#look at Asset. they’re so happy. I’m sure that’s for normal and fine reasons which is fine and normal

[ssecond-hand-faith]

Listener Designs

Cringetober Day Twenty Six: Y/N / Mary Sue

Before The Asset got their brain scrubbed and Lovely at the Elemental and Energetic Games

[rosiehunterwolf]

And the Walls Kept Tumbling Down

Prompts: Trust and Breakdown

Word Count: 3,706

Characters: Pixal and Lloyd

Timeline: right before season 8

Trigger Warnings: Mental Breakdown/Panic Attack, Lack of Self-Worth

Summary: Pixal has been Samurai X for awhile, now- a role that allows her to be herself, to be happy. But it’s also... incredibly lonely. Luckily, she’s not the only one alone- Lloyd has been left in the city while his friends go after Master Wu, and his presence is comforting. But as they struggle with a mysterious biker gang, Pixal can’t help feeling the want to be part of something more.

Link to read on FanFiction.Net:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13897921/1/And-the-Walls-Kept-Tumbling-Down

“Master Lloyd, maybe you should go get that checked at the hospital.”

“Pix, I’m fine, it’s just a scratch,” Lloyd mumbled through the gauze as he snapped it with his teeth, winding the last several inches around his forearm. “And I thought I told you to stop calling me that.”

“Why? You are our master now, aren’t you?”

Lloyd snorted, tentatively testing his arm as he moved it back and forth. “I’m no master. I can’t even keep our team together.”

Pixal stared at him, shocked. “We all agreed on this, Lloyd. It is the most efficient plan to find Master Wu.”

“Yeah, and whose plan was that?” Lloyd’s voice was suddenly sharp.

“I believe it was Zane’s, but-”

“Exactly! It was Zane’s plan, not mine. I did nothing. And now, they’re off searching for Master Wu, and I’m sitting here, doing nothing.”

An unfamiliar sensation squeezed at Pixal’s chest, one that felt hot and fierce and miserable all at the same time, before she had to remind herself that no, she didn’t have a body, didn’t have a chest to feel pain in, and that she was just speaking to Lloyd over the monitors.

At least, in the moment, she was.

“Zane trusted me to watch over this city,” she insisted, her voice unstable- which it shouldn’t be, she was a nindroid, not affected by such things- “He trusted us.”

Lloyd flinched visibly, looking away from the computer they were using to talk. “Pix, I didn’t mean- look, I’m sure Zane much would’ve rather had you come along with him, but instead you got stuck babysitting me.”

“Normally, I would object, but I think you’ve already proven your own point,” she commented, shooting a pointed glare at his bandaged arm.

Lloyd gritted his teeth, letting out a slow breath. “I get it, Pixal, I’ll be more careful next time.”

“A doctor’s visit couldn’t hurt, Lloyd.”

“Will you drop it already?”

She frowned. “I wish you wouldn’t grow cross with me, Master Lloyd. I am only trying to look out for you-”

Lloyd stood up sharply. “I get it, okay? I’m incompetant. You don’t need to keep calling me ‘master’ out of pity, I know I’ll never be able to live up to my unc- Master Wu.”

Pixal blinked at him, stunned. “Lloyd, I never-”

“Shut up! I don’t want to hear it!” And then he was reaching forward, slamming down the laptop’s lid, and Pixal’s world went dark.

He knew how much she hated that, when he turned her off or walked away without her consent, like she was some sort of object.

He hadn’t meant it- she had learned a lot about Lloyd in their past year alone together, and he often became impulsive when he was angry in order to cover up his sensitive, insecure side. It would probably only be a matter of hours before he came running back, apologizing repeatedly, and sobbing over what a horrible friend he was as Pixal patiently waited for him to calm down. But she had grown to like and respect Lloyd, and it still stung when he snapped at her, even though the logical part of her mind knew that it wasn’t really her that was the problem.

What bothered her even more so, though, was the things he said about himself. It had been abrupt, this time, but she hadn’t missed the times he had slipped it in more subtly into conversation. It made her angry, how he refused to appreciate himself.

And now, stuck in this stupid form, she couldn’t go after him.

Well. Technically, she could.

The Samurai X suit had been up and operational for a few months since her last major upgrade- the one that had finally given her her own, independent body, separate from just the mech itself.

But she was nervous to remove herself from the computer entirely. She was aware that she was so incredibly useful as a program, with instant access to all sorts of technology and data. She had become an asset to her team.

She liked feeling important, feeling like she was part of the group.

But being the samurai allowed her to physically be there. In these last few months, she felt like she had really grown to know and trust Lloyd- even if he didn’t know it was her beneath the samurai mask. She wanted to get to know the others fully, too- she was already fairly close to Zane, but she liked the rest of the team, too- Cole, Jay, Kai, and especially Nya, Pixal felt intrigued by. She had spent some time connecting similarities between them- there were a lot of differences, too, but she felt like they could be friends. A physical form would allow her to bond with them, like a human. She was well aware she wasn’t one, but she wanted to understand.

But she was afraid, too. Except for Zane, and maybe Lloyd, now, seeing the others again felt daunting. They had never been particularly close before she had been scrapped. What if they thought she was infringing on their team? The six of them had been close for so long. It would make sense if she wasn’t wanted there.

She just wasn’t ready, not yet. Communicating with Lloyd through the monitors would just have to do for now. It was difficult, though- it didn’t seem like he took her as seriously this way.

For now, though, they had bigger problems. Lloyd’s injury hadn’t been too severe, from what she could tell, and would heal quickly. But it had been a sizable wound, and could leave some pretty severe scarring, if he wasn’t careful with it- she knew he wouldn’t be, which was why she had to keep him in line- but the point was, these were no common thieves going around, dealing this kind of damage. This gang- whoever they were- were something bigger, more dangerous than their day-to-day threats. Pixal wasn’t sure if it was severe enough to start calling the others back- she didn’t want to interrupt their search for Master Wu. But she would certainly have to keep a closer eye on Lloyd from now on, to make sure he didn’t get in over his head.

She should probably start playing a more active role as Samurai X. Although the ninja had a tentative relationship with her mysterious persona, she wasn’t about to send Lloyd against this gang alone again.

She just hoped he would have her.

---

The next call came in much sooner than Pixal had anticipated. At the unappealing hour of four in the morning, Lloyd hauled himself out of bed and stumbled drearily out the door at Pixal’s report of a prison breach alarm coming from Kryptarium. With the rush, there was no time to talk to him, and the drive to the prison was awkward and silent.

When they arrived, it turned out the alarm had been triggered by accident. The good news was there were no criminals to stop, the bad news was that they had woken up at four am for no reason.

Not that Pixal particularly minded- sleep was inconsequential to a nindroid, but Lloyd was less than pleased.

“I mean, if you’re going to have an alarm system that immediately pages the city’s ninja team and makes them stop everything they’re doing to rush over there, it should at least be heavily guarded. How do you even accidentally set off an emergency alarm? I thought these guys were supposed to be professionals!”

Pixal stifled a laugh as he paused, taking a sip of the iced coffee he had picked up as they had headed back. He had told her, “If I’m already up and ready, I might as well spend some time in the city for a little while. Y’know, in case they trigger any other ‘alarms’ that I need to go rushing off to.”

“Perhaps they need a lesson from the ninja,” Pixal suggested.

“I’ll say,” he grumbled. “I don’t know how this city ever survived before we showed up.”

“Well, experience is the best teacher, and you guys have triggered enough traps and alarms to last a lifetime.”

“Wait, what?” Lloyd spluttered. “No, we haven’t! We’re highly trained ninja, we’re better than that.”

“Oh, really? I seem to remember quite a few in the Tournament of Elements, or the time with the technoblades, or when General Cryptor tracked you- shall I go on?”

“Shut up,” Lloyd snorted, trying to hide his grin. “You don’t know nothin’.”

“You’re right, I don’t. I was only with you for a short time before I was uploaded into Zane’s head, and after that, my view of your adventures was extremely limited. I can’t imagine how much more trouble you got into when I wasn’t there.”

“I hate you,” he said, attempting to scowl and failing miserably, the look on his face was too comedic for Pixal to bite back her laugh this time. It wasn’t long before Lloyd joined her, and soon, he was bent over, clutching his stomach, and he had to sit down for a moment to catch his breath. Pixal felt warm inside as she watched him take a long sip from his coffee. She enjoyed seeing him like this. He had been far too tense over the last few weeks, and she missed the more childlike, carefree side of him.

After a moment, though, the expression on his face fell solemn, and he turned to the tablet they were using to communicate to look her directly in the eyes. “Pix, I’m really sorry for yelling at you last night. I was being a brat.”

She paused carefully, both relieved and nervous that they were finally addressing this. “Lloyd, I know you were hurting. I am only trying to look out for you.”

He put his hands behind his head. “Yeah, I know, I need to work harder-”

“Lloyd,” she interrupted firmly. “That’s the other thing. I need you to stop saying things like that about yourself.”

He cocked his head at her. “Like what?”

Good grief, he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. “Talking down on yourself. I called you ‘master’ because that’s what you are now. You’ve earned this title, Lloyd. Just like you’ve earned everything else in your life, and more. It was not my intention to say you would take your uncle’s place, but say that you can be just as great of a leader as he was.”

Lloyd suddenly found the cracks in the concrete to be very interesting. “See, people keep saying that, but- it’s just so hard. I feel like I always mess everything up. Something always goes wrong, or worse, someone gets hurt-”

“Lloyd, you’re one person. You can’t expect to be successful all the time. You may be a ninja, yes, but your job is very difficult and dangerous, something most people wouldn’t even dream of tackling. You’re part of a team for a reason, and I’m sorry they’re not here right now, but until they return, you’re going to have to give yourself a little credit.”

Lloyd’s breathing hitched, and he scrubbed at his suspiciously wet eyes. His next words were so quiet, Pixal could barely hear them. “I just miss them. Everyone… everyone always leaves, and I’m tired of being alone all the time.”

Pixal was struggling to breathe herself- even though she was a nindroid, didn’t need to breathe- the sensation was still there.

She could remember when she had been alone too. Those nights after Zane had… had died, had been some of the worst times of her life. The emptiness had only made it sting worse, but when Lloyd had reached out to her, she had refused him.

She had been scared, scared to let anyone else into her life in case she lost them too, but now she realized that he had been hurting just as much as she had. She knew his friends had gone off on their own like she had, leaving him just as alone as the rest of them. She had been the cause of that, she had only hurt him more when he was already going through so much.

When she spoke again, it wasn’t just for the situation at present.

“I’m sorry, Lloyd. I’m so sorry.”

He looked up at the screen, his watery green eyes staring into hers, then raised an arm, his fingers ghosting the screen, before falling back to his side. He looked away, swallowing.

“What is it?”

“I just… I wish I could hug you. I wish you were here. Like, actually.”

“I am much more useful in the computer, Lloyd.”

“Yeah, but you’re not… you’re not here. I don’t care about how useful you are.”

Pixal let out a trembling breath, but Lloyd hardly seemed to notice, already beginning to stand up. “Sorry about being such a downer. I better get back to the Bounty, I’m sure the police have something for me to do.”

“Lloyd?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’ll be fine. I just… they’ll be back soon. I know they aren’t like… other people. They’re going to come back. And besides, until then, I’ve got you, right?” He gave her a shy smile.

Pixal froze. This was it. He was extending- a metaphorical- hand to her. Offering her to be part of something that she had been wanting for a long time.

But it felt wrong. She wasn’t a ninja. She wasn’t one of his teammates. What if she was assuming wrong? What if he wasn’t really asking that?

“I’m not one of the ninja, Lloyd. I can’t help you the way they can.”

“No, you’re whoever you want to be, Pix. But you’re still my friend.”

Friend. Pixal felt a sudden urge to correct him, to tell him he was mistaken. “I’m not part of your team. I… I can’t be.”

“Trust me, Pix- in every sense that matters- you are one of us.”

---

“Pixal, I need my car! Now!”

The nindroid’s voice came out slightly crackly from the radio. “Your coordinates, Master Lloyd?”

“I’m somewhere around… well, you know how to find me.”

The cable he was gripping onto slowed to a stop, then quickly began to swing back down. Squeezing his eyes shut, Lloyd prayed that Pixal knew what she was doing, and let go.

Air whipped past him as he fell freely, the fall feeling both agonizingly slow and alarmingly quick at the same time, but before he had time to question what the hell he was doing, a blur of green darted out from a nearby alleyway, and Lloyd fell into his car.

He quickly pulled himself up and took over the controls. “Impeccable timing, Pix! You’re getting good at that.”

“I have to do something while you’re busy fighting crime, don’t I?”

“Speaking of which…” Lloyd cut off, gritting his teeth as he wove in between cars on the busy street, chasing after the biker. “Who is this person? Anything you can tell me about them?”

“They appear to be affiliated with the same criminal biker gang we have been having trouble with over the last few weeks. I am afraid I cannot tell you anything other than that. They have been keeping a very low profile.”

“Well, whoever they are, they’re good. I’ll keep you posted.” Gritting his teeth, he pushed on the gas and shot through the streets after the mysterious biker. They were a skilled driver, but Lloyd wasn’t lacking in that department either, and soon, he had caught up to the biker. The person’s eyes glowed an eerie red through their mask, their expression emotionless, and Lloyd forced his gaze away for a moment to examine the object in the back of his bike- presumably the stolen item. It was a red mask, with an ugly, beast-like face patterned over the top, complete with a mouth of crooked, yellowing teeth, and deep, glowering eyes. It looked like nothing more than a costume. Lloyd wondered what they could possibly want with it.

Putting on another burst of speed, he pulled in front of the biker, making them screech to a halt to avoid a collision. The two of them stared each other down, only a short stretch of road between them.

The criminal revved his engine, and suddenly, was racing towards Lloyd. Lloyd began to do the same, and just when he thought the biker was about to hit him head-on, mechanical arms extended from the bike, driving into the road, and sending the biker flying over his head. Lloyd slammed to a halt and jumped out of the car, running over to the bridge as the biker went over the edge. He yanked something near his chest, and all of a sudden, a big sheet was billowing out from his back, gray and black and red-

Lloyd’s breath caught in his throat as the parachute unfolded fully, revealing the emblem of a face that Lloyd had never thought he would see again.

No, no, no. Lloyd stumbled back from the railing, his breath hitching in his chest as he tried desperately to draw it in. This doesn’t mean anything. Perhaps they just are a fan of Garmadon, it doesn’t mean he’s here-

But it wasn’t working. His body just wasn’t listening to him, his heart beating too fast, his breath trembling and shallow, and his head-

“Lloyd!” A voice came from seemingly out of nowhere, and in his panicked state, he couldn’t, he couldn’t-

“Lloyd, it’s Pixal. What’s happened, why aren’t you responding?”

Oh. It was Pixal, on… on the radio. With trembling fingers, he reached down and switched on his mic. “...Pix?”

“Lloyd, don’t scare me like that, what’s wrong?”

“Pixal… Pixal, I don’t know…” Oh gosh, he was spiraling, spiraling hard, panic swamped his brain as images of his father flashed before his eyes, first running off with the golden weapons, then trying to kill him when the Overlord had taken over, then when he had submerged under the ocean, down, down, down with the Preeminent-

No! Lloyd’s eyes snapped open, scattering the images. He couldn’t be thinking about this now, not- not when-

Oh gosh. His father couldn’t be involved with this gang, he couldn’t. He was gone, gone for good. He missed him, so, so much, but nothing with his father was ever that simple. Something always went wrong, and Lloyd was just beginning to get over his last death, he couldn’t- couldn’t live through the pain again-

“Lloyd, Lloyd listen to me, just try to breathe-”

He could barely hear her. His legs had stopped working, and he sunk to the ground, hugging his knees to his chest, trying to remember to breathe. The last thing he needed was to pass out from lack of oxygen.

He buried his face between his knees, gulping through the sobs. Dammit, why was he like this, he hadn’t had an episode this bad since Morro-

And now he was thinking about that part of his life, one he had so desperately hoped to forget- it had been years, why was still not over that, he had gotten good at suppressing those feelings long ago, but when he got like this, he couldn’t control anything-

He hated when he got like this, it was so terrifying, he just wanted to go home, he just wanted Kai to be here, why was he always all alone-

Suddenly, firm, cool arms were wrapping around him, pulling him close. Lloyd gasped, his eyes flying open sharply.

A pair of glowing green eyes stared back at him, shadowed with fear. “Hey,” she whispered, her metallic jaw moving with the words, “I’m here now. You’re going to be okay.”

He had lost it, he was hallucinating, how was- how was she here-

“Pixal?!”

“Yeah,” her voice was quiet, rubbing her fingers across his palm. “It’s me. I’m here.”

“How?”

“I’m Samurai X, Lloyd.”

“Oh.” Vaguely, a part of his mind told him he should be more surprised by that piece of information, but he was just tired. His mind was already on overdrive, he couldn’t afford to take in anything else.

“Lloyd.” Pixal’s voice was scared, and he realized he was trembling in her grip. “Please, what has happened to you?”

“It’s- it’s…” Lloyd gasped for breath. “My dad, he- the biker, he was- he had-” and those words alone were too much. Everything was breaking, splintering apart right in front of his eyes, and he clutched onto Pixal like she was his lifeline- in a way, she was. She felt different from Kai’s warm, soft touch- harder and cooler- but sturdier and stronger, too. And right now, Lloyd could use a bit of strength.

But most of all, she was here.

“Why did you tell me?” He managed to get out. “Out of everyone, you told me first? Not Zane?”

Pixal was silent for a moment. “I know what it’s like. I mean, not exactly- I can’t feel what you are feeling right now. But… feeling emotions has been hard. Draining. You, out of all people, seem to know that. But you’re still so strong through everything. I just… you helped me to see how to heal. How to get better.” She paused, looking down at her hands. “But I guess it doesn’t always work out that way. I figured it was about time I helped you back.”

He leaned his head into her lap, examining her long, silver fingers, brushing them gently. “I like you like this. You’re pretty.”

He wasn’t looking at her face, but he could almost feel her smile. “Thank you. I worked hard to make this. I wanted to make sure… that I was better, this time. I still have some modifications to make, but…”

Lloyd winced, feeling a pang of guilt. “I’m sorry I made you show me before you were ready.”

“Lloyd,” she said firmly. “This was my choice. Not yours.” She took one hand and turned his chin so their gazes met, green on green. “I trust you. I always have.”

Lloyd felt his lip tremble. “I-”

Pixal stopped him. “It’s okay, Lloyd. You don’t have to say it. I know.”

Lloyd curled into her side and wept.

[missmaxime]

Thoughts on the Death flashbacks: Having rewatched the episode again I really do feel like these flashbacks are a lead-in to the end of Beth and Dean’s relationship. I think it’s important to note when the three flashbacks are placed in the episode: right before and or after we focus solely on Beth, like she is reminiscing these three moments in time with him. Times she has fond memories of for good reasons, but at the same time show us the cracks in their relationship that we still see now. What are these pivotal moments? - Beth meets Dean for the first time - Dean asks Beth to prom - Dean meets Beth in the hospital on Prom Night #1 Lead-in to this flashback is the moment just seconds before Beth meets Dean while he’s in jail. Everything between them is at an absolute low, there’s even physically a wall between them. I’m not surprised they counter their burned out relationship by the exact moment it once ignited. Beth tries to remind herself in this episode about the good moments, but I think it’s also very telling those are moment from the first months of when they met – and not, say, when they got their first apartment, or had their first baby, or got married. In the flashback Dean strikes up conversation with Beth while his buddies start a food fight at the diner (Dairy Queen) she works at – perhaps even with an ulterior motive of distracting her while they wreak havoc. He does so by asking for a refill for something ridiculous, because if you’re not Ikea who gives refills for ice cream? But he’s got her attention. And if that attention was genuinely geared towards wooing her he could even have gone the corny way of complimenting her eyes, or her bright smile – but he chooses to focus on the fact that she’s a cheerleader.

This gets interrupted by his friends getting into the food fight, and Beth calls out for him to say something to his friends. In answer he joins into the fight and runs off with said friends, leaving Beth to clean the mess. A little later he returns (and with this, he also doesn’t lose face with his friends) to charm her with an apology and helping her out to clean the mess him and his friends made. Which, as we know, has been a recurring theme between them way into the future. (Not to fangirl out to much about this, but I’m living for the fact that Dean calls her Elizabeth at first, but when she correct him to Beth he goes with that. While Rio called her Elizabeth from the start, and she never corrected him on that.) It’s not hard to see why Beth falls for Dean here, even if we can see the patterns because we know the Beth and Dean from decades later. He’s handsome, witty, popular, the quarterback – and he’s interested in her. Sees her. While he’s the one who made the mess, he cleans it up, telling her that ‘he’s got it’. Something he can do now with spilled food, but we know he can’t when messes become grown-up messes. After the flashback we’re back in the jail, looking at Beth’s reflection in the glass as she stares at herself before Dean takes place in front of her. He’s understandably hurt and upset her actions got him there (and even more because she admits Rio was a part of the scheme all along). Even her voicing a desperate ‘I love you’ doesn’t make him stay, he’s done with her. She says she’ll ‘Fix it’ like Dean promised her in the flashback, but he’s not having it. In the final shot we zoom out, framing Beth with darkness – counter to the flashback where we zoom in on her smiling face. #2 Leading up to the second flashback Phoebe questions Dean, and tries to bribe him with some packs of ramen to tempt him into selling out Beth. She talks about the cheerleader she used to be friends with in high school, and how she got tossed aside when the girl didn’t have any use for her anymore when her Fake ID got taken away. Phoebe talks about how the girl is like Beth, using people and tossing them aside when they’re tired of them – Dean knows very well that’s not Beth at all, not in the context of him at least. In the flashback Dean comes to Beth’s house, where we learn he’s been leaving her a lot of messages. This is 1991 so we’re on analog phone time, not giving Beth an opportunity to see some caller ID, so if she doesn’t want to talk to Dean I don’t feel like it’s weird that Annie answered the phone to hear who’s calling. Annie’s obviously not a fan of him, but we don’t know whether that is because they’ve had some sort of fight or whether she doesn’t like the idea of Beth having a boyfriend altogether. I think this flashback really shows how both Dean and Beth are people who are very image-focused people, albeit for different reasons. Dean arrives in a flashy red sportscar to enhance his popular quarterback persona, Beth chooses to have the conversation outside to shield the outside world from the dire situation on the inside. Again Dean focuses on how Beth is not there for him. He called her five times, but doesn’t ask if she has something going on, or if she’s studying hard for a test, or if any of her friends are in trouble. He states that ‘she hasn’t been to any of the games’ – HIS games, not even shifting it to ‘I didn’t see you with your squad’. It’s all about him. His ‘I thought we were cool?’ entices her to come up with an excuse, doubling down with a ‘I don’t want to be a dick’, even if he clearly already is. Annie steps out of the house, visibly sporting yet another injury (she had her arm in a cast in the 2x08 flashback) and asks Beth about their mom’s meds. Two things Dean could just ask about, even if it’s just a flippant ‘oh, is your mom sick?’ or ‘did that monster hurt herself?’ because both could be explanations on why Beth hasn’t called him back. Yet he ignores all this and goes back to making her feel bad by putting the blame on him, casually working in the ‘oh I was going to ask you to prom?’ in a way like don’t bother if you’re not interested. It’s so unromantic the way he drops this, yet Beth latches on immediately because it’s a chance to do some normal teen stuff for a change and who can blame her if her days are spend taking care of her mom, raising her sister, going to school in the day and working a job in the evening. It’s a tactic Dean keeps using on her as an adult. Scene that comes to mind is that Dean already packed his bag, admits that he cheated on Beth with Gayle, and she’s like - fine, maybe don’t leave. Back in the jail Beth waits for him, but Dean has left a clear message that he doesn’t want to see her. #3 First we watch the girls wait for Eric to get arrested, but we all know how disastrous that ends. Her plan to frame Dean’s friend for her wrongdoings falls through, she failed him. Which piles onto the guilt that Dean’s in jail in the first place. It’s then she searches her brain for a moment when he was there for her, when she truly started feeling that he was going to be her rock. Beth’s waiting in the hospital, she’s not panicked or worried, rather annoyed and tired like this is yet the millionth time she’s here because her mother needed her stomach pumped. We still don’t know for sure what’s going on with the mom, but from 2x08 we know she spends lots of time laying in bed and needs meds, the stomach pumping indicates overuse of a drug (most common alcohol) – I’m leaning to depression combined with substance abuse – but we don’t know for sure. We also learn that the dad is not in the picture, or no one to rely on in the very least. It’s just Beth and Annie. Dean bribed Annie to tell him where Beth is – it’s prom night and he came to pick her up to go to the dance. Now there’s more than one way to read this scene. The first way is that Dean is genuinely concerned about this whole ordeal and he wants to be there for Beth, which is definitely the way young Beth must read into this. Another part of me thinks there’s some self-interest from Dean mixed in as well. If he didn’t go to Beth, he’d go to the prom, dateless – embarrassing for our quarterback star. But helping out your girlfriend with her sick mom is a great excuse to avoid that situation. We know how upset Dean got about being wifeless at the Spa Competition, Beth’s an asset to his image, her not being there breaks his image down. And I’m not saying he’s not interested in her, but from all the conversations we’ve seen them have in the flashbacks none of it really revolves around how Beth is doing. From the start their relationship has been around transactions. Image, deeds, quid pro quo. Even if you can read the ‘do you want anything from the vending machine?’ and the ‘your sister took all my money’ as something fun, it’s yet another reminder that he paid for her time. That she owes him, even if she really appreciates him being there for her. Back to Beth in the car with Eric and the girls, where our girl looks more than unhappy. Like Dean paid Annie to see her, she’s paying Eric to see Dean. Granted the stakes are immensely higher, but the juvenile situation carries on into the presence. While Eric comes up with even more terrible plans Beth’s getting increasingly emotional – which still could be interpreted many ways but I think she realizes that the normal from back then, the happiness Dean provided to her, it’s never coming back – plans executed correctly or not. Dean might still be that guy, but she’s not that girl anymore. Eric talks about how he’s invisible, and how that changed when Dean became his colleague. How beforehand no one saw him as him, but Dean made him feel like he was part of the work crew, called him by his name – it made him feel seen, made him feel like a real person. And that’s of course exactly what young Beth was feeling – she didn’t feel like a real person because no one saw her as Beth the teenage girl. She’s a caretaker for her mom, a mother figure to Annie – a cheerleader to Dean. But in the memory she can recognize that he made her feel like a real person. Eric proposes that ‘They don’t make ‘em like Dean Boland anymore’. And they don’t for him. But Beth also knows that the feeling wears off, that at some point Dean Boland won’t like you anymore when you don’t play the part he signed on for. Eric’s giving up everything to be a loyal friend, like Beth has for over two decades to be his loyal wife. And while she’s technically still his wife, she’s not loyal like she used to be – not financially, physically or emotionally. She doesn’t need Dean anymore to make her feel like a real person. She’s her own real person. --- Beth comes home to Fitzpatrick lounging in her kitchen like he belongs there, helping himself to a cup of tea. Our girl is already on edge what with the father of her kids possibly spending years behind bars, her plans miserably failing, and now this douche want even more of her time. She’s done playing a part to get what she needs, so she goes right to the point. Fitz touches on that she wants more out of her life, which is true. Unfortunately for him Beth has come to the point that no man – not like Dean did in the flashbacks – will do that for her anymore. She’s the one steering the ship, not some guy anymore. But while all these flashbacks Beth is experiencing might put some things in a different light to her, it doesn’t scrub away what Dean made her feel. Because he is the father of her kids, they are what will forever link them together, the connection they both care about deeply regardless of whatever troubled feelings they have towards each other. She might not be a true wife to him anymore, but they are parents to the same children. Her dad wasn’t there for her, but there’s no reason why Dean can’t be there for his kids. ---- So all in all I actually really liked seeing the flashbacks, especially because we experience them through Beth, and how they parallel with the now. In the final scene we see Phoebe looking at the perfect Boland family picture, the perfect image that they both crafted together. But hidden on the backside are the lies and the deceit, yet also Beth telling Dean how to take care of said family. Because she knows she can’t trust him to take care of it, unlike when they were teens and when she’d like to believe he could. Their real personas are on the table, and they don’t like each other anymore, can’t trust each other anymore. To me the final scenes read like the only thing they can still be: parents. I have no doubt they both love their kids, and those four humans will always bind them together, regardless of their relationship status. Beth is giving Dean the only genuine thing she can: her trust as a mutual parent, and the opportunity to enjoy the love of their kids. But it’s laced with melancholy, this is what’s left in the ruins, these four good things. Everything else is gone, and I think they both realize this. 

[thecleverdame]

TEDTalk!Sam x Reader

Series Masterlist

Summary: With the rest of the staff caught in a snowstorm, you find yourself acting as a personal assistant to the notorious Sam Winchester.

Warnings: Humiliation, embarrassment, sexual objectification, mutual masturbation, dub-con, non-con

Words: 3000+

Beta: @ilikaicalie

Happy Valentines Day my loves ♥ 

This is just a special Valentines treat, after this, all future parts will be posted to Patreon three weeks before they appear on Tumblr. But I wanted to bring you a little Asshole!Kale!Sam ♥

- 

You’re sitting next to Sam Winchester, the man that Forbes called one of the most powerful men in business...and he’s got your panties tucked in his pocket like it’s no big deal.

For the last twenty minutes, you’ve been gaslighting yourself.

Maybe you read the situation wrong? What if he didn’t even mean for you to take off your underwear in the elevator? But the more you replay the incident over and over in your mind you know it really happened. It’s a fact that's only confirmed as you shift in the chair and feel your naked ass against the fabric of the dress.

“Y/N.” It’s Sam saying your name and snapping his fingers that brings you out of this daze.

“I’m so sorry.” You gasp, staring from Sam to the other man in the room.

“Do we have the third quarter prospectus or not?” Sam raises his eyebrow and you fish through the folder in front of you.

“Yes.” Sliding a copy of the analysis toward both men. “There are future projections on the second page.”

You’ve memorized every detail of the emails Pepper sent. While you don’t understand the actual content, you've at least memorized what each meeting requires.

“Thank you.” Sam’s tone is less than understanding and the man across the table chuckles.

“What happened to your old assistant.”

“She’s couldn’t be here.” Sam’s eyes don’t leave the report in front of him as they talk about you like you’re not even here. “We’re just working with whatever asset we have, however poor that may be.”

The guy snorts and you turn beet red, fight back a swell of emotion. He’s just...mean.

You listen to them drone on and on about the future of intellectual property rights and their shared hatred for Jeff Bezos. It’s almost one o’clock by the time the meeting is wrapping up. That leaves an hour before he needs to meet with his financial team, the first employees on the ground since the storm passed.

“Are you hungry?” Sam asks succinctly, taking off his glasses and tucking them into his suit jacket.

“Yeah - I mean, Yes. I’m starving.” You collect his handwritten notes, carefully packing them into his briefcase.

“Good, we’ve got time to sit down for a meal. The restaurant here is supposed to be at least tolerable.”

--

Sam’s enthralled with his phone and you’re just happy to have his attention elsewhere. You watch as the wait staff carries trays of food in both directions. You haven’t eaten in twenty-four hours and all you want is the juicy burger that just walked by.

Your waiter is a young, happy guy who bounces over to the table. While he might not know who Sam is, he knows money when he sees it, occupational hazard.

“Welcome.” He clasps his hands together. Sam sets his phone on the table, offering his full attention. “Can I get you started with a drink? We have several white wines that are perfect for a light lunchtime-”

“No,” Sam grimaces. “Two waters and we’ll need to order now. We’re on a tight schedule.”

“Sure, of course.” The waiter gestures toward the menu. He turns toward you, “Do you know what you’d like ma'am?”

You can practically taste the burger. “Definitely, I want-”

“She’ll have the blood orange and spinach salad, and I’ll have red quinoa and avocado.” Sam looks across the table, closing his menu. The waiter hesitates, looking between you and Sam, who clears his throat. “That’s all.”

You sit back in your seat, clenching your fist under the table. What is this? Your first instinct is that this a test. He’s systematically testing your limits like a raptor testing the fence in Jurassic Park. He wants to see how far he can push. His comments about your clothes, the panties, his snide remarks in the meeting and now ordering your lunch - he wants to find out how much you’ll take.

It’s his motives you’re unsure about. Is he interested in you sexually or is all this just his sick version of a power game?

“Thank you,” you smile sweetly. “I was going to order a salad but I couldn’t decide which one.”

His eyes narrow, resting a forearm on the table. “It’s important to take care of your body.”

There it is, something dark simmering right under the surface This guy has boatloads of pent up issues, he’s going to make some therapist a lot of money one day.

“I agree.” You sit up straight, folding the cloth napkin over your lap.

“Do you?” He’s grinning but his eyes are honed in on you like a snake sizing up a fat little mouse. “Do you exercise?”

“Ye-yes.” You catch yourself this time. Normally you’re pretty good at faking confidence when you can’t muster the real thing but Sam is getting under your skin. “I used to be a runner, but I hurt my knee a couple years back. Now it’s all pilates and yoga.”

“How old are you?” His thumb and middle finger slide over each other as his studies you.

“Twenty-eight.” You take a drink of water just to break the intensity of his focus.

“And how did you end up working for me?”

“I just, I needed some office experience. I’ve never really worked in a professional environment before. I’m just trying to get my life on track, or least headed one solid direction. Look, I shouldn’t be here. I deliver the mail. I’m no one, Mr. Winchester.”

His throat bobs when you call him Mr. Winchester, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“I think you’re someone.” His eyes drag over you again, like you’re a piece of meat. There is no mistaking he wants something more from you than note taking. “Do I make you nervous?”

“Yes.” You respond succinctly. “I don’t know what you want - I’m not sure how to react.”

“You’re doing fine so far.”

“Yeah, right,” you sigh, looking up at the ceiling. “I’m terrible at this. I’m not organized, I don’t know what I’m doing and you have standards that are beyond-”

“I don’t care about that.” He waves his hand, that calm demeanor never breaking. “You’re not the most organized assistant, but Pepper will be here by tonight. She’ll fix whatever you manage to fuck up.”

You swallow, staring in silence as a waitress brings your salads. Once you’re alone again you lean in closer, placing both hands palm down on the table. “Why are you doing this?”

“What am I doing?” He asks, forking leafy greens, glancing up as an afterthought.

“The way you talk to me. In the elevator when you -” You whisper, making sure no one can hear you. “You have my underwear in your pocket.”

“Do you need them back?” He sets down his fork.

“What?” That wasn’t the response you expected.

“If you need them, I’ll give them to you.” He offers.

“I don’t understand this. You’re...” your point at him. “You. You don’t know anything about me. I could sue you for sexual harassment.”

“Are you going to sue me?” He’s clearly unconcerned. “Let me ask you a question, Y/N. Why do you think I’ve been so successful?”

Clasping hands together in your lap you think carefully, trying to suss out if this was a trick question. “You’re smart, focused. You work hard.”

“None of those really matter in the long run. The reason I’ve gotten to where I am today is that I can read people. My dad was a ringer, but I’m even better at it. You give me two minutes with anyone and I’ll tell you what you want and if they’re telling the truth. Everyone has a tell, it’s the little ticks and unconscious responses that give people away.”

“Like poker.” You add and he seems happy you made the connection.

“Yes, something like that. Last night when you came to my room you were nervous, unsure of yourself. But the moment I corrected you, told you to use your words, you start breathing faster, pupils dilated. You do the same thing every time you call me Mr. Winchester.”

“In the elevator, it was more than just your eyes and your breath. Your whole body went flush and lips parted. Every inch of you liked being given orders. You see, most people don’t like how direct I am. I hurt feelings, burn a lot of bridges. But you are a rare creature. You enjoy the degradation.”

“Well,” you start, closing your eyes in a flawed attempt to keep your cheeks from burning bright red. “I don’t know that I would say I enjoy it.”

“Tell me,” he pulls back a little, talking to you as if you’re the only two people in the room. “Are you wet right now?”

The question alone makes your thighs clench together. You stare at him for a moment before answering.

“Yes.” The confession comes out as a whimper.

He smirks, refocusing on his meal. “Eat your lunch. We have a long afternoon.”

-

After seven hours of meetings and glad-handing, you’re grateful the day is coming to an end. Everyone wants to meet Sam, talk to him, pitch their ideas and make a connection. Everyone wants a piece of him and you’ve spent the day trying to note down the name and position of every person he spoke to.

It’s a little after eight as you trail behind him, lugging his briefcase back up to his room.

“Pepper’s here.” He looks up from his phone, fishing his room card from his pocket. “She’ll take over for the cocktail hour tonight.”

“Perfect.” You sigh. You weren’t sure you had the stamina to make it through the rest of the night.

“Do you want to come inside?” He asks, pushing the door open, stepping out of the way.

“No.” You avoid his eyes. “I’m gonna go to my room.”

“Are you sure?” His head tilts to the side.

“Yes.” You carefully set his briefcase at his feet. “Goodnight.”

“Y/N.” He says your name with such finality that it sends a shiver up your spine. “Come inside.”

“I said I didn't want to.” You meet his stare as your hands begin to shake. “We shouldn’t-“

“And I told you to come inside.” His jaw clenches when you hesitate. “Now.”

“Okay.” You squeak stepping into the room. The door shuts behind you immediately, and there’s the click of the deadbolt.

“In here.” He disappears through a doorway and you follow into the master suite. The moment you lay eyes on his bed a warmth bubbles up from your belly. You hate that there’s any part of you that responds to him like this.

Sam circles around you, keeping his distance as he takes a seat in the chair in the corner of the room.

“What do you want from me?” You ask, barely able to stand on quivering legs.

“I want you to sit on the bed.” He explains, leaning back in the chair. His mouth is a tight line, betraying nothing. If he has any particular feelings one way or the other you’d be the last to know.

“Okay.” You whisper, sitting gingerly on the edge of the bed, watching him watch you.

“Unzip your dress.” His instruction is enough to take the air right out of your chest. He must be enjoying this level of control, but you’d never know from looking at him.

You reach behind your shoulders and manage to unzip the back, looking to him for further orders.

“Pull it down around your waist.” One large hand palms over the crotch of his slacks, giving the first indication that he’s getting any actual pleasure.

You comply, pulling your arms out and lowering the top half of the dress until it’s bunched below your breasts, exposing a lace, black bra.

“Pull your bra down. Show me your nipples.” His eyes shift down to watch.

Oh, God.

You tug each cup down until both breasts are exposed. Your nipples are already hard as pebbles, aching along with the rest of your body.

“Pull your skirt up around your thighs.” He watches as your eyes fall to his hand, rubbing his cock through his pants. You comply, pulling your skirt up. “Further.”

By the time he’s satisfied your dress is up around your hips, bare ass on the soft comforter.

“Now lie back and spread your legs.”

You stare at each other for a moment before you lean back, the back of your head meets the mattress. You suck in a fractured breath, spreading your thighs until you feel the cool air on your sex.

“Wider.” He’s a disembodied voice now. Measured and confident in every detail of what he wants from you. “Let me see your pussy.”

You bend your knees, putting your heels on the bed until they touch your buttocks, spreading yourself as wide as possible for his viewing pleasure.

“Your cunt’s as perfect as the rest of you.” He laments, but you get a distinct feeling he’s not really talking to you, it’s just commentary. “Touch yourself.”

You close your eyes for a moment, the ceiling blinking in and out of view as your hand snakes between your legs. Using your middle finger you find your clit and make slow, careful circles, applying just enough pressure to bring yourself pleasure.

This is by far the most humiliating thing you've ever done, but it's the humiliation that has you so worked up. He was right. There’s something about the complete shame of the moment that’s working you up.

There’s a familiar zip and the rustle of clothing, and then the faint, subtle sound of skin on skin as he strokes his cock, watching you masturbate.

The more your body responds, the less you care about the fact that you’re rubbing your clit in front of your boss. Dipping into your slick cunt, you coat your finger, moving back to press faster circles over the swollen bud. A muted sigh escapes your lips and you realize you’ve been trying to stay quiet but there’s no reason remain silent. A full moan tears from your throat as you butterfly your legs further apart in an effort to give a better view. At this moment you want him to see every inch of you, to feel his eyes burning into your skin.

“Fuck yourself with your fingers.” His voice is strained, a crack in the armor as you hear him stroke himself faster.

You slide your other hand between two shaking thighs and sink two fingers into your pussy. He’s breathing faster, harder and the room is filled with the sounds of both your labored breath, the wet noise of your cunt taking your own fingers and Sam working his cock.

“Oh fuck.” You moan, arching back into the mattress and shoving a third finger into your aching cunt. Your hand is moving faster and faster over your clit and you’re so close to having an orgasm in front of his man you hardly know.

“Put the fingers that are in your cunt, in your mouth, and keep rubbing your clit. Make sure your legs stay open when you cum.” He pants, the whap, whap, whap of his hand growing even faster.

You don’t hesitate, shoving the three fingers over your tongue, sucking on the taste of yourself as you cum. Groaning, you struggle to keep your thighs spread wide, giving him a full view of your wet, empty flesh clutching around nothing.

He grunts one time, and the sound of his hand stops as you claw at the sheets, trying to anchor yourself as you pant and stare at the ceiling.

For minutes the only sound is your breath. You’re not sure what to do, but then he’s zipping up as you hear him moving across the floor. “You can leave.”

By the time you sit up, he’s gone. The door to the bathroom clicks shut, the lock turns as the shower comes on. Leaving you trembling and unsure of what exactly just happened.

-

Tags:  @smallgirlbigpersonality @mereka18 @gryffindorable713 @trainlikeawinchester @winchesterprincessbride @bamby0304 @notyourtypicalrose @mariekoukie6661 @little-big-mac2 @emoryhemsworth @mystriee @atc74 @holyfuckloueh @bunnybaby121115 @mogaruke @darkmystress00 @jaspesangriento @kazuha159 @mirandaaustin93 @crispychrissy @schilj79 @wilde-abandon @hennessy0274-blog @bojabee @miss-samantha-winchester @impalaimagining-mainblog @andkatiethings @astephez @ladycynthia @mrswhozeewhatsis @lenawiinchester @feelmyroarrrr @mrs-meghan-winchester @har-rystyles @mistressofallthingsgeeky @theamuz @maui137 @stars-and-seas @vale0413 @impala67trenchcoat @curly-haired-disaster @ericaprice2008 @livelikeawinchester @althehufflepuff @itsthesamegametoday @bohowitch @spnwoman @just-a-normal-eccentric @gallifreyansass @StoneyGGirl @lonely-skys @81mysteriouslyme @missrandomista @soupornatural @stars-and-seas @natura1phenomenon @jarpadandjensenaremyheroes @81mysteriouslyme @likhelbentin @mrooks0205 @zombiewerewolfqueen @winchesterprincessbride @squirrel-moose-winchester @fortisetgloriosusinarduis @closetspngirl @dominodoll @rainflowermoon @cleighwrites @camelotandastronauts @imarockstar45 @thebeastinside19 @courtney-padalecki @itsthesamegametoday @virtualgirlfriendsan @daisymoder72 @fandom-is-my-middle-name @mysticmcu @luciferseclipse @malinda1997 @sunlight-dean @rockhoochie

[hillnerd]

I love the idea of genderbend romione, do you have some headcanons about that? n.n

I do! I wrote a bit about the different personality dynamics of Hermes and Veronica (goes by Ronnie or Ron)  and have drawn them twice. One HERE One I never got around to posting on tumblr, which I have no excuse for :P Er here’s a blurry version of it

The main difference is would they be in a completely genderbent world- a world where only the younger generation is genderbent- or would they be the only genderbent ones? It definitely changes the dynamics present.

So here is a headcanon for a world where only Ron and Hermione are genderswapped (and straight)- everyone else is the same as they ever were.

3,000 word headcanon thing:

In first year Hermes doesn’t know what to make of Veronica Weasley- a girl who’s so sloppy, boyish, and ready to throw down at the drop of a hat. But there’s something disarming, genuine, and kind about her that he can’t help but be drawn in. This of course goes poorly for him- as every time he’s trying to help her by correcting her spellwork, or telling her off so she won’t lose them more house points- she takes it as a personal offense. But her and Harry saving him from a troll really turns things around and they end up being good friends. He still gets teased for being a fussbudget, but they genuinely get on better than he ever thought they could. It’s nice having two good friends, as Hermes hasn’t had real friends his whole life, to be honest.

There are ups and downs to their relationship-The two of them are always there to defend the other though (and Harry of course!) Third year was especially hard on Hermes with all the fallouts he had with the other two and his wonky schedule. One night when Hermes is particularly overtaxed Ronnie tucks him in with a blanket and Hermes mumbles out something along the lines of ‘Ronica, you’re th’ prettiest girl…’ He fully wakes up horrified that he’s said this out loud, but Ronnie just excuses it as he’s obviously daffy from lack of sleep.

Fourth year comes with a whole new set of issues, as Ronnie is long-legged as ever- but somehow even prettier than she was the year before. Hermes isn’t sure if this is a personal bias, or if this is an empirical truth- so tests the water with Harry- ‘She’s… She’s a lot prettier than last year, right?’

Harry hadn’t really thought on it. He looks over at Ronnie as she gives a great stretch, and both blushingly look away from their friend and the assets she seemingly grew overnight. They don’t say anything on it, thank god, and Hermes decides right then he’d rather never talk about girls again.

But girls seem to be everywhere in the castle, especially one part-Veela one who makes him act an utter fool. Ronnie seems particularly angry when this happens- and he’s mortified that someone as logical as himself is able to be so befuddled by women anymore.

Harry’s always been a touch closer with Ronnie, as they have so much in common- but suddenly the two of them being close makes Hermes feel something strange and dark deep within himself. After the first task of the Triwizard tournament the two of them are getting even closer- and it culminates with the Harry asking Veronica out to the Yule Ball.

‘You don’t mean it romantically, though, do you?’ Hermes finally asks after thinking about it for a good five hours straight.

‘I dunno. I hadn’t, but… I guess there wouldn’t be anything wrong with it. It makes sense. We have so much in common and everything, and like you said, she’s gotten really pretty,” Harry says with a shrug.

Hermes curses the day he noted how pretty Ronnie was to Harry. She was ALWAYS pretty to Hermes! Hermes is in a snit and moping by the fire when Ginny comes up and asks what’s wrong- at first Hermes wants to deny anything being wrong, but then he contents himself with complaining about how everyone has a date to the Yule Ball.

‘And Harry has Ronnie, and I have no one…’

Ginny nods in sympathy. ‘I didn’t know that they were going to be going on a date.’

‘Oh, it’s more than a date to the ball!’ Hermes declares. ‘Harry said he might even date her!’

‘What?!’ Ginny lets out. Hermes feels guilty. He knew that she had fancied Harry at one point.

‘I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have told you like that… Hey, I just had an idea. Want to be my date to the Ball? Not romantic. Just friends.’

She is happy to accept-

Come the Yule Ball Ronnie looks beautiful, even though she’s having a great deal of trouble walking in heels, and Hermes and Ginny have an alright time, despite how they are grumpily dancing all too close to the pair of people they like. Neville borrows Ginny for a bit, then some boy named Michael, and Hermes is content to sneakily follow Ron and Harry as the two of them go outside.

‘Whoever invented heels is a right wanker. How come I have to where these, and you get to dress in normal shoes and robes,” Ronnie complains. She and Harry are talking about all sorts of things when to Hermes’s horror, Harry leans in and kisses Ronnie! She doesn’t slap him. In fact she kisses him back!

Hermes’s heart is in shambles. Of course, it makes sense. Why would she want someone as bookish, cold and absolutely boring as Hermes Granger. Who wouldn’t want Harry. Heart broken he returns to the ball. He continues through the motions, but sees Harry and Ronnie come back still having a grande old time.

The two admit to Hermes the next day they’re an item- and Hermes has to force himself to smile at them and act as if it’s fine. It hurts, but he’ll get over it. Ginny is sympathetic to him, and he decides to spend a bit more time with her and Neville to avoid the new couple, and not be a third wheel. Ginny decided to move on and date a new boy- Michael. Hermes would do the same, but he honestly doesn’t know any girl who would be interested in the likes of him. His heart is even further broken when the ‘Thing Harry would miss most’ ends up being Ron!

But to his, and everybody’s shock, the new couple ends up fizzling out within a few months, and without much buildup they confess they’re breaking up.

‘We thought it should work- but… feh. Sorry, mate!’ Ronnie says, giving Harry a slap on the back. He smiles broadly back. And it’s as if it never happened. Hermes doesn’t quite understand. The two were practically meant for one another! The two were both into quidditch, laughed at the same jokes, enjoyed the same subjects- they were practically the same person! If they couldn’t make it work, how could Hermes ever hope to make it work between him and Veronica?

By fifth year Hermes can’t stop thinking of the fiery redhead, her temper, her smile, her swearing, her long legs, her flashing blue eyes etc but he trudges on. He’s so happy she’s the other prefect and the two of them have a good time doing prefect rounds. Things are going well between them. He’s not sure, but he thinks she might genuinely like him back. She blushed so prettily when he complimented her spell work the other day, and he’d gone out of his way to be extra gentlemanly to her.

That Valentine’s day he’s already arranged an interview for Harry with the Quibbler- but he finally decides to make a move and invites Ronnie to Hogsmeade for the first part of Valentine’s day at least. He makes sure it’s ok with Harry, and Harry happily gives his blessing. Unfortunately Veronica didn’t quite get the memo that he meant it as a date, and gives a sigh when she notes Harry’s on a date with Cho.

‘Do you… miss being with him?’ Hermes manages to let out around the sudden lump in his throat.

“What? Are you kidding? No!” Ronnie laughs. “He’s about as romantic as a barrel of fish. We have a ton of fun together, but kissing him was just… it always felt forced and weird. I dunno…. No I more feel sorry for them both. Like, Harry and Cho? That can’t last. She’s a Tornadoes fan!”

“Well if a couple can’t last because of differing quidditch team favorites, Hypothetically how could a couple last if only one of them cares about quidditch and the other doesn’t?” Hermes asks, hoping he’s not being too obvious.

“It’s not that she’s into the Tornadoes and he’s not… It’s that she’s all temporary and he’s all long-haul? I’ll put it this way, Harry needs someone who can be steady and there through everything, because Harry has been through hell and will be through more hell by the end of everything- and Cho’s not a ride or die kind of girl. She’s a ‘Tornadoes’ kind of girl.”

“Well… What about you then?” Hermes pushes. “What do you want that you didn’t get with Harry?”

“Shit, I don’t know,” she says unhelpfully.

“Well there must have been a reason. After all you broke up rather quickly.”

“I mean, Harry is ride or die- so that’s super important- and he’s really brave… I guess if I were looking for what he isn’t… More thoughtful would be nice. Smart. And a bit more passionate with me? Less yelly and more… sweet? Makes me feel like a girl some of the time and not always one of the boys? Plus, I’m almost taller than him… Granted, I’m so tall it’s a problem for most boys,” Ronnie says stretching out her long legs, making Hermes gulp. 

“What about you, Hermes? Any girls you’re interested in?” Ronnie says, looking at him seriously.

“Well, I asked one girl out, but I don’t think she’d be interested in me.”

“What, Ginny?” Ronnie asks with a snort before sobering up and looking at him sympathetically. “Yeah… I think she still fancies Harry… Felt a bit like a crap sister to her, but what can you do…”

“It’s not Ginny.” Hermes’s mouth is dry.

“Then who?”

Hermes considers confessing to Ronnie the crush he’s been housing for well over a year, but he just can’t bring himself to do it.

“Uh… Never mind. Don’t worry about me. I’m fairly certain I’m going to be single the rest of my life,” Hermes says, trying to sound nonchalant- but knowing he must sound quite bitter. 

Just then, Rita Skeeter walks through the door, and all thoughts romantic or otherwise are put aside as Hermes and Ronnie go to greet the horrid woman. She’s said quite a few disparaging things in the paper about Ronnie’s looks, and Hermes’s personality that neither was keen to forget. Luna is there too, looking as strange and airy as usual.

After the interview, Luna and the trio go back to the castle together.

“How was your date, Harry?” Ronnie asks. Harry���s face crumples at the thought of it and describes the worst date ever. Harry made the tremendous mistake of telling Cho he was meeting Ronnie at the Three Broomsticks.

“I told her I was meeting Hermes too- but she didn’t seem to care at that point…”

“Well… Sounds like the worst date ever. Sorry mate,” Ronnie says with a punch, looking guilty.

“How about you two?” Harry asks, looking smug at Ron and Hermes.

“Their date seemed to be very cozy,” Luna supplies.

“It wasn’t a date,” Hermes says with finality, hoping Harry gets the message and drops it. Ronnie looks up at them confused.

“But I thought…” Harry looks to Hermes and then seems to understand. “Oh.. oK…”

The rest of the journey to the castle Hermes is completely silent. Later that night Harry asks him if he’s ok– and Hermes lies and says yes. Harry doesn’t look convinced but Hermes doesn’t care. Harry doesn’t push, of course, because he never pushes- and Hermes is able to fall into fitful sleep.

The next few prefect patrols he has with Ronnie are awkward, and he knows it’s all his own fault. He just can’t fall back into his normal playful banter with Ronnie right now. She’s trying really hard to make conversation with him, but he’s unreceptive.

Finally Ronnie gets fed up with Hermes’s bad mood and calls him out.

“Why are you being such a moody arse?!” she lets out in the hallway.

“I’m not–” Hermes tries to protest- but he knows it’s true. He is being unfair to Ronnie. She didn’t do anything at all to him. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I… I don’t have a good excuse.”

“And you’re apologizing to me! You never do that!” Ronnie says looking still just as put out.

Hermes decides to go with it and get back to their dynamic of squabbles. So what if Veronica doesn’t think of him in a romantic way? It’s fine. He has a great friend. Things are chugging along fine when Harry starts noticing Ginny a bit, and Hermes is quite pleased. Ronnie ships the two of the them hardcore, and tells Hermes she’s encouraging Ginny to stay single a bit when she’s done with Michael so perhaps this can pan out. Hermes is all for it. He might not be able to be with Ronnie, but he’d love for Ginny and Harry to be an item.

A lot goes down at the ministry of magic- Sirius dies, Harry is beyond mourning, and Hermes and Ronnie nearly died. Ronnie is highly insecure about the number of  scars working their way up her arms, but doesn’t want to talk about it.

Fifth year is nearly over- when Hermes comes across Ronnie holding hands with Dean. They see Hermes, and Dean makes an awkward cough and leaves, leaving behind the two friends.

‘So are you and Dean..?’

‘No…?” Ronnie says with a shrug. Her sleeves are rolled up. ‘He was drawing me and said my scars were pretty, and I just… I dunno… Being a teenager is weird.’

‘I think your scars are pretty too,’ Hermes says. ‘Every bit of you, really…’

‘You… you do?’ Ronnie says, cheeks aflame.

‘Of course I do. You’re the prettiest girl I know,” Hermes says with a shrug.

“No I’m not. Even my little sister is prettier than me. I’m gangly and too tall and flat and–”

“I like you just the way you are. You’re beautiful.”

“Did the death eaters hit you with a spell to the head?”

“No!” Hermes says with a laugh.

“Cool. Had to make sure,” Ronnie says with a shrug.

They sit by the fire waiting for Harry to come back from wherever it is he’s been, when Ronnie turns to Hermes and apropos of nothing asks:

“Did you ask me on a real date on Valentine’s day?”

Hermes is caught. Hermes could avoid the question rather easily if he wanted. He could do all sorts of things if he wanted. But in this moment, with her blue eyes piercing his the way they are, he can’t help but blurt out: “Yes.”

He winces and closes his eyes, dreading whatever is to come. But then he feels her lips on his. Their kiss goes from chaste to intensely passionate so fast it’s like magic, and if it weren’t for the sound of the portrait hole opening Hermes isn’t sure they would have stopped.

Harry comes in and looks between the two of them a long moment before a grin breaks out on his face.

‘So when’d this happen?’

‘About three minutes ago, fuck off Harry,” Ronnie says throwing a pillow at their friend with a grin.

‘I’ll leave you to it then!’ he snickers before going up to their dorm.

‘Do you think he’s ok?’ Hermes asks.

‘Mate, he’s fine,’ Ronnie says kissing Hermes again. Hermes interrupts them a few more times to make sure of things- but in the end he’s rather reassured.

They are dating from then on- Ronnie is passionate and filled with charisma, while she assures Hermes he has a ‘quiet smolder’ he didn’t know he could possess. Sixth year is a nice year for them. Less bickering, as they can just end a bicker with a kiss- she’s been able to bring out the softness in Hermes, and he’s been able to bring out some confidence in Ronnie. Harry and Ginny get together some time around November, and so they are both quite coupley that year.

The Horcrux hunt, though, is quite hard on them. Ronnie is terribly splinched, and Hermes is certain she’ll hate him for disfiguring her like this- and the horcrux keeps telling him she doesn’t love him- she loves Harry. And Harry must love her too. He broke up with Ginny, and they don’t want Hermes around at all- he’s just a boring know-it-all - and so the Horcrux finally does its due- but this time it’s Hermes it is able to drive away. 

Eventually Ronnie hears her name coming from the deluminator and is able to get Hermes and bring him back into the fold- and this time Hermes has knowledge of the taboo and snatchers. 

The rest of the timeline is slightly different- but it stays mostly the same. Ronnie would love Hermes forever- and they’d have the same career tracks as before. Auror and Law Maker, each a little stunned that someone as amazing as the other loves them so deeply.

[elishamanning]

just randomly, the Cuisance part (…)

[video voice-over guy (VOG): The comings and goings are finished, rien ne va plus - many might say: finally! Because this business of transfers is getting more and more complicated. F. Bobic: „This market is just dictated by some crazy dynamics.“ KH Rummenigge: „The whole of football exploded in the past ten years.“ R. Schröder: „It’s true that many transfers didn’t work out due to the rising fees“. VOG: A complicated business, apparently, though it sounds so simple. KHR: „Every transfer is a business between three parties: releasing club, new club and player.“ VOG: But three parties are often three too many. Everybody’s got their own interests and will often push them through relentlessly. See Leipzig a few weeks ago. Timo Werner entering his last year of contract, a situation that RB wants to avoid at all costs. R. Rangnick: „This scenario that Timo Werner transfers in 2020 on a free contract simply doesn’t exist, this option doesn’t exist. Timo knows that, his agent knows that as well.“ Extend the contract or leave generating a big sum, that’s the clear message. The player turns into a commodity, valid contract or not. But fair play and integrity have become foreign concepts for many players as well. For example Mönchengladbach, for example Mikael Cuisance. The talented midfielder provoked his departure for Bayern Munich in very bad style. M. Rose: „I think he showed some manners of conduct that he won’t show at his new employer’s. And that’s just the point. He can’t do that here either!“ Profits and self-interest dictate the business while at the same time identification and loyalty are more and more pushed to the background.]

Wontorra: „Christoph! What were the wildest rumours you heard or read about yourself?“ Kramer: „Well, it’s been quite some time. I once used to be in high demand on the Italian market, for whatever reason.“ Wontorra: „After the 2014 world cup.“ Kramer: „Exactly. But only ever on the Italian market. Apparently I seem to be one for Italy.“ (grins) Wontorra: „That’s weird, isn’t it?“ Kramer: „Yes, I don’t know why either. But those were the rumours.“ Wontorra: „And which club went after you?“ Kramer: „Napoli and Inter.“ Wontorra: „Why didn’t you go?“ Kramer: „Well. I feel very at home in the Bundesliga, close to my friends and family, I found my football-love in Borussia Mönchengladbach. I was away once at Leverkusen, so I know what it feels like somewhere else… but I don’t need the big wide world of football to be happy as a player.“ Wontorra: „But when you hear or read about these numbers, or your agent tells you about them, this club is willing to pay this transfer fee, how do you react as a player? Do you get numb to it at some point, when there’s the fifth offer of millions? Or does it even create a certain kind of pressure?“ Kramer: „It was never that extreme with me, so I can’t really say much about that. But it’s a bit surreal, isn’t it, when you - or I, in my case, know that Gladbach paid 15 Million for me… Though in today’s football, to be honest, I can’t say I think much about it, because it’s something that’s become normal in a way, unfortunately, or fortunately, whichever way you look at it. Anyway it’s not put any pressure on me. Of course it’s an issue where I feel (literally he says „grabbed by my honour“), aware that they spent so much money on me, so of course I want to do them justice until the very end, and I’m extremely grateful for the chance and the fact that they spent so much money, obviously you want to pay it back in the best possible way. Even if it doesn’t all work out every time, but I will until my last footballing breath, try my best to show my gratitude and pay back this trust.“ Wontorra: „You were at your time Borussia’s most expensive transfer at 15 Million, as you said. To what extend do you even have to try and actively ignore that fact and forget about this number?“ Kramer: „Well, at the time, I think I even said that back then, with my second competitive game we qualified for the Champions League, which earned [Borussia Mönchengladbach] 25 Million Euros, so I was relieved of the pressure of accounting.“ Wontorra: „But it’s got to make you think, doesn’t it? At a point where the sums just get surreal from the fans’ point of view. When they’re just beyond them? Do you think there’s a danger of the fans turning their back on football as a consequence?“ Kramer: „Yes. To be honest, there’s also a little bit the problem that the normal fan, the kind we as footballers so appreciate and love because their support makes us put a bit of extra horse power on the street (I’m just translating literally now what he says) because, well, you just do it for them, because you love it when they sing and show their emotions, and when I see two kids standing there wearing Kramer jerseys my heart just leaps, seriously, but to be honest I’m not sure if Paris St. Germain actually want to keep these fans or if they say „well, when you’re gone we can build some beautiful [VIP] boxes in that place, that will make us much more money and we definitely know they’ll be filled because some corporations will buy [the boxes], so for Paris St. Germain it might be more lucrative to be rid of that *normal* fan, which would be a huge shame, obviously, but I do think that’s how big clubs like Paris in this example work/function.“ Wontorra: „There was a TV show once, I’m not sure if you’re [too young to know it], by Jürgen von der Lippe, „Geld oder Liebe“ („Money or Love?“). So what about you? Which of the two would you prioritize in a transfer, identifying with a club? Kramer: “It’s a difficult question and to be honest I’ve thought much about it. Because of course now I come from a place where I’m very comfortable, I’m doing very well (literally he says „I’ve got my lambs sheltered from the rain“, meaning no worries about money issues) so it’s easy for me to talk. I should have been asked that question when I was 19 or 20 and I don’t know what my answer would have been then. Now I will definitely go for love, no hesitation - that sounds so romantic doesn’t it! (smiles, Wontorra laughs. It definitely sounds more romantic in German, lol) - because you get to a point, just speaking for myself here, where money can’t be the deciding factor. It, well, it may have been, at some point, when you first enter the business, you do want to make a lot of money and money’s a big incentive, but it’s definitely not my priority now. Because, and please don’t get me wrong, this sounds incredibly arrogant, but it really doesn’t matter, does it, whether you earn 4, 7, 8 or 12 million Euros? It doesn’t to me anyway.” Wontorra (speaking over Chris’ last words, so I don’t understand which name he says): „(?) used to say „I can’t eat more than one steak a day!““ Kramer: „Exactly. That’s just how it is. It’s a fine line and I’m well aware that it’s just above a certain level: when my dad gets an offer from a different bank and they’re willing to pay him twice his previous salary he’s got to do it. Money has to be a deciding factor in that case. But not when a different club offers to pay me twice as much, it can’t be then. Because I know and appreciate what I’ve got here (not money-related) and also know that I won’t have that anywhere else, so in short if you ask me the „money or love?“ question in my current life situation, love is definitely more important than money.“ Wontorra: „Is that something you decide by yourself? Or who do you ask/discuss it with?“ Kramer: „For the most part I decide by myself. Of course I talk to my parents and my close friends, I have many people that I’m in close contact with and talk to about stuff like this, but generally it’s an issue where I have to make my own decisions.“ Wontorra: „So give us some insight, inside-Bundesliga style! How do deals, I’ll just say deals, negotiations like that, how do they go down, usually? Does the agent come to you and show you the offer, will you first talk to the club yourself, to the coach or the manager? What’s the order?“ Kramer: „For me it’s very important to not go via third parties. If I decide I want to do this or that, I will talk directly to the people it concerns and not to my agent, or even have him do the talking. Because I want to speak for myself and because I *can* speak for myself. And that shouldn’t be handled by a third party, that just tastes of a lack of trust.“ (Can you say that?) Wontorra: „So put yourself in the shoes of a manager, or a sporting director. Of Max Eberl. We’ll do a quick questions round. Just very quickly, three questions. If I were a manager with an unlimited budget, which player would I get?“ Kramer: „Well, Messi!“ (He says that as if it’s obvious) Wontorra: „Still Messi, even now?“ Kramer: „Still Messi, even now.“ Wontorra: „Not Neymar, or Coutinho, or…?“ Kramer: „Nono, Messi. He seems like a reasonable guy as well, not knowing him at all, obviously. So, yeah. I’d get Messi.“ Wontorra: „Which coach would I sign?“ Kramer: „Ha, I can’t say anything else now, can I, I have to say we’ve got the right one. And I will say that willingly, because I really think highly of him. I’ll just think of an alternative… I think Conte’s great! I really like Conte, his style of play.“ Wontorra: „Though you only know his style of play, not what he’s like as a person, obviously.“ Kramer: „Yes. And for that reason I won’t take this risk. Because we’re doing really well with our current coach,“ Wontorra: „Which player would I stay away from?“ Kramer: „Hm. I wouldn’t want Neymar.“ Wontorra: „Why?“ Kramer: „Because of what I said earlier. He’d definitely be an asset in many regards, but the way he’s been acting, well, it’s just my personal opinion, it’s been a bit… not cool.“ Wontorra: „Alright. And with that we’re back to this Business of Millions that is football. And maybe the question what worth morals and honour still have in a business like this. What do you think? Have things, well, shifted?“ Kramer: „Those are two big words, aren’t they? Things have definitely shifted. I do think though you mustn’t consider it purely an issue of the players. I think it’s just a question of who has more leverage, and it’s not fair to just put it on the players, in my opinion. So, alright, take Neymar. He really wants to leave, he’s bigger than the club. So taking some not-so-cool measures he’ll achieve his goal by „striking himself away“. But when a club, which usually happens below the radar, and which is also one reason why I’m so happy to play here, because that doesn’t happen here, but you often hear about it, when a club wants to get rid of a player and the club has more leverage, they have their ways which are often not publicly known, like "training group two” (?) and just certain measures so the player will know they’re no longer wanted. That’s a scenario that’s really not nice for the player, so I can only ask everybody to - I’m fully aware this is naive, there’s so much money involved and, well, it’s just today’s society, isn’t it? Morals and honour just aren’t anybody’s chief motivation anymore, are they, including myself, including everybody, but I do think the way things currently are I feel - the party that’s got more leverage is always „the asshole“ („in Anfürungsstrichen“), leaving the other one out to starve (?). But I think with proper communication, most of all honesty right from the beginning, so much of this could be avoided. If Neymar says „I want to leave here“, that’s completely fine, that’s okay, when they in turn get to say „you can go, but we want something out of it as well.“ and there’ll be some ground to find an agreement, surely. But the fact there’s always all this mud-slinging nowadays, I just really don’t like that. I think so much of this could be prevented with a clear and most of all honest communication between the involved parties. And also it can’t always be the club saying „this player has a contract, he can’t leave“ but in turn, say to other players  „well, get lost.“ It’s also got to be „this player has a contract, we’ll look after him“ (he puts it differently. The gist is, the contract also means an obligation not just from the player to the club but also from the club towards the player). Wontorra: „Borussia had a similar case recently with Cuisance. He demanded a Stammplatzgarantie (a guarantee that he’ll always be in the starting line-up) which couldn’t be granted. So he started all kinds of shenanigans, demonstratively training with untied shoes among other things that happened, which the coach admonished him for even when he left. What’s your take on the whole thing, as a teammate?“ Kramer: „Well, we talked to Mika about that quite a bit as well, that certain things are, well, just not on. You can be unsatisfied, you have to be unsatisfied, even, as a very ambitious player, maybe you have to be impatient and also -“ Wontorra: „You’re allowed to be emotional as well, the guy’s only twenty years old!“ Kramer: „Yes, definitely. You can make a positive as well as a negative argument of it. You could say as a positive, wow, he’s ambitious, he wants to be a regular starter and excel and take on responsibility and help the team, those are all good traits to begin with. Still on the other hand it’s also a question of how you go about it. You don’t go about it by making demands and then not tying your shoes to show how unhappy you are. You’re allowed to be unhappy and also show it, but, in my opinion, not like that and not over a long period because it’s just not fair towards the group.“ Wontorra: „You mean it’s about team hygiene in a way.“ Kramer: „Yes, this. It’s an unpleasant situation for all players in the squad. You need to try and solve it internally (reach an agreement) and if you can’t… it’s just really shitty. It’s just *not done*, just like when I didn’t play last season, if I had just not put on my shoes properly anymore and kicked the ball away every time it got near me. It’s just a question of respect for the team, simple as that. - But it’s also something he will learn! He’s only 19, or 20 years old. He was elected player of the season, many things came together… still, just, in this instance, the way he went about it was not acceptable, and not (literally: „the English gentlemanly way“) but it’s not like he’s generally a bad person, at all.“ Wontorra: „So how does it work, does the players’ council approach him, or the team captain, and does the player get a stern talking-to or do you just say, here Mika, some advice?“ Kramer: „You can only try and advise him. I was his age once. I was very ambitious and when I didn’t get to play for one game it seemed like the world caved in. I may have reacted differently in training, but on the other hand I never had this luxury problem of the option of a transfer to Bayern Munich. If I’d had an offer from Bayern Munich back then, that would have been quite the bargaining chip („Druckmittel“, leverage?) and I don’t know how I would have handled it. Because when you’re young, and that is something I do know (have experience with), you sometimes make certain statements or decisions even over a longer period of time that are just not good or correct and the people around you think ‚Just what is wrong with you?!‘ We have to consider he’s only 20, he has enormous potential and he’s got an offer from Bayern Munich. I don’t really want to defend him because, bottom line, it was just completely inappropriate, and I do think looking back in five years he’ll say „oh that was really quite shitty from me“, but none of us can change anything now.“ Wontorra: „So who is the one that says „Mika, we have to talk!“?“ Kramer: „Oh right, that was your question, wasn’t it? Sorry. Lars made-„ Wontorra: „Stindl“ Kramer: „Lars Stindl, yes, as our captain, did that a few times, we also tried to talk to him in a group but well, anyway. That’s all standard operating procedure in football. It’s not like it’s a secret that you might go, „Come on my guy, how about tying your shoes?” (…)

[ryouverua]

Chekhov’s Bathroom

RECORD SCRATCH -

so you may be wondering how I got myself into this situation -

PREVIOUSLY ON DANGANRONPA V3...

... we found out the classroom has an incredibly interesting mechanism that not only creates flashback lights, but immediately transforms the whole setup back to normal the moment someone comes in. WHICH. UH. IS HUGE.

Also, we’re nowhere near the girl’s bathroom - but we’re getting to that, I promise.

.... Also also, Himiko is alive, which is very good! And I’m super happy for her! I’m just, uh, distracted, that’s all.

L-LOOK HIMIKO I AM REALLY HAPPY TO SEE YOU BUT I DON’T THINK YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT WE’VE JUST UNCOVERED HERE -

Oh crap that’s right though! I guess we aren’t assuming she was able to dislodge it enough from her side by way of time and effort? .... I did just associate the word effort with Himiko, didn’t I. T-TO BE FAIR THOUGH, SHE HAS GOTTEN CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT -

sweetcheeks has the cutest little ‘e-eto...’ sound clip istg

Aaaaw Shuichi! He’s gotten so much better at expressing his feelings!

LMAO HIMIKO

WE’RE TREADING INTO UMINEKO TERRITORY WITH THAT SORT OF LANGUAGE man she really is trying to change the genre even now

I was going to say you really need to tell her about the flashback light machine you found but now I’m afraid of bursting her bubble. 8′D

....

You know what? Speaking of adorable sound clips, her ‘KA KA KA - !’ is also cute af. Equality!

- another seacats references

sweetcheeks I’m sorry I can’t help it

okay I know that it’s just the building collapsing from the damage but at the same time -

“K1-B0 CAN YOU PLEASE WATCH YOUR AIM!”

“SORRY CAN’T HEAR YOU, I ONLY LISTEN TO PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY FINISH MY FTES -”

I was just one away k1-b0 I was just one away -

“And how crazy would it be if someone died in an investigation, anyway - oh wait -”

Yet another bone for the my fellow Umineko fans but man I can’t get over the similarities between Maria and her - I honestly wonder if she was inspired by her at all. 8′D

ANYWAY IGNORE ME TIME TO DECONSTRUCT THE MAGIC SOLUTION -

..... you lost me. But I suppose that’s why she’s inviting us to investigate the bathroom with her -

HIMIKO. HIMIKO. FOCUS.

......... this would be a bad time to bring up the Love Hotel, huh.

It would also be a good time to bring up the whole flashback light situation too, but??? We don’t? Okay, fine. Moving on, I suppose.

MORE RUNNING - though at least it’s a lot closer than the other spots? LIKE A CERTAIN ASTRONAUT’S LAB LOOK I LOVE YOU KAITO AND TSUMUGI BUT FFS WAS THAT NECESSARY -

Omg I love Shuichi’s internal monologue here as he stares at the bathroom door and tries to psyche himself up after going in -

Full disclosure Shuichi? It’s just a room. I’ve accidentally walked into the guy’s room myself. It’s... just a room. It’s not a big deal. Just. Just go in there, dude.

SWEETCHEEKS. YOU ALSO NEED TO FOCUS.

IT’S REALLY NOT A BIG DEAL UNLESS IT’S IN USE.

One step two step three step you can do this Shuichi Saihara this bathroom’s got nothing on you, we have the Detective’s Authority on our side - !

“Please tell me quickly before I pass out from stress.”

................ this sounds more like the Chamber of Secrets to me, but okay.

Wait, no, seriously, were they connected? Since when was Junko’s hidden room connected to the bathroom? I swear they weren’t??? Wasn’t there a special control room and everything? Am I misremembering?

?????? Seriously, though? W-What in the world are you talking about???

Honestly if this appeared behind the sink I would have freaked out. .... Well, more than I’m freaking out, for multiple reasons. There’s the general ‘oh shit a secret passage’ and then there’s the more specific my brain associates two characters with this room because of a certain scene for shipping purposes and one of them is still alive, currently with us, and incredibly suspicious -

Oh goodness, how fitting that they left finding the hidden passage for the Ultimate Magician. 8′)

Where’s the exit then? Like, the hidden one that leads to the bathroom? Was it also concealed in case this room was discovered?

.................wait,

wait

WAIT

I NEED TO LOOK UP SOMEtHING -

BECAUSE I SWEAR

TSUMUGI SAID SHE WENT TO THE BATHROOM IN CHAPTER 1 WHEN WE WERE COLLECTING ALIBIS - or someone said she did? There was the whole group that went downstairs, Kaede and Shuichi in the classroom, and the ones left upstairs were Kokichi, Miu, Korekiyo, Tsumugi, and... Ryoma? K1-b0? Did Ryoma get invited down? He seems like he would’ve been an asset but okay now’s not the time to criticize Kaito’s ‘best fighters’ choices -

oh god where’s the screenshot I really didn’t document anything in the first chapter at all lmao -

I just - I just remember it being so weird at the time? Like a random tangent that went nowhere? She just said she went to the washroom, they followed up for like, five minutes, and then that was it - or... or something, right? Because she never went past Kaede and Shuichi? And then there were apologies passed around for accusing her, and I thought it was cute at the time, and I thought she was kinda cute, and Ryoma too, and oh god I miss them but I’m getting distracted -

OOOH MY GOD I ALWAYS THOUGhT THIS WAS WEIRD POInT BUt ULTIMATELY DISMISSED IT AS UNIMPORTANT WHEN THE GAME SEEMED TO MOVE COMPLETELY PAST IT

Enter through the bathroom.... run out and grab the handbook.... sneak back up while no one’s the wiser? What if Kaede’s plan had failed???? Then again, Tsumugi said she had the aura of a protagonist.... did she have that much faith in her to succeed? this is some twisted Kaemugi at work lmao

And omfg it wasn’t included on Rantaro’s map for the sole purpose of setting him up for some kind of ambush - 

A mastermind who, honestly, was heavily hinted to be female with the initial ‘mother’ comments in Chapter 4 but has definitely been confirmed.

Also this game is really driving over how badly the mastermind screwed Rantaro over. what was it she said, backflip onto a landmine and die or something -

SWEETCHEEKS DID YOU REALIZE TOO???

Then again you didn’t have the benefit of being with me for the Chapter 1 fanservice scene... 8′D

GOOD.

T... thanks for confirming I suppose.

....  ew. Why can’t being busted stop you from talking, too.

Wait... really??? Why? Shouldn’t you and the mastermind have the same shared interests at heart?? Even if you’re at your end, shouldn’t you want to protect the identity of the mastermind - or at least keep on with this whole Kaede frame-job?

... But yeah, okay, I get it now - they’re trying to drive that phrase into my brain, and I think I understand why. I just, uh, wish there was another way about it, or that the wording could be a bit different, that’s all. 8′D

BUT WHY

OH NOW YOU’LL SHUT UP

oh ew it vomited like, motor oil or something. Eeeew.

>:|

Man K1-b0, even though I’m pretty sure it was Monotaro that caused the explosion, you really... really aren’t being careful with your classmates’ lives anymore, huh?

J-J... Just let her have this one, Shuichi. It’s okay to add a layer of fantasy as long as we can get the answer. 8′D

I’m so glad we have a little chance for sassy Sweetcheeks to rear his head. 

I still want to get a visual on what the pathway looks like from the mastermind’s end but I guess just knowing it exists is enough. 8′D Ah well.

And then Shuichi says nothing LMAO SHUICHI SHE IS BEGGING YOU FOR SOME EXTERNAL VALIDATION

He.... he’s getting better, but man he’s still pretty obtuse when it comes to emotions. I’m glad that while he’s showing some improvements, he didn’t just transform all at once.

Anyway, after Shuichi and I try to leave and Himiko literally doesn’t move Shuichi realizes that there’s some emotional work he needs to do on the side of his detective work. Himiko still has to spell it out for him though. B-Baby steps, kid.

LITERALLY. HAS TO GUIDE HIM THROUGH HER VULNERABILITY. LIKE, HANDHOLDING HIM THE ENTIRE WAY.

.... Though this made me smile. Aaaaw, that’s pretty sweet. Just a thought, but I wonder if this is another case of him thinking everyone else is on the same page as him and projecting, the same way he does with his anxieties? ‘This is the clue that will change everything. And now that I know that, surely Himiko does too.’ It’s another example of him diminishing his own skill as a detective - “if I could do this, anyone can” - so naturally, he had already assumed Himiko understood this. Why would she be worried if she already knew the huge contribution she had just made, after all?

anyway small tangent ignore me

You’re the Ultimate Mage. :D

Sometimes I’m a little worried about indulging in her magic/escapism fantasies but then she smiles like this and I can’t help but think it’s worth it ~ she has been through so much, you know? She needs something familiar lol to lean on and as long as it’s not impending the investigation like it did in Chapter 2.... 8′D

Adrenaline is disappearing, huh? Well, keep that energy up - now we have to be nearly done, right? .... Right? What else could there possibly be?

“Shuichi come quick there’s something weird in Hotel Kumasutra -”

“NO. NO, I REFUSE!!!!”

“OH GOD COOTIES, THERE ARE DEFINITELY COOTIES EVERYWHERE -”

lmao Shuichi never change

[sugar-petals]

Omg I love your writing style so much ❤️ It always hits in the right places 😏 As I see you have requests open may I ask for historical AU with Taehyung being a nobleman son and his and reader's wedding night when they never (or barely) saw each other before a wedding? You know they don't know each other but they have to do it 😩 If you don't feel like writing this anything else with Tae will be fine with me 😉

My Word To Treat You Well [M]

length | 3.5kgenre | angst, soft smut, enemies to lovers, fluffy endnote | The other members are side & main characters!warnings | bullying, homophobia, child abuse, evil kings… doing evil things 

Appalling. Twenty or more people would offer you a hundred bucks to know whether Prince Taehyung was good in bed or not. 

Probably to sell the juicy secret to The Daegu Herald or Gyeongsang Sentinel for twice the money. You’d get extra pay for revealing what he was into. Meanwhile, you yourself wondered about that. The cash went past your gloved hands under mid-July’s oppressive evening heat, waiting for the crowds to disperse with your relatives departing, too. The tedious diplomatic talks, over-the-top banquets, shrill music, and painful dances were over. Familiar stars shed soft lights on the rattling carriages that headed north from the Kim Palace. That was the only thing good about this day. It was hard knowing Ilsan was so far away. You mother, widowed Queen Choi, had left you with a plea to all the strength you possibly have. And she must know how it is. 

You were looking forward to throwing your heeled shoes into the palace pond, not fucking the Crown Prince. He had been acting arrogant with his friends all day, tripping waiters. In fact, you thought he was Daegu’s number one blockhead. Next to his unruly partner in crime: Yoongi from the local Min family. He loved to harass and mock the elderly guests while Taehyung laughed along. The Min clan wears their blue emblem with such a toxic haughtiness, even Prince “Phony” Jimin of Busan wouldn’t compare. Thankfully, the latter had remained absent today and didn’t make things worse. Because that Min guy was already prickly, a textbook bad influence to Taehyung. The kiss in front of the altar had been enjoyable, that was true. He didn’t smell, he didn’t use tongue or teeth, he kept it short and smiled courteously. The Prince was attractive and well-dressed, sure. That was good enough down the aisle. He wouldn’t start too many dances either. But Kim had soaked up the aristocratic mannerism so much, at the ball it felt like he wanted to own this place. Which he didn’t. Namjoon was still the one in charge in both this province and the palace. It seemed like the Kim patriarch’s iron rule had raised a glaring thorn in his crown. And you had to deal with him now: In bed. It’s a cruel world.

Prince Taehyung comes waddling along the marble corridor with relative unease. He seems aimless, maybe drunk. Prince Prick is not with him. They had been glued together the entire day, more than you were supposed to spend time with Taehyung instead. On the one hand, protocol breach would cause atrocious chatter. On the other hand, having Taehyung off the hem of your hanbok frankly was congenial. Maybe Yoongi was quite a convenient figure on this chess board. You’d keep that in mind. Waiting for Taehyung to arrive was awkward enough. But as he just stood there blank-faced like a statue for a solid minute, you took the liberty to just drag him to your chamber by the lapel. What a huge moron. He lands on the canopy bed quite frightened, but it leaves you cold. “Let’s just get it over with,” you tower at the lower end of the bed, “you whip your cock out, shove it in three times, dump your jizz so Daegu gets an heir, and we’ll go to bed. Me, I’ll just pretend I’m dead.” 

Taehyung looks even more flabbergasted. You don’t know if it was the language or the directness. Probably both. You let yourself fall right next to him, kicking off the nasty restrictive shoes. The chambermaids had at least managed to remove your bride headpiece and the ridiculous, scratchy ceremonial wig. It was one of the major reasons why you hated marrying in summer. They also fidgeted at your head to wipe off the goo that was supposed to be face paint before you snapped and sent them away. They should enjoy the evening and not bother with your oh-so costly attire that was only designed to trouble you anyways. It didn’t even look as beautiful and regal as what Taehyung had worn. He was all the rage while people slandered you the second you were out of sight as your mother had remarked. It was just important that he was married. It preserved the patrilineage and elevated his status, not you as the wife and new member of the family. The future Queen of Daegu, in fact. But they didn’t seem to respect that.

That way, they had “decorated” you. Criticizing all sorts of things about your appearance. Nobody in Ilsan had bothered, thought something was not right or good-looking. Nor did you. Queen Choi had insisted beauty was not a female ruler’s most important asset. It was power, plain and simple. That is what rulership is about. She warned you that the house of Kim had more double standards. You yourself didn’t think making a Princess less confident and secure in herself was particularly benevolent. Nose too long, hands too broad, voice too loud, height too tall, hair too coarse, eyes to narrow, skin too tan, hips not wide enough for having kids? All they wanted was a weak, pregnant fairy glued to Taehyung’s side by day. And a mute fuckdoll to keep his dick wet by night. You weren’t wrong saying you would play dead. That is how passive they wanted you to be here. And as anxious and self-conscious as possible, that no deeper thought about this rotten palace would ever cross your mind. “My ears are too ugly for me to have authority!” thought no king ever. 

You undress ripping away the satin, pearls, embroidered sticks, emeralds, ribbons. All the layers of hanbok have to go. They land on the floor while Taehyung remains dumbfounded. Once the work is done, you’re in the underwear that’s been itching and sweaty all day. You lift the blanket, then roll your eyes at the Prince. “I’m kidding. Move, I want to sleep. Everything hurts.” You’re about to blow out the candle on your nightstand that Taehyung finds his words. “Hey, I’m sorry,” he murmurs, “I had hoped you had fun with us today.” He looks depressed now. “It’s arranged, this is not cloud nine,” you reply, “Good night, I don’t need your fake concerns.” Taehyung jumps up from the bed. “At least put on something comfortable, Princess,” he points to the showy wardrobe left to the entrance. “You just wanna see me naked to jack off while I sleep,” you growl, pulling the blanket tight over your chest. Taehyung rummages in the wardrobe, then tosses over a plain, long nightshirt. “I’ll go to the other chamber until you open.”

And indeed, he slips into the adjacent dressing room and closes the door shut. He turns the key, flicks it into your boudoir underneath the door. You quickly change into the green gown in a dark corner. It’s light and cooling. You tiptoe across the room and yank open the door after you unlocked, suspecting to catch Taehyung while he eavesdrops or looks through the keyhole. But no, he’s sitting at the window in a chair watching the night sky, startled at the vehement entrance. “Y/N, what’s wrong?” he whines, pale and daunted in the moonlight. “Nothing,” you snarl and return to bed. He just follows reluctantly. Where did insolent Prince Taehyung go? It has to be another joke or farce. He had entertained everyone with offensive shenanigans all day. 

You curl yourself together at the farthest possible point from him as he comes to lay down. Soon, some of his warmth sneaks across underneath the blanket. Disgusting. The topmost dipshit of Daegu is in the same bed as you. That alone makes you want to puke. On Namjoon’s throne, at best. He raised the scum. For a while, everything remains silent. But the heat, moonlight, and his breath won’t let you sleep, let alone his mere presence. Who knows what he does to you when you don’t pay attention any longer. You would be glad to pass the night without getting groped at least once. After what felt like hours, you just wind back and forth. At some point, you accidentally ram him hard in the flank with your elbow. The following whimper sounds so horrifying that you jolt up in a cold sweat. “Please, please don’t hurt me,” he trembles, holding his ribs in pain. Serves him right. “I didn’t want this either. He beats me already. Please don’t hurt me, please!” He’s almost bawling. You’re quite impressed by these acting skills. “Calm it Kim, I was just trying to turn around. Can’t sleep, thank you very much.” - “Me either… I’m very sorry!” Now you bellow at him. “Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry all the time. Are you no longer mean or what?” Taehyung looks like he might as well wet himself any second. The guards might have heard, but you’d be happy to get thrown into a cold jail cell. “Y/N, if I’m not acting like that I’ll get hit,” he answers, pulling down the impossibly high neckline of his gown. 

Oh.

Fuck. 

Green and blue marks — everywhere. One above the solar plexus looks new. Taehyung notices you staring at it. “He did it so I would promise to be tough with you tonight,” he says, covering his chest once the shame becomes too unbearable. “It’s really all an act?” - “It’s how everyone here does it, it’s normal. But we shouldn’t speak about it…” - “And Yoongi? Jimin?” - “They’re not like that when we’re alone,” he affirms, “it’s all to play along. Jimin got shoved down the stairs by his dad last week. He broke his leg just because he refused to marry an unknown woman. Yoongi’s dad threatened to do the same. All three of us have to marry this year, it’s protocol. Jimin got denied medical attention by King Park. That’s why he’s not here.” 

Now you get why Taehyung showed up dizzy and shut down after you grabbed at his suit. The dressing room reaction was similar. He’s not drunk, or anything like that. The King just gave him a heavy disciplining minutes before he appeared in the corridor. And Jimin — there’s no way the life of the party would stay at home without something this severe going on. It’s Prince Taehyung’s wedding, after all, the event of the year. They really pushed him down the stairs. You can’t believe it. He could be dead by now. The southern royals are as fucked up as you suspected, just in a way that’s… ten times worse than you’ve seen at the ball. 

There’s a legitimate reason as to why you thought they were all completely unlike themselves. It really is a tragedy behind the scenes. You enclose Taehyung in a caring hug while he’s crying his eyes out, your nightgown soaking it all up. “I have to apologize, too,” you soothe while he hangs feebly in your embrace. The tears slowly disappear after you’re petting his hair, mumbling excuses. His body feels slack and empty. You suggest going outside to visit the small palace garden. Walking through the solemn corridors barefoot, hands intertwined, it feels much closer to how you wished your day should have been like. The guards at the main gate appear quite surprised to see you walk around at such a late time. But both stand tall with a nod and the obligatory congratulations as you state the destination. Taehyung hides his swollen eyes behind his bangs as you inform them. They let you pass without resistance. 

You seat your husband on the edge of the central fountain. The surrounding roses, hydrangea, and dahlia flower beds emit a tranquilizing haze, along with the bubbling water and warm summer breeze. Your throbbing headache says goodbye. Walking on the tingly grass is a welcome relief, too. There are no clouds above you, the sky is lucid. The Prince looks up sighing deeply. “Taehyung, you like the stars, too?” He nods. You point out your favorite constellations to each other. Boötes, Virgo, Scorpius. Cassiopeia, too, she’s among the easiest to spot. Taeyhung looks handsome and frail in the tender moonshine. He’s really a beautiful man, rivaling the stars. Or complementing them. You pluck a cream white rose for him to hold, and he is careful with the thorns. “That’s for scaring you.” You pick another, coral red. “For the elbow accident.” A third one is bright orange and yellow. “To heal your chest.” You lean close to his face for the fourth flower – your mouth brushing over the bridge of his nose, then uniting your lips. “And this, Prince Kim, is my word to treat you well.”

Back in bed, you’ve cast away the heavy blanket and gowns. The clear moonlight has come to serve as an advantage now. Taehyung’s head is buried between your legs, tongue curling up and down gently. His large hands cup at your hips with fondness. You’re mindful not to put pressure on his upper body while you’re above him, facing his feet. His chest looks times worse than what you’ve seen when he first showed it. There are thin scars on his legs, too. You hope that every kiss mends them just a little bit, even if it’s just inside his heart. Taehyung tastes balmy and mellow when you circle your tongue around his length. It’s fun to plant your lips on his tip to sink down swaying right and left with your head, feeling his serpentine veins brush past the corners of your mouth. That’s a dick you’ll keep wet three times a day when the mood is right. He’s magnificent, better than all the savory cakes from the buffet. You regret having rejected a bath in your imperious fury earlier, now feeling ready to earn the title: Most obnoxious and smelling Crown Princess that the kingdom has ever seen. But Taehyung doesn’t care one bit, indulging you with graceful little flicks and dips at your clit. It’s so amazing. Maybe you’re not as malodorous and unbearable as you think. Because you’re comparing yourself to the sky-high golden standards of Taehyung. Which is probably what Namjoon’s mind control aims for. Then you will indeed think you’re just a meaningless fairy puppet by sheer comparison. That, you realize, is something to cast away. Taehyung is Taehyung, a wonderful delicate person and spouse. You are you. Queen Choi’s most unyielding daughter, to-be sovereign among her ranks of power, and impending defender of the Prince to install justice. Namjoon will pay for every mark he left. 

After sunrise, you already have to confront a perverse mob of “two hundred bucks? three hundred bucks?” fanatics led by chief servant Hoseok. You command them to rather spend the money on sending Prince Park a proper doctor. They swallow the bait, pester for details. You know better not to get hanged for treason on your first day as Princess of Daegu. Instead, you send them off with a trusted contact’s name at Park Palace, knowing they will not stop until they discover the truth. If they can expose the secret on their own, they’ll think they’ve invented it. And then comes the craving for big money, and more investigation. Especially the Daegu Herald is predictable in that regard. You hope the story blows up. Someone has to take care of Jimin. Maybe you should send a letter.

The throne room is the next obstacle. You’re glad there was no breakfast yet so you are maximum ill-tempered. A heavily bearded King thrones golden at the very end, and almost loses his crown when you enter without bowing, still in your plain dress. But he catches himself – back to the fake smile, fake words, fake posture. “Ah, this is what I call a regal sense of duty. A good early morning!” he says jovially. His own father must have slapped him into this demeanor. They’re all despicable. This is the generation where it ends. “The whole palace talks about your tryst. Everyone is impressed by the Rose Prince! Truly a man. Making such romantic gestures.” You’re angry that someone watched and couldn’t keep it to themselves. But then again, the palace harbored many guests tonight that had been equally restless and curious. The garden is public anyways, and visible through many windows. But it seems like everybody had twisted the story around and pretends you’re not even part of it. “I’m not here to talk about that. I have a request, actually.” - “Oh sure Princess, go ahead?” Namjoon falls somber now. “I’m not happy with this situation,” you furrow your brow. “Just like I expected it to be,” he huffs into his beard, “Well, we can always nullify the marriage after a certain time. But that needs a special legal procedure and at least two produced infant heirs. I advise you to wait anyways. Taehyung will become a good man for you even if you don’t like him now.” This place is truly hell. Produce an infant heir. King Namjoon has lost his mind. You fortify your stance before the throne. “I wouldn’t divorce because of Taehyung. I would divorce because of you. I’ll take him back with me to Ilsan.”

“Because of me? You wouldn’t dare. I have organized the best wedding of the last fifty years. Kim Seokjin is not ready to become the Crown Prince yet! Taehyung is the heir. You have to be his Princess. The alliance with house Choi is important for trade, too.” - “All the reasons to leave. Without heirs. Just with Taehyung. From your words, I can tell he’s not as important to you as the lineage and your reputation. Nor am I.” The King looks like he is about to combust. He can’t hurt you. Taehyung needs kids and Daegu resources. “Choi, what do you want?” he bursts out, hammering his staff on the ground. “Stop beating Taehyung. And don’t treat me as secondary. That’s all I ask for.” - “But this is protocol!” - “Then why do you keep it hidden when it’s all fine and necessary?” There it is. The King is gritting his teeth hard. Who would have known the doll bride would have this much leverage. “I’ve sent a giant horde to Park Palace. If you don’t put King Park and King Min in their place and abolish the protocol, they will. If my mother comes to know about it, Ilsan and the Northern Kingdom ban trading gold, silver, spice, and silk. Say goodbye to your dynasty and alliances.” - “You’re lying…” - “Then wait and see. It’s the truth. The crowd just left. Jung Hoseok called in sick today, didn’t he? Guess why.” - “Stop, stop the crowd! We’ll revise the protocol all you want, just stop the crowd!” 

For five hundred bucks, Hoseok gets an in-depth story about the ‘Rose Princess’ garden tryst. With a lot of embellishments and inexplicable plot holes, but still immensely detailed. Two days after, even the notoriously stuck-up Gyeongsang Sentinel readers send you presents after Hoseok sold them the story for a fortune. The five hundred bucks you spend for the messenger on horseback who had raced to the neighbor province, calling back the wild mob headed to Busan. Instead of you having to write a letter, Crown Prince Jimin sends you one instead. His leg has received treatment by the kingdom’s most expensive doctor. His father begrudgingly appointed him. Jimin is delighted to marry his lover in October – the beloved childhood friend and son of Busan’s Grand Duchess, Jungkook. An adoption is already on its way. The public is nowhere near as enraged as Jimin’s father had dreaded. Jungkook is very popular for good looks and charm and already well-known as Jimin’s second half. Queen Park appears to be very excited, too, especially since lifting the protocol has impacted her beneficially. 

You’ll have to live with the fact that King Namjoon cares about grandchildren more than Taehyung’s less “tough” side or, well, you. That you hope will change with time. But he busies himself with Seokjin instead of you where his prospects fall on fertile ground, and Queen Kim keeps an eye on it. At least he is happy that Jimin’s marriage does take place and has decided for the family to travel to Busan in late September. Taehyung has developed a habit of walking in the park with you often in the meantime. Also, you meet with the citizens on the farmer’s market by horse. Huge masses of people gather to see and talk to you. Namjoon had security concerns and sent fifteen high-strung guards along. But Taehyung allowed them to stroll on the market (you called it “patrol”, tongue in cheek), keeping only the four that seemed not exhausted from being constantly yelled at by the King. It was about time anybody left the dusty walls of the palace. Many had only seen you in the drawings of herald papers and heard mostly peculiar stories save the garden one. After a pleasant afternoon you buy Taehyung fresh apples and tangerines, pick up the guards and ride towards the forest. There, you spend time with Yoongi who has earned your nickname of “Prince Perfect” after some initial misunderstandings. Together you practice arching or swim in the river, and discuss wedding presents that Jimin might like. You’re very happy with Taehyung who’s always watching you with a beaming smile, and glad that he’s able to wear normal necklines again. 

My, this was a great prompt as usual. Thank you historical Tae anon (I’ll just call you this way) for the request. Asks: Always welcome my sweet cubs 🐯 I love you. - Caro

[fanficwriter013]

Unrequited - Part Three

Unrequited: A Bucky X Steve X Sam fanfic

Chapter 3

Chapters: One / two / three / four

Series Masterlist

Word Count: 2756

Warnings: Angst, PTSD, depression

Synopsis: A tale of three men who all love differently but deeply, and cannot see what is the obvious answer.

Author’s Note:  Written with my Papa Kate, she loves me I swear. @emilyevanston .  We really hope you like it.  Not totally AOU compliant, not CW compliant, not IW compliant.

All Bucky could remember as he fell was that haunted look in Steve's eyes as he no doubt blamed himself for not being able to catch Bucky. He just wanted Steve to be happy, and he hoped that Peggy would be able to take care of his little punk. Give him the happy little family that he had always wanted. Then there was darkness.

After that, he was aware that he was not dead.   He was aware of the pain. And most importantly, he was aware of the slow passage of time. He didn’t exactly know how much time had passed, but he knew that it was still ticking.

The next thing he vividly remembered was the anger. He had his target, a Perfectly portional blond man wearing something vaguely resemblant of the American flag. There was a sudden weird inkling, almost like the programming that made him protect his handlers. But this didn’t feel the same. This was strong enough to bring back his ability to question.

He knew he shouldn't but the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

“The man on the bridge. Who was he?”

The words had flown out of his mouth, and something inside him flinched, knowing that the only answer he was going to get was bullshit and violence. Which was exactly what happened. He was told a lie, and when he questioned it, the pain blossomed across his cheek and was gone in an instant. The last thing he saw before they wiped him are pale blue eyes that reminded him of the ghost of his past.

It became dark again, and the asset was given the target; Captain America. There was a dull ringing like a sensation of Deja Vu, but he couldn’t place it.  All he knew was the mission.  Memorize the file.  Don’t fail.

It was there that he saw hauntingly familiar ice blue eyes, and this stupid little punk was saying things that sounded familiar, causing this nagging sensation like he'd left the oven on. But it wasn’t until this target, Captain America, is bloodied and unconscious that Bucky started to stir. He'd fallen from the helicarrier, and he knew this idiotic spangly man was someone he had to save. So, he jumped from the broken helicarrier into the water after the lifeless body that not even five minutes ago was his target.

He pulled him from the water, heard that he was breathing just fine and took off. He wasn’t sure where he was going but it wasn’t going to be here.

Time still passed by, but now he is in control. He was awake and aware now. It was a new millennium, and he was struggling to be on the run and adapt to this sudden shell shock. He knew that the asset had been awake off and on through the years, and that helped. It was better to keep to himself and not draw attention though. Which is exactly what he does, rebuilding himself and trying to get all of his brain back.

It seemed to be going well.  Or maybe it was technically classified as okay. Every little noise made him jump.  He always stiffened when he heard sirens.  Worst of all was the nightmares.  He coped though.  Moving through the world, making his best.  That is until his world, or whatever fractured semblance of a world he was living, fell apart. He was in the paper, blamed for bombing an embassy building he was nowhere near.  It had resulted in the death of a foreign power's King.

He knew he had to run, but he had to get his bag from his apartment first. He was a floor below his when he knew he was screwed.

His hearing is good and he picked up the sounds of the cars pulling in from a few blocks back.  It covered up the quiet breathing coming from his own apartment.  Somehow it was still no surprise that the perfectly proportional blond man that was once his target was now standing there waiting for him. His body seized up and his heart pounded against his ribs.

There was no time for the small talk that Steve wanted to engage in. Steve Rogers was no longer his friend.  He was Bucky Barnes’ friend.   Not the remaining shell of the man he was now. A deadly assassin that didn’t deserve sympathy. The good thing was that Steve finally clued on to the problem.

“It doesn't have to end in a fight.” For whatever reason he found that statement coming from Steve to be really ironic.  He choked back a barking laugh.

“It always has to end in a fight.” As soon as the words left his mouth, the apartment exploded. There was no time. He had to run. He did the only thing he could think of was to toss this flagman at the swat team swarming up the stairs and pouring into his apartment. It temporarily gave him a window of opportunity, and he was gone.

His temporary flight was brief.  He was caught. Some weirdo in a catsuit with claws that could handle his metal arm was just waiting for him. That was it. The end. He had been arrested.

They took him to what he was sure is a black site for one of the American government agencies that shouldn't exist on foreign soil, to argue about what to do with him. He heard several different opinions, kill him, send him to some high-security prison. And then there was Steve arguing for a rehabilitation. Like there was anything left to be redeemed.

He wasn’t sure how the punk did it. But he talked them into putting him under house arrest at their compound. If he cooperated then he could get help under a controlled setting.  If he cooperated.

He was told that the plane ride back to wherever he was going to be locked up was over 16 hours. And that was plenty of time to tell them everything. So he did, starting with the trigger words and ending with the other soldiers. He told those of them on the plane about what HYDRA made him do to the Stark family, but Iron Man flies solo. From the looks of this group, he's not going to want to tell that story again.

His jail cell looked too comfy for a house arrest deal. His room was bigger than his old apartment, and the bed was about four times as thick as the old flea-bitten mattress he had on the floor. Steve made sure he got settled, but it was in that soft, walking on eggshells way.  Like he wasn’t sure if he was going to break into a million pieces at any moment. That was how they all treat him. Like he was just going to fall apart. Like he hadn’t been on his own for two years.

They made him go to therapy, and it took two weeks before they even found one willing to see the notorious Winter Soldier. Two weeks where he self-isolated and went to the gym at odd hours to lower the risk of running into anyone else. Two weeks that he got away with it.

Then, one day, he was sitting in the chair in his room reading some sort of fantasy book he was told he had to to be current. When the door flies open.

“Alright, tall dark and broody. Enough is enough.”  Sam Wilson storms into the room with him.  Sam Wilson who was there when he was picked up.  Sam who had been making these snarky comments since the day he had arrived.  Which he thought for sure he meant he hated him.  Understandably.  Yet for some reason, Bucky had loved every one.  They had made him feel normal for just a split second.

Sam grabbed Bucky's flesh hand and pulled.  Bucky was taken so off guard that he got up without question. “Movie time, let's go,” Sam ordered.  Bucky started to protest, but Sam waved a hand in his direction.

“You're obligated to be there for thirty minutes. And then if the movie sucks you can leave. That's it, no arguments.” Sam told him, and Bucky was mildly impressed. But he knew that this wouldn't last forever. Soon he'd get the looks and the pity, and the kid gloves just the same as everyone else treated him.

Sam led Bucky to a room with a large circular couch in front of a cinema screen. Bucky had taken an end seat, with Sam sitting himself down right next to Bucky. The rest of the crew were all already in the room, arranged about with popcorn and candy. Including a couple that he'd never seen before.

He could feel the looks and stares even though they're meant to be hidden. He was being evaluated. Judged for being here, for letting them use him as a weapon. For all the deaths he caused. He was brought abruptly back to the room by Sam shifting next to him, leaning into his personal space.

“That’s the Maximoff twins. Wanda and Pietro picked them up in Sokovia after defeating Ultron.” Sam said, at a volume that would only be audible to him and Steve. He's not sure why he was getting an education on this, but he appreciated the names at least.

He tried to tune out the chatter, the weight of stolen glances and bitten tongues. When he was brought back to the room once again by the weight of a bowl being pressed into his arm. He turned to look at Sam.

“Hey man, can't enjoy the movie if you don't have snacks,” Sam said, pushing the bowl into his arm again. Bucky wanted to toss the bowl across the room, but instead, he took a handful of popcorn and tried to relax.

They'd picked some movie with three female leads, and one character that Natasha remarked looks an awful lot like Thor, whoever that was. Bucky hated it, but he couldn’t leave. It was like watching an accident happen, you wanted to look away but you couldn't.

The ending was worse than Bucky predicted it to be but he was still there. As the credits rolled they were talking about getting food, ordering in or going out. And every once in a while, Steve would look at him with this pained look in his eyes. Like he just remembered he couldn't leave the compound. Bucky had already put in enough outside time for the day.

“It's fine. I'm going back to my room.” He said, standing and sweeping from the room before anyone can try and stop him.

He was just about to open his door when the hand shoots out holding the door in place. He had expected it to be Steve. But once again, there is Sam Wilson at his door.

“You stayed for the whole movie, now it's time for food. Come on.” He said, and Bucky couldn't stop himself.

“Why do you care?” It was almost a growl that fell from his mouth. It was at that moment he expected to receive the look of pity. What he finds instead is startling, but refreshing.

“Pardon the pun, but Buck up. It was shit, and I get it. I've seen shit too. What you do now is what matters. And this nasty, self-isolation game is not going to help.” Sam said, and it was probably the most real talk he'd had since he fell. He nodded slowly, and Sam took him to the kitchen to get food.

Since that night, Bucky found himself trying to find comfort in people. He was trying to see why he should socialize, but he still felt as if the only way he should be looked at was with disgust. Or in that way where he could just feel the heavy gaze of bitter sourness.

With Sam, he started to find something. Someone that didn't take his shit. That teased him about his hair, which he should probably ask about getting cut. He didn't realize that he was falling for Sam until after he's fell. It was a sudden realization, and once he realizes it, he almost feels sick to his stomach.

He went to find Steve. Because surely if he’d find Steve, he'd remember that either he was straight, or he had feelings for Steve.  Steve who had always been there.  Sitting in his heart.  Who had brought him back from the soldier by just existing. How could he feel that way for Steve and then develop this same feeling for a man just out of nowhere?

He heard Steve talking to someone in the kitchen and stopped in his tracks. He was frozen, and all he could do was listen.

“Sharon, please. We can make this work.” Steve sounded upset, and he was begging. Bucky could hear a soft shift of the woman's body weight and a heavy sigh. Then all he could hear was their kissing, and now he was free. He quickly fled, not sure where he was going until he wound up at Sam's door. Barging in, unannounced.

“Whoa there, Bucko. You look like a spooked horse.” Sam said that shit eating grin on his stupid, concerned face.

“I went to talk to Steve. Because feelings and Steve was in the kitchen with a woman. And then, and now I'm here. And.” Bucky rambled, his blood boiling and he couldn’t stop as he used his flesh hand to grab Sam by the collar and pull him into a tentative kiss.

As soon as his lips touched Sam's, he realized his deadly mistake and he pulled away.

“I'm sorry, that was stupid. I shouldn't have come.” He said, turning and leaving Sam's room. The other man's pleas falling on deaf ears.

Bucky went back to self-isolation. It was slightly harder now. Considering he had to avoid not only Steve but Sam as well. He took to a completely unpredictable schedule so no one could hunt him down. It worked for three weeks.

He walked into the gym at 2 am. He found he could be in and out before Steve got up at 4, and if anyone else was still up they wouldn't dare step a foot onto the gym floor. Immediately, he was alerted to a presence but that didn't stop him from being slightly startled when Natasha turned the lights on.

“What are you doing, Barnes?” She asked, crossing her arms over her chest and frowning at him.

“I don't -” Bucky started, but Nat waved her hand and glared at him.

“Don't even give me that I don't know bullshit. You know exactly what I'm talking about.” Nat snapped at him, also jabbing him in the chest when she said you.

“I did something stupid, Tasha.” He said, and she nodded.

“That much I have gathered, James,” Nat said, dryly. “How about you skip the explaining part, and assume that I know that you have feelings for both the boys. The obvious choices.” She finished and Bucky could only nod.

“I fell for him, and it felt like I was betraying Steve even though... And I went to talk to him, but there was... He was, he is with Sharon now - happy. So, I went away. And I wound up at Sam's and after I babbled, I,” Bucky paused to take a centering breath.

“You kissed him and then ran away,” Nat said. “Because you only ran. Never got the full story. You know absolutely nothing about those boys, James.”

“Okay, well even if that's true. Why should I even deserve them? I'm tainted.” Bucky said and immediately regretted it by the dark glow in Nat's eyes.

“I'm not going to hit you, but know that that was the stupidest thing you have ever said,” Nat said.

“You don't think those boys have been through the same self-harm as you put yourself through? Let's start with Steve, same era. Same sin bullshit. Now, Sam. Sam should have been alright. But he got the same sin bullshit the two of you did. And now, you may or may not remember a time, long ago, when we lived together. But you are soft, and you do, very much, deserve love. So get your head out of your ass, or I will be forced to take matters into my own hands.” Nat said and stalked off without giving him a chance to even say okay.

[bravonovel]

The Legal Wife novel read online - Ashin Johnstone and Kristoff Washington - Bravonovel

The Legal Wife https://www.bravonovel.com/the-legal-wife-7331

The Legal Wife novel is a romance story about

Ashin Johnstone and Kristoff Washington.

Blurb : Ashin Johnstone has never loved someone as much as she loved her husband, Kristoff Washington. She had spent most of her life crushing hard on him and was really elated that she finally married him in a pragmatic marriage. But she knew that he doesn't love her, not the way she wanted him to. She knew that he will never love her like a woman. He will never want her like the way she desires him. As painful as it is, she has learned to understand him and his feelings for her. She was trying to be contented with her life with him. She was trying to be contented with her relationship with him. After all, she is the legal wife. Everyone who would want him would go through her first because she's recognized one. She's the lawful wife.

You can read this novel online on Bravonovel and keep track of the latest chapters

The Legal Wife novel Chapter 1

ASHANTI

I woke with the alarm clock blasting on my bedside table. I immediately sat up and rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand. I looked at the watch and it’s already six in the morning—an hour earlier than the usual time I wake up.

I walked down to the kitchen to cook breakfast. I am not really the best person to cook but I’m trying to practice. At least for my husband and I…

I prepared what I needed for the fried rice and the sides. I know what to do. I’ve watched several cooking shoes lately and I believe I am going to really get better at this. I just need practice, like what Lora, our helper, and my mom tell me all the time.

“Practice never betrays you,” is what my mother has been telling me. Even when I was just starting to design clothes, it has been my motto. No one was born a genius or skillful, anyway.

I was on the final egg—the last egg standing because I’ve burned them all—when I heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

I looked behind me and saw Kristoff, walking down with his black three-piece Armani suit. His hair is sort of styled in a messy way but he still looks more handsome than ever. His tall stature had been so helpful with his charisma but I would say that he’s cold aura is his signature asset.

He looked at me and smiled a little. His eyes have always been so intense, like he’s always thinking about melting whoever or whatever his gaze lands on.

“Done cooking?” he asked as he looked at the pan.

I bit my lip and shut my eyes. He shouldn’t see this, alright. He shouldn’t see that the egg looked like it was cooked in the lava of a volcano because of its black color.

I heard him snort. I pouted but I didn’t show him. I don’t want him to know that I am disappointed at how he looked at my cooking.

“Remind me to not let you step into the kitchen next time, Ashanti,” he said in almost a chuckle. “You are best when you design clothes. Just stay like that.”

This time, I looked at him with a serious gaze.

He smiled and shrugged before taking the fried rice and the eggs towards the dining table. He prepared the table while I watched him. He looked like he was having fun while fixing the table. Well, it should be fun fixing my failed cooking, I guess.

I walked towards the dining area and crossed my arms across my chest. “You don’t have to eat that. I don’t even know if they’re edible.” I bit my lip.

I’ve already accepted that I am not a good cook. But to hear him say that I needed to stay out of the kitchen seemed to have hurt my pride a little. How hard is it to be considerate of others’ feelings sometimes?

Kristoff looked at me. “I will eat them, Ashanti. Why would you tell me that they’re not edible? You cooked these,” he said before sitting. “You should come here and eat with me. We will be late for work.”

I took a deep breath and stared at him for a moment before sitting across him.

We seem to be a normal married couple. But no, we aren’t. He isn’t in love with. I don’t think he’d fall in love with me. He probably sees me as a fan girl—someone who admires him so much.

Because I do.

I don’t know if it was college when I’ve fallen in love with him. He seemed to be the perfect guy. No, he is the perfect guy. He is handsome, intelligent, soft spoken and rich. God has given him everything a man could wish for. And I wanted him. I wanted him so bad.

I am not really sure if it’s because of my persistence that he asked me to be his fake girlfriend. Yes, I was contented with that. I was his fake girlfriend in college and no one knew about that except the two of us. From what I remember, he asked me to pretend because he doesn’t like how the girls flock at him every time. Having a girlfriend is the only way that those girls will stop.

It was really fun. I was known to be Ashanti Michaels, the girlfriend of the infamous Kristoff Marx. Everyone respected me because I wrapped Kristoff around my fingers. Well, no one knew it was all fake and staged. Everything was just for show.

That’s why I was so shocked when I woke up one day with Kristoff proposing to me. A lot of questions have been running in my head. Why is he doing this? Why is he proposing to me? Does he love me?

No. He doesn’t. When I ask him why, he would always change the topic. He would always escape. And I think that’s when I just have to convince myself that I should be happy. Well, I should. I married my ultimate crush.

I bit my lip as I watched Kristoff’s expression as he ate the egg. I am not expecting anything good about his expression but at least let him not be mad at me for wasting food like this.

He chewed the egg and stopped halfway. His expression turned dull and black and negative. He looked like he could puke any moment from now.

I immediately gave him water which is the safest of everything in the table, and he gulped it down.

I looked at him with a worried look. “You can skip breakfast. You don’t need to eat it,” I said it first before he utters a word.

He looked at me and smiled. “The egg is fine, Shan. You just shouldn’t place sugar in it though,” he said as he calmly took the bacon that looked like a grilled pork belly.

I looked at him in disbelief. It is the first time that I cooked for him and it was a total failure. I am never going to make another reckless move like this again or we’ll all end up hungry and angry.

“I’ll just get you some lasagna from last night. I’ll just reheat it,” I told him and stood up when he held my hand, pulling me back.

I looked at him with narrowed eyes and he just shook his head. “I’m going to eat your cooking. This is the first time that you cooked breakfast. I’ll eat them all.”

It feels like my heart melted that moment. The way his voice soothed my bleeding pride and hurt heart made me adore him even more.

If there was one thing that I am grateful for with our marriage, it is his kindness and chivalry. Our marriage is not like those of typical fixed marriage. Sure, he doesn’t love me. I am quite sure of that but he never lets me feel like I wasn’t taken care of.

Kristoff would always remember all the important dates in our life together and he would bring me out from time to time.

It is mainly the reason why I kept holding on to the fact that he cares for me. Eventually, I am wishing, it would turn into love.

“The bacon is fine. Tastes a bit weird but fine.” Kristoff complimented my bacon.

I looked at him and smiled. The anxiety in me is slowly going away. “Thanks,” I said. “Thanks for eating it even though it isn’t edible… somewhat,” I continued.

He laughed. “Of course, you prepared it. I couldn’t just leave it behind like that,” he said. He didn’t tell it sweetly but it sounded really sweet to me. I can even feel the ants eat me now.

I smiled at him. And I am quite sure, I am blushing right now. “Thank you again,” I replied.

He smiled. “But you should not do this again, especially when there are guests. Please, I don’t want anyone to know that I married kitchen-illiterate.” He joked.

I nodded and chuckled. “Yes. I won’t,” I replied as I took a bite of my own cooking. Damn, I think it is going to be a tough time for me and my stomach today.

…...

Continue to read the chapter 2 of the novel The Legal Wife

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[justtokeepscrolling]

The vampire’s house

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11871267

Vampires, what are they?

Popular opinion is that they are massive killing machines, only capable of drinking blood.

What's Lance's opinion on vampires? You ask.

To Lance, vampires are just people with some bad luck, and some bad nuts between them.

It's a little weird for someone that doesn't hate vampires, to go around claiming he's a vampire hunter. But lance likes too think that by being one, he can root out the bad, and keep the good.

He hunts with his two friends. Hunk is a softie, but he knows how to fight when it matters.

And Pidge? Pidge is a genius, she keeps thinking of new ways to fight vampires, Hunk often helps her.

To be honest, Lance sometimes feels like an idiot when he’s with them. But he’s a good fighter, and he had saved their lives on more than one occasion, they’re a team. It works.

“Where are we going today?” Lance says between mouthfuls of food.

Pidge hits the back of his head, “chew before you talk,” here, she points at the map, “I talked to some hunters that went to the house there, they all came back terrified, and decided to stop hunting.”

"That's pretty bad,” Hunk says while he rubs garlic on their knives, “are you sure we should do this?”

"I agree with Hunk, but for a different reason.”

Pidge motions her head, to tell Lance he should continuo.

“This one hasn’t killed anyone? Right? Should we really bother him?”

“I only know that he scared the life out of other hunters, but there is a chance that they kill.”

Lance groans, “fine, let’s get everything ready.”

They quickly grab their stuff together and get on the road, to the vampire house.

____

Keith doesn’t hate humans.

Yes, they try to kill him weekly, and break into his house. But it’s not really their fault.

He just hates rude humans. And vampire hunters, are very, very rude.

Instead of just being afraid of him, and avoiding him, vampire hunters seek him out, and try to kill him. So every time they try do so, he drinks just enough of their blood to scare them, but not enough to kill them. He gets a meal, and they leave him alone.

It’s not his fault that they keep coming back, Keith just wants to be left alone.

Today started of normal as always, read a book, practice fighting, clean the house if it needs to be cleaned, and, of course, be on the look out for hunters.

Which, lucky for him, there are none right now. Will he finally be able to have a quiet day? He’s just dusting a shelf, when Keith hears a rustling behind him, he feels a sharp pain at the base of his neck, and everything becomes dark. ____

“Did we really need to drug him?” Lance has just finished putting the bonds on the poor vampire.

“Well what were we supposed to do Lance?” Pidge asks in a very sarcastic tone, “knock on his door and ask, hey! Are you murdering people? Besides, now I get to test if the drug actually work.” “Guys, stop fighting, there’s nothing we can do about it now, come on Pidge, we can look trough the house while Lance watches him.” Hunk has already walked out of the bedroom. Pidge follows him.

“Look, I get that you hate it when people are rude to vampires, but this dude will be pretty pissed if he finds out what we did, so just, don't let him go, okay?” Pidge sends Lance a warning look, he nods.

“I won’t release your test subject!” He screams after her.

Lance takes a look at the vampire, he looks very calm and relaxed, if Lance saw him in town, he would probably try to flirt with him.

The guy opens his eyes, he looks at the feeling for a second, and probably tried to get up, but all he can do is struggle against his bounds.

“Sorry buddy, I can’t let you go.”

The vampire notices Lance, he shows his fangs and hisses.

“Let. Me. Go.”

“Look, I’m sorry about drugging you, it wasn’t my idea, but we have to know if you killed anyone.”

“No, I haven’t killed any of you hunters, although I probably should since you keep breaking into my house and trying to kill me.”

“Someone didn’t have a good morning.” Lance laughs.

The vampire shakes the bounds around his wrists and sends Lance a pointed look.

“Ow, yeah, sorry. If I let you go, will you promise not to kill me or my friends?”

“Sure, whatever, just let me go.”

Lance removes the bounds from his ankles first, and then the ones from his wrists, the vampire only sits up right, and rubs his wrists.

“I’m Lance by the way,” Lance stretches his hand out to the vampire.

“Keith,” Keith shakes his hand.

“I’m wondering wether you’re very trusting, or very stupid.” Lance sends him a look, “why?”

“Because most vampires would kill you the moment you let them go.”

“But when you say most vampires, that means not you, right?” Keith sighs, “yes, I won’t try to kill you. Even though I should considering how rude you are.”

Lance grins, “I’m not stupid, I just have good people instincts.”

Keith rolls his eyes, “you’re an idiot.”

A shouting voice makes them both look up, “seriously Lance! You promised!”

____

Keith doesn’t really know what happened, one moment he was just a vampire, peacefully living alone.

And now he’s living with three humans, not just humans, Vampire hunters. Life really is crazy.

“Keith! Hunk made breakfast! Come down to the kitchen.” Lance shouts from down stairs.

Lance always insist he needs to be present for breakfast, even though he can’t eat anything. keith isn't sure wether he’s happy that Lance cares about him, or irritated that these humans are doing something he can’t, eating.

He’s also forgetting about something very important, he does need food, just not the normal one. Keith needs blood, and because of the hunters residing in his house, he doesn’t have any.

It’s not that hard at first, he just gets a little dizzy at times, and a little more grumpy. But it starts getting worse, and Keith is afraid he might lose control, and hurt these people. He actually cares about them, it doesn't surprise him as much as it should.

He's not sure what to do, if he stays, he will most likely lose control. But if he leaves, he wouldn’t be able to return, too ashamed of what he is deep down, a blood drinking monster.

"Keith buddy? Are you okay?” Lance asks him. Worry clear in his eyes,

“Yeah, don’t worry.” Keith walks away, but Lance grabs his arm.

“I'm worried, please don’t lie to me.”

“Lance, I get that you’re worried, but this isn’t something you can help me with.”

Lance grabs both his upper arms tightly, a determined look on his face.

“Try me.”

Keith sighs, Lance isn’t going to let it go, fine, he’ll tell him.

“I need blood.”

Lance is quiet for a moment, “is that all?”

“what do you mean is that all? I'm a monster that needs blood to survive.”

“You’re not a monster because you need something to survive,” he rolls his sleeve up.

“What are you doing?”

Lance sticks his arm out, close to Keiths mouth.

“You need blood, and I have blood.”

“No.”

“I will force you to drink it so you stay alive, Keith, it won’t kill me.”

Keith gives in, he sticks his fangs in Lance’s arm. He stops ringing after a little while, and takes his fangs out. Lance rolls his sleeve down again.

“Feel better?”

Keith wipes his mouth with his sleeve, the left over blood stains the fabric. “Yeah, thanks.”

He’s afraid Lance will tease him about it, but he never does.

____

Lance keeps giving Keith blood every few weeks. He’s happy that he can help him, because it is his fault he’s lacking blood.

He likes Keith, Keith’s a good friend. Lance is happy that they stayed.

They decide to hunt a group of vampires with the four of them, Keith might be able to reason with them, and if not then he would just be a good asset to the team.

They even have a carriage now, having a house to stay saves them money, so they were able to buy it, they have a horse too. Although Lance suspects that the horse is a zombie, it keeps trying to bite close to their heads.

“Guys hurry up, Pidge wants to leave without you” Hunk screams from outside.

Keith and Lance grab the last of their stuff and head outside.

The road is long, but the company makes it better. Keith gets of the carriage when they get near to the vampire nest.

“I’ll try to talk to them.”

The three hunters wait for a while, but Keith doesn’t return.

“Should someone go look for him?” Pidge asks when the sun is almost setting.

“I think we should all go, he might be in danger.”

Pidge and Hunk nod at Lance, they all take out their weapons and start walking towards the entrance.

wether they kill the vampires or not depends on the prove that they have. And boy, do they have some on these. It’s only the entrance, but they can already see some big pools of dried up blood.

They take out the guards at the entrance silently, and go inside.

These vampires literally live in a cave, the entrance has a higher point of view, and they quickly hide behind some of the rocks to make sure no one sees them.

The lower point has a large table and some chairs, there are goblets filled with a red liquid, probably blood, and even some human prisoners.

Keith is tied up close to the humans, the vampires are kicking him, calling him a traitor.

“True vampires don’t care about humans,” one of them hisses at Keith.

“Because that worked so well in the past,” Keith bites back, snapping his teeth at the vampire.

Lance motions for Hunk and Pidge to free the humans, he’ll take care of Keith.

“So you’re working with the live stock now, are you? Do you really think that they will come to save you?”

Keith notices Lance closing in on the vampire, Lance holds his finger in front of is lip, telling him to keep quiet.

“At least I don’t treat people like animals just because I have sharper teeth.”

“You should have joined us when you had the chance Keith, that might have kept you alive longer.” The vampires holds a knife close to Keiths throat, it burns, it’s probably been soaked in holy water.

Lance knows he needs to hurry up now, if he's even a second too late, Keith could die.

The vampire starts creating a distance between Keiths throat and the knife, and swings it forward. Lance quickly moves in front of him, the blade hits his shoulder, just barely missing Keiths neck. Lance swings his own blade at the vampire, it’s sloppy, but he manages to hit his side.

“It seems that you're the one that’s going to die,” Lance says between panting breaths, biting through the pain.

Hunk and Pidge come to help him, they cut Keith loose, and together the three of them defeat the vampire.

____

“What the hell Lance!” Keith says once they get outside, “why did you do that?”

“Wow Lance, thank you so much for saving my life,” Lance says sarcastically.

“You could have been killed!”

“And so could you,” Lance winces when Hunk bandages his shoulder a bit too tightly, “you don’t get to complain.”

“Guys, stop,” Hunk breaks up their argument, “the most important thing is that we’re all alive, and those vampires can’t hurt any one any more.”

Keith and Lance shut up about it after that, but Keith is still annoyed that Lance risked his life.

____

Lance is just calmly reading a book, when someone violently sets something down on the table. The someone being Keith, and the something is a cup of coffee.

“You take it black, right?”

Lance nods, and Keith storms off, his cheeks red,

What was that all about? Whatever, Lance got coffee without doing anything!

He sips his coffee, did Keith give him this because he felt guilty? That’s actually kind of cute. ____

“So what’s it like being a vampire?” Lance asks one day while they are reading together.

“Lonely and bloody,” Keith says coldly, and he turns the page, this is not something he wants to talk about.

“But isn’t it cool the be alive for so long? Actually, now that I think about it, how old are you?”

“Yes, it’s a lot of fun to see all your friends grow old and die.” Keith knows he shouldn’t get this irritated, but these are memories he’s trying to suppress.

“Sorry, that was a bit rude,” Lance looks ashamed, his cheeks flushed, “what was you family like?”

For once Keith doesn’t mind talking about the people that are no longer here, Lance also talks about his family, they’re still alive, but they live far away, so he really doesn’t see them that often.

They only notice how late it got when the candle burns out, all the wax melted away. They laugh about it, and say good night. ____

Lance is the kind of person that keeps pulling you in, just when you think you got away. Keith is still afraid of losing control, but Lance reassures him that he trusts him. Keith doesn’t want to betray his trust.

The three hunters leave for a couple of days, and when they get back, Lance keeps talking about all the girls that were flirting with him in town.

Keith storms of when he starts talking about the fourth.

He needs some space, some air. So Keith decides to take a walk in the moon light.

“Keith!”

Keith groans, he does not want to deal with Lance right now.

“Not now Lance.”

“Come on buddy, talk to me, you’ve been ignoring me ever since we got back. Are you grumpy cause I wasn’t here,” Lance teases him.

"It's fine, go back inside.”

Lance sighs, “you are so dense,” and he grabs Keith’s chin, forcing it him to look at him.

“Do you know how hard it is to subtly tell you that I like you? You don’t get when I’m flirting with you, and when I try to make you jealous, you don’t react at all.”

“You were trying to make me jealous?”

“YES”

“But.. why?”

“Because I like you.”

“You said we were friends,” Keith states matter of factly.

“No one in their right mind would admit they have a crush to their crush, at least not when they’re ready to do so. And I didn’t like you from the start, it just kind of happened, gradually.”

Keith looks at Lance curiously, “what does it feel like when you have a crush?”

Lance sighs, and he looks at the moon, “you want to spend as much time as possible with them, but also stay away from them, because it’s terrifying to be close to them. You want to impress them, want them to care for you, wan to care for them. It’s just so conflicting and confusing.”

“So there is a name for those feelings, I thought I was sick.” “You've ever felt this for someone?”

“Yeah.”

They’re silent for a moment. “They must be very lucky,” Lance says after a while.

“I wouldn’t really consider you lucky, I’m the lucky one really.”

“Wait? you feel that way for me?”

“Who else?”

“I don’t know, some cool vampire you used to know.”

Keith starts deciding that, if Lance keeps on being like this, he needs to take charge of the situation himself. So he starts leaning closer to Lance.

“I happen to think you’re pretty cool,” he says, and leans in even more so that their lips connect.

They kiss under the moon, enjoying the moment. And thinking about the memories that will come.

[littleplebe]

HERE IS A PROMPT FOR YOU...ShieldShock - “They can’t prove anything, if we stick to the story.”

Why are you so intent on making me use my brain? This was hard! Thank you for the wonderful prompt, Holly. It kickstarted my muse.

It was just his luck to walk by the science labs when Jane Foster was going on a break. The astrophysicist grabbed his shirt and pulled him in, giving him big sad eyes that she knew Steve would be unable to resist.

“Look after my machine for me while I get coffee?” she asked hopefully.

The machine in question was small, considerably smaller than those in Tony’s lab, and it whirred and beeped quietly in the middle of the room, looking for all the world like a cheap, old age coffee machine. On the other side of that metal contraption sat Jane’s assistant, Darcy, ears plugged and working on her laptop, her head bopping away to some godawful loud music that Steve could hear all the way to where he was standing. He raised an eyebrow at Jane.

“Isn’t that her job?” he asked, nodding toward the assistant.

Jane looked sheepish. “She’s working on the data and… um… it’s a new machine. I don’t really trust anyone with it.”

“Not even your assistant?”

Jane huffed impatiently. “Look, just sit here and make sure no one touches it while I’m gone.”

“Fine,” sighed Steve. “But if you’re not back in half an hour, I’m leaving.”

Jane looked ready to squeal. She squeezed his arm gratefully and practically bounced out of the door. Judging by her abnormally wide smile, it was clear that she wasn’t just going to get coffee. A certain demigod was always involved when Jane was this happy.

Steve took a seat on a rolling chair and raised his feet to rest comfortably on Jane’s desk, throwing his head back to stare at the white ceiling in resignation. He was such a pushover sometimes. Well, while he was there, he could at least appreciate the quiet in Jane’s lab. Unlike Tony’s bots, Jane’s machines knew how to behave. They emitted soft noises and tiny beeps but refrained from demanding attention with useless squeaks and whooshing noises which were so commonplace in Tony’s lab.

That’s exactly the reason Steve was alarmed when, the very next second, Jane’s new machine grunted and emitted a loud grating noise that forced him out of his chair and over to the lab assistant in no time. She removed her ear phones and stared at the machine in confusion.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asked her urgently.

“I don’t know.”

So, this wasn’t normal then. Great. He raised a brow at her. “Aren’t you supposed to be prepared for this kind of thing?”

“Do I look like a Nobel prize winning scientist to you?” Lewis snapped. “Jeez, Cap!”

Steve took a calming breath and bit back the retort that was on the tip of his tongue. Time and again he was reminded why he chose to stay away from Darcy Lewis. She was mouthy and called him Cap, which reminded him so much of Tony that he was beginning to hate the resemblance. She was also pretty clueless about everything science related, which begged the reason why Jane kept her around.

“Let me just…” Lewis mumbled as she carefully stepped up to the machine and peered inside. “Maybe I should…?” When she raised a hand as if to stick it inside the machine’s depths, Steve hurried forward and pulled her away from it.

“Are you out of your mind?” he reprimanded her. “You could lose a hand.”

“It’s an atmospheric anomaly analyzer with a built in stabilizer and pressure generator,” Lewis told him mockingly. “Not a mixer grinder.”

Okay, so maybe she wasn’t totally clueless, Steve admitted grudgingly. But he wasn’t about to let her finger the analyzer without being completely sure that it wouldn’t blow up in their faces. He had been a victim to many a blowups in Bruce’s lab and he was still trying to get over the last one.

“Can’t we shut it down?” he asked, still holding firmly onto her arm.

She shook her head. “It’s recalibrating. Jane will kill me if I shut it down and her scheduled experiment gets delayed.”

“So, what do we do?” Without waiting for an answer, he released his grip on her and pulled out his phone. He would call Jane. As simple as that. She would come running at the first grunt of her machine, even if she and Thor were in the middle of… something.

While he was turned away, Darcy sidled up to the analyzer and did exactly what she wasn’t supposed to do. She touched it. It was warm and vibrating beneath her fingers. The grating noise had stopped but it was still whirring at a loud and dangerous pace. Darcy curiously tapped the pressure meter and studied the buttons next to it. Maybe if she switched off the generator, the analyzer could continue recalibrating in peace. Or maybe the entire thing would shut down. Should she take the risk?

Her index finger decided for her and before she could even blink, there was a boom and a hiss as all the pressure in the machine was released and Darcy found herself flying through the air, a shriek escaping her lips as she landed directly on top of an unfortunate Captain America. He was turned away from her when he went down with the force of her body hitting his and the air rushed out of his lungs in a painful whoosh.

Steve had tried to break the fall with his hands but his chest hurt and he could feel a bruise forming on his cheek due to abrupt contact with the floor. He opened his eyes to see waves of dark hair blocking his view. Darcy Lewis was lying right on top of him, her arms caging his and her knees digging into the back of his thighs.

Steve closed his eyes, ignoring the throbbing pain in his cheek and in the heels of his palms, and took a minute to wonder why he had agreed to lab-sit for Jane Foster in the first place. And why had he averted his attention from Lewis for even a minute? She was a disaster waiting to happen.

She moaned and wiggled on his back. “I think the generator exploded.”

“You think?” Steve grabbed a fistful of her hair and held it up so that he could see the damage she had wrought. “Get off me, Lewis.”

“Why so cranky?” she joked halfheartedly, sliding sideways to slump beside him in shock. “It wasn’t my fault. The generator malfunctioned.”

Steve heaved himself up so that he could flop onto his back and relieve some pressure from his chest. “You keep telling yourself that,” he muttered, gingerly touching his bruised cheek. “No one is going to believe you.”

“Why, you plan to tattle-tail?”

Steve rolled his eyes. “They’ll figure it out when they check the machine, Lewis.”

“They can’t prove anything,” said Darcy, “if we stick to the story.”

She was blankly watching the ceiling, just like he was, and her chest heaved in an erratic pattern as adrenaline still rushed through her system. Steve pursed his lips and decided to set her straight.

“One, there is no story. Two, there is no we.”

“They’re going to question us–”

“There is no us,” he insisted grumpily. “You were the one who blew up the generator.”

“I did not! It malfunctioned!”

“Therefore, you will be the one to answer all questions and take all the blame. I’m out of here the moment Jane returns.”

“How chivalrous of you,” mocked Darcy, throwing him an ugly look.

Steve ignored her and instead focused all his energy on getting his heartbeats under control. He felt a bit dizzy and was in no mood to budge from his not-so-comfortable-but-not-uncomfortable-either position on the lab floor. Darcy must feel the same because she, too, didn’t move. And that’s how Jane found them ten minutes later, sprawled side by side on the lab floor, not talking, not moving, just lying there as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

“What the hell?” she exclaimed, hastening to her beloved machine and completely disregarding the two possibly injured people in her lab.

Darcy sighed and asked softly, “Did I break a rib?”

Steve turned on his side and ran a hand over her torso, careful not to stray too close to her ample assets. “It doesn’t seem like it.”

To his surprise, Darcy blushed. “I was asking about you,” she murmured. “Did I break anything of yours when I fell on you?”

Steve felt a rush of warmth fill his cheeks and he snatched his hand away from her person. “Oh. Um… no, I don’t think so.”

She nodded, her lips ticking up in relief. “Good.”

“We should get up.”

She quirked a teasing brow. “I thought you said there’s no we.”

Steve snorted. Maybe Darcy Lewis wasn’t so bad. And maybe lab-sitting for Jane hadn’t been so bad either. But he was still never setting foot in this part of the facility… ever!

[juushika]

travel to first city > get out of habit of playing Zelda in sleep-deprived travel and recovery days > stall out > pick game back up same day we started playing Dark Souls III again and wow the games do not mesh > oh well > travel to other city again, can’t play Dark Souls while here > tl;dr finally beat The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

My liveblog from ~50% to the end: game events, Navi as mechanic, time travel???, so much metadata, Gerudo are the very best, cyclical narrative are fascinating and I wish I wanted to play the other games, etc.; it is very long!

me:  hello dark Link is in this one 1) this is the 1.5 things i was not really spoiled for (in context of Ocarina) 2) oh my god i have so much fanart of this scene what a well-done sequence! really subtle and eerie effects/use of reflection and clever combat and like not skillful combat at all “don’t lock on, try and sort of flail until you get around him then stab his butt wildly” but pretty and the fade-out is really effective! so much really good subtextual-to-the-point-of-not-existing narrative; fights with shadow selves are best trope?? i looked at that art again and! it v good! i remember finding this dynamic compelling even before familiar with canon in any way! but it’s not explored, just, “you could explore this yourself, if you want”

me: where is Link keep iron boots when not wear that they don’t effect his weight just curious

Missy: don’t ask they magic also it really amuses me that your biggest connection to OoT is “i have sexy pics of Link and dark Link”

me: what is the logic of traveling BACK to kid Link??? (there is no logic, i know, i know) “you picked up the sword and were too young for it so we incubated you until ready” implies that Kingdom Hearts-esque he grew up in the jar, time passed but he wasn’t there for it but then no! and he can go back! and i get it would be awful to put collectables/shortcuts and then be like ARBITRARY UNPREDICTABLE CUT-OFF POINT being able to pop back is polite; and having offered that, tying it into plot is clever but ……..how???? it work?

[future Juu: Spirit Temple is best dungeon b/c it makes the time travel mechanic part of the core gameplay, aka the dungeons; but the time travel still fails to make sense, here or there or in the ending. maybe I read too much into chrysalis imagery b/c of my KH background? but the original wording, “we put you in sacred realm until you growed up,” just conflicts hugely with everything else time travel does in this game]

Missy: in the room with the rolly boulders HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY GODDAMIT NAVI I GET WE NEED TO AVOID THE BOULDERS YOU DON’T HAVE TO YELL ABOUT THEM NONSTOP hey navi. you don’t like getting squished. i don’t like getting squished. HOW ABOUT YOU STOP SAYING HEY SO I DON’T JUST SQUISH YOU.

me: i am so 50/50 on why everyone found Navi so annoying i have this strong “it not her fault” feel “it the limit of her programing”

Missy: normally she fine but sometimes HEY HEY HEY  HEY

me: some of [the boy’s] retro game adventures in the time before waypoints are… interesting like it’s super immersive which is great more active exploration, less “mindlessly follow waypoint” but they forget that in the samey-textured-fucking-identical-rooms you just … can’t pathfind naturally i come away with this really strong sense of “oh that’s why we handhold” when actually! we could handhold less now that we can have unrecycled textures/assets and rooms that aren’t just boxes! but you still spend  the whole time (in retro games) wishing for a waypoint or a fucking HUD or anything in the world that tells you how go where [examples of retro games that fit this matrix: the original Thief series, the original Deus Ex] and i feel like Navi is that “in such a sprawling and potentially non-linear game, player needs an aid” Missy: esp when HEY WHERE DO I GO? HEY HEY LISTEN sorta useful me: yeah she's good for "how to begin next dungeon" stuff but for stuff like "what do these magic seeds do" "chickens????" she useless and then she breaks out the advice for "DID YOU KNOW BOULDER MAKE THE SQUISH" thanks navi, i had guessed

Missy: hehe yahh

me: there’s actually--and, let us still preserve my overall ehhhhhhhhh opinion of Undertale, but--there’s a great sort of hat-tip to that trope when helper NPC interrupts you while doing a puzzle so that you are forced to “fail” it (need to push three buttons; NPC: “I’ll help you with timing!!”; reminder re: timing forces you to fail timing lol) god aren’t vidya games cool they’re like 50% experience/feelings/narrative and 50% mechanics/game design it’s so interesting!!! i have feelings!!!! 

me: Bongo Bongo actually fav boss so far WITH savestates without, probably hell but with, save stating becomes another mechanic, another move to time, like saving after stunning second hand so i can make sure eye of truth + counter eye + dmg, and then reset to save state if i miss one of those steps which happens a lot pacing great with savestates, very tense without, probably just ragey

Missy: yes and yes

[future Juu: this became a consistent theme. I started using save states to avoid the constant walking back each time I returned to the game, but they universally made combat feel more strategic and dependent on my actions, and less flaily and dependent on ehhh controls]

me: hello yes the Gerudo are extremely interesting is very Amazons

Missy: yes except Ganondork

me: like in any single-sex society, even those created by feminists (Joanna Russ, Nicola Griffith) i want more interrogation of sex=gender, how gender binary works when part of the binary is super unrepresented, characters forgoing binary entirely, etc. esp. interesting here b/c they 1) do have very rare males 2) have contact with non-Gerudo men, so they’re exposed to a gender binary, but how does that impact their culture “occasionally a man and then he becomes king of everything” is super icky for obvious reasons but i wonder what the on-the-ground view of that is, like, they have their own leadership roles, 100 years is a long time to be periodically self-sustaining, does the average citizen even care is it a figurehead monarchy “they just wear the pretty crown and look important; meanwhile, we rule ourselves” system fucked up every cycle that Ganandorf shows up to be ~evil~

me: obviously they do enough breeding outside their race to sustain it, but their culture is actually pretty self-contained/even xenophobic, so how does culture sharing work, how does race work???? Gerudo have distinct skin tone, but are breeding with whiter people presumably a lot, what does mixed race look like??? or b/c ~magic~ is that not a thing, are the daughters all just Gerudo wiki says we unno if they have contact with bio fathers, is there any cultural sharing??? what does Gerudo family unit look like; j/k it’s a “a lesbian and her extended lesbian family”

Missy: Keep in mind Historically speaking *every* Gerudo male in known history is Ganondork Following every game And every timeline So the king of everything may not be so much icky political as Gerudo + triforce of power = Ganon king of Gerudo/evil = harbinger of end of world and Hyrule reset

me: so, Dark Souls-like, we’re sort of stuck in a timeline/event loop, looking at same sort of events in different times/iterations (maybe it’s a reverse Jesus, like, they had this prophecy indefinitely but it didn’t effect daily life, but when it’s realized via Ganon we begin a sort of cycle of the game series) Missy: Most interesting bits there are the Twilight Princess stuff Where the n64 Link is a shade waiting for end of world to pass on his knowledge before disappearing Because yeah--Ganon loop seems like public Gerudo knowledge But Link loop is less talked about. The hero of time is just the legend

me: i’m sort of mad that aesthetic/the plot is just hero’s journey/here have the same narrative 2023842 times makes me not want to play others while iterated narrative is such a great trope and does make me want to care

Missy: Zelda future is open world The narrative is apparently partially taking back seat So the future lore from Twilight Princess would be tasty for you (esp. since Hyrule is bigger and more history has been written) But then the open world of BotW is a different allure. You write your own story etc

me: but open world just so ……………tired the dumb shit one can do in BotW is interesting, i just i like, you know, a narrative or sense of purpose

me: i finish Ocarina i have questions so Zelda sends him back to original time, everyone happy in future, life beautiful, sages together & everyone seems to know what’s occurred or at least that evil gone now child Link shows up at temple, Navi is like bye bitch, child Link goes to see child Zelda does he tell her to not fuck up > Ganondorf doesn’t come to power in new alternate timeline???? b/c either she’s like, hey, i know you want to be an adult now, but time to be a child and live through the reign of terror until future you saves shit, OR they’re alternate timelining it and everything sages etc did won’t really exist, so why so long an epilogue focused on them either way the time travel still doesn’t make sense since all the sword does is pop Link in chrysalis until old enough to use it??????/ Missy: Ocarina -> timeline split the adult saved timeline is the one that leads to Wind Waker, i think tl;dr Link saves world and then goes poof oops

me: “Regardless, Ocarina of Time has always been one of the centerpoint games in the chronology, with the events at the end of the game, where Zelda sends Link back to his youth, splitting the timeline.” (source) okay okay that’s a thing

Missy: yeah so Twilight Princess is the other branch

me: Zelda: still fucking things up sorta gj Zelda she is the center of everything isn’t she, i guess, like, thus the title

Missy: yes she is Ganon-Link-Zelda triforce

me: “When the official timeline was revealed in Hyrule Historia, the placement of Ocarina of Time in the series was revealed to be of even greater value, as the events of the game actually split the series’s timeline into three branches.” (ibid.)

Missy: oh yeah third branch we fucked up branch as in you lose to Ganondork and then.. snes game?

me: god i love iterated narratives it really is a pity i don’t care about the worldbuilding (except lesbians obvs.) and also characters and also aesthetic and also hero’s journey and also gameplay “Link is sent back to his childhood, leaving this branch without a Hero, as told in the prologue to The Wind Waker. Ganondorf eventually overcomes the Sages’ seal and attempts to take over Hyrule, but with no Hero to face the evil,” GJ ZELDA JEEZE like tbf, Link telling Zelda > child timeline is also Link’s fault and Link failing to defeat Ganon > grimdark timeline is also him so he is central, triforce, etcetc but Zelda is actually interesting and Link is mostly fridge horror so, shrug that said, it some good fridge horror i propose alternate timeline for another fanfic i never gon’ write child Link almost warns Zelda, goes, wait, what about timeline shit, nvm, decides to just wait it out seven years of increasing darkness watching bad shit pile up actually seeing it from the ground instead of in summary, it worse than he thought, “i done fucked up”

Missy: do a triforce swap Ganon comes out with wisdom Zelda has power Link still courage

me: Ganon wisdom = grimest dark b/c he would be smart enough to succeed wisdom is power really, it’s more effective longterm than brute force then Hyrule rip

[statusquoergo]

A marvey prompt: how about Mike thinking about everything Harvey has done over the years and suddenly realising that Harvey's in love with him

Read on AO3

When Michael James Ross was eleven years old, he lost hisparents to a car crash.

This isn’t a secret to anyone; the test isn’t who earnshis trust enough to tell. No, the test is what they do with the informationonce they have it.

Usually, the answer is nothing. Usually, the answer is totiptoe around him for a day or two and then ignore it completely, pretend hehasn’t told them, maybe forget about it altogether until the subject comes upby accident and then it’s more of an “Oh god Mike I’m so sorry, that was sostupid of me.”

Sometimes, the answer is “Oh, well, now I get it,” andwhat they mean is “Now I understand the way you are,” even though they don’t,because that’s a big part of the story but it’s not the whole thing, and on itsown, it just floats in a sea of static.

There’s this one time that he tells someone and that’snice but it’s just another piece of him, a thing that can be an asset (empathy)or a burden (too much) or a detail that’s good to know but doesn’t define Mike,might have shaped him in some ways but doesn’t make up the core of who he is(his own man).

Harvey Specter is a good person.

—

The secret is fun for a little while, when everything isso fresh and new that none of it seems real and surely this won’t last foreverbut let’s have fun while we’re here. Mike works as hard as he can and tries toexceed Harvey’s expectations, which he manages to do every now and again, andeventually the secret moves to the back of his mind; if he isn’t thinking aboutit, then surely no one else is, either, so they’re safe and it’s fine and don’tworry about a thing.

Then Jessica finds out.

Mike distracts himself from being terrified by submerginghimself in work until he’s drowning, until he can barely breathe from thestrain of it, pretending that feigning ignorance will somehow melt intomaintaining the status quo; maybe he’ll lose any chance for advancement, buthey, that was never part of the deal to begin with, and he’s happy where he is.

Then everything really does go back to normal, andeventually Jessica even admits that he’s worth keeping around after all, andMike remembers that he’s living in the most fucked-up fairy tale ever writtenbut it’s also the best one he’s ever heard.

Much later, when he finds out that Harvey was the reason,he has to feign most of his surprise.

—

It was a mistake to leave Pearson Specter, but a mistakethat needed to be made, like spending the week at a friend’s house after a badfight with a roommate or significant other; Mike is sure there’s a flawsomewhere in that logic, but he’ll be damned if he can figure out whereexactly.

It doesn’t feel so bad while he’s away, but then he goesup against Harvey, and oh, yeah, there it is.

A little while later, when Louis has gone behindJessica’s back to re-hire him because he doesn’t know any better, Mike settlesback into his role very carefully and resolves not to make that mistake again.

—

The thing about the secret is that once is was discoveredfor the first time, the idea that it might eventually destroy him stopped beinga theory and started being a fact.

The thing about the two of them is that when you destroyone, you destroy the other.

Mike is mostly frustrated with Harvey’s efforts to takethe fall for him, when the time comes to lay down their arms; it’s him, it wasalways going to be him, it has to behim, can’t Harvey see that? After everything Harvey’s done for him, every jamhe’s bailed him out of, how can he think that Mike would ever let anythinghappen to him that he could so easily prevent?

Lying on his threadbare cot in his tiny cell andcataloguing all the ways that he hadn’t expected prison to be so disgusting,because television and movies leave out the mold and the dead bugs and the leakingwalls and ceilings, and they can’t really convey the pervasive stench of sweatand cheap cleanser, Mike remembers that Harvey volunteered to go to this placefor him, to spend days and weeks and months in this hell so that Mike wouldn’thave to learn these things. Mike could have gone to his grave not knowing howto peel and slice five dozen potatoes in under an hour, or the spitefulsatisfaction of “accidentally” walking off with another man’s unbroken showersandals, or the quiet dread of those simple words, “The counselor wants to talkto you.”

It only takes a couple of days for Gallo to start speakingto him with extra spitefulness, a layer of anger over the vicious taunting thattells Mike that Someone must have said Something, and it doesn’t take a geniusto reason who or what it might have been.

Harvey doesn’t mention it when he gets out. It’s okay;Mike knows.

He’d say “Thank you,” but he isn’t really sure what for,and he doesn’t want to give the wrong impression.

Anyway, the words are too small to encompass everything they’resupposed to mean.

—

The drop that makes the cup run over, as it were, isn’tthe moment Mike gets into the Bar, the moment that all of the sacrifices andhard work, all the unabashed fraudulence and self-deluded justifications, allthe years of stress and struggle and concern come to a head and turn outsomething “worth it.”

No, that drop comes early the next morning, when Mikewakes up to a brand new day and nothing is the way it was when he went to sleep.

Lying beside him, her tired eyes crinkled up at thecorners, Rachel reaches slowly to stroke his hair; “You did it,” she murmurshappily, and he smiles and nods and—no.

No.

He didn’t.

They did.

Harvey did.

It’s always been Harvey, from the moment he stepped up toMike’s stupid challenge—I’ll become thebest lawyer you’ve ever seen, as though he wasn’t asking him to set himselfon fire for a stranger—to the moment he saved Trevor (he’s my oldest friend, Harvey), the moment he rescued Mike from theHarvard Club (if I hadn’t paid him off,you’d be in jail right now), the moment he threatened to beat up Tess’shusband for daring to lay a hand on him no matter what the circumstances (that’s not who I am) and everything inbetween, it’s always been Harvey.

Harvey, who was willing to give up his license for Mike.Harvey, who was willing to sacrifice his dream, his senior partnership(well-deserved and hard-won), for Mike. Harvey, who was not only willing to doall that but tried so desperately tomake it happen when he couldn’t see any other way because this is Mike, Mike,it’s all for Mike.

It’s always been for Mike.

Today, Mike will walk into his office—Harvey’s oldoffice—with the world laid out at his feet, every arrogant demand met and everylofty desire granted because Harvey was so pleased, so excited, so gratifiedthat Mike is going back where he belongs, and he’ll prove his worth a dozentimes over if that’s what it takes because it’s the least he can do for a manwho loves him so much.

He does.

Holy shit.

“Mike?”

Rachel stands over him, buttoning her skirt along her hipand dangling a pair of glossy stilettos from her fingertips, and he looks up ather, flustered.

“You coming?”

How can I?

(How can you not?)

“Yeah,” he says, pushing the covers aside and stretchinghis arms overhead, “yeah, just gimme a sec.”

Smiling falteringly, she leaves the room; he hears adrawer open and close in the kitchen.

He’ll go about his day as though nothing has changed. Asfar as everyone else is concerned, nothing has, so it’ll be alright.

Everything will be alright.

—

Mike doesn’t keep his promise to himself.

He tries, god, he tries so hard; be grateful, be grateful for what you have, over and over on a loopon the seventh track of his train of thought, the back of the line, but bumpingup to six-five-four-three-two-one is that reminder, he loves me, louder and louder and louder, he loves me he loves me he loves me, over and over again.

He doesn’t mean to skip lunch; it just sort of happens.

At some point, day becomes night; Mike turns his desklamp on when it’s too hard to read otherwise, realizing some time later thatit’s gotten dark out.

“You coming?” Rachel asks sweetly, leaning against thedoorframe with her coat hanging from her fingertips over her shoulder, and helooks up at her, startled.

“I wanna finish this before I go,” he says, seeing in herposture and her pursed lips that she’s going to offer to wait, to stay so theycan go home together, which is the very last thing that should happen (trackeight). “It’s gonna be awhile,” he finishes apologetically, and she nods,shrugging her arms through her coat sleeves.

“Don’t work too hard,” she teases, and he offers a weaksmile as she walks away.

At some point, he’ll be the last one here.

A gentle knock at the door jerks him upright to stare atthe offender—ha, offender. Right.

Harvey, of course.

“What’re you still doing here?” Mike asks, closing hislaptop (“PSL PSL PSL,” reads the screensaver).

Harvey steps carefully inside, pacing around invisiblelandmines.

“I didn’t think they’d give you so much stuff for your firstday back,” he says, and Mike smirks.

“You would know,” he retorts. “And, you didn’t, I wasjust…thinking.”

Harvey puts his hands in his pockets and raises hisshoulders. “Everything okay?”

Sighing out through his nose, Mike folds his hands infront of his face and narrows his eyes at his desk.

Well, once the promise has been broken, there’s nowhereto go but down.

“Are you in love with me?”

A kinder man would have phrased it more delicately.

(To be fair, a kinder man wouldn’t be asking in themiddle of the night when no one else is around.)

A wiser man would have refrained from asking at all.

(To be fair, a wiser man wouldn’t have found himself inthis situation to begin with.)

Mike is neither.

Harvey looks him dead in the eye and clenches his jaw, asilent dare to keep talking, to push this further than it’s already gone.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Harvey purses his lips for a moment before he answers,gathering his thoughts.

“You know why.”

True enough.

“Why are you bringing this up now?”

Bracing his hands flat on his desk, Mike stands with hishead hanging down and speaks to the floor underneath Harvey’s shoes.

“Would you believe I just figured it out?”

Harvey scoffs.

“Some genius you are.”

Mike chuckles quietly.

“Nothing has to change,” Harvey says after a beat. “Thisisn’t on you.”

“Uh, it kind of is,” Mike refutes, raising his gaze toHarvey’s face. “Unless I’m very much mistaken, it’s mostly about me.”

“I mean you don’t have to do anything about it.”

Oh.

Oh, that.

Mike raps the side of his fist against the edge of hisdesk; a highlight reel of Mike and Harvey’s Greatest Hits scrolls through hisbrain on repeat as he gathers his nerve and braces for the worst.

“What if I wanted to?”

Harvey’s response is immediate and predictable:

“Mike, you’ve got Rachel.”

Mike is about to argue, the words on the tip of histongue when he remembers how this must sound to Harvey; the wounds of hischildhood cut deeper than he lets on, and he won’t break up a marriage, even anengagement, when he could suffer in silence instead.

“I would never cheat on her,” he says (and don’t forgetthat she did it first). “But, Harvey, I…”

“Don’t say it.”

Mike gapes at him. “Why not?”

Smirking, Harvey shakes his head. “Remember that partwhere I said nothing has to change?” He gestures to himself, ending with theblade of his hand resting against his sternum. “It’s all on this side of thetable, Mike. Let’s keep it that way.”

It’s the ultimate out. Mike should take it, he knows heshould; maintain the status quo, that’s what’s gotten us this far, that’s what’sgotten us everything we have, everything we are.

Bullshit.

“It’s not,” Mike corrects, and the sorrow in Harvey’seyes splits him right down the middle. Stepping out from behind his desk, hestops a few feet away and feels suddenly weary, worn down and beaten.

(Is this what you’ve been living through?)

“You know what wears off?” he inquires. “Gratitude. Heroworship. Shock and awe. You know what doesn’t?”

Harvey glares at him, but speaks without fury. “It does.”

“Not this time.”

It’s written all over his face that Harvey still doesn’tbelieve it, or won’t, maybe, and Mike doesn’t know exactly why he keepspressing but this is important, this is so important.

“You know all that time you spent saving my ass?” he asks.“All that time you spent looking out for me, protecting me, doing everythingyou could to help me? To make me happy? Well you know what I was doing?”

Harvey opens his mouth to reply, but no, that was arhetorical question.

“I was trying to do the same for you, alright, I wasdoing everything I could to prove that you hadn’t made a mistake by hiring me,to prove that I could do you proud, to prove that I was worthy of you. To prove that I could make you happy, too.”

Mike hears himself, hears his voice ratchet up in ashallow slope until he’s nearly shouting, and he pulls himself back, gettinghis breathing back under control before his denouement.

“I was falling for you,” he admits. “I just…didn’tnotice.”

Harvey pauses for a moment before he laughs quietly,rubbing between his eyebrows and looking away.

“You picked a hell of a time to figure it out.”

“We haven’t even set a date for the wedding yet.”

Then Harvey sighs, and Mike wonders if that was the wrongthing to say.

“Look,” he tries again, “I’m not asking you to take herplace. I’m not asking you to marry me, or move in with me, or…get a dog withme.” Harvey scoffs, and Mike carries on more boldly than before:

“But if that’s really how you feel, and I’m telling you,this is how I feel, then I think…we oweit to ourselves to try. I think this feels right to me, I think it’s the firstthing that has in awhile.”

“After getting into the Bar.”

“Oh, no, that’s still way too surreal to be true.”

Harvey smiles softly, sliding his gaze sideways to Mikewithout facing him head-on just yet.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he confesses.

“Me neither,” Mike stage-whispers, and Harvey laughsagain.

Squaring up, he turns to Mike and offers his hand.

“To trouble.”

Mike glances down perplexedly, then up at Harvey’sincreasingly uncertain face.

(Fuck that.)

Wrapping his arms around Harvey’s shoulders, he cradlesthe back of his head and draws him in for the headiest first kiss he’s everexperienced; Harvey withdraws his arm from between them and brings it to reston Mike’s back, closing his eyes and giving in like he’s been waiting for it.

Well, to be fair.

They come apart much more slowly than they came together,and Mike smirks.

“To trouble.”

[heatherrdavis1]

BITCOIN HOLDERS!! EXCLUSIVE FOOTAGE SHOWS ITS MUCH WORSE THAN YOU THINK!! w. DavinciJ15

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Today for the Bitcoin price with da Vinci Jeff 15. This is an emergency segment before the actual Da Vinci J 15 episode starts because this tweet here big credits to car from the moon. Here on Twitter he shared a tweet of the FDIC and they’re actually talking about the banks. Can you remember how DaVinci J 15 recently said whenever the president of the United States comes out and talks about the U.S. dollar being fine the economy being fine. This is the exact moment we should weep that this is the exact moment we should start worrying. Well the FDIC is right now talking about the banks. Guys listen to the wording because this video might be as what we were referred to as the most apocalyptic video in hindsight. Guys listen closely. Listen to the calm piano song. Listen to the wording and how they want to keep the people away from the A.T.M. guys. The collapse is probably more imminent than we thought. Please take a seat. Watch this video and after what’s the DaVinci J 15 episode starts. We’re living in unprecedented time at a time of a pandemic like this. It is a way too easy to get confused and to have fear about what you should be doing with your money in your account especially as you’re looking at the volatility in the stock market in the financial sector. This is what I would like it to take away from this. Your money is safe at the banks. The last thing you should be doing is pulling your money out of the banks. Now thinking that it’s going to be safer someplace else you don’t want to be walking around with large wads of cash and you suddenly don’t want to be hoarding cash in your mattress. It didn’t pan out well for so many people. And I will tell you this. No depositor has lost a penny of their insured deposits since 1933 when the FDIC was created. So if you’re talking about having your money in a safe place please keep it in an FDIC insured bank today for the Bitcoin price with J 15. We would talk about Bitcoin and also these breaking news here that Donald Trump is planning right now is 6 trillion U.S. dollar fiscal bomb towards the United States. We will talk about how that will impact the big comprise in the immediate short term but we will also bring up some numbers some economic numbers which will certainly blow your mind. We have the one and only one Da Vinci Jeff fifteen the number one person to talk to in these uncertain times and that being said I really want to come to the most important question of the day. Da Vinci J 15 How are you doing today man. I’m doing good. Here in the locked down Chile. Turns out actually in my area where I live is the most amount of people. How’s the virus turned. Because the reason why is because in that area last contest most of the people have money to travel and so that’s where the virus outbreak is most concentrated here in Santiago. So I’m not talking to my neighbors I’m not going to refer any dinners or anything like that so we’re staying at home or being safe. How about you Chris. Pretty similar in Kupang young Thailand. So we are not in contact with many people as well and we are able to concentrate on content so thanks for carrying thanks for asking DaVinci. And now let’s get straight into it because the people are turning into day once again to hear your thoughts not only on the Bitcoin price in the immediate short term but especially they’re very interested to hear your thoughts on whatever is going on right now in this craze what we call financial crisis and I want to give a big shout out to everyone watching because look at the last two videos this one got more than 4000 likes and this one here got 4500 likes which is completely mind blowing four thousand five hundred I don’t know when I have seen that the last time on YouTube so thank you so much for smashing up the like button and DaVinci now let’s go into the charts and do it do you think we can get 5000 likes today. I think so. I think so. I really feel that we can get 5000 likes today. Thank you everyone for liking our videos. All right. So let’s head over to these charts and see what we can see. I think we’re going to see our our faces being painted pink while you’re gonna be pink painted yellow. Right. Exactly. I guess I’m getting that feeling right. Right. Well basically you just had to get up to the two week right until we can we can get up to the 80 500 and be so cool by the end of this week and close the week this the end of this week. Eighty five in this area in this general area just above the 13 May. I’ll be so happy. Wait so today. It’s Wednesday right. You are talking about the end of this week by Sunday or by Friday like this Sunday by Sunday. So we are talking you are talking about that. You still think it’s very much possible that we are closing the week on Sunday at eight thousand five hundred and do we do a central correctly. Yes that’s correct. I think it was very possible that we do that well at this point. We’re on track for that daily. I would like to see the daily come down and do a U W but I don’t think it’s got enough time to do that. So if I could just come back down and then come back up and just go. OK. See you want to see. That would be that would be epic Ray especially since right. And look at that the 200 day Lee is up here. It’s crossing over with that 50. Yes it’s crossing over with the 50 I think a ceiling’s 55. Yeah that’s a 50. The red here is the 50. So not not very bullish right now at this crossing today but we are we do have an upward momentum. So yeah if if we if we cross hopefully this will be mitigated through an upward move not very good of course but I really think that this thing has the power to more like the daily two to two psychics out of a little bit more hopefully not cross the 13 year may or if it does cross it it doesn’t stay below falls below it or stay below it on on the on on a daily close like it closes below it and then it pumps back up the next day that would be great. That would help put this momentum and push up to the 80 500. Looking closer look. That looks like we’re not coming back down to the screen like that. I mean it’s possible but I don’t see that happening. Please don’t go in is exactly at all bad. Thank you so much for that. And certainly this looks like massive volatility however even if we go down to six thousand. Talking about price target of eight thousand five hundred by the end of this week of course no certainties here. But this is in the room of possibilities than men. I mean there will be serious fireworks however before we started recording DaVinci. You mentioned that these. This is 6 trillion US dollars might be one of the reasons of that happening. So can you please elaborate a little bit more on that and also let us know what you think we’re all this crazy. All this money printing is leading to what’s coronavirus have a package to reach roughly six trillion dollars. This money printing that they’re going to hand out to everybody. Once it passes I think Bitcoin will have to move higher. The reason why is because the market is a forward discounting mechanism meaning that they’re not going to allow the people who get these checks to buy bitcoin at a 5000 six dollars. She’s not going to happen so it’s going to move the price higher so that those people can buy at a higher price. So and you know and the people who bought a lower price can get that sell it to them. So you’re going to see higher prices for sure on bitcoin and on a lot of other ultra crypto currencies and assets like gold and silver as well. One of the creepy things we need to look at for this. This is about this money. Six trillion dollars is that it’s a massive amount of money. Yes it’s like let’s take a look at the debt load. It’s half a doubled the revenue that the government’s government spent double of what it takes in. And that’s not including its annual expenditures. Which is more than more than a trillion a year every year more. It’s ridiculous. Right. In debt they go into debt more than a trillion each year. And so so they spend more than this. They start spending like four four or five trillion dollar dollars every year. And so they’re planning to add another six trillion on tolerance. So basically this year they’re planning to spend 10 trillion dollars that’s half of the global domestic GDP that is how much they’re going to spend in total in total. Yes including just their normal budget. And this is only this is one injection right now. I mean they they might if this thing worsens just increased the number. Right. Yeah exactly. That’s exactly. Exactly and they might going for more. But let’s just assume they don’t just assuming that they don’t which they’re definitely going to increase this number. Yes they did it already like three times. Wasn’t it like two trillion. Unfortunately you know six trillion. Exactly. Exactly. That’s exactly right. They moved it from. They moved they’re moving this goalpost rapidly. So that means that they’re going to spend more than half of their gross domestic product. Meaning how much everything that they make in the economy and half of that today. This this year. And that’s going to be equal to like just t the six trillion alone is like what 25 percent of what they they’re already in debt. So they’re going to increase the debt load right by like 25 percent of what they’ve already gone in debt in one year not including what they already do every year. Yes exactly. Also guys we released a video today on Twitter which is going right now ballistic. You might check that out. It’s in the pin comment down below and we talked about the possibility of us going into a hyper inflation. In fact guys let me play that little clip. It tells you exactly what we can expect within the next few month maybe one year. A lot of people are asking right now what exactly is going to happen now that the Federal Reserve is printing unlimited amounts of money and pumping it into the system. Well we have some crypto we think that something pretty similar to what happened back then in the violent republic in Germany in the 20s is going to happen to the whole global economic system. And what is happening right now is not only that we have unlimited and free money printing. We also have a massive massive panic and fear in the whole world. And what right now is happening is that everyone in the world is cutting their spending. They are cutting their consumption. So now that the monetary base is increasing significantly you might not even recognize that in the prices you might not even feel this inflation because the monetary base is increasing. But the consumption is going down. Thus the prices will not necessarily increase in the immediate future. They might even decrease. Everyone will be very very happy once this virus sort of settles down and the party pending just disappears and everyone will think Wow we have so much money and the prices are not rising but guys. But the consumption will rise again. The people will start spending again and we will have this huge bunch of money in the world. In fact we will have the monetary base as it was 2007 seen with a massive massive multiplier because of all this money printing. And whenever the people start spending again whenever the economy starts at least to seem like recovering this is exactly when the prices will increase significantly by a big multiple. And this is exactly when something called hyper inflation is going to happen. And this is also exactly when things like gold silver and also bitcoin go to start gaining momentum. Guys I really want to know from you right now what is your personal projection for the economy for the financial system and also for the fiat currencies here. We talked about it so often already but this is six trillion injection once again makes it so clear where we are going towards. So can you maybe talk about the severity of that and what your personal prediction is let’s say for 2020. All right. Well I would if I could ask Kudlow or Stephen solution Hey do you think spending this kind of money will end badly because it doesn’t make any sense. And they did probably say yes. Well I would then ask they would probably say no would be fine. Right. And I would then ask Well can you please pass me the stuff that you’re smoking because I want to live in your reality. Yes. So because clearly you can’t print money out of nothing and give it to people when there’s nothing to buy except food. When our economy has completely come to grind things halt and you can’t buy physical things that are being that normally get produced because nobody’s going to work and if nobody’s going to work and you give them a bunch of cash and there’s not enough goods. Well obviously the goods that are left over are going to be built up in price. And I’m surprised you cannot see that. So I’m confused by their their lack of a vision here. And and I hope that I hope that they they they they realize this. But I know that they won’t. And so what I see going forward is that we’re going to have hyper inflation in a very short amount of time. Yes. That is very true and I actually believe that all of the elites they exactly know the impact of their decisions. They actually do that all on purpose to transfer the world’s wealth from the boat population over to their side. So yeah. Da Vinci thanks for educating us on top on that topic today again and especially the bitcoin outlook seems very interesting. I really want to know from the viewers today. Do you actually think we can reach this crazy price targets by the end of the week. Of course it’s not the most likely scenario maybe but it is very possible especially with the volatility we have seen within the last few days and weeks. Let us know in the poll which is popping up on top of the screen right now. Do you think we can reach eight thousand five hundred U.S. dollars by the end of the week or not. And if not let us know in the comments. Why if yes let us know as well. Thank you so much DaVinci and do you have any any updates to share about Pandora’s wallet maybe. Yes. So we’re working hard on Penner as well. Here we’re trying to add a theorem to ah. Why am I going to be doing a video shortly on explaining how to use Pandora as wallet. And then also if you subscribe to Pandora’s wallet you will be eligible to have access to my private Pandora wallet. A telegram group where we share my portfolio and what I’m buying what I’m selling. And also you we talk about different trades that I’m doing. So if you’re interested in that we are for a limited time until the end of April. We will. You will have unlimited access to that data group even if you just purchased one month subscription. You will be able to see you’ll have complete access to the group forever and ever after that it’s only people who have maintained their subscription up to date will be allowed to stay in the group. So yeah your deal you’ll get a bonus of unlimited access to my personal group. All right. So that’s the main theme for a brand new thing or Penner as well. And I look forward for to adding a theorem and showing you that’s how this thing really works. Thank you very much for that. I think this is a very fair offer. Everyone wants to take advantage of that scroll down check out the pin comment. And besides our affiliate section you will find their link for Pandora was one at dot com and click on it. Make the monthly subscription at least you can try the product and you can join this Ted Graham group. Thank you so much DaVinci and yeah everyone I’m watching right now. Thanks for smashing up the like button. Thanks for joining the comment section and revisit each other very soon at the next one off. M.M. crypto I want to ask. Do you have anything to share before wrap up for this episode. Yeah I always played from a position of strength and don’t get wrecked don’t get read. Guys thank you so much for watching and we will see each other very soon already tomorrow at the next one. And this always goes as always. Bye bye.

Via https://www.cryptosharks.net/bitcoin-holders-exclusive-footage-shows-its-worse/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bitcoin-holders-exclusive-footage-shows-its-much-worse-than-you-think-w-davincij15

source https://cryptosharks.weebly.com/blog/bitcoin-holders-exclusive-footage-shows-its-much-worse-than-you-think-w-davincij15

[jeffrmayhugh]

BITCOIN HOLDERS!! EXCLUSIVE FOOTAGE SHOWS ITS MUCH WORSE THAN YOU THINK!! w. DavinciJ15

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Today for the Bitcoin price with da Vinci Jeff 15. This is an emergency segment before the actual Da Vinci J 15 episode starts because this tweet here big credits to car from the moon. Here on Twitter he shared a tweet of the FDIC and they’re actually talking about the banks. Can you remember how DaVinci J 15 recently said whenever the president of the United States comes out and talks about the U.S. dollar being fine the economy being fine. This is the exact moment we should weep that this is the exact moment we should start worrying. Well the FDIC is right now talking about the banks. Guys listen to the wording because this video might be as what we were referred to as the most apocalyptic video in hindsight. Guys listen closely. Listen to the calm piano song. Listen to the wording and how they want to keep the people away from the A.T.M. guys. The collapse is probably more imminent than we thought. Please take a seat. Watch this video and after what’s the DaVinci J 15 episode starts. We’re living in unprecedented time at a time of a pandemic like this. It is a way too easy to get confused and to have fear about what you should be doing with your money in your account especially as you’re looking at the volatility in the stock market in the financial sector. This is what I would like it to take away from this. Your money is safe at the banks. The last thing you should be doing is pulling your money out of the banks. Now thinking that it’s going to be safer someplace else you don’t want to be walking around with large wads of cash and you suddenly don’t want to be hoarding cash in your mattress. It didn’t pan out well for so many people. And I will tell you this. No depositor has lost a penny of their insured deposits since 1933 when the FDIC was created. So if you’re talking about having your money in a safe place please keep it in an FDIC insured bank today for the Bitcoin price with J 15. We would talk about Bitcoin and also these breaking news here that Donald Trump is planning right now is 6 trillion U.S. dollar fiscal bomb towards the United States. We will talk about how that will impact the big comprise in the immediate short term but we will also bring up some numbers some economic numbers which will certainly blow your mind. We have the one and only one Da Vinci Jeff fifteen the number one person to talk to in these uncertain times and that being said I really want to come to the most important question of the day. Da Vinci J 15 How are you doing today man. I’m doing good. Here in the locked down Chile. Turns out actually in my area where I live is the most amount of people. How’s the virus turned. Because the reason why is because in that area last contest most of the people have money to travel and so that’s where the virus outbreak is most concentrated here in Santiago. So I’m not talking to my neighbors I’m not going to refer any dinners or anything like that so we’re staying at home or being safe. How about you Chris. Pretty similar in Kupang young Thailand. So we are not in contact with many people as well and we are able to concentrate on content so thanks for carrying thanks for asking DaVinci. And now let’s get straight into it because the people are turning into day once again to hear your thoughts not only on the Bitcoin price in the immediate short term but especially they’re very interested to hear your thoughts on whatever is going on right now in this craze what we call financial crisis and I want to give a big shout out to everyone watching because look at the last two videos this one got more than 4000 likes and this one here got 4500 likes which is completely mind blowing four thousand five hundred I don’t know when I have seen that the last time on YouTube so thank you so much for smashing up the like button and DaVinci now let’s go into the charts and do it do you think we can get 5000 likes today. I think so. I think so. I really feel that we can get 5000 likes today. Thank you everyone for liking our videos. All right. So let’s head over to these charts and see what we can see. I think we’re going to see our our faces being painted pink while you’re gonna be pink painted yellow. Right. Exactly. I guess I’m getting that feeling right. Right. Well basically you just had to get up to the two week right until we can we can get up to the 80 500 and be so cool by the end of this week and close the week this the end of this week. Eighty five in this area in this general area just above the 13 May. I’ll be so happy. Wait so today. It’s Wednesday right. You are talking about the end of this week by Sunday or by Friday like this Sunday by Sunday. So we are talking you are talking about that. You still think it’s very much possible that we are closing the week on Sunday at eight thousand five hundred and do we do a central correctly. Yes that’s correct. I think it was very possible that we do that well at this point. We’re on track for that daily. I would like to see the daily come down and do a U W but I don’t think it’s got enough time to do that. So if I could just come back down and then come back up and just go. OK. See you want to see. That would be that would be epic Ray especially since right. And look at that the 200 day Lee is up here. It’s crossing over with that 50. Yes it’s crossing over with the 50 I think a ceiling’s 55. Yeah that’s a 50. The red here is the 50. So not not very bullish right now at this crossing today but we are we do have an upward momentum. So yeah if if we if we cross hopefully this will be mitigated through an upward move not very good of course but I really think that this thing has the power to more like the daily two to two psychics out of a little bit more hopefully not cross the 13 year may or if it does cross it it doesn’t stay below falls below it or stay below it on on the on on a daily close like it closes below it and then it pumps back up the next day that would be great. That would help put this momentum and push up to the 80 500. Looking closer look. That looks like we’re not coming back down to the screen like that. I mean it’s possible but I don’t see that happening. Please don’t go in is exactly at all bad. Thank you so much for that. And certainly this looks like massive volatility however even if we go down to six thousand. Talking about price target of eight thousand five hundred by the end of this week of course no certainties here. But this is in the room of possibilities than men. I mean there will be serious fireworks however before we started recording DaVinci. You mentioned that these. This is 6 trillion US dollars might be one of the reasons of that happening. So can you please elaborate a little bit more on that and also let us know what you think we’re all this crazy. All this money printing is leading to what’s coronavirus have a package to reach roughly six trillion dollars. This money printing that they’re going to hand out to everybody. Once it passes I think Bitcoin will have to move higher. The reason why is because the market is a forward discounting mechanism meaning that they’re not going to allow the people who get these checks to buy bitcoin at a 5000 six dollars. She’s not going to happen so it’s going to move the price higher so that those people can buy at a higher price. So and you know and the people who bought a lower price can get that sell it to them. So you’re going to see higher prices for sure on bitcoin and on a lot of other ultra crypto currencies and assets like gold and silver as well. One of the creepy things we need to look at for this. This is about this money. Six trillion dollars is that it’s a massive amount of money. Yes it’s like let’s take a look at the debt load. It’s half a doubled the revenue that the government’s government spent double of what it takes in. And that’s not including its annual expenditures. Which is more than more than a trillion a year every year more. It’s ridiculous. Right. In debt they go into debt more than a trillion each year. And so so they spend more than this. They start spending like four four or five trillion dollar dollars every year. And so they’re planning to add another six trillion on tolerance. So basically this year they’re planning to spend 10 trillion dollars that’s half of the global domestic GDP that is how much they’re going to spend in total in total. Yes including just their normal budget. And this is only this is one injection right now. I mean they they might if this thing worsens just increased the number. Right. Yeah exactly. That’s exactly. Exactly and they might going for more. But let’s just assume they don’t just assuming that they don’t which they’re definitely going to increase this number. Yes they did it already like three times. Wasn’t it like two trillion. Unfortunately you know six trillion. Exactly. Exactly. That’s exactly right. They moved it from. They moved they’re moving this goalpost rapidly. So that means that they’re going to spend more than half of their gross domestic product. Meaning how much everything that they make in the economy and half of that today. This this year. And that’s going to be equal to like just t the six trillion alone is like what 25 percent of what they they’re already in debt. So they’re going to increase the debt load right by like 25 percent of what they’ve already gone in debt in one year not including what they already do every year. Yes exactly. Also guys we released a video today on Twitter which is going right now ballistic. You might check that out. It’s in the pin comment down below and we talked about the possibility of us going into a hyper inflation. In fact guys let me play that little clip. It tells you exactly what we can expect within the next few month maybe one year. A lot of people are asking right now what exactly is going to happen now that the Federal Reserve is printing unlimited amounts of money and pumping it into the system. Well we have some crypto we think that something pretty similar to what happened back then in the violent republic in Germany in the 20s is going to happen to the whole global economic system. And what is happening right now is not only that we have unlimited and free money printing. We also have a massive massive panic and fear in the whole world. And what right now is happening is that everyone in the world is cutting their spending. They are cutting their consumption. So now that the monetary base is increasing significantly you might not even recognize that in the prices you might not even feel this inflation because the monetary base is increasing. But the consumption is going down. Thus the prices will not necessarily increase in the immediate future. They might even decrease. Everyone will be very very happy once this virus sort of settles down and the party pending just disappears and everyone will think Wow we have so much money and the prices are not rising but guys. But the consumption will rise again. The people will start spending again and we will have this huge bunch of money in the world. In fact we will have the monetary base as it was 2007 seen with a massive massive multiplier because of all this money printing. And whenever the people start spending again whenever the economy starts at least to seem like recovering this is exactly when the prices will increase significantly by a big multiple. And this is exactly when something called hyper inflation is going to happen. And this is also exactly when things like gold silver and also bitcoin go to start gaining momentum. Guys I really want to know from you right now what is your personal projection for the economy for the financial system and also for the fiat currencies here. We talked about it so often already but this is six trillion injection once again makes it so clear where we are going towards. So can you maybe talk about the severity of that and what your personal prediction is let’s say for 2020. All right. Well I would if I could ask Kudlow or Stephen solution Hey do you think spending this kind of money will end badly because it doesn’t make any sense. And they did probably say yes. Well I would then ask they would probably say no would be fine. Right. And I would then ask Well can you please pass me the stuff that you’re smoking because I want to live in your reality. Yes. So because clearly you can’t print money out of nothing and give it to people when there’s nothing to buy except food. When our economy has completely come to grind things halt and you can’t buy physical things that are being that normally get produced because nobody’s going to work and if nobody’s going to work and you give them a bunch of cash and there’s not enough goods. Well obviously the goods that are left over are going to be built up in price. And I’m surprised you cannot see that. So I’m confused by their their lack of a vision here. And and I hope that I hope that they they they they realize this. But I know that they won’t. And so what I see going forward is that we’re going to have hyper inflation in a very short amount of time. Yes. That is very true and I actually believe that all of the elites they exactly know the impact of their decisions. They actually do that all on purpose to transfer the world’s wealth from the boat population over to their side. So yeah. Da Vinci thanks for educating us on top on that topic today again and especially the bitcoin outlook seems very interesting. I really want to know from the viewers today. Do you actually think we can reach this crazy price targets by the end of the week. Of course it’s not the most likely scenario maybe but it is very possible especially with the volatility we have seen within the last few days and weeks. Let us know in the poll which is popping up on top of the screen right now. Do you think we can reach eight thousand five hundred U.S. dollars by the end of the week or not. And if not let us know in the comments. Why if yes let us know as well. Thank you so much DaVinci and do you have any any updates to share about Pandora’s wallet maybe. Yes. So we’re working hard on Penner as well. Here we’re trying to add a theorem to ah. Why am I going to be doing a video shortly on explaining how to use Pandora as wallet. And then also if you subscribe to Pandora’s wallet you will be eligible to have access to my private Pandora wallet. A telegram group where we share my portfolio and what I’m buying what I’m selling. And also you we talk about different trades that I’m doing. So if you’re interested in that we are for a limited time until the end of April. We will. You will have unlimited access to that data group even if you just purchased one month subscription. You will be able to see you’ll have complete access to the group forever and ever after that it’s only people who have maintained their subscription up to date will be allowed to stay in the group. So yeah your deal you’ll get a bonus of unlimited access to my personal group. All right. So that’s the main theme for a brand new thing or Penner as well. And I look forward for to adding a theorem and showing you that’s how this thing really works. Thank you very much for that. I think this is a very fair offer. Everyone wants to take advantage of that scroll down check out the pin comment. And besides our affiliate section you will find their link for Pandora was one at dot com and click on it. Make the monthly subscription at least you can try the product and you can join this Ted Graham group. Thank you so much DaVinci and yeah everyone I’m watching right now. Thanks for smashing up the like button. Thanks for joining the comment section and revisit each other very soon at the next one off. M.M. crypto I want to ask. Do you have anything to share before wrap up for this episode. Yeah I always played from a position of strength and don’t get wrecked don’t get read. Guys thank you so much for watching and we will see each other very soon already tomorrow at the next one. And this always goes as always. Bye bye.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/bitcoin-holders-exclusive-footage-shows-its-worse/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bitcoin-holders-exclusive-footage-shows-its-much-worse-than-you-think-w-davincij15 source https://cryptosharks1.tumblr.com/post/613716540980871168