet, clumsily grappling for my bag before lurching for the door.

“Ma’am?” someone asks urgently at my back, but I need out, the cool air and the open.

“Miho,” comes a more insistent call – her voice, as I crash through the doors and stagger blindly down the steps.

To barrel straight into a pedestrian, who falls backward against the pavement with me collapsing on top.

Whimpering, my body feels weak against my victim, who barely even grunts as we hit the pavement. I’m sure I’d be embarrassed if my brain wasn’t still trying to escape out my ears, and so I just lie there against my human cushion.

Arms fold around me; a firm, safe embrace that brings some relief, until Narumi cuts into this momentary reprieve with a name that is not mine.

“Kiril?” she huffs as a question, and I crack my eyes open to peer blearily at the side of Kiril’s face.

“Okay now, Sparrow?” he queries with a smile so soft it’s briefly difficult to recall why I was so mad at him.

“Kiril,” Narumi prompts a little more sternly, her hands on her hips and her lips pressed into a thin, irked line.

“As much as I’m enjoying this arrangement,” Kiril murmurs into my hair, “perhaps we could take it somewhere a little more private?”

Weighted, fighting a kind of gravity Earth shouldn’t be pulling, my wriggling struggle out of Kiril’s arms no doubt looks something akin to an acid-tripping octopus.

“Here,” Narumi offers, but the thrust of her hand down in my direction causes an immediate resurgence of my panic.

“Don’t think she likes you,” Kiril smirks, getting to his feet and sweeping me against his body in one fluid movement of unfathomable grace.

Narumi, meanwhile, appears entirely put out.

“Taking this somewhere private might not be a bad idea,” she suggests, and I feel Kiril’s arms tighten around me.

“I’ll take care of her,” he declares, and while he is calm despite my hiccupping sobs into his coat, even I note the thread of inflexibility in his tone.

“Oh no, this is definitely my jurisdiction now,” Narumi insists, equally as insistent, but there is absolutely no give in Kiril’s posture.

“The little Sparrow is mine, Narumi,” he asserts, and this fires a spark of much needed resistance in my veins.

“I don’t belong to anyone,” I declare, giving Kiril’s chest enough of a push to extricate myself.

Though I wobble, I manage to stand my ground, but my thoughts are bubbling away with reflections of Narumi’s face, her words invading the memory of a dark alley and a hostile man named Alex.

“Uh, just stay away,” I warn, gathering my frustration to a fine point and projecting it outward like a weapon.

“Calm down, Miss Fujiwara,” Narumi says, tempering her expression. “I have been working with Inspector Parker on the case of your missing friend.”

Shaking my head, I try to sift through what I know, don’t know, and what I think I may know… but  am not sure. She was talking with officers inside the station, but at the same time, as each second passes I am more and more certain I’ve felt her pick me up from wet asphalt, sigh, maybe even a little in sympathy, and then convince me none of it ever happened.

“None of what?” I cry to myself, but as my shoulders slump I feel Narumi’s adamant gaze approach with force.

“Come with me,” she instructs, no fuss, no compromise.

The instinct is to comply, moving faster than thought, but the next second I battle it down.

“This one is not for your harem,” Kiril states, snatching my arm only to slide me in behind him.

“I’ve warned you not to meddle, Kiril,” Narumi snaps, but Kiril doesn’t seem at all bothered.

“And I told you, I will take care of this,” he replies. “Trust me.”

“Trust you?” she scoffs, rolling her eyes.

“Well, if you can’t trust family, who can you?” he chuckles.

It’s all some big game to him, apparently, but even in my destabilised state I’m listening to the conversation; there is a web I’m caught in, fine, sticky threads linking Jazz and Konstantin, Kiril, this woman Narumi, and me – and I’m definitely not the spider.

“Fly, Sparrow,” I hear Kiril urge me, even as he tosses another defiant barb at Narumi. “You and I shall talk of this later, but for now, go.”

Have I reason to trust him any more than I have to distrust Narumi? Why don’t I even question his voice in my mind, why haven’t I ever questioned it?

Whatever the answer to those questions, I clutch the strap of my bag and wheel around.

“Hey!” Narumi barks, followed by an exasperated sound when Kiril bars her way to me.

Narumi made no further exclamation as Miho followed Kiril’s instruction and ran – not that Miho heard anyway. In an absolute muddle, she sprinted – not entirely sure why – but only slowed to a jog when she’d turned the corner of the next block.

Something told her this didn’t make her safe, but she was quick to flag down a cab, and she was soon on her way to Jazz’s apartment.

She found herself muttering as she exited, but stopped when she dug into her bag for the key to the foyer. The building’s façade stirred a weary lamentation where it had once roused a sense of friendship, comfort and safety – still, it was better than standing out on the street, where she still felt exposed.

As she approached the mail slots to the left of the front door, the mail had been delivered, and as she had done every second day, Miho cleared Jazz’s box and headed upstairs.

“What the hell is going on? Am I really going nuts?” she thought, but figured if she was going nuts she probably wouldn’t be aware she was going nuts.

“Talking to yourself is kind of nuts,” she pointed out, then chuckled bitterly. “Kiril and Narumi clearly know each other – well – and then the headache… that woman. Fuck.”

Sighing in a way that was beginning to feel like habit, Miho dropped the letters on the coffee table, before heading over to the elaborate glass hutch; belonging to a lean, but impossibly soft rabbit. As if recognising her, the animal put his little paws up to greet her, begging almost, to be drawn into her arms.

“So, how has your morning been, Kuni?” she asked, sweeping him up and snuggling him against her chest. Slowly, Kuni blinked up from between her breasts and Miho smoothed her fingers over his ears, clearly enjoying the sensation.

“Yeah, I totally get it,” Miho went on, as if Kuni had responded to her. “But, believe me, boring isn’t so bad.”

Careful not to crush her fuzzy friend, Miho flopped down on the couch and scooped up the three envelopes in front of her.

“Bill,” she muttered, unfolding the water bill before letting it drop from her fingers. “I’ve never known anyone to spend so much time in the shower.”

Oblivious, Kuni simply closed his eyes and enjoyed Miho’s petting as she opened the second piece of mail.

And sat up so quickly the rabbit nearly slipped to the floor.

It was the first bank statement Miho had seen, which wasn’t all that odd considering they were only delivered monthly – but it immediately piqued Miho’s interest.

“Nothing, nothing, nothing…” she muttered, then her eyes became wide. “Two days ago…” she exhaled, but her statement trailed off as her eyes read over the location of Jazz’s last purchase… yesterday.

In Prague.

“Sorry, Kuni!” she exclaimed, jumping up and dropping the bunny safely back into his enclosure. “I’ll get Mieke to come over and feed you!”

The adrenaline of earlier that had been fuelled by alarm and confusion rushed back through her system, now through excitement. Over and over she turned what a small purchase out of the blue could mean.

“Surely if she was dead and someone stole her bank details, they’d have cleaned out her accounts by now, not just spend a couple of hundred dollars on, what, menswear?” she thought, as she all but flew down the stairs and flagged herself another taxi.

 It wasn’t the first time Miho had gone to Prague, but the first time she had without Jazz. While their holidays in the Czech Republic capital were usually planned well in advance to coincide with festivals, caught up in a whirlwind of hope, Miho had booked the earliest flight online while still on her way back to her apartment, and was hanging up on Mieke as she walked through her door. Normally, she would have taken great care choosing what to pack, fretting over what she might accidentally leave behind, but the moment Miho’s suitcase hit her bed, she was flinging whatever was closest in her closet across the room, then packing it all flat.

She paused only when she got a text message, and fell still when she saw it was Sebastian.

‘Was thinking you, Selina and I could grab dinner before opening the club tonight – what do you think?’ he’d written, and Miho’s brow creased.

Occasionally she and Sebastian had eaten together, but it had only ever been through convenience or happenstance – someone picked up noodles on the way to work, or leftovers that stretched far enough to feed multiple people. Chewing on her lip, Miho wondered if the morning they had spent together – which had also been atypical – had led him to change his perception of their relationship.

“Not an entirely terrible thought,” was her first reaction, but her frown instantly deepened, and her gut clenched.

With guilt.

“Guilty why?” she questioned herself, resisting the burn in her chest and the put-out glare of Kiril’s eyes suddenly in her mind.

“Fuck,” she grumbled under her breath, and called Sebastian’s number.

“Hey,” Sebastian greeted cheerfully, a little surprised too perhaps that she hadn’t just texted her reply.

“Hey,” Miho parroted – awkward. “Ahh, I’ve just finished talking to Mieke,” she went on, getting right down to business rather than directly addressing his invitation. “I am popping over to Europe for a bit, so I’d like for you and her to operate the club in my absence.”

“Popping over?” he chortled. “What spurred the sudden departure?”

Reluctantly, Miho answered truthfully.

“I got a lead on Jazz’s location,” she announced, and in the few seconds of silence that followed, Miho got the impression of Sebastian straightening his posture.

“Where? How?” he prompted.

“Czech Republic. She made a purchase there yesterday after weeks of nothing,” Miho explained, her heart rate increasing just thinking about this clue that could finally lead her to her friend. “I know it’s a long shot, Sebastian, so don’t say it, but with the police doing fuck all and Kiril being just as helpful I have to tr…”

“Kiril?” Sebastian queried, but it actually emerged more like a denouncement than a name. “What has Kiril Lambert got to do with this?”

“Oh… um…” Miho stalled, again feeling guilt swell. “Konstantin, who I’m sure is with Jazz - I mean why else would she be buying menswear – is Kiril’s brother.”

More silence, soundlessness that stretched so long Miho wondered if Sebastian had hung up.

“Still there?” she probed, and Sebastian cleared his throat.

“Is he with you now? Is he going with you?” he asked, seriously: worried and maybe even sneering.

“No, he’s not,” she told him a little curtly. “I’m a big girl, I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Of course you never get yourself into trouble,” he huffed, and Miho switched the phone to her other ear irritably.

“Look, I know it’s short notice, and you’ve got your sister with you,” she argued, trying to temper her tone, “but I am not missing this opportunity, so I really need you look after Pale while I get myself into trouble.”

“Miho, I don’t think you realise how dangerous the Lambert family is,” Sebastian warned, clearly frustrated. “If Konstantin is a Lambert, then Jazz is in far greater danger than you alone can…”

“This isn’t an argument, you know I’ll do anything for her,” Miho interrupted curtly. “I’ll message you when I know something if it’ll make you feel better.”

“Damnit Miho! It might be too late by then!” he growled, but Miho was moving the phone away from her ear.

“Thanks, I’ll talk to you later,” she said, and then hung up, grumbling under her breath.

 Night had well and truly closed in by the time Miho made it to her hotel in Prague – Iron Gate Hotel and Suites, the one she and Jazz always stayed at when they were in town. The beauty of their regular suite didn’t bring Miho the joy it usually did, the fine wooden furniture that really felt like the city.

Her stomach growled, but she ignored it, and after dumping her luggage, she skipped back downstairs and hit the pavement. Tourists walked the streets, couples arm in arm, groups of young women looking for fun, smiling and laughing, but Miho stalked with determination toward the first place she could think Jazz might be at that time – where they might have been if they were there together.

Overflowing with people, as it usually was, Miho entered the restaurant and nudged past several people waiting to be seated before casting her gaze around. Ignoring the glares of many, she simply stood, her pulse thundering in her ears as she scanned every inch of the large, crowded space while the maître d tried politely to get her attention.

“Slečna?” he prompted, a word Miho was familiar with at least, but she ignored the man and headed for the female toilets.

“Jazz?” she called, strolling in and checking for locked stalls, but there were none.

Though the maître d and a waiter were waiting for her when she emerged, again encouraging her to respond without actually laying their hands on her, she brushed by them and pushed into the men’s room without ceremony.

“Jazz?”

“Ma’am, please,” the maître d sighed in exasperation, clearly not wanting a confrontation. “I must ask you to…”

“Have you seen this woman lately?” Miho questioned, rounding on him with her cell-phone with a picture of Jazz on it.

The man blinked – glanced to the waiter who also looked at the image – then shook his head.

“And you’ve worked here every night the last… uhh… three weeks?” she pressed.

“Yes,” he frowned. “What is this about?”

“Here,” Miho said, thrusting a card against his chest. “She’s missing, so if you see her, please call me on that number. I’m offering a big reward for information leading to her.”

Leaving the two men stunned in her wake, the Miho-whirlwind blustered out of the restaurant and out onto the footpath once more, sucking in a lungful of cold air.

It was a gasp that overwhelmed her, an unexpected surge of emotion that threatened to knock her off her feet. Of course she hadn’t anticipated finding Jazz at the first place she looked, but hope had buoyed her beyond previous levels, so much so the disappointment of coming up empty flushed her cheeks with heat and her heart with anguish anew.

“If he’s hurt her I’m going to fucking kill him,” she growled, much to the confusion of a couple passing by, but she didn’t allow them to ponder longer, charging off again to her next search location.

 Pale didn’t open on Sunday nights, but there was often people inside preparing various elements or events. This evening was no different.

Though it was clearly not meant to be accessible to the public, Kiril tested the doors anyway, finding them unsurprisingly locked. He knew he could force them, but chose instead to knock loudly and wait until someone came to see what all the noise was about.

Eventually, a woman appeared, one he’d seen but never actually spoken to. Surprise registered on her face, and she unlocked the door and swung it outward.

“Mr. Lambert?” Kara queried, though she obviously knew his name. “I’m sorry, but the club isn’t open at present.”

In response, Kiril nodded, but his expression remained firm.

“I’m looking for Miss Fujiwara,” he revealed. “We had a meeting scheduled but she did not arrive, and she has not answered any of my calls.”

“Oh, that’s a bit weird,” Kara frowned quizzically. “That you had a meeting,” she clarified. “She called earlier saying she was headed for Prague, something of a family emergency I think.”

Kiril’s chin lifted a little in surprise, his eyes narrowing.

“Miss Mann?” he asked. “Miho has shared the story of her missing friend.”

In confirmation, Kara nodded.

“It was really very sudden, and she went on her own,” she explained, shrugging her shoulders a little uncomfortably. “If I’m honest, I’m a little worried for her.”

“She is a force to be reckoned with, it would seem,” Kiril smirked, but his eyes remained fixed on Kara’s face. “However, I share your concern. I could leave immediately if I had her travel details: provide support.”

Without reserve, Kara smiled. Though she didn’t have any exact details, she had heard Miho and Jazz talk of their adventures in Prague many times.

“It’s not much, but I know they always stayed at Iron Gate Hotel and Suites, so I guess she could be there?” she offered, when Sebastian called out, appearing a few seconds later.

“Kara, have you seen the…”

His sentence broke off when he saw Kiril, and a storm quickly gathered in his countenance.

“We’re closed,” he announced coldly.

“Mr. Lambert is looking for Miho,” Kara piped up, looking with some confusion between the two men.

Open hostility radiated.

“Thank you for your assistance,” Kiril said to Kara, inclining his head, even offering a shallow bow before he turned, but Sebastian caught his arm and hissed.

“Stay away from Miho.”

Straightening, Kiril looked down at the offending hand, but did nothing to remove it.

“Unless I am mistaken, and I am not,” Kiril began slowly, deliberately, “you have no claim over her, Mr. Ross.”

“No one has a claim over her,” Sebastian volleyed, all teeth and glaring, “but when one Lambert vampire has already torn her life apart, she doesn’t need another.”

If Kiril was surprised by Sebastian’s specificity, it did not show, nor did any concern.

“Mind yourself, little guard dog,” he smiled with infuriating smugness, the very peak of a pointed incisor adding to the sharpness to his condescension. “Don’t think I’m unaware you and yours stand apart; it would be foolish to begin a fight you have no chance of winning.”

“And equally as foolish of you to be so sure of yourself,” Sebastian shot back, in no way backing down. “I will not allow you to drag Miho into your world.”

“It might surprise you to learn, Mr. Ross, that I do not want that for her either,” Kiril pointed out. “But the fact remains she is pursuing the shadow of her own accord; better that there be someone to catch her at the bottom of the rabbit hole, than not.”

This did not seem to comfort Sebastian at all, but his hold on Kiril did fall away.

“Just stay away from her, damnit,” he cursed, causing Kiril to chuckle.

“If that is all you have, I will be on my way,” Kiril laughed. “Be a good boy and look after your mistress’ house while she’s away.”

“Sebbie?” a new female voice called, and a slight, tanned-skin woman appeared behind Sebastian just in time to see Kiril’s smirk widen as he moved away once more.

“Fucking Hell,” Sebastian hissed under his breath, though his anger was not truly directed at his sister.

“Mmm, who’s that?” Selina grinned against her brother’s arm, watching Kiril’s back.

“Don’t you start,” Sebastian growled. “Under no circumstances are you to go anywhere near that… man.”

  Dejected, my mission turns up nothing, and having been up since early Sunday morning, I end up returning disheartened and exhausted to the hotel as dawn is creeping up on the city. Struggling through a confusing swamp of dream and nightmare, I’m hunted by shadow, slashed at by light, chasing my best friend only to be barred by this woman Narumi and a sea of circling ravens.

Waking in a sweaty tangle, however, is no longer a surprise to me, but it doesn’t mean I feel any less icky. Showering only does so much to pull me from a sullen mood, but I have to get moving because it’s already past eleven and I have plenty of places to search.

Alas, my feet grow heavier each time I’m told no one has seen Jazz, and I’m convinced I’ve left little chips of my heart in a storybook trail behind me. By nightfall my stomach is grumbling, but I just can’t bring myself to stop and eat. My mind is occupied by the image of Jazz’s eyes, blue and beautiful, cheeky and teasing, challenging and complicit.

God, it stings.

“Don’t cry, you fragile tart!” I snap at myself. “What good is crying?”

But it’s so hard to look forward, because I’m afraid my forever won’t have Jazz in it anymore.

“Assassins don’t cry,” I tell myself firmly, nodding politely as I make incidental eye contact with a man walking in my direction.

When his hip bumps firmly into mine, it’s a total surprise, one that sends me stumbling sideways into one of many dim alleys lined with aging architecture and mystery.

“Hey, what the hell?” I snarl, gripping my bag’s strap tightly. “If this is a  mugging, they’ve made a big mistake.”

“Keep your voice down,” the man whispers, a baritone that should have sounded warm, but still racks a shiver through my body.

An attempt to sidestep him is thwarted easily, but not by him.

The man is not alone, this fact revealed as a hand curls over my mouth and an arm around my waist that drags me further into obscurity.

Panic grips me; adrenaline fills me; and in a flurry of flailing limbs I land a lucky blow against my attacker and am released.

There is no voice, however, when I open my mouth to scream, the banshee trapped in my throat by the clear and present danger of what was once two men, now four.

“Good,” one of them snickers, satisfied it seems by my silence despite the hunched readiness of my posture. “That mouth of yours has already gotten you into plenty of trouble.”

Surrounded, my back literally against the wall, I do my utmost to glower at each offender in turn.

“Take it,” I finally gasp, throwing my bag to the ground before me, but none of them move to retrieve it.

I note then, the cut of their clothing, the cleanness of their faces, the neatness of their hair – not really the types to grab a girl for her purse.

“So,” the initial man begins, and I zero in on him, “what do you know about Konstantin Lambert?”

Swallowing, I turn his question over in my mind.

“First in London, and now here? Who is Konstantin Lambert to get such a response?”

“I’m looking for him,” I answer, my throat dry. “Do you know where he is?”

“If we did, he’d be dead,” one of the others growls, his shoes scraping loudly against the concrete as he shuffles toward me.

“Why?” I very nearly hiccup, but my lip curls upward in what I can only hope is a fair imitation of a sneer.

They look a little stunned, confused maybe, looking between one another, until the closest man reaches for my shoulder.

I want to close my eyes, and I think for a split second I do, before something snaps inside me – and the next snap happens almost as quickly.

There’s no thought, just pure instinct.

My fingers dig into the flesh of his wrist as I step forward and jerk down; he hits the ground. The sound his wrist makes as my heel stomps down on his arm, the crunch of bone breaking beneath jarring force, is swiftly consumed by his yelp, and followed by the slump and roll of his body to the feet of his compatriots.

For a few astonished seconds no one can believe what I’ve done, least of all myself. When the moment is broken, much like the limp dangle of my attacker’s wrist as he drags himself back to his feet, the expressions I face are a whole lot more terrifying.

“That,” he grated, rage bubbling in his eyes, “was a mistake.”

“Actually,” a new voice interrupts, casual, flippant, and so familiar that my already racing heart threatens to seize, “attacking her was a mistake.”

Part 5

[irarelypostanything]

Slice of Life[4]

[Ryan]

Ryan found that being extremely intelligent was both a blessing and a curse: It was a blessing because it helped him breeze through his UCB CS classes, and it was a curse because it made people interact with him in some really strange, occasionally disturbing ways.

Arrogant and egotistical people, Ryan found, often attempted to show their superiority to him out of some mislabeled sense of insecurity (and they were almost always unsuccessful).  Even fairly “normal” people seemed to adapt their behavior in his presence, either by attempting to garner his respect or by ignoring him outright.  All of this was because they either saw themselves in him, were envious of him, or were just generally intimidated by him.  Ryan knew this because, while dual-majoring in music, he also did minors in psychology, military strategy, and economics.  For fun.

The honest truth was that, beneath the brilliance and the talent, Ryan was actually a fairly simple man who only cared at all about three things: His girlfriend, digital signal processing, and dropping bomb-ass EDM remixes.  He currently had roughly 500 thousand hits on one of his Soundclound scores.  His dream was to either sign a record label or pursue grad school at MIT, where he hoped to prove that there was a far superior method for direction finding.

“I’ve tested all of your new code,” said Kevin, “and it works perfectly.”

“Excellent.  Do you want to tell Andy?”

“Well...hold on.  Here’s the thing.”

They were back in the conference room.  Kevin’s laptop was projected for both of them.  Kevin brought up their sprint breakdown, which reflected that they were on track to finish their story in about three days.

“If we say this is complete, the scrum master is going to ask us to work on something else.  Because it will take a day just to understand the new task, and because the scrum master is incapable of comprehending that, we will have to work the weekend.  I don’t want to work the weekend.  However, this would be an ethical violation and a deceptive-”

“Fuck it, let’s do it.”

“What?  Really?”

“Yeah man, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather go to a rave than sit in an office Saturday night.”

The next day, as per the sacred laws of scrum, both of them stood and shared their progress.

“Unfortunately,” said Kevin, “this task has proven to be very difficult for us.  It is likely to take us the remaining two days we have, but hopefully not the weekend.”

“Hopefully,” said Ryan.  “Kevin is working pretty hard to show me the ropes, but I admit that I’ve been a bit slow to adapt.”  Ryan winked at Kevin.

“Do you still think you’ll be able to finish the story on time?”

“Yes!” said Kevin instantly.  “Er...I mean...if we work really hard, then possibly we’ll finish.”

“Fingers crossed!” said Ryan.

“Okay,” said the scrum master, “good luck to both of you.”

Ryan and Kevin spent the next six hours playing Minecraft on a company Raspberry Pi.

[Kevin]

San Francisco.  God it took a long time to drive back this time.  It was Picnic Day, so getting past Davis took like an hour.  Berkeley was...busy...always.  Some driver honked Kevin as he slowed to get into the rightmost lane, and Kevin quickly memorized the angry driver’s license plate.  One day, even if it took a lifetime, Kevin would get revenge.  Kevin would find this driver, tailgate him, then honk him rudely before speeding away.

The drive normally took an hour and a half.  Today it took almost four.

Home was strange.  His mom was out on her own vacation.  Everything looked more or less the same, but what was this...lack of feeling?  Kevin unpacked his things, tested the Internet, watched an episode of Billions.  He slept a little while, since the drive was exhausting, then lazily checked his Android.

He wanted to talk “strategy” with someone from before, whatever that meant.  Company pivot.  Multi-million dollar contract.  Career growth.  Blah blah blah blah blah.  He had one friend whose mature insight six years before had been critical.  He wanted her wisdom again, but she was out.

There was someone else he knew from before.  She was also out.

His high school friend who was now trying to get into software engineering?  His college friend who moved up here for data analytics?  Busy, busy.  What was this?

Kevin felt lonely a lot.  The company therapist said that this was a psychological affliction created from his unique circumstance of NEVER HANGING OUT WITH ANYONE, EVER, unless it involved complaining about work for two hours straight and then leaving early.  Kevin responded by asking his therapist if she wanted to grab lunch.  She politely declined.

Kevin streamed a new series called Billions.  Kevin watched YouTube.  Kevin decided to start reading an exciting new book series he had heard about in a podcast during the drive, then got bored of that.  He returned to his phone and decided to cycle through everyone again.

Still busy?  Yeah.  Still busy?  Yeah.

Kevin decided to try out a new strategy.  He got everyone he had just asked into a Facebook chat and asked if they wanted to play StarCraft 1, just like old times.

They all played until daybreak, and it was great, but Kevin really helped that four-hour drive was not a waste.

[Nora]

Sunday mornings were always spent at church, as God had intended.  It was important to specify that Jesus, unlike the followers of outdated teachings, stressed that it was not sinful to work on the holy day.  Sin was a spectrum, not an absolute.  

And holy crap were some of these Sunday night parties she found herself in sinful.

San Francisco daytime, Nora remembered, mostly consisted of churning out code and witnessing the combined results of various well-known tech companies feeding off of each other and reproducing incestuousy, like the Targaryens.  Her dashboard alone was powered by six familiar names, and it was unsurprising that these six companies also used her company’s product.

San Francisco nighttime, Nora was now learning, consisted of various bar crawls, sketchy house parties, drinking on drinking, and various drugs that it was probably illegal to even put into writing.  Nora at least distanced herself from the drugs, but the rest was difficult.  The caviar was to die for.  The music was so fire that she wondered how these musicians remained in obscurity while crap on the radio was platinum.

Tonight, at a quieter house party, Nora wanted to just unwind a little bit.  She carried a bottle of two buck chuck she had found and uncorked it for herself.  She chatted up the bartender, mingled a bit, then sat at the couch to sip and scroll through Instagram.  This was going to be a quieter night, she could feel it.

Suddenly Kevin burst through the front door, two bottles of Bacardi 151 in hand.

“The drought is over!” he screamed, followed by the loud sound of the host cheering and everyone else in the room calling his name.  

[roslinadama-sinequanon]

What’s Wrong with Sharon?

As one of the many obsessing over what’s wrong with Sharon, I’ve had many thoughts, worries and theories. I won’t go into some of the “off the cliff” thoughts that I had and instead will focus on the ones that seem plausible.

So I”ve been doing some armchair diagnosing and here are my thoughts.

First off- (we’ll start with worst case scenario and work our way up)

Brain Tumor-

Because I’m one of the many Laura Roslin fans who are still traumatized by what was done to her and immediately think the worst every time Sharon seems tired.

Brain tumor symptoms she exhibited-Head pain (she pressed her fingers into her forehead in pain) Issues with her sight, weakness in her limbs. But her breathlessness does not fit with this diagnosis and Duff did stress that a member of the cast would be left “breathless” so that seems to be the key symptom.

Brain Aneurysm-Same scenario as above.

Stroke-

I watched my grandmother have a stroke and this is not the way one has a stroke. With a stroke Sharon would have had possible intense pain in her head,  weakness on one side of her body, her face would have drooped on one side, her words would have slurred and she wouldn’t have had the issue with being unable to catch her breath.

Issues from the bombing- 

Are her headaches, vision and weakness leftover remants from a concussion and the breathing issues from all the dust from the bombing that have given her a lung infection?

Walking Pneumonia- 

The flu could easily have turned into walking pneumonia in which case she could have a headache, tiredness, lingering weakness. Pneumonia could have been brought on by the chemicals in all the dust from the bombing and then the flu. One thing that throws off this diagnosis is the lack of any cough.

Stress- 

This has been what most people seem to think is happening and I think it is the most plausible answer—and also the one that I am HOPING for. Stress could account for the headache and vision issues. Each time she seemed to have a vision/breathing issue it was during one of the many stress triggers she has going on. The case, in the church, with Rusty talking about the gun. MC has always done things for a reason and I think they chose to have her “episodes” happen when they did for a reason. So we’ve got headache, vision and breathing symptoms covered. What about the tiredness and lingering weakness? Well, couldn’t that just be remnants of the flu? I think a combination stress/flu could be a very plausible explanation—and much better than anything else I listed above.

First of all, let’s list everything Sharon has had to be stressed about over the last year or so.

1.     Mass Shooting- Sharon was involved in a mass shooting where her boss was shot and killed in front of her. She in turn killed the man responsible (her first time killing someone in the line of duty) A man she despised so much she couldn’t feel sorry for killing him. Many would would see that as a positive thing but not Sharon. It only created more stress in the situation. 2.     Andy’s health scares- Having just recovered from a serious blood clot issue that required dangerous surgery, Sharon’s boyfriend then has a heart attack right in front of her. And though we didn’t get to see one little bit of it,  that had to cause an extreme emotional response inside Sharon. 3.     Power Vacuum at the LAPD- With Taylor gone Sharon had  to deal with the power void at work and the very real fear that Winnie Davis could step into Taylor‘s vacant position. There was a lot of angst over who would get the job and Sharon felt very pressured into pursuing it when it was the last thing she wanted. She was happy where she was, but felt she had to go for it because if Davis got promoted there was a pretty good chance she would shut down Major Crimes. She was put back in a situation of shoving her own happiness aside for the greater good. 4.     The Engagement- Andy asked her to marry him and she said yes. She then started to worry over whether she could get married in the church or not, and then had to plan a wedding. Sharon did seem to enjoy planning the wedding and does love a celebration but they are getting down to crunch time and that can get very stressful. 5.      Going after a possible terrorist- Sharon had a very stressful case trying to hunt down someone intent on bombing LA and ended up getting bombed herself…twice. 6.     Commander Raydor- Sharon got promoted to Commander and even though that was a positive it can still be stressful learning to navigate your way through a new position with a new boss and there had to be some chaos while they rebuilt the building after it was bombed. 7.     Stroh- A dangerous pyschopathic serial killer who wants her son dead suddenly appears to be back in the country and is killing anyone who has anything to do with his past. Her son refuses undercover protection and instead wants a gun. 8.     The Catholic Church-Sharon is a devout Catholic and now she has a case that involves her church, her parish and the school all three of her children attended. She has put so much love and trust into her church and suddenly she is getting it on all sides. Her team at work—some of them—have been very nasty and derogatory about her church and her faith and she has just bitten her tongue. And the people she trusted in the church are trying to thwart her at every turn. Father Stan has been particularly hard for her. Here is a man she turns to for advice, who listens to her confessions, one of the few people she probably pours her heart out too and suddenly she isn’t sure if she can trust him anymore. Suddenly she doesn’t know who he is anymore. She has relied on the church all her life for moral guidance and support spiritually and physically, something that was especially important to her as a single mother. The church helped raise her children, it’s an integral part of who she is and now it seems as if she is questioning all of that and it’s breaking her. 9.     Holding it all in-Now, with all of this going on we never see Sharon frazzled, we never see her venting or complaining, we never see her losing her cool. I have been one of the people complaining that we need to see how Sharon feels about ANY of what I’ve just listed. But if she truly has kept all of this inside, it’s no wonder she kind of explodes. It’s like the FBI agents hiding the boys was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back and she just complete loses it. You can see the look of shock on the faces of her team when she just starts laying into the agents—and the look of concern on Andy’s face, because it just isn’t like her. Before she collapsed she looked scared because she couldn’t catch her breath, and maybe because she had just completely lost control, which is something she’s just never done. She’s always in control That said, Sharon in her full fury and contempt was a beautiful thing to behold---until she collapsed. It was the same reason Laura Roslin‘s “I‘m coming for all of you“ speech was so breathtaking. To see a reserved person who is always in control just completely lose it is so freaking powerful.

I’d love to see this be a combination stress/flu thing because a. it means Sharon doesn’t have a terminal illness and b. because I think it could be a really interesting storyline. Illnesses have been done and done and done again and Mary has already played that. It would be great to see something different. You can already see Mary sinking her teeth into this and I think it could be a very powerful storyline.

Sharon prides herself on always being in control, always keeping her cool and understanding stress. After all she lectured Andy on stress when he was wondering why he had a heart attack. She just never saw herself in that light. For a person as controlled as Sharon is, to lose that control would be a very scary thing. I think Mary could act the hell out of this. And it would be a great opportunity for some supportive Andy.

And who knows, if it is an issue with stress now both Sharon and Andy are dealing with that and maybe that‘s how they will end things. Once Stroh is taken care of--and I think we all know he will be taken care of, they may look at each other and say “Hey, we‘re married, we‘re happy, we want to live long and healthy lives, we need to get out of these stressful jobs and retire.”

(Then they can start a little PI business with Provenza and live happily ever after.)

So, I’m preparing for the worst and hoping against hope for the best. Looking forward to how this plays out next week. And it looks like from a promo shot I just saw that we will actually see Sharon and Andy in their bedroom! Not actually touching or anything, but it’s progress. Giddy!

[defenselesswriter]

inspired by this post by @captain-snark i hope i did the idea justice!

part two part three

Derek swears someone is using his pool. He doesn’t have evidence, but things look slightly out of place when he gets back from his business trip. It isn’t really that noticeable and when he had Cora check on his place a few days ago, she said everything looked normal. 

It’s really just a feeling. A feeling that someone is using his pool. 

With a sigh, he shakes it off. It’s nothing, nothing substantial at least. He grabs his briefcase and suitcase and leaves the house for his business trip. It is always a drag going across the country to New York to deal with corporate. He has to put on his best suit and pack his other good suits, and then he has to somehow manage not to get too wrinkled on the plane on the way there, and it is a long flight from California to New York.

But this is what he chose to do. This is what he got his business degree for. He owns a bakery and now there is a corporation for it to make more bakeries, and really, he didn’t think his bakery would get this far. There are investors and CEOs to talk to now. He hates talking to people.

He remembers how much Laura and his dad urged him to pursue this. He always loved cooking, especially baking. After being his taste tester for years, Laura enthusiastically pushed him towards getting a business degree so he could open up his own bakery. Honestly, when he first pictured it, he imagined himself standing in the back, baking. Reality is a bit different.

Some days are like that, and those days are his favorite days. He can put on some headphones and concentrate on baking. Erica is practically flawless at handling the front of the store with the customers. Surprisingly. As much sass as she gives him, she really is good with the customers. She is so friendly, which wasn’t surprising, and she is incredibly patient, which is the surprising part.

Now, he has business meetings almost every week where he is gone for at least three days at a time. During that time, Boyd handles the baking, and even Derek, the perfectionist, has to admit that Boyd is damn good at what he does. Plus, Boyd hates talking, which makes him good in Derek’s book.

Sometimes, they bake together, especially if they are preparing for a big event like a wedding. Those times are a second favorite of Derek’s. They don’t usually talk, but they seem to work seamlessly around each other. Derek thinks he has a really good set up, and now that there are multiple people out there willing to put their money towards making more Hale’s Bakeries (yes, very creative name, but the ones Laura suggested were somehow worse), he is honestly living the business owner’s dream come true.

There’s just something missing. Or someone.

He is a bit lonely. On his flight home after the business trip, he longs for someone to come home to. Someone he can cook for and shower in love and food. That’s the way to woo someone, right? Food and love? He thinks so. 

He falls asleep after a while on the plane and doesn’t wake up until the flight attendant announces their descent. From there, it’s a quick process to get off the plane since he only had carry-ons. 

Finding his car is the hard part. He always loses it in these giant airport parking lots. After about five minutes of searching, he finds it. After dropping his stuff in the backseat, he gets into the driver’s seat and makes the drive back to Beacon Hills.

It’s a long drive, about two hours, but he doesn’t mind the alone time. He takes the time to process what this trip was about. They want to start finding locations in California for more bakeries, and they gave Derek a folder full of different locations to look at when he as time. He wonders for a moment, when does he have time anymore?

He is hoping they’re nearing the end of the countless meetings in NY. It is really tiresome traveling back and forth. Maybe he should suggest video conferences instead. That would save him and the company money.

When he gets home, Derek drops everything off in his room to deal with later. He quickly puts on sweats instead of his suit and hangs it up to take to the dry cleaner tomorrow. He can unpack tomorrow. For tonight, he just wants to order some Chinese food and watch the Food Channel. 

Everything changes when he gets to the kitchen and sees what’s in his backyard.

He knew it. He fucking knew it. Someone has been using his pool! And not just anyone. The sheriff’s kid. Well, granted the kid is in college now and is well over eighteen, but still. Someone is using his pool!

In a rush, he walks to the backdoor and then stops when he see the sheriff’s kid, Stiles, get out. All the anger seems to dissipate as he stares at the very much not a kid. Stiles sure has grown up these last few years. He hasn’t been around as much since he’s been at college, but wow. He is kind of beautiful?

Stiles runs a towel (his own, Derek quickly notes) through his hair and then wraps it around his waist, still showing the broad shoulders and his very well muscled back. His skin is peppered in moles that Derek can barely see, but they’re beautiful like the constellations of the stars.

Derek shakes his head, getting himself out of the funk he was in. He needs to go out there and set Stiles straight.

He opens the back door, and Stiles jumps. “This is private property,” Derek says, trying to sound tough and serious. He isn’t sure it came out like that, though.

Stiles turns around, his eyes wide and his jaw dropped. “I - you - you’re - and I thought.” He stops sputtering and takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

“Has this been a repeated offense?” Derek asks with his eyebrows raised, crossing his arms over his bare chest, which he totally forgot was bare because shirts seemed like such an inconvenience at the time.

Apparently Stiles notices that Derek is shirtless because his eyes drift down and then they kind of glaze over until he shakes his head and snaps out of it. “Yes,” Stiles answers truthfully. “You have a pool. We don’t. You’re gone for days a time, so I thought why not give the pool some love while you’re away?”

Derek rolls his eyes, but he wants to smile. “Why not? Maybe because it’s breaking and entering?”

“I have not broken anything,” Stiles argues, pointing at Derek, and then he puts the finger down. “I will admit to the entering, though, and the trespassing on private property. You just have such a nice pool, and this summer has been brutal, dude, and I can’t sleep at night so this is a good way to tire out my body so it’s easier to sleep, which you don’t care about because you just found some strange man in your pool even though everyone in this town knows who I am so you obviously know I’m the sheriff’s son, and I’m going to stop talking now.” He takes a deep breath as if he was completely out of breath at the end of his monologue, and Derek doesn’t doubt he was.

“The gate code is Pi,” is all Derek says.

“What?” Stiles asks, his eyebrows scrunched together adorably.

“I’m not repeating myself,” Derek tells him and goes inside. He spares a look over his shoulder in time to see Stiles hop the fence between their yards and the way his arm muscles move....damn.

After that, Derek finds Stiles in his pool almost every night, especially late at night. It’s not that he wakes Derek up in the middle of the night. Derek is already up because he is working on new recipe ideas, and when he looks out his bedroom window into the backyard, there Stiles is, doing laps.

One time, Derek considers going out there and swimming with Stiles, maybe even challenging him to a race just to see Stiles’ reaction. He gets on his swim trunks before deciding against it. He puts sweats back on and climbs back into bed, settling with just watching Stiles’ long arms and legs move through the water.

One night, there is a knock on his back door. Confused, Derek gets up from the couch in the living room and see Stiles dancing around on his patio. 

“Dude, let me in, I have to pee!” Stiles calls out, so Derek opens the door. “Thank God, I was about to pee in your pool, man.”

Derek opens his mouth to say something about that, but Stiles is running through the house and opening the first door he can find. “That would be my room,” Derek informs him dryly.

“Right,” Stiles says and quickly turns around, his face red. “The bathroom is?”

Derek points to the left. “First door in the hall.”

Stiles practically runs in the direction Derek points, and a few minutes later, he reappears looking calmer. “Thanks, dude.” Then he stops and sniffs. “Do I smell...” He sniffs a couple more times as he walks into the kitchen. “Are those brownies?” He stops at the oven and stares longingly at it.

“Yes, I’m baking brownies,” Derek admits gruffly.

Stiles tears his eyes away from the oven to stare at Derek with wide eyes. “You? Bake?”

Derek frowns at that. Obviously he bakes. He owns a bakery. “Uh, yeah. Where do you think Hale’s Bakery gets its food?”

If it were possible, Stiles’ jaw would fall to the floor in this exact moment. “You’re the baker for Hale’s Bakery?”

“I’m the owner,” Derek says. “Or I was. Now there are other owners and investors.”

“Whoa,” Stiles says with a look of profound respect on his face. “You are probably the greatest person alive...if you let me have a brownie.”

“Of course there are stipulations.” Derek rolls his eyes, but he checks the timer. “In about five minutes you can have one.”

Stiles looks back at the oven’s timer. “There are three minutes left.”

“Yes, but they have to cool first.”

Stiles looks back at him with a strange look on his face. “Huh, scary neighbor guy cares about me enough to stop me from eating scolding brownies.”

“I have a name.”

“Yes, it’s Derek,” Stiles says, waving his hand. “As if I don’t know all my neighbors especially ones like you.”

“Like me?” Derek questions with a raised eyebrow.

Stiles turns red. “Er...ones like you. With a pool, I mean. I keep track of all my neighbors who have a pool.”

“Sure,” Derek says, unconvinced. 

“So you own a bakery.” Stiles speaks slowly like he is trying to ease into the conversation. “That’s pretty cool. You like baking?”

“Obviously,” Derek tells him.

Stiles smiles softly and shakes his head. “There’s more to you than meets the eye.”

Derek is about to ask him what he means when the timer loudly beeps. He puts a toothpick in the brownies to make sure they’re done and then he pulls them out.

Quickly, he turns to Stiles, putting a hand up that lands on Stiles’ chest. “Wait for them to cool.”

Stiles looks down at Derek’s hand and then at the brownies and then at Derek. It’s quiet and tense for a moment before Stiles takes a step back. “Sir, yes, sir.”

“So you’re in college?” Derek asks.

“Just graduated,” Stiles tells him, and Derek thinks he should look happy, but really he just looks tired. 

“Your major?” 

“Criminal justice,” Stiles answers quickly. “Kind of wanted to work for my dad, maybe be like when him when I’m all grown up.”

“You sure look grown up to me,” Derek says before thinking it through and fuck why did he just say that?

Stiles stares at him with wide eyes and then smirks. “You know, when I am an adultier adult.”

Derek nods, thanking every deity he can think of that Stiles didn’t comment on what he said because that was just ridiculous and embarrassing. Derek still can’t believe he said that.

“Has it been two minutes yet?” Stiles asks, looking back at the pan of brownies. 

“I’ll cut them,” Derek says and get grabs a knife. “Right behind you.”

Stiles turns around, and they’re close again. Derek would say too close, but for a second he thinks that may not exist with Stiles. For once, Derek doesn’t mind a person in his personal space. He doesn’t mind Stiles in his personal space.

“I gotta go,” Stiles squeaks out and then runs out the back door.

Derek watches him in confusion as Stiles jumps the fence back into his own yard. He thinks that was kind of weird. Why wouldn’t Stiles at least want to take home some brownies?

The next day, Derek goes to the sheriff’s house and rings the doorbell.

The door opens to reveal the sheriff himself. “Derek,” the man greets with a smile. Then his eyes drop to Derek’s hands or what is in Derek’s hands. “You brought us something?”

“Brownies, sir,” Derek answers. “For you and Stiles. They’re a new recipe, and usually I share with family, but you guys are right here, so I thought maybe you guys could give me an unbiased opinion on how they are.”

The sheriff nods slowly, accepting the plate of brownies that Derek hands over. “Uh-huh,” he says. “And this would have nothing to do with the fact that my son is over at your house almost every night?”

Derek blushes. Not that he has a reason to blush. He and Stiles haven’t done anything yet. Wait, yet? Not yet. No. They haven’t done anything. Period. End of sentence. 

“Uh, well,” Derek stammers and then someone is pounding down the stairs.

“Yo, Dad, who’s at the door?” Stiles calls out before he’s on the ground floor and can see Derek. Once Stiles sees him, he turns red. “Derek?”

“Brought us brownies,” the sheriff says, turning around and handing Stiles the plate. “For us to try. It’s a new recipe.”

“Right, for his bakery.” Stiles nods, grabbing the plate and looking at it closely.

“Well, I should go, sheriff, sir,” Derek says. “I have to check in on the bakery.”

The sheriff nods. “Well, thank you for the brownies. I’m sure Stiles will eat them all before I have a chance. Oh, and you can call me John.”

“If you ever want anymore, it wouldn’t be any trouble for me to bake you some,” Derek offers.

“No!” Stiles quickly yells and when John and Derek look at him, he shrinks into himself. “I mean that my dad can’t have too much sugar and fats because of his cholesterol so maybe baking him brownies at his leisure is a bad idea?”

“I think it’s a great idea,” John says loftily, turning back to Derek and winking. “Especially since this young man is kind enough to offer.”

Derek tries to smile, but he doesn’t think it worked very well. “Anyway. Nice to see you guys. I’ll get out of your hair. Bye.”

“See you tonight, Derek!” Stiles calls out before the sheriff shuts the door.

Derek is in big trouble.

[kashal1221]

Session ? (18, probably): Automatons (15/7/2018, Games@PI)

Dear Dad,

You may have surmised, even from your limited interactions with them, that my companions find little difficulty in landing themselves in hot water. It has been little more than a week since we departed from Opal City, and already much has happened. As you'll recall, having been there at the time, our ship was badly damaged. I was able to use magic to mend it to some extent, but between my being the only proper sailor on the ship, and the one mending any leaks that sprung up, I was rather in need of a couple of helping hands. Einar claimed to have a contact who could help us aquire metal sailors, needing neither food nor rest, from a facility hidden in the Sietemus's Teeth. Already I was suspicious- the area is well known to be riddled with pirates. Stranger still, his contact turned out to be a skeleton. But unlike the undead I have fought in the past, who were as lacking in mental faculties as they were in flesh and blood, this skeleton was as intelligent as any living man. His name was Juniper, and he promised to lead us to this facility. 

We received no trouble sailing to the island Juniper directed us to. It was when we landed that trouble began. The entrance to the facility was a large hole in the ground, leading down into fathomless depths. My companions, using methods of calculation I can hardly begin to understand, deemed the drop to be more than a thousand feet, with unknown depths of water beneath. Fortunately, long drops are of little consequence to my companions and myself, though this was a much longer fall than any I have previously undertaken. Jamborin, my half-elven wizard friend, myself, and three of our companions jumped in, and we fell freely for ten seconds or more before Jamborin cast her spell to slow our descent, allowing us to land safely in the water. Two more of our number flew down on our broom of flying, while the skeleton simply jumped, with no spell or magic item to aid him, save whatever enchantments keep his bones upright without flesh to hold them in place. 

To reach the facility, there was a further swim down through an underwater passage. Jamborin and I, each through our own methods having the ability to breathe underwater, led the way, though the trip was short enough that even those of us less magically inclined were able to surface on the other side unharmed. 

We met a strange woman then, sitting at the front desk. Though our tests deemed her a living human, she behaved more like an automaton, with no animation in her voice or face. All along I had my doubts about this trip. The strangeness of this woman only further worried me. My companions of course still behaved as though this were all a lark. Having been warned that a corridor was filled with traps, three of our number immediately ran directly down that self-same corridor, and as a result were brought almost to the point of death. Still we soldiered on, making our way deeper into the facility. We were left to wait for a good hour, during which my companions nursed their well-deserved wounds. Eventually a man, Winter, came to show us in. As we passed through, we saw more of those strange people, mindlessly working on the constructs, neither speaking nor looking away from their task. It was then that Winter revealed to us the price of the constructs we sought- not any amount of gold, but a living person. As this news sank in, Barris, always quick to draw his gun, opened fire upon Winter. Winter ran to sound the alarm as two suits of armour sprang to life to defend him. It did not take us long to kill Winter. The suits of armour, animated with the spirits of water and fire elementals respectively, proved harder to defeat, though defeat them we did, in the end. 

They thanked us as they died. From what I understand, they too were bound unwillingly in service. If I were controlled, and used to enslave others as they were, I too would welcome death. 

Our troubles were not yet over. The door through which we had come began to descend, trapping us in that room. Finch, our alchemist, as well as Jamborin's familiar, Bookwyrm, were the only ones fast enough to slip through before the door slammed closed. The rest of us, stuck inside the room, were able to work open a second door, which led to a loading bay, a handy means of escape. We communicated with Finch and Bookwyrm, and planned to each go out our separate ways, us through the loading bay and him back through the way we had come. But on the other side of the door, something strange began to happen to Finch. He became flat and mindless as the workers we had seen, and began to join them in their work. I teleported through the door and ran to him, shaking him, hoping to wake him from this enchanted stupor. For a moment he looked at me with a spark of recognition, but it was quickly suppressed, and he returned to work. Taking hold of him, I dragged him towards the door. But that was when something entered my mind, the same thing that had enslaved my friend. For a moment I faltered, my body leaving my mind's control, but with great mental effort I broke free, and teleported Finch and myself back through the door. 

Reunited with our friends, Finch's consciousness soon returned to him. In the loading bay, we found various means to bring ourselves as well as some cargo up to the surface, more than a thousand feet above us. Finch and our light-fingered friend, Luisa, found themselves a barrel which turned out to be a machine meant for underwater travel, which was fashioned somewhat after the features of a crab. It fitted only two, but the three breathing members of the party who could not do so underwater found magical means there in the loading bay. And so we made our way through the water, hanging on to the crab-like machine as it rose through the depths. 

We were accosted then by a terrifying sea creature. It had three large, bulbous eyes and a mouth filled with spiny teeth, and many waving tentacles fanned out behind. It spoke in our minds, furious that we had stolen from it. 

As we fought the creature, I felt it probe into my mind, demanding that I submit to its will. I recognised the cold touch of its magic. This was the same creature that had attempted to enslave Finch and myself, the same creature that enslaved the poor workers inside that terrible facility. Angered by this realisation, and bolstered by the knowledge that I had bested its enslaving power once before, I once again threw off the enchantment and continued to fight it.

The creature soon realised we were not a party to be trifled with, and it sought to escape. We pursued it, the crab-like machine catching and refusing to release it as we sought to kill the foul creature once and for all. A spell from Juniper put the monstrous thing to sleep, and we all gathered round, each of us preparing our deadliest attacks, hoping to kill it before it woke. On Juniper's signal, we let loose with spells and weapons, all eight of us at once. The massive creature fairly dissolved into a pulp from the strength of our attack. 

Monstrous creature dealt with, we continued on to the surface, though not unharmed. Two of our number were cursed by the creature's foul aura. Barris was quickly healed, but the other, our newest wizard Aquila, suffers still. She is bound to a tub that we have filled with seawater - emerging for too long causes her terrible pain. 

Upon our return to the ship, I was naturally furious with Einar for leading us to such an evil place, and I played a rather terrible trick upon him. I told him that we had bought the constructs, and that as the payment was a living person, we had come to retrieve him, to use him as payment. He looked so terrified at the prospect that I could not keep up the pretence for long. Even so, the relief when I told him that we were not indeed selling him had him in tears. In truth, I am somewhat perturbed that he did not question my story in the slightest. He fully believed I was capable of such a thing. Perhaps I have after all been too hard on him. I do regret playing that trick on him, especially as Jamborin decided that the scare was not punishment enough, and sought to tie him to the mast. I brought him down, of course, and he collected himself enough to have us on our way to Oceanward, now aided by seven stolen constructs.

We are at Oceanward now, with our ship at dry-docks while we search for a healer for Aquila, though the city is far from a haven away from danger. As it turns out, two of our number are wanted criminals here. One, you can probably guess. There are few places where Luisa is not a wanted criminal. The other may surprise you. Our dear alchemist is wanted here for treason, and there is a not insignificant bounty on his head. I hardly know what it is that he has done, but I know him to be a good man of strong morals, and I hold little respect for heads of state as it is. We will do our best to keep him safe, but I somehow doubt we will make it in and out of this city without incident. I will update you in my next letter on how this all plays out. I dearly hope I will have nothing to report, but I sincerely doubt that to be the case. 

Love, Hamish