#like man there must have been so much resentment going on there between the three of them because ianthe wanted corona as her cavalier

[serpentmessmer]

i'm literally sitting here like "it would be fine and normal for me to go put markers in gtn wherever naberius shows up" bc i'm thinking about him again like my god he's such an asshole and a whiner and a snake but when you're pledged to the tridentarii that's the only way to survive without getting eaten whole

[vivacissimx]

The puzzle piece about Rhaegar that is really interesting but unfortunately often overlooked is that he was relieved when he realized he was not TPTWP. Yes, relieved. Conflicted too which I will get into. And I believe it is obvious that when Rhaegar first read about Aegon's prophecy, he was not enthused— It seems I must be a warrior is trotted out to talk about Rhaegar's gender expression, his disconnect with capital m Masculinity that is purposely contrasted to Robert Baratheon reveling in it (indeed only making sense within the context of violence, battle, war) but there is more to the compulsion involved in the words It seems and I must than just It seems I must become an archetype. Socially becoming a fighter was already expected of him but he was not, presumably, in compliance with this expectation. The prophecy motivated him in a different way than you will be socially rewarded for acting as a man does.

Which brings me to another point i.e. how Rhaegar perceived himself prior to reading what he read; his connection to the tragedy of his birth and the grief, the resentment, the awkward dynamics between members of his family. "Oh he was a child" yes but we're told that Rhaegar did not act like, think like, or even particularly get along with others his age. So it's safe to say he was aware of Summerhall and felt it's shadow surrounding him from a young age. And Aegon's prophecy, combined with the Ghost of High Heart's prophecy, the events of Summerhall, put this weight on his shoulders completely into context. It was not that Rhaegar desired to be TPTWP because he took to it with determination but no particular joy. Every indicator just seemed to demand he give himself over to fulfilling this role. TPTWP was coming from Aerys and Rhaella's line? Well, he was their only child. Consult Maester Aemon on the matter? Yeah kid it's you. Ancient scrolls? Dusty, but they agree. Dead ancestors? Oh wait, they died so YOU could live. Woah.

This understanding basically necessitates us looking to ASOS Daenerys who also has some knowledge of TPTWP prophecy, and thanks to the Rhaegar-Daenerys pipeline, we can imagine that Rhaegar had similar thoughts to Daenerys, such as when she asks herself: The dragon has three heads. There are two men in the world who I can trust, if I can find them. I will not be alone then. We will be three against the world, like Aegon and his sisters. Who are Rhaegar's fellow two heads? Daenerys wonders at this, telling Jorah that her brothers are dead. Well Rhaegar's brothers die too, right in front of him. Rhaella suffers miscarriage after stillbirth after crib death. She is punished for this by Aerys via isolation and presumably Rhaegar is also kept separate from her— textually we know that Rhaegar was expected to take a sister to bride, i.e. further targcest was going to be enforced by Aerys, and to Rhaegar the loss would have also been of the other two people who would have fulfilled the requirements of the prophecy. Yes that's true. However, it was also the loss of his mother.

Rhaella was 13 when she had Rhaegar so it would be ridiculous to even think that she, a child, a Queen from when Rhaegar was 3, was this grand maternal figure to him. Of course she wasn't. There was too much on her shoulders. Too much on Aerys's shoulders as well, to be any sort of father except the kind who trotted Rhaegar out as an impressive little heir from time to time. Rhaegar was Aerys's success (it's the duty of the patriarch to sire sons who will continue the line) but as Rhaegar's siblings failed to survive, that success became a dicey thing. So when Viserys was born & survived, there is a thought that Rhaegar would latch onto such a sibling. This isn't the case— in fact, Viserys is Rhaella's. She coddles him. Keeps him close. Safe from Aerys (who already has Rhaegar). Viserys tells Dany stories about Rhaegar but this is done in the sense that he does not truly know Rhaegar. Why wouldn't Rhaegar have spent more time with Viserys, if he was motivated by fulfillment of the prophecy?

Because Viserys was Rhaella's, perhaps. Rhaegar never truly got to be his mother's son. To leech Viserys away from her... there's something in that. When Rhaella warmly welcomed Rhaegar's daughter, too. Rhaella's was Aerys's wife and property, which Rhaegar knew because he was also Aerys's property. Rhaella was mother to his brother. Rhaella was a grandmother to his daughter. She was everything but the woman who raised him.

"Rhaegar was a lonely man anyway due to his depression" yes that's true. There is an asceticism to Rhaegar Targaryen. The places he enjoys are bare and stripped, places he can keep his own company: Summerhall, the place of his birth, haunted, full of magic. Dragonstone where he retreats after his marriage, a place where the last embers of Valyria's magic died. Later the Tower of Joy is in a barren desert. But he finds a beauty in these places. He writes music that pushes him back into the shared world, songs he shares with people, about people, about lovers and those who sacrificed and who he is deeply moved by— almost like he's motivating himself. People are drawn to him.

Despite his lack of connection to Rhaella and Viserys he does bond with people. Arthur Dayne, who for all we can try and complicate, apply horseshoe theory to, is meant as the juxtaposition to characters such as the Smiling Knight. Brave as brass Myles Mooton whose memory his people still call upon. Richard Lonmouth and Jon Connington, both technically vassals to Robert Baratheon, funny little irony there. Princess Elia his wife who he is fond of along with the Dornishmen she comes to court with, "particularly" Prince Lewyn of the Kingsguard, who is in Rhaegar's confidence (per AWOIAF). These bonds seem strong because not a whiff of possible disloyalty on Rhaegar's part ever reaches Aerys despite it definitely existing and Aerys actively looking for it (again per AWOIAF). Do these confidantes know about Aegon's prophecy? IDK. At least in JonCon's case the answer seems to be no. However we also know JonCon wasn't actually the closest to Rhaegar. Nonetheless, I think we can assume that outside of Arthur Myles and Richard most of these were political relationships which Rhaegar pursued and all were concerned about Aerys's instability— there is also Tywin who Rhaegar performs certain overtures towards (such as knighting Gregor, Tywin's man, at a time when the Aerys-Tywin relationship had just grown particularly sour) indicating he'd like him as an ally. This is all straying away from TPTWP but I think it's important, it shows that even imbued with purpose, Rhaegar was in a position that did not lend itself towards him being able to take much action...

Then winter breaks. Spring comes. Nobody knows it's false yet. Rhaegar's whole deal is this coming Long Night. Everyone takes, quite literally, a breath of fresh air, and the tourney of Harrenhal commences, with Rhaegar as a shadow sponsor, thinking to call an informal Great Council which will begin to deal with Aerys (step 1)(step 1 failed).

This is where matters of prophecy come back into focus. I've covered Rhaegar's various relationships, the shallowness of them, the stagnancy in Developments due to Aerys's paranoia, etc. Harrenhal is not a solitary place but it is flush with magic in a way similar to Summerhall and Dragonstone— all places where dragons have died Harrenhal is thematically the cannibal dragon let's not get into that. And this is important to Rhaegar's characterization because of how things unfold with Lyanna Stark in several ways: 1) Lyanna cries to his song. Before they formally meet Lyanna is touched by the magic and purpose and sacrifice and yes, love, of which Rhaegar sings. It speaks to her. Of course, many others likely cried too. Common occurrence, see: A song of love and doom, Jon Connington recalled, and every woman in the hall was weeping when he put down the harp. Not the men, of course. Rhaegar gender moment but I digress. 2) Rhaegar's discovery of her as the KOTLT despite Robert & Richard Lonmouth both vowing to do so, those raucous manly men, both of whom failed; Rhaegar's subsequent hiding of her identity to unknown consequence for himself if any. All he produces is her shield which is painted with a tree on it, a purposeful callback to Duncan the Tall's shield, both Lyanna and Dunk being 'false knights' yet, in their actions, true ones. Sorry I love Lyanna so much I can't resist plugging her greatest hits 3) Rhaegar winning the tourney, the only tourney he's ever won... and immediately tainting his victory by awarding it to Lyanna instead.

I bring this all up and frame it because here we see that Rhaegar is not really invested in his own victory or legacy or even really his honor. His wife Princess Elia is there and she is pregnant with his son, something he could commemorate in the same vein that Aerys "honored" Rhaegar by showcasing him at various tourneys, an ode to a future warrior king, but Rhaegar doesn't do that. It's not his victory as a Man. It's never been about his victory as a Man. It doesn't even need to be his victory.

Neither does Aegon's prophecy. Rhaegar rapidly realizes that on two fronts: second, the false spring ends. It wasn't real! Rhaegar's spring isn't the lasting one. First, though, is that Rhaegar and Elia's son Aegon is born, a difficult birth in which Elia is rendered infertile. Who does this remind you of? Oh right, Aerys with Rhaella— only Rhaegar does not go about trying to impregnate Elia again. Rhaegar becomes convinced Aegon is TPTWP— something he was already thinking, prior. Rhaegar was never so invested in himself being TPTWP that he could not be convinced otherwise. Maester Aemon: Rhaegar, I thought... the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King's Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. Rhaegar agreeing "when he was young" and being "certain the bleeding star had to be a comet" all indicate that he had been looking into the possibility that TPTWP was Not Him for a while. The visits to Summerhall— maybe they were a search for proof by encasing himself in the lingering magic of the place? He still messed up the prince/princess translation presumably because baby Rhaenys never seemed to be in the conversation. (The bleeding star was in fact a comet, funnily enough, a little consolation prize for the pretty boy.) Here's what we know: in Daenerys's vision, Elia asks if Rhaegar will write Aegon a son, we can assume because he wrote their firstborn Rhaenys a song, but Rhaegar says no, he already has one. The song of ice and fire. Aegon doesn't get a song. Why? Rhaegar believes he must be a warrior.

Yet, he sings for him anyway.

Rhaegar's "it seems" and "I must" and distance from Viserys and inner conflict about Aerys and doubt about his own place in the grand scheme of things all come to fruition with Aegon's birth. Rhaegar isn't TPTWP— and it spurs him into action. A weight is off his shoulders so now he can act. As in the case of crowning Lyanna, when the purpose of a task is not to honor or elevate him, we see Rhaegar able to perform in ways he could not before.

Namely there are two veins: acting against Aerys and seeking out information of the prophecy, but Rhaegar's general direction (through the Riverlands past Harrenhal) seems to indicate that he was headed towards the Ghost of High Heart. Not Summerhall, a place of mysticism meant to soothe Rhaegar. Rather a place of pain. The Ghost of High Heart who gorged on grief at Summerhall, who only ever demands Jenny's song (which Rhaegar seems to have wrote), who sees in Arya who looks like Lyanna, who looks like Jon, death. But instead of ever making it there... Rhaegar meets Lyanna.

And then they disappear. There are the Rhaegarwars to consider so I'm just going to say that, at the least, Lyanna did not want to marry Robert though society dictated that she must, and in removing her, she was removed from this. From there she came to be in Dorne in a place that was desolate desert, but similar to Summerhall, which was also abandoned, held something of magic in that it was near where Those Who Sing The Song of the Earth had split the Arm of Dorne. We can say a lot more about this but that's not the point of the post. I have explained Rhaegar as a person disconnected from his mother, later a person who in several manners refuses to act as Aerys did towards Rhaella, indicating that disconnect troubled him — Rhaegar's limited amount of close relationships with people he admired and the deep loyalty shown to him, presumably for a reason — Rhaegar's willingness to interrogate himself & his assumptions about the world.

So when I say Rhaegar was relieved what I mean is that upon suspecting and, to his mind, confirming that he was not the fulfillment of Aegon's prophecy, Rhaegar became proactive in ways he had yearned for but not been able to before. The Rhaegar that died with Lyanna's name as his last word was not a Rhaegar who died thinking the world was doomed without him. I think the Rhaegar that died on the Trident was a Rhaegar who had escaped the shadow of fate only to meet it, face to face.

[shanastoryteller]

Happy Fall Season! 🍁🍂🌻🎃👻🧛🏻‍♀️ … Three faced goddess continuation 👉🏻👈🏻? God dammit shana i fucking loved this prompt, 2012 Tony is the only version that has rights and I’ve had such a problem with him ever since aou, but your writing took me back to when I actually loved his character

a continuations of 1

Rhodey heads to the smith, unsurprised to see a line of people outside of it, waiting for the man inside to succumb to his need to eat or sleep and pounce on him for whatever issue they believe needs his immediate attention. Peter is among them, the closest to an apprentice that exists, but he can’t enter the forge without everyone else pushing in too, so he waits with all the rest of them.

When they see him coming, they groan, knowing their chances have been destroyed, except for Peter, who just looks relieved.

He remembers a time when Edward belonged to him alone. Edward exists because of him, after all, and needs must, but sometimes he can’t help but resent that this is another piece that he’s had to share.

“When I walk back out, it better be to an empty hallway,” he says blandly.

He receives a chorus of, “Yes, General,” and a jaunty wave from Peter before he’s opening the door and then shutting it firmly behind him.

In the beginning, the alchemy lab and the forge had occupied the same space, the outpost not yet big enough to have the rooms to spare. It had been quickly remedied once Rhodey had found about it, because the last thing any of them needed was losing him to an explosion of his own making, but he can’t say he’s surprised to see a cauldron bubbling ominously in the center of the room. “You have a lab for a reason.”

Surprised brown eyes snap up to meet his, and then there’s that familiar grin that always causes tension to unspool from his spine, even when it really shouldn’t. “Well, well, look what the cat dragged in. How goes the battle on the Eastern border?”

As if he doesn’t know. “They’re retreating. Our soldiers are holding the line and it looks like they’ve given up attacking us on that front. For now.”

“Sounds like something you should tell the king,” he says, frowning down into the cauldron as if it’s personally disappointed him.

Rhodey closes the distance between them, grabbing his chin and tilting his head to the side, frowning at the bruising mostly hidden by his hairline. “I am. But it’s a bit of wasted effort, considering the king is half the reason for their retreat.”

“Just half?” he pouts. “I really think that I deserve more credit-”

Rhodey kisses him to shut him up, a strategy that he’s been employing since they were teenagers, the whole reason necessitating Edward in the first place.

The second prince could not be scene dallying with someone so below him in station, the fact they were known to be friendly was a fluke of a broken wagon and much derision to all who heard of it. But Edward was no one, an educated fifth son of some nameless noble with a talent for metalwork, and no one cared if he kissed a commoner.

Then war had come knocking and a king could not do what needed to be done and so Edward had shifted from Rhodey’s to the country’s overnight.

Tony hums happily against his mouth and Rhodey pulls back rather than deepening it. Half the trick with was not letting him get distracted. “You need to get some sleep. Have you slept at all since getting back from the battle?”

The deep bruises under his eyes already tells him the answer, but it’s still worth asking.

“Need to figure this out,” he says, tilting his head to the cauldron. “It’s a coating for the blades to get them sharp enough to cut through armor. Not our armor, obviously, but other people’s.”

“A day,” he says, because Tony is needed everywhere at all times in all ways, and someone has to keep him from running himself into an early grave, and at the outpost, that’s him. “Just a day at home. I know you miss it. It’s been a while.”

Tony’s eyes go distant and fond. “Yes,” he agrees, and that one word has all the exhaustion that he won’t let show.

“You disappear all the time, no one will question it,” he murmurs, “I’ll make sure of it.”

“I’ll go if you will,” he returns. “You haven’t been home in even longer than I have.”

“Less of a need,” he argues, and he should argue against this too, when it’s unnecessary and dangerous, but he’s tired too. “Fine. We’ll need to sneak out to the woods if you don’t want to get caught.”

Tony clearly hadn’t expected him to agree that easily. “You hate flying.”

He hates how much pain it puts Tony in, but since he’s flying either way to get home, it doesn’t matter. “I’ll deal.”

Tony kisses him again, writes down some notes, douses the cauldron, and then they’re using the secret entrances that had actually been the whole point of building a lab near the forge. When they’re far enough away, Tony’s chest glows, the light and sparks spreading out from his chest to effulge his body and liquid gold and mercury sliding down his limbs. Rhodey has to close his eyes against the light, but Tony’s arms around him are always welcome, even when they burn almost too hot to stand.

The Iron Mage flying to the castle is a common enough sight that it raises no alarm and the brightness of Tony in flight means no one can tell he has a passenger, seen as nothing more than their own personal shooting star.

Tony melts the iron shutters back with a wave of his hand, likely reforming it behind them with a more intricate pattern than they’d been wrought with, because he always had such opinions about anything he hadn’t crafted himself.

He’s barely set Rhodey back onto his feet and folded the star back inside himself when there’s the running of little feet coming straight for them. Rhodey’s not surprised.

She’s always watching the stars, looking for her father.

Tony bends to pick up Morgan as she rounds the corner, barreling towards him with single minded intensity. “Daddy!”

“Hey, buttercup,” he says, hoisting her into her arms and settling her on his hip. “Miss me?”

“Yes,” she answers, wrapping her arms around Tony’s neck in a hug. She turns her head to grin at him, Tony’s eyes shining in her face. “Hi Rhodey. I missed you too.”

“Hi, Princess,” he says, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. She frees one arm from Tony to grab onto the front of his jacket, keeping him in place. He settled a hand on her back and that seems to satisfy her.

The door pushes open and Pepper is standing there, still with hair up and braided around a circlet and in a deep blue silk gown. “Someone here is supposed to be asleep.”  

Tony and Morgan’s innocent faces are identical and equally unconvincing.

“It’s me, isn’t it?” Rhodey asks.

“It’s all three of you, really,” she answers, striding forward. She squeezes his shoulder, then uses it as balance to push herself to her tip toes.

Tony bends to meet her in a kiss, chaste enough that Rhodey doesn’t feel the need to pull away but long enough that he assumes Tony’s sleep might end up experiencing a delay.

“I don’t want to go bed,” Morgan says. “Daddy’s home.”

“I’ll be here in the morning,” Tony says and Pepper’s face relaxes. “Come on, I’ll put you to bed myself, okay? And then you can tell me about all the new things you learned over breakfast.”

“I’m not tired,” she insists, but only waves at him when Tony pulls away to take her to her room.

Rhodey waves back, almost goes with them, but having the two of them there will just make her twice as riled up.

“I could have another, you know.”

He looks down at Pepper, blinking. “I thought – after the war?”

After the cave, after swallowing a star rather than being swallowed by it, Tony couldn’t justify staying on the sidelines, couldn’t justify only contributing to the war as Edward. Besides, being captured in the first place had shown him that he wasn’t safe as Edward anyway, but even Tony couldn’t justify taking to the battlefield without an heir, without a child of Stark blood to inherit, without a queen who could rule both while he fought and invented and in the event of his death.

Prince Gregory had been ten years older than Tony, he’d been the boy everyone knew would be king. Tony was just the spare, and not even one had on purpose. It’s why he’d had the freedom to meet Rhodey in the first place, to take on the name Edward and poke and prod his way through universities and labs and harassing blacksmiths into teaching him a craft a prince was never supposed to know. They’d assumed his father would arrange his marriage to some foreign noble for political reasons and Tony would install her onto an estate and do what was necessary to add a couple kids to the royal line and that would be that, he would then be free to spend his time on pursuits he enjoyed and with the man he loved. He was just the second prince, after all, it’s not like what he did really mattered, and he and Prince Gregory had never gotten along anyway.

Lots of people hadn’t gotten along with Prince Gregory, lots of people had thought his temper and his cruelty and several other attributes made him unsuitable as king. Maybe, on their own, they wouldn’t have mattered much – Rhodey thought Prince Gregory was not so much worse than King Howard – but he was constantly compared to the brother ten years his junior and found lacking.

They never found out who was behind the attack that killed Tony’s parents and brother. With their enemies sensing weakness and declaring war soon after, it was easy to pin the blame on them. But there were persistent rumors that it’d been someone, or several someones, that wanted Tony on the throne over his brother.

Rhodey doesn’t know if it’s true. All he knows is that relief rippled through the country far heavier than mourning.

The relationship he and Tony had, the future they’d mapped out, had been possible for a snubbed second prince and utterly impossible for a king. Tony had put off marriage for longer than he should have, but he couldn’t forever, and his urge to get out and fight now that he could pressed down on him.

Pepper had been his friend first. Their friend first. A noble, but only barely, and utterly unsuitable for the title of queen according to her pedigree and also the only one Tony would agree to marry so the rest hadn’t mattered.

If she were anyone else, he thinks he would have hated her. But Pepper had come to him after Tony had asked her and said, “I love him,” like throwing down a gauntlet.

He’d known. Who couldn’t help but love Tony, once they got to know him? And Pepper was beautiful and competent and trustworthy, could have Tony’s children and lead his country and keep all his secrets. And Tony might be able to resist falling in love with Pepper when she was only his friend and confidant, but as his wife, the mother of his children, his queen? He would fall.

“I want what’s best for him,” she’d continued in what he thought was going to be the worst conversation of his life, “and that’s me and you. He would never give you up. You know that. You should have a little more faith in him.”

“He needs you,” he’d said quietly. What Tony needed is something he couldn’t be, he wasn’t a noble or a woman.

Pepper had lifted her chin in defiance, every inch the queen she was going to become. “He needs us.”

That had been years ago. They made it work, awkwardly and painfully at first, but much smoother these days, warmer and easier. When the war ends, he thinks things might even be easy.

Tony and Pepper had needed to have a child and quickly, to secure the succession. She’d been pregnant within four months of their marriage and Princess Morgan’s birth had been greeted with relief by the country. Still, more heirs are better, especially with Starks being thin on the ground, but Tony resisted the idea of having another child in the midst of war, another child that he might die on and abandon.

Which is what makes Pepper’s statement so confusing.

“I didn’t mean right this second,” she says, lips turning up at the corners. “I know I’m not exactly your type, but I certainly wouldn’t mind the process myself. Morgan’s yours, of course, but if you wanted – I wouldn’t mind. Tony wouldn’t either.”

He understands what she’s offering and he’s shaking his head before she’s even finished talking. “We can’t – they’d know.”

“Maybe the next one will take after my genes,” she says. “Goddess knows Morgan’s all her father.”

She is, so clearly Stark, from her eyes to her intelligence to her love of trouble. But there’s no way a child of his could pass as a child Tony’s, which is what any child of the queen’s would have to be. Even if they came out pale enough to pass as a Stark, which isn’t any sort of risk they could take, it wouldn’t be worth the risk of anyone finding out that a child in line for the throne was not of the Goddess blessed bloodline.

“Tony’s children are my children,” he says, and means it. Pepper and Tony had always been clear about that and it had been a relief, to not have to be so close and yet so far, to be able to love Morgan as his daughter even if it was nothing he could ever say out loud. “Go and help him with her. I know you have a lot to catch up on.”

He’ll go to his room, with the bed and comforts that he’s missed quiet a lot, and get the sleep that he’s also missed.

She sighs, squeezing his arm. “Don’t wander. I get up early and Tony never sleeps through it.”

Tony will get up with her, and kiss her as she heads to the hall, then go down to his room and crawl into bed with him, still sleep warm, until he has to get up and put in an appearance as King Anthony.

Rhodey smiles and nudges her towards the hall. “Go on, your husband is waiting.”

“Our husband,” she corrects imperiously and doesn’t move until he laughs and nods and repeats her words back to her.

[scribblestatic]

Amputee!SY incoming. Round Two, fight!

Prev: Part 6

---

For a moment, there was silence.

Then the next, an uproar.

Demons and cultivators alike loudly rebuked Cang Qiong Sect, the cultivators doing so out of outrage that the most prominent cultivation sect would do something so cruel, and the demons doing so because even most of them, for as dog-eat-dog as demon society often was, wouldn't go so far as to pollute their siblings with spiritual qi.

Of course, it was convenient to blame it all on them. Demons and cultivators outside of the sect had surely done worse, depending on the situation. But that wasn't what Luo Binghe cared to clarify.

What had once been understood as a failing purely on Shen Qingqiu's part was now understood to be the negligence of the sect he sought refuge in. The sect whose lead disciple, whose future sect leader, he had saved. He wasn't bad at cultivating, he was almost willfully sabotaged by those he should've been able to trust.

"Since this lord has been able to assist him, he has not suffered another deviation. His core has stabilized, and his power grows increasingly precise. How many can say they can precisely control a quill and write a letter using their qi alone?

"Since this lord has been able to find a balance with his own demonic and spiritual qi, so too has Shen Qingqiu. Ah...well, that is, if you wish to still be called that, Wife."

Shen Yuan was gazing toward the ground quietly. With his fan on his lap, they could see the blank mask he'd forced his expression into. There was no rage, no anger...not even resentment.

Just contemplation.

His eye closed and he huffed, his fan rising to cover the lower half of his face again.

"...This one prefers the name Yuan."

It pained him to hurt his beloved like this. He clearly was hurt, considering he didn't give even a little token protest to being called a 'wife' instead of a 'husband.'

To dig up old wounds and lay them bare once again was something he had hesitated to do. But this would be the final time he did so, and not for his own self-service, but to further legitimize Shen Yuan's position as his empress.

He would clear Shen Yuan's name with this, and Cang Qiong Sect would be witness to it.

"Of course, A-Yuan."

As much as he wanted to kiss him, he had that tense energy about him, the kind that said he'd prefer to be left alone. He must be thinking of so much... It would do well for him to simply get this done with as quickly as he could.

---

"So now, you reject the name given to you by your shifu?"

"Peak Lord He, this lord dares not assume that your wine also hinders the mind. Surely, if you were so thoroughly betrayed by your shifu, would you want to keep the name given to you by them?"

The man scowled. "Does anyone reject the name given to them by their parents? Hate it or not, betrayed or not, he was given the name Qingqiu as a courtesy to his position."

"Ah, but this lord has yet another point, one that helps shed light on this charge and another. Three, Shen Qingqiu's legal insanity, specifically his psychosis, were in part triggered by his courtesy name and even my own, leading to his targeted hatred toward me. In addition to this, this lord wishes to address the charge against Shen Yuan for the murder and eradication of House Qiu.

"My love, how do you plead?"

"Guilty."

"Cease this!" Qi Qingqi bellowed. "That charge is not for you to try to absolve! Do you intend to overwrite Qiu Haitang's justice for the sake of this farce of a crowning? To betray one of your wives to put another, a man, in the top position of your harem?"

"Peak Lord Qi, your misandry has nothing to do with how I run my harem. And, to clarify, no, I have no intent to overwrite Qiu Haitang's justice...instead, this lord intends to question whether the ruling was fairly just or needlessly cruel, as my own punishments toward him had been."

With the inward curl of two of his fingers, guards entered the area. Between them, they held the arms of a struggling Qiu Haitang. They didn't hold her particularly tightly, but her cultivation was apparently rather weak.

They carefully released her, and she pulled away, huffing and looking particularly wronged.

"What is the meaning of this, Husband? I already accepted that you came to love the one who killed my whole family more than me. I've even accepted that you want to give him such a high position, one he can lord over me for as long as your affections allow! Why do you continue to antagonize me?!"

"Tang-er, don't exaggerate. Shen Yuan killed all of the men of your clan, but he left the women untouched, did he not?"

"That's the same as killing my family! You agreed back then!"

Luo Binghe nodded morosely. "That I did. However, this lord must admit to his faults. I believe it is imperative that the hatred between you and Shen Yuan be alleviated."

"Hah! Never! How dare you ask me to do such a thing!! I have no say on who you allow in your bed, but you cannot...you will not control my emotions! I know the truth, and that truth is that I will, forever, hate Shen Qingqiu for what he did to my family!"

"Hmm, I see. But what about what your family did to him?"

Qiu Haitang froze, clearly affronted.

"What my family did to him? What did we do? Elevate his position? Feed him? Clothe him? We brought him into our family when he was a mere slave, and he repaid our kindness with slaughter. All because A-Luo didn't want him to abandon our engagement!"

"'A-Luo'?"

"Yes, A-Luo! My elder brother and head of our family, Qiu Jianluo! Why do you act as though you don't remember him?!"

"'A-Luo'...yes. I do remember us discussing him at length. You'd said he was a tad firm, but an otherwise loving brother."

Aggrieved, tears sprung to Qiu Haitang's eyes. "He was... He was! He, and Lao Tao, Lao Yang...our servants, our family, everyone... I loved them all dearly. And he stole them away from me! That slave abandoned the people who gave him an education, who taught him how to behave, and he brutalized them, all so he could raise his status to that of a lofty immortal, unfettered by our engagement!"

"Mmm, yes. This lord remembers. We also discussed how, by happenstance, a childhood nickname of mine sounded incredibly similar to it. Your brother's A-Luó, and my A-Luò. Why, they almost sound the same."

"They do! That's why...that's why Tang-er thought you were like him, but if you're going to... If you're going to humiliate me to such an extent, to allow the man who killed my gege to become your empress, then I need not stay! Release me from your harem and let me go!"

"As you wish."

Qiu Haitang finally went quiet.

"...Excuse me?"

"I said, 'As you wish.' This lord will divorce you right now, if you so desire."

Stricken silent by his assertion, she didn't say anything. And so, Luo Binghe decided to move things along.

"Wife."

Shen Yuan's eye flinched before his fan bapped softly against the hand closest to him.

"Who's your wife?"

The happy smile Binghe gave him, despite the coldness he was faced with, surprised many in the crowd, including members of the Cang Qiong Sect entourage. It was more like how one would look at a feisty kitten testing their bitty claws on their hand, all smiles as it scratched little raw strips into their flesh.

He was positively besotted.

Of course, only those close to Shen Yuan would know that his response was a sign that he was managing with the situation. He wouldn't reveal how thin his face could be if he truly felt too distressed. Shen Yuan was uncomfortable, but he could get through it.

Even so, that endeared look faded to concern.

"...This lord hates to ask this of you, but could you tell us how you saw Qiu Jianluo?"

Shen Yuan pressed his lips tightly together, his gaze falling to the nearby floor.

"You said nothing during your trial, and we only pursued judgement under Qiu Haitang's account. But since we've been married, you've talked to me. This lord doesn't want to put you in this position, but we need your account as well."

He didn't budge.

"...You will be heard this time."

Silence.

A breath in.

Then, Shen Yuan's eye snapped open.

"I would've rather remained a slave on the street than to ever have been sold to House Qiu."

---

Shen Yuan felt a tad weird.

A little like he wasn't alone in his body. Or, well, maybe he was, but it felt like there was someone behind him.

It wasn't a feeling that made him afraid. No, just a bit disjointed. Like he and the one behind him were pressing together, back to back.

The dreams he had about House Qiu, once more difficult to detail, sprung to his mind with ease like a core memory. And with it came all the feelings that attached to the memory, causing his chest to clench and teeth to ache.

As though piloted by the other one...or, perhaps given the energy necessary to pilot it himself, Shen Yuan allowed the words to fly from his mouth.

And with each word, a little bit of weight attached to them disintegrated.

---

Liu Mingyan had heard a Shen Yuan rant before. He'd done several about her works, always expressing what he liked but being just as expressive about what he hated, remembering to calm down and say his critique was purely because he knew she could write even better.

And it wasn't as though he was wrong. Her book reviews under her penname had indeed improved in sales. A gaggle of nuns she'd befriended, wives that amicably returned to their sect after separating from Luo Binghe, asked who her editor was and how much their rates would be to have the mystery editor review their works.

They'd been quite tempted to return to the harem when she revealed who'd helped her. But it made sense, didn't it? Shen Yuan, formerly Qingqiu, had been second-in-command only to the head of Cang Qiong Sect, the leading cultivation sect under the heavens. He was an renown expert in the four arts, literature included.

And he critiqued trashy yellow books as severely and wholeheartedly as tomes of great historical magnitude.

Yes, she's heard more than one Shen Yuan rant before.

This one had to be the most severe. The most raw. The most painful one she'd heard.

And it hurt to hear it, because she had no doubt that every word that left his mouth was true.

He spoke inelegantly. Elegance would've perhaps cheapened his account. There was no room for it. Inelegant as it was, it was narrative. Illustrative.

"Do I look like a martial arts dummy to you? A bled and slaughtered hog? Because he sure loved smacking his fists against my ribs like he was tenderizing meat for the nightly dinner I never got to eat."

"Taught me to write? Hah. He figured out I could write just before he was going to beat me to death for using qi to get his horse to stop running through the streets like a maniac. I didn't know how to write a whole lot, but all he had to do was throw books at me. I learned by my own damn self."

"Got tempted by a wandering cultivator? I was barely let outside! Freed from the slave contract? Where'd you hear that?! It's all dogshit. Either that perverted bastard came up with it, or Qiu Haitang put a bunch of mismatched information together and came up with it herself. Which, at that point, I can't really blame her. I'm not sure the ladies of that house would've told her what I dealt with. It's completely fair to want answers."

"A-Yuan, one moment," Luo Binghe interrupted. "Why did you call Qiu Jianluo perverted?"

At that question, his mouth shuttered briefly. This time, when he spoke again, his voice was stilted.

"...He... There was a reason he didn't hit my face. Everything else was fair game, but not my face. Qiu Haitang picked me up because of my face..."

He pursed his lips briefly, then continued.

"...Qiu Jianluo also liked my face."

"Lies!!"

Qiu Haitang screamed at the top of her lungs, moving forward as though she would stomp up the stairs to the throne and try to rip Shen Yuan from his seat. The guards quickly stopped her before her foot could touch the first step. Her squirming did little to move them.

"You're lying! You're lying! My gege was nothing like what you've said! You can only accuse him of these things because he's dead! You killed him! He never hit you! He never hurt you! He treated you with nothing but kindness, and you're the one who went insane and killed everyone!"

"Not everyone."

Although she was too far gone in her rage to notice it, Liu Mingyan heard the icy tone in Luo Binghe's voice, his dark eyes staring down at her with an increasing amount of derision.

"Only the men... Only the men."

Only the men.

"Oh gods," Liu Mingyan muttered.

"...You need not say more, A-Yuan, if it is too much."

"Ah, uhm... No, wait. I mean, he did threaten to... He just." He paused. "He threatened to...watch. To watch me. With other men in the house.

The words seemed increasingly hard to get out, his face turning red.

"He didn't rape... He didn't rape me. He threatened to. Threatened that others would. Had them..." Breathe. "Hold me down."

Only the men.

"...What happened the night you escaped?"

Quiet. Qiu Haitang kept screaming that he was lying.

"Were you prompted you to do what you did? If so, what happened?"

"It's a lie! Binghe!! Don't believe him!"

"A-Yuan. Please, tell me if you can."

"He's a liar! He's lecherous! You know what Ning Yingying said!!"

"...That's...right. That's right! Where is Ning Yingying! She accused him of grooming her!" Qi Qingqi called out. "Are you sure about his account now?"

"Wife."

"We took you in! We fed you! We clothed you! How dare you do this to us! How dare you do this to me!!"

"Can we really trust what he's saying? He's molested his own disciple!"

"You-!! If you hated us so much, why not kill me, too?! Why not kill everyone?! You pervert!! You lecher!! You mangey dog!! You beast!"

Luo Binghe's eyes snapped upwards, rage curling on his face.

But he didn't get a single word out before—

"Call me that again, and I'll be tempted to rip your throat out like I did your brother."

Shen Yuan stared coldly at Qiu Haitang, eye wide and a tad unfocused. A few moments passed, and the focus returned to it, as did the blood to his face. He began panting slightly, like he'd suddenly ran a great length or like he'd been holding his breath.

Recognition slowly came onto his face.

"He didn't rape me. Because I ripped his throat out before he could. And then I grabbed a sword with my qi when the guards came because they heard him gurgle. And I stabbed them. Then I stabbed Qiu Jianluo. Again and again and again.

"I stabbed him until I couldn't recognize his face anymore. And I started stabbing everyone who could've done the same thing he was going to do to me. Ones he'd threatened to watch. Ones who never helped. Guards. Servants. All of them."

Silence.

"How did you rip his throat out?"

Shen Yuan turned toward Binghe with a movement that seemed too smooth, like his head was on a swivel.

"...With my teeth."

"Did you remember doing this before now?"

"...I don't know."

"Wife?"

"Mm?"

Binghe frowned, moving to kneel on a knee beside Shen Yuan's throne, placing his hands on his face. Despite the open display of affection, he didn't move away.

"Do you know where you are right now?"

"Hmm? Oh. Yes."

He blinked, then glanced upward.

"...I think I'm dissociating."

"Deviating? ...Your qi is sluggish, but—"

"No, no. Dissociating. Detaching from reality, triggered by stress or trauma. A feeling of daydreaming or intensely focused while not naturally integrating consciousness, identity, memory, or perception. The Falling Sun Dewdrop produces a similar sensation to depersonalization if you...uhm. Maybe I shouldn't explain how to do that. I think I won't.

"Unlike a qi deviation, which essentially shuts down one's consciousness and causes their body to react erratically in response to their charging qi, dissociating is...mmm... Depends on if its depersonalization or derealization. Sorry, I'm feeling a little—"

"Shh, don't. Don't apologize, A-Yuan. You've done well."

"Mm."

"Thank you for telling me."

Shen Yuan leaned his cheek against one of Binghe's hands, his eye closing calmly.

"...Mm."

"We can stop now, if you want."

"...Nah."

"Why not?"

"The bandage is removed and the wound is festering. Let's cut it all the way off." Shen Yuan smiles and raises one of his arms a little. "You're good at removing limbs, Binghe."

Although Shen Yuan didn't see it, Binghe bowed his head, still holding his. A clawed thumb brushed his cheek softly.

"...This lord wishes he wasn't."

"Oh... It was supposed to be a joke. I'm sorry."

When Binghe couldn't manage to respond, Shen Yuan opened his eye and leaned further toward him.

"Hey... Hey, Binghe. It really was a joke. I was wrong to you, and I did a lot of terrible things, so I'm not mad. You were just a kid, Binghe. And I shoved you into the Endless Abyss because I felt like I finally had a good reason to hate you. Even though I know humans and demons aren't all that different. I thought, 'Men, and especially Luos, are all the same,' and treated you badly, falsely blaming it on you being half demon.

"But I used it all as an excuse. You didn't deserve any of what I did. You didn't deserve my jealousy over how strong you were at cultivating, or me assuming you'd grow up to be like Autumn Tangled Net and ensnare everyone or treat me like shit. And though you kinda did, it wasn't your fault. I was like your Qiu Jianluo, without the weird pervert shit. And you cut my limbs off. And I think that's fair."

The demon emperor, bewildered, let out a choked laugh, raising his head to look at him again, eyes misty.

"Was that meant to be reassuring, love?"

"Yeah."

"I'm afraid it didn't quite work."

"Awwh... Hey, do you think we could keep going in...uhm. Well, you asking me questions? Stuff is kinda starting to feel real again, so, uh, I'd like to answer whatever you want to ask before I combust out of embarrassment. You know, like a total mess. I'll never be able to be empress at this rate. No one would approve of me. My reputation is ruined. Why'd you marry me?"

"Because I love you."

"Embarrassing. Shameless. I love you, too. Say that again."

This time, when Luo Binghe laughed, it was genuine. He leaned forward and whispered into his ear, presumably saying those requested words again. He then kissed the huadian on Shen Yuan's forehead before he stood, shedding the calm softness he'd put on for his future empress.

"...Time and time again, Shen Yuan has had to face difficult and demeaning circumstances without letting out his fear and instability. Surely, none would ridicule him for finally, after years of persecution, cracking under that pressure."

When he turned to the crowd, it was as though he'd shed all illusions that he was anything but some wretched beast that crawled from the Endless Abyss. A rictus grimace seemed to unnaturally split his face, the whites of his eyes bright. His zuiyin glowed a fierce red.

A terrible murderous intent befell the others, leaving them unable to move in the face of a predator.

"Right?"

"Binghe."

And immediately, the moment ended, the man turning a kind smile to his wife.

"Alright, alright."

"...Fuck."

Liu Mingyan jolted slightly before turning toward Sha Hualing, who, at some point, moved closer to her. Her arms wrapped around one of hers, moving a little bit behind her.

"Reminded me of that freaky Binghe that almost killed me."

"Ah."

So that's where she recalled that killing intent.

----

Oh, by the way, I'm a huge fan of horror!Binghe. I want that half-demon boy to come back from the Endless Abyss irrevocably changed, and, of course, Shen Yuan looks at him and is just like, "Look at my sweet boy, who has done nothing wrong ever."

They're freak 4 freak, fr.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7: here Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

Part 11+: links on Part 10

AO3

[innxrvision]

So long - pt. 2 𒂭

part 2 of 3 ------------ 𖦹 tags: james hetfield x reader, fluff, smut, best friends to lovers, bet, 80s james, a little angst if you squint ♱ a/n: here's part 2 just like i promised! Also... this got too long again and I had to split once more, I'm sorry. Next part will be the last hopefully! I'll probably only be able to post it on wednesday or thursday tho, but we'll see how things go! Thanks to everyone that has been reading and liking my story, it truly made me happy!

𖦹 part 1 𖦹 part 2 𖦹 part 3

Both of you entered the bar already chatting excitedly, just as you imagined, whatever disagreement that came between you two couldn't last long. You and James' friendship went way back.

"Let's get you a drink." James' playful smile made you smile involuntarily back.

He ordered two beers and raised his glass after you two settled down on a table near the wall, on a spot where the soft yellow light shined right on James' blonde locks.

"To making up!" He said, the smile never leaving his lips.

"If you say so." You shrugged, raising your glass too, but there wasn't any hint of resentment in your voice.

"I really am sorry about what I've said to you earlier. I never wanted to hurt you." He repeated his apology sincerely.

You shrugged again in response, not wanting to make a big deal out of it again.

"What has gotten into you anyway?" You asked genuinely curious before taking a sip.

"I don't really know." He admitted and you could sense some embarrassment coming from him. "I guess my emotions were all over the place and I took all on you. I truly hope you can forgive me."

You just nodded in response, you could easily understand his side.

Soon one beer became two, then three… and before you could realize it, both were a bit too drunk, laughing obnoxiously loud at each other's stupid jokes.

At a certain moment, while James were rambling about his new guitar, your mind wandered as you studied his features under the soft light. The unruly blond hair now gained a different shine, the blue eyes seemed more vivid, and the skin covered by acne suddenly got a different charm to it.

You've known him for years, but, for some reason, the realization that he had grown into a man only hit you now. It's not like you haven't noticed his changes at all, you could admit the boy you knew had gained the charms of a man a long time ago, however, something at that bar made it all become more evident. Maybe it was the alcohol speaking. Regardless, you just stayed silent, lost in your thoughts.

"What are you thinking about?" James' voice cut through your mind, his eyebrow quirked in confusion. "You're looking at me like I have two heads or something." He added, a chuckle coming out of his lips.

You snapped out of it as soon as you heard him, your cheeks heating up in response to his question.

"What?" You laughed nervously "Sorry, just got lost in my thoughts for a moment, go on."

James grinned, finding your flustered expression too amusing to let it go.

"I must really put you in a state to make you blush like that." He took another sip of his beer and kept grinning at you. "What were you thinking about before? I'm curious now."

You tried your best to appear bored and rested your elbow on the table, putting your chin on top of your hand.

"Nothing. Just… Work."

He studied your face and the playful expression he had before turned into a smirk.

"You're hiding something." He teased. "You're a terrible liar."

You rolled your eyes, pretending to be offended by his observation.

"I'm not!" You shot back. "I said it's nothing. You're too curious for your own good."

"Come on, tell me." He nudged your shoulder. "It's not fair if you keep it a secret."

"Not fair? What? Don't you have any secrets?" You scoffed.

"Of course I do. But your secrets are much more interesting to me right now than my own." He leaned closer and raised an eyebrow, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "So spill it. What were you really thinking about? Was it a boy?"

You looked at him incredulous, just wishing he would drop the subject.

"You can't be serious." You looked with concern in your expression at him and he laughed in response.

"Oh, I'm being serious. You were blushing so hard, so it must be a boy." He grinned, crossing his arms. It was clear that he was enjoying messing up with you. "So come on, spill it. Is it someone I know? Do you want me to hook you up?"

"No! What? You're crazy." You couldn't believe he thought you wanted him to hook you up with somebody.

"I know you're thinking about someone, just tell me already. Who's the lucky guy?" He pressed again.

"There's... No one!" You were starting to get frustrated.

"Oh, please. You can't fool me, I know you. You were obviously daydreaming about someone." He raised an eyebrow again and you had to take a deep breath in order to control yourself. "Is it one of the guys? Lars maybe? Or... Is it Kirk? I know you two are very close. You got a thing for him?" His voice dripped with amusement, it was clear he was enjoying teasing you.

"What?!" You opened your mouth in shock as he started pointing names. "I've never...! I never liked Kirk! Where did this come from?!"

"I can see the way you look at him sometimes." He chuckled, it seemed like he was testing you. "If it's not him, then who is it? I won't leave you alone until you tell me."

"Kirk is like a brother to me!" You said offended, your cheeks getting hot once again.

"You're protesting a little too much. I know you're hiding something from me." He studied your blushed face in silence for a second "Well, whoever he is, we can play matchmaker and set you up on a date." He batted his eyelashes dramatically at you and laughed.

"Why are you so invested in being my wingman? Who says I need one?"

You were getting tired of this talk. One second of distraction staring too much at him and now you had to deal with James playing guess by himself. He already loved getting on your nerves, but whenever he got drunk that would get worse.

"You've been single for almost a year now." He grinned. "I just want to help you find someone to share your life with."

You couldn't believe he decided to throw that on your face. Ouch. You sighed and looked around the bar for a second, trying to find a good response.

"Why don't you worry about your own love life?"

He chuckled again, shrugging off your comment.

"You know I don't do long-term relationships." He said casually. "I'm more of a one-night-stand kind of guy." He winked and that irritated you.

You looked down at your hands, trying to navigate your feelings. For some reason, hearing that he had been sleeping with other girls made you feel jealous. You tried your best to not seem affected, but James noticed the shift in your reaction.

"What's wrong with one-night stands?" He asked, his tone playful.

"I just think it's gross." You cursed yourself mentally for your childish response.

"C'mon... You're such a prude." He rolled his eyes and teased you, nudging at your arm. "One-night stands aren't gross, they're just casual fun. You should try it sometime, it might loosen you up a bit." There was that smug grin again that made you heated.

"I don't need to loosen up, I'm fine the way I am." You tried defending yourself. "And also, I'm not a prude."

"Sure, keep telling yourself this." He shrugged, that grin only growing wider at your frustration. "But deep down, you're just a boring goody-two-shoes who wouldn't know how to have a good time if your life depended on it." He continued. "Bet you've never even been on a proper date before."

You scoffed. Yeah, he made a habit of teasing you and yes, that would worsen whenever he drunk, but tonight he seemed even more invested in driving you nuts. "Is it just the alcohol?" You asked yourself.

"Of course I have!" You crossed your arms. "I can have fun just fine. I just think the girls you hook up with are gross."

You tried attacking him, but it was clear that your response only amused him even more.

"Gross, huh? Interesting choice of words." He leaned closer once again. "Does that mean you think I'm gross too? For hooking up with random girls?" He waited for your response, staring at you.

"I've never said that." You regretted mentioning his hookups and sighed.

"I know you're judgmental of my dating life." He leaned back and shrugged. "You're probably just jealous that I'm getting some action and you're not." He smiled triumphantly.

"Who says I'm not getting some action?" You tried your best to sound convincing but your attempt only made him laugh.

"Oh, really? With whom exactly? A pillow? A stuffed animal?" You blushed and he caught your reaction. "I knew it. You don't have anyone. Which is why you're so sour and uptight because you're not getting laid." He taunted.

"You're such an ass." You looked away and rolled your eyes. "It's none of your business, maybe? Just leave my love life alone, please." At this point, you had given up winning this conversation.

"Alright, alright. I'll leave your non-existent love life alone." He raised both of his hands in surrender. "But if you need some advice on how to get laid, come to me. I'm something of an expert, y'know?" He winked playfully.

"Like I would take your advice." You laughed sarcastically, seeing the perfect chance to annoy him back. "Bet you don't how to please girls at all." You added, certain that this would drive him crazy.

In response, he just smiled and shook his head. A different reaction that you were expecting.

"Oh yeah? You think I can't satisfy a girl?" He said confidently and leaned closer to you once again. "In fact, I bet I could satisfy you better than any other guy you've ever been with."

You stopped in your tracks, wondering if you heard him right. "He's just trying to get a reaction of me." You thought to tranquilize yourself.

"No way. Bet you take like... One minute." You decided just to keep teasing, trying to give him hell back for being so annoying.

"You think I'm that bad?" He raised an eyebrow with a smile on his lips. He then went silent for a second and something in his expression changed. "How about we make a bet then? If I can't please you better than anyone you've ever been with before, I'll do the dishes at your house for a week. But... If I do a good job, you have to take me out on a date."

"What?" Your mind went blank with shock and you felt a wave of heat from the embarrassment go through your entire body. Everything was all fun and games until now, but now you were just dumbfounded.

James noticed the shock in your expression and bit his lip, realizing he may have overstepped, but it was too late to take back now.

"Just hear me out. It'll be fun, it's just a harmless bet." He said quickly. "We are friends, right? What's wrong with having some fun?" He tried.

You couldn't even look straight at him now. It's true that you've been getting more and more attracted to him, but since you were best friends, you never expected this kind of proposal to come from him. Was it the alcohol? Was he just trying to prove a point? Your thoughts ran a 100 mph, trying to decide what should you do.

"I..." You started, then shook your head in an attempt to clear your mind. "Fine, it's a bet."

[bullet-prooflove]

TheStudy! Series Part Three: Deserving - Dean Archer x Reader

Tagging: @kmc1989 @helsinkibaby @hufflepuffgirl @mimi-8793

The Study:

Part One: Courting Disaster - Dean realises Jack is courting you.

Part Two: Distance - Dean tries to discuss the distance between the two of you.

At events like the drinks reception with the Board, you’re a show pony. Someone to parade around who can talk the talk and walk the walk.

You’re the Crockett Marcel of the Medical Examiners Service, Jack Dayton’s newest project.

You hate every second of it but the study it’s important, it’s making a real difference in people’s lives. You’ve seen what happens when people don’t get the closure they need, they end up on your table, just like their loved ones before them.

It’s past eleven by the time the reception begins to wind down, you’re tired emotionally, physically. You miss the evenings where you could curl up with Dean on the couch, dressed in nothing but his old Navy t-shirt as his fingers combed lightly through your hair.

You miss your husband a lot actually, the emotional intimacy, the physical aspect. It feels like you’ve barely been in his presence at all over the last few months. You know that’s down to you, this study and everything that comes with it. It steals away your time, your energy and if you let it, it’ll steal away your marriage..

“I’m starting to feel more like your roommate than your husband and I think that’s something we need to talk about.”

He isn’t wrong, he’s supported you throughout the duration of this study and you can barely spare him five minutes. You can’t imagine how much that must hurt because Dean, he’s always made time for you.

You’re staring out of the window when Jack approaches you. The other board members have filtered out of the conference room, there’s just the two of you standing in the dim lighting, surveying the twinkling skyline.

“I need to take a step back.” You say quietly. “Slow down a little, all of this it’s too much.”

“Too much for you or too much for Dean?” He asks and you can hear the distain in his voice.

“For the both of us.” You assert firmly because it’s not just your marriage on the line. It’s your mental health too, your facing burnout. You can feel yourself hurtling towards it because the workload, it’s too much. “I have someone who can help pick up the slack. Her name is Anita Lanik, I can go through her details with you tomorrow. She used to work with social services. She specialised in palliative care advocating for the elderly so she has experience and insight into the challenges we’re facing.”

There’s silence for a moment and in the reflection of the window you see Jack’s jaw clench.

“I don’t understand why you’re with him.” Jack says quietly as he tilts his head towards you. “All he does is hold you back.”

You can understand Jack’s point of view. He envisions himself as a white knight, plucking you from obscurity, elevating you. To him Dean is just a weight around you’re neck, preventing you from putting in more hours, more of your life into the program.

“You don’t know him, you don’t know us.” You chide because honestly you’re getting tired of the way he needles Dean. It’s clear that there’s resentment there, your just not sure where it stems from.

“I know you.” Jack tells you. “I know you deserve better.”

“Jack…” You say but his fingertips are already clasping your chin, guiding your gaze to meet his.

“I can give you better.” He tells you, his thumb trailing over the apple of your cheek. “Let me give you better.”

He kisses you then. It’s confident, forceful, the kiss of a man who  has never been denied a single thing. You pull away and Jack smiles, you place a palm on his chest lightly pushing him away because now you know what this resentment is about, why he despises Dean.

“I’m going home to my husband.” You tell him, picking up your clutch and heading towards the door. “I’ll send you Anita’s details in the morning.”

Love Dean? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.

Interested in supporting me? Join my Patreon for Bonus Content!

Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[sayafics]

Cherry Season - Part 2

Sorry for the long wait, guys, but I do hope you enjoy part 2 (I have plans for a part 3👀).

Warnings: smut, public teasing

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Rick hadn't found Valerie that day. He hadn't seen her wandering about the camp either. Not the next day, or the one after.

A week flew by, and Rick's stomach filled with lead as the girl he found himself craving escaped his sights with ease. He had tried to seek her out, but it seemed she was much better at hiding than he would have liked.

Dread burrowed under his skin, a quiet voice growing louder inside his head - it was his actions that must have scared her away.

Perhaps she didn't feel the same way he did, but did not know how to deny him.

Perhaps she grew bored of him and found entertainment elsewhere - Lori had done that, and the betrayal still sat bitter upon him tongue.

Rick wasn't a fool - he had heard the hushed rumours throughout the camp as they spoke of Valerie's private shooting lessons with Shane whenever Rick tried to seek her out. The whispers would cause him to clench his jaw in frustration, hands fisted, and brows furrowed as envy festered in his chest.

It did not go unnoticed by him that despite every session Shane had claimed they left to go practice, the makeshift shooting range remained empty.

Rick found himself growing restless, hands twitching as anger began to bubble in place of envy, where resentment grew in place of sadness. Such sinister feelings that began to bubble over in this moment now.

***

It had been a while since the camp had come into Hershel's home to dine with him and his family - the first time had already been so awkward, and this was much the same.

Truth be told, this was Maggie's idea more than anyone else's. Valerie's solemn mood had not gone unnoticed by her, nor did Valerie's every attempt to escape Rick's line of vision or Shane's incessant presence, that loomed around the girl she considered a younger sister.

Maggie had been worried Valerie and Rick had a falling out, and it was whatever argument they had out that caused the girl to shy away from the presence of others and caused Shane to seek her out instead.

Still, something did not sit right with Maggie. The idea that one of her baby sisters was out there with an openly aggressive and violent man, who would rather wave around his gun than use his words, had her on edge.

She hoped a dinner like this would force Valerie and Rick to talk, to resolve the issues they had, and to become friends again. Because Maggie was sure of one thing - she trusted Rick much more than Shane.

Of course, she didn't know the true extent of the feelings the pair held for each other, but even a blind person could have felt the bond the two had shared - the trust and friendship, the loyalty and kindness. All of which had disappeared in the blink of an eye, and Rick could not figure out why.

***

At dinner, the clattering of utensils being laid out sounded sharply throughout the room. Everyone sat stiff upon their chairs as more and more people filed in through the doors.

Rick was one of the last to step in, Glenn and Shane only paces behind him.

He looked upon the room, their slowed pace giving him the barest of moments to think as he searched across the table frantically.

It seemed there was no extra table placed today; instead, everyone sat clustered around a single, long, oaken table with falsely mustered smiles and polite nods.

There were three seats left open - one between Lori and Dale, the other between Maggie and Beth, and the last sat between Patricia and Valerie. It was clear who Maggie was saving her chair for, and it was also clear who Lori hoped would sit in the one she had saved.

Some part of Rick hoped Valerie had saved that seat for him, but from the way her shoulders stiffened and eyes widened at the sight of him, he had a sinking feeling that was not the case.

Valerie looked as beautiful as ever, but she also looked tired. Her hair that fell in shiny curls was pulled back into a messy ponytail, her eyes that shone with kindred glee seemed dull as they were sunken down with bags that were a sign she had not been sleeping, her body that she would adorn in the brightest and prettiest dresses sat covered with a hefty jumper and thick trousers.

This was not the girl he had met when he came to the farm, this was not the girl who he kissed and fucked, this was not the girl who begged him for more and held him against her like she didn't need anything else.

This was not his Valerie.

Had he done this to her?

Had he broken something within her and not realised all this time?

Rick could hear Shane's gruelling voice grow clearer as he drew closer, and in those moments, Rick did not hesitate for a beat.

Rick would get the answers to his nagging questions, and if he was truly as guilty as he felt, he would punish himself as she saw fit. He would take his life if it gave her a shred of happiness - he would have offered it to her freely, if his son had not been sitting only a few seats away.

Rick marched with determination, ignoring Lori's call for him as he rounded occupied chairs and sat heavily upon the chair on Valerie's right - it creaked under his weight, and he pulled himself closer to the table.

The gap was tight, his arm pressed against Valerie's as he shuffled closer to her under the guise of giving Patricia more space - in doing so, his thigh pressed flush against her own.

He could see how she tensed at his touch, and his heart dropped at the sight. Valerie began to pick at the skin around her nails, darting eyes meeting the vicious glare of Shane that promised nothing but hurt as he sat next to Lori in a huff.

A warm hand enclosed over her fumbling fingers, and she just about managed to repress a flinch.

Valerie looked down at her lap, thinking she would find Maggie's comforting embrace - instead, it was Rick's hands, skin calloused and rough, that held her hands gently. His touch was warm and kind, something that almost seemed foreign now.

Valerie could almost feel the tears that stung her eyes, and she took a deep breath, hoping neither Rick or Maggie would notice. One glance across the table was enough for her to know Shane did - he had seen enough of them.

Valerie couldn't help but relax under Rick's touch, couldn't help but admire him as subtly as she could - the way his curls brushed against his forehead, the way his jumper sat snug against his shoulders, the way his tongue darted out to wet his lips in a nervous twitch. She felt her body burn at the sight of him, sing at the feel of him - his scent, his touch, his voice.

His voice.

Oh, how she had missed the sound.

It had only been a week, and yet it felt like years had passed by being stuck in the grasp of a beast she could not escape.

"Hey, sweetheart," his voice rang low as bowls of food were passed around, and small chatter broke out across the table after a quiet prayer. His words were almost cautious, as if testing to see her reaction. The rasp of his voice sent a shudder through her.

It seemed Rick had mistaken her shudder as an act of repulsion, his face falling as his grip loosened.

Valerie found she did not care that Shane's heated stare sat fixed upon her, she found that she did not care if Maggie happened to glance her way and noticed or that Hershel sat only a few breaths away.

As Rick's hand came to rest on the table, Valerie threw hers atop is a rush, intertwining their fingers to tug the limb back into her lap and away from any eager eyes.

Valerie was almost sure she could hear Shane's growling breaths from across the table, but when Rick's eyes brightened at her reciprocation and he tightened his fingers around her own, she found her fear of him dwelling.

She was sure she would pay for such an act of disobedience after, but she would find comfort in it now.

***

That day in the woods, Shane had taken a part of her she would never get back.

He hadn't hurt her in the way she thought he would have - he wasn't a rapist, was what he had said. He was a good man, and he could be a good husband, a good father was what Shane had claimed.

But he had kissed her when she didn't want it, touched her where she didn't want him to - he ignored her begging and her pleas, he groped and petted and licked and kissed whereever he pleased.

And the days after that incident, Shane found that he did not want to stop doing so. At least not until Valerie could realise that Shane was telling the truth - Valerie had to believe him, Shane wasn't a liar. He was a good man. He is.

He is sure of it.

She would agree with him one day. She would agree with him soon. And when she did, he would take that final piece of her, and she would no longer belong to Rick, and Rick would no longer want her.

***

"Hi, Rick."

Valerie's grip tightened as the words passed her lips like a confession - she stared up at his blue eyes, and it was almost like staring into the vast and endless sky. Looking into the glowing hues of blue, an almost child-like whisper came forth in Valerie's mind - wishing she was a bird so she could fly free. Or perhaps a fish, and his eyes were the sea, and she could swim endlessly.

Something within his eyes darkens as his name rolls off her tongue, and pride swells inside his chest as he catches Shane and Lori in his peripheral vision, simmering with fury. He almost laughed. Almost.

Rick turned his attention to his plate, feigning interest in the food and offering compliments even though he would rather be tasting something much more desirable.

The table continued in its chatter, the volume growing louder as Glenn and Dale shared laughs across the table, and T-Dog dove into stories of his life before the dead began to walk. Bubbles of laughter and snorting cluttered around the table, and the home they all sat in almost felt warm and full of life, and it was as though, for just one moment, everyone was able to forget all their losses and breathe freely.

Valerie watched with curious eyes as Jimmy loaded Beth's plate with food, refilling her cup with a broad grin upon his face. There was a faint smile upon her lips, watching Beth be doted upon. Beth met her eyes, ones full of longing and hope for something similar, with a sparkling smile as though she knew something Valerie didn't.

A breath of warm air brushed against her cheek, and Valerie flinched as Beth tried to hide her stifled giggles with a mouthful of potatoes.

Valerie froze with a forkful of potatoes sat right upon her tongue, and Rick's rasped words sent chills down her spine as her grip on the cutlery tightened.

"Kinda disappointed, y'know. Mm, thought you'd come find me by now, turns out I couldn't even find you."

Valerie slid the fork from her mouth, chewing her food slowly as Rick leaned back and watched her with expectation set in his gaze. Everyone else around them seemed oblivious to the growing tension between them, except Beth, who corralled her father into focusing upon her instead.

Rick's hand placed itself upon her thigh. She was able to feel its warmth through her trousers, and she suppressed a shiver at the heavy weight of it. His fingers traced circles almost absent-mindedly, but there was a soft smirk upon his face as he took deliberately slow sips from his glass of water - "m'ybe you can make it up to me," his voice lowered into a whipser as he drifted closer towards her, mindful of the proximity of others.

"Do you wanna do that, sweetheart? You want me to make you cum with everyone watching? Wouldn't be the first time you came on this table, would it?"

Valerie's eyes almost widened in disbelief - it was as though Rick had simply forgotten all of which had made him angry and envious. It was as though he forgot that the man who had stolen her away from him sat opposite them with a knife in his hand and a gun in his pocket.

Valerie was almost too fearful to respond, terrified if Shane caught onto their acts of mischief he would unleash chaos amongst them all.

She was his. That was what Shane had said that day in the woods. She belonged to him, she was his prize for surviving. Not Rick's.

So why was it that her body burned and flushed at his words? Why was it that his insinuations had her shuffling upon her chair as her thighs twitched in anticipation?

Why is it that a growing ache within her begged for Rick's touch?

Perhaps it was because she had gone too long without it. She had gone too long without being herself, and without her pretty and pliant self on display for all to see that she feared Rick would have lost interest.

But as a hesitant hand began to drag Rick's patienly waiting one from her thigh to her clothed cunt, watching the way his eyes darkened and his breath halted as her warmth could be felt from even outside her trousers, she found herself hopeful it was not simply her looks he had been enamoured by.

"Good girl," his voice was a deep rasp as he readjusted himself lower upon his seat to ease the discomfort of his hardening cock.

With the table as their guise, Rick's fumbling hand was hidden from sight as he kept his face passive and contributed to conversations when he was called upon.

He kept his movements slow as he slipped his fingers underneath her waistband, trembling fingers tracing every inch of her he could find as his skin flushed a dark crimson at the feel of her supple flesh.

No one paid much mind to the flustered cop as he almost blanched when his fingers met Valerie's bare mound when he had expected panties to be hidden underneath.

Such a thought brought back the memory of the one he had stolen from the girl during their first night together - he remembers wrapping it around his aching cock as he fisted himself - harsh and rough - in the days he could not find his dearest Valerie.

As his fingers slipped lower, brushing across the sensitive flesh and tracing her twitching clit before circling her entrance that had been neglected for a time Rick believed was far too long.

Valerie gasped a quiet breath, hips rocking into his teasing touch without much afterthought. It was then Rick inched his hand away from her aching, puffy cunt. She would do anything for more - she would protest aloud for all to hear if she must.

But she kept mum, fearful of the humiliation she would face if her daring ventures were to become known to all. Instead, she slipped a free hand down past her waistband, brushing against Rick's own in a desperate attempt to satiate the fire burning within her.

She tried to keep her face expressionless, eyes focused intensely upon her plate as Rick's finger joined her own to scribble messy patterns upon her pretty clit. She ground herself against the palm of his hand as subtley as she could, eyes almost ready to roll back as she coughed lightly to hold back jerky whimpers.

Rick's fingers dipped into the wetness that seeped from her weeping cunt, dragging the precious cream she had leaked over her clit to provide more stimulation. He sped up his movements, remaining still upon his seat so as to not arouse suspicion.

Valerie shovelled food down her throat, the cutlery passing much deeper into her mouth than appropriate as she found herself imagining his thick and heavy member in its place.

Her hips almost lifted from the chair as she inched closer towards the end of the chair, watching with wide eyes at those who continued to eat and converse unknowingly beside them.

Her grip on the fork tightened, and she forced her eyes to remain open as she bit her tongue to hold back any sounds that wanted to force their way through.

God, she was so close.

Fuck.

Her hand wrapped around his wrist, nails digging into the flesh, leaving marks in its wake as tears stung her eyes from pure stimulation.

And then, nothing.

Her breath caught in her throat, and a sinking feeling of desperation weighed heavily upon her as she turned to Rick in betrayal.

Rick watched her with amusement, his cock hardening further at the sight of her needy pouts and subtle panting. His hand left her sweats, a final tap upon her bare cunt that resounded as a quiet and wet slap, causing her to shudder as she tried to hold back her whines of disappointment.

Rick glanced around the table, a proud smirk upon his face as he caught Shane's eyes.

Shane looked at the man with barely concealed fury, trembling with anger upon his seat as his food remained untouched, but the cutlery creaked beneath his unrelenting grip.

His smirk broadened into a grin, a challenge in his eyes as he brought his fingers to his mouth and sucked off Valerie's wetness with pride. He almost laughed as Shane continued to bristle, removing his fingers to return his hand under Valerie's clothes and wipe his saliva across her twitching flesh.

Valerie glanced between the pair as she darkened with a heady flush, the sight of Rick's unabashed claim causing a steady stream of wetness to coat her inner thighs as she squirmed upon her seat.

Her hands found his arm again, holding it tight as she forced herself to stay still upon her chair so as not to gather more attention.

She looked up at him with hunger in her eyes, hoping they would translate all that her whines could not at this moment.

Rick leaned closer, uncaring of watchful eyes as he tutted quietly into her ear.

"I'll tell you what baby," fingers dipping under her waistband to hover over her aching cunt, "you want me to finish what you started, you leave your bedroom door unlocked tonight, hm?"

He looked at her with expectant eyes, and she found herself nodding vigorously is ascent.

"What was that? Use your words, sweetheart."

"Yes," a whispered whine escaped her lipds as her eyes darted around to ensure all were too occupied to eavesdrop, "yes please, Rick."

"Good girl," with that, he tapped a parting goodbye to her soaked cunt, relishing in the way her hips canted towards his hand. He brought his hand to his own lap now, feigning innocence to all that had just occured.

Perhaps it was his non-chalance or the way he had forgiven her so quickly, but a daring spark came alight within her, and she felt a small smile tug upon her lips.

She leaned over Rick, peering around his broad chest in pretence of trying to seek the gaze of her father. In doing so, she created the perfect opportunity to slip her hands into his lap, or more precisely upon the hardened buldge he sought to hide.

She ground her palm against it, relishing in the way his hips jumped up to meet her touch.

"Papa, can you pass me the potato salad?"

There was a pout on her lips, but her eyes sparkled with mischief as her hands squeezed Rick's cock - he could feel himself leak pre-cum from within his jeans, praying no wet spot would be found when he stood from the table.

His hand came around her wrist, gripping them tightly to stop her ministrations. She only rubbed against his weeping cock harder, as she leaned foward to take the bowl from her father's hand with a spare hand.

As she took her seat again, her hand never left his twitching member and she took care to lean into his ears as she spoke in a tantalising whine, "maybe I can make you cum again too."

Fuck.

Rick ground his teeth, his body heating and his cock stiffening uncomfortably, as he imagined the girl upon her knees with his cock stuffed inside her mouth and her hands playing with the parts of him that were too long to fit into the warmth of her.

Just as he had done, she removed her hands in feigned innocence, a pleasant smile upon her face as the images of Shane slipped from her mind and the fantasies of Rick took their place.

***

Valerie escaped his grasp after dinner, dirty promises being whispered into Rick's ears as she manoeuvred around the man to collect plates and cups. Rick watched her with eager eyes, his hands reaching for her every time he thought it was safe enough.

She stood at the sink now. Most had vacated the kitchen apart from Rick, who watched the girl quietly from his place at the table.

He stood, the chair creaking as it scrapes across the wooden floor - he watched as she tensed at the sounds, an excited tremble working its way down her spine as she tried not to peer over her shoulder.

He came behind her, hands tightening upon her hips as he dragged her rump against his stiffened cock. He ground his hips into her covered flesh, quiet groans escaping his lips as he spoke, "shit, you feel that baby. You feel what you're doing to me. Fuck, I need you baby."

The plate in her hand clattered as it fell into the sink, her soapy hands gripping the edge of the sink as a whine escaped her throat and she pushed back into his hardness.

"Fuck, you want it just as bad, don't you? Such a desperate little girl."

"Rick, please."

Her whines were tinged with desperation as her cold and wet hands found his hands to tug under her jumper and towards her breasts. Rick pulled her closer, grinding against her as he massaged the tender flesh of her breasts.

Her head tilted back to rest against his shoulders, her breaths leaving her in harsh pants, "more- wan' more."

Rick couldn't think straight, his head was heavy with lust and he simply prayed no one would walk in on them. He turned her roughly to face him, hands tight upon her waist as he heaved her upon the counter and dragged her towards the edge.

Fuck, he would take her right here if he could.

But it was too early, and he didn't want any wandering eyes to see Valerie so vulnerable. No that was just for him.

At this height, her weepy cunt could grind into his hardened member with ease. Her arms wrapped around his neck as she tugged him closer, the two rubbing against each other like they were teenagers who had just discovered sex.

Her hips canted up to meet his frenzied thrusts, low moans escaping her mouth as she tried to stay quiet.

Rick's lips found her own, groaning into the pliant flesh as he bit her lip and slipped in his tongue.

Fuck, it had been too long.

This was what he had needed all this time, all he had wanted.

He began to trail kisses upon her neck, biting and marking the flesh an array of reds and pinks as they ground against each other faster, the two of them so close to climax they grew dizzy at the sensation.

"Val!"

The pair froze, panting and wide-eyed as they searched around them for the owner of the voice.

"Valerie!"

It was coming from upstairs - Maggie.

"Ye-" Valerie's voice cracked, rough and raw as her body continued to tremble in Rick's grip who continued his movements in slow ministrations as he realised they had not been caught yet.

His head sat upon her covered breasts, mouthing them through her jumper and biting them harshly, making Valerie jump in her place as her cunt burned with desire.

Valerie cleared her throat, "yeah, Mags?"

Her voice sounded across the hallway, and she waited quietly for a response, hands petting through his curls and tugging them as Rick groaned quitely into her.

"Bring me a glass o' orange juice after y're done, please!"

Valerie rolled her eyes, but she guessed she should be pleased Maggie didn't come down to get it herself and catch them in the act.

"Okay!"

She huffed a breath of disappointment, and Rick chucked quietly as he shifted himself into the crook of her neck, "I'll tell you what, sweetheart - I gotta put Carl to bed, so why don't you finish up here and get pretty for me, yeah? Then I can fuck you nice and good, and no one can disturb us, hm?"

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're more desperate than me," there was a teasing smile upon her face.

Rick grinned, "maybe I am."

***

Valerie was in her room, clothes strewn across the room as she tried to find an outfit she knew Rick would like.

She almost beamed with excitement when she found what she was looking for - a pair of white cotton lingerie with tiny cherries printed across the material.

He would go crazy for this.

Valerie threw her clothes back into the closet in a frenzy before turning towards her full-length mirror. She stripped in front of her reflection, an eager grin upon her face.

One which fell as she looked at the sight of her body.

Scratches and bites that did not come from Rick, bruises and redness that did not come from passionate sex.

Her gut roiled in worry, terrified of what Rick would think when he saw the state of her flesh.

Would he think her to be used and worn out? Would he discard her with ease?

That was what Shane said he would've done, but there wasn't much women left in the world so he would take what he could get. And he thought he could take her.

Her eyes burned at the sight of her marred flesh, doubt colouring her features, and she worried her lower lip with her teeth.

She was thinking about stopping tonight altogether, saying no to Rick until the bruises and marks and faded and healed.

But she craved his touch. She needed it just as much as he did.

Fuck, what was she going to do?

It seemed she didn't have much time to think. A flurry of knocks sounded against her door before it peeled open.

Valerie felt her heart sink at the possibility it could be Rick, or even worse - Shane.

Shane had been so angry during the dinner, and she wouldn't be surprised if he had caught on to their antics either.

God, she hoped it was not him.

Instead, it was Glenn's head, which poked through the gap, his sentence falling short as his eyes widened in shock - "hey, Mags is loo-"

His face grew pale, not only because he had walked in on Maggie's little sister half-dressed but also because of the marks that littered her torso and her thighs.

His head shrunk back from the gap, glancing along the corridor before he threw himself into the room. Glenn shut the door behind him, his words panicked as he watched her with something akin to pity.

"What the- shit, Valerie, what the hell happened to you?"

Valerie could only stare at him with her mouth agape, unsure of what to do as dread and terror began to build.

"Valerie? Val-" he drew closer towards her, stopping only when he saw her flinch. He threw his hands up in placation, "hey, Valerie. C'mon, this is important. Who did this to you?"

Her eyes began to water, tears falling in steady streams as she shakes her head in panic, "no. No. No, Glenn you can't tell anyone."

Glenn tilts his head in confusion, "that doesn't answer my question - Valerie, those bruises are recent. As in, last-few-days recent. Who did this?"

Her breaths came out in stuttered pants, "I can't tell you."

"Hey," his voice softened as he watched her tremble with fear and doubt, "Yes, you can. You gotta tell me who did this, Val. We gotta tell Maggie. We gotta tell someone. Someone hurt you, Valerie. Someone in this camp."

"You don't know that," her voice cracked in protest, "you don't know who did it, and you can't tell anyone. Especially not Maggie."

Glenn paced around the room in distress, hands rubbing down his face as he looked frantically across the space. He found a blanket upon the bed, walking towards it and grabbing it as he made his way back to Valerie.

"Valerie, come on, you have to tell me. Who did this to you?"

She sniffled quietly, head shaking 'no' as she looked towards the ground. Her body heated in humiliation as an ache festered in her throat.

Glenn sighed quietly, throwing the blanket around her shoulders and covering the girl before he wrapped his arms around her.

It seems that was all it took to break the dam. Heavy and broken sobs sounded through the room as she held Glenn in a tight embrace.

"Please don't tell Maggie. She can't know."

"She should know Val, she can help you."

"No," her voice was tight, eyes almost manic as she pulled back from him, "no. Please. I can handle it. I've already handled it. I promise."

Valerie knew her words were a lie, but Glenn didn't need to know that.

"Promise me you won't tell Maggie."

Glenn looked at the girl in disbelief, "you can't ask me to do that, Valerie. Not when we both know I saw those bruises on you..."

"Glenn, please. I swear, I'll fix it. I'll make him stop, just don't tell Maggie."

"Him? Who is he? It's someone on camp, right?"

She just stared at his with silent desperation, hands holding the blanket tight to her body as she waited for him to concede.

He sighed, hands rubbing his jaw in frustration, "fine. I won't tell Maggie, I promise. But if this doesn't stop - if he doesn't stop, you come to me. And you tell me."

She nodded, tears falling with renewed vigour as whispered 'thank you's slipped past her lips.

"You gotta promise me, Val." In this moment, Glenn looked much older than he truly was, burdened by secrets and violence he was no clue how to cope with.

"I promise," a watery smile tugged across her face as she wiped her tears with the blanket in her grasp.

Glenn pressed a brotherly kiss upon her head and gave the girl a parting hug.

When he closed the door behind him, he felt his heart weigh heavy with dread. He walked down the corridor, opening Maggie's door to step inside.

"Hey, where's Val?"

Glenn hesitated for a moment, the truth sitting upon the tip of his tongue.

But he promised.

"Sorry, Mags. She was already asleep."

"Oh," Maggie frowned, "I've been worried about her, you know. She's quieter than normal."

Glenn could feel guilt welling in his throat as he nodded, "I'm sorry. Look, I promised Rick I would help him with something before we went to sleep, you don't mind-"

"No, of course not. Go, help your camp." She gave him an indulgent smile, and it helped ease the guilt in his soul.

He left the house promptly, barraging his way through the camp as he found Dale and Rick by a waning fire, deep in conversation.

Rick looked antsy and restless, eyes darting towards the house Glenn left in the distance.

Valerie had made him promise not to tell Maggie, but Rick? Rick was their camp's leader, and someone in the camp had hurt Valerie. If anyone could help, it would be him.

And Glenn hadn't promised to hide the truth from Rick.

There was a grave look upon Glenn's face, and Rick felt something cold wash over him as Glenn beckoned him over.

"Everything good, Glenn?"

Glenn frowned, head turned downwards as a hand came to rub at the back of his neck.

"It's about Valerie."

Rick's heart sank, worry flowing over in crashing waves as he stood straighter in alarm.

"Is she okay?"

It was all he could think to ask - is she okay? Is she alive?

"Something happened to Valerie, Rick. Someone hurt her. Someone in our camp."

Rick felt his heart ache as anger bubbled within him, his limbs trembling as his jaw twitched, his head twisting from one side to another and unfiltered rage poured within him from the depths of hell below.

"Who?"

[drivinmeinsane]

»{ Holland March x Merman!Jackson Healy }« ※ { ao3 }

next chapter -»

※ Summary: Struggling, he can’t seem to reach the surface no matter how hard he paddles upwards. He’s going to die down here if he can’t cover any distance. He’d failed to take in any air when he went over on account of knocking himself senseless. Making a mistake, Holland looks down and sees the darting shadow of a pointed dorsal fin. Shark. There’s a fucking shark in the water with him. ※ Rating: 18+ for explicit mature content. ※ Content/tags: Alternate Universe, Merman Jackson Healy, Canon-Typical Crack Taken Seriously, Frottage, Excessive Cum, Anal Sex, Cum Eating, Teratophilia, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Smoking ※ Word count: 6,739 ※ Status: Multi-chapter (1/2) :: Complete ※ Author's note: Happy Mermay! 🦈

“But mermaids aren’t real,” Holland protests with a wild gesture of his arms.

In all honesty, the private investigator wishes he were sitting down for this consultation. It’s turning out to be one hell of a doozy. Unfortunately for him, his prospective client hadn’t offered him a seat. Holland feels a prickle of resentment.

“Aye, but this one is. Got m’self a real fish man out in those waters and I aim to catch the bastard for what he did.”

When the call had come to the March residence, Holland hadn’t thought much of it. He doesn’t always get the most… reasonable individuals seeking his services. Still, after driving himself all the way to this man’s house after dropping Holly off at school this morning, he hadn’t expected to be asked to track down a myth.

It’s all complete bullshit in his opinion. This man—Sam… something—must be out of his mind. Holland, of course, is a professional and has taken on more asinine and pointless jobs than this. Money is money and it makes the world go ‘round. Or so they say. Anyway, he has a house to rebuild.

Humoring the older man, he says, “Tell me again what you’re wanting me to do about your mermaid. You’re the fisherman.”

“You want a drink?” Sam calls over his shoulder instead of answering him. Already, he’s going for a cloudy looking jug on a clearly handmade shelf alongside a stack of dented metal cups. “I distill it m’self.”

Never one to turn down alcohol, Holland doesn’t protest. “Why not, but about your mer—”

He’s cut off by the grizzled man shoving a full cup of liquid into his chest, forcing Holland to take it. He narrowly avoids dropping it when Sam takes his free hand in between his.

“Got the hands of a city boy,” he comments. He doesn’t sound put out by this, especially not with the way he rubs a calloused thumb over March’s smooth knuckles.

Feeling himself color with a flush, he takes a swig of the beverage he’s been given. It burns like fire going down. He should probably stay away from open flames after he finishes it. He’s liable to be a victim of spontaneous human combustion if he doesn’t. The alcohol itself tastes little better than he’d imagine nail varnish remover from the 50-Cent store does.

Sam gives his hand a tight enough squeeze that he has to suppress a yelp as his bones are pinched together. Thankfully, he’s released almost immediately. If Holland is a little honest with himself, which he is never is, he might be likely to admit that he finds the other man attractive in some kind of rugged, outdoorsy way. Who’d have thought he would like scruffy men who could snap him like a stick if pushed? He tacks that information onto the ever growing list of his failings.

“About the fish. I just want you to keep an eye out for him. See where he hangs out, yeah? You don’t have to do anything more than spotting him and letting me know where he is.”

“You said he tried to kill you,” Holland says, uncomfortably taking another drink and casting a critical eye at their surroundings.

The investigator has been in some strange homes over the years, but this one very well might be in the top three. While it’s clearly the abode of a bachelor, lifelong if Holland had to guess, there are some things that would give anyone pause. Sam has stacks of Campbell’s tomato soup towering on various shelves. That alone wouldn’t be too terribly strange if it weren’t for the shark mandibles hung up all round his home and the too many copies of Moby Dick stored away on a warped and leaning bookshelf. The cherry on top of the sundae is an oversized pot of water clearly filled with more shark jaws that is boiling merrily away on the stove. Sam’s home must smell like fish and Holland has never been so grateful that his sense of smell got knocked right out of his head along with any additional cognitive abilities that would have benefited him.

“I said he stole m’net and pulled me off the boat then tried to drown me. He’s a big ol’ fucker but if you aren’t fishin’, I don’t think he’ll mess with you none,” the fisherman explains patiently. He’s grinning.

Holland thinks on his words in addition to what he’d been told earlier. Three hundred dollars and all he does is have to dick around on the boardwalks up and down a very small bit of the coast. Maybe he’ll have to take off his loafers and put his toes in the sand. All that for up to a week if he doesn't find Sam’s fish man before than. It’s not a bad job, not at all. At the very least, it offers him the privacy to drink without Holly’s knowledge.

He can’t stand to be home right now. Even though it’s a different house—just a rental and meant to be a temporary thing—part of him still expects to go around the corner and see his wife. Holland knows he’s being selfish by planning working with the anniversary of her death tomorrow, but he needs tonight to grieve and then he can scrape together the fragments of himself to be a… well, not a good dad, but maybe not a complete fuck-up of one tomorrow for his daughter.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” he agrees.

───※ ·❆· ※───

Before Holland heads out to drag himself up and down the beach, he makes the drive back to the rental. Sam had advised him that the mermaid they’re seeking won’t be out until after the sun sets. Something about being shy, or having the behavior patterns of a shark. March doesn’t care. He’s just relieved he won’t have to slather himself in sunscreen and rub elbows with tourists under the sizzling rays of the sun. It’s not summer, the days are too short for that, but it’s never truly cold in California.

With Holly being away at school, it’s lonely at the rental. Holland drifts through the rooms like he’s a ghost himself, putting together what he needs for tonight. His supplies consists of a wrinkled map, a refilled flask, a pack of cigarettes, and his lighter. All the items get left on the coffee table next to his keys to shove into his pockets when he goes to leave for the majority of the night.

Holland makes the effort to be a responsible father, or his version of one anyway, by writing a note for his daughter to find when she gets home. It reads: Working case tonight. Won’t be home until late. Pizza money under the lamp. OK for Jessica to visit. Love you Kiddo.

He tapes it to her door at her eye level. She won’t be able to miss it.

Laying down on the couch, he tries to get comfortable enough to get a few hours of sleep. He turns on the TV to feel less lonely. It’s going to be a long night and this way, he is spared the restless stretch of time spent in bed wishing there was another body tucked underneath the covers beside his own.

───※ ·❆· ※───

Darkness begins to swallow the world with the setting of the sun. Visibility becomes murkier as the lights of the city fade away the further he gets from the heart of it. At least the moon looks like a sizable one tonight. He won’t be going into the dark totally blind even if he did forget to grab a flashlight. Holland isn’t even entirely sure the March family owns one these days.

He pulls off of the street and into a deserted parking lot. The Benz coasts to a stop, tires crunching over sand as it does. March puts the vehicle into park and makes sure to crank the parking break before removing the key from the ignition. One of the last things he needs is for the car to somehow roll down the embankment in front of it and get stuck nose-down in the beach’s sand. He doesn’t bother to close the top as he gets out and heads towards a flight of stairs leading down to the boardwalk that perches on the shore like some Lovecraftian monster.

While he’s descending the stairs, the PI tucks a cigarette between his lips and lights it. The rush of nicotine into his lungs is a familiar comfort. It makes the journey downward feel shorter.

This part of the coast is devoid of after-hour entertainment. There is no Ferris wheel, no stands selling popcorn and cotton candy. No pier-side carnival with young hopefuls or drugged out daredevils. It’s peaceful, almost too much so. If he’s frank, Holland thinks it’s creepy as all hell. Anyone could be lurking out here in the sands. Their footsteps on the wood boards would be covered up the steady roar of the waves. His skin crawls and he fights down a reflexive shriek at the thought of an imaginary boogeyman.

Overcome, he whips around to survey his surroundings with the desperation of the pursued. There’s nothing out here that he can see. Water laps against the pier supports. His panicked breathing finally slows. The cigarette he’s smoking burns down right to the filter as he looks out over the waves for any sign of a shark or a fish man. He plucks the spent stick from his mouth and grinds it between his fingers before flicking it out into unknowable depths.

He pulls his flask from his shirt pocket and takes a swig before tucking it away and continuing on. The investigator’s shoes are squelching over the sodden wood. He tries to keep the money he’s been offered in mind as he thinks about the damage the salt water might be doing to the leather.

Between the lulls in between waves, March hears a knocking sound. There’s a pier jutting off the boardwalk. Curiosity leads him into diverting his path. There’s a small boat tied to one of the mooring points. As he gets closer, his suspicion that it’s only the boat knocking against one of the wooden supports grows. Holland chalks himself up to just being jumpy from being out here alone with ideas of aquatic monsters swimming around in his head.

It’s not nothing. He looks down in the dark water and the rising moon illuminates a dead body knocking against the side of the boat. Holland screams and goes failing backwards, arms pinwheeling at his sides. He slips and hits the boards hard enough to knock the wind out of him. He whines getting to his feet only to slip again and hit his head on one of the mooring posts.

He renders himself unconscious and rolls into the ocean. The shock of the water makes him come to and he opens his eyes underneath the water. The salt stings his throat more than Sam’s shitty homemade alcohol had.

Struggling, he can’t seem to reach the surface no matter how hard he paddles upwards. He’s going to die down here if he can’t cover any distance. He’d failed to take in any air when he went over on account of knocking himself senseless. Making a mistake, Holland looks down and sees the darting shadow of a pointed dorsal fin. Shark. There’s a fucking shark in the water with him.

March redoubles his efforts but it’s useless. He’s not going to make it. Even under normal circumstances, he barely is able to swim.

Oh Jesus, he thinks, Who’s going to take care of Holly? Widow Wanda on the corner is going to have to look after her and her house always smells like cat piss. I’m such a terrible father.

In a rasp of skin gliding across cloth, the shark brushes against him. Holland forgets himself and screams. Water rushes into his lungs and he faints. His last conscious awareness is of human hands grabbing him around the waist and the sensation of behind towed through the ocean by a large animal in the way an orca might drag a seal.

───※ ·❆· ※───

Holland’s world explodes in stars. Pain shoots across his face in the wake of the slap he’s dealt. It’s a hell of a way to be brought back to the world of the living. His head is pounding an a way that provides a rhythm for the way his teeth feel like they’re doing the tango in his mouth. What the hell had happened to him?

Another slap goads him into putting his arms up defensively. “I’m awake! Jesus!”

Opening his eyes, he only sees darkness at first. Then his vision clears and he can make out the shape of a large, scruffy man looming over him. Unable to help himself, Holland screams. The shrill noise bounces off the surrounding rocks.

“Shut up,” the stranger tells him, not unkindly.

There’s no way to easily escape. He has been propped up against a boulder and his way is blocked by the man. He squints, looking closer at him. For a moment, he’s shocked into stunned silence at what he’s looking at. Holland tries to be logical. He is going to be normal and reasonable about this because he is a professional. March will not be the certified freak of the beach tonight.

“Nice costume,” he says, aiming for chipper.

“It’s not.”

“Not what?” Holland asks, feeling slightly strained.

“A costume.”

Silence falls between them while he tries to process that. Okay then, his savior really is off his rocker.

The private investigator chooses to act like he’d been told a joke and he laughs. “Don’t fuck with me, man. I’ve had a bad night. There’s a dead body in the water and you’re out here getting off on seeing Jaws too many fucking times. Well, listen here. I’m pissed at being the victim of your little shark prank and you need to cut that shit out.”

As fast as he can manage, he lunges towards the mystery man and tries to pull his costume tail off. It’s disturbingly realistic—smooth one in one direction and rough like sandpaper in the other. He gets a solid punch to the face for his efforts. It’s like being hit with a whole fucking ham on Black Friday. Holland goes reeling back against the boulder from the pain throbbing over his cheekbone.

“So... you’re a real mermaid then,” he says like it’s no big deal. It’s alright, he just hit his head too hard and tried to pull his presumed rescuer’s leg off. He’s imagining things.

It’s nothing a drink won’t fix, March decides. He fumbles for his flask and finds it still tucked into his shirt pocket. Somehow it hadn’t fallen during his dip in the water.

“Merman. Do I look like a maid?” The stranger sounds decidedly unamused.

“Suppose not.” he agrees. He unscrews the lid of his flask with a flourish.

Holland’s flask is dented and split right open. The only liquid left in it is an unholy bacterial mix of saltwater and liquor. It’s just his luck. Not realizing this, he takes a swig. He ends up coughing and choking. The fish man gives him an unimpressed look.

Eyes steaming, he finally stops coughing. The flask is a bust. He motions to throw it away, somewhere out into the ocean. It’s nature’s trashcan, isn’t it? The United States is dumping barrels of chemical waste out there. One little piece of metal won’t make any difference.

With the speed of a striking snake, the fish guy’s arm shoots out and pins March’s hand to the sand by his wrist. The flask is still clutched in his grasp. A yelp escapes Holland as he feels the bones in his forearm creak warningly. Any more pressure and his arm will snap.

“You won’t litter. What if I came into your home and threw trash into it?”

“How would you get to my house? You don’t have legs,” Holland spouts nervously. “Would you just crawl there? Maybe get a skateboard and—”

“Shut up.”

“Okay,” he says, agreeably, but continues, “So, about the—”

“What did I just say? I’m going to ask you some questions and you’re not going to flap your lips about it. Got it?”

Holland nods and mimes zipping his mouth shut with his free hand. The fish man gives him a skeptical look but eases up on his hand and leans back. Meekly, he tucks the broken flask back into its usual pocket.

“Why are you out here? You don’t look like a jumper or one of those night swimmers.”

“I’m a PI and I have a case, thank you very much.”

Seemingly confused, the mermaid—merman—squints down at him. His eyes are flooded with a solid color. It looks black in the dim light, makes him look like an alien. His hair drips in curls over his forehead. Holland notes that the facial hair has been trimmed. He wonders how. It’s hard to imagine they have shaving razors down in Atlantis.

“What’s a PI?” he asks.

“It stands for private investigator.”

With each breath, the merman’s gills flutter on either side of his neck. The only response Holland gets is a blank look in those inky eyes.

“You know… a detective? A private detective? Private eye?”

There is not so much as a spark of recognition on the merman’s face. March is completely baffled.

“A cop? I’m like one of those but I solve mysteries for people?” he tries.

“You don’t look like one. A cop.”

“Because I’m a PI. I investigate mysteries. Like Scooby-Doo?” he offers, thinking about the masks being pulled off in the cartoon that Holly has been watching on Saturdays to agitate her hungover father off the couch. Well, he’s only hungover for as long as it takes for him to get another drink down his throat. That’s the thing. If you’re always drunk, you feel the aftereffects less. It’s March’s favorite trick.

“The dog?” the merman’s voice rasps. Holland can almost feel the vibrations from the fish man’s chest in his own. He’s still that close, nearly between Holland’s legs. He’s warm and Holland is shivering. He finds himself spreading his legs wider and shifting closer. Shamefully, the PI has to make an effort to stop from plastering himself against the stranger.

He blinks. His voice rises as he asks, “How the fuck do you know what Scooby-Doo is but not what a detective is?”

This night has been overly surreal. Maybe he hit his head harder than he thought. Maybe his brain is having the final functions of a dying man while floating next to the dead body that had sent him into ocean in the first place. Maybe he’s being eaten by the shark right now and is too far gone to realize and his mind is trying to make sense of it by conjuring the animal up as this handsome fish man. Maybe he shouldn’t have rented Splash from the video store the other night. It crossed some wires.

Dismissively, the merman waves a webbed hand. “Right. Who are you?”

“Holland March. I’m a priv—”

That same hand gets shoved into his face, cutting him off. “Jackson Healy.”

Why did his dying subconscious have to make up someone so goddamn rude? Holland shakes it warily. His eyes are still stinging from the saltwater.

“I expected a fish name. Something like Swimathy or James Pond or… Gillbert. I don’t know.”

“Swimathy?” Jackson mutters, disgusted.

Holland makes an offended noise. Hey, at least he’d been trying.

“Why are you out here, March?” he asks.

As Holland thinks about the question, he realizes he hates how the edges of his thoughts are too sharp. The investigator wishes he had alcohol to smooth out his mind until it washed away the discomfort.

“I have a case. Some guy wants me to track down a mythological fish man that tried to drown him the other day. Which I don’t think is even possible because fish men don’t...” he trails off, blinks, his brain kicks into gear. “Jesus! You’re the fish man.”

Healy looks at him, contemplative. The lack of visible pupils makes it more intense than it would be from a human. He squirms under that stare.

“He was hunting and he shouldn’t have been. Not here.”

That’s all but a direct confession. Holland shakily reaches into his pants pocket and pulls out his sodden pack of cigarettes. He puts the wet filter between his lips. A bit of saltwater spurts out with the pressure, coating his tongue in brine. He plucks it out of his mouth, spits, puts it back in place and flicks on his lighter. The cigarette doesn’t catch. Of course not.

Not wanting to be reprimanded for littering again, March shoves the cigarette back in the pack. It explodes tobacco all over his fingers that he has to wipe on his pants before returning the whole situation, pack and lighter, into his pocket.

“I don’t see how that’s my problem. Look, he paid me. A job is a job, alright? You dragged him out of his boat and he wants to know where you are so he can talk it through.”

“Talk it through by sticking me, maybe,” Healy says, bitter tone to his voice, His hand goes to a scar bisecting his upper arm. It flashes silver in the moonlight. Holland had assumed it was a natural marking to go with the other lines and speckles adorning the merman’s skin.

“I don’t ask questions, I just accept payment. It’s a job.” He’s all too aware of how defensive he sound.

Besides, he reasons, this guy… fish… merman is big. Jackson can hold his own, surely. Holland wouldn’t tussle with him, not after feeling some of the strength residing in that thick body of his. He’s built like an old-fashioned bruiser. March can easily picture a pair of brass knuckles on those webbed fingers. All at once, he realizes that Healy’s teeth are sharp and it fully dawns on him that he’s looking at an actual predator, a shark with human intelligence.

Jesus, Holland thinks with dawning horror, what kind of damage could he do if he tried?

“What if I pay you?”

“What? What do you mean pay me? Pay me for what? I don’t solve fish crimes. You lose Bruce out there and need to find him? Do you not have fish detec—”

“March.”

Holland shuts his mouth.

“If I pay you, will you do a job for me as well? You can tell your man where I am, collect on that money and get payment from me after you do my job.”

“What—I don’t accept seashells or whatever fish currency,” he protests, desperately confused.

“You accept paper money? Coins? Jewelry?”

Holland pats himself down in vain. He’s automatically reaching for the crutch of a cigarette before he remembers. Put out, he asks, “How much are we talking?”

“Enough.”

“How do you know what’s enough? How do you even have the means to pay me?” He’s half expecting the fish man to give him a soggy five dollar bill.

Healy moves his wide shoulders up in a shrug as he says, “Your kind leaves shit behind all the time. It all ends up in the water. Finders keepers.”

“But…” he trails off, inarticulate.

“Name a price.”

“I don’t know what the job even is.”

“There’s an organization that deals with illegal hunting—”

“Fishing.” Holland interrupts. In the back of his mind he’s having to come to terms with the idea of fish law and fish court. How else would Jackson know about legalities?

Healy directs a frown at him. “I need you to stick around and tell somebody when he’s out on the water with a net and harpoon doing it. He needs to get caught.“

“Not all fishing is illegal.”

“Yes, I know that,” Jackson says with almost condescending patience, “but what he’s doing is. Some other human got in trouble for doing the same thing. The human has been a real pain in my back, March. I don’t appreciate my life bring thrown around. I’m not going to be his trophy catch.”

“Five hundred. Cash. Paper money. Half up front, other half on delivery,” Holland bursts out, not truly expecting the fish man to agree.

“Done. Meet me where you fell,” he says.

Mouth hanging open, the private investigator watches as the merman pushes out into the water and slips underneath the surface. He’s left behind to get to his feet and traverse through the sand in what he hopes is the right direction of the boardwalk. The beach does its best to steal his shoes.

“Would have been nice if Flipper could have taken me back,” he grumbles.

It’s a relief when he finally climbs the stairs leading up onto the elevated path. Less of a relief is the presence of the body. The dead man is still bobbing unpleasantly by the small boat. A dingy? A rowboat? He’s not sure what to call it. Holland has never been a seaman. He’s not about to start now.

Exhausted, he sits down, letting his legs dangle over the side. It’s been a night. The cold breeze coming off the ocean’s surface makes him shiver. He’s itching for a smoke or a drink. Something. He can’t have shit can he?

March is not sure how long he sits there, soaked and uncomfortably shifting from the chafing of the sand that’s worked its way into places it should never be. He finally gives in and lays down. The back of his head hits the wood with a thunk that makes him wince. After a while, his eyes drift shut and he dozes off.

Something slaps him on the cheek, startling him awake. In a repetition of just a while ago, Holland opens his eyes to see a large figure hovering over him and he stifles a scream.

“How the hell did you get up here?” he gasps. He’s clutching at his heart.

“Jumped. Here. Your money.” Jackson answers, tossing a wet bundle of bills onto his stomach.

Suddenly in much better spirits, Holland sits up and combs through the money with an eager thumb. Two hundred and fifty dollars exactly. The fish man hadn’t been yanking his leg when he said he could pay.

“Meet me tomorrow night at the spot where I dragged you out of the water. Tell your client I’ve been around the pier.”

Before he can respond, Healy turns and launches himself off the wood. He slips into the water with more elegance than the investigator would have expected from something the merman’s size.

“What about the body?” he mutters to no one. The fish man hadn’t explained that at all. Jesus, he hopes that Jackson hadn’t killed him. He shoves the wad of bills into his pocket after standing up.

It’s a long climb up the stairs. He might as well be trying to scale the Great Wall of China. By the time he reaches the top, he’s wheezing and desperately wants to collapse on the ground. Rather making for his car, he digs a fistful of change out of his pocket and goes to the payphone at the edge of the parking lot. He slips some coins, ten cents worth, into the slot before pocketing the rest.

Holland presses the 0 button and waits, debating on just pulling his shoes of. The sand really is aggravating. Only the thought of rubbing his bare toes all over the pedals of his car stops him.

“Hi, operator, can you connect me to the police?”

He listens for the confirmation and waits some more for the connection.

“Los Angeles Police Department.”

“I need to report a dead body. It’s down at the dock from the parking lot at the uhhh…” Holland thinks for a moment,” just off Via Riviera and Paseo.”

“Sir, what—”

“Anyway, super dead. Very much in the water. Don’t know what happened. Goodnight,” and he hangs up.

Not wanting to deal with the arrival of the police to be asked questions he doesn’t know the answers to, he wastes no time launching himself behind the wheel of his Benz and getting out of the lot. He’s going to straight home and rinse off in the shower before collapsing into bed. When he wakes up in the morning, things will be normal and fish free. He’ll laugh all of this off as a hallucination.

───※ ·❆· ※───

Light burrowing through the gaps of the blinds and through the curtains is what drags Holland from his slumber. He lays on his side for a moment, taking stock of how sore his body feels. Straining, he makes out the numbers displayed on his bedside block. It’s already well past noon. There’s only a few more hours of daylight left.

With a sigh, he sits up and drags himself out of bed only to immediately trip over the discarded pile of clothing on his floor. It’s wet.

“What…?”

Last night comes rushing at him and Holland snatches up the bundle of cloth. He starts tearing through his pockets looking for evidence that it hadn’t been some kind of alcohol induced dream. He finds the cracked flask and the still damp wad of cash.

March stumbles back, still holding onto the stiffening pants and sits on the edge of his bed. It had been real. That means… Jackson Healy the merman had been real too. Fish people aren’t just myths. The pants slip out of his slackened grasp and fall back onto the floor to join the rest of clothing he’d worn last night.

Feeling dazed, he goes to the kitchen. He doesn’t bother to get dressed in anything more than the boxers and undershirt he’d put on after rinsing himself free of saltwater last night.

He aims for some normalcy, as much as he gets given his choice of employment, and starts the coffeepot. He sets a mug out on the counter. Deciding he’s going to need a bit of a kick while he thinks about the events of the past twenty-four hours, he drags over a bottle of bourbon.

“Dad?” comes Holly’s voice. He’s surprised for a moment then he realizes that it’s a Saturday, no school. Holland is on top of things enough to know that.

The private investigator knows that he’s lucky to have such a good kid. In his more sober moments, he loathes having been the cause of her needing to be so independent at a young age. Holland March is a fuck-up and everyone knows it. He wishes he were a better man, one that wasn’t making his daughter pay the price for his shortcomings and self-inflicted issues. One of these days, he’s going to kick the drinking habit and do right by her, but… today is not going to be that day.

“Hi, honey,” he says, fetching a second mug from the cupboard without her needing to ask. Should a thirteen year old be drinking coffee? Probably not, but March isn’t going to stop her.

Once the coffee finishes dripping into the glass carafe, he fills both mugs two-thirds of the way in order to leave room for any additives. He pushes Holly’s at her along with the sugar jar. He fills his own the rest of the way up with bourbon while she fetches creamer from the fridge.

“What did you do last night? There’s sand and stuff all over the place.”

“I... uh... I had a case last night. I need to check in on the client today and meet with Jackson tonight. Also don’t say—”

` “Were you just drinking again?” she asks before he can finish his word policing. Holly is skeptical, too jaded to hope. She knows him too well to expect real progress from him. It would sting if it weren’t so accurate.

“No! No, my flask actually broke. I didn’t have a drop, promise.” He neglects to mention he had already drank about half of it and had whatever backwater distillery project Sam had handed him prior to Holland doing a nosedive off the pier.

“Dad.”

“Remember that case I mentioned? The mermaid guy? Well, I found his fish man and he wasn’t bullshitting. There’s an actual mermaid, well he said he wasn’t a maid. I thought he was a shark at first, but he saved me and—”

“Dad.”

“Yes?” Everyone seems determined to interrupt him when he’s speaking. He takes a drink from his mug.

“I’m going with you today.” she says, holding up a hand to stop him from saying anything further.

“Okay.” He gives in, doesn’t protest a bit. Holland doesn't want to leave her alone, not today.

Holly looks surprised at the lack of protest. She’d clearly had expected a fight about it.

“I’ll get dressed. Meet you by the car in fifteen?”

Holly flashes him a thumbs up and shoots off down the hall to her bedroom like the Roadrunner off LoonyTunes. He’d been just as high energy back when he was a kid. Holland’s own parents could barely get him to sit still enough to eat dinner most nights.

Burning his mouth a little, he downs the rest of his coffee in two swallows. He goes to his own room at a slightly more sedate pace to find a set of fresh clothes. He’s already mourning the future spent without a functioning flask. He’s going to have to rely on cigarettes alone until he can pick one up on Monday when his daughter is at school. He doesn’t want to have to face the disappointment in her eyes if he purchases one while they’re together. Upsetting her this afternoon is not an option, not with it being the anniversary of her mom’s death.

In preparation for everything tonight might entail, Holland gets dressed in clothing he’s less attached to. If he’s running the risk of sand and finding himself in the ocean again, he’s not styling himself up to the nines. Khaki pants and a short sleeve button-up on top of his underthings are as fancy as he’s getting. Grimacing, he puts on the same pair of loafers he’d worn last night. The traces of sand still lingering in the corners try to breach the barrier of his socks.

When Holland leaves the room, he finds Holly’s bedroom door open without her in sight. He scrapes his keys out of the bowl. He also makes sure to write a fresh copy of Sam’s address on the underside of his forearm, right below his watchband, before he steps outside. He doesn’t feel like trying to remember the house number and street.

As expected, his daughter is waiting for him by the Benz.

“You ready, kiddo?” he asks.

Holly nods, only to look surprised when he loops around to the driver’s side and takes a seat behind the wheel. He’s so disgustingly sober he feels capable of driving with his daughter as a passenger.

“Where are we going?”

“To visit the client. I need to tell him what I found.”

“Oh right… your mermaid,” Holly says doubtfully.

Unbothered by her disbelief, March cranks up the radio, and they’re soon flying down the streets of LA. He slaps the outside of the car door in time with the beat. Holly can be a skeptic all she likes, but she’s going to be surprised when she sees her old man isn’t lying after he takes her with him on his house call to see the merman himself.

In no time at all, he pulls to a stop alongside the curb in front of the same ramshackle house he’d been in just the afternoon before. Holland probably should have called ahead, but it’s too late for that now. He hops out of the vehicle and makes his way up the sidewalk to the front door with his daughter trailing behind him. The private investigator taps his knuckles against the peeling door. It’s promptly answered by the same man as yesterday who peers at him suspiciously from around the door before flinging it open wide.

Sam adjusts his hat and looks approvingly at Holland from below hooded eyes. “Surprised to see ya back so soon, city boy.” He looks at where Holly is standing beside her father with her arms crossed. “And who’s this little lady?”

“My daughter. Holly.”

“Nice to meet ya. I’m Sam. Your dad’s doing me a real big favor,” he says, before turning to Holland with a grin, “Come on in and tell me what you found, yeah?”

Without hesitating, the father and daughter follow Sam inside. Holland doesn’t miss the way Holly has to suppress a gag at the smell the boiled shark cartilage must be putting off. He wonders if the fisherman still has a sense of smell and has just grown immune to it, or if he is like Holland and simply can’t smell.

“I found your fish man,” he blurts out, wanting to get this over with.

Sam’s eyes light up with uncontained glee. “Yeah, where did you find the slippery bastard?”

“By the pier. The one attached to the boardwalk by Via Riviera and Paseo.”

“Ah, he’s moved further north than when he pulled me out of my boat. What time did you see him?”

“Not long after dusk. You were right about his… patterns being like a shark.”

The rugged man claps him on the shoulder. Holland’s knees nearly buckle with the impact. Sam praises, “Good work, we’ll get him yet.”

Failing to successfully wave of offers of tomato soup from the many cans, Holland finds himself seated on a threadbare couch next to his daughter while their host regales them with old seafaring tales from his time on commercial fishing boats. All three of them have chipped bowls of soup in their hands. No spoons. The thick liquid had been heated on the stove next to the ever boiling pot of shark parts. He’s sure it has to affect the taste given the despairing glances Holly keeps sending his way when Sam isn’t looking.

Trying to not bounce his leg impatiently while the other man talks, Holland gulps down his soup. His mind keeps going to the fish man that will be waiting for them soon. It’s going to be a significant drive to the ocean followed by a too-long walk along the shore to reach the spot where Jackson had pulled him to dry ground.

After a while, he simply cannot take any more and manages to speak during a lull in the fisherman’s bottomless, one-sided storytelling. “Sorry, Sam. We’re going to have to head out. Holly’s got homework. You know how it is. Thank you. Bye.”

Sam’s own goodbyes and reassurances that he’ll let Holland know when he “catches that big brute” follow them out of the door while they make their escape to the relative safety of the vehicle. Holly sags back into the seat while he starts the Benz and begins the drive. The sun is already beginning to set. Nervously, he drums his fingers on the steering wheel.

The lot is empty again just as it had been the evening before. Police tape marks off the stairs, though there are no officers milling about. He probably should have checked the news, but regardless, he pulls into the same spot he’d been parked in.

Having learned enough from last time, he strips off his shoes and socks and gestures for Holly to do the same. They toss it all onto the back floorboard to retrieve later. Pleasantly, the parking lot is still warm under their feet as they make their way to the stairs. March holds the tape up for his daughter to step below before ducking under himself. As she passes him, he notices that she’s carrying two Yoo-hoos. The investigator doesn’t say anything. Maybe she is planning on being thirsty after their walk.

Holland digs a cigarette out of the pack and lights it once it’s between his lips. It dangles there while they amble downwards and finally make it onto the level surface over a dozen feet below the parking lot level.

“Dad… Are you sure you weren’t just imagining things?” Holly asks when he leads them off the boardwalk to the beach. Sand threatens to engulf them up to the ankles.

“You’ll see,” he promises.

next chapter -»

Do not repost, copy, or reproduce my work to other sites or in other media formats. Do not use it for anything to do with AI. Thank you.

[shannaraisles]

Still Yours - for @50sjello

For @50sjello, who has been incredibly patient - this has been sitting in my finished folder for almost a month, due to various of my own issues, but finally, here it is! Thank you so much, lovely!

Still Yours

The mood in the camp was ... awkward this morning, to say the least. It isn’t every night you wake up flooded with physical ecstasy, only to discover it isn’t actually yours, and you’re feeling it secondhand from the nominal leader of your group as they couple with a mindflayer in their shared dreamscape. Sylvana was fairly sure none of the party was ever going to look at them the same way again. 

“Well, that was quite the wet dream we all shared last night, wasn’t it?” Astarion declared in a surprisingly innocent display of avuncular good humour. “I do hope it doesn’t become a regular thing. I prefer my intimacies ... intimate.”

The look that flickered in the direction of a certain purple tent spoke volumes of both judgement and unexpected concern, underscored by the faintest hint of a smirking smile as Karlach took up the theme.

“Gods, I never want to look at another octopus ever again,” she said, shuddering as her flames intensified for a moment. “That was ... no. Nope, I am not thinking about it.”

“It was a very stimulating evening,” Shadowheart interjected, straightening from her morning stretch. “Who would have thought the Emperor would have such creativity when it came to such an unconventional coupling?”

Face flaming red, Sylvana focused on fastening their bedroll, trying to ignore the spirited debate now being undertaken by three members of their party, all of whom were dying in equally creative ways in the secret, hidden pathways of their mind. A prickle of fur brushed their calf, drawing their attention to the sharp eyes of a tressym standing entirely too close for comfort. Nothing can judge you for decisions made in the heat of the moment quite like a feline with a bone to pick. 

“Good night, was it?” Tara asked, and Sylvana only just suppressed the flinch at the ice in the tressym’s tone. 

The young rogue steeled themselves, setting down the bedroll to turn and face the closest thing to a mother Gale of Waterdeep had handy. Tara’s yellow eyes were hard in the morning stillness, more than a little resentment stirring within the magical feline for the harm done to her young Mr Dekarios in the night. Sylvana swallowed, taking a moment to clear their thoughts and their throat before addressing the acid remark.

“I know I have made a terrible mistake,” they informed Tara. “I know it’s worse because everyone is aware of it. But the shockwaves of that mistake are between myself and Gale, and while I appreciate that you love him and want only to protect him, he is a grown man and we should be able to discuss this like adults, without others inserting themselves into our dynamic.”

The tressym considered them for an excruciating moment, that sharpness in that gaze almost enough to draw blood. Then she ruffled her feathers, her tail rippling from straight to just slightly curved.

“Then I suggest you begin this adult discussion of yours,” she said primly. “Mr Dekarios is a great man, but when it comes to matters of the heart, he is a teenaged nightmare with all the social skills of an erotically charged goblin. Good luck to you.”

Even as Sylvana raised their brows at this rather brutal description of the man they loved, the two of them heard a choked objection abruptly cut off from within the tent. Ah. Well, that made sense of Tara’s comment on his emotional maturity in this matter. Apparently hiding in his tent and listening to everyone else was Gale’s idea of dealing with this. Sylvana could not entirely blame him. He must have decided he was being set aside yet again by the beloved of his heart, something he had still not truly come to terms with when it came to Mystra. 

With Tara flicking her tail and heading toward the campfire to ply her wiles on Wyll for breakfast, Sylvana straightened their shoulders and ducked through the thick purple fabric. Their eyes found Gale near instantly, stumbling back from the curtain they had just stepped through as though he had not expected them to make their entrance so soon after speaking with Tara. His eyes were red, betraying tears he would no doubt be horrified to know were so easily discerned in his weary face; his gaze pinned to Sylvana’s face with wide-eyed trepidation. 

Yet before Sylvana could so much as open their mouth, he held up a hand to still any words that might be said. 

“If this is to be the end of us, then land the blade sharply, I beg you,” he said, each word ringing with a certainty that could only have come from practice since he had woken. “No excuses, no softening of the blow. Tell me, once and for all, if this truly is the end of the love I have come to trust so wholly since we met.”

Sylvana narrowed their eyes slightly at these last words, not particularly liking the attempt at emotional manipulation but understanding that, as Tara said, he was emotionally an angsty teenager still. 

“It’s the last thing I want, Gale,” they said, voice trembling just a little now they were faced with the consequences of their curious interlude the night before. “But if we are to continue, we need to talk about what happened last night.”

“You chose to betray my trust with a mindflayer,” he snapped. “In a way that broadcast my humiliation to the entire camp, to these people who have become our - my - friends. People who know my history have seen me cast aside a second time, for what? For sport?” His gaze hardened as he stared at her, brows furrowing in pain. “Tell me it meant nothing.”

“I can’t do that.”

The answer was honest. And in all honesty, they could not blame him for the faint cry of misery that left his lips, the way his knees seemed to buckle and toss him down upon the makeshift bed he had not yet packed away. Sylvana forced themselves to step closer, to crouch, to kneel at his side, not daring to offer a touch in consolation. They only had words, but it was a language that this man certainly understood. 

“Let me tell you why,” they said, each word soft but firm in the pain-filled silence of the tent. “And when I am done, if you still wish nothing more to do with me, then I will accept that. I have wronged you, but not with malicious intent.”

Knees drawn to his chest, hands clasped and twisting anxiously together, Gale drew in a staggered breath, seeming to force away fresh tears as he nodded. Whatever else happened now, he needed to know. Taking the invitation, Sylvana twisted themselves to sit beside him on the padded bedroll, staring at the star-filled constellation of Mystra they had never once asked him to remove from his sleeping place. 

“I don’t know everything about you,” they began, careful to keep their tone light, conversational. No blame or implication of guilt; nothing to provoke an emotional reaction from him. “I don’t know every fleeting thought that pulses through your mind; every impulse you restrain, every judgement you make on those we pass by or interact with. I only see what you choose to show me, and I love every part of that man, even the parts you are perhaps ashamed of.”

They felt him shudder beside them, felt the unspoken acknowledgement that no mortal truly knew another in the way they were describing. Felt the realisation of where this was going even before they continued to explain. 

“The Emperor knows everything about me,” they told him. “All of it. Not just what I choose to show, but everything I intentionally hide. Every unkind thought, every urge toward pain and destruction, everything that I know would sour the affection of the people I love toward me ... it knows all of it. Can you truly blame me for doing as I did, at a moment when I felt seen in a way no one has ever seen me before? For just those few moments, I could finally understand why you remain so devoted, so loyal, so tender toward Mystra. She knows you, the way he knows me. And yes, perhaps I wanted to even the score in that regard. Perhaps I knew it would hurt you, the way it hurts me each time you say her name with such fondness. The way it hurts to have to see her celestial face each time I come to you in privacy. But am I so unforgivable?”

There was a long silence, still wracked with pain but now peppered with understanding, the words he loved and needed so much guiding him down the path to truly understanding the why of what had gone before. 

“It felt ... clinical, to me,” he said finally, his tone calm, almost detached. “I could feel your curiosity, your physical pleasure. Where was your heart, Sylvana?”

“In your hands. Always.”

They felt him suck in a breath, a sudden change in the turmoil radiating from him softening to their words as this commitment was made. A moment later, his fingers found theirs, hesitant but warm, daring to cross the divide between them. 

“Had it been me in your place,” he said, each word tremulous but firm, “I do not think I could have gone through with it. Not that the temptation would not have been great, but ... I have been set aside by those I adore too often to willingly do it to another. To you.”

For the first time since waking, Sylvana felt the shard of pain they had been holding at bay slice deep. They knew this, of course they did. Some things could not be retracted or forgotten. But perhaps they could be forgiven?

Gale’s fingers tightened about theirs, drawing their palm to rest over his heart. 

“My heart is yours,” he said, whispering painfully into the stillness. “Still yours. Always yours.”

Sylvana tilted their head toward him, finally finding his eyes on them with the by now familiar adoration back where it had always been. An adoration that was now just a touch guarded, but still there.

“Can we come back from this?” they asked, eyes burning with the urge for tears they did not feel they had earned the right to shed. “Can you forgive me my weakness?”

His brow pressed to theirs, and they shuddered together, each one fighting back those tears, knowing that such a display here and now would do neither of them any good. Hands gripped hands, breath mingled in staggering gusts, both wizard and rogue breathing together to eradicate the harsh reality of their painful morning. 

“If you can forgive me for mine,” Gale said finally, lifting his eyes to theirs. “I have held onto the memory of her affection when I should have given you all of my focus. I swear this to you, my beloved heart, I will let her go. And when the time comes that the Emperor has no further need of us, I will stand by your side as you let him go.”

The relief was palpable - audible, even, as they heard Astarion suddenly declare that the fun he had been expecting wasn’t even going to start now. Sylvana let out a rueful laugh, joined by a wry chuckle from Gale as they wrapped themselves in each other’s arms, squeezing close to chase away the last of the uncertainty the morning had wrought.

“As long as you are mine, I could face anything at your side,” Gale murmured, at last pressing a tender kiss to his lips. 

“I’m yours,” was their answer, heartfelt and unshakeable. “I’m still yours.”

[ariel-seagull-wings]

FICTIONAL CHARACTER ASK: GONZO THE GREAT

(Asked by popular vote on the polls)

@princesssarisa @salieri27 @softlytowardthesun @moonbeamelf @the-blue-fairie @themousefromfantasyland @fragglesesamemuppetz2 @angelixgutz @silverfoxstole @amalthea9 @anne-white-star @mx-piggy @butchlesbianwulfric @longagoitwastuesday @ardenrosegarden @parxsisburning @lioness--hart @lord-antihero

Favorite Thing About Them: I love the subtle journey they went from a lonely, frustrated performance artist resenting their audience, constantly melancholic due to being rejected in their romantic pursuits several times, to do their daredevil performances mainly to make themselves happy and becoming proud of their weirdness to the point that they gain an atractive sense of humour and confidence.

Also, they are probably the most versatile actor of the Muppet Theater, alternating between heroic and villanous roles with no difficulty.

Least Favorite Thing About Them: That they doesn't have a proper conversation with his chicken girlfriend, Camilla, to let clear if they want to pursue an open polyamorous relationship or if they want to be comited to her in a monogamous relationship.

Three Things I Have In Common With Them:

* I adore the color blue;

* I enjoy classic literature and music;

* I am going trough a journey to learn how to handle my frustration in a healthier way;

Three Things I Don't Have In Common With Them:

* I'm not dating a chicken;

* I'm not a daredevil who does dangerous stunts;

* I never worked as a plumber;

Favorite Line:

From The Muppet Show:

"Gonzo: Kermit, are you busy?

Kermit: Yes, Gonzo, but I can give you my ear for a moment

Gonzo: What would I do with your ear?

Kermit: Van Gogh impressions."

"Kermit: Gonzo! Have you no dignity?

Gonzo: Of course not! How long have we worked together? "

"Gonzo fiddles while George burns! "

"Madeline Kahn: And if there's anything I can ever do for you...

Gonzo:There is one thing.

Madeline Kahn: What?

Gonzo: Let me finish my song. "

"You wanna go to a movie, or grab a stake? "

"Ladies and gentlemen! I will once again defy death and good taste! "

"Camilla, you're sweeter than wine or vanilla, Camilla.

Come lie beneath this tree, it's a willa, Camilla.

Camilla, the night it grows stilla and stilla, Camilla.

You're prettier by far than Godzilla, Camilla."

From The Muppets Go to The Movies:

"Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to see the great Dudley Moore, in a colossal widescreen Roman epic! Lions attack innocent people. Slaves suffer public humiliation. Gladiators fight to the death. I've never laughed so much in all my life.  Roll film! "

From Muppets Tonight:

"We're the Muppets! Doing a bizarre musical number that no one wants to see is what we're all about!"

"Clifford: Gonzo, why do you need a rocket just to jump over chickens?

Gonzo: I give up, Clifford. Why do you need a rocket just to jump over chickens?

Clifford: No man, it's not a joke.

Gonzo: You're telling me, you should see my insurance premiums!"

"The Artist Formerly Known as Prince: You got the ugliest dog I-a ever did see! Wadda call it?

Gonzo: Well, before we painted it brown and glued ears on 'im, we called it an alligator."

"Gonzo: As many of you know, Muppets Tonight has been on the air for over 3.000 years!

Rizzo: That's not right!

Gonzo: Well, I'm aproximating."

From the Muppet Babies episode Dental Hyjinks:

"It must have been horrible! The pain! The suffering! Tells us all about it!"

This dialogue exchange with Baby Piggy from the Muppet Babies episode Gonzo's Video Show:

"Baby Gonzo: Have no fear, my sweet princess. Gonzolo is here!

Baby Piggy: Gonzolo?

Baby Gonzo: Who did they expect, Captain Kirk? Lets get em' boys!"

From the Muppet Babies Star Comic Books of the 1980s:

"Baby Piggy: Gonzo, you're weird!

Baby Gonzo: Aw, Piggy... you're just flattering me!"

"Oh Piggy, I'll be your knight in shining armor! Ow! No armor! Gonzo the Brave needs no armor!"

"You look like a famous queen, My Queen!"

This dialogue exchange with Scooter in the comic book The Muppet Show: Meet The Muppets:

"Scooter: Gonzo... I have to ask you something. It's driving me nuts. Tell me... please...  What the heck are you?

Gonzo: Oh, Scooter. I tought you knew. I'm an artist."

This dialogue exchange with Fozzie and Kermit in The Muppet Movie:

"Gonzo: Well, I want to go to Bombay, India and become a movie star.

Fozzie: You don't to go to Bombay to become a movie star! You go where we we're going: Hollywood.

Gonzo: Sure, if you want to do it the *easy* way."

"There's not a word yet

For old friends who've just met

Part heaven, part space

Or have I found my place

You can just visit

But I plan to stay

I'm going to go back there

Someday

I'm going to go back there

Someday"

From the movie The Great Muppet Caper:

"It's okay, I landed on my head!"

"Gonzo: STOP THE PRESSES!!

News Editors: Why? What happened?

Gonzo: I don't know. I just always wanted to say that."

"Kermit: I don't know why the cabs won't stop.

Gonzo: Just leave it to me. TAXIIIIII!

Kermit: AAH!... uh, that's very effective!"

Gonzo: Yeah, it's great when it works!"

"Yeah, well, photography's an art. You gotta have the right film, you gotta have the right exposure, and you gotta scream just before they get the food to their mouth."

This dialogue exchanges they have with Rizzo in The Muppets Christmas Carol:

"Gonzo: I know the story of A Christmas Carol like the back of my hand!

Rizzo: Prove it!

Gonzo: Alright. Um... There's a little mole on my tumb... and a scar on my wrist from when I fell off my bicycle."

"Rizzo: I fell down the chimney and landed on a flaming, hot goose.

Gonzo: You have all the fun."

This dialogue exchanges in the movie Muppet Treasure Island:

"Billy Bones: Jimmy-Jim-Jimmy-Jim-Jim-Jim-Jim! You've always been a decent sort to old Billy Bones.

Gonzo: I'm not Jimmy-Jim-Jimmy-Jim-Jim-Jim-Jim. *He's* Jimmy-Jim-Jimmy-Jim-Jim-Jim-Jim."

"Gonzo: It just feels so weird.

Rizzo: You mean that Mr. Arrow's dead?

Gonzo: Yeah, that... and my pants are  filled with starfish.

Rizzo: You and your hobbies!"

From the movie Muppets from Space:

"Noah: What are you, anyway?

Gonzo: Oh, uh, good question. Now technically speaking, uhh, let's say, put me down as a... 'Whatever'?"

"Gonzo: Now we can go meet my alien brothers at Cape Doom.

Kermit: Uh, what makes you think that aliens are landing there, Gonzo?

Gonzo: Oh, a sandwich told me."

"Come on, fellas. Take me to my leader."

"Ubergonzo: Gonzo, by surviving and thriving on this alien planet, you have proven yourself audacious, courageous, and distinctly one-of-a-kind. We welcome you back with our most ceremonious of ceremonies.

Gonzo: What's that?

Ubergonzo: We gonna blow you up, baby."

"Gonzo: What a great day.

Kermit: Mm-hmm.

Gonzo: That was probably the best day of my whole life. There's just one thing I still don't understand.

Kermit: What's that, Gonzo?

Gonzo: Why did they ask me to build a jacuzzi?"

From the 2015 ABC mockumentary sitcom the muppets.:

"Hey there! I'm Gonzo! Head writer on Up Late With Miss Piggy... I'm a pisces, I love long walks on the beach, volcanoes, leather, straps... Wait a minute!! Leather straps?! Who put my dating profile on the prompter?!"

"Gonzo: Christina Applegate brought a hilarious clip of Piggy. I knew you wouldn't aprove it, so I went over your head.

Kermit: I'm the boss.

Gonzo: Oh, that's right. So I went behind your back."

"Gonzo: I'm going to call it of, cause I don't want to be a sell out. It's not because I'm scared or anything.

Kermit: But, um, still. If you were scared, it would be okay.

Gonzo: But I'm not.

Kermit: But if you were.

Gonzo: But I'm not.

Kermit: But if you were.

Gonzo: But I'm not.

Kermit: But if you were.

Gonzo: A little bit.

Kermit: I know."

brOTP: Kermit the Frog, Robin Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Rowlf the Dog, Scooter, Skeeter, Animal, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker, Sweetums, Sam the Eagle, Rizzo the Rat, Yolanda the Rat, Pepe the Prawn King, Statler and Waldorf, Clifford, Bobo the Bear.

OTP: Beautifull Day Monster, Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Rowlf the Dog, Skeeter, Rizzo the Rat, Camilla the Chicken.

nOTP: Madeline Kahn.

Random Headcanon: The background story of Gonzo's arrival on Earth has similarities with the japanese manga and anime shonen hero Kinnikuman, who is a comedic character inspired by Superman and Ultraman: in that manga the hero's father trows accidentally him aways out of the spaceship after mistaking him with a piglet that entered the spaceship during a brief visit to Earth.

In the case of Baby Gonzo, they were accidentally replaced with a baby turkey. Nanny was the one who found and adopted Gonzo, and as they grew up, Gonzo was the last Muppet to leave Nanny's house to take care of her as she got old, getting a job to survive as a plumber with an neighboring indian imigrant who introduced Gonzo to Indian Cinema. That was how Gonzo got the dream to become a performer in Bombay.

Unpopular Opinion: I think Gonzo's status as a Whatever wouldn't be erased if their status as an alien had remained legitimate after the idea was presented in the Muppet Babies cartoon series and  the movie Muppets from Space. Because while the other aliens have similar physical appearances and share with some interests with Gonzo (like cannons), they didn't have the formative experiences that Gonzo had living on Earth among Muppets and Humans: loving Earth's food, Earth's literature, Earth's clothes, Earth's music genres, Earth's performance art. The Muppet Babies picture story book What Is a Gonzo? presented this point pretty well, when Baby Gonzo crossed a mirror to find a world where all the people had the same face as them, yet who, just like their friends in our world, asked themselves what Gonzo was. At the end of the story, they go to an inventor, Professor Garbonzo, who created a machine called the Onzometer that answers all questions, and when Gonzo asks what they are, the machine answers: "You are Gonzo. Isn't that enough?".

Gonzo can brush their teeth and sing the Itsy Bitsy Spider song at the same time, they like tuna fish sandwiches with ketchup, they can blow a bubble shaped like a peperoni pizza. All those characteristics make them unique, both among aliens and earthlings, so their proud status as a queirky, weird whatever is not treatened with the idea that the character may have outer space alien origins.

Song I Associate With Them:

Nobody

Memory Lane

The Wishing Song

Won't Somebody Dance With Me?

Gonzo's Song

Jamboree

Act Naturally

My Way

I'm Going to Go Back There Someday

Favorite Picture of Them:

With Beautifull Day Monster (in a wig) back when Gonzo was first introduced as Snarl the Cigar Box Frackle in 1970's The Great Santa Claus Switch:

The car and hammer performance act:

Balancing in a tight rope with the chickens:

Smashed:

As Rumpelstiltskin in Muppet Classic Theater:

Illustrations of The Muppet Show Book

As Guy of Gisbourne in the picture story book Muppet Robin Hood:

As Lancelot alongside Camilla as Guenevere in the comic book Muppets King Arthur:

As a baby playing with a pillow and blanket fort

[heaven-s-black-box]

Team Building Exercise- Triple Soukoku

Return to File

Recovery date: January 9th, 2021

Description: Three generations of the feared Soukoku must work together to bring peace...

Notes: N/a

Word count: 1 772

Back to directory

Mori Ougai, boss of the ever feared port mafia, sits at the long dining table with his fingers linked under his chin. It spans most of the room, about four meters or six feet long, with eight chairs spread across. Three parallel to each other on either side, and one on each end. Above the center hangs a crystal chandelier.

On the other end sits Fukuzawa Yukichi, the president of Yokohama’s armed detective agency, quietly sipping tea. The once partners now sit on opposite sides of both the table and the law, though neither hold any resentment towards the other. 

The same can not be said for Chuuya and Dazai, the once and still feared duo of darkness. As time passes, it seems Chuuya’s resentment for Dazai only grows. Even now, he sits with his arms crossed and head turned like a defiant child. Meanwhile, Dazai sits across from his ex-partner with an almost strangely pleasant smile. No matter what Chuuya says, they both know Chuuya resents Dazai for leaving him all those years ago. Not that Chuuya would have left the mafia easily, if at all, but Dazai never even tried to talk to him. And that was what hurt the most.

Only one pair lacks resentment, not to say there's no malice between them. The final pair at the table, and the youngest, are Atsushi and Akutagawa. Unlike their two predecessors, they have no history of abandonment and betrayal. At least between each other. Their distrust is nothing more than a product of bad decisions and miscommunications. Nothing that can’t be dealt with over time.

They sit in relative silence, with the loudest sound being the occasional cough from Akutagawa. Both Mori and Fukuzawa have their eyes closed, it was almost as if they were asleep. 

Atsushi sat nervously between Mori and an empty chair, while Dazai sat on the other side of said chair and beside Fukuzawa. Akutagawa was leaning back in his chair glaring at Atsushi, which only served to put him more on edge.

“Nakajima-kun,” Mori said, breaking the silence.

“Yes!” Atsushi sat up as straight as possible, causing Dazai to snicker beside him.

A small smirk pulled at the corner of Mori’s mouth as he opened his eyes to look at the young man.

“Please relax, we aren’t going to hurt you. Isn’t that right Akutagawa?” 

“Hm,”Akutagawa gave a small hum of acknowledgement that did little to calm Atsushi’s nerves.

“So, shall we begin?” Fukuzawa asked, setting down his tea and looking up at Mori.

“I do believe we’ve let them suffer enough… for now.”

“Still as sadistic as ever Mori-sensei.”

“Why thank you.” He smiled. “Now, we called you all here today to discuss a mission of the utmost importance.”

“Is the city in danger again?” Atsushi asked.

Everyone was now sitting up right and looking at Mori.

“No, it is a much more pressing matter.” He paused for a second and looked up at Fukuzawa. “We have decided that the agency and port mafia need to… get to know each other, better. So we decided to kill two birds with one stone.”

“How?” Chuuya asked wearily. After being in the mafia for years, he knew Mori’s ideas could be… well sadistic.

“Mori-sensei and I decided to use this as an opportunity for Akutagawa and Atsushi to work on their teamwork.”

“What do you need us for then?” Dazai asked.

“As their predecessors, it seems only fitting you help them as necessary,” Fukuzawa said.

“Because you two helped us so much,” Dazai mumbled, rolling his eyes.

“That was different. No, I will not elaborate.”

“Of course you won’t.”

“Now,” Fukuzawa said, “we plan to hold the event this saturday-”

“SATURDAY!?”

“Yes, Kunikida-san has already been informed to clear his schedule. We all know what happens when you change his schedule last minute.”

“I suppose it’s an insurance of sorts…” Mori hummed. Fukuzawa scowled as he was cut off again.

“Mori-sensei has agreed to sort out whatever venue you decide on, and I do believe Fitzgerald-san and Alcot-san are willing to help with security and catering. Everything else is up to you four.”

“Do we really need security?” Atsushi asked, mostly to himself. 

Everyone at the table shrugged. The port mafia, agency, and possibly guild all in one place? You’d have to be stupid, or suicidal (or both) to attack.

“Now,” Mori clapped, “we’ll leave you to it! Fukuzawa-dono?” 

Both Mori and Fukuzawa took their leave.

---

Atsushi continued to shift awkwardly under Akutagawa’s glare as they waited for Dazai and Chuuya to come back with a computer and paper. 

Dazai had practically dragged Chuuya out as soon as the bosses left.

“They’ve been gone for awhile…”

“...”

“Think they’ll be back soon?”

“...”

“Are you going to talk to me at all?”

“...”

“Fine. Then I’ll talk and if you have a problem feel free to speak up,” Atsushi huffed before falling silent. “... Soooo, what kind of event would the port mafia like?”

“...”

“The agency would be okay with anything semi-formal… and we should probably do a buffet to keep Kenji fed… with lots of sweets too!” Atsushi had a soft smile on his face as he thought over things the agency would like. “Come to think of it, doesn’t Elise like sweets too?”

He looked up at Akutagawa for an answer. The man in question stayed silent, waiting for Atsushi to continue. However Atsushi continued to wait, dead set on getting Akutagawa to help.

“... So does Q.”

“Q? The one with the doll?” Akutagawa nodded. “Are they coming?”

“I’d assume, they’re still a part of the mafia. I believe a semi-formal event will work.”

Atsushi smiled.

“See, that wasn’t so hard.”

As they continued to discuss what to serve, music, and where to hold the event, they didn’t notice the door open slightly.

“And you thought they would kill each other,” Dazai whispered, still looking through the small crack in the door.

“Fuck off,” Chuuya growled. “Now, move out of the way you damn lamp post, I’m trying to see.”

“Ah, sorry! I forgot how short chibi is.”

“You bastard!” Chuuya yelled, kicking Dazai through the door.

Atsushi stopped talking and jumped into a defensive position at the sudden noise. Akutagawa, who was used to this to a degree, didn’t even flinch.

When Atushi realized it was Dazai who had come barreling through the door, he only sighed. He missed the slight smirk that formed on Akutagawa’s face.

---

“Are you sure we should have left them like that?” Fukuzawa asked.

Him, Mori, and Elise now sat together in a small cafe of Elise’s choosing.

“They’re in a building of trained killers, most of whom lived through the chaos of the teen soukoku years, they’ll be fine.”

Fukuzawa frowned. “I wasn’t worried about the other people in the building… Everyone in that room has tried to kill each other at least once.”

Mori raised an eyebrow. “Dazai-san tried to kill Nakajima-kun?”

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

“Of course,” Mori smiled, folding his hands under his chin. “Though we both know Dazai-san intends to turn those two into shin soukoku, and I believe Chuuya-san agrees with him on that. Even if it is rare, when they agree on something, it usually turns out okay.”

“Hmph.”

“Rintaro! You promised you wouldn’t bring work into the cafe!”

“Yes, of course Elise-chan,” he smiled, ruffling her hair. “What would you like, Fukuzawa-dono can go up and order.”

“Why am I being volunteered?”

Ignoring him, Elise began to make a small list.

“... And I want extra strawberry sauce on the cheesecake!”

“That’s quite the order, how about you start with a drink and a slice of cake?” Fukuzawa asked, a habit of trying to get Ranpo to limit his spending in restaurants.

Fukuzawa had no problem with Ranpo buying cheap convenience store sweets, or buying more expensive and higher quality ones in bulk. But buying expensive cakes in a cafe, that he could finish in two bites, was a waste.

“Hmph but I want all of it,” Elise pouted, crossing her arms and shrinking into the booth. He imagined she’d stomp her foot if she were standing.

“Then you can come back later and get something different, or order again once you finish the first one.”

Mori stayed quiet, watching the exchange between his ability and his ex-partner.

“Mmrg,” she groaned, really it was more a cross between a growl and a groan, before relenting. “Fine! I’ll just take the cheesecake and hot chocolate. But I want extra strawberry sauce and whipped cream!”

“Alright. Would you like anything?” Fukuzawa asked, looking at Mori.

“Just a coffee.”

---

“Alright then, I think that settles everything.” Dazai smiled, clapping his hands together.

They’d just finished writing out the plan for, what Akutagawa and Atsushi had decided would be, a semi-formal party for the Armed detectives and Port Mafia.

Atsushi had done most of the idea pitching, with Akutagawa telling him what was and wasn’t a good idea. Chuuya and Dazai had even left the room a few times without them noticing, much to both of their surprises. After all, Akutagawa normally watched Dazai like a hawk.

In the end, they’d decided on a semi-formal “party” of sorts. With a buffet type dining situation, with plenty of deserts obviously, on a boat. The boat had been an idea supplied by Chuuya who had said, “We’re less likely to start an all out war on a boat. No one wants to be the reason it sinks, and if they are, they won’t just have to answer to the other side.”

Without waiting for further dismissal, Akuatagawa went to leave.

“Hey? Where do you think you’re going?”Chuuya called, before he could make it out the door.

“Home.”

“You could at least pretend to not be running out of here,” Atsushi grumbled.

Soukoku stifled their laughter. No matter how well Atsushi and Akutagawa worked together, Akutagawa preferred to limit his time around his partner.

“Nope! This was just the warm up.”

“Warm up?” Atsushi asked, worry seeping into his bones.

“Of course! Everyone knows the only proper way to get to know someone is to go drinking.”

“Please,” Chuuya sighed, “you just want to see them make fools of themselves. Plus, they can’t drink at a bar, they aren’t 21.”

“But Chuuuyyaaa,” Dazai whined.

“No,” he said, not wavering in the slightest. Then, he turned back to the other two. “You two can leave, I’ll see you both Saturday.”

“No! Can we at least do karaoke?”

“Stop looking for blackmail material shit mackerel!”

As the two left, they could still hear their seniors yelling about karaoke, bars, and blackmail.

[elvisqueso]

hey, mutuals who ship zutara, do you think this tristan and iseult au has any potential:

The prow of the Fire Imperial cruiser splits through the waves like a drill through soft wood.  The ocean spray mottles Katara’s dress and catches salt in her hair and on her cheeks.  Ahead of her is her destiny.  Behind her is the man delivering her to it.

Prince Zuko stands some few paces away and still as a statue with his eyes carefully forward.  He does her the courtesy of neither being directly out of her sight, nor being obnoxiously within it.  She should not still hate him: they had made peace, despite his transgressions.  He’d even vowed his loyalty to her – something about a code of honor, that he places his life in service to her own.  She doesn’t pretend to understand it.  And yet—

And yet.

“How much longer?”  She asks, as she has often done when she doesn’t want to continue her thoughts as they have been going.

“One week.  We’ll be arriving by the equinox.”  The prince’s voice is a grating rasp— as though his vocal chords had been shredded and left jagged.  The scar on his face certainly suggests the type of life which leads to common cries of pain.  On occasions when the winds are too harsh or the waves too high and she’s trying not to hate him, she will have him tell her the tales over tea and Pai Sho.

“Why me?”  She asks this often, too.  His answer is always the same:

“Destiny.”

“Who knows destiny?  The Avatar was never meant to be a diviner.”

“No.  But he asked for you.”

Katara doesn’t hate the Avatar, but she resents his presumptions.  It was her who broke him from a prison of ice all those years ago, but she hadn’t seen him since.  That the boy she remembers a single afternoon of penguin-sliding with had somehow fixed his heart on her is disquieting.

But he is the Avatar.  Perhaps it will be a good marriage anyway.

Something else must show on her face, however, because Prince Zuko asks a nearby servant to fetch some cordial wine.  She hates how well he seems to anticipate her needs.

But how can she be surprised?  This is the same man whose almost obsessive determination accomplished all that brought him to her, despite all the disadvantage and disgrace of his birth and hateful lot in life.  He is too thorough with everything, she thinks, and that, too, in the pursuit of his repentance towards her still makes her spine tighten in anger.

She breathes and makes herself let it go again.  The same servant returns with a small wine jug.  It’s folly to try and pour wine out on the deck of a ship, so they must drink it straight.

“My Lady,” the prince says, as he always does.

She says nothing in return, but takes and quaffs half the jar.  To him, she hands the other half to finish.  Between one moment and the next, they look at each other.

The world stops for both of them.

-

Katara’s Gran-Gran had given her a potion before she left to be married to the Avatar: a potion, she’d said, that would make her love him for three years (give or take some months).  It’s one of their women’s secrets, this trick to make a strange marriage less treacherous.  Three years of ease, where the potion fostered love between the couple.  After the effects die down, ideally there would be a child and the marriage could turn focus towards the raising.

One other person on the vessel knows of the potion, and that’s Suki: Katara’s sister-in-law who had volunteered to act as her lady-in-waiting during the trip.  The wine jar the potion had been stored in had been in her care.  Somehow, the servant had found it and mistook it for mere wine.

Suki scrambles onto the deck the moment Katara’s eyes catch with Prince Zuko’s, and screams when she sees the empty jar between them.

-

It’s Suki who then tearfully explains what has happened to Prince Zuko.  Katara can’t bear to look at him, let alone explain what fate they’ve fallen into together.

And even feeling the heat of his presence nearby sets her heart pounding.  The love she now has for him is painful and foreign, and yet sweet and strong.  She feels like a velvet stake has been jammed through her chest.  She wants him to hold her.  She wants to never see him again.

She can feel his eyes on her as Suki tells him of what purpose the potion had been.  She hears the awful crush of emotion in his voice when he says: “I understand.”  She can even taste the salt of unshed tears when he vows to stay away from her for the rest of the voyage and to disappear soon afterward, so as not to jeopardize her impending marriage.

She wants to die right then; it would be preferrable to being without him for even a moment.

-

They manage to stay apart for three days.

Three days she spends in her cabin or on the deck, trying desperately not to think of Zuko.  She remembers the first time she’d truly met him, not just felt the enemy specter she’d loathed, but the man on whom she’d once swore vengeance, only to have the opportunity swept out from under her by his damned noble actions.  She had tended him after he’d defeated Admiral Zhao’s mad attempt to destroy the Moon Spirit, and subsequently saved her people.

It was a poor retribution for his previous crimes, she had told herself, but one she had to accept.

She remembers all too clearly his convalescence in her home.  Him in an herbal bath with his eyes on her, wary, while she moved chi along the energy pathways of his body, soothing aches and healing injuries.  He had always been well formed and handsome, despite the scar on his face.  But he’d had the humility to accept her hatred of him then, and never treated her mercy as something to be taken for granted.

Yes, she’d hated him.  And her love for him now feels almost exactly the same.

Zuko has quarantined himself in his own quarters, and taken to slipping around the ship’s dark corners to avoid her.  The few times she’d catch a glimpse of him, his fingers would clench to whiteness and he’d grit his teeth as he turned away and retreated to somewhere else.  His honor dictates no less than the absolute preservation of her virtue.  She loves him for it.  She hates him.

She can bear it no longer.

On the third night, she enters his quarters, silent and unseen.  She finds him seated on his bed, bowed over with his head in his hands and his fingers twisted painfully tight in his hair.  It feels like her heart wants to shred itself to pieces in sight of his suffering.

As long as she lives, she’ll never forget the look in his eyes— bloodshot, wide and fearful— when she calls out his name.  She’ll never forget, too, the speed of his body, the heat of his hands, nor the bruising worship of his lips when she simply asks him: “please.”

Destiny is a funny thing.

-

For much of his life, Zuko has understood love to be the same as fear.  It makes sense that his love for Katara is the same: the fear and the love, the desire and the pain.  His uncle tried to teach him how to separate the two, once.  For a short time, he thinks he might have succeeded.  No chance now, Zuko muses, his mouth occupied with the taste of her skin and his back covered in red marks from her nails.  Loving Katara is only more proof that he’d been right all along: love is fear is pain is desire.  There can be no other explanation for just why it feels the way it does.  And guilt is the currency they transact in: when they finish he listens to her doubts, her anger and frustration over the path set out before her by foreign men.  His guilt is, at first, in being a villain in her story; now it is in failing to be a hero.  He thinks often on how he might turn, how he could so easily decide to simply not deliver her.  He knows the sea-roads well; perhaps even a determined and wrathful Avatar might fail to find them if Zuko puts his mind to hiding her away.

The possessiveness, too, is familiar.

The week passes, and they continue to give in.  Sometimes he thinks love is too small a word for what he feels for her.  Other times, he cannot describe it as anything but.  When she’s coming apart under him, eyes glazed over with pleasure and her kiss-plump lips pouring out a small symphony of sweet sounds, he feels perhaps that words are not sufficient at all.  There is only the feeling and the breath and the heat that they share.  Nothing else matters within those minutes, hours, days— each eternity they spend in each others’ embrace.

He is a man for whom sincere words are difficult; but, for her, he braves attempt to lay the his soul out naked for her audience.  And when his poor utterings succeed in bringing a smile to her beautiful face, he feels that perhaps this is what he was really born to do: his existence focused squarely on the slight chance that he could make her even a little happy.  He tells her as much once, and she kisses him and says she would never want him to see himself as something so small.

“Not even when you hated me?”  He asks.

“Not even then,” she answers.

[captwraith]

She thought they would get tired of her letters, but they never did.

Her father had chosen this woman, a kind and gentle woman who sent her beautiful letters and little gifts sewn by hand. If the seamstress believed Eridani thought her own mother was being replaced and would resent her for it, she couldn't have been more wrong. Eridani's mother had passed years ago, a fact that still brought her grief at times but eventually came with the peace and understanding of adulthood. Eri loved no one more than her own father and it was clear that he hadn't been happier in so long than he was now with this Iskaldrik woman. Eridani bought the seamstress new perfumes and pressed flowers in letters; she told her she would be honored to be her daughter. Her new mother promised that they would have a second wedding in Lysara one day so Eridani could attend.

Dearest Etienne Selland, My deepest gratitude for your letter, it was received with so much happiness. I am Eridani, as you must know by now! Words cannot describe the joy I feel at the news of our mother and father meeting and being in one another's company for the past few months. I haven't seen my father write such words of excitement in years! Your mother seems like the kindest of souls, the most beautiful of women. My father should be so honored. Do not show this letter to him, I fear it would make him quake and blush for days, but I expect there may be a future where we're family. Could you imagine such a thing? But even if there isn't, I would love to know the son of the woman who has captured the heart of Jayesh Maheswari. One of these days I hope to escape my studies, if even just a month and...

It was odder at first with the son. Eridani thought of her sister, Carina, who had never been able to breath even one little breath in this world. A baby sister who died before she could ever live. Eri had ached all her life for a sister or a brother but there was no telling what this man would think of her, especially with both of them old enough to quite safely ignore the other. But she didn't want to, and it seemed that neither did he. Casual, polite letters became entire sheets of paper with stories and jokes, little gifts and pranks hidden between pages to make him laugh. For months, then years, this was their seperate lives entwined.

Dear Etienne, That was a very TERRIBLE picture of your house renovations, you're going to have to draw me a better one!! In fact, our ma has much better taste - have her draw one for me next time ✿ ☺. Speaking of showing, there will be a party The Tower is hosting next months, so I will need your help choosing from one of these three dresses because I cannot, for the life of me, choose. I have attached the photos... But ignore that for now!! You gave me such a great story, so it's my turn. There is this girl, an Apprentice of Vulcan. You would not BELIEVE the...

Being a student of The Tower had it'd perks: the witch enchanted her letters and gifts and had the birds who delivered them be enchanted as well. They would be fast, fast as the wind, and they wouldn't return until her family in Iskaldrik had the chance to use them too. Some months she paid for a caravan to bring them more gifts, sweets and letters, as well as photographs and music. A sweet bard followed Etienne around for a month as a joke.

Even in The Tower, Eri never felt that she had made a truer friend so quickly. Etienne Selland was gentle and curious, kind and modest, and there was no chance for Eridani to use any of the tricks that came to her so easy these days. Within letters, she could not manipulate her voice or body language or anyone else's mind. She had to fully trust him and he had to trust her - to learn one another through words, sentiments and little gestures that spanned across the borders of Lysara and Iskaldrik. By the time the following spring arrived again since their very first letter exchanged, Eridani never would have considered the need or desire to get anything out of her new brother. Her father was safe with their new family, he was happy. She was happy. For years, this happiness endured, for years she thought she would find the time to spare to travel past the borders.

She would see them soon.

Brother, My heart is aching. I haven't heard from you in days. Iskaldrik has fallen and I am traveling back from Astoria to see what there is that I can do... please, please, message me. Please. I can't bear another bare-footed bird coming to my window with no word of our family. I love you, Eri

By the time Iskaldrik had fallen, Eridani had already taken on responsibilities that nearly drowned her but that she would never let overwhelm her. The Agent of Minerva was cunning, quick, and dependable and she would prove her worth to her country. So she did, she did the very best of what was expected of her and then did more. However, months passed and then years, and her family was placed further down her list of priorities. Her ambition had taken the forefront. With all the work she did in the borders of Astoria, there was hardly time to spare to travel all the way to Iskaldrik. She regretted not going directly there after her graduation, and she regretted not postponing her studies for at least a month or two during her time as an Accepted to see them. She had many regrets but none of them changed the fact: her father was dead, the mother she never met was dead, and the only brother she ever had was gone where he didn't want her.

[gillianthecat]

thoughts while watching A Boss and A Babe, episode 3.

* I really like the vibe of this conversation between Gun and his ex. They seem so comfortable with each other; iit feels very real, and it's nice to see Gun like this with someone in his life. I can't remember if we knew about this ex already? Either way it's not what I was expecting.

* I don't remember the exact deal with Thyme and his "theft," but I remember thinking he was in the right, and that it should have been his IP.

* This workplace is kind of a disaster. Who is this random headmistress-looking older woman scolding interns for being late? Why is Gun grinning at the idea that he has a thing for his intern. But Cher and Gun are cute enough together that I can ignore all the HR violations and lawsuits waiting to happen.

* "When I give, I give it all. But when I want to take, I take it all as well." This man is moving fast! Also I feel like he has a kink about power dynamics that Cher is not quite playing along with the way he expects. But Gun likes it anyway.

* Aw, I just met disaster child Thoop but I think I love him. I too stay up til 5 am even though I'm not a gamer. He's so resentful over having to borrow money. Like my favorite gossipy employee (can't remember he name but I love her) I want to know this "long story." Cher clearly relishes having at least one relationship where he's the "responsible adult."

* Cher you FLIRT! Stripping and taking this video call into the shower. You know what you're doing, don't play the innocent 😂

* Episode three and we've already had the first kiss and now are going home to meet the parents. How are they going to fill the rest of the run time? I do like this shakeup of the standard pacing, but it also worries me about what's coming in the second half of the series.

* I'm trying to think of a Thai QL I've seen with a class/culture difference between the leads where there ISN'T a "can you handle this spicy food to prove you're down?" scene. I feel like it's been in all of them.

* Omg, of course it's a product placement. 😂 A fairly original take on it, I'll give them that. They must be running out of ways to talk about Nivea. Anyway, the nail painting was cute.

* I like this quiet awkward moment full of mutual longing, in between the play fighting.

* Is this show just going to be a slow burn of not-plausibly-deniable-but -they're-pretending-anyway flirting for 12 episodes? That wouldn't be the worst thing.

* This isn't a show to binge, but it's still a fun trifle when I don't want to think much, so there's a good chance I'll slowly finish it.

* It's a couple that on paper would bother me, but they're making it work. I think because they're making all of the various power dynamics around them just seem like another playful part of their flirting. And the whole world around them feels just unreal enough that I don't worry.

[belphegor1982]

The thing with jigsaw pieces is that they’re vulnerable from all sides when they’re scattered.

(Missing scenes/snapshots of Chozen, Daniel, Amanda, Sam and Johnny in between “Extreme Measures” and “Ouroboros”.)

So it only took me two or three months (lol) but I wrote another fic! Or rather a collection of six ficlets, starting with this one, because I had a couple of ideas burned in my head after 5.05 and 5.06. I’ll be posting the next one in a few days!

Jigsaw Pieces

Chozen, uneasy

Daniel, adrift

Amanda, sleepless

Sam, shaken

Johnny, fixing things

Daniel, not alone

Chozen may have made a mistake.

He is used to making mistakes and admitting them, though he wasn’t always. A man who says he never makes mistakes is a liar. As he got older, though, he likes to think he got a little wiser, at least enough to recognise some ideas are bad ideas and should be avoided at all costs.

Daniel-san has been gone ten minutes, and already Chozen is starting to think he shouldn’t have let him go back to Stingray’s house alone.

Of course Stingray is no threat on his own, that much was obvious earlier. And of course Daniel-san would go back to apologise, because no matter how rattled he was, how short-tempered and angry and aggressive he ended up being towards Stingray, at his core Daniel LaRusso has a kind heart that not even Terry Silver can corrupt completely. This Chozen has learned plotting and fighting side by side with him for weeks, even if in hindsight it was already obvious over thirty years ago, when they were young. Chozen despised him then for that kindness then, laughed at him for being weak and soft, and then hated him for risking his life when Chozen himself could only run and hide… And then he showed a mercy Chozen thought at the time to be the cruellest of acts when Chozen, trembling, furious, conceded defeat and expected – demanded – death.

Now Daniel-san is the one who has conceded defeat. The cost of his war against Silver became too high; Silver poured poison into his mind, blew on the embers of doubt until even his family left, wary of the fire, and if the shadows under his eyes and the set of his shoulders are any indication, it’s taking a toll on his health, too.

He even apologised to Chozen earlier for “wasting his time”, as though helping a friend in need and fighting for the honour of Miyagi-Do wasn’t worth crossing any ocean for, as though Chozen hasn’t let him down in this when he swore they would see things through together. As though his uncle Sato wasn’t closer than a brother to Daniel-san’s Mr. Miyagi before love and resentment drove a wedge between them for forty years, a feud that almost ended in tragedy.

As though Sato hasn’t passed onto his nephew the four hundred years rich history of Miyagi-Do karate along with a rough, understated love, just like Miyagi passed his family’s karate onto the boy he had come to love as a son.

“Our senseis had the same sensei, we’re basically karate cousins,” Daniel-san had said last year with a smile, eager to learn more, even as his old enemy outwardly sneered at the idea of teaching a foreigner some of the most sacred secrets of Miyagi-Do.

Which… hadn’t been completely an act.

But Daniel-san passed Chozen’s test. Chozen passed his own secret test, and finally got his chance to show mercy in turn. The look of terror on Daniel-san’s face shifting into absolute confusion had been the icing on the cake.

And when Daniel-san, rubbing life back into his limbs, panting and a little shaken but wide-eyed and grinning, had asked, “Can you teach me?”, Chozen’s nod and proud smile had been one hundred percent genuine.

Unfortunately, some defeats hurt more than others.

Fifteen minutes. Chozen has already checked his bags twice.

His eyes fall on the newspaper clipping that put them on Stingray’s trail this morning, the address and the word LIAR in bold letters. Even with the evening traffic, Daniel-san must have arrived by now, replacement video game console in hand, and Chozen doubts he’ll stay very long. He’ll probably be back in twenty minutes, plenty of time to drive Chozen to the airport. And then, somehow, send word to Silver that he’s backing out of the war.

Except…

Would Terry Silver even accept a white flag? So far, he hasn’t struck Chozen as the kind of man to accept defeat of any kind. Part of the philosophy of the Way of the Fist is to do everything, go to any lengths, to win. Not just beat your opponent, but destroy your enemy – surrender is not enough. And while Chozen has nothing but contempt for the concept of Defeat does not exist in this dojo – sometimes losing and accepting that loss helps put things into perspective – something else nags at his mind that he can’t quite put his finger on.

Chozen reviews all of his interactions with Silver, at his dojo, at his home, at the country club. The way the man smiled even as he prodded and picked at his adversary, like Daniel-san was a mouse and he a cat, to discard his toy when it no longer entertained him and not a moment before.

It’s doubtful, to say the least, that he’ll accept Daniel-san’s surrender now. He took too much pleasure dismantling him. And when better for a cobra to strike than when the enemy is already down?

Still holding the scrap of paper, Chozen reaches for his phone and opens the Uber app.

If he’s being paranoid he can always apologise later.

______________________

...It’s super short, I know. The next one is longer, and then the next one longer than that, etc. I hope you like them!

[liketolaugh-writes]

This was it. Today was the day. Today, Evan Stewart was going to organize the GIW archives so that old files could finally be dug up through their very rational and navigable system.

That’s not a normal thing to do, Stewart. No one cares about the file room, Stewart. Get back to analyzing the anomalies in the tri-state area, Stewart. Well, to hell with the naysayers! The file system needed to be organized and Evan was going to do it.

…Okay, but it was really boring. Evan had been working on nothing else for almost five hours now, and his eyes were starting to cross from sorting out all the dates and locations. Even the fact that they were all cool reports of things like Mothman sightings and agitated spirits could only do so much to ease the endless stream of sequential numbers.

He found a breath of relief when he accidentally dug up the Amity Park box and snickered to himself. This should be good; the gossamer-thin veil between Amity Park and the spirit realm meant that the area needed to be monitored, but nothing interesting there had happened. Ever. Not once since the GIW had first been founded in the 50’s. So the place had been relegated to a sort of punishment duty, the GIW equivalent to weeks-long stakeouts with little guarantee of payoff. The reports were usually filed without being read.

Evan settled in to read a long series of resentful reports from disciplined agents being sent on wild goose chases, smirking to himself. The smirk didn’t last three reports.

Twenty minutes later, Evan picked up the whole box and ran to the analytics department, sweating bullets.

---------

“So this is the situation,” Juno began, doing her best to appear unruffled, despite the fact that they were in an emergency meeting almost two hours after the workday should’ve been over. “Twenty-four years ago, Dr. Jack Fenton and Dr. Madeline Fenton theorize that the spirit realm could be reached through a man-made portal. Their prototype explodes in their lab partner’s face. We laugh at them and forget about it.” She paused, glancing across the room. No one was laughing now. “Four years ago, they managed it.”

Juno had worked for the GIW for more than forty years. She’d been the head of the analytics department for almost twenty, working as the communications hub between research, spiritual relations, and security. She thought she’d seen it all by now. The situation at Amity Park? Was like nothing she’d even imagined.

“How the f-” Byron caught the boss’ eye and stopped himself. “How?”

“That’s not the main problem right now,” Juno said. The research department would be looking into it, of course, but there were more immediate concerns. “Obviously, with a permanent portal open between the human world and the spirit realm, all hell broke loose, literally. There are ghost attacks, plural, every day.”

“How many fatalities?” Paul asked, leaning back in his seat with a grim look. As head of security, he’d probably seen his fair share of agitated ghosts, and some of them could get nasty.

Individual spirits could usually be appeased without too much trouble, contained if necessary, but a flood of spirits straight from the spirit realm? Even a well-staffed branch like New Orleans or San Francisco would struggle. Amity Park had a skeleton crew.

“So far? None,” Juno said. She folded her arms behind her back with a sigh. “By some miracle, the actual grace of God, I assume, a guardian spirit took up a post there very early on. Judging from the descriptions, he’s newly dead, five years at most, and it must have been brutal, because he’s keeping everything in check almost single-handedly and despite the interference of amateur ghost hunters. The… poor quality of the information is making it difficult to discern what his exact criteria are, but our leading theory suggests that he’s a peacekeeper of some kind.”

Meaning he wanted everyone to be safe, which was a godsend in the current situation. Most guardian spirits weren’t so forgiving, even if they tended to be more morally driven than other ghosts.

Leon, the GIW head, sighed and rubbed his forehead. He was the only one there who’d been on board longer than Juno, going from research to security to analytics before finally settling into a leadership role. He’d been the one to establish deescalation as the primary protocol of the GIW. “And dare I ask what the Amity branch was doing during all this?”

“I’m so glad you did!” Juno chirped, a vein pulsing in her temple. “They’re among the amateur ghost hunters shooting at the guardian spirit. They’ve decided to detain him for experimentation and execution. For some fucking reason.”

She allowed them all a minute to absorb that. Several heads went ‘thunk’ on the tables. Some composure had apparently been lost as they transitioned to overtime.

“What course of action do you recommend, Agent J?” Leon asked tiredly. They’d worked together for long enough that he trusted her judgment.

“We need to send a new, competent team out to Amity Park,” Juno said. “I’ll have some recommendations on your desk by tomorrow afternoon. I suggest only transferring in agents with excellent spiritual relations skills, and as few combat agents as we can get away with. Trust me, if half the reports are true, that guardian spirit doesn’t need any help on that front, and he’ll only feel threatened by them. We’ll need to do a full internal review of the Amity base staff, but most likely the whole branch will have to go. After that, we need to speak with the Fentons and the Red Huntress, as well as the guardian spirit that now essentially owns Amity Park. This situation needs to be deescalated yesterday. And Agent Lambda?”

Leon raised an eyebrow, and Juno took a deep breath.

“The guardian spirit is a child ghost. They need to be careful with him.” They might not be any physical threat to a ghost of his described power, but ghosts were sensitive at the best of times, and this one had been through a lot in a relatively short amount of time.

The Worst Branch in the Country

The GIW knows Amity Park is a huge fraud. The “most haunted city in the US”, really? They’ve been checking the place out for decades with nary a peep aside from that couple of crazy scientists that moved into town around twenty years prior.

Because of this, the town became a punishment duty. One of their agents causes trouble? They get put in time out and sent to work for a while in Amity Park. Let those idiots chase after pointless rumors while the actually competent agents work with the more important ghosts. The reports back from the town get barely more than a cursory glance before getting tossed in the shredder.

…Which really came back to bite them when ghosts did actually start to show up, and they didn’t realize until after the Amity Park branch had royally screwed up the situation.

Fuck, they really hope this doesn’t start a war.

Optional DPxDC addition: they call in the Justice League Dark for help with negotiation and taking down their rogue members