#most recent occurance is eating my brain alive right now because I feel just so. degraded and offended by how she chose to evaluate me

[seilon]

you know im realizing now. with the exception of a few resident psychiatrists, ive had like. no good experiences with mental health professionals

[system-startup]

It's astounding how much suffering and stalling occurs from a pure lack of control over your life. Even if the fundamental needs are otherwise ultimately met, the consequences of the absence of autonomy severely limits how much good it can really do. It makes being alive...inefficient. Because by forcing multiple bodies on a schedule, depending on how it's done, more than one is not optimized, and the presence of other human beings doesn't even make up for it because there remains an insufficient lack of the tendency to help and build one-another up.

Sure, I have plenty of food. I'm not literally starving. However almost all of it has to be cooked (this takes time, and I physically cannot preform the task), or it isn't mine (eat any/too much and people will get upset), or it's something that I've been depending on to survive too much (so my brain is beginning to struggle to choke it down despite it's microwaveable factor being a huge convenience).

Even if I try to course-correct by asking for food sooner, well. I have to basically demand it, and even then it just won't work out. Aside from feeling selfish and horrible in general (preventing me from being too bad about it to begin with), I have to filter through someonelse. Do THEY want to eat this? Do THEY want to do this? And most of all, RIGHT NOW?

And then the insistence on doing things together; if, beyond my control, I'd gone just about the length of time it takes for me to start breaking down due to the lack of food in my system (and my disabilities make that so that it can take as little as 6-to-4 hours, sometimes as bad as 2 depending on the day), I am regularly made to wait an extra 1-4 hours for the dinner someonelse planned.

This results in approximately half my day being thrown away because it took too long to eat. For a decent amount of the duration of my wait, and afterwards--eating, digestion, these take longer to supply me with brain activity especially the longer I waited to eat.

If the same thing happens with breakfast (and chef my beloved is a night owl while I'm an early bird so this is a frequent issue) my whole day is easily shot by this. And there is almost nothing I can do to protect myself from losing the whole day because of a bad start. If I don't eat breakfast before 10am, I am going to lose at least a few hours of my day. This is consistent. I can't change my sleeping schedule because against all odds my body will simply become horrendously sleep deprived because it insists on waking up in the wee hours of the morning no matter what.

To be able to type this up at all is indicative of a lot of recent successes; the chances that a single delay will completely fuck up our shit are low because we've been on top of it like nothing else lately. But this is exhausting to maintain and if too many hiccups happen down the road we know in our heart and our charts that we will fucking crash again.

So I've been working on my analysi, but there are so many it makes it incredibly difficult to focus on one long enough to complete a thought and put it somewhere that it can easily be found again.

[russadler]

All That Remains: Chapter Two

PREVIOUS CHAPTER

A look back to happier times and a defining conversation

A/N: Hey lol once again sorry I took so long. This chapter is relatively shortish (?) because it was originally part of the next chapter, but I decided to split it since it was getting long lmao. The next chapter will actually be coming soon I promise I was like almost finished but decided to publish this section since it was done and yall need to get fed.

Also another note I guess? I refer to Russell as “Adler” even though its third person Sophie centric. I believe since they came to know each other through work, Sophie only initially heard/knew of him by his last name and will still refer to him in her mind as such. I didn’t do this much in the first chapter but I thought about it and also it felt weird calling him Russell all the time LMFAOO

August 2nd, 1980

“…I’m surprised you never had kids.” 

It’s more of a question than a statement, and an admittedly nosey one. They’re currently in the midst of a very picturesque picnic in a field of their choosing, the pair of them eating lunch while sprawled across a spare blanket pulled from the back of Russell’s car. The man in question is currently laid on his side, chewing a strawberry and peering up at her with a curiously cocked eyebrow making an appearance over the rim of his aviators. 

Sophie wriggles under the scrutiny, a blush rising to her cheeks as she redirects her eyes towards her leather boots with a timid huff. They had been together for more than enough time by now, enough time for the lustre of having Russell Adler as her boyfriend to have worn off. Yet, even all these months later, a mere glance from the man was enough to leave her flushed and stumbling over her words. 

“I’m sorry —“ She rushes to apologize, sandwich suddenly forgotten as she picks sheepishly at a loose thread on her dress. She had meant to word things a little…differently, but who was she kidding? it wasn’t her place to ask such things in the first place.

With Russell, the more you pressed him, the further away he pulled. His trust came with patience and time, a small price Sophie didn’t mind paying. There were things he held close to himself, his marriage being one of them. It was obviously a sensitive topic, or at least one he didn’t enjoy talking about. She hadn’t intended to interrogate him about the fact he didn’t have any children despite being married for a little over a decade, it was his business. Only recently had he begun sharing that part of his life with her, and it was a sign of his trust that she deeply valued.  

And here she went, utterly obliterating that carefully constructed confidence because she seemed to lack a brain-to-mouth filter.

“You’re fine, kid.”  Russell soothes, interrupting her scattered thoughts. The woman manages to to will herself to look at him again, where his enlivened grin signaling he was more amused than offended by the statement. 

He sits up, and one of his hands moves to rub at her thigh in reassurance. “I admire that you’re always pretty straight to the point.” He notes lightheartedly, subtly pacifying her current flustered state.

The woman huffs, self conscious despite the comforting words. "It gets me in trouble way too much.” She confesses, biting into her sandwich a bit too harshly. It was true. She had a terrible habit of being too honest for as long as she could remember, and it had made for some terribly awkward experiences throughout her life.

“I’d argue telling the truth is a pretty good thing to get in trouble for.” Adler remarks in return, his hand remaining on her thigh as he continues with his lunch. She could tell he was making a point of appearing relatively unconcerned about the whole thing, likely in a bid to provide her some sense of consolation. The man was leaving little room for her to feel upset at herself. 

Sophie releases a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and relaxes, shoulders loosening as she finishes the last of her sandwich. 

There’s another beat of silence, and then it occurs to her that Russell had managed yet again to wriggle his way out of talking about himself. It was a common pattern, nearly every time she attempted to make conversation that centered around him, he would artfully steer the conversation away from himself and find a way to redirect the topic towards her. 

He was annoyingly good at it, too, and she was just starting to catch on that he was doing it in the first place. 

“Wait! You didn’t answer the question!” The brunette gasps, exasperated. “You always do this!” 

“Do what?” Russell retorts, behaving as if he were completely ignorant of what was the matter. He always acted as if he didn’t know.

“You always find a way to not answer me! Every time you change the subject and then hope I forget!” The woman laughs, failing miserably in her attempt to come across as annoyed. His behavior was maddening, but Sophie often found she was less irritated and more awestruck that the man was so artful at playing people. 

“I’d never do that, you’re just making things up.” Russell quips, mouth twisted with a lopsided smile as he continues the playful banter. “I love talking about myself, actually. Could do it all day.” 

Adler just keeps smirking, stuffing a strawberry into his mouth as he does. The younger rolls her eyes, because as much as she loved him, the man could seriously be a pain. “You don’t actually have to answer the question if you don’t want to. ” She adds, humor now absent from her voice as she quietly rearranges the bundle of wildflowers she had picked.

“I said it was fine, sweetheart. Don’t worry about it.” Russell tells her again, his voice calm and even as he continues to rub circles into her skin. There’s a brief pause, and suddenly the hand on her thigh stops moving. “Wait, do you want kids? Is this your way of asking?” He asks, his head suddenly shifting to level her with a steely gaze. Despite the presence of the aviators on his face, she can feel the intensity of his stare. The man’s demeanor had grown suddenly serious, alert even.

“No! I mean…kids are nice and all and I don’t mind them…but I’m not really dead set on having them.” She explains, her own hand darting to grasp Russell’s larger one. From one moment to the next, it had suddenly become her turn to offer reassurance. “In all honesty, I feel I’d quite rather do without them, really.” She returns the man’s heavy gaze with one of her own, both in search of his reaction and in the hopes of communicating her honesty. "I was just…curious.” She admits shyly.

It was the truth, she wasn’t one of those girls whose ultimate life goal was of being a housewife with the white picket fence, apple pies, and endless kids. There was nothing wrong with that ideal per say, but it wasn’t something she saw herself wanting. 

The woman wasn’t really looking to make children a part of her life. If it happened, it happened, but she could go without them and feel just fine about it. 

Russell, on his part, seemed relieved. Accepting her answer with a nod, his gaze moves towards the sky above as he gives her hand a short squeeze.

Then to her complete surprise, he decides to answer the question anyways. Sophie turns to look at the taller as he begins to speak, shifting to lay on her left side and face him as he leaned back on his hands. 

“Well...there’s a lot of reasons, really. First, my job.” Adler then pauses to spare her a brief glance, as if to ensure she understood what he was attempting to convey. It was no secret that Russell was often away, leaving her for weeks and sometimes months on end. She was never allowed to have any hint of what he was doing or even where he was going, all that she could know was that his work was very important and very dangerous. 

Sometimes she found herself sitting at home and just hoping he was still alive. Confirmation that he was okay only came when he either called her to say he was coming home (which was rare) or until he appeared out of the blue. It wasn’t a feeling she liked having, and a sentiment Russell hated subjecting her to.  

It was just the way it was, the way it had to be. Their relationship would always come second to work, Adler had made that very clear from the start. She was either in or out, and he made sure that she knew the price that she would be paying in being with him.

Russell sighs, the exhale sounding deep and tired before he continues. “It would be unfair to do that to a kid, they wouldn’t understand why their dad was away all the time...And it would have been unfair to my ex, she would have had to essentially raise them all on her own.” 

Sophie nods silently in understanding, the living scenario was on she had come to understand personally. The periods of absence would be difficult on both mother and child for various reasons, and it was good that the couple had weighed the risks.

“Some of the guys at work are okay with that, and have wives that were okay with that, but for us..?” He continues, voice even as he grasps one of the flowers she had stuffed into the picnic basket and begins rolling the stem between his thumb and pointer finger. “We didn’t want kids that bad. We were okay, just it being the two of us.”

“You both ended up going your separate ways, too. I could imagine if you had kids that would have been a nightmare.” She adds, a relatively astute observation but one that she felt was worth mentioning. They had made the right choice after all, it had seemed. 

“God, I’m thankful we didn’t for that reason especially.” Russell replies with audible relief, thankful that children hadn’t been something to consider in their subsequent divorce. 

There’s a moment of silence, and she thinks he’s finished speaking, especially seeing that he officially answered her question. 

But then he sits up properly, clearing his throat before speaking once more. “And all these years later my feelings about it are the same and I don’t regret it.” He tells her, sounding confident and assured as he rips most of the stem away from the main portion of the flower with a powerful yank. “Even if I wanted them now, I’m a bit too old to be a dad. So that ship has long sailed.” 

Sophie nods. Russell was a man of very few regrets, and his sense of judgement was one she had come to trust wholeheartedly. He turns to her, an arm reaching out to tuck a few locks of her hair out of the way before placing the remainder of the flower behind her ear. 

The woman smiles so hard her cheeks ache. Russell Adler was a romantic, despite the fact he vehemently denies it. It was true and no one was going to believe her ever. “I don’t think you really missed out, everyone I know who has kids just complains about them.” She states, still smiling.

The taller’s chest rumbles with a chuckle. Having carefully maneuvering the food out of the way, he then wraps an arm around her shoulders, he pulls her down to lay at his side as she lets out a surprised squeak. “Have we been talking to the same people?” He asks. 

“If one of them is named Jason Hudson, then yes.”

Russell laughs then, and it’s music to her ears.

[lorddistancebarry]

Forest In Chains - Chapter 1

"500, 600, 700, 800, 900.." Garcello counts the cash in his hands after he was given the bag of money. After Tabi fell and didn’t get back up from the half-giant cutting loose and throwing him through the cage into the left most stands of the audience. After the red haze cleared. After basically running with fire and panicking the entire way. He still feels the burns and cuts on his arms, chest and face from Tabi's strikes. The bruising deciding to make itself known by the numbness hidden via his bangs on the left side of his face. The wounds just adding on in a pile especially when the reaper decided to stop fucking around and went all in... his body shivers as the pain compounds and the wind from the September season hits him while he sits on the bench waiting for the bus.

"You barely von that, child." a deep, voice spoke.

Garcello looks up and looks intrigued and surprised at who it belonged to.

"Ruv.." He noted looking up from his money and putting it away, quickly.

"You did not expect me?" He noted with a smirk,"Illegal fight, legal fight. I come to all, vatch them. Sarvente spoke of it being good move. I believe her."

The large Russian man walks over and sits down like a neighbor to Garcello on the bus stop. "But, I can go on many years speaking about her." Ruv noted,"Vhat about you, Young Smoke? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Garcello admits,"Just.. didn't expect to get cut and burned alive like I'm a fuckin piece of meat."

"Equalizers are not to be trifled vith. As gang or as fighters in vrestling circuit." Ruv chuckles,"Go to be undefeated, An equalizer gets sent, test you. It is cycle to see if you are actually good or you are veak bitch."

"Well, was i actually good?" Garcello laughs wryly,"Cause i feel like shit."

"No, you vere lucky, you use your strength. You are shit, but vorkable shit. Trainable." Ruv critiques as he takes out his vodka flask from his jacket. "So.. you're going to train me?" Garcello asked looking up as Ruv drinks. "Vin against Agoti or Vhitty." He directs looking to Garcello stoically,"Then I teach you. I vant to see if your are vorth time."Ruv takes another drink from his flask. Garcello takes out one of his cigarettes and lights it. A green light illuminates at the end as he inhales, steam and smoke coalesces and flares outward into a glowing green, mist smoke hybrid. "I see." He nods once,"And if I am worth your time?" "I train you.break you, see vhat you.. really are. Then ve progress from there."  Ruv stated looking to Garcello with his lone, glossy eye. Almost seeming to look through Garcello and into him.Garcello shivers looking back. Friend? Enemy? "I see." He gets up as the bus is rolling up."Well for now.. I'm gonna get dinner and go home. Thanks for checking up on me." "Anytime. I do not like promising student, be jumped by Equalizer scum." Ruv chuckles with a grin. Garcello pales a bit, "Uh... what?" Ruv looks to the fellow titan with an incredulous stare,"You scraped out vin, but you also humiliated Tabi. Young Reaper vill vant revenge..." The Russian raises an eyebrow,"You did not expect that?" "But you beat some of the Equalizer's asses and you didn't get  jumped!" Garcello points out as the whir of steam leaving the bus' brakes occurs and the door's open. "That is because of grace of God and grace of throwing truck across street." Ruv laughs wryly,"Now go, child. Before you are stuck here." Garcello waves Ruv off before getting on the bus and using his bus card. A satisfied beep of payment as he moves. Knowing the timer, he sits down quickly before the bus moves with a hiss of the breaks lifting from the ground and the bus hovers, flying down the roads and over ground locked travel.He looks out the window at the night sky and at the many lights below of Funk City. Advertisements, cars, city signs, street lights. Garcello lets his mind wander at the light pollution and the sound of hover cars flying by. Its mesmerizing. Watching everything just fly, zip, and zop by. Time could pass as the colors of the city and the energy takes him in. The concept when he was young had never gotten old or changed. The colors of the world, the lifeblood of the people moving, growing and just living. This is why he and his mother had migrated here. Such a decision had to be lived through not just decided on a whim. But this.. This wholesome peace and tranquility at this time. Away from the violence, the darkness and the weight of it all... Was a very big deciding factor. "One day... they will be able to feel this way.." Garcello resolves quietly as he looks down through the window to the city below. "Feel so.. free..." He coos starting to let the pain and tiredness get to him. Starting to fall asleep on the bus and get complacent in his space... until a growling, gurgling reminder makes itself painfully known in his core. The tender flesh of wounds on his abdomen only make it worse. His body went through hell.

It wants food, it needs it. He needs it. NOW. "First.... step... free myself." he grumbles softly as pain burns in his core and it forces him out of falling asleep and dragging on. Sitting up properly and starting to search for a close enough bus stop so he doesn't just add more suffering with a long as fuck walk that only lengthens the burning. Finding one, he pulls on the wire that signals the automated system to stop. The bus stops after a bit before landing with the soft 'woosh' of steam. Getting off the bus, he walks down the streets. Looking up to keep track of his own placement on the road, looking down to light a cigarette to ease some of the pain, looking back up now to search for those heavenly golden arches. After a minute, 6 cigarettes later.. the yellow and red light beams down upon his form. At this point, a soft, barely noticeable film of red covers everything and everyone that walks by and every sensation, smell and taste is heightened. Painfully so. "Finally..." he exhales, dry air hitting a watering, near drooling maw. He walks into the restaurant with a dragging motion of his feet. Garcello looms over to the counter with barely any real patience. People move away and those that don't, go quickly about their order then move. "Hi." he stated, "I would like.. the whole left menu. Twice. Add 6 McChicken meals. Super size it..." "I-is that-that all sir?" A timid female voice asked quietly. "Yes.." he confirms. Not really looking up. "It's going to be disc-discounted. Y-you don't mind right?" She asked.As she asks that, the red film sight as it was dies down a bit. Garcello looks up from the counter. There is only one person that ever asks about discounts in his mind. He looks at the attendant at the counter and sees the fuchsia and sky blue eyes looking up and right back at him from her gaunt, modest face and shivering, small frame. "Rebecca? What are you doin' here?!" He asked actually in shock. "Um.. well.." she shrugs,"I work here. Y/N got me the job, t-they're the manager." Garcello looks on in shock. He tilts his head back with an incredulous stare. Looking for you and seeing you wave a short, polite wave as you're working with the drive through attendants to ensure chaos is handled. Garcello looks back to Rebecca. "Don’t give me a discount girl just charge me normally. I'll treat ya." He says softly. "A-are you su-sure?" "Entirely." He nods handing over 80 dollars. "You were c-close but a bit over. Your price is 72 dollars and 12 cents." "I know." He nods,"Tips. Put the change in your pocket." Rebecca looks sheepish, looking down and shivering."B-but.." "Do it." He commands sternly. Rebecca takes the money, makes exact change and keeps it immediately. Every motion is fast and shaky like an unstable roller-coaster. "T-thanks..." she murmurs shyly poking her fingers together. "When are you two off?" He asked. "In.. 30 mins.." Rebecca looks up at Garcello. Her eyes narrow and she grimaces.."I'll get an ice baggy.. and. I'm going to be frank... I have questions. And if i have questions.. Y/N is going to want answers..." Garcello grinds his teeth,"Alright. I'll wait and we'll talk." Rebecca purses her lips then exhales,"Thank you." Garcello leaves from the counter and to one of the large benches at the furthest back of the restaurant and waits. Waiting, letting time pass as he patiently sits. His core burning with hunger and primal thoughts when the mental shock subsides. The herd is curious.. tell them. "I.. don’t want them in danger..." Lies are over... tell them something... they worry. They fear. "Garcello? Are you good?" You asked concerned, "Rebecca told me about.-" "The bruise on my face. I know." Garcello says as Rebecca comes over with the food trays. "Ice bag, 3 o clock?" Rebecca offers the baggie of ice. Garcello looks to it then takes the bag, wiggles up his cap and bangs, revealing the recently closed gashes, burns and cuts on his chin and face. Your eyes widen from the sight, brow furrowing in concern. "What h-happened?" Rebecca says before you do. You see Garcello is staring at the food, half listening. Mostly tired, dragging on fumes really. "No." You say then look to Garcello,"We talk. After you finish eating. Got it?" "Yes'm"  Garcello nods once then  finally let's his brain drop being alert.Rebecca looks to you with concern, she shakes more from anxiety. "Oh.. don't worry I know." Your reassure,"But overwhelming him is the last thing on my mind. I don't think this is a simple little 'fall' like last time anyway." "You want to h-hear it fro-from his mouth." You nod once and sit down before looking to Rebecca, she nods once with a small smile. "Both of us are signed out, we wont get in trouble with higher ups for over time."She confirms just before- CRUNCH! TEAAAR! SHHRRIIP! Garcello eats like they aren't there, there is no smacking noise. Just an absence of control from tiredness and physically going through hell. Hes going through hoops with food like a functioning sponge with water, trying to replenish what was forcefully squeezed out of him. Rebecca looks to you. "I.. haven't seen him like this.. or well this bad.. Do you think hes..." "I think so." you confirm," Maybe on drugs. But regardless of whatever it is... This cant be swept under the rug. Did you call Annie?" "I-I did." Rebecca nods,"She's coming as fast as possible. I warned her to not run red lights. I was promptly cursed out in German. I responded. She hung up knowing I was right." Garcello stops eating into his 6th McChicken. The man didn't unwrap the wrapper off, the whole ass sandwich is just getting murdered with his teeth. The devouring however stops short at the mention of Annie. With bloodshot eyes, he looks to Rebecca and you. "You.. are all going to be here?" he asked and you shake your head no. "No." You respond,"But. I'm happy you have a brain in there again. Because like it or not.. you're going to tell us what we need to know." Garcello pales in the face for a moment like he saw a ghost, his heart races in terror. His pupils contract as he knows hes cornered now. There is no wiggling out like before.

"We aren't g-going to hurt you, big guy." Rebecca coos softly. "I.. i know its jus'..." Garcello starts but its hard to put words together. "You know you can't bullshit us anymore." You finish looking at the man directly in his face. Garcello looks away looking down at the scraps of paper, unwrapped or just ripped apart making a mess on the table. "Yeah.. I cant." he confirms as Annie rampages in like a crashing tsunami and yells just as loud, scaring customers out of the restaurant. "NOW WHOMST THE FUCK JUMPED GARCELLO?! I'M ABOUT TO FUCKING BEAT THEIR SHIT IN!" Annie yells, her flesh is tinting blue from the glowing blue of her veins spidering from her skin. A sign of her stress before she drinks ‘the liquid’. "You bout to calm so i can explain." Garcello says strictly, unafraid as he’s been used to seeing the entity pour our from her veins and skin. He’s more than used to being attacked as he knows it doesn't like him. But for now it has no power here. Just like his other half. "Then talk." You egg on, as Annie takes a few breathes, grabs a chair and sits in it, the back of the chair acing the table."We're all listening." Garcello bites his lips. His S/O and his best friends, the core of the herd, his herd... now are looking at him like hes wounded. Doesn't help that he is on the outside and inside... ‘Now you gone and done it, Garcy.. but now.. what do you do now?’ He asks himself in his thoughts as he takes a deep breath in. Act as you are, You are alpha. Time to be a man.

[anubislover]

“Welcome to the Heart Pirates, Nami-ya” Chapter 13: The Lesser Evil

Nami awoke slowly, her fogged brain sluggishly processing her strange surroundings. A high-pitched beeping noise. Low, muttered voices. Scratchy sheets against her skin and a stiff mattress beneath her back. Her eyes cracked open only to immediately shut again in pain from the blinding white light. She attempted to shield them but was startled to find her wrists bound with thick leather straps to a metal headboard.

Memories of Jinzo and the club snapped to the forefront of her mind. Had she been captured? Was this that creep’s brothel? Where was Ikkaku? Was she still bleeding out in the alley? Where was Law?!

Panicked and disoriented, she screamed and struggled helplessly until a pair of large, gloved hands firmly but gently grabbed her shoulders, pinning her down as Law’s hard face blocked out the bright light, allowing Nami to finally see.

“Nami-ya, calm down; you’re in my infirmary.”

“What?”

He neglected to answer as he inspected her eyes, his stern expression softening with relief. “No blue in the iris—looks like I got all of the drug out. Do you remember last night?”

“Of course I remember! Law, you need to get Ikkaku—”

“Right here, Nami,” a voice from one of the other beds groaned. The redhead breathed a deep sigh of relief when she saw Bepo unshackling the engineer before gingerly helping her sit up. There was an IV full of fluids hooked to her arm and she was in one of the Tang’s hospital gowns, but she was alive. “Neptune’s beard, I never want to see another martini again.”

Nausea bubbled in her stomach as Nami recalled Hypnotique and the state she’d had to leave the other woman in. “Those men…they didn’t—”

“They tried.” Penguin’s face was dark as he leaned against the wall. Tension and quiet rage radiated from every pore as he stared at his shipmate, latex gloves squeaking softly as he clenched and unclenched his hands. “We barely got there in time.”

“I was out of bullets, and Mandōreku had me pinned…” Ikkaku trailed off with a shudder.

“Penguin pulled him off you,” Law said quietly, though Nami could see the angry tic in his jaw as he ground his teeth and the way his tattooed knuckles were white with rage as he released the straps around her wrists. “Shot him point-blank in the family jewels.”

“Did you kill him?” Ikkaku asked, turning to the first mate.

“Not right away,” he replied coldly, the brim of his hat casting his eyes in shadow. “You’d lost a lot of blood and the uranos needed to be dealt with immediately, but once Law had you unconscious and in the infirmary, I took care of him.”

“Good. I only wish I could have done it myself,” she snarled. “Apparently, that son of a bitch was the one who spiked our drinks and supplied the drug in the first place.”

“If I’d known that, I’d have let him bleed out from the hole in his crotch instead of finishing him quickly,” Penguin growled. “I thought he was just a regular scumbag.”

“What’s important is that we got the drug out of you both in time,” Law cut in as he helped Nami sit up. “Uranos basically acts as a stimulant and aphrodisiac. If not treated quickly, it can cause enough brain damage to turn even the most level-headed person into a pleasure-addicted zombie. To say nothing of how much it fucks up your liver, kidneys, and reproductive organs.”

“At least your powers could get it out of us,” Nami stated, remembering how he’d managed to remove the birth control from her system.

“Yes, but given how many vital parts it effects and how fast it works, it takes a lot more concentration and energy than usual—especially since I couldn’t afford to treat you one at a time. I also find it’s easier when the patient’s unconscious; a slowed heart rate means the drug’s processed less quickly, plus it lessens the amount of distracting moaning and writhing from the patient. Not that it stops entirely,” he stated, nodding at the leather restraints.

She flushed. So that’s why he knocked her out. She could now clearly remember how she threw herself at him, practically begging him to fuck her. God, how humiliating! And to think she’d been so overwhelmed by need that she nearly hadn’t told Law about Ikkaku. If he hadn’t managed to trick the answer out of her…

“Thanks for getting us, Boss,” Ikkaku said, breaking the tense silence that fell upon the room.

Bepo gave her a faint smile as he rubbed her back, carefully avoiding scratching her with his claws. “Law’d never leave you two behind.”

“Jinzo didn’t think so,” she replied sourly, hands tightening into fists. “Planned on making Nami his star attraction, and he was going to hand me over to the bartender as a bonus for his ‘services’. Knew there was something off about that guy, especially when he wouldn’t get us water.”

“I’m sorry I left you alone with him,” Nami whispered guiltily, drawing her knees against her chest. Mandōreku had seemed so nice, but behind that charming smile had been utter scum. To think, she’d even encouraged her friend to give that creep a chance!

Ikkaku shook her head insistently. “Nami, I specifically told you to go to the bathroom because I had the feeling something was up, and I wanted you safely out of the way in case things turned violent. Which they did, and you ended up coming out and saving my ass anyway, so no harm, no foul.”

“What’s ‘foul’ is the fact that that bastard had enough uranos to spike the drinks of an entire bar,” Penguin snapped. Despite the girls being safe and sound, his scowl hadn’t eased up, and his posture still implied that he’d like to go out and kill something. But even though anger radiated off of him, he stayed put, not moving so much as an inch from his place by Ikkaku’s bed.

Gloved hand rubbing his goatee, Law nodded in agreement. “Uranos is extracted from a berry that only grows on a single island in the South Blue—Jinzo must have sunk a fortune into getting enough juice to dose a whole bar full of women. Just 15ml costs at least 50,000 belli.”

“If he got the shipment in recently, plus factoring in buying property, remodeling, paying his guards, and all his other expenses, no wonder he didn’t have the money to pay you and Drake,” Nami said, tallying up the rough costs of everything Jinzo had likely been spending in the past month.

Frown deepening, the surgeon looked at her in consideration. “He and Kimo-ya had always done well in the black market trade, but I guess with so many upstart pirates moving on to the New World to take advantage of the chaos, he wanted a fallback in case his normal clientele dried up. It’s not a bad plan, but he should never have tried to muscle in on Haiko-ya’s territory; she may be married to his partner, but she’s basically the unofficial ruler of Grimm’s nightlife.”

“Haiko’s that powerful?”

“She’s established quite the foothold over the past two years. Hiroshi once told me that, before she married Kimo-ya, Grimm was even worse; the dead bodies of whores were regularly found on street corners, drug lords ran rampant, you never knew if you were drinking alcohol or formaldehyde, and the slave trade was out of control. When Haiko-ya arrived, she used her influence to start cleaning things up. The first thing she did was reform the brothels; because of her, they’re now run like legitimate businesses with willing employees that are treated well.”

“Yeah? Jinzo seemed to have had other ideas,” Nami said softly. “He had us all drugged so he could cut down labor costs. No need to pay whores if they’re mindless sex slaves.”

Law scoffed. “Idiot. Women who take uranos have a life expectancy of a month, tops, and that’s still longer than men. Aside from the organ damage the drug can cause, being in a constant state of arousal like that typically results in dehydration, puts a massive strain on the heart, and when you’re only focused on fulfilling your sexual desires, basic human needs like eating and sleeping fall by the wayside. Most wither away to nothing.”

Penguin took off his hat to rub his forehead, scowl deepening. “So, even if he’d succeeded, once those girls died, he’d have to pay out again for a new batch of brain-fucked prostitutes.”

Nami shuddered at the thought. That could have been them. She would have died a mindless sex slave. Despite her life of servitude and the dangers she’d faced as a woman on the Grand Line, such a fate had never even occurred to her. Even when Absalom had kidnapped her and tried to marry her, she’d never even considered it—mainly because she’d been unconscious, but also because she never doubted that Sanji or Luffy or Zoro would save her. Those three always seemed to show up when she was in trouble. But Law…

She had far more faith in the Surgeon of Death than she used to, but it wasn’t the same instinctive trust that she had with her nakama—if she hadn’t gone looking for him, would he have shown up in time to get her and Ikkaku out of there? Luffy would drop everything if he even thought one of his friends was in trouble. Zoro, for all his terrible direction sense, never failed to stumble across her in the nick of time. Sanji had a sixth sense for women in danger. Even Usopp and Chopper, her fellow scaredy-cats, could be relied on to overcome their own fears if she were in trouble.

But Law had been on his own mission. The man had his own goals and priorities that wouldn’t always line up with hers. She couldn’t always rely on him to save her. She shouldn’t always rely on others.

Ignorant to the navigator’s inner turmoil, Law shook his head. “You’re assuming Haiko-ya would let him live that long. She already knew he was opening a brothel, so the second she caught even a whiff of uranos being used on the girls, she’d burn the place to the ground.”

“Unless…” Bepo began before stopping himself. “Sorry.”

“Unless what, Bepo?” Ikkaku asked curiously.

“Speak,” Law ordered, eyes narrowed.

The bear looked nervous as he twiddled his claws. “Well, what if Jinzo planned on getting Miss Haiko out of the way? With Mr. Kimo out of commission, it would be a lot easier for him to take over and drive her out. Or kill her. Or,” he swallowed harshly, “maybe even drug her and add her to the brothel.”

It made a sick amount of sense, and Nami watched Law’s gold eyes burn with understanding. “Haiko-ya probably suspected Jinzo was looking to take her out before his new business opened. That’s why she asked me to go after him last night.” Glare deepening, Law stalked towards the door, motioning for Penguin to follow. The first mate reluctantly left his post, tossing a concerned glance at Ikkaku before leaving the infirmary.

The room was filled with an uncomfortable silence until Nami uttered, “Bepo?”

“Yes, Nami?”

“What happened to the other girls? The ones in the club that were also drugged?”

Her fellow navigator seemed reluctant to answer, glancing around as if hoping someone would pop out to answer the unpleasant question for him. “Well…Captain’s primary concern was you two, but he did order us to sedate and deliver them to Miss Haiko. Once he was sure you would be alright, he went to see what he could do for them, but given how far gone most of them looked…” He bowed his head sadly. “I’m sorry.”

Nami bit her lip, tears welling up in her eyes as she stared down at the white tiled floor. Given all that she’d heard about the drug, she felt overwhelming pity for those girls. What would happen to them? What kind of lives could they expect? Did they have husbands or boyfriends or families? Would they ever know the girls’ fates? Were they better off not knowing?

“I’m so sorry, Nami,” Ikkaku murmured, catching her attention. The Heart Pirate looked utterly devastated, tears welling up in her dark eyes. “I was so, so stupid. I figured since Haiko’d been cleaning up the clubs and bars, it was safe to have a night out.”

“You couldn’t have known this would happen,” Nami replied weakly.

Bepo nodded emphatically as he pulled his crewmate into a tight hug. “Don’t blame yourself; even Law thought it was safe enough for you two to go out alone! New bars don’t open without Miss Haiko’s approval, after all. And with the way she’s been running things, it’s more dangerous to go out alone during the day than at night!”

“Really?” Nami asked, surprised.

“Oh yeah. Since Miss Haiko pretty much runs the island at night, she doesn’t get involved with things during the day. It’s the compromise she made with Mr. Kimo and Jinzo. So, slavers and stuff are still a problem while the sun’s up, but once things get dark, it’s a lot safer.”

“Kimo’s really ok with stuff like that?”

“Yeah,” Bepo said nervously, round ears drooping. “He may be more honorable than Jinzo, but he’s still pretty ruthless—wouldn’t be in the black market organ trade otherwise. Handing over control of the island at night to Miss Haiko was basically his wedding gift to her. Jinzo really hadn’t liked that—the red light district had been his domain.”

Frowning, Nami considered his words. Since arriving on Grimm, she’d assumed that Kimo was the lesser of the two evils between himself and Jinzo. But something wasn’t quite right; considering all the work that went into opening a new business, Jinzo must have been planning on starting the brothel for at least a month, if not two. Yet if Kimo had handed control of Grimm’s evening affairs over to Haiko, there was no way Jinzo would have dared disrespected his partner like that, right? And Kimo would have had to be completely stupid not to notice his partner muscling in on his wife’s territory.

Stupid, or in on it, Nami thought, eyes widening as she remembered her brief encounter with Haiko. The club owner had seemed pretty pissed about what had happened to her husband, but not nearly as distraught as one would expect from a woman whose beloved had been possibly assaulted by his long-time partner. And she’d been so quick to point the finger at Jinzo. More than eager to push a slighted Law in his direction. To step back and let someone else get their hands dirty.

It was all conjecture, and she had no proof, but Nami’s gut had told her when they first met that she was the kind of woman who could slit a man’s throat with a smile. And now her gut was saying Haiko was far more involved in this whole mess than she’d let on.

Lost in thought, Nami didn’t realize Law had returned until she heard a low, rapid thumping inches from her face. Looking up, she jumped back like a startled cat as she found herself staring at a beating heart in a translucent cube.

“What the hell is that?!” she screeched.

“I think that’s pretty obvious, Nami-ya; a heart. Specifically, Jinzo’s.”

“Why do you even have that?!”

Tossing the disembodied organ causally into the air and catching it with one hand, he replied, “Well, because I was a bit preoccupied with saving your life, I didn’t have the time to make that bastard suffer like I wanted to. So, I took his heart and handed the rest of him over to Drake-ya.” His grin was cruel and pleased, especially as the organ in his hand beat faster, clearly under some kind of distress. “When I explained the situation to him, he was more than happy to deliver justice in my stead. Especially since Haiko-ya agreed to pay him the money he’s owed, plus a bonus for taking care of this disgusting pest problem.”

“What’s Drake doing with him?” Ikkaku asked, glaring at the heart with cold determination.

“Torture. He promised to use every trick the Marines and his father ever taught him. Broken bones, waterboarding, hot pokers, acid in open wounds, bamboo shards under his nails—but he’s not allowed to kill him.” Gold eyes landed on Nami. “That’ll be my pleasure. Unless you’d like that honor for yourself?” he asked, offering the organ to the navigator like a macabre Valentine.

She gasped in horror. “I’m not killing anyone!”

“You sure? After what he did to you? Think about what would have happened, Nami-ya; he tried to make you a sex slave. He would have profited off your body and laughed as you served every sick scumbag willing to pay. You’d be used, abused, and at the mercy of men who’d only see you as a notch on their belts and a warm hole to fuck,” he sneered, grip on the fragile organ tightening unconsciously.

She shuddered. The picture Law painted wasn’t pretty. Just the thought of what she would have been reduced to made her want to vomit. She and Ikkaku and all those other girls…

Swallowing hard, Nami nervously met his cold eyes. “Law, did you manage to cure the other girls?” Bepo had been doubtful, but a small part of her prayed for a miracle from the doctor.

Law ran a hand through his dark hair. “Haiko-ya’s familiar with uranos—she had some anaphrodisiac on hand to hold back the effects, but not enough for everyone. Some I was able to fully cure. Others will likely be nymphomaniacs for the rest of their lives, but at least still have their higher reasoning intact. Several unfortunately succumbed to the permanent effect before I even got to them. And a few had been taking other drugs that didn’t play well with the addition of uranos and alcohol—needless to say, they died.”

Her throat tightened like a fist had wrapped around it. “Oh my god.”

Holding the rapidly-beating heart out towards her like a rose or box of chocolates, he asked coaxingly, “So, considering the number of lives Jinzo ruined tonight, are you sure you don’t want to give it a little squeeze?”

Fingers twitching, Nami was tempted to take him up on his offer. To grab that fragile organ and crush it between her fingers. To make Jinzo suffer in a way he never could have prepared for in the name of the women he’d been willing to use for his own ends.

But her conscience won out. She wasn’t a murderer. Maybe if it had been Arlong’s heart, she would have done it. This Fishman had spent nearly a decade pushing her to the breaking point. Hell, she’d tried to kill him at least a dozen different ways before resigning herself to the fragile glimmer of hope that he’d honor their deal and free her village.

She had no doubt that Jinzo was just as bad as Arlong, and he’d certainly wronged her and her friend, but as far as personal stakes went, Jinzo paled in comparison. So, even though he deserved it, she couldn’t bring herself to kill him in such a callous, ignoble way. Luffy would never approve. None of her nakama would. She didn’t give a damn about honor or fair fights, but killing him like this, when the man had no chance to fight back, was a slippery slope she didn’t want to go down.

Gingerly, Nami pushed Law’s hand away. “I’m sure. It just…I could never…”

The Surgeon of Death seemed disgruntled that she refused his macabre gift, but he got over it quickly. “Suit yourself. Ikkaku?”

The engineer seemed to consider it, but one look at Nami’s ashen face changed her mind. “Better take that somewhere else, Boss—I don’t give a shit what you do to that bastard, but Nami doesn’t need to see it.”

Law glanced at the woman in question before shrugging and tossing the heart onto an empty bed. Casually, he checked Ikkaku’s IV and stitches along her side as he said, “Fine. I should call Drake-ya first and see if he’s gotten bored of ripping chunks of flesh off of the bastard, anyway. Hate to interfere with his fun. Penguin’s getting your breakfast—eat up, then get dressed. The log pose has reset and we’re leaving Grimm no later than sunset. This visit has been an absolute shit show.” Satisfied with his engineer’s condition, Law retrieved Jinzo’s heart, tossing it up and down like a beanbag as he ordered, “If you have anything you wanted to pick up before we head off, this is your last chance—though you’re both wearing the uniforms. No arguments.”

“Fine by me,” Nami murmured, refusing to look at the vulnerable red organ.

Her chin was lifted gently, and she was forced to meet Law’s tired eyes. “Nami-ya, I promise the next island we land on will be much more relaxing. No black markets, drugs, or creepy psychopaths.”

“That…that sounds great, Law,” she replied uncomfortably.

“That’s it? No complaining? No demands for monetary compensation? No insults?” His frown deepened as he took a step back, taking care to keep Jinzo’s heart just out of her line of sight. “What’s on your mind, Nami-ya?

She worried her lip. Haiko was Law’s friend, or at least they were on good terms. Should she really risk inciting his anger by making accusations against her without proof?

Then again, Law was an intelligent man, and he knew the woman better than Nami did. If anyone could put her mind at ease and prove her theory right or wrong, it was him.

For better or worse, she’d trust his judgment.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Nami asked, “Did Haiko ever tell you what kind of accident her husband was in?”

A dark blue eyebrow raised in bemusement. “No. We were a bit preoccupied with brainstorming ways of making Jinzo pay for his transgressions. I assume it was something pretty serious, though.”

“But she knows how good a doctor you are. You completely repaired Hiroshi’s hands. You can pull drugs and poison out of people and find out exactly what’s wrong with someone with your powers. Why wouldn’t she ask you to look Kimo over and see if you could help him?”

“Because—” Law paused, quickly realizing he had no answer. “That’s a very good question, Nami-ya.” Brow furrowing, he stood before her in deep thought for a few minutes, idly running his thumb over the heart in his hand. It continued to beat at a dizzying speed—Jinzo was terrified, in agony, or both.

Finally, with a dark glint in his golden eyes, the Dark Doctor stated, “I’ll look into it. As for you two; rest, eat, and be ready to set sail by tonight.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Ikkaku replied while Nami nodded mutely.

Without another word, Law stalked out of the infirmary, leaving the two women and the Mink alone.

Determined not to endure any more awkward silences, Bepo walked over to Nami, lifted her up like she weighed nothing, and carried her over to Ikkaku’s cot. The bear sat down and pulled both women onto his lap, hugging them close like they were a pair of dolls.

“You had us all worried,” he whimpered, rubbing his muzzle against Ikkaku’s tangled hair. After six hours and all the craziness that had ensued during that time, the dark strands were regaining their natural curl. “I thought we were going to lose you.”

Despite the stress and trauma she’d endured over the past few days, Nami couldn’t help but feel the need to reassure the sweet bear. “We’re ok, Bepo. You guys got to us just in time,” she promised, patting his soft fur comfortingly.

“We knew you’d never let us down,” Ikkaku agreed, smiling softly at the way the Mink nuzzled her.

“But what if we hadn’t—”

“If you’re worried, next time you’re coming with us on Ladies’ Night,” she offered.

“Yeah,” Nami chimed in. “No one would dare mess with us if we had our fierce Mink bodyguard with us!”

“I don’t think you’re getting a choice on the whole ‘bodyguard’ thing,” Bepo admitted. “Law was a wreck. Pretty sure he’s not going to let either of you off the ship for a while without either him or a whole entourage for protection. Sorry.”

As much as Nami wanted to be annoyed at this, she couldn’t blame the dark captain for such a precaution. Grimm had taught her that, if she wanted to get through the rest of the year in one piece, she was going to have to adapt to her situation better. Life with the Straw Hats had made her forget just how much danger a woman faced.

Ikkaku had said she was lucky to have kept her virginity for so long—that she had the chance to choose who to give her first time to—but she hadn’t fully realized just how lucky. Absalom, Jinzo, Harpin—she could have been raped by any one of them. And though she was fortunate enough to have powerful people looking after her, she needed to be better prepared to defend herself in the future. As it was, she was a liability, and she couldn’t always count on others to rescue her.

Resting her head against Bepo’s furry neck, she made a decision. “Hey, Ikkaku?”

“Yeah?”

“Think you could take a look at my Clima-Tact later? Maybe see if there’s a way to bulk up its attacks, or give me some tips on how to utilize it better? I…I don’t want you to feel like I’d be in the way of a fight again.” Usopp would probably freak that she’d let someone other than him mess around with his invention, but Nami was sure he’d understand that it was for the sake of survival.

“I didn’t exactly think you’d be in the way,” Ikkaku replied, though there was a hint of hesitation in her tone. “I just didn’t want you getting hurt. I mean, if it turned out Mandōreku had a gun, I couldn’t risk him shooting you.”

“I get it, but if I’m going to stand a chance in the New World, I need to up my game. I’m never going to be a great fighter like Luffy or Sanji-kun, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try to get stronger.”

The engineer smiled sympathetically. “Then sure, I’ll look at it. Honestly, I’ve been dying to study that thing for a while but didn’t want to overstep.”

“I appreciate it,” Nami said. She meant it, too; Ikkaku might have been blunt and a bit pushy at times, but it was good to hear that she really did respect Nami’s boundaries.

“If you want some combat training, I can teach you a few of my moves,” Bepo offered, turning to rub his fuzzy cheek against her forehead affectionately.

“That’d probably be a good idea. Law said it was time to start some combat training, but I’ve been avoiding it. Guess it’s time to bite the bullet.”

“You want to learn to catch a bullet with your teeth?!” the Mink asked, shocked. “Not even Law can do that!”

Neither Ikkaku nor Nami bothered to correct him. Not that they could have; both women were laughing too hard.

XXX

Several hours later, Nami, Law, Jean Bart, Shachi, Ikkaku, and Penguin were loading the last of the supplies onto the submarine. The two women weren’t really in any condition to do any heavy lifting, but Nami was determined to spend as much time outside as she could before they submerged, as she had no idea when she’d get the chance to enjoy fresh air again. Ikkaku had decided to keep her company while the men did most of the work, and Law had agreed to let them lounge on the docks as it allowed him to supervise the men and watch over the women at the same time.

Normally, Nami would be on edge from his scrutiny, but she barely noticed as she was more interested in the amount of attention Penguin was giving them. Or rather, Ikkaku. The first mate had come up with practically every excuse under the sun to come over to check on them, mostly under the guise of ensuring his crewmate didn’t do anything to pull her stiches.

“I swear, he thinks I’m an invalid,” Ikkaku scoffed as Penguin scuttled off to help Shachi load up the supplies for the greenhouse Clione had ordered. “I’m not going to tear my stiches getting a drink.”

“Give the guy a break—he was freaking out when he realized you were in danger last night,” Nami replied, sipping her tea as she reclined in her deck chair. Penguin had insisted on fetching them some from the galley to ward off the gloomy island’s chill. It was definitely appreciated; a thick fog had settled over the Fall island since mid-morning and, combined with the chilly ocean spray, even the normally warm navigator was getting goosebumps.

“I guess. He’s a good guy like that,” she acquiesced with a small, affectionate smile. “He’s always looking after the crew. Speaking of, how’re you holding up in the uniform? You’re not getting overheated again, are you?”

The navigator gave the beige jumpsuit she’d once again been saddled with a brief scowl. “I’m fine—just trying to think of ways to make this damn thing palatable without Law freaking out.”

“Maybe we could modify it or something—make you a custom version. So long as it’s got the Heart Pirate emblem on it, I’m sure Law wouldn’t mind if we made it a bit sexier,” she said with a suggestive wink. “Especially if he gets to parade you about like his very own mikan arm-candy.”

Before Nami could tell her off for such an absurd suggestion, the man in question approached as if sensing the girls were talking about him. “And how are the two princesses doing?” he asked, tone teasing as he leaned Kikoku against his shoulder. “Has Penguin started feeding you grapes and offering foot massages?”

“Sadly, not yet,” Ikkaku snickered. “Need something, Boss?”

“I’m going to go run an errand. I won’t be gone long, but until I get back, stay close to the ship.”

The two women shrugged. Law had been popping out to run various errands all day; at this point, none of the Heart Pirates gave it much thought anymore.

“Don’t worry,” Nami replied, waving away his concern as she sipped her tea. “If I never set foot on Grimm’s shores again, I’ll be a happy woman. The docks are as far as I plan to go.”

“Good to hear it. Anything you two want me to pick up while I’m out?”

“Being awful magnanimous there, Boss,” Ikkaku drawled, an eyebrow raising suspiciously. “You trying to butter us up? Bribe us?”

He gave an insincere, too-wide smile. “Maybe I just feel like spoiling my two most beautiful subordinates.”

“And now I know you’re up to something. Well, if you insist on buying our silence, you can get me a huge box of gourmet chocolates or something,” she quipped, smirking up at her captain challengingly.

“Make that two boxes,” Nami giggled. “One for each of us. And a case of the most expensive sake the island sells.”

Law rolled his eyes, exasperated. “Greedy wench. Should have known you wouldn’t settle for a coffee or something.”

“If you don’t like it, I take cash, too.”

“Speaking of, you still owe me—”

“Nope!” she cut him off. “You said I could pay you back in cash, or with a kiss. And guess what, oh Surgeon of Death? I distinctly recall kissing you last night.”

“Under the influence of a sex drug.”

“You never specified the circumstances of the kiss. As far as I’m concerned, we’re even.”

Law let out an annoyed tch, and it took Nami a ridiculous amount of willpower to keep from commenting on the fact that the infamous Supernova was basically pouting. “Fine. I should be back in a half-hour. If I’m not, avenge my death.”

“Will do, Boss,” Ikkaku replied as she reclined in her seat, unbothered by the concept of her captain’s grisly demise. Not that she had reason to be—word had quickly spread about what had happened to Jinzo, so even if any of his former subordinates wanted revenge, only the truly stupid would risk their boss’ fate.

A blue bubble encased him and Law vanished before their eyes. Not wasting any time, the engineer turned to her companion. “So, you kissed him, huh?”

Nami scowled half-heartedly at her. “Because of the uranos.”

“Sure, sure,” Ikkaku chuckled but didn’t press the topic any further. It was good that she was feeling comfortable enough to make the occasional joke about last night’s debacle, but Nami could tell she didn’t wish to dwell on it longer than needed. There was a moment of comfortable silence between them before Ikkaku sighed. “Damn, now that he’s mentioned it, I kinda do want that foot massage. I’m getting a little cold, too; I’m gonna see if I can talk Penguin into giving one inside. You in?”

“Nah, I’m good. I think I’ll stay here and enjoy the fresh air a little longer. Go treat yourself!” she laughed, shooing the engineer away.

Normally, Nami rarely said no to a free foot massage, but she had the sneaking suspicion that Penguin wouldn’t mind doting on just Ikkaku for a while. With all his hovering, concern, and fury towards her attacker, Nami was beginning to theorize that the first mate might just have a burgeoning crush on the beautiful engineer. And even if she was completely off-base, Ikkaku deserved a little extra pampering after the night she’d had.

As Ikkaku meandered back into the sub, Nami wandered over to the edge of the pier, giving Jean Bart and Shachi a reassuring wave when they made to get up from where they were resting atop a stack of crates. Making sure to stay in their line of sight and within shouting distance, she stood there for several peaceful moments and relished the feel of the ocean spray on her face. She hoped the journey to the next island wasn’t too long—Grimm was damp and chilly and grey and an overall miserable experience, but she certainly hadn’t been bored.

“You seem to be doing well.”

Nami whirled around to find herself face-to-chest with Drake. Instinctively, her hand went to her Clima-Tact—Law had practically strapped it to her leg himself, though she doubted she’d risk leaving the submarine without it again.

Drake looked down at her critically, blue eyes lingering briefly upon the Heart Pirate insignia on her breast pocket before snapping back up to her face, a faint blush rising to his cheeks as he realized exactly where he’d been staring. He coughed into his fist awkwardly, waiting a moment for his composure to return. “I heard you ran amuck of some uranos. I suppose it’s a good thing you had Trafalgar for a temporary captain. I loathe the man, but his medical skills are beyond compare,” he spat as if giving Law even the slightest bit of praise filled his mouth with a foul taste.

“Y-yeah, he really came through for me,” Nami said nervously, fingers twitching above her batons.

Drake noticed her disquiet and took a half-step back, putting a respectable amount of distance between them. “I’m not here to kidnap you, Miss Nami—especially not with your companions ready to attack if I so much as blink at you wrong.”

Her anxiety eased up at the reminder. Glancing at her shipmates over her shoulder, she noticed Shachi glaring daggers at the rival captain through his sunglasses as he polished his rifle. Next to him, Jean Bart cracked his knuckles meaningfully. Confidence returning with the knowledge that she had good people watching her back, she returned her attention to Drake, hand retreating from her weapon to rest elegantly on her hip. “Smart man, though if abduction’s not on the agenda, why are you here?”

“Partially to check up on you. I was concerned Trafalgar would want to take advantage of you in your drug-addled state.”

“Law would never!” she snapped, instantly offended on the Dark Doctor’s behalf. The man may have been a sadistic, flirty bastard, but she instinctively knew he had never considered using her like Jinzo had intended. After all, she’d basically offered herself up on a silver platter, and when he’d kissed her back, it had been for the sake of distracting her. Law was a lot of terrible things, but “rapist” was not among them.

Holding up his hands in surrender, Drake raised an eyebrow at her outburst. “You’ve certainly changed your tune. Just two days ago you told me you didn’t even like him and literally begged me to help you strip off his uniform. I’d hoped you’d be smart enough not to fall for his seduction techniques so easily.”

“I haven’t fallen for anything—I’ve just realized that, even if he is a creepy asshole, he’s at least got enough honor to keep me safe from other scumbags. He’s the lesser of the evils out there.” Biting her lip, she reluctantly brought up, “By the way, I heard that you’re the one who…took care of Jinzo.”

With a nonchalant shrug he replied, “Normally, doing anything that benefits Trafalgar turns my stomach, but I was willing to make an exception in this case. The lesser of the evils and whatnot. That, and Haiko offered me a rather impressive sum of belli in exchange. I certainly wasn’t going to turn down that kind of deal—especially when I found out what Jinzo had done.”

“You…said he owed you a lot of money for something. What was it?” she asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer.

Piercing blue eyes narrowed as he crossed his arms. “You’re not accusing me of selling him uranos, are you?”

“Jinzo did sink a small fortune into getting his hands on enough to drug a whole bar. Maybe it wasn’t the only thing you sold him, but you did say he owed you 600 million belli,” she countered, though her heart wasn’t in it. Drake may have been a dangerous Supernova and attempted kidnapper but considering how he’d seemed rather shy around unclothed women, she highly doubted that he’d supply a drug that would turn girls into sex-slaves. Still, it didn’t hurt to check.

His answering glower put doubt into that thought, though. “Miss Nami, I understand you’ve been through a traumatic ordeal, and thus I’ll humor your idiotic accusation—no,” he stated, voice barely more than a deep, threatening growl. “What he and Kimo owed me money for was a job they requested assistance on, plus I had raided a merchant ship full of uncut diamonds, platinum, and silk. And considering how you relieved Jinzo of his cash, even if I did bring in the uranos, do you really think I’d hand it over without getting paid?”

Ice water ran though her veins at his tone. Drake was deeply offended at her allegation. She couldn’t blame him—despite the near-abduction, he’d been remarkably courteous to her since they’d first met. Besides that, even if he wasn’t a Marine anymore, it was clear he was far more honorable than most pirates. But every man had his limits, and if she didn’t lighten the mood fast, she might end up sharing Jinzo’s fate. Backing up a half-step and holding out her hands as if to calm down an angry beast, Nami simpered, “Hey, I’m sorry! You’re right—it was stupid of me to think you had anything to do with this. I-I’ve been through a lot over the past couple days and wasn’t thinking straight!”

Drake took a deep breath, and the tension eased from his shoulders as his hands fell to his sides. Behind her, Nami could hear the safety of a gun clicking, and she suspected her bodyguards had something to do with his new calm. “I may be a pirate, Miss Nami, but I don’t care for my honor being questioned.”

“I’ll remember that.”

His stern expression softened at her obvious fear. A large hand rubbed the back of his neck with a hint of embarrassment. “I confess, though, I do now feel a bit guilty for even considering selling you to that madman. Uranos is nasty business—rumor has it that the Navy briefly considered using it as a form of torture for female pirates in Impel Down, but Sengoku shot it down.”

Bile burned the back of her throat at the mere thought. “Dare I ask who proposed that option?”

“I believe you robbed his mansion last month.”

A disgusted shudder wracked her body. Of course that perverted psychopath would suggest such a thing. Considering Harpin’s low view of women and shady dealings, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he suggested it so he could get his hands on some for his own depraved use.

“God, the Navy employs the sickest people,” she groused. “How can they even look at themselves in the mirror?”

“People will go to quite the extremes in the name of Justice,” Drake answered, tilting his head down so his face was cast in shadow. “You can’t always stop evil by playing by the rules.”

Nami bit her lip. She probably shouldn’t be discussing such things with a former Rear-Admiral. Even if he had no love for his former leaders, she doubted such a conversation would go anywhere pleasant. She was trying to keep the mood light, after all. “Right. So, where are you heading next? Off to the New World?”

“No, not yet. It’s still too chaotic on the other side. Perhaps in a few months, when the waves of idiots looking to make a name for themselves have all killed each other. If I hope to stand out, I can’t just be another voice screaming for attention.”

“Not the worst plan in the world, I guess.” In fact, it was pretty similar to Law’s. Perhaps all North Blue pirates were this pragmatic—it seemed they were the only ones willing to wait for the best moment to strike instead of recklessly rushing into certain death.

“So glad you approve,” he replied sarcastically, though there was an amused tilt to his lips. “I may also be staying on this side for the sake of enjoying Paradise while it’s unusually peaceful—it’s almost like a vacation.”

Just like that, the rest of the tension between them dissolved like sugar in hot tea, and Nami found herself able to relax. Drake was an intimidating man, especially when he was angry, but like Law, he didn’t seem the type to cause trouble unless he could gain from it. Especially not with the Heart Pirates so close by.

That in mind, Nami gave him a small smile, intent of staying in his good graces. “By the way, thank you for…what you did to Jinzo. I’m sure getting payback on my behalf wasn’t a factor in your decision, but it’s good to have the peace of mind knowing he won’t be coming after me again.” Death and torture were never things she’d be able to condone, but it seemed smarter to praise Drake rather than condemn him.

Broad shoulders lifted in a mild shrug, but the large captain seemed pleased enough at her gratitude. “Honestly, while it wasn’t at the top of my list of reasons, when I was informed that he’d drugged you, it did help sway my decision. I thought perhaps my act of chivalry might help you see sense and convince you to join me instead of Trafalgar.”

A wry smile curled her lips and she jutted out her hip as she replied sassily, “Torturing a guy isn’t a great way to earn a lady’s affections, though points for creativity.”

Drake blushed slightly at the mild teasing in her tone, pulling the brim of his hat a bit further down to hide it the damning tinge of pink. “Perhaps not my preferred way to win you over, but I work with what I have.”

Intent on keeping the mood light, she teased, “Well, Captain Drake, how would you prefer to ‘win me over’, as you put it? A shopping trip? Candlelit dinner? A long stroll on the beach under the stars?”

“I’d rather appeal to your sense of reason—you’re an intelligent woman from what I’ve seen, and surely by this point Trafalgar would have shown you his true colors. While he might not be the absolute worst piece of scum sailing the ocean, you’re better off without him. That insane bastard will bring you nothing but trouble.”

Part of her appreciated the fact that Drake seemed even the slightest bit concerned for her safety—it was always good to have allies, after all. “Law’s a little unhinged, I’ll admit, but still far from the worst captain I’ve ever served under. He’s loyal and protective of his crew, and I guess that includes me now. That, and I have this sneaking suspicion that you only want me because I’m his.” She blinked before smacking her forehead with her palm, cheeks burning bright red. “That didn’t come out right.”

Drake let out a faint chuckle as he closed the distance between them with a few casual steps. “Whether or not you meant it that way, you’re not wrong. Considering all the times he’s gone out of his way just to screw me over, I wouldn’t mind the chance for some payback.” He leaned in, his voice a seductive growl in her ear as he continued, “And what better way to do it than to steal away the woman he clearly plans to fuck?”

“Wha—”

“Back it up there, Drake,” Shachi snapped as he audibly clicked the safety of his gun off again, raising the rifle meaningfully. “We cut you some slack when you badmouthed the boss, but trying to seduce our Cat Thief is a big no-no.”

Nami shivered as a puff of Drake’s hot breath danced against her neck when he scoffed. “Oh? Don’t you have faith in her loyalty to your captain? Or do you think she’d be so easily seduced?”

“Like you said, Miss Nami’s a smart woman,” Jean Bart replied, once more cracking his knuckles, ready to fight. “Smart enough not to fall for such an obvious ploy from a guy who tried to kidnap her just two days ago.”

“Then you boys have no reason to worry.” His attention returned to the woman in question when he felt her small hand lightly press against his torso. “So, what will it be, Miss Nami? Surely such a gorgeous, intelligent woman knows she deserves a better captain than an unhinged scoundrel like Trafalgar. Someone like me. Perhaps I could convince you over a bottle of wine in my cabin.”

Memories of the fantasy she’d shared with Ikkaku about how she’d seduce Drake popped into her head. She certainly hadn’t imagined he’d try to beat her to the punch like this. But while his attempt was admirable, the execution was unrefined. He had the proximity and the low, coaxing tone down, but he wasn’t even trying to touch her. He was smart to compliment her looks and intelligence, but he wasn’t quite making her feel wanted. Or maybe she’d just gotten used to Law’s much more patient, methodical approach. In fact, she couldn’t help but wonder if Drake was trying to imitate him but wasn’t quite comfortable enough to commit.

And too bad for him, when a Cat Thief like her sensed weakness, she took advantage.

“Hmm, I admit it’s a tempting offer,” Nami cooed, playfully running her fingers along the fur trim of his bolero. Large brown eyes gazed up at him through long lashes as she continued, “Having the famous X Drake so interested in little old me is certainly doing wonders for my ego. And what woman wouldn’t want to serve under such a big, strong, handsome captain?” For extra measure, she blew a light stream of air against the bare skin of his sternum as she drew a little heart on his prominent abdominal muscles.

Drake’s face turned the same shade as his hair, prompting Nami to laugh and drop the act, stepping away from him. “Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure that if I ran off with one of his rivals, Law wouldn’t take too kindly to it. But I’ll keep it in mind.”

Growling faintly in annoyance at how easily she’d gotten under his skin, Drake sought to compose himself by dusting off imaginary dirt from his sleeves. “Hmph. Well, in case you do come to your senses, just know the offer expires when I leave for the New World.”

“Fair. Now, unless you were looking to say goodbye to Law…” she trailed off, suggestively wagging her eyebrows.

Any composure Drake might have regained fell away instantly. “It was bad enough dealing with that smarmy bastard over the phone,” he snapped, ears burning brightly. Given what she knew of their interactions, Nami could guess that call had been utterly dripping with Law’s smug, suggestive flirtations. No wonder Drake had waited until he was gone to approach her. “All I have to say to him is ‘burn in Hell’!”

“Well, unless you plan on telling him that yourself, you should get going—he’s due back any minute,” she warned with a teasing smile. She’d never admit it out loud, but Law had been right—the best way to deal with Drake was to lean into the sexual tension to knock him off balance.

“Fine,” he growled, shoving his hands into his pockets and marching away with his head held deceptively high. “One last bit of advice, Miss Nami—I know it’s inevitable, but at least make him work for it before you sleep with him.”

Her jaw dropped in shock and outrage. “You—I’m not going to sleep with that jerk!”

“That’s the spirit,” he replied dryly over his shoulder, his large silhouette fading into the fog.

Once the former Marine was out of sight, Shachi was at her side, leaning his elbow on her shoulder. “You ok, Nami?”

The red haired thief was grateful for the cool air, as it helped her blush fade more quickly. “Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for having my back.”

“No problem. Glad we didn’t have to fight him, though. I hate to say it, but Drake’s got a higher bounty than Law for a good reason—guy turns into a total monster during a fight.”

“Literally or figuratively?”

“Yes.”

“Of course,” she sighed. Not that she was surprised—she’d seen his hand become a green scaled claw back in the alley, and she’d heard rumors that he could transform into carnivorous dinosaur of some kind. “How long until we plan on leaving?”

“Probably no more than an hour,” Jean Bart replied, hoisting up one of the larger supply crates. “Why? Need to get anything before we go?”

A cat-like smirk curled her lips as she fanned herself with a wad of cash. “Nah. I’d just rather we be on our way before Drake realizes he’s missing a few thousand belli.”

Shachi immediately doubled over laughing. “Holy fuck! When did you pull that off?!”

“When you two were distracting him with your chivalrous display,” she said evenly, tucking the money into her breast pocket. Even if Drake did realize his wallet was suddenly empty, there was no chance he’d dare let his hand go anywhere near her cleavage.

“Seems you three are having fun,” Law said, appearing like a specter from the thick fog, Room dissipating around him. “What did I miss?”

“Just Miss Nami picking Drake’s pocket,” Jean Bart said with a chuckle, picking up the crate of sake that had appeared with his captain and hauling it towards the submarine.

“Dumbass tried to seduce her and got robbed for his troubles,” Shachi explained gleefully, though it was replaced with a low grunt as two massive boxes of assorted gourmet chocolate were dropped into his arms. He let out another oof as Kikoku unceremoniously landed on top of them.

“Drake-ya tried to seduce you?” the captain asked Nami, lips curling into a smirk. “Without my permission? I’m not sure if I should be pissed at him or proud.”

“Does he need your permission to seduce me?” Nami scoffed lightly. “Maybe I should have gone with him; having an actual gentleman for a captain would make a nice change.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t try to appeal to your desire for a more flattering uniform.”

“Wait, they have better uniforms? Drake, come back!” she called mockingly, making a show of trying to run off in the older captain’s direction.

Chuckling, Law caught her arm and pulled her back against him. “Shachi, bring those boxes to the girls’ room and check the cargo hold to make sure we have all the provisions we need.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Shachi replied, already halfway to the sub. He knew Law was just giving him busywork to get some alone time with the beautiful thief, but he wasn’t going to argue—if Law wanted to, he could easily just Shambles him to the other side of the island to get rid of him.

The Dark Doctor didn’t get to enjoy that alone time for long, though, as his second mate was quickly replaced by a second redhead, though this one was far more beautiful and curvaceous.

“Hello Law,” Haiko purred, her ruby lips curled upwards in a satisfied smile. In stark contrast to the sexy silver dress she’d preformed in, today she wore a smart black blazer with a tight pencil skirt, though her generous cleavage was tactically on display. “Your work last night was exemplary. I’m going to have to think of new VIP perks to give you. Maybe have Hiroshi write another song.”

Nami tensed at the appearance of the seductive club owner. She still had no idea what was up with her—if Haiko could be fully trusted. Law had said he’d look into it, but had he? Or had he just said that to appease his suspicious shipmate?

“Thank you, Haiko-ya,” Law replied casually, though it didn’t escape Nami’s notice that he placed himself deliberately between the two women. “How are Jinzo’s victims?”

The assured smile fell slightly. “I sent the ones you cured home to their families. The dead will hopefully be identified and given proper burials.”

“And the nymphos?”

“A few are going to try and return to their normal lives. The others…I’ve offered them employment at one of my brothels—if they’re going to crave sex for the rest of their lives, they might as well get paid for it. And at least with me they’ll be safe.”

“Very generous of you.”

Though she waved off the comment, Nami could see the subtle stiffness in her posture—as if she were an actress not entirely comfortable with the character she had to portray. “It’s the least I can do. If I’d taken care of Jinzo earlier, none of this would have happened.”

“I can’t argue with that. Though he must have done a great job covering his tracks to keep both you and Kimo-ya from realizing he intended to muscle in on your territory. What will happen to the black market trade now?”

Her easy confidence returned—when it came to talking business, Haiko was clearly in her element. “Well, since I’ll have my hands full keeping that from imploding, I’m entrusting Oscar with running the red light district. Hiroshi can manage Ruby 8 until things settle down. I admit, since so many of your peers have run off to the New World, the black market’s taken a bit of a dip in profits.”

“And with fewer pirates around, the island’s entertainment and legitimate businesses must have been more accessible to citizens and other visitors.”

“All the more reason to clean this town up, I suppose.”

“Kimo-ya won’t be happy about that,” Law said casually, studying his nails.

She shrugged, though her red lips turned in a subtle frown. “My husband’s a crime lord—to him, rampant rape, drugs, and murder meant that his clientele were happy. But when such a thing is the norm, it’s only a matter of time before you fall victim to it yourself.”

“Of course. It’s easy to rule the underworld when everyone else is a good, law-abiding citizen.”

Seductive smirk returning to her face, Haiko playfully stroked Law’s goatee. “Oh, don’t worry, Dr. Heart Stealer; you’ll still have a place to sell of your ill-gotten goods, and after last night, you can expect VIP treatment at any of Grimm’s fine establishments.”

The Surgeon of Death flashed a devilish smirk. “Good to hear. And without the risk of drugging, rape, and kidnapping, maybe next time we visit, Nami-ya will be able to actually enjoy herself.”

Pulling her hand away from Law’s face, Haiko turned to Nami, green eyes apologetic. “Yes, I heard you were one of the girls Jinzo’s goons drugged. It’s good to see you’re doing well. No one hurt you, did they?”

“I’m fine,” Nami replied, shifting uncomfortably. Though her concern over the thief’s welfare felt sincere, she still wasn’t sure if the island’s new Queenpin had a hand in the island’s drastic power shift, or if she was just taking advantage of the opportunity she’d been presented with her husband and Jinzo’s removal. Her goals at least appeared admirable.

“If you’re ever back in Grimm, you’re welcome at Ruby 8 anytime. In fact, next visit your meals and drinks are on the house.”

Law stepped between them again, and for a brief moment, Nami felt him run a reassuring hand over her back. “Perhaps by that point, Kimo-ya will have recovered—we can make it a double date.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Haiko stated, a nearly imperceptible tightness in her jaw. “My medical staff says that with the damage he suffered, even if he does wake up, he’ll be confined to his bed for the rest of his life. He took a tremendous fall down the stairs and broke his neck, you see.”

“Was that before or after he was stabbed in the liver?”

Green eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

This time, Law blatantly pushed Nami behind him, looming dangerously over the older businesswoman as they stared each other down. “Well, since I seemed to be in the habit of doing you favors, I thought I’d add to my good karma and stop by your house to see if I could do anything to heal your beloved husband. He certainly has a broken neck, and the bruises and cracked skull line up with your story, but that stab wound sticks out like a sore thumb.”

Haiko’s stone-cold expression would put a professional poker player’s to shame. “Well, the fall did break a few steps—perhaps he landed on a sharp piece of wood.”

Law’s own face was just as unreadable. “No, the size and shape clearly indicate that it was a knife. A small one that a lady could easily hide under her dress. I also noticed that your home doesn’t have any stairs.”

Her expression hardened, a fierce green fire flickering in her eyes. “Are you accusing me of harming my husband, Captain Trafalgar?”

“Haiko-ya, you’re a woman I genuinely admire—you’re cunning and determined, yet you still have standards higher than most of the criminal underworld. You’ve come a long way from that underground gin joint you started in the North Blue. You’ve spent years cleaning up the brothels and bars on Grimm; I’d certainly be upset to find my husband was conspiring to undo all of my hard work simply because he couldn’t adapt to the changing times.”

Nami held her breath as she and Law awaited her answer. This was the moment of truth.

“That’s quite the theory you have,” Haiko replied coolly, crossing her arms and raising an auburn eyebrow. The anger in her gaze dimmed down into a tranquil simmer. “Do you have any proof?”

“Nothing physical, nor do I really care—if you stabbed Kimo, I have no doubt it was well-deserved. Perhaps it was even an accident, or in self-defense.”

“Or perhaps you’re just making baseless accusations.”

“Haiko-ya, it doesn’t matter to me what really happened. If anything, I imagine you’ll be a better business partner than either of them. I simply don’t appreciate being used and lied to.”

When she gave no reply, Law gave Nami a meaningful look, gold eyes flicking down to her Clima-Tact before holding her gaze intently. “Nami-ya, why don’t you disappear for a bit? I think this is a conversation Haiko-ya and I should have without an audience.”

Catching on, she nodded, ducking inside the Polar Tang just out of sight. While Law distracted the club owner by leading her towards the edge of the pier, Nami quickly cast her Mirage Tempo, rendering herself invisible so she could sneak back over, footsteps silent as a cat’s paws. For extra measure, she crouched behind a nearby crate, peaking her head over the top so she could watch the duo’s interactions.

Law casually slung his arm over Haiko’s narrow shoulders, dropping his voice so only Nami could eavesdrop. “Look, I know power struggles are common in the underworld, and innocents getting caught in the middle happens. However, this little spat hurt two of my subordinates. I’m sure you understand that, if something like this were to happen again, I’d take it upon myself to wipe out both sides of the conflict in revenge, correct?”

The redhead stiffened. “Of course, Law.”

“Good. Because I respect your reasons—Kimo and Jinzo betrayed you. Tried to undo all your hard work because their own profits were down. Potentially even planned to slip you a little uranos out of spite. But I won’t stand for someone else’s grudge putting my crew in danger. Nor do I tolerate being used—if you want me to kill someone for you in the future, I expect you to be straight with me instead of treating me like a pawn.”

For a moment, Haiko stood in silence, staring out at the churning waves as they slapped against the pier. Finally, she spoke, voice tight and minutely vulnerable. “A few nights ago…Kimo came to Ruby 8 with a few of his thugs after closing. We argued about him helping Jinzo open a brothel under my nose—he said if I didn’t give the red light district back, he’d burn my club to the ground and put me to work as one of the whores.”

“Is that when you stabbed him?” Law asked, tone even and calm.

“Of course. Oscar and the band overheard the commotion and took care of the thugs while I ran, but Kimo followed me to the top of the stairs…”

“Well, that lines up with what Hiroshi told me. I appreciate your honesty.”

“You questioned Hiroshi?” she asked, angered at the musician’s betrayal.

“You forget—he owes me. I guess he also figured I’d be more lenient with you if I knew how you’d been backed into a corner.” Law paused, letting the tension between them simmer before he admitted, “He was right. Kimo deserved what you gave him, and if I hear he’s tragically succumbed to his wounds, well, I won’t shed any tears.”

Haiko sighed, shoulders sagging in relief. “I wanted to trust you, but you had a profitable partnership with Kimo. I couldn’t be sure whose side you’d be on—I just knew it wouldn’t be Jinzo’s.”

“A common enemy is a good hook for an alliance—I just hope you plan to be more honest with me if you intend on maintaining our partnership.”

“Of course.”

A shadow fell across his eyes as he turned the woman so she fully faced him. “Did you know about the uranos shipment?”

“No. Nor was I aware that Venus would be used to distribute it,” Haiko explained, looking him straight in the eye. “The owner was new but on the level; he had my full permission to host a Ladies Night to attract customers. When I went to confront him this morning, I found his body—he’s been dead for at least a few days.”

Nodding at her answer, Law’s somber expression relaxed. “Good. Because not telling me about Kimo and Jinzo’s betrayal is forgivable. Not warning me about the uranos…”

“I am truly sorry your girlfriend and engineer were subjected to that.”

Nami had to physically slap a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming “I’m not his girlfriend!” She doubted Haiko would appreciate it if she found out she was being spied on, and Law would be pissed that she’d ruined his plan.

Perhaps he could feel her rage, because Nami caught Law’s amber eyes glance in her general direction before returning to Haiko. “Pretty words aren’t the kind of apology I’m interested in. I expect compensation.”

Haiko’s confident, naturally seductive grim returned as she leaned in, running a finger along the Heart Pirate insignia on his sweatshirt. “Oh? And what exactly did you have in mind?”

“I’m sure you’ve already thought of something—I doubt you would have come all this way just to say goodbye.”

“That I have; in fact, it’s exactly why I came down here. Two weeks ago, a man named Dira tried to sell Kimo and Jinzo some items. Most of it was junk, but there were a few things that stood out. One of them was a lovely white vase.”

“Are you seriously offering me a vase as reparations for Nami-ya and Ikkaku nearly becoming sex slaves?” he sneered, eyes narrowing in offense. Nami bristled in solidarity. She didn’t care how drop-dead gorgeous Haiko was; unless said vase was made of platinum and filled to the brim with belli and gems, she’d kick the older woman’s ass for being so cheap!

“Oh, no—the vase isn’t even here!” Haiko replied, smile never wavering despite the anger radiating from the Dark Doctor. “Once he realized what it was made from, Kimo turned it down and told the man to take his wares elsewhere.”

“And what, pray tell, was it made of?” Law asked sarcastically, patience wearing thin.

Her manicured hands reached up to smooth out the wrinkles in his sweatshirt. “At first, they thought it was marble or alabaster, but upon closer inspection, Jinzo realized that the white was just paint. It took a little arm-twisting, but Dira admitted that the vase originated from a certain tragic island in the North Blue.”

That immediately caught the surgeon’s attention, and the full focus of those golden eyes was fixated on the club owner. The hostility vanished, replaced by cool intent. “Where did he go?”

“Atifakuto. None of us wanted something coated in Amber Lead, of course, but I remembered you once mentioning that you had an interest in such items. In fact, I even have an eternal pose to the island—I took my last vacation there.” Reaching into her generous cleavage, she pulled out the hourglass-shaped device. As she handed it to the pirate captain, she fluttered her long lashes sweetly. “So, am I forgiven?”

“…for the most part. You’d better not be playing me, Haiko-ya,” Law replied, studying the magnetic compass intently, looking for anything that might give away whether or not it was fake.

“I think I’ve learned my lesson about leading on The Surgeon of Death. You did me a favor, so I’m returning in kind.” Standing up on her tip-toes, she brushed a kiss to his jaw. “I do hope you visit again soon. And treat that Cat Thief of yours right—maybe it’s the red hair, but she reminds me of myself at that age.”

“Unscrupulous and greedy?” he asked, taking her hand and pressing his own farewell kiss to her knuckles.

“And a magnet for dangerous men,” she purred as she flounced away. “Safe travels, Captain Trafalgar. Always a pleasure doing business with you.”

When the new Queenpin of Grimm was out of sight, Nami dropped her illusion, jogging over to Law. “Well, that was…quite the conversation.” Part of her was relieved—Haiko had done some shady things, but she couldn’t fault her reasons. Another part was flattered. She was a dangerous, stunning, formidable woman—someone Nami could certainly admire and wouldn’t mind becoming someday. Though, she hoped she’d manage to avoid marrying someone who’d betray her.

And one tiny, sneaky part of her burned with irrational jealousy over the fact that Haiko had kissed him. It shouldn’t matter—Law was obnoxious and arrogant and certainly not someone she had any intention of kissing when not under duress. But for some reason, she had been really tempted to use her Cyclone Tempo to knock her into the water.

“That it was. Seems a trip to Atifakuto is in order,” Law said lowly, the brim of his hat casting a shadow across his eyes as his tips twisted in a sullen frown.

Nami’s brow furrowed. She knew Law had some kind of interest in Amber Lead, but why would he want to hunt some down? “Is that our next destination?”

He rubbed his goatee in brooding thought as his eyes fixated on the delicate needle pointing towards the horizon. Nami could practically see the wheels in his head turning, an internal argument raging in his mind. His body was as stiff as a cadaver’s, the tendons in his neck straining as he held in whatever powerful emotions he was feeling.

Finally, he shoved the eternal pose into his pocket and answered, “Not yet. I promised you the next island we landed on would be far more relaxing, and I need time to plan, anyway. But don’t expect a long vacation; I can’t let the trail grow cold.”

She sighed in relief. After the horrors of Grimm, she was in desperate need of a breather. Especially if they ended up going after an artifact from Flevance; she’d only heard tragic stories about that place. How they’d once been prosperous and highly-renowned, until the whole country had come down with a horrible, incurable disease. A disease that, if Law was to be believed, hadn’t been as contagious as the World Government had claimed.

Before she could ask any questions, Law pressed his hand between her shoulders, gently but insistently leading her towards the Polar Tang. The darkness in his expression had faded significantly, and his sly smirk was back in place. It felt phony, though—like a mask. “By the way, I appreciate you staying close. Considering what she did to her husband, I half expected Haiko-ya to stab me and push me off the pier.”

“Yeah, I figured you only wanted me there so I could save your ass,” she snipped, though her heart wasn’t quite in it. Law had berated Haiko about being honest with him, yet it felt like he was putting up a front with her. Sure, it wasn’t quite the same—Haiko had been using him, while Law seemed to be just keeping his thoughts to himself—but the slight hypocrisy grated at her.

At the same time, she couldn’t entirely fault him for it. Their relationship and sense of trust in each other had certainly improved over the past twenty-four hours, but she couldn’t blame him for not enlightening her to his troubled thoughts. She only hoped he’d confide in Penguin or Bepo.

“The singular pitfall of wielding the awesome power of a Devil Fruit—water is your nemesis,” he replied sourly.

“Then why’d you lead her so close to the dock’s edge?”

“To make her feel less threatened. Her husband attacked in her own bar. Ruby 8 is as much home to her as the Tang is to us. People value that illusion of safety; when it’s compromised, especially by someone we should trust, it can turn someone into a skittish, feral animal.”

“Ah. Yeah, makes sense,” she replied as they stepped through the submarine door. He definitely had a point—if she’d been attacked on the Thousand Sunny, a place she’d always felt safe and secure in, she’d probably be on-edge for months. “It was still a risky move, though.”

“But a calculated one. Did you really think I’d accuse a woman as cunning and dangerous as her without a plan, or at least a basic understanding of how her mind works?” he asked, dark blue eyebrow raised in annoyance.

“No, but are you confident enough in that understanding to guarantee she’s not sending us to our deaths?”

“Another reason to take a slight detour and recover our strength before heading to Atifakuto,” he said nonchalantly, smirk becoming darker but more genuine. “I’m not particularly worried, though. Haiko and I think alike in many ways; she values long-term planning. She knows she only has one shot at killing me, so she wouldn’t risk it all on a scheme she threw together in a day. She’d wait until I least expected it, even if it took years, all the while carefully moving the pieces into place. And when she struck, she’d get the outcome she wanted no matter how the cards fell.”

“Do you…have someone you’re planning to kill?” Nami asked, a hint of nervousness bleeding into her voice. “Because you sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

“No one you’ve met, and no one you’d miss,” he said vaguely, his hand finally moving from her back so he could climb down the ladder to the next level. “You should worry more about getting stronger and preparing for the New World; Bepo tells me you’re finally ready to start combat training.”

“Let’s just say Grimm’s been a bit of an eye-opener,” she replied, carefully climbing down after him. Her heeled sandals made a reverberating clank as she stepped down onto the metal floor. “Luffy can’t risk me being a liability—if I can’t handle myself in Paradise, I’ll stand no chance on the other side of the Red Line.”

“Exactly why I’m willing to train you—I’d hate to have put in all that effort into saving Mugiwara just for his crew to bring him down.”

Nami glared at him, but he ignored her all the way to his quarters. Upon realizing she’d followed him, his eyebrow arched upwards again, though this time in amusement. “Were you looking for something, Nami-ya? A private tour of the captain’s bedroom, maybe?”

She blushed slightly at his suggestive tone but held her ground. “You gave me crap about keeping secrets from you, and yet you spew out the most irritating non-answers when I ask you a simple question. Your hypocrisy is infuriating.”

“I gave you crap about keeping secrets relevant to your well-being,” he countered easily, slipping inside his room. “Your tenure as a Heart Pirate will be long done by the time I enact my revenge, so it’s nothing you need to worry your pretty little head over, sweetheart.”

Before she could reply or even get a good look at the inside of his quarters, he shut the door in her face.

Staring at the steel barrier, Nami felt her stomach twist uncomfortably.

She trusted Law. She knew he was sincere in his desire to help her train for the New World. That he would protect her until she returned to Weatheria at the end of the year.

She also trusted her gut, and it was screaming that he had ulterior motives. That this generosity, along with his rescue of Luffy, had something to do with some long-term plan.

Trafalgar Law was the lesser evil now, but how long until that changed?

[smokingtomas]

So how do you picture Soma and Erina confessing their feelings base on the manga !? I'm still salty how it went and just here to satisfy my cravings. Lol

Warning: Trust me, this could be the (NSFW) ending you prefer. ;)

A Silent Conversation

It startled her when Soma pulled her arm to the side between the crowd of their friends just to say, “You’re staying for sake later, right?”

But what surprised her even more was her mouth slightly gaping and stuttered, “Oh, um, sure.”

So it happened just as it was planned– when all their friends are leaving, she waved them goodbye. Alice apparently decided to get out the door last just to grab her arm and whisper something that wasn’t on Erina’s mind.

“Good luck, Erina. And by luck, I mean you’re so gonna get a good load of it.”

This girl just knew how to embarrass her. “Goodbye, Alice!”

Nothing interesting occurred from the point she shut the door behind Alice. Not even when he swept the floor as she helped him wash the dishes. 

Erina kept thinking that Alice didn’t know what she was talking about. That her assumption was nothing but a mere tease in an orderly Alice fashion. Good luck, schmood luck– the girl had even managed to dodge his questions regarding the dish he served her. Thanks to her friends who fought to get a spoonful of his–

“Yo, Nakiri,” Soma’s touch on her shoulder jerked her out, “Ready for that sake?”

“R-Right, I’ll just have to wash this pan.”

“Nah, it’s alright. Leave it and sit here.” He said, opening up a bar chair for her.

She glanced at where he rest himself, just him casually filling her glass with sake. Just before she turned back, Soma looked up and chuckled.

“Cmon, what’re ya waiting for? This good sake ain’t gonna drink itself!”

With that, she set the pan aside. “Very well.”

The clinking of their glasses followed by the word kanpai had turned into a few more pours, episodes of travel stories, a series of laughs, and were spiced with some unapologetic grazes on arms and thighs. 

Both of them had realized how rare these kinds of moments are. Where they were alone in a room and only their voices echoed. Where Erina would start to notice new things each time he came back from his months of travel.

The corners of his eyes that crinkled when he laughed too loudly, or the recent knife cuts on his callous fingers, or that strong arm that reached through her to tuck a piece of her blonde locks behind her ear.

And how it never failed to heat her cheeks.

“Wow, your hair is really, really short now.” He pointed out.

“Long hair is tedious to take care of.” Erina brushed the back of her hair, “Do you not like it?”

“You kidding? I love it. Makes you ten times hotter.”

Now, this is an example where you need to stay cool, Erina. “Flattery and flirty remarks won’t change how I think of your dish, Yukihira-kun.”

He laughed at her remark, “We’ll get back to that, but I’m serious. You’re beautiful in long hair, and hot in short.”

“Well, if you start using proper hair products, I’m sure you would… not look half bad.” She hesitated.

“I’d take it as a compliment. Cheers.”

Once again, they took another shot.

“So how long will you stay this time?” Erina asked.

“Uhm… a while, I think. Haven’t booked a ticket anywhere in the near future, so I’ll just be here in Yukihira. Updating the menu and serving ‘em to our regulars.”

She couldn’t help the release of her long breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, but it was no secret that she acknowledged the relieve.

“I see.” She took a sip from her glass.

“Aren’t ya gonna ask why?”

“Yukihira, you just said you wanted to update the diner’s menu.”

“Technically, that’s what I’d be doing in the time being.” Soma corrected, “Go ahead, ask me why I’m staying.”

“Ugh, fine.” Erina rolled her eyes, “Why do you plan on staying so long?”

“‘Cause I miss cooking for you.”

Her heart skipped a beat.

“Y-You do?” Then as if something jolted her, she shook her head, “I-I mean, hmpf. It’s always cooking with you. Isn’t there anything else you want to say to me?”

He slowly cocked his head forward. “Like… how I know you’re looking forward to eat my cooking too?”

My God, he hadn’t changed. “No! It’s– ugh, nevermind.”

He laughed once again. Damn, those crinkles making him look cute.

“Cmon, Nakiri. Y'know how I feel about you.” Soma ruffled her hair. “You already forgot that hell of a kiss before I left the last time?”

Of course she hadn’t. It had intoxicated her brain and left her sleepless for a week.

She remembered said moment as if it was photographed. 

He’d placed his palms on her cheeks and pressed his lips gently against her. When he’d deepen his movement, it was silence. There were no passerby with luggage, no crooked voice announcing it was his flight’s last call, or the thought of him leaving her again for months.

Even just thinking about it, that tingling sensation on her lips and butterflies in her stomach came back.

Wait a second– she did know how he felt. Yes, he kissed her well, alright. 

Was it her that hadn’t said or did anything?

“No, Yukihira. I remembered well.” Erina finally said, “But do tell me if what’s coming is better.”

It might be the alcohol taking charge, or it could be her plain desire, but as she lifted herself from the chair and grab his cheek, her body wasn’t aware that her lips were already on his.

Yes, she was trembling. Yes, her heart was jumping out of her chest. But none of it mattered when the feeling from that autumn came rushing down like a waterfall. Lips were as soft as she remembered and she wouldn’t know what to do if he’d kissed her back at this moment.

So before he had the chance, she pulled away and opened her eyes slowly, revealing how he’d been mimicking her movements.

She gulped, wiping her lips as she rose completely and headed through the door, “Goodnight, Yukihira.”

In her mind, saying that goodnight meant she’d rather go home and overthinking what just happened, or even worse, what could have happened if she’d stayed.

But a good grip on her arm stopped her from taking another step.

“Y’know it’s rude to kiss a guy like that and walk away, right?”

Soma’s voice was an invitation and her soul would want to be an attendee. All it took was another step from him and a good pull of her waist back into his arms, drowning into that deeply familiar kiss that swept her feet away.

The feeling was welcomed with her lips’ slow dance, reciprocating the gentle brushes he kept on gifting, and she didn’t mind his fingers that crept up through her back to finally end up tangling her short blonde locks. 

To her, it wasn’t just about the growing heat, or that tongue of his that had started invading her mouth making her gasp for air, it was also their buried feelings– the newfound emotions she only recognized ten years after a pair of golden eyes started haunting her dreams.

So when Soma got hold of both her legs around him, she let him lift her off the ground and hooked her arms behind his neck.

The dance continued as soon as Erina was rested on one of the dining tables, but it was cut short and the sensation had moved to the junction of her shoulder. A small whimper escaped her, but the urge to remove his white t-shirt was bigger.

As his top flew across the room, she didn’t have much chance to admire his physique. Even in the split second he undid her blouse, she knew he’d spared some time to work out.

His lips never left hers. His hands wouldn’t stop grazing her exposed thighs. And she found it hard to hold back her sweet noises when they left to roam around, touching and nibbling on her other sensitive flesh.

That was before he suddenly lifted a knee to hover over her. Ragged breath fanned over her like a tempting sin.

“Nakiri,” He whispered, “Should I stop?”

She shook her head quickly before pulling him in for another kiss. It quickly turned into a blur when she found him buckling his fingers to the hem of her skirt.

He looked up to her for confirmation, and when she responded with a nod, he slowly pulled every single fabric covering her most sensitive areas before landing his lips back on hers.

Erina’s head rested on the table’s hard wood and she was weak. Her knees had been trembling, and it trembled more when his fingertips gently tease her inner thighs. She didn’t react when she felt his lip dropped. All she squirmed to was the feeling of his digits, finding that spot that felt too eager for him.

Moans after moans went into his mouth. Mirroring the rhythm he set was her arched back that continuously bucked at his thumb. He’d kiss her at times to suppress her noises, but he’d be the only one to end up groaning. She knew he enjoyed sketching away his feelings this way– in a delicious, circular motion. And the harder his finger pushed, the louder her moans had gotten.

And when she was on the edge, he stopped and fished his wallet.

“Wh-Why did you stop?” She panted, obviously disappointed.

“Condom,” He told her, “No way I’d leave you like that.”

She smiled and rose up to help him free, watching with anticipation as he rolled the rubber on himself.

It didn’t take long for him to finally dipped inside her, colliding their warm skin that melted into one. He kissed her goosebumps, before kissing her lips once again. He tasted so sweet even when it was only their breaths that meld, and she couldn’t stop the crave her god tongue desired.

She never understood the words she wanted to say to him because what she felt was deeper than its surface. It had been eating her alive, and she’d die if he’d never known of it.

With that feeling, with every thrust he stroked, gentle or rough, she pulled him deep. Maybe the only way he’d acknowledge it was only by the desperate moans of her lungs whispering his name in his ear. He’d know these voices, the peak she had reached, only belonged to him.

This was that silence conversation: where only their bodies spoke, and their heart listened.

And as he hushed and cursed her name repeatedly, his throbbing strengthened, that was where she knew he felt the same.

//

“Yukihira,” Erina mumbled as he zipped up her top, “It was good.”

He chuckled, kissing her shoulder, “Are you talking about my cooking or the sex?“

“I’ll let you figure it out.” She said, "Thank you for today, Yukihira.”

“Pleasure’s all mine,” Soma responded.

He held her in his arms for what felt like a long time. Long enough for her to notice and not minding the seafood smell intact on his t-shirt. All she felt was that warm embrace she had missed.

“Sweet dreams, Yukihira-kun.” She pulled away and gave his cheek a peck.

“Wait, Nakiri. You’re leaving?”

“W-Well, it’s 2 am. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of your rests.”

“Oh…” He said dejectedly.

Strange– she’d never heard that tone before, “Wh-Why? What’s wrong?”

“Don’t you… wanna stay? I mean, you just had a drink and it ain’t good to drive after all that sake you just drank, y'know.” Soma persuaded. “And I got a great breakfast recipe I’d make ya in the morning! What a deal, eh?”

“Yukihira, I have my driver waiting for me. I’d just have to give him a call.”

“Aight. Then stay for me.”

She blushed.

“E-Eh?”

“Don’t go, Nakiri.” He pulled her into another embrace, “Stay for a little while, will ya?”

“For how long?”

He paused and caressed her hair.

“If I say forever, would you do it?”

Erina swore her heart was about to burst. It was the first time he spoke something somewhat heartfelt. No food. No recipes. Just him as a man, showing his vulnerable side.

She knew she needed to say no more– she knew he meant it.

“I… suppose I can arrange that.”

A/N: YEAAAA so I haven’t written this kind of thing in a pretty long time so… feedback would be greatly appreciated :) and the only non-anon in the bunch @lisa786786, hope this helps and good luck if you decided to create it!

[ms31x129]

Time for Chapter 5! Posting a little early & I had to make a another DJ! I felt compelled! I hope I have ideas for 2 more! @cultureisdarkbeer @monikafilefan @today-in-fic

Chapter 1 - Courage to Jump Tumblr LINK  AO3 it is HERE.

Chapter 2: Luck of the Irish Tumblr LINK or AO3 it is HERE.

Chapter 3: Graffiti of the Heart Tumblr LINK or AO3 HERE.

Chapter 4: Leave Your Demons At The Door Tumblr LINK or AO3 HERE.

Chapter 5: Truth Is the Pain Inside Our Hearts (Click on the name for AO3) or if you like Tumblr just clickity-click on the Keep Reading link below.

{Summary:

Grab your Kleenex, because the forecast calls for angst with a few passing heartfelt admissions.

Jackson has left the bar and returned to the motel where his mind dares to tread back into the memories of Dana Scully at one of the most vulnerable times of her and Fox Mulder's life.}

“The greatest sacrifice is when you sacrifice your own happiness for the sake of someone else.” -Unknown

Jackson found himself stumbling back into his motel room what seemed like hours later. With his head already pounding, he peeled his soaked jeans off and nearly lost his balance as he tripped his way into the bathroom. His stomach tumbled with the jolt and he quickly felt around for the location of the toilet bowl in case he lost the rest of his liquor.

Jackson winced. “Ugh, shit!” Flicking on the lights was a bad idea. He groaned as he turned the shower on and watched the steam billow up around him. He hadn’t even realized he was crying until small droplets of hot tears crept down the swell of his cheeks. His veil of stoicism had finally fallen and everything he’d been holding back rushed to the surface.

The fact that he’d just scared the living hell out of several people in a bar—including a little kid—was not lost to him. In fact, for the first time in a long time, Jackson felt found.

He swiped away his tears of relief and realized that weight of resentment and anger had lifted. He’d been dealt a complicated hand in life, yes, but he had recently come to understand that his birth mother and adoptive parents had stacked the deck for him; not against. All he had to do was lay down his cards and play his final hand—to finish the journey he’d started when he ran away from the last two people who cared about him.

He stripped the rest of his clothes and stepped into the shower, letting the hot water pour down his face in rivulets as he finally broke down and mourned the life he left behind.

After the water ran cold, Jackson draped his soiled clothing over the shower to dry and donned a clean pair of pants. It was then that he remembered the letter tucked away in his jeans.

Frantic at the thought of losing the last tangible piece of his past, he rushed to carefully unfold the fragile paper. It was damp along the edges and a few of the more exaggerated letters at the end were bleeding into one another. Otherwise, the rest of the words written by Dana Katherine Scully were still perfectly legible and staring him in the face.

“I’m tired of not knowing,” he admitted, ready to accept what the past showed him. “I need to know more.”

Jackson sat on the edge of the bed with his elbows resting on his thighs as he stared intently at the next sentence written for him. He ran his tongue along his top lip while the letter shook between his fingers as one knee vigorously bounced up and down. “A nervous habit,” his mom would have to explain during every parent teacher conference at each new school as his teacher’s studied him from across the table.

He readied himself for another vision that he now expected to receive, embracing it. This time he read aloud…

“Chance embarking with this other on the greatest of journeys—a search for truths fugitive and imponderable.”

He felt it instantly: the burn and sting of his mind connecting to the past, delving into the memories of his birth mother as he was once again sucked into a world lived without him.

December 1st, 2012

Jackson paced the wooden floor within his mother’s body. She stared at herself clad in powder blue scrubs within the floor length mirror of a bedroom, playing with her Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital ID card that dangled from her lanyard. One slim finger traced along the address of 227700 Wallis Road, Farrs Corner, VA as Mulder’s shirtless figure loomed behind in the background.

“The timetable on something as radical as this, Mulder, is imponderable. Not only that, it’s improbable,” she spoke to the mirror in a tiresome tone resembling one she might use if she were debating on whether or not it would storm that night, or what to have for dinner.

She was resigned at the notion that Mulder would never hear her out and accept the fact that the pending alien invasion would in all likelihood, not happen at all. They were in a good place together—happily “married” while living life without darkness. Jackson felt a pang in her chest grow as she thought about the possibility of the man she loved so desperately falling off the edge if the invasion actually occurred and he could do nothing to stop it.

She watched in the reflection as Mulder ran a frustrated hand through his hair and scoffed. He took two purposeful steps forward and locked his driven gaze onto hers through the glass.

“Scully, It’s happening. It WILL happen. Why can’t you just believe it?”

Her patience fled instantly and Jackson felt her defensive walls fly up. He recognized the reaction and realized it was to protect herself from what she’s been hiding deep within her heart: guilt. Guilt surrounding his adoption flashed like fireworks in her mind and he could feel it eating her alive from the inside out.

She spun around and shook her head up at him. Her little body trembled with caged emotion.

“I don’t WANT to believe it, Mulder!” she cried and wrapped her arms around herself, as if that could soothe the shared pain they equally felt. “I�� We sacrificed our son for a better, safer life and now you still want to believe in this?” She pointed to a calendar hanging on the wall with a red X through the number twelve. “Don’t you see goddammit? I can’t believe it!”

“Christ, Scully! I don’t want to believe this shit either,” he growled and grasped her hand gently. “Don’t you remember me not wanting to speak the words aloud to you in that hellhole of a jail cell? Fuck! My son—our little boy, Scully…” he choked.

“Don’t!” She jerked her hand out of his and sidestepped around him. Jackson could barely hold onto the vision with the powerful waves of anger, grief, and guilt that washed over her. “I fell in love with you because you never give up, Mulder, but please don’t say things we can’t change.”

His chin quivered as he shook his head. “We never talk about him… My son is living his life with another father, another family,” he rasped and followed her movements around the bed as she kicked off her shoes. “But he’s safe and loved and unharmed by the men who have harmed us!”

Tears burned down her cheeks and the lump in her throat threatened to choke her. “Mulder…”

Suddenly he was there, standing in front of her with his arms embracing her tightly as silent sobs wracked through her body. She melted into him and nuzzled her face into his warm chest. The love she felt for him was as fierce as the ache in her heart.

“You did the right thing, Dana,” he whispered into her hair and she whimpered, squeezing him closer. “But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

The intense moment overwhelmed Jackson too much, jarring him out of his mother’s mind and sending his back bouncing off the mattress.

“Jesus Christ!” he groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose.

He didn’t understand this feeling—the same feeling his mother had felt so fiercely. The same one that had slowly been rebuilding in his heart over the last year.

But asking the age old question to which he was sure no one held the answer to, was the only thing that he could think to say in response to witnessing something so powerful.

“Why does love hurt so much?”

Hours flew by in a blur for Jackson. The images from Dana Scully and the memories from his childhood that he’d witnessed tumbled through his mind on an endless loop. Seeing something once usually left a permanent imprint on his brain, like a fingerprint pressed into glass. The image may fade but it still left its mark on him forever. He recalled reading that same fact about Mulder in his dossier when he hacked into the FBI’s personnel records after seeing he was partnered with the woman who birthed, and raised him for almost a year. An eidetic memory and an IQ worthy of much more than a man labeled as a spooky ex-fugitive. Maybe he and Mulder had much more in common than he thought.

He held the letter in front of him. The things he’d seen and felt from just reading simple words scrawled onto a piece of paper would brand Jackson for life. Yet, his mother’s words weren’t simple at all. They held great meaning—possibly even a power to set in motion what fate had preordained for them all before he was even born.

With a shake of his head at his aptitude for physics, he couldn’t help but think of how Isaac Newton’s universal law of gravitation pertained to his life. The law states: every object in the universe attracts every other object with a force that is directed along a line joining them. What if the force directing him was the letter and the objects being slowly pulled together by the powerful connection they shared were he and his birth mother?

He tossed a pillow across the room in frustration as new questions arose. Was it all fate? Was his existence created through the laws of science, the experiments through Project Crossroads meant to be? Was he a miracle child born of a love so strong it withstood life’s ultimate tests like his mother had written? Were these people that he’s come to understand so deeply meant to suffer while living a life without him?

“How fucked up is that?” Jackson sighed and sat up to grab the bag of peanuts he had stored in his bag. The salt cravings that always seemed to strike during times of stress required him to carry a bag of peanuts or salt-laced seeds with him on his travels. As he popped a couple into his mouth, he continued his philosophical reflection.

Everything he had witnessed through his visions while flexing his pineal gland enlightened him as to the true sacrifice that was made by everyone. It burned and blistered beneath his own skin. Strangers that he knew only by looking within and now he couldn’t bear to live without. If he held the key to destruction and annihilation, perhaps they held the key to his redemption.

He wanted to know them now, in the flesh, as if his own DNA screamed for it. Maybe it wasn’t as much about who he was or why he was, but who he chose to be. After reading the lines of the letter, immersing himself within the emotions, possessing the suffering endured for their cause in his own soul, he now understood so much more.

It was time. Time to take that leap. To fight alongside the one that bore him and loved him in the beginning even knowing the possibilities. There might be a war raging, but it didn’t have to originate from him. He had to step from behind the shadows and free himself from the prison of his own mind.

Jackson thought of the words of his idol, Malcolm X: “ Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.” He needed to take back his heritage, embrace it, and allow it to set him free. It was time to stand for something and stand against the ones that meant to use him to feed the monster. Before, he had been asleep under others control; now it was for himself. There was no more avoiding, no more ignoring of the signs written out for him in ink.

He would claim the life he lost with the people who love him and understand. Most of all he would stop running and avoiding what was no longer calling, but screaming out into the world. If fear held him back, then their love could cast it away. Just maybe he needed that, too.

[inveesible]

sorry it took so long @derelict-blade , and sorry if it's not what you expected >///<

✮✮✮✮✮✮✮✮

- the date on this thing says "October, 13, 2287", and all the clues lead me to believe that... the prototype 0078-yh...

- one of the functions of this thing is a journal on which I can write and save in a flash drive similar to a mini-disk (who uses mini-disks anymore?).I've decided to take note of everything that may help me understand what happened and to sort things out; if it's true that it's been 270 years since the day of my test on myself... no, I don't want to think about "that" question, now it's of no use to me.

- I managed to get out of this "vault", finally, only to come back with my tail between my legs. The scenery presented to me outside makes me believe that, at some point, during my hibernation, that atomic war finally happened.The state of the surrounding vegetation suggests that at least 50 years have passed.

- I think I killed all the giant cockroaches that infested the vault and I was able to make some terminals work, at least those are still intact... The hacking was so outdated that it was literally the last card I played. I found the diary of one of the scientists who worked here, and with it the confirmation of a nuclear strike occurred in date October 23, 2077; so they brought me here with the prototype between 2017 and 2077 and they used us to develop other cryopods, in which they locked twelve people against their will... those people survived the bombs just to be imprisoned here, maybe forever… or at least until the reactor stops working.

- I've had enough for today, I'll try to sleep and continue tomorrow. It's so cold here, but it could be me...

- 10/16: I decided to try to explore the surroundings once more, at the first giant spider that I meet I'll shoot myself straight in the head. I brought with me the gun I found, 22 bullets, no, 21... I’ll keep one for myself.

- before I left I checked the vital signs of the twelve hibernates, they are fine, as long as you can feel fine in a cryogenic induced coma... I promised (to who?) that every once in a while I'll be back to check on their conditions. now let's see how I handle this shit…

- I stopped almost immediately, at a gas station (?) a few steps from the vault. From the hillside you could see a hamlet, very small, maybe ten houses, but for now I prefer to avoid - I was going to write "population centres". I… I'm too scared of who or what I could find there, but here I was lucky, I met a dog, an healthy and friendly-looking German Shepherd... REGULAR SIZE. Good boy.

- from here you can see what looks like a water supply, and if it’s telling the truth, we are (meaning the dog and I) near Concord, meaning, we are not too far from Cambridge... I wonder if it wouldn't be better to… all I had was there... I need to see with my own eyes that... now...

- a few hours after leaving the gas station (??) it started raining, the dog and I (yes, he’s following me, and I must admit that I feel safer now), we found a shelter in an abandoned tool shed. I set up a bed and I locked myself in, now I want to take advantage of this time available to learn how to use this... wrist-computer (?); "pip-boy 3000" is says here, yeah there's no way I'm saying that...

- 10/17: I fell asleep while "playing" with this minicomputer, I were fooled by the puppy's body heat, or maybe it was his smell… but if it keeps away the beasts then it's worth it. I had breakfast with some canned water, I found old boxes of processed food that I don't trust to eat, I keep them aside for when I have no other choice... that could be a matter of hours, since I have not eaten in four days... oh right, 269 years, 10 months and 6 days, thanks a lot brain.

- the dog (I wonder if I should give him a name) hunted down a couple of birds to feed himself, I got a good look at them, he's so lucky he’s not a fussy.

- The dog is much smarter than many people I've met, he helped me find some medicines and A RIFLE! 38 caliber, telescopic sight, silencer, and 34 cartridges in a hip bag. Now I'm less afraid of meeting a giant spider... or nearly... He also brought me a can of Cram, regardless of the expiration date, I never liked it, but if I want to keep going with this experiment I'll have to come to terms with it, sooner or later.

- 10/18: I had to stop my entries because, like an idiot, I attracted a dogs pack with that goddamned Cram and... I had to... I've never shot anything alive before yesterday... I had never killed voluntarily... but those dogs were... I've never seen them so aggressive, they looked like those birds with which the dog (the friendly one) feeds occasionally, spot baldness, purulent sores, I managed not to get bit by the skin of your teeth. Who knows from what kind of bacterial mutant disease they were infected... they were five and... I shot three of them in the head after the dog (the friendly one) broke the first two's necks... then we had to run, I feared that the shots could have attracted something, or someone, even worse. Now we are safely locked in a wrecked bus, I cried for an hour and slept for another.

- it's an oddly beautiful full moon night, I can see the silhouettes of the buildings in Cambridge, if I leave at the first lights I could get to my old apartment by nightfall, if it works for everyone…

- in order to get my shit together I made an inventory of my "equipment": the clothes I'm currently wearing - a scarf (now in the bag) - my glasses - other sunglasses (now in the bag) - my pager (broken) - wallet - money ($ 518 in cash, $ 11 and 57 cents in change) - my I.D. did not survive the freezing, the data is illegible - 10mm gun - 17 ammo of the abovementioned gun - caliber 38 sniper rifle - 34 cartridges of the abovementioned rifle - 6 units of canned water - 1 unit of half eaten Cram (it sucks, but edible) - 2 units of Pork n’ Beans – 2 units of Fancy Lads Snack Cakes – a blue jumpsuit, new, too big for me (now in the bag).

- the food preservation industry has made tremendous strides while I was sleeping ... bah, America.

- inside the vault it didn't work properly, but I noticed that the radio of this minicomputer has intercepted some frequencies; as soon as I find a shelter I'll try to tune in. It's surely an indication of post-apocalyptic civilization, I don't know yet whether to rejoice or not.

-oh, this minicomputer also has a built-in thermometer, according to it I've a bit of fever and I'm almost dehydrated.

- I would give my left arm for a hot bath...

- … and the right one for some not 300-year-old cigarettes.

- I can't get those dogs out of my head... among all that happened to me, those dogs...

- it becomes increasingly difficult to avoid thinking of "that question"...

- 10/19 part 2: while I was having breakfast with the leftover of that Cram (ugh) I saw a person pass by, a woman, along the way nearby: she was alone, if we don't count the naked cow loaded with stuff (it had two heads?? Perhaps my dehydration is more severe than I expected), and she was armed, if we can consider weapon a gun made out of twigs and scrap metal (???), the dog was not alarmed, I was about to go and talk to her, but I'm a coward and I missed my chance...

- I waited to see her disappear behind a distant corner, then I waited another twenty minutes to not hear gunshots, at that point I followed her steps, we are pretty close to Cambridge, and more houses can mean more people, people who could be hostile, that's why I took the safe off.

- I wonder if it's not the case to go to the police station... I'm not stupid enough to hope to find Edward there, but maybe there’s some stock that could turn useful, weapons, ammunition, ESPECIALLY ammunition, better yet body armour, anti-aggression equipment... yes, it's DEFINITELY the case to go to the police station.

- Edward… when the war broke out he should have been 95... who knows if no fuck no, I can't think of this now, I don't want to do the same calculation for those assholes, they are dead, they are dead they are dead they are all dead I’m sorry Edward

- 10/19 part 3: I have two hours of light, I'm wasting time on this fire escape, it wasn't easy to get the dog up, he didn't want to hear of it, but I thought it was safer to try to get in from the roof, I didn't even see the main entrance... if there were people inside... if those people were armed and hostile... if that woman, that of the two-headed cow, went around armed there must be a reason... if those people were trying to kill me, how much further could I claim self-defense? Would I be able to defend myself? Would I be able to ... kill them before they kill me? This is going to be the most difficult experiment that I must ever conduct.

-OK that’s new: there are signs of recent activity, someone tried to set up a shelter in here, there’s ammo but no weapon, makeshift mattresses, FOOD, but I didn't touch anything; whoever did this could come back and I need to be ready, perhaps to fight, perhaps for a peaceful dialogue... I hope for the latter.

-10/21 I'm absolutely the most idiotic and lucky person in the world: after my last entry two days ago, due to the dog's body heat and to my belly full of 200 year old treats, I fell asleep AGAIN... I'm such a dumb shit…! The first unregistered voice that I heard in eight days woke me up, under threat and pointing to me what I later realized was a weapon, who highly invited me to identify myself and to declare my intentions. I've never been so close to wet my pants, but luckily that man was open to dialogue, maybe I'll write something about him and his group later, they are four, they know what they’re doing, and they don't want to hurt me... apparently.

- and now the bad news: when I was woken up the dog was gone. Danse, I mean Paladin Danse of the Brotherhood of Steel (?), said there was no dog with me when he found me, I looked for him a bit nearby the others warned me not to go too far because Cambridge is Ghoul infested (???)... that dog can take care of himself, he'll be fine... please let him be fine...

-Haylen wait, Scribe Haylen (oh my fucking god), is teaching me how to use the latest technology, hardware and stuff, she was nothing short of enthusiastic about my minicomputer, and advised me not to keep it inside my duffle bag, but always on my wrist (shit, it's as comfortable as a wooden underwear). She also told me to wear the jumpsuit I found in the vault, the one that was too big for me, because the fabric is made of a radiation-resistant material, has the ability to regulate body heat according as necessary and, lo and behold, it's not too big, the suit fits your size, you wear it, you wiggle in it a little bit, and it fits perfectly. I'm wearing it under my clothes, it's definitely TOO tight for my liking.

- speaking of radiations, Haylen says that the medicines I found are safe, in small doses even that pre-war food, although fresh food would be better (fresh food here???).

- I like Haylen, we share very much and I can talk to her pretty quietly, she asks a lot of questions, but can't say I wouldn't have done the same myself. Paladin Danse is doing his best to make me feel comfortable, he doesn’t always succeed, however I appreciate the effort, and his "power armor" is the coolest thing I've ever seen! Sometimes I find Knight Keane looking away from me, he hasn’t spoke to me in two days, almost makes me think he hates me, he would not be the first. Knight Rhys is dickhe

- Paladin Danse called a meeting in ten minutes, this time my presence is requested, and now that I'm writing it, I'm afraid it's because they've finally decided what to do with me...

[melancholyandphilosophy-blog]

A little bit about Me

It’s 1:21am on a Monday morning and I can’t sleep. That’s nothing new. Sleep is one of many things I’ve fought with over my lifetime, along with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, sexual assault, losing and finding myself over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, we all have our battles. I don’t think I have it any worse or any better than anybody else, but I do think I may have analyzed and understood its depths a little better. All my life I’ve asked “why?”, and just when I think I’ve solved one problem, another one arises. I never stop questioning. It’s a blessing and a curse.

To be honest, I think it’s mostly a curse. Trying to understand in a world that is under no obligation to be understood. Trying to make sense of chaos. I am grateful, though, that I see things the way that I do. You’ll begin to understand why.

I think I’m fairly special. I think we should all think that of ourselves; if we don’t, who will? I’m learning the true meaning of speaking things into existence and along with that, the value of patience. We underestimate the power of our minds. We’re raised to ignore a lot of the signs and signals our bodies and the universe give us. We’re smarter than we think we are. I hope times change and we relearn the importance of communicating with our inner self, and working from the inside outward. Filling our cup before we try to pour water for someone else, and replenishing our own supply when we’ve run dry.

A little bit about Me.

I want to tell you the good things as well as the bad but I have to be honest, I don’t have very many happy memories from about age 12 to 19. I had a wonderful childhood with my two older sisters, my younger brother, and my best friend who lived next door. All of the laughs and love we shared have lumped into one heartwarming, longing memory of mine.

Most of my memories are sad. I read something once a long time ago that explained how humans retain the strongest memories when they felt the most emotion (hence, why I still vividly remember walking out of the school bathroom on the first day of grade nine with toilet paper stuck to my shoe because I was SO embarrassed, I haven’t let myself live it down). I have felt a lot of intense sadness, confusion, apathy, and anger in my lifetime. I’m not so depressed anymore because I’ve come to know myself very well through all of the ups and downs, but we’ll get there.

The first time I cut myself was in grade five. I took my mom’s sewing scissors to my wrist. I knew they were sharp enough because one of my sisters had accidentally cut herself with them years before. I don’t recall feeling particularly sad until after I drew blood; I think initially I was just curious.

My curiosity (and borderline fascination) with pain and death stuck with me from a very young age. When I would hear of deaths in the news I would wait until my parents had gone to bed to get online and read about it. I watched horrors and thrillers and crime shows. I wondered what would come after life and I concluded that it must be eternal blackness. I didn’t believe in God or an afterlife because life was too painful and cruel to think that there was some greater good purpose behind it all.

The night before my grade eight graduation I got my first period. Everything went downhill quickly after that. I’m specifically mentioning the beginning of puberty because I think it’s connected to my fall into depression, and it’s something I’ll probably blog about later. Scientists neglected to research women’s health until recent years with our progression towards equality. I think puberty effects young women’s emotional health much more than we give credit for. Even still, at 21 years of age, I tussle with suicidal thoughts for one week out of every month. Without proper sex education and open discussion about mental illness, our daughters are in danger. The dawn of puberty was a very dark time for me.

I remember the very first time my laugh felt hollow. I was in class with my best friend, we were joking around the way we always did and we laughed until tears but something didn’t feel right inside of me. I didn’t feel happy, I didn’t experience any joy. I felt empty. I started relating to dark music and depression blogs on Tumblr where I’d find posts that seemed to describe the way I felt better than I could. Posts such as someone taking off a smiling mask to reveal their “true self”, a face of agonizing despair. I began to draw as an outlet for my overwhelming emotions. That and basketball were the only things keeping me sane.

When I was in grade nine, articles surfaced about someone my age from another province who took her own life. It stuck with me ever since. I read every article there was to read, and following that I researched the most effective ways to kill oneself. Shortly thereafter, I tried to drown myself.

When suicide didn’t work, I tried to take control over something easier to grasp. I stopped eating. I consciously ate a granola bar every third day. I collapsed on the basketball court due to malnutrition and was taken to a dietician. I saw her a few times and convinced everyone that I was cured. Now, I was eating to feed my families concerns, just to run away and spit/puke up much of my food.

I hated myself. I hated what I saw in the mirror. I sat up until 4 and 5 in the morning every night staring at the wall, inaudibly sobbing, cutting my inner thighs just to feel something. Eventually, I stopped crying at all. I stopped feeling altogether. I was perpetually numb, I was angry and confused and waiting for it all to end. One thought ran through my brain all day, every. single. day. “I'd rather be dead.”

I got caught up in a dead-end relationship throughout high school. My friends and family would ask me what I was doing and I would dismiss their concern because I really thought I was in love. Looking back now, I don’t recognize the girl I was in that relationship and at that time in my life. I endured a series of unfortunate events that all convinced me that I was worthless, nothing more than a piece of meat for a man’s pleasure. I was used, abused, manipulated.

I’ve always been afraid to write or talk about these things in fear of hurting the people who hurt me. That’s really fucked up, actually, that after all the pain they’ve caused me I will still worry about their wellbeing more than my own. With that said, my suffering doesn’t dissipate the love I had for these people. I have a soft and forgiving heart, but it is beaten and bruised and it’s ready to be free. Sexual abuse has haunted me for 8 years now. It has affected me in many ways that, when I find the bravery, I will discuss later in order to shed light on just how harmful it is to its victims. It’s not always a drunken encounter; in fact, quite often sexual assault occurs within relationships. Looking the first person you ever loved in the eyes and choking out the words “you’re raping me” for them to carry on until you black out will inevitably change a person.

I didn’t allow myself time to think about what had happened to me. I didn’t process my pain, I refused to accept what had happened. Instead, I fell in love again, this time intensely. This was a love I’d never known; one of respect, admiration, passion, lust, and everything else wonderful. When this was abruptly stripped from me, I mourned the loss of both of my relationships at once. I felt so small and so alone. I stopped eating, attending school, sleeping, socializing. I hooked up with strangers to feel like for a moment, someone wanted me. I was lost, and that was nobody’s fault but my own because I constantly relied on other people to provide me happiness that I couldn’t find within. I tried to kill myself twice more.

I am lucky to be alive. Lucky and so thankful. I don’t want to detail my suicide attempts because the people who are likely to resonate the most with this post are the people who, similarly to my past self, will make a mental note of those details for future reference. I am absolutely not here to tell you how to hurt yourself; I’m here for the exact opposite. I’m here to tell you why I thank God everyday that it never worked for me. I’m here to tell you that you are not alone, and to help you interpret feelings you might not understand yet. I’m here to tell you how everything hurts until one day it doesn’t anymore, and suddenly you realize you’ve been living a more fulfilling life than you’ve ever known without even recognizing your own strength. I proudly remind myself of how strong I am. I’ve survived years of fighting with myself mentally and physically. I’ve made it to 21 years old when I didn’t think I’d even see 16, and moreover, i’ve learned to count my blessings and appreciate the sick, twisted, strikingly beautiful life I’ve been given.

So that’s a little bit about me. That’s the short story of why I’ve become who I’ve become -- a hopeful young lady with endless potential, a deep understanding of pain and a burning desire to help others feel less alone. Throughout everything I’ve been through I looked for answers to wherein lies some fleeting desire to keep living, and I’ve finally found it. Maybe i’m just venting out all the things I’ve been afraid to say aloud. Maybe this is just free therapy for me. Hopefully at least one person will relate and find comfort in knowing they are not alone in their struggles.

My posts won’t be this dark in the future. Besides, looking back gets you nowhere. We’re looking forward with optimism. This is my story of love and loss, disconsolation and vitality, confusion and clarity. This is my story of recovery.

[printedword]

Mallory has a history of imposture, and of duping people with false stories about disease and death. Long before he wrote fiction professionally, Mallory was experimenting with gothic personal fictions, apparently designed to get attention, bring him advancement, or to explain away failings. “Money and power were important to him,” a former publishing colleague told me. “But so was drama, and securing people’s sympathies.”

A decade or so ago, Raine read an application from Dan Mallory, which described a proposed thesis on homoeroticism in Patricia Highsmith’s fiction. Unusually, the application included an extended personal statement.

Raine, telling me about the essay during a phone conversation a few months ago, called it an astonishing piece of writing that described almost unbearable family suffering. The essay sought to explain why Mallory’s performance as a master’s student at Oxford, a few years earlier, had been good but not brilliant. Mallory said that his studies had been disrupted by visits to America, to nurse his mother, who had breast cancer. Raine recalled, “He had a brother, who was mentally disadvantaged, and also had cystic fibrosis. The brother died while being nursed by him. And Dan was supporting the family as well. And the mother gradually died.” According to Raine, Mallory had described how his mother rejected the idea of suffering without complaint. Mallory often read aloud to her the passage in “Little Women” in which Beth dies, with meek, tidy stoicism, so that his mother “could sneer at it, basically.”

Raine went on, “At some point, when Dan was nursing her, he got a brain tumor, which he didn’t tell her about, because he thought it would be upsetting to her. And, evidently, that sort of cleared up. And then she died. The brother had already died.”

[...]

I told Raine that Mallory’s mother was not dead. There was a pause, and then he said, “If she’s alive, he lied.” Raine underscored that he had taken Mallory’s essay to be factual. He asked me, “Is the father alive? In the account I read, I’m almost a hundred per cent certain that the father is dead.” The senior John Mallory, once an executive at the Bank of America in Charlotte, also attended the event at Queens University. He and Pamela have been married for more than forty years.

In 1999, at the end of Mallory’s sophomore year in college, he published an article in the Duke Chronicle which purported to describe events that had occurred a few years earlier, when he was seventeen; he wrote that he was then living in a single-parent household. [...] His mother, he wrote, urged him “to write to your colleges and tell them your mother has cancer.” Mallory said that he complied, adding, “I hardly feel I capitalized on tragedy—rather, I merely squeezed lemonade from the proverbial lemons.” In college applications, he noted, “I lamented, in the sweeping, tragic prose of a Brontë sister, the unsettling darkness of the master bedroom, where my mother, reeling from bombardments of chemotherapy, lay for days huddled in a fetal position.”

This strategy apparently failed with Princeton. In the article, Mallory recalled writing to Fred Hargadon, then Princeton’s dean of admissions. “You heartless bastard,” the letter supposedly began. “What kind of latter-day Stalin refuses admission to someone in my plight? Not that I ever seriously considered gracing your godforsaken institution with my presence—you should be so lucky—but I’m nonetheless relieved to know that I won’t be attending a university whose administrators opt to ignore oncological afflictions; perhaps if I’d followed the example of your prized student Lyle Menendez and killed my mother, things would have turned out differently.”

I was recently told about two former publishing colleagues of Mallory’s who called him after he didn’t show up for a meeting. Mallory said that he was at home, taking care of someone’s dog. The meeting continued, as a conference call. Mallory now and then shouted, “No! Get down!” After hanging up, the two colleagues looked at each other. “There’s no dog, right?” “No.”

On February 12, 2013, some people in London who knew Mallory professionally received a group e-mail from Jake Mallory, Dan’s brother, whom they’d never met. Writing from a Gmail address, Jake said that Dan would be going to the hospital the next day, for the removal of a tumor. He’d be having “complicated surgery with several high risk factors, including the possibility of paralysis and/or the loss of function below the waist.” But, Jake went on, “Dan has been through worse and has pointed out that if he could make it through Love Actually alive, this surgery holds no terrors.” Dan would eat “an early dinner of sashimi and will then read a book about dogs until bedtime,” Jake wrote, adding, “Dan was treated terribly by people throughout his childhood and teenage years and into his twenties, which left him a very deeply lonely person, so he does not like/trust many people. Please keep him in your thoughts.”

[...]

On February 14, 2013, a “Jake” message to New York contacts described overnight surgery—uncommon timing for a scheduled procedure—in an unspecified hospital. “My brother’s 7-hour surgery ended early this morning,” the e-mail began. “He experienced significant blood loss—more so than is common during spinal surgeries, so it required two transfusions. However, the tumor appears to have been completely removed. His very first words upon waking up were ‘I need vodka.’ ” I was told that a recipient sent vodka to Dan’s apartment, and was thanked by “Jake,” who reported that his brother roused himself just long enough to say that the sender was a goddess. [...] “Jake” continued, “He has been fitted with a ‘lumbar drain’ in his back to drain his spinal fluid. The pain is apparently quite severe, but he is on medicine.” (A Britishism.) “He is not in great shape but did manage to ask if he could keep the tumor as a pet. He will most likely be going home today.”

[...]

Three days later, “Jake” wrote another group e-mail, saying that “an allergic reaction to a new pain killer” had caused Dan “to go into shock and cardiac arrest.” He went on, “He was taken to the hospital on time and treated immediately and is out of intensive care (still on a respirator and under sedation). While this setback is not welcome it is not permanent either, and at least Dan can now say he has had two lucky escapes in the space of two months.” “Jake” went on, “The worst is past and we are hoping he can go back to his apartment this weekend and then pick up where he left off. This would daunt a mere mortal but not my brother.”

[...]

“Jake” noted that Dan had been “working with abused children and infants at the hospital where he was treated.” The previous week, “Jake” had seen Dan “talking to a little girl whose arm had been broken for her,” he wrote, adding, “My brother’s arm was broken for him when he was a baby.” This phrasing seems to stop just short of alleging parental abuse. (The theme of childhood victimization, sometimes an element of “Jake” e-mails sent to London associates, did not appear in the New York e-mails.) “Jake” went on, “He wrote the little girl a story about a hedgehog in his nicest handwriting to show her how she could rebound from a bad experience. I want for him to do the same, although I understand that he is tired of having to rebound from things.”

[...]

When Mallory returned to work that spring, after several weeks, nothing was said. A former co-worker at Morrow, who admires him and still has only the vaguest sense of a health issue, told me that Mallory “seemed the same as before.” He hadn’t lost any weight or hair.

[newhologram]

Uncomfortable suicide talk time...

We’ve lost a lot of artists to suicide lately. 

Even recently, Katy Perry opened up about her own struggle with depression and being suicidal. How she had to pick herself back up again, like many of us do. The decision to keep going can be scarier than leaving. I only know a few of her songs (including the video I was in) and had never seen that side of her, and... well, I hope that more people can realize that for a lot of these artists, actors, singers, etc, it’s a role they play, it’s work they do, and they are still people no matter what mistakes they make or illnesses they have, and they can still hurt. Katy is Katheryn. Lady Gaga is Stefani. Ke$ha is well, Kesha. Kyary is Kiriko. And so on. They can still struggle with their mental health, with addiction, with loss, the pressure of being idolized (and dehumanized), the Hollywood bullying brigade (which includes fans). They can still get to that point where they are no longer able to cope. They can still have badbrain that lies to them, and that ultimately takes them from us. Even Stevie Ryan, trying her best, getting a really cool new kind of depression treatment which she showed on her Instagram a month and a half before her death, lost her fight. Her IG is now full of comments saying how much people miss her and how much she meant to them.

I don’t mean to turn this to me because I’m nowhere near as influential or known as the people we’ve lost or almost lost. But I’ve almost been lost and it freaks me out to think about how easily I could have just left like that. It’s been a constant background noise since I was little due to trauma and growing up with undiagnosed disability/illnesses, by puberty and into adulthood it became ideations and self-harm, and by the time I was 23 with all of my illnesses getting worse and finally getting diagnosed, my hatred for myself and my body, the feeling that I was a burden and a mistake, the excruciating pain levels, it was all so overwhelming. I spent the majority of 2014 in and out of intense depressive episodes, and there were 4 instances where I made a plan to do it, because I felt it was the only choice I had, and I didn’t want to keep being in pain the rest of my life. In anger and a rush of adrenaline, I’d work myself up with self-harm, scribble my note (which wasn’t really coherent, and showed how bad my mental state was) and get in position to do it. Testing, testing, testing, and then freezing. Freezing freezing freezing until I was able to move little by little, and get back in bed, crumpling into a crying heap. 

Because I didn’t want to die, really. I just hated myself so much and wanted to stop being sick and stop being a problem—and I thought the only way was to stop living at all. I felt like the universe was kicking me around. “Oh, you’re finally starting to bloom? Fuck you, now you’re sick.” I think that if I didn’t have my cats or my nephews, I wouldn’t have had felt much reason to stay. I thought of Jeremy looking for me. I thought of my sister trying to explain to my nephews that I was gone. And I thought, I can’t do that—I need to be here to take care of my cats and to help inspire my nephews. It was never about me and my right to life and my value, it was always about an obligation to others. 

Eventually, I got a little better. I had a sense of purpose, I worked through so many shoots in horrible pain and told myself, “I am on the right path.” But even then the whirlwind of depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD, and chronic pain still kept me clinging to my life raft during the extreme highs and lows that I switch between all day long. I pushed and pushed and pushed until winter 2016 when my body gave out again, and suddenly I was faced with my birthday and a new year. 

A new year. Another year of pain. I thought, “I’ve been doing this so long now. I don’t think I can tolerate it anymore.” In January the night before I decided I was going to see the atlas specialist, all I could think about was leaving. I had had another fight with my dad, and he said some things he didn’t mean but that made me feel so empty, so much hate for myself. If my friend hadn’t been over that day I would have done it then. But after they left I stayed under the covers motionless to try to survive (”if I don’t move, I won’t kill myself!” somehow, there is just a tiny bit of “me” still in there enough to do things to try to stay alive), barely able to feel when my dad came into my room to touch my shoulder, to promise me that he was going to help me, that I was going to be okay. 

Even after the atlas adjustment gave me hope, I fell again as spring ended and summer began. Even just a few weeks ago, I was in a bad place once more. I felt again that I didn’t want to keep doing this. I didn’t want to keep forcing myself to be in pain just for the sake of not making other people sad. I felt horrible that they would be sad if I died, but I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t deal with my spine problem, my illnesses, my weird brain making it impossible for me to connect with people, the crushing loneliness. I knew exactly where and how I was going to it, with what, and what each step was, even up to calling the police so that they could find my body before anyone else did. I had everything worked out. My bank info, even. I considered everything.

I got myself some snacks and I went to the park. I thought, “how about I just eat and drink some fancy water and people watch until sundown, and see how I feel?” I didn’t feel at that point that I could beat it, but I thought, let’s just wait and see. Maybe I’ll get bored and want to play video games. I sat on a bench and munched on crackers. I napped in my car, sweating in the heat, spine on fire. I listened to the kids screaming on the playground.

Suddenly it was dark. I sat up and the park was black and empty except for a mom and her son, sneakily lighting sparklers because they thought no one was around. Two little frizzy lights in the darkness, and flashes of their smiles.

I still felt awful. I didn’t want to show my face at home. I had already left a long letter to my father carefully explaining that I was basically at the end of my rope and was no longer able to cope with being sick all the time, with being stuck in bed in pain my entire days off, with not being able to put my all into my career no matter how hard I tried, not making much money, and that him constantly fighting with me made it all worse—I acknowledged that I can’t change him, I don’t have that power and if he wants to change then he needs to make that choice and get help—but that it doesn’t mean that I should have to take his abuse just because he pays the rent and pays for most of my appointments. That me crying and wishing I was never born is not being ungrateful for everything he’s done for me. 

It’s pain. It’s pain and fear and guilt. 

And that’s the myth about suicide. It’s not really relief. 

“In AA, they call it playing the tape: encouraging alcoholics to really think through in detail the exact sequence of events that will occur after relapse. It’s the same thing with suicide. To play the tape through is to see the ultimate reality that suicide is not a relief at all—it’s a screaming, agonizing, horror.” x

I know that it’s impossible to make promises about something that is mostly out of our control—but I’m happy to still be here, because I want to be, even when my brain constantly tells me how Symbolic and Cool and Meaningful my suicide could be. (Literally, suicidebrain is... weird and thinks weird not true things. This is illness, folks. It sounds crazy because it is.)

And for those who have also been there, I’m glad you’re still here too. Please, please, please, it’s hard and the world is unfortunately set up in ways that make it hard for us to talk about this and get help. But please, try. Try to stay here with us. Even if the only thing that helps you through an episode is sleeping all day or a video game binge, at least you’re here. 

And please, if you do get to that point, call a crisis hotline. Talk to someone. Do what you can. It’s hard but please try. For yourself, above anyone else. 

[mslullabies]

wrote a little fat-positive ficlet based on this headcanon – although note that this does not feature or discuss eating disorder!Taako, just stressed lonely and unhappy!Taako. do not read if you are not into fatness being portrayed as a good thing.

Magnus is on the bar stool on the opposite side of the kitchen counter, watching Taako make diplomat cream.

"Why diplomat cream?" Magnus had asked, making trouble on purpose, holding back a grin, "Why not just custard?"

"Excuuuuuuse me!?" Taako had all but shrieked, and banished Magnus to the bar stool, where he couldn't sneak fingerfulls of the cream he was so obviously unworthy of.

The banishment also got him out of Taako's personal space, which Magnus knows he's been encroaching on a little too much ever since they saved the world. He doesn’t mean to, it’s just -

He remembers everything in its proper order now, remembers all the people he loves and all the ways he grew to love them, but his sense memories still trip him up sometimes. His body doesn’t have it straight. For a while his ears held on to this timeline of Merle's voice - the warmth in it growing deeper over the course of a hundred years, and then his voice was gone entirely, and then it was filled instead with tired obstinacy, before slowly growing warmer, more affectionate, again. Magnus knew in his head why those changes happened, but it's like his ears couldn't let go of the strangeness. Ears don't know about interdimensional travel, they don't know about memories stolen and returned.

That, at least, had faded in the months that followed the almost-apocalypse, probably because Magnus hears Merle’s voice plenty often, but with Taako it’s different.

Magnus has had his arms around Taako exactly three times: there was the first time Lup died, and Taako had been... Magnus had carried him back to the Starblaster, and his weight in Magnus's arms had been a comfort of sorts - the heavy, tear-soaked reality of him, the shake of his girth as he sobbed, his pain and the ache Magnus felt for him marking them both as undeniably alive. Then there was the third time they'd lost Cap'nport, and lost him when he'd been right beside Magnus, not even six inches away. One of the only things Magnus can remember from the days that had followed is the sound of a put-upon sigh, and then a sturdy warmth all around him, the soft press of Taako's body against his chest, the way he had felt when Magnus finally managed to lift his arms and hold him in return – a thick comforting squish giving way to a solid core of strength.

And then most recently, after the destruction of Phandalin, he'd caught Taako in the moon base’s observatory - his slight shape silhouetted against the sunset, tendons showing in the back of his hand as he’d gripped the telescope and looked down at that crater of glass. Taako had immediately pretended to be looking at something else, and Magnus, unremembering, had looped an arm around his shoulders and squeezed him. He’d gotten a good second and a half in maybe before Taako had shrugged away. Taako had been skinny and sharp-edged then, and even pressed up against him, Magnus hadn’t thought anything of it, of what might have made Taako that way. His fingers could have met around Taako’s arm, and he’d had no idea what that actually meant.

Now Taako's got his nose in the air as he pointedly faces away from Magnus and vigorously whisks heavy cream into whipped cream. Magnus can see the muscles in his arm move, but the lines of them are diffuse and gentle. The reverberations of his stirring jiggle through his side. Now Taako is thick and hale and his skin is smooth and glowing and his eyes shine and Wonderland or no, he is as gorgeous as Magnus can ever remember him. Magnus understands what happened, how Taako got so thin and how he got chubby again, it makes sense in his brain - but his body cannot shake the feeling of the narrow ridge of Taako's shoulders against the underside of his arm. He can't get rid of this urge to put his arms around Taako and feel that he's well and happy and not alone and isn't afraid to cook or to eat anymore. He wants that feeling to overtake the memories his body made when neither of them were their whole selves.

"Ya know, I can get you an 8 by 10 if you want," Taako says without turning around, and Magnus realizes it’s been several minutes and he’s gone from watching Taako cook to just kind of staring at him.

"Yeah, you already gave me like a dozen," he answers, laughing.

"So then what's with the star gazing?" Taako asks as he tests the peaks of the cream. He sets the bowl down on the counter, apparently satisfied, and turns to face Magnus.

Magnus shrugs dismissively and looks away. Hugs aren’t exactly Taako’s jam, and he doesn’t want to make him feel weird or obligated about it.

Taako sighs.

“Listen, I’m normally all about just bottling that shit right up, but just this one time I think I’d rather you spat it out. Not that I don’t want you around, but you have kinda been right on my jock lately, and that real estate is in high demand. What gives, homeboy, what’s going on?”

Magnus debates internally for a split second, and then gives up the ghost. He doesn’t have it in him to give Taako the brush off, and there’s no law that says they have to get into details about it.

“I kinda want a hug,” he says, and smiles when Taako’s eyebrows shoot up. “But I know you’re not into that, so don’t worry about it. I’ll uh. I’ll bottle that shit right up.”

Magnus isn’t sure what he’s expecting Taako’s response to be, but what he gets is Taako whirling around, leaning halfway out of the window over the sink and looking left and right as if checking for intruders. He withdraws and pulls the shutters closed, then goes and performs the same comical look-around at the doorway leading to the dining room. Apparently satisfied, he turns around and shoots Magnus a conspiratorial look.

“Ok, you can’t go blabbing about this to everybody,” he says in a stage-whisper as he comes around the counter to Magnus’s bar stool. “Part of how I make sure the demand stays high is by keeping the supply low, ya feel me?”

“Uh, yeah?” Magnus guesses, still not sure where this is headed.

“Good,” Taako says firmly. Then he holds out his arms.

Magnus slides off the bar stool and into the hug Taako is offering on instinct or reflex or something, no conscious thought to it at all. It doesn’t even occur to him to laugh at how ridiculous Taako is until he’s already there, and then he’s too busy getting a little choked up.

Taako doesn’t feel the least bit fragile or sharp-edged, just sturdy and soft and substantial, so Magnus squeezes him tightly, and the circle his arms make around him is big and wide and right. He can feel something inside himself click back into proper alignment, like feeling a joint move more easily after it’s popped.

“You don’t have to be a fuckin creep about it, ok?” Taako says into Magnus’s neck. Magnus just nods, his throat too closed up to bother defending himself.

Taako allows the hug for another moment before patting Magnus’s back in that way that means ‘done now,’ and Magnus lets him go.

“I mean it,” Taako says immediately, pointing a finger in Magnus’s face, “Don’t go telling people about this.”

“Ok,” Magnus says, amused and still a little dazed with relief.

“I can’t have the likes of Kravitz and Ango thinking they can just get all up in here whenever they want.”

Magnus manages a laugh at that. “Not even Kravitz gets the unlimited hugs pass?”

“Especially not Kravitz, are you kidding me. He’s gotta earn it every time.”

Taako sashays back around the counter and reaches over the sink to open the shutters again, and although shutting them hadn’t made the kitchen dim by any means, the sunlight streaming in feels refreshingly bright and clean.

[bklyntherapist]

In Praise of Laziness

I have often wondered whether especially those days when we are forced to remain idle are not precisely the days spend in the most profound activity. Whether our actions themselves, even if they do not take place until later, are nothing more than the last reverberations of a vast movement that occurs within us during idle days.

In any case, it is very important to be idle with confidence, with devotion, possibly even with joy. The days when even our hands do not stir are so exceptionally quiet that it is hardly possible to raise them without hearing a whole lot.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke

“Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.”

― Albert Camus

I heard a story that struck me as salient recently. A person I know told me a story from when they were a teenager. They had rented a house near the beach with some friends. Someone suggested that they jump into the ocean to kick off the weekend. It was a ridiculous idea. The ocean was freezing. But no one wanted to be the person who didn’t jump in.

The storyteller’s cadence slowed as it tends to do when a person is remembering something joyful. They said they could remember the moment right before they entered the water so clearly, as if their brain had said, “this moment is important. It will be one of the moments of your life.” The person said the moment was so pure, so innocent, so unlike what their life adult life had become. They wished more than anything to have that moment back.

That story gave me such a pang of nostalgia when I heard it, nostalgia for a time that I can’t even be sure really existed except in my imagination. It was a longing for a time when life was less confusing and the narrative of my life seemed ripe with possibility. It left me with a hollow feeling in my stomach.  

I was shaken for days after. In my unconscious, I could feel my thoughts percolating. I knew something had been missing in my adult life. I couldn’t put into words, except that story of a teenager jumping into the ocean with their friends was somehow significant.

***

I have a lot of shame around my laziness. If I spend an afternoon strolling through the streets, lying on the grass or catching up on a tv show, I’m filled with guilt. Surely I could have spent my time more productively? Surely I could have finished the paperwork I’ve been putting off? But alas, I sin over and over again.

I used the word “sin” because I have the sense that there is a moral component to my shame. Work and productivity, in particular, take on an almost mythical, religious quality for Americans. Perhaps it’s the remnants of the Protestant work ethic that espoused the virtues of capitalism long ago. I can hear the voice of Max Weber in my shame. “I have not done enough. I am nothing if I am not productive.” Work somehow has become who am I. I am nothing without work.

Because I am a therapist, I am uniquely positioned to see the inner lives of the gentried class. A common theme emerges from my many sessions with them: great anxiety. It is an anxiety built not on a search for the basic needs of life, but built on a lack of “why” in their lives.

The “how” has been given to them by their culture-- advanced degrees in fields that are respected and well-payed. But these jobs are often stressful and require long hours, and these people have been worn down more and more by their daily grind. One person admitted me to recently, “I just don’t give a shit about this work. But I have to keep doing it.” This person was one of the more honest ones. Most of them continue to work and work for years upon years, trying to turn off the thought that maybe they aren’t content. Work becomes a compulsion, a mode to fulfill their American work ethic.

I’ve seen an emptiness take over many of them, hollowed-out people like survivors of a shipwreck. And the only solution often readily available to them is to consume. So they consume often without forethought but in search of pleasure to allay their emptiness. So they stroll out to nice restaurants and bars, watch the TV shows of the moment, drink themselves silly on Saturday nights and return to their Monday jobs, a constant Sisyphean treadmill of pleasure and avoiding pain.

I say all this without judgment. It’s what I observe not just in others but myself. I have struggled just like anyone to find my “why” to everyday life.

***

The story of the teenager jumping into the ocean continued to percolate in my thoughts over the next week. But I still had no answer.

Unsure what to do with this feeling, I found myself in Prospect Park on a Sunday. It was about midday, and I had some time to kill before I had to return home. I sat in the grass under the shade, as the sun was particularly vicious that day. My first instinct was to check my phone for work emails, twitter updates or to play some silly game.

But I stopped myself. Checking my phone felt compulsive as it always does. Instead, I just sat. I observed the barbecue nearby as the children played tag and squealed with joy. I felt the sun rays peeking through the giant Elm trees and the bristles of grass on my thighs. I took deep breaths and tried to be in the moment. I was calmer and less anxious than I had been since I heard the story.

It was then that I remembered what I had always known: the simple pleasures of being. I had spent so much recent time searching for a “why” to my everyday life, wracked with the same anxieties and shame as anyone else. But the answer to my “why,” it seemed, was that there was no answer, that to simply be in that moment and be alive was enough. Somehow I had disconnected from it through the inertia of stress and routines that we call everyday life. But here was joy again.

Sometimes anxiety would take over. And soon followed guilt. I felt like I was being lazy, just sitting on the grass on a Sunday afternoon, that I was doing something wrong spending my time like this. I had plenty of paperwork to do for work. I could be reaching out to psychiatrists to grow my professional network. I could be reading to improve myself. I could be at the gym, which I had missed for the past 3 days, to maintain my health. I wanted to feel in control of my life, to assuage my anxiety. But I knew better. I knew my longing to control was just a way to keep the anxiety at bay.

But at that moment I made the choice to let that go. I remembered a poem I had loved as a younger man and read it on my phone because it felt apt:

The Summer Day

Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

—Mary Oliver

Reading it resonated just as it had the first time I read it. Maybe, as the poem says, it was prayer just to sit and watch and be. Maybe that’s what I needed to remember when life became too much. And maybe laziness was more valuable for living a joyful life than I had known.

[crowleyaj]

To Death

For @fandomwritingchallenge.

Fandom: James Bond Pairing: James Bond/Q Rating: PG Word count: 4,781 Prompt: carnival Warnings: swearing, non-graphic violence, very light sexual content (nothing really happens though)

Q returned home from a very exhausting, tedious day at work, bearing the image of a steaming hot cup of tea in his mind. He has been looking forward to one since the moment he left his lab, and now he could enjoy it at last.

Only—he found his flat’s door open by a cranny as he approached it with a key in his hand. He panicked. His other hand automatically reached for a pen with a mechanism that could shoot poisonous darts if the right button is pressed. He always kept it in the front pocket of his bag.

He narrowed his eyes and proceeded with utmost caution. There had been an intruder in his flat, and maybe still was. He had to be ready. One slow step at a time, he approached the door and opened it; it emitted a creaky sound. Whoever was inside must have heard it.

Pointing the dangerous pen in front of him, he entered the foyer. No visible damage had occurred in there, but there was no sign of his furry friends, either. When he listened carefully, he could hear a female voice coming from the living room.

Though, he had a glimpse he had heard that voice before. But that was impossible, because that woman was—

Q neglected all of the previous cautiousness and rushed to the source of the noise. He nearly forgot to breathe.

The door between the living room and the kitchen was open ajar. He burst through it, and came to an immediate halt when he sighted the figure standing in front of the telly.

Why wasn’t he surprised to see 007 in there?

However, he was surprised by one different thing: the reason why it was so, that is to say. Well, it was two things, in fact—that, and whom he could see on a video tape.

M. His M. The silver-haired iron lady just as he remembered her and very much alive. It was merely a tape, but his brain was suddenly flooded with memories. She was telling Bond about an unfinished business; giving him instructions.

Bond acknowledged Q’s presence without moving by a bit. “M’s given me work. I’m going to Mexico,” he said matter-of-factly, without a twitch of his face. He did not add any explanation so as to why he had gone to his flat and not his fucking own. “And I need your help, Q.”

Bond needed his help. His. He trusted him enough to show him a secret recording M had bequeathed to him and him only; he trusted him enough to ask for his help with an unauthorised, off-record mission in bloody Mexico. Q figured he should feel honoured—but in reality, he had mixed feelings about it, because doing what Bond had asked him to would require going against the new M’s orders, and his own protocols. And it would require flying to boot.

Was he truly going to do this? Q asked himself before he knocked on the door and entered M’s office. Was he truly going to lie to M, to everyone, for the sake of a stupid, impossible crush?

He took a deep breath. Yes was the answer to that, apparently.

M was sitting at his desk, dealing with some paperwork. Having heard the door click as it closed, he looked up. The bags under his eyes gave away the sleepless hours he had tortured himself with whilst ordering the opposite to his employees.

“Yes, Quartermaster?”

“Good day, sir,” began Q. He cleared his throat before he continued. “I have a request to ask.”

He got this. He had prepared the speech and the impossible yet plausible stories that came with it. He had nothing to fear. Right?

M nodded, propping him to continue. “Sir, it’s my brother, Daniel. He’s been injured, and he’s got no one to take care of him, which is why I’d like to ask you for a week off.”

M raised an eyebrow. He closed the file he has been reading. “Is that it? Well, in that case, consider yourself dismissed, Quartermaster. I thought you were asking for a budget rise or something.”

Well, that went easier than he’d thought. Although it was true that he’d saved for about six months of leave he hadn’t used, and however he couldn’t see inside Mallory’s head, Q was certain he was happy to release his overworking Quartermaster without persuasion for once.

And speaking of money: “Since you’re mentioning it… Q-Branch could really use a budget rise too, after the recent development of events…”

“Dismissed, Q!” M raised his voice.

“Yes, sir. And thank you.”

Q backed out of the office. He stepped towards an unexpected and most likely unpleasant adventure he might really regret later. If there even is a later.

  Why was he doing this, again? It certainly wasn’t for the sake of sanity and self-preservation; those factors were forgotten in the presence of Double-Ohs.

Speaking of which, there was one currently lounging on his sofa with a cat on his stomach. The smug bastard must have thought he owned the place, by the looks of it. The overly casual behaviour made Q nervous and slightly irritated.

“007,” said Q. He came to the sofa, holding a rifle in one hand. The other one was on his hip. “I hope you do realise I had to sneak into my own lab and get past a certain nosy brunette, in and out, in order to take this unauthorised firearm for the purpose of your little secret operation.” Bond did not seem to register any of those words. Q frowned. “It’s the only thing you’ve got. Don’t destroy it.”

“Wrong, Q,” Bond said, quiet. “I’ve got you, do I not?” He smirked, and turned his head to him.

“Alas,” he said, “but I outrank you, 007, and therefore you must obey my orders. And I am certainly not a piece of equipment.” He laid the rifle on the coffee table behind him and put both his arms akimbo.

The smirk on Bond’s face widened. Q had to look away, because he liked the way he looked more than what would be appropriate. “You work with one.”

“But you need me,” Q delivered a quick reply. He went to take his medical kit from the kitchen.

Bond cocked his head. He had to raise his voice if he wanted for Q to hear him. “And you need someone to pull the trigger for you.”

“In theory, I do not, 007,” Q shouted back. “Remember I could do as much damage as you, and far beyond. I could ruin their bank accounts and data files with one finger.”

“I could do that better.”

Q came back. “Don’t push your luck, 007. And get up from my sofa.”

  His messenger bag hung over his shoulder. He carried no other luggage than that, unlike Bond, who had a trolley suitcase that let everybody in a 500 metres radius know they were coming.

He did not need more than that: more than his laptop, his mobile, passport, wallet, some spare clothes, some gear in case something went wrong, and a toothbrush. It was that simple. It was supposed to be that quick. He hoped it would be. Perhaps he shouldn’t, because he knew the history of 007’s operations all too well, but he didn’t have much of a choice than to swallow a sickness pill, and his fear with it.

And move forward in the passport control queue by two spots. It was nearly their turn.

Butterflies flew around in his stomach. He did not know if it was because of the upcoming flight or Bond’s presence. He did not desire to know. He just moved, clutching the passport of a British citizen in his hand.

  “Can I get you something to drink or eat, gentlemen?” the nice, dark-skinned stewardess asked them with an accustomed broad smile.

Q was too dizzy to think about his stomach, or even register the question properly. They were merely two hours into the journey, but he had calculated every possible danger or breakdown that might possibly occur along the way three times.

Bond, however, “A bottle of champagne, please. Two glasses.”

That man will be the death of him one day. With this wild approach, it might come sooner than anyone would like.

“Of course,” the woman said. She moved on to take orders from a couple sitting behind them. There were only nine people with a first-class ticket.

Q cast an incredulous glance at Bond. “If you are attempting to get me drunk so you could hit on the stewardess, good luck with it.”

“I am doing no such thing, Q. I wouldn’t dream,” the Double-Oh said innocently.

“Ha.” As if he was supposed to believe that.

Q turned away from Bond and faced the window instead. The sky was beautifully clear, and clouds stretched out beneath the plane like fluffy, white blanket of mountains. It provided at least some comfort for his eyes and mind.

Since he already happened to be in such height, he took his mobile and took a few hazy pictures. The view was breathtaking, both figuratively and literally.

Later on, when the stewardess returned with the champagne, and Q took one or two gulps out of politeness, the perpetual hum of the engines managed to lull him to sleep.

When his head fell onto Bond’s shoulders during a turn, he did nothing to move him back into the original position. He sat in absolute peace, reading a detective novel. When another two hours passed, the words in his book began to blur. He was tired, so he rested his head against Q’s and breathed in the lemony scent of his shampoo.

  It was easy to blend in the crowd at that particular time of year: it was the Day of the Dead tomorrow, and thousands of tourists travelled to Mexico to join the celebrations. Not one man was too outstanding. They passed through the airport smoothly.

It was dark when Q and Bond arrived at the four-star hotel. It was in the centre of Mexico City, a little too posh to Q’s liking. This was Bond’s world, not his. But he could adapt.

  According to what Q had dug out of the dark depths of the internet, Sciarra will be arranging a ‘business deal’ tomorrow, in a flat a block away from the hotel. The parade will provide a great cover and alibi: to both him and 007.

For now, the two of them could just wait.

Each of them had a separate suite, thank God. Q did not know how he could possibly deal with sleeping with the abomination in one room. Having him sitting next to him for the short amount of time they had before heading to their rightful quarters and calling it a night was fairly enough.

Q unzipped his bag and fished out a small piece of tech. An earpiece.

“I’m giving you this so we could stay connected. Do not—I repeat, do not—crush it, throw it away, or drown it in an alcoholic drink of any kind, please. We don’t have an endless supply.”

Bond accepted it. Their fingers touched briefly. “Yes, sir,” he said and added a half-smile.

Q, nonetheless, uttered a micro sigh. Knowing Bond, the odds of never seeing the earpiece again were too high at all times.

“That’s all. Now, I would kindly ask you to retire to your suite and not stain my sight with your presence for the next few peaceful hours.”

  It was a rough wake up. Q’s mobile wouldn’t stop yelling at him, heat licked at his feet, and when he finally brought himself to unlock his eyes to shut the alarm up, he saw 007 sitting in an armchair in front of him. Q flinched. For how long was he watching him sleep?

“Good morning, Q,” he said. “I’ve brought you breakfast in bed.”

Q sat up with a grunt. He rubbed sleep and rheum out of his eyes and reached for his glasses.

“What have you done this time, hmm?” he replied. He gazed at the other half of the queen-sized bed. A tray with a fresh glass of orange juice, two warm croissants, and some pineapple lay on top of the sheets indeed.

“Why immediately assume I’ve done something bad, Q,” Bond said. His tone bore a tinge of reproachfulness. “Perhaps I wanted to do something for you. Or perhaps I’ve poisoned your juice so I could chase after my personal vendetta without your responsible arse in the way.”

“So help you God if you dare to be foolish enough to try that, 007,” Q retorted, last traces of sleep worn off. His senses have fully woken up.

He reached for the tray, despite the disapproval of the ‘nice gesture’ from the agent. He was famished—all he had eaten yesterday was a sandwich at the airport and later an apple. Just to be certain, he smelled the juice. It looked and smelled alright, deliciously fresh, even. He took a sip and ate his breakfast in silence.

He merely asked Bond whether he had eaten and if he had checked the environs.

To his surprise, Bond lifted a plastic bag from the ground and emptied it on a coffee table. There were two skull-shaped masks, two black top hats, and two black, matching suits with white imprints of bones.

“First rule of undercover: blend in.”

  “To have the perfect aim on Sciarra, you must get on the roof of the opposite building, Bond. I think you should access it from the top floor…” Q said. The last words faded into pondering silence.

“Can you hack into one of the rooms?” Bond was buttoning his shirt. Q’s suit was already on; he tried hard not to stare at 007’s bare chest, and the bastard noticed.

“I am the Quartermaster of MI6 for a reason, am I not?” Q smirked. He opened another window and started typing quickly. “Done. You need to leave in twenty minutes.”

Bond put on the jacket. “Excellent.”

“Now, there is a CCTV camera in the flat. I’ve counted four armed men standing guard, and the heat scan showed me an unpleasant surprise in the form of an explosive ready to go off the moment you fire the first round. Someone needs to be on the inside, Bond, and that someone has to be me. You can’t go in.”

Bond’s face stiffened. He blinked.

“Please, don’t tell me you are worried, 007. I know how to fire a gun if need be,” Q responded. Though, deep down in his stomach, something twisted with an impossible hope he perhaps might truly be worried for him. Him.

“I know you do. But that is dangerous, Q.”

He knew. It had come to the point he started to regret his life choices. One of them was the decision to be insanely brave and do something he’d never thought of even considering.

“You’d asked for my help. I am helping you. I don’t need a failed mission or an agent down,” Q argued. “There is no valid argument that could convince me otherwise, which you are, of course, aware of. Besides, I happen to have invented a device that will disarm the bomb remotely; they won’t even see me coming.”

Bond stepped closer to Q. He contemplated putting his arm on his shoulders; in the end, he did not do it. “Be safe, Q.”

“Always,” Q said. “Unlike a certain somebody.”

  Bond jumped over the rails on the balcony and quickly strode along the ledges. He put the radio in his ear; the connection between him and Q was restored after a few minutes of silence.

“Q?”

“I hear you loud and clear, 007,” the man said, quiet. “I am in position. The bomb is deactivated. Sciarra and his business partner have arrived.”

Bond readied his rifle. He put the silencer on, stepping over a gap between two buildings. He was nearly in position, too. Sun shone on his face, and he had to narrow his eyes.

He was worried about Q. He wasn’t a field operative, and missions like these easily go tits up. He has had the experience. If something happens to him in there, if they discover him—

“I’ve eliminated two guards. There are only two now, but I can’t get to them unseen. I’d have to shoot,” he reported.

What secret has Q been hiding from the world? Bond thought he should never dare underestimate the Quartermaster again. That did not lessen on the worry, though.

“Wait, Q.” Bond came to the edge and hunkered down. He could see Sciarra and the other man standing in front of the window as though they were waiting for him to fire; as though they knew.

Sciarra showed the other man a shining ring on his finger, and Bond could swear he had seen one of those before.

  Q was inside, so he could hear every word of their conversation clearly. They both spoke Spanish, but he had no problem understanding.

‘Welcome, Signor Sciarra. I trust you had a pleasant journey.’

‘Do you have it?’

‘Yes. It’s over there.’

‘When do we blow the stadium?’

That kind of business deal, then. He pricked up his ears instead of shooting: one of the mission’s purposes were discovering their plans. Q was recording it, he knew, but either way, killing the men at the moment wasn’t an option.

‘This evening at six.’

‘And the flight out of here?’

‘All arranged.’

‘And then what?’

‘Then I visit The Pale King.’

The Pale King? Bond hesitated. He has never heard that name before, but he sensed it was crucial for the operation. Someone no lesser than the head of whatever convoluted organisation that connected all the criminal minds MI6 have been after for the past years.

‘A toast, my friend.’

  ‘To Death!’

“Bottoms up,” Bond said. He targeted the man. Two bullets escaped the gun barrel and crossed the distance between him and Sciarra in high speed. They broke the glass and embedded in the men’s heads. The shots were clear.

And so were the rounds Q fired to dispose of the guards who were ready to eliminate Bond the second they’ve registered the assault. He had wasted three bullets.

He was a killer now. Bond had brought him to his world, the world of manipulation, pretence, surveillance, and murder without really thinking of what consequences might his ill-considered, often premature actions have.

But it was his choice; he couldn’t have stopped him. Q can well damn obstinate when it came to fulfilling duties. He was entitled to such decisions. Bond could do nothing but go along with it.

  They walked through the carnival parade, unrecognisable in their masks. They strode fast enough to get to the hotel in time but slow enough to remain inconspicuous. They sought refuge in the shadows at the walls, where weren’t many people and no one looked. The weapons were safely tucked in the bag Q was carrying.

“Have you recorded everything?” Bond asked, voice stone cold, emotion hidden behind a shell of sobriety—and the mask. He wanted to be certain, although Q was far from an amateur.

Q did not avert his gaze from the crowd encircling them. “Yes, and I’ve extracted all data from Sciarra’s laptop while you were busy on the roof.”

Bond made a brief pause. “Can I ask you a question, Q?”

“I suspect you will anyway, so I as well might say you can, 007,” Q replied.

“Why haven’t you complete the training and become a spy? You’re as good as a Double-Oh, Q.” This question had occurred to Bond before, on multiple occasions, but had never gathered enough interest to ask. Having seen him in action just confirmed him in his professional surmise.

“Perhaps,” said Q, “but I think you’d find out I prove to be more seminal on the position of the Quartermaster. Where would your arse be without me in the lab, hmm?”

“Fair enough.” Q stopped at the crossroads to let some people pass, so Bond had to do so as well. “But that changes nothing about the fact you could be the same genius in the field.”

Q moved on. “Have you just publicly admitted I am a genius, 007?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re talking about, mister.”

  As Q’s hotel room’s door clicked closed, he promptly ran to take his laptop. After he took off his mask, he pulled a flash drive out of his trouser pocket and plugged it in. Bond, however, had a different idea about how to spend the rest of their time in Mexico. Decoding and analysing information, and subsequent dispatch to MI6 could wait for an hour or two. Especially after what they both has just done.

“Q?” he asked.

“Mm-hmm?” Q was absent-minded. His eyes flitted across the screen.

“We are in Mexico during Día de los Muertos, Q, and if someone should celebrate the festival, it’s you and me. Get up and go have some fun.”

Bond’s suit-clad form blocked Q’s field of vision. Q frowned. “I take the liberty of assuming my and your idea of fun slightly differs, Bond,” Q replied. His eyes were focused on the files on his computer. “I have work to do, in case you’d failed to notice.”

“Mallory has no idea we are here, therefore he doesn’t need the files,” argued Bond. He leant over the laptop and put his hands on the top of the screen. His tie swung before it and prevented clear sight of the contents.

Q looked up, this time. He shot an annoyed glance at Bond. “But I need the files,” he insisted. “There is something bigger than Sciarra going on, bigger than any of us. This—all that’s in here—contains more data than we thought we could ever own, Bond. I cannot even begin to imagine what we could do with the half of it.”

“Then don’t.”

Bond gave the laptop a push and closed it swiftly; Q so-so moved his fingers out of the way on time. He took it and threw it on the bed, behind Q. He held out his hands, expecting Q to take them. He did not.

His heart was close to racing at the moment. He swallowed dry. This was too much to bear. He was trying to order him around, and wanted him to just take him by his tanned, calloused, beautiful hands and go do… whatever he was intending to do?

Apparently, he did, since when Q did not respond, he grabbed him and pulled him up, already heading for the door. He somehow got his hands on the mask Q had taken off, and his own dangled on his elbow. “Since I can’t seem to convince you nicely, Q, we have to do this the hard way.”

He backed out of the room, letting go of Q only to pull the door handle. With a foxy smirk decorating his face, he led them both to the morbidly vibrant carnival parade outside. His moves told Q he knew exactly where he was going.

  Bond offered Q his arm. Q looked him in the face and back, hesitating. The little voice lurking in the subconscious whispered that allowing Bond to play his games wouldn’t be a wise idea and that he might end up in some serious trouble.

But when it came to Bond, he was never particularly good at listening to that voice, was he? So he linked his arm with his, possible consequences be damned.

“Where are we going?” he asked. They weren’t hiding anymore but walking amidst the bustling crowd, on everyone’s sight yet comfortingly anonymous in their costumes.

“I know a place,” Bond answered, tight-lipped. “They make the best carnitas in town.”

Q was slightly confused by the statement. “Are you… asking me for a lunch?”

“And a tequila,” he said, still as casual. Q knew what that meant coming from Bond’s mouth.

“Is this a date, Bond?”

Do you honestly think you can just say the two of us are going to share some tortilla or whatever that meal is supposed to be and ask me for a drink with that charming smile of yours, if hidden under a skull mask, while we’re on an off-record mission in bloody Mexico and have just murdered six assassins? Oh, of course you do.

  “If you want it to be.” Bond even began to swing in the cheery rhythm of the music around them.

“I…” Yes, his mind offered immediately. “don’t know.”

“Then it is a date, Quartermaster. Will you eat carnitas with me?”

So help me Force. “Yes.”

Bond was actually dancing now, dragging Q along with him due to their linked arms. But Q let himself be carried away, this once. There were things to celebrate, after all. Six things lying on the building’s floor amidst pools of their own blood.

  The bartender placed two snifters of neat tequila in front of them. Q and Bond lifted them simultaneously.

“To Death,” said Q, repeating Sciarra’s toast. It was to his death.

Bond added, “To us.”

They drank the strong drink off. Bond ordered another round.

Like Q had said, this man will be the death of him one day—so he might enjoy this day while he still can. He emptied the other glass as well, and did not stop Bond from ordering a third.

  He found the carnival an acceptable form of entertainment in the inebriated state. More than before, anyway, with all worries and embarrassment long thrown away and the threat of a bomb attack having been warded off, he was more apt to dance and move along with the parade through the entire city.

The hat on the top of his head had somehow been replaced by a flower crown James had bought for him. They were holding hands now, open and joyous.

If this was a date, it was probably one of the best dates he has been on. It was with James Bond—he really wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the fact. James Bond.

  James hadn’t even slammed the door to Q’s room, and his shirt was already unbuttoned. Q’s fingers weren’t only skilful with a keyboard; they could make short work of a jacket and a shirt, too, and with ardour that James wouldn’t seek inside the slender body of the boffin.

Q’s mouth was firmly attached to his. The kisses were devouring and hot, and tasting like tequila, but neither of them had that in mind; they were finally each other’s.

They separated for a moment, and James took off the shirt. He threw it on the floor carelessly. Q’s hands were on his chest now, searching, owning, tracing every scar carved into his skin. His lips were pressing a myriad of kisses along his exposed neck.

James slowly navigated them towards the bedroom. Q knocked his shoes off on the way, abandoning them at a chest of drawers. James’ ended up nearby. With his hands in Q’s gorgeous hair, he stepped forward and pushed them on the bed. Q lay on his back, and James was on top of him.

They paused for an instant, looking each other in the eye. There was a spark of longing in James’. Q loved that it belonged to him of all people he could have taken to bed that night. Only to him.

James’ lips parted, and Q met him in another eager kiss before he could say whatever he had desired to say. James found his hands. Lacing his fingers with Q’s, he pinned them to the sheets.

  James lay in the middle of the bed. Q rested his head on his chest and listened to his steady heartbeat. The room was dark but a streak of yellow light on the ceiling. It was well past midnight, but the music and cheers of people outside did not seem to cease anytime soon. They would celebrate till the morning and on.

James played with Q’s hair gently with one hand; he couldn’t resist. Every stroke made Q shiver with pleasure. James’ other hand held Q’s. His entire body radiated warmth and warmed Q’s skin and heart.

Q closed his eyes. After a long time, he allowed himself to fully relax, and not just because he was exhausted in entirety.

“What do we do now, James?” he whispered. That question had many meanings. To be completely honest, he was not sure which he’d like to be answered.

“Now we go to Rome.”

[sturmazing]

don't chase the rabbit !

  what was the saying? the most extraordinary day was the day where nothing extraordinary happened?

    soda – as she’d come to think of herself – should’ve figured there wouldn’t be a day in her life like that.

    see, she’d had reason to believe, though: it had begun as any ordinary day of her new routine went. she’d woken up to a foggy morning in flounder heights, third floor, under the bridge, to the right. it was resha’s apartment, with its crisp cool hotel-ish feel; the heater hadn’t quite kicked in yet, and the november air had found its way to permeate along with the fog.

    the tile floor of resha’s kitchen was cold under her bare feet as she made a simple breakfast, and even colder as she sat down to eat. as per the recent usual, she was up before resha, and glancing outside it looked like she’d beat the sun up too.

    her cornflakes were an interestingly disgusting shade of soggy brown in the milk, and she stirred them idly, mentally sticking her tongue out: they looked wholly unappetizing. but that one sensible part of her brain was insisting she ate, so she did, and then she was already dressed and out the door before resha was even awake.

    in other words, it was another octo valley day.   ( looking back on it, she couldn’t remember which stage it was. but then, when did she remember them? it was octo valley. she wouldn’t talk about it – scratch that, think about it if you paid her a hundred thousand gold. )   the fog over inkopolis had lifted by the time she arrived, but octo valley was still shrouded in the stuff, and this late in the year it must’ve been mostly ice. at the very least, it stung like it, against her bare legs.

    something felt off today – it occurred to her as the air scraped against her mid-super jump. it couldn’t be chalked up to sleepiness; that had faded a good while ago. she didn’t think it could be the sense that octo valley naturally exuded, either; she’d long since gotten used to that. not that it seemed to matter, anyways: the sense faded as soon as she entered the kettle, and it was all but gone by the time she arrived home at noon.

    the external flight of stairs up to their apartment was steep and too long for soda’s taste – and coupled with the brisk air and vague wind, her cheeks were definitely bright teal when she finally opened the door. resha sat at the kitchen table, in her socks and battle gear, sifting through the mail. one letter sat away from the others, in the place resha designated for mail from soda, which meant her mother’s monthly snail mail. her mouth creased in a frown as she shut the door with its click: it’d been ages since she sent money to her mom. she’d been so busy and stressed with octo valley, she’d entirely forgotten about it.

    and her mom never sent her own unprompted letters.

    the sense of dread from this morning returned full-force, creating a surge in her chest that she didn’t like the taste of. soda kicked her shoes off, cupped her hands around her mouth and exhaled to warm them, and padded across the kitchen floor to sit too heavily across from resha.

    she expected the wave of exhaustion when she sat down, and yawned in accordance – resha acknowledged with a small, concerned smile. she still didn’t know where she went every day, but she’d learned to predict soda’s odd hours and constant exhausted state – but soda put the thought out of her head, because that was guilt, and she couldn’t stand for guilt. she didn’t think anything extra of it, not that resha knew what was coming or anything like it— her specialty was acting casual about these things, and she put it to use, reaching over the table for the letter with a wholly easygoing   “ ‘s real nice weather we’re havin’, ain’ it? ”

    resha tried for a larger smile and failed. soda hummed to herself and made to slide her finger into the envelope and so open it, until she saw it’d already been opened with resha’s butter knife. resha answered before she could open her mouth:   “ah, i’m sorry lil, i got a bit too curious. i, uh—”   she grimaced: an expression that didn’t have any place on her pretty, pretty face, and one soda was not exceptionally excited to see.   “well,”   she added helplessly,   “…you should read it.”

    soda nodded wordlessly, noting resha folding her hands in her lap silently. her bottom lip was quivering. soda tried to ignore her heart skipping every other beat, how the table was particularly smooth under her forearms and the floor was still cool through her mismatched socks, how she could still smell resha’s meaty cooking in the air and her own sweat and musk, how her mouth was so dry and her lips tasted like sweat, how resha’s breath was kept so steady and doors were slamming as other battlers left for the afternoon— she dragged in a wavering breath and released it with a laugh. it was a letter! what was she scared of?

    the paper crinkled as she slowly tensed, and resha with her.

    “ oh, ”   she said finally, helplessly.

    her— her dad…

    “sorry,”   resha said again, her green eyes magnified with tears. tears. huh, that was weird. he wasn’t her dad. why was she sad?   “do you—… do you know why he died? i-i mean, forgive me for asking—”

    “ worry, ”   soda responded instantly, voice steady. her dad was dead. okay. her dad was dead. okay.   “ he was… after my brother left. he wasn’ th’ same. got rougher an’ stuff, mom said it was ‘cause he was goin’ crazy wit’ worry. an’ he got real upset when i said i was goin’ to inkopolis too, after my brother never came home. he— he never liked th’ idea ‘a, he was— ”   she tried for a breath.   “ th’ octarians, ”   and the word sounded disturbingly familiar in her mouth,   “ they killed my granpa an’ mom don’ think he ever quite got over that. he always acted like we were s’m’thin’ t’ be protected, he never lemme go ou’ an’ do m’ own thing— ”   she cut herself off abruptly, the paper going taut between her tensed hands. the creases whimpered. a little harder, and they’d tear.

    resha must’ve taken it as her pausing to catch her voice.   “oh, okay,”   she said, softly, and uncertain: she plainly didn’t know how to react any better than soda did. something unpleasant roiled in soda’s stomach – dread, still there, still seething and gnawing away at her innards. what had given anything to right to make resha so— so timid, so soft? this was resha. she was bright and full and larger-than-life, the sort of person who wailed when she was splatted and whooped when she got someone in turn. she wasn’t this timid, cowardly, soft bullshit – she was resha verity, with the baseball jersey and beat-up running shoes and the skull bandanna, with the bright green eyes and the neon orange hair and a sprinkler’s worth of freckles against her tanned skin. she was wild and pretty and perfect, and that’s just the way soda liked her.

    that something in soda’s stomach burst with a vengeance.   “ why are you sad? ”   she spat, before she could stop herself, and she kept talking, louder and louder: the letter her mom had so carefully penned as crumpled between her hands, and she fought to stay sitting.   “ ‘s not yer dad, ”   soda snapped, soda snapped, not anyone else. frantically her brain tried to pull up a mental image of her dad, to wring out some sort of sadness instead of this anger – but it as swallowed, consumed, and her dull grey eyes turned vicious.

    the paper was uncrumpled and torn in half. look at what her dad had done again. even in death he’d found a way to ruin her happiness. she— her brain argued that she wasn’t feeling correctly. well no duh, her senses said. i can’t feel a thing, her senses said. you’re supposed to be crying, her brain said. i’m about to cry in fury, her heart said. that counts, her heart said.

    she didn’t know what to feel, but it wasn’t sadness. she felt— oh, she didn’t know the word. but it was a little empty, a little far away, as if her dad was standing on the other side of a chasm. on the other hand, resha was still right next to her. she was accessible and kind and close: soda’s dad was unreachable and harsh and a world away   ( quite literally ). soda didn’t need her dad anymore. she didn’t want him, she didn’t care about him.

    she cared about the fact that resha was here, now, and upset.

    soda didn’t want to know the look on her face. hell, she didn’t want to know the look on resha’s face: her face crumpled up the same as the paper and she sat down hard enough to bruise her tailbone, bracing her still-cold hands against her face. her palms were sweaty despite it. how was she supposed to react? how was she supposed to react?

    her dad was dead.

    what did ‘dead’ mean?

    it meant ‘gone’, right? it meant ‘gone forever’, right? it meant ‘six feet under with a marker’, it meant ‘a lot of crying from the people who were still alive’; it meant ‘grief’ and ‘weakness’ and ‘losing something important’. but soda couldn’t comprehend that. her dad wasn’t important. but wasn’t that wrong? wasn’t it wrong that she felt like crying just from her not wanting these emotions, and not the concept that her dad was dead?

    her mom wasn’t here. her brother was gone, too. those were the losses of something important, but she was alive and he wasn’t dead.   ( as far as she knew. )   but she wasn’t sad about her brother’s loss: she was hopeful. he was still out there somewhere and all she had to do was find him; but that wasn’t the case with this supposed “finality” that death brought. she couldn’t use that faith excuse with her dad, now, apparently.

    what did ‘final’ mean?

    what did permanent mean, what did forever mean?

    resha said something. soda didn’t hear it. was she crying? did resha think she was crying from sadness? she wanted to refute it. i’m frustrated, she wanted to say. i’m angry, i’m not weak. but you’re supposed to be weak in this, her brain said again. I DON’T FUCKING WANT TO, screamed her heart.

    soda stood up and snatched the torn halves of the paper up from the table. resha’s eyes were electric currents over her skin: soda’s refusal was tectonic plates, fizzling it all out. she balled it up – resha did not see the tears on her cheeks, soda insisted – and threw it on the cold white tile floor.

    the ribbed welcome mat wasn’t any warmer, tugging on her shoes.

    “ thanks for the letter, ”   soda said, and the door was an earthquake that slammed shut behind her.

[plotmaster]

death of a bachelor (2/7)

Summary: A night at an expensive hotel together doesn’t lead to sex, but it leads to intimacy and warmth that has Victor waking up feeling less lonely. 

Alternatively: maybe following this hot customer from his work is a stupendously bad idea, but Yuuri wants to trust Victor, even if they’ve never met before.

Pure idiocy, others would say. Yuuri likes to think of it as a leap of faith.

Part 1 | read on ao3 | Part 3 |  Part 4

Christophe looks downright amused when Victor tells him a short, “I’m kidnapping Yuuri for the night. I’ll pay for the drinks and for his time.”

“Oh? My new bartender catch your eye, Victor? You could have said you were feeling lonely, I wouldn’t mind comforting you.” Chris purrs.

Victor makes a derisive snort that makes Chris raise an immaculately groomed eyebrow at him. “Tell me about him,” Victor says, not taking his eyes off Yuuri across the room.

Christophe is long used to Victor turning down his offers of sex, so he takes no offense at the reaction. “Yuuri Katsuki. I hired him last week. An immigrant from Japan, he bounced to the City from Los Angeles with a friend recently. Keeps his tongue shut if you tell him to, background is clean from involvement with the police and other families. I originally approached him to work in the tea room upstairs, but apparently his parents ran an inn back in Japan, and I needed a new bartender.”

“How did you meet him?” Victor asks, filing the information away.

His friend smiles. It’s the smile that says wouldn’t-you-like-to-know? but is prelude to being stonewalled. “I think you’d prefer finding that out for yourself, Victor.” He winks. “Let’s just say that he has some fantastic moves.”

Yuuri’s body is moving without input from his brain as he follows this man - Victor - out of his workplace. His very shady work at a very illegal and shady bar, which means that Victor must be equally shady, and influential as hell considering that he had talked to Yuuri’s boss for only a few minutes and Yuuri had been dismissed to go with Victor.

They’re walking through one of the discrete exits, dimly lit by the gaslights placed every few meters. It occurs to Yuuri that this is probably an immensely bad idea - following a complete stranger from his work? He doesn’t even know where they’re going.

“Victor?” he asks. The man turns to look at him slightly, but continues walking. “Where are we going?”

Victor looks vaguely surprised for a moment, but it’s hidden quickly. “A hotel nearby,” he says as they ascend a staircase to leave the hidden hallway. The chill of the night makes Yuuri shudder, and Victor frowns. He falls back so that they’re walking next to each other, even though Yuuri is still depending on him on where to go.

I’m leaving my work to go to a hotel with a complete stranger, he thinks half-hysterically. But he remembers the ease at which Mr. Giacometti had sent him off, and forces himself to relax. My boss wouldn’t send me out unless he trusted Victor. Granted, his boss was involved in some criminal business, but the man had ethics underneath all his flamboyance.

They walk in silence, hands occasionally brushing, Yuuri stealing glances at his mysterious companion. Victor offers him a smile whenever they eyes meet, but otherwise he’s silent.

Yuuri does a double-take upon seeing where Victor has led him. Golden is a hotel that rises a respectable six stories, shining with lights in the night and an immaculate lobby welcoming anyone with the money to afford a room. Few people can. He holds his tongue, though, because Victor is still at ease, and he wants to trust Victor.

It’s hard to conceal his shock though, when the concierge takes one look at Victor and bows deeply. Other people in a lobby, whether they are staff or customers, pause at the sight of the man with silver hair, and Yuuri feels so confused. “Mister Nikiforov,” there’s the slightest waver in the receptionist’s voice, “What can we do for you?” She’s not looking up.

“A room for the night...” Victor turns to Yuuri with an assessing eye, “With a queen bed. Third floor.” Yuuri abruptly feels mortified, because suddenly all eyes are on him, and he can hear people murmuring, wondering who he is.

I’m just a bartender. He would say. But somehow, Victor sees more in him than ‘just a bartender’, because the receptionist is giving Victor a key now, bidding him well, and Yuuri gulps as he follows Victor to the lift -

It finally hits him what he’s doing - as in, entering a fancy hotel with a stranger who wants to “feel less lonely”.

Normally, Yuuri would be a mess of nerves by now. But he remembers Victor’s request, remembers how the words ad been phrased flirtatiously but had been genuine. And he steels his posture and shoves his anxieties down, because he wants to trust this man.

And inside, he wants to feel less lonely, too.

Victor doesn’t know what to make of Yuuri Katsuki.

This whole thing is spur of the moment, an impulse made upon noticing how beautiful the bartender is. He’d meant to go to the bar and find someone to sleep with, possibly, but... part of him doesn’t want to do that.

Judging by the way that Yuuri looks at him with tentative trust and the fact that he’s barely shown fear of Victor - came to the City recently, according to Chris - Yuuri has no clue who Victor is. It’s delightfully novel.

Yuuri has no idea who Victor is, so he’s a blank slate for Victor to make a first impression upon. He has different expectations for Victor than everyone that’s heard of him. Victor feels his shoulders drop the slightest, like a weight has been lifted. The weight of his reputation - right now, he doesn’t have to be the head of the Nikiforov clan, doesn’t have to be a cold mob boss with the entire City under his control.

Victor can be whatever he wants, and oh, isn’t that a heady thought.

They reach the third floor, and the room that the receptionist had given to him, and as he unlocks the room, it occurs to him that Yuuri has been silent this whole time.

”Why did you agree to this, Yuuri?” Victor asks, holding the door open slightly. “You don’t know me at all, do you?” Doubts about this, whatever this is, start surfacing like venomous snakes from their den.

Yuuri’s breath hitches. His cheeks are pink from the temperature, and his lips are red from being bitten out of nervousness. “Oh, I...” he fidgets, but doesn’t look away from Victor. In the muted lighting of the hotel corridor, his eyes are wide and Victor wants to drown in them - embrace this beautiful man and pretend that his life is less empty than it feels. “You wanted to feel less lonely,” Yuuri explains, gaze gentle. “I... might want that as well.”

It takes absolutely everything in Victor to not grab him by the chin and press their lips together right then and there, start to mark Yuuri as his and eat him alive in a way that is wholly pleasurable. He takes a fortifying breath instead, and nods sharply, ushering Yuuri into the hotel room. It’s modest but comfortable, as Victor had felt that his usual ostentatiousness would make Yuuri nervous.

“So how do you want me?” Yuuri asks, and he’s reaching up to start unbuttoning his shirt. The sight makes Victor feel weak, makes his usual control slip.

But the way that Yuuri stands, relaxed where most would be wary - trusting, as opposed to wanting Victor six feet in the ground - has his initial plans of sex discarded. “On the bed,” he says, “you don’t have to take off your clothes, though. Not if you don’t want to.”

Yuuri goes to sit on the mattress, bouncing a little to test it, and something in Victor’s heart feels amused by how delighted Yuuri is at such a simple thing. Victor takes his time divesting himself of hat and coat and shirt and tie, draping them on a chair before approaching the bed. “Lie with me?” Victor sprawls himself next to Yuuri, willing himself to relax, to trust someone for once in his life. A leap of faith, as some would say. Pure idiocy, everyone that Victor interacts with on a daily basis would call it.

“I feel a bit over-dressed,” Yuuri laughs, but complies, sinking next to Victor, using an arm to prop his head up. They face each other, a few inches between their bodies, Victor half-naked, Yuuri fully dressed but his top buttons undone, a teasing glance of nipple visible if Victor looks closely enough.

“What do you want, Victor?” Yuuri murmurs.

“Vitya,” Victor blurts before he can stop himself. Yuuri looks at him, confused, so before he can rethink Victor clarifies, “Call me Vitya while we’re like this?”

Yuuri blinks once, twice, but he smiles. “Okay then. What do you want Vitya?” he asks, searching Victor’s face for any clue of what he plans.

Victor prides himself on being unreadable, so he closes his eyes and lets a corner of his mask fall, tries to let go of Victor Nikiforov, mafia boss, for a little bit. Being called Vitya helps. He reaches for Yuuri’s hand, takes it in both of his, holds it between them. A physical connection to ground him, so Victor knows that he’s not hallucinating this. “I want you to make me feel less lonely, Yuuri,” Victor whispers. “And since you’re looking for the same thing, I want you to feel less lonely, too. Surprise me.”

They stare at each other, the fragile words hanging in the air, sentiment in the words that are unspoken but so very clear. “How long do we have?” Yuuri pauses, and adds, “Vitya?” It’s so wonderful to hear, and Victor has no idea what sort of expression he’s making because Yuuri is looking at him with no small amount of delight in his eyes now.

“We have the room as long as I want it,” Victor answers, and pulls Yuuri’s hand up to his mouth to kiss the forefinger.

Yuuri shudders, not from the cold. His eyes darken, and his tongue darts out to lick his lips, and Victor braces himself, wondering how Yuuri would engage him, how it would feel to splay his hands on Yuuri’s chest and press him to the mattress, tease him until he begs-

“I’m from Japan,” Yuuri says, instead of some prelude to sex. “I came here awhile back with a friend. My family runs a prosperous hot spring inn in my hometown. My sister is set to inherit, and while I liked to help out as a child, I... took a chance. Came here instead of staying there, because I wanted.”

“Wanted what?” Victor asks.

“Something new. If I had stayed in Hasetsu my life would have been set out for me. But here, they call the land of opportunity.”

“Are you happy with the opportunities you’ve had so far?”

Yuuri smirks, and Victor is compelled to kiss his hand again. It’s a terrifyingly intimate gesture that would have his men gaping at him doing it to someone else, but it feels right to do in this moment. “Well, I got the opportunity to meet you, Vitya, so I would say I am.”

Victor can’t help it.

He laughs.

“You’re quite the charmer, aren’t you?” he winks. “A playboy, possibly? I can’t believe that someone like you is single.” Yuuri laughs at that, too, and somehow something in the air breaks, and Yuuri pulls Victor’s hands to him and holds them close, caressing Victor’s hand to his cheek as some emotional barrier between them fell.

“I’m from Saint Petersburg,” Victor begins, “But I haven’t been there ever since I was very young. My uncle brought me here, and I haven’t left ever since...”

Somehow, all they do is talk. Later on, Victor will look back and marvel at this, at the memory of their first night together being nothing but casual intimacy in a hotel room, running lips over fingers tenderly and talking about old memories long-buried.

Weariness overcomes them, eventually, but rather than either leaving the two men simply crawled under the blankets together. Yuuri takes off his shirt, and both of them take off their pants for the sake of comfort, but somehow all they do is talk. Their hands are barely ever apart.

Neither know who fell asleep first, but when they wake up, Yuuri’s back is to Victor’s chest, arms and legs entangled as if in their sleep, their bodies decided to match their physical closeness with their emotional one. Victor’s first sight upon waking up is Yuuri turned away from him, his neck inclined in a way that Victor wants to bite it, mark it, because it’s so ridiculously vulnerable and trusting that he wants to sink his teeth into his feeling to make sure that all this isn’t some crazy fever dream.

He doesn’t, though. Now is not the time.

Victor detaches himself carefully from Yuuri, trying not to wake him, but Yuuri mumbles incoherently, and turns to face Victor as he gets out of bed. “Vitya?” he mumbles through the haze of sleep. Yuuri is clearly not a morning person. “Are you going?”

His heart leaps at the the domesticity of this moment. Waking up next to someone, being called Vitya, not feeling like he owes anything, or should worry about anything.

He swallows the sentiment down, tries to keep his heart from bursting with some unknown emotion that’s spilled into him from that moment. “Yes. If I don’t go back soon, people will worry, and look for me.” The light of dawn is only just starting to peek through the window, so Victor has plenty of time to get back before Yuri starts assuming that drastic measures need to be taken to track Victor down. Part of him is reluctant to leave the hotel room, honestly. This sort of intimacy and trust and everything that Yuuri Katsuki has given him, unwittingly, feels like a sanctuary that will disappear the moment Victor goes. Something that he doesn’t know whether he can come back to or not.

Intellectually, he knows it’s a bad idea.

Emotionally, he couldn’t care less.

“I should get going too, then...?” Yuuri yawns, stretching and trying to rub the sleepiness away from his eyes. The blankets pool at his waist as he sits up, and Victor can feel his eyes on him as he puts on his clothes.

Victor pauses in the middle of buttoning his shirt to place his hand to Yuuri’s cheek. “No, you can keep sleeping,” he says, “Leave when you’re ready.”

“Are you sure?” Yuuri stares up at him, puts his hand over Victor’s. He shivers at the gesture, but nods. “Will we meet again?”

Again? The idea of this - this comfort, this ease of mind with another human being - seizes Victor’s heart, and he knows that he wants it again. Again and again, until there is no “again” and it is a constant state of being. “Yes,” Victor bends down on a whim, and kisses Yuuri’s temple. “I’ll meet you at your job again.”

“Soon?” Yuuri’s eyes are fluttering shut, like some sleeping beauty about to return to their natural state.

“Soon,” Victor promises, and he lets go of Yuuri to finish changing.

When he leaves, he feels lighter. Different.

Less lonely.