#not the best metaphor in my brain during the storm but it got me through it

[apicelladonna]

I am slowly going to ease back into my daily Gellert Grindelwald war criminal pookie posts and Grindeldore and of course Prometheus had Blue Fire!!!

Being submerged in flood water to buy our food during the storm just had me thinking about the Qilin necromancy scene.

If Gellert could do it in his stanky bath water so could I push at waist high waters :'D

[slowly-writing]

Almost Lost You

Jennifer Jareau x Reader

Word count: 2.3K

Requested by: n/a

Warnings: canon typical violence

This case was stumping the entire team. The dump sites had seemingly no correlation, so Ried’s geographical profile was out the window. The MO was all over the place which made it hard to nail down a profile on the unsub. The only thing that proved these murders were connected was the flowers the unsub was leaving in the victim’s hand, and even with that you were beginning to question it all.

“Does anyone else feel like their brain is melting?” JJ groans and you feel inclined to agree.

“Your brain can’t actually melt. You could boil the water in your brain but the fatty tissues that make up the majority of it are harder to break down,” Spencer says and you smile, at least his facts are always consistent.

“That’s not what she means, Spence. It’s a metaphor. She means she’s tired of getting nowhere with the case and she feels like all the work is physically hurting her,” you explain and he nods in understanding, looking at JJ whose head is now laying on the table of the conference room the three of you have hunkered down in.

“Did you know it’s actually proven that fresh air can increase productivity and reduce stress?” Spencer pipes up again and you chuckle as you rise from your seat, grabbing JJ’s shoulders and coaxing her up.

“Good call doc. I think I’m gonna take her outside for a bit before she puts that brain melting theory to the test. You take a break too, alright? Even geniuses have a breaking point,” you wait until he agrees to stop for a bit to lead JJ outside.

“It just feels so messy. Like there’s no way to get through it all,” JJ has tears in her eyes as she looks up at you and your heart breaks at her obvious frustration. You often wonder how JJ got into a field like this, so painful and gruesome. She has such a tender heart, if you had met her outside of work you would’ve guessed she was a teacher, maybe a social worker, but certainly not a profiler whose job was to hunt down some of the worst people the world had to offer.

“I know it feels like this will never end, but it will. I promise it will, because we’re not going anywhere until we catch this creep. Hotch and Emily are interviewing the victim’s families again as we speak and Morgan and Rossi are at the crime scenes. They will all get us some more to work on and eventually we’ll nail this guy.”

“You promise?” JJ’s voice is soft and you can’t resist the urge to pull her into your arms, placing a kiss on the top of her head.

“I do. Are you ready to go back in?” JJ nods and you pull away, “then let’s go crack this case.”

xxxxx

“Rose Allen, Jessica Phillips, and Sara Parker have been found dead. Now I don’t know about you guys but I sure as hell don’t want a fourth name added to that list,” Morgan snaps, slamming his hand on the table. You all look up from your notes at the outburst, and none of you blame him. JJ grabs your hand under the table and it calms you both as tensions rise in the room.

“What do you think we’re doing here? None of us want this to go on. We’re trying our best,” Emily knuckles are turning white as she clenches her first.

“Okay let’s all calm down. If we all put our head together then we can crack this. So, the women disappear from their daily routines, they are gone for a week before being found in various locations with different causes of death. What does that tell us?” Hotch starts the discussion and everyone settles in to work.

“He’s obviously stalking them. He knows their routines and is able to grab them without anybody seeing,” Rossi is the first to join in and you nod along.

“And the manner of the killing isn’t important to him, as long as they die. With victim number one we have strangulation, then stabbing, and last dehydration. He doesn’t care how they die as long as he can see them suffer,” your brow is furrowed as you think out loud.

“The flowers obviously mean a lot to him, right? It’s the only consistency,” Emily jumps in and everyone voices their agreement.

“They’re yellow roses. Those symbolize friendship, maybe these women told him they just wanted to be friends?” JJ says and you think she’s onto something until Spencer speaks up.

“Historically yellow roses have a different meaning. Now they are known to symbolize friendship but they actually used to stand for infidelity or unfaithfulness. He could’ve had a childhood trauma involving an unfaithful individual that still haunts him,” Hotch perks up as Reid finishes.

“Rose and Jessica’s family members said they were having relationship troubles, Sara’s family didn’t have much to say, but with how hostile her fiancé was, I’d bet my career that their relationship was rocky,” the analysis makes sense, at least it’s a start.

“Okay, so we have an unsub targeting people whose relationships are failing. Considering he targeted the girls I’d guess they were the ones who were unfaithful, who would know if they were?” Rossi asks and you all think through the list.

“If it was me I’d only tell my closest friends,” you say and try not to wince at the way JJ’s head snaps to face you. “I’m speaking hypothetically of course. I’ve never cheated so I don’t know what it’s like in that situation. I can only make an educated guess on the thoughts and feelings the victims were having in the moment,” you stare ahead as you say it, nobody knows you and JJ are together, and this is not how you want them to find out. “That was a poor choice of words,” you say and Emily raises an eyebrow at you.

“Ignoring y/n’s over explanation of how she’s never cheated on anyone,” Emily says slowly and you avoid eye contact. “None of these women shared friends. Garcia couldn’t even find evidence that they knew each other, let alone had the same confidants.”

“When Will and I went through all that we went to a relationship counselor. Is it possible they saw the same one?” JJ asks and Garcia pipes up for the first time.

“I can have that answer in just a few moments,” the sound of a keyboard can be heard through the computer, “aha! According to their credit card records they all saw Dr. Damien who is a well renowned relationship counselor in the area. She was, however, out of state for a conference when Rose and Jessica’s bodies were found and did not return until after Sara was reported missing.”

“It could still be someone in her office. Receptionist, coworker, hell even a janitor,” Morgan seems as desperate as you all feel.

“I have a receptionist who was working during all three intake appointments, Jacob Daniels and-oh gosh-At age 8 his father murdered his mother, in the trial he claimed it was because she was cheating with the neighbor who denied the allegations. Regardless there was no family and Jacob bounced around the foster system until he aged out five years ago. Three months ago he landed a job in Dr. Damien’s office and within a month and a half the first murder was commited,” Garcia relays the information, her eyes wide.

“That would be the stressor. Hearing about the failing relationships was too much for Daniels and he snapped. Garcia, do you have an address?” Hotch asks as you all stand, grabbing your gear.

“Like you even have to ask. Be safe my lovelies,” Garcia tells you all as she ends the call.

xxxxx

“Jacob Daniels FBI! Open up!” Hotch yells as he bangs on the door. You hear a crash inside and Morgan takes that as his cue to kick open the door. You’re the first inside and Daniels freezes when he sees the guns trained on him. He may be damaged, but he knows he can’t outrun a bullet. Instead he grabs a knife and points it towards you.

“Stay back!” He yells and you raise your hands, holstering your gun before speaking.

“I just want to talk, Jacob. Can we do that?” you ask and you can see him shaking as he looks between you, Morgan, Hotch, and Ried. Everyone else is still en route.

“They needed to die,” Jacob starts and you blink in surprise as he jumps straight into it.

“Why?” he focuses more on you, relaxing despite the three guns still pointed at him. You inch forward as he begins to talk.

“They didn’t know how to love. No woman knows how to love!” He yells.

“Now that’s not a fair statement, plenty of women know what love is,” you say and you can hear the other team calling their ETA through the comms, but you’re hoping to have this wrapped up before the three minutes it will take them to get here are up.

“Do you? Know how to love? Do you have someone?” Jacob’s voice is soft, almost a whisper as he desperately tries to prove himself wrong. You’re only a few feet away now, and he’s slowly lowering the knife. If you can just get a few inches closer you can grab it.

“I do. She is the most important person in my life.” Out of the corner of your eye you can see the confusion on your team’s faces but you don’t have time to focus on them right now. “I can’t tell you why someone would cheat on the love of their life, but I can tell you I never would. A few bad people isn’t a reason to give up on love or life. They hurt people, but they didn’t hurt you Jacob,” his head snaps up and you quickly realize that was the wrong thing to say. He lunges for you and before anyone can get a shot off he has your back pressed to his chest and his knife to your throat.

“Woah calm down man!” Morgan yells, his panic alerting the rest of the team that this just went south.

“Let her go, Jacob,” Hotch’s words inform the team that he has you, the only female in the room. He doesn’t waver though, ever the calm one in the storm. You can hear the tires of the other SUV squealing to a stop outside. Lucky for you so can Daniels and you use his distraction to slam your eyebrow into his ribs. His grip on you loosens and you’re able to take him down. Morgan takes over, cuffing him as you feel a body slam into yours. JJ throws her arms around your neck and you wrap one arm around her waist, the other cradling her head as you let out a sigh of relief.

“I’m okay,” you tell her and she lets out a shaky breath before pulling away from you completely.

“You idiot!” she yells slapping your shoulder.

“Ow! What was that for?” your hand goes to the place she just smacked, though it didn't hurt much.

“Why would you get so close to him! He could’ve killed you!” She slaps your other shoulder and you groan.

“But he didn’t. I thought I could disarm him, but it's okay now. So can we just agree it was a dumb move and stop hitting me please?” you ask and JJ pulls you into a hug again. You wanna laugh at her conflicting emotions, but you know how scared she is.

“I almost lost you,” she whispers and you sigh.

“You didn’t. I know it was scary, but I’m okay.”

“I could hear the whole thing.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I promise that I’m okay. You didn’t lose me,” you tell her and she nods, pulling away again. The bubble the two of you have been in is popped as you both turn to see the whole team staring at you, Morgan apparently having passed Daniels off to local officers to make sure you were okay.

“How long has this been going on?” Morgan asks and you look to JJ.

“Six months?” you ask her and she nods. You turn back to the team and nod, “yeah, six months.”

“How did we not notice?” Rossi asks and you laugh.

“I was thinking the same thing. Some profilers you are,” JJ teases them but they all seem to be in too much shock to register it.

“So when you went on that rant about not cheating…” Emily trails off and you roll your eyes.

“Did seriously none of you notice how she was looking at me? I thought I was gonna be the next murder victim!” They all laugh and JJ looks at you.

“You ever cheat on me and you will be,” she says simply with her arm wrapped around your waist and a smile on her face.

“How do you say such aggressive things but look so cute doing it?” you ask, wrapping your arm around her shoulder and placing a kiss on the top of her head. “But I would never cheat on you, my love. I’d have to be an idiot to risk losing you. There’s nobody in the world I’d rather be with.”

“As cute as this is, I’m ready to get out of here,” Morgan teases and you roll your eyes.

“Let’s finish up here and we can talk more on the way home,” Hotch says and you all nod.

“And we know Garcia is gonna want all the details, I wouldn’t mind them either, so drinks when we get back?” Emily offers and you agree.

“Sounds like a plan.”

tag list: (let me know if you want to be added or taken off)

@rvgrsbrns @rororo06 @prizmix-and-friends @worlds-in-words @im-salt-but-not-salty @5aftermidnight @riotmaximoff

Criminal Minds tag list: @reidingandwriting

[thecrimsonjaguar]

A Short List of Adventure Time AUs

So I got a google doc of adventure time aus I’ve made over the past two or three years. Here are some of my favorites (and also the ones I came back to and edited)

If you’ve got ideas for an au or ideas to add onto the preexisting ones I’ve got here, please tell me! I’m always up for some au discussion. 

1.) Jermaine AU: Jermaine comes to live at the treehouse after his house blows up. This, unlike canon, happens rather early in season 3. The rest of the series mainly stays the same, except this time there's three brothers instead of two. He's a kinda anxious dude with demon hunting expertise and a painting hobby. He sometimes wonders if he made Dad disappointed by letting all his work explode. Finn and Jake help him out, and he helps them. Despite this, Jermaine is the only one with a brain, and Finn and Jake share exactly one (1) braincell that they trade every so often. Jermaine is tired. (Jermaine is the only one who tries to clean regularly, and he's also the one to keep Neptr, Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephant, and a few others company. He's a bit of real wisdom the early series Finn and Jake needed.

2.) Melted Ice AU: Mid season two, IK is hit with something that de-ages him. He turns six. Maybe this mystery de-aging thing blows up the top of the ice mountain, who knows. Maybe he wakes up in the snow, with no memory of how he got there or why. No memory of the last one thousand years. Finn and Jake don't know about his backstory since that happens in season three. Simon is carried by a snowman out of the ice kingdom where he breaks down in the plains. Finn, of course, finds him and is ecstatic to meet another human. Completely missing the fact that this small child is, in fact, the Ice King, Finn declares to help this boy no matter what. That promise soon becomes difficult when people hear about the second human in Ooo, and whatever effect that's keeping him young starts to wear off. (Marceline comes to visit and has a heart attack)

3.) Adventure Falls AU: AT x GF baybee!! Seventeen year old Stanley Pines hops on the Stan O' War and sets sail when he's kicked out. Unfortunately, that boat is nowhere near sea worthy, and all it takes for him to go overboard is one sudden (magical) storm. But, miraculously, Stan doesn't die. He washes up on Ooo, the island of misfits. Where there's daddy issues galore and punching things and getting gold is a legitimate career. He's found on the shore by none other than Finn, who asks if he's okay and if a dungeon adventure would soothe his worries. Stan accepts, because that sounds awesome, and they maybe date. For the next ten years, Stanley is a professional hero. He travels with Finn, he lives in a tower with tons of gold, he's respected, adored, and has made a family for himself. Ooo has a habit of forcing traumatic therapy onto to people, so Stan gets (read: is forced) to work his issues out. And then, somehow, he gets a postcard from his brother.

4.) Young Pups AU: Jake's kids grow up fast- but not that fast. He stays with lady for a few episodes being Dad and when the Pups are old enough, go visit Finn and Jermaine. Also Jermaine is there when the pups are born that always bothered me in canon like what the fuck. This whole AU results in Jake the Dad being a better father than in canon, because he actually has time to make mistakes and learn from them. He sometimes shapeshifts into one of those baby carriers but suited for five kids instead of one. Finn and Jermaine fight for best uncle privileges. Finn is considerably more awesome but Jermaine's got magic junk and juicy stories about Jake. So far the votes are: FINN: Jake Jr, T.V.  JERMAINE: Kim Kil Whan, Charlie. Viola remains undecided.

4.) Evilgreen AU: Evergreen was evil. His idea to make the crown to stop the comet was actually a cover story to take control of all the elements and freeze everything. Of course the same thing happens here as it did in canon, Gunther gets the crown and wishes to *be* evergreen. This is bad. Very bad, so bad in fact, that things get FUnKy. A couple eons later, Simon gets the crown as per canon, and then things start to slide downhill. Since the crown is significantly worse, Simon tries to get rid of it. No amount of magic pull is going to get him to put on the eldritch hat. It teleports back. When things go to shit, the crown tells him he's got two options: He can either live, or he can live unwillingly. This all coalesces in super angst and mild horror as Simon has to fight off evil urges and somehow keep both he and Marceline safe. Things start looking up, though, when he summons Hunson Abadeer.

5.) Nightmare Therapy AU: Simon, now himself post canon, has some funky nightmares. Problem is: he's due for a visit from the cosmic owl due to some mystical bureaucratic bs. If that were to happen, Simon's dreams of Golb and Orgalorg and the world ending and everyone dying and maze would come true, without the veil of metaphoric junk dreams are known for (also due to bureaucratic bs). So, Simon gets a dream therapist. An OC, probably, that would fight off his nightmares when they came and talk to him about his issues.

6.) High School AU: Except they're all still magic and crap. Finn's a jock that's part of the LDnD club(Literally Dungeons and Dragons), Jake's got a job at a pancake place and hosts the Card Wars clubs on Wednesdays, Jermaine's in college and their parents were still detectives/demon hunters. PB is preppy/nerdy girl with weird fucking family and is absolutely a mad scientist. Marceline is still a demon/vamp (vampire biker gang, they all died, deaths pending) and her uncle is Simon. Simon is a history teacher whose ex wife might be an eldritch abomination (the students wonder, but there are no answers)((simon says cryptic things every so often that are the subject of much ridicule, but he's a nice guy)). Ooo High has all of the AT characters in some shape or form. Tree trunks is the lunchlady, Mr Pig is a janitor. Lemongrab is just there. LSP(Q?) is a teacher because that's hilarious. Hunson is dead along with Marceline's mom because fuck hunson. Magic Man is a hobo that snuck onto campus and can't be chased off (his brother is the superintendent, Glob). there's a lot more but that's for a different word doc.

7.) Back to the Future AU: So PB fucks around with time travel, right? For science. She gets sent back in time a thousand years, before the war. Now, she's a pink lady who can shoot jelly beans from her hands, of course needs to lay low. And of course she needs to get home, but she's in a Futurama situation where she only has one type of time machine; the one that can go into the past. Not to mention her own time machine got busted on her way there, so she's double screwed. But, she remembers something. There is an individual (two, actually) that knows about time travel in this time period. She knows him, and he's likely to help her if she plays her card right. She needs to find Simon and get back to her own time, preferably without dooming herself in the process. (perhaps she tries to steal the notes Simon has, and Simon's completely oblivious, except Betty can smell trouble from a mile away and immediately notices some pink woman trying to steal books and she goes ham. Perhaps she goes ham in such a way that Simon doesn't notice. Perhaps this goes on for seven acts.)

8.) Bread and Butter AU: Bella Noche during the episode Betty creates a huge black cube that engulfs all of Wizard City. This box acts as a cage and prevents Wizards from escaping the magic purge. Simon is unable to bring Betty back from the past, and he's fading fast. In a desperate attempt to stop things from escalating, Simon chugs a bottle of anti-magic like a fucking god. He gets through the cube that surrounds Bella Noche and knocks their lights out. He passes out, and when he comes to, the anti-magic he consumed as merged with him. This is because of a simple rule: Magic sticks to magic, anti-magic sticks to anti-magic. And since humans have always had just a little bit of anti -magic present within them, humans and anti-magic go together like bread and butter (badumtish) ((I have actually written a fanfic about this, you can find it here))

9.) Swapped AU: Through various shenanigans Ice King's and Magic Man's powers gets swapped. These shenanigans somehow land them in space as well. This happens before Magic Man's trial. The swapping of their powers results in Simon getting his memory back. It also gives Magic Man the Ice Crown, unfortunately for him though, it seems to hate him. Simon's glad to back, but quickly realizes one issue: He's still crazy. So the pair try to make it back to Ooo. MM needs his powers to swap himself with some other shmuck so he doesn't croak when his trial comes, but Simon's made it clear he isn't giving his powers up without a fight. The pair starts off rocky, neither trusting the other, but space trouble forces them to work together. Simon's a nice enough guy he wouldn't leave someone to die and MM really needs Simon alive so it works out. A weird friendship forms, and they learn get along. Just a couple of crazy space wizards. Then the crown is destroyed. MM is freed from the crown's control, and he's freed from magic. He gets his sanity back, just in time for his trial.

that’s all I’ve got for now!

[sebastianshaw]

Hey there @vvithteeth! So, this isn’t EXACTLY what you asked for the readlist to focus on, but I think it’s worth checking out all the same for a general sense of Emma’s history leading up to her current character!

 EVIL 80s EMMA She’s not good reference for who Emma is NOW, but a good look at what she used to be, and what she’s overcome. I think looking at Emma when she was at her worst, helps one appreciate her at her best. If you see what she had to rise above in herself, you understand the self that she’s fighting back, you have a better appreciation for the kinds of things she’s tempted towards---and the kinds of things she no longer does.  X-Men (1st series) #129-131 is her introduction, as she tries to recruit Kitty Pryde to her school before Xavier does. One of the most chilling moments, for me personally, is when she threatens to destroy Storm’s mind so that she will be “human only in physical form” And then Jean drops a house on her, which is why she’s not involved in the Dark Phoenix saga, as she was still recovering.  Emma continues trying to get Kitty and other kids into her clutches in  Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #180 and  New Mutants (1st series) #15-17, but in New Mutants (1st series) #38-40 she finally manages it by exploiting their current fucked-up state and having her student Empath use his powers to manipulate Magneto.  But when the kids decide to return to Xavier’s school, Emma allows them to do so without a fight, and just tells them that they’ll always have a place with her if they need it. Which seems nice, but then her thought balloons reveal that this is just so the kids won’t believe it when Magneto tells them she’s evil. Firestar #1-4: Whoa mama, Emma is at max abusive here. See, she desires to eliminate Selene, and to this end she trains a young mutant she names Firestar. She does so by manipulating the girl, isolating her, convincing her that she NEEDS Emma to help her control her powers or else she’s dangerous to others, and even KILLS HER PET HORSE. Emma is someone who says “I love children. Teaching is my life.” and she MEANS IT, she has a genuine call to teach and her love for her students is her driving force, but here we see how she USED to treat her students. Then put her against who she is now, it’s a huge contrast. Honestly, I don’t know why SOME WRITERS want to erase her growth by pretending she was Actually Good All Along but yeah, here’s Bad Emma. This is who she fights. This is what she has risen above.  EMMA’S BACKSTORY ISSUES Emma’s history is. . . kind of multiple choice. She tells one version in Generation X #24, but this doesn’t fit at all with the Emma Frost miniseries that came out from 2003 -2004, which also doesn’t exactly fit with “X-Men Origins: Emma Frost” single-issue backstory. I personally would read the “X-Men Origins” one and at least the beginning of the miniseries, specifically the parts that deal with her home life. The reason is that both of these show how unhealthy Emma’s home was growing up, and how that made her who she is. When I saw I think Emma is “wired” to be a villain, I don’t mean I think she was born like that, but as in, I think her environment trained her to become like that. It’s kind of like how a lot of personality disorders aren’t something a person is born with, but come from being in a shitty environment where certain behaviors will help you survive better, and then even once that situation is over, you can’t get rid of those behaviors because it’s how your brain is wired now. That’s how I read Emma---she came out of this toxic, duplicitous environment of manipulation and abuse where she and her siblings were set against each other, and that’s now her default for how she interacts with the world, even though she was originally just a sweet little nerd who only wanted to be a teacher. The “Origins” one features a generic Shitty Abuser Shaw and isn’t as good as the more drawn-out miniseries, as it focuses more on physical abuse (like her father suddenly slapping her) to get a point across that her family is toxic, rather than the more drawn-out miniseries, which I think works better for explaining Emma’s specific brand of. . .Emma-ness. But the bit where her mother tells her that her father is hardest on her because he likes her most of all, is really important I think, since that reflects her relationship later with the Hellions, which is also shown in this. Because Emma is cruel to the Hellions, even though she loves them, and in fact because she loved them. Her love for them and her agony over their deaths is what drives her to join the X-Men in the first place.  As for which origin story is true. . .I think the miniseries one is probably MOST true, as it’s the only one that Emma herself isn’t telling as a story. But as the friend who helped me assemble this list puts it, “ Think of any origin story of Emma's as "a sort of fairy tale, a parable," where it's the theme that matters, not the precise events or timeline “ 90s EMMA Emma spent most of the 90s teaching Generation X. I don’t remember a lot of stuff for specifically what I’m talking about with her, but here are a couple issues that strike me as significant. Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #311-314: In  Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #281-284, the Hellions were killed and Emma Frost was left in a coma, her body taken care of by the X-Men. This is when she wakes up, takes over Iceman’s body, and goes on a rampage thinking she’s the prisoner of the X-Men. When she finds out what happened to her Hellions, she collapses in despair and turns herself over to the X-Men. This is her turning point. This is when we found out Emma Frost had a soul. That she LOVED the Hellions. That they were not just tools. And there’s this one line in the yellow narrative boxes that really sticks out: “As the Hellfire Club’s White Queen, she spent the better part of her life traversing from one mind to another, violating the very essence of anyone she so chose. Losing herself in the memories of others. Altering, at times, the opinions of those who opposed her. This time is different. This time it is about survival. This time. . .it’s for the children.” The words are echoed when she agrees to join Krakoa's Quiet Council, after Charles and Erik tell her their plan and convince her it might just work. "One more time, then. For the children." Emma’s true love, in my opinion, isn’t Scott. Nor is it Namor. It’s teaching.  Emma becomes the teacher to Generation X, as mentioned, and in Generation X (1st series) #18-19, during the Onslaught crisis, she’s so terrified of losing them like she did the Hellions, that she snapped, took the kids to a safehouse in Canada, and put them under her telepathic control for their own safety. This is an Emma who has learned that abusing her students isn’t the right way, but still doesn’t respect their autonomy or consent even as she’s desperately trying to protect them, and has to learn from Monet (who is. . . .actually not Monet) that this isn’t the right way to do it either. Emma did not grow up with adult models who showed her how to love and care for a child, she has to figure it out herself, and it’s a rocky journey at times, even though she has the best of intentions. I think this is a good issue to show an Emma who is in the process of evolving. She’s getting better, but she still hasn’t got it “right” yet.  CURRENT-ERA EMMA Emma really becomes the Emma we know with Grant Morrison’s New X-Men in the early 2000s. This is where she starts affecting a British accent, calling everyone darling, and the delightfully witty Queen of Mean while also still a devoted teacher with trauma over losing her students. She always was witty and a little mean, but Morrison takes these traits up to 11 and gives Emma the foundation of what a lot of writers would build upon. It’s also when she begins her telepathic affair/seduction of Scott, which is a more than slightly problematic dynamic, as I’ve discussed. Also, this is when she got her now-famous diamond form.  We get a lot of lovely Emma nastiness in this series. New X-Men #128-139 all have lots of great moments for her where she’s just WICKED yet still on the side of the angels, and New X-Men Annual 2001 starts us off.  However, character-wise, I think what really comes out here is Emma going from blaming her past actions on substances (she tells Scott in the New X-Men Annual 2001 that she just probably out of her mind on drink and drugs all those times she was doing bad things) to being forced to face her past and herself for the first time when confronted by Jean & the Phoenix in New X-Men #139. It’s the first time we get a look at what Emma’s family and home life was like, as well as the first time she’s established as having a brother, but more than that is the emotion that gets brought in. This is also when Morrison decided to retcon the Hellfire Club as a strip joint (which I hate and also shows up in Emma’s “Origins” story) but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, Jean makes Emma face all her flaws and pain and nasty, most vulnerable parts of herself.  Emma is left mentally broken...then one page later, physically, shattered by a diamond bullet that we later find out was fired by none other than Esme, the Stepford Cuckoo whom Emma later says reminded her most of herself. There is definitely poetic symbolism there. As my friend put it “This cycle of her students dying and Emma losing it and trying again but never facing the roots of her issues goes on and on until her roots literally kill her, and Jean of all people resurrects her. Jean, who saw right through Emma, saw something there worth saving, and literally and metaphorically put her back together again.” The next place I’d go is Astonishing X-Men, which is the first time Emma and Kitty work together. Kitty HATES Emma at this point, because, as she points out, Emma is the villain in her origin story. And Emma KNOWS this. That’s why she WANTS Kitty there. She knew that Kitty would keep an eye on her, wouldn’t trust her, and that’s what Emma WANTS, because Emma doesn’t trust HERSELF. So this shows that Emma KNOWS her moral compass is a very flawed one, and that she WANTS to be better so consciously that she’s getting someone she knows doesn’t like or trust her to be around because she knows she’ll watch her like a HAWK. This also means Emma is admitting she can fail, and giving some control to someone else.  There’s. . . so much that happens from here. Utopia. Phoenix Five. The Terrigen Mists shit. Secret Empire. I feel like there are probably great Emma readlists out there that include these, but honestly I just kinda zoned out through a lot of it. These are some additional read lists for her I found: https://lornahs.tumblr.com/post/87230882649/where-to-start-reading-emma-frost-lets-start  https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/comments/2bwwok/emma_frost_reading/  It’s definitely a LOT and I wish you the best of luck tackling it! Also, I wouldn’t feel you have to read EVERYTHING, or incorporate everything into your depiction. Pick and choose what you feel works best for your version!

[yelena-bellova]

ahhh I love your work!! Can you please do 6 and 14 with female reader and Poe? :) I’m a big fat sucker for a juicy friends to lovers.

A Night on Courscant

Plot: Poe and Y/n are stranded on Coruscant searching for a hotel room. But when do things ever go according to plan?

Warnings: extreme steam 🔥

Word Count: 1.9k

A/N: Why does every Poe imagine I write turn so thirsty? 😂 I’m not upset about it. I also managed to get every trope possible in this one including the famed ‘there was one bed.’

(And thank you so much, anon, for the kind words!)

————-

6: “You keep saying that we’re friends but you look at me for a moment too long for that to be true.”

14: “Don’t pretend that you don’t feel the same way.”

————

It was supposed to be a one day diplomatic mission to Coruscant. We were supposed to be back at base by nightfall until our ship’s compressor had decided against that decision. I’d contacted Leia to let her know the situation and she said she’d send a ship first thing in the morning. Until then, Poe and I were walking through the heart of the metropolitan planet in search of a hotel for the night.

“If I remember right,” Poe pointed towards a cluster of smaller buildings, “One of those has rooms for pretty cheap. Between the two of us, we should be able to swing it.”


“Good,” I replied, “I’m ready to put an end to this day.”

“Aw, c’mon, sweetheart,” Poe pulled me into his side, “There’s a lot worse people to be stuck with for the night.”

I laughed, trying to ignore the hammering of my heart at being pressed against him. Falling in love during war was dangerous, but falling in love with your best friend during war was just plain unfair.

“Look at it this way,” Poe said, “We had to sit through a criminally boring meeting, lost our ship and are stranded on a planet we hardly know. It can only get better from here.”

Like clockwork, just as Poe had finished his sentence, it began to rain. Upon the first drops hitting, he bit down frustratedly on his lip and nodded.

“You’re right,” I said over the growing noise, “This is better.”

Poe sighed and reached for my hand, “Come on.”

We dashed through the city, weaving between people on the crowded sidewalks, as the light drizzle picked up and turned to a torrential downpour. Luckily, the hotel Poe knew about was close by and it didn’t take long to make our way over. However, with the strength of the storm, we were soaked to the bone by the time we got there.

Poe had compiled both our credits and we stood at the check-in desk, awaiting our room key. In my exhaustion, I hadn’t realized I was staring at my friend. The rain had soaked through the cream colored shirt he was wearing, making the outlines of his chest extremely visible. He’d pushed his wet curls off his face but one of them stubbornly stayed in place against his forehead, perfectly out of place. There was a reason that Poe was the poster boy of the Resistance, someone that beautiful deserved to have their face all over the galaxy.

Once the worker returned with our room key, Poe and I were quick to make our way up to our floor. The sooner we went to sleep, the sooner we’d get to go home. When Poe unlocked the room and switched on the lights, we were met with the surprise that there was only one bed.

“I could’ve sworn I asked the guy for a room with two beds,” Poe said.

“I was there, you did,” I sighed, my thoughts running rampant at our situation.

Poe rubbed at his neck, a nervous habit of his, “I guess we could make it work?”

“Yeah, of course,” I replied quickly, “I mean we’re…we’re friends.”

I must have been tired because I thought I heard Poe hesitate before saying, “Yeah, friends.”

He locked the door and we fully entered the room, I was trying to figure out how to navigate the night without it being too awkward. It was too late and I was too tired for a shower and it wasn’t like I had other clothes to change into. Not to mention I’d caught a chill during the storm and was freezing, all I wanted to do was get into bed.

“Um,” I began, “We’re going to need to, uh, get out of these clothes.”

Poe nodded, “I can turn around and you can get in bed, that way I won’t see anything.”

“O-okay,” I said, Poe promptly turned around and awkwardly cleared his throat. I peeled my long sleeved shirt off, followed by my boots and pants. I was left only in my undergarments, more cold than I’d been with my layers still on. I hurriedly climbed into the bed and pulled the covers over me. 

“You’re safe,” I said, Poe slowly turned around and smiled at the sight of just my head peeking out from the blankets.

Without warning, he shrugged his jacket off his shoulders and reached behind him to pull his shirt over his head. I should’ve turned around instantly, but the shock of seeing his toned chest on display had caused my brain to short-circuit. After a few seconds, I caught myself and nervously turned on my side, mumbling an apology. I felt like a complete idiot. Poe moved under the sheets and I could feel the heat that practically radiated off of him warm the bed,

“Can I ask you something?” he quietly asked, I still hadn’t turned to face him.

“Sure,” I squeaked.

“If you were to describe you and I, what words would you use?”

I squinted in confusion, almost wishing that we would have gone to bed silently. Every word I wished I could use flooded my mind, but none of them had any place in our reality.

“Well,” I started, attempting to sound nonchalant “We’re friends.”

Poe hummed, “You keep saying that we’re friends but you look at me for a moment too long for that to be true.”

My eyes widened in horror before I turned over to face a very smug looking Poe.

“W-what are you talking about?” I asked.


Poe gave me a knowing stare, “Do you honestly think I haven’t noticed how you look at me? I know because,” he took a deep breath, “It’s the same way I look at you.”

I must have looked ridiculous, my jaw slack and my eyes slitted as I tried to comprehend what Poe was admitting to. Was he saying…he felt the same?

“I-I-Poe, I don’t know what-I mean-“ I cut my babbling off with my hand running over my face.

“Y/n, you heard what I said, don’t pretend that you don’t feel the same way,” Poe said with a nervous laugh.

I turned my head to look at him, his deep brown eyes looked so determined and yet so vulnerable at the same time. It was taking a lot for him to admit his feelings to me, even if he seemed confident about it. If he could do it, then I could too…

“Yes, Poe,” I whispered before adjusting the volume of my voice, “I have feelings for you. But that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t do anything about them.”

“What?” he said, “I thought I just-“

“Yes, you did,” I interrupted, “And I’ve dreamed about hearing you saying something like that for so long but, Poe, we’re in the middle of a war. It’s a terrible idea for to get involved with someone when there’s a chance you’ll lose them the next day.”


Poe’s eyebrows scrunched together sadly as he listened to me, I was fighting back a few tears myself. It broke my heart to say, but it was true. The one thing that had always stopped me from telling Poe how I felt was the paralyzing fear of getting to love him and then having him ripped away from me.

“I disagree,” he objected, scooting his body closer to me, “Yeah, we live more dangerous lives than most people but that doesn’t mean we should have to give up stuff like…this.”

With very little space left between us, Poe gently took my hand and pressed it to his bare chest, just over his heart. I could feel its steady beat, though clearly a little faster than usual with the moment we were wrapped up in.

“I know it’s scary, the thought of losing you has woken me up in the middle of the night too many times. But I can’t keep going on like this. I want to know what it’s like to hold you, to kiss you, I want to know what it’s like to love you. Whether we win or lose this war,” Poe’s voice cracked with emotion, “I want to be by your side.”

If he hadn’t made it easy on me before, he was making it nearly impossible now. With every word he said, my heart swelled and my mind went blank as it searched for a rebuttal.

“Please give us a shot, Y/n,” Poe whispered as he studied my face, trying to find his answer.

Words failed me as I felt the pounding of his heart in my palm, the metaphor of it not lost on me. Poe had laid everything out for me to either take or destroy. It was my call. And I knew with my new knowledge, I couldn’t spend another day living in the misery of loving him and not doing anything about it.

I slid my hand off his chest, grasping his hand and placing it on my hip. His fingers tensed at first at the feeling of my skin, his eyes locking with mine searching for hesitation. When he found none, he relaxed and squeezed my waist gently. I shifted closer into him till our chests were pressed together, I shivered at the contact as I shakily moved my hands to grip his shoulders. Poe maneuvered his arm under me to wrap around my waist, enveloping me in him. We were standing on the edge, about to fall into something wonderful.

“I-I think I can give you more than a shot,” I whispered, watching the way his eyes lit up at my words.

Poe slowly dragged a finger along my figure till he reached my chin, tilting my chin up so our lips met. Finally. Months of desire and longing exploded in a single kiss, the euphoria of the moment ran through my veins. Our lips danced together in perfect harmony, moving together slowly and passionately. Poe’s tongue slid between my lips, begging for permission to deepen the kiss, and I happily parted for him with a whimper. As he entered, he rolled onto his back and pulled me with him so I was straddling him. He sat up and pulled me tighter to him while also snaking a hand up to my back. I rocked against Poe as my hands slid into his wet hair, eliciting a groan from him at the combination of sensations. The hand against my spine moved to the back of my head, pushing me as close as he could possibly have me and intensifying our kiss. This was surely the definition of bliss; a soaking wet Poe Dameron moaning beneath me and kissing me like it was our last night alive.

———————

The next morning, redressed in our now dry clothes, we met Rey and Finn on a landing platform. The sight of the Falcon was a welcome one as Poe and I did our best to appear as if nothing had changed between us. Once we boarded, Rey came up and us both hugs, followed directly by a gasp.

“What?” I asked, worried she’d sensed something was wrong or-

Shit.

“Finn!” she called out before racing off to wherever he was, “You owe me twenty credits!”

“Were they betting on us?” I said with a horrified chuckle.

“Does it matter?” he smiled, “I’m the real winner, I finally get to be with you.”

[bandaged-writer]

gasoline 01 || dazai

➤ Pairing: Mafia! Dazai x Ability User! Reader

➤ Genre: action, fluff, angst, eventual smut, gore, violence

➤ Warnings: none for this chapter

➤ Summary: Why the hell was this deal still on? It was supposed to go invalid on your 21st birthday, so why did you still receive these damned flowers?

➤ Word count: 3.4k

➤ Note: The first part is finally here and I’m very satisfied with how it turned out. Please, let me know what you think. ^.^

➤ prologue || next

A wave of relief hit you as soon as you stepped foot out of the taxi and got greeted by Yokohama’s salty breeze and its setting sun which dipped the sky into a lilac color. There was the fading smell of crepes and the distant laughter of children playing around on their way home which filled you with a sense of being finally home. Yes, coming home was a luxury for many, yourself included - to be able to take the weight of work off your shoulders, shed the mask of a worker or student and become yourself once again. A place where no one judged you for who you really were, a place where everyone accepted you, a place where you could finally find some rest. You were glad to be home.

However, your train of thought got interrupted by your phone vibrating in your pocket, the display showing you the caller ID of no one else but your best friend and roommate since high school: Yukino. A pretty woman with fair hair and dark eyes, could get a little over excited at times but it made you love her even more. “Are you back in Yokohama yet, [Name]?!” Yukino’s voiced bounced off your ear drums, excitement laced in her voice as she awaited your arrival enthusiastically. You couldn’t help the chuckle slipping your lips, feet carrying you to the nearest subway station with a light bounce in your step. “Yes, I’m finally back and on my way to catch the train home,” you said with a smile stretching your lips as the train pulled up and waited for everyone to either enter or leave at this stop. Only a few people occupied a couple of seats here and there and it luckily wasn’t as packed as it was during rush hour - you sighed in relief. Crowds weren’t really your thing, after all.

Taking a seat and resting your sore legs, you were listening to whatever Yukino was rambling on about until you lifted your gaze and spotted a bouquet of orange lilies right across from you, the petals glaring right back at you while holding a pastel yellow card. There was no need to read it, because you knew what was written on it. Every year, you’d received a bouquet of orange lilies for your birthday and you had no idea from who. Cold sweat trickled down your spine, goosebumps rose along your skin as you stood up and approached the cursed bouquet. “Yukino. I’ll see you at home,” with those words leaving your lips, you hung up on your dear roommate whose response you couldn’t catch.

Shaky hands picked up the card and you silently hoped that this was nothing but a huge mistake, hoped that a stranger happened to forget to take these flowers with them. But it wasn’t. Upon opening the card, a cursive writing revealed itself, one that you were unfortunately very familiar with, one that had been haunting you, one that still followed you, despite your constant running.

“Happy 21st birthday, [Name]. I hope you enjoy this little gift.”

Why the hell was this deal still on? It was supposed to go invalid on your 21st birthday, so why did you still receive these damned flowers?

After all, it had been a year since you left Yokohama per your dad’s request to run from the agreement he had made nearly 13 years ago. It didn’t matter where he had been - at home, work or even the hospital - he always told you to run from a black-haired physician and a bandaged kid, begging you to study abroad if you ever got the chance just so the deal would be invalid and reach its expiration date. At the tender age of 12, you had thought of your dad as an old, confused man, but the older you got, the more you understood how dire the situation was and the more frightened you became of your 20th birthday. Hence, you followed your dad’s advice, studied abroad for a year and came back home on your 21st birthday, believing that you could carry on with your life as a normal citizen of Yokohama.

Your hand balled up into a tight fist, the card wrinkling within your grip and fingernails digging into the flesh of your palm as anxiety got a hold of you. These people were there, possibly watching you or waiting for you to make a move, to do something stupid. And so, you got off at the next stop and dumped the flowers into the closest trash can, the birthday card crumpled beyond repair. You turned around several times to watch out for a man who could look like a doctor or a kid - no, a man - who was either bandaged or had messy, brown hair and would match your dad’s description. However, 13 years had passed and God knew how accurate that description would be now.

Picking up your pace, you bumped into several people but couldn’t be bothered to apologize; there were more important matters at hand and one of them was going home where you were safe. To get out of there as fast as possible. While your mind was clouded with the pure need to flee, you failed to notice two young men watching your every step, one of them matching the description of your father. You had passed right by them, had the chance to see them and make a run for it, but you were blind. 

“She’s quite fast. Almost like a bunny. Don’t you think so, Odasaku?” Dazai asked his partner while his brown orbs watched you storm through the subway station as if you had been bitten by a tarantula. Well, maybe that wasn’t even too much of a metaphor considering that all of this was one of his Mori’s schemes and actually quite a cruel way to welcome you home. Odasaku had tagged along per Mori’s request; the mafia boss had said that Odasaku’s ability could be an advantage in case anything were to go wrong. “Couldn’t we just approach her instead of scaring her?” It was a well-known fact that Oda was a kind-hearted man with a mild temper, disliked murdering and hunting people down like that. He felt sorry for you, considering Dazai, out of all people, was the one to hunt you down like some prey. 

However, Dazai always had a reason for the things he did and why he did them. “When someone is in a threatening situation, one’s brain chooses between flight or fight and brings out one’s true feelings. I wanted to see how she reacts to the flowers and the card, although the deal Mori made was long since overdue. And as of now, we’ve got a fleeing bunny.”

You didn’t know for how long you had been running, but it was long enough for the air to feel like needles within your lungs, your chest burning with the strain and your feet hurting from the distance you ran. Hope filled your eyes as your shared apartment came into view, your hands already searching for the key in your jacket’s pocket and a smile of victory on your lips. Only a few more meters until you were within the safe walls where Yukino would be cooking something up - maybe ramen? You could really need one of her infamous bowls of her noodle soup right now.

But hope and victory was a fragile thing and could shatter faster than glass. Just as fast as it was within reach, it was ripped away from you within the blink of an eye.

It felt like time was slowed down yet everything happened way too fast when you found yourself in an empty alley, your wrists pinned down by your sides and a pair of dull, brown orbs staring right through your soul, being able to see every single scar and bruise time had left on it. “You’ll regret this,” you muttered through gritted teeth, your own gaze fierce and determined to give this man hell until you saw the bandages around his neck, arms and his left eye, the messy brown hair. Gaping like a fish, you realized that this was the very man your father had warned you about and that the past had caught up to you. “Oh? What will you do? Use your ability on me?” His voice was mocking, testing you and you were about to laugh in his face until you realized it.

Your ability didn’t work.

For the first time in your life, you wished you could properly fight even with your gift being nullified, but no - you had insisted on living a normal life, pretending not to be gifted at all. However, it seemed like the brunette wasn’t out to kill you. Something about him told you he would’ve done so already if he truly wanted to.

“It’s about that deal, isn’t it?,” sweat dampened your hairline, your chest visibly rose and fell as you finally caught your breath, the brick wall behind you cooling your heated back as you pressed yourself against it in an attempt to gain some distance from the brunette who only smirked in response, but it didn’t remain on his lips for too long. Suddenly, bandaged hands let go of you, were clapped together and a somewhat cheerful, delighted smile replaced the cocky smirk in an instant. “Great, then I don’t need to tell you about the details and why we’re here!”

You blinked once, twice. Dumbfounded. Was this really the same guy who pushed you into the uncomfortable wall?

“We?,” you asked, eyebrows raised in surprise and demanding an answer that came in the form of a man who seemed to be out of breath himself as he rounded the corner. Red strands of hair stuck to his cheekbones, the soles of his shoes lightly clacked against the dirty concrete while his hands found their way into the pockets of his jacket. It seemed like he had been running to get there, despite his surprisingly proper appearance.

“Ah, Odasaku! I was wondering when you’d finally join me in my conversation with this lovely lady!” Dazai greeted his friend with a wave of his hand and a chipper voice, his demeanor the polar opposite from the one he pulled just a moment ago. Cautiously, you watched the scene unfold in front of your eyes, not quite trusting them just yet. Deep inside, you hoped that this was some kind of weird dream you’d wake up from soon, but deeper inside, you knew it was mere wishful thinking. “Conversation? It looks more like you’re interrogating her, Dazai,” Odasaku spoke up, not surprised by the brunette’s attempt to somewhat flatter you - it was Dazai, after all.

At that, the suicidal brunette pouted his lips. “Not fair! You know I hate doing such crude things to a pretty lady like her,” Dazai argued back, whining about possibly having to quit his job if he had to keep scaring nice ladies in a dramatic manner that certainly didn’t fit the first impression you had of him. He almost sounded, dare you say, childish. “Anyways,” Dazai turned back to you, his body leaning against the wall behind him, arms crossed over his chest and his face more serious than when he was talking to Odasaku. Seriously, this guy didn’t only confuse you, but also gave you whiplash.

“It’s our order to bring you to our boss, especially since this entire thing has been long since overdue,” Dazai’s eyes were set on your figure like he was committing every little perfection and flaw to memory, like he was analyzing your entire body language which came off more confident now that you knew nothing would happen as long as you cooperated, somehow. “And if I don’t come along?,” you rested your head against the brick wall, your index finger slowly scratching at the skin of your thumb and gaze hard. If life taught you one thing, then it was that people always had a choice - the only question was whether there was a better option.

An empty smile graced Dazai’s features and sent shivers down your spine. “You see, we didn’t know how you’d react and since your ability is quite a troublesome one, I had a sniper watching you,” he cocked his head to the side, brown locks falling in his face and the shadows of the sun darkening his already dull gaze. Looking up at a skyscraper not too far away, you spotted something shimmering and it was proof that Dazai was indeed serious. “Mori almost had you shot, because you pose a threat to this city, but spared you since you can help us with a..bother. I could either finish what Mori started or you help us out.”

You clicked your tongue in annoyance and scanned Dazai’s face for a hint that he was perhaps pulling a sick joke on you, but he was as serious as he looked. The option to die was certainly not the better one, but hearing his boss out wasn’t exactly pleasant, either. “Tch, fine. I’ll hear what that Mori guy has to say.”

“I knew you’d make the right decision.”

Harmless paintings of artists whose name you had never heard of seemed to bore holes into your skull, shelves upon shelves filled to the brim with various books you had never read accepted the role as a silent audience who’d never talk about what went down within the spacious office that belonged to no one else but Mori Ougai. The mafia boss greeted you with a friendly smile, yet it seemed like that very smile was betraying you and ready to stab your back at any moment.

Dazai leaned his weight against the edge of Mori’s desk, another ginger-haired man stood behind the boss whose name was Chuuya. Besides them, Odasaku, Ango and Kouyou occupied the room and judging by the energy they gave off, all of these people were more than confident in themselves, in their abilities and looked up at within that illegal organization. Next to them, you felt small, but you refused to show weakness in front of those who had been haunting you ever since you were merely eight years old. No, you wouldn’t give them that satisfaction. You’d stand your ground, no matter what.

“It’s been a while. You grew up well, [Name],” Mori started the conversation and pulled a document from the drawer of his desk, his dark purple-ish eyes scanning the content briefly before his gaze locked with yours. There was no need to respond to the faux kindness of a man who you had no business with, who didn’t care if you dropped dead or lived and helped him out with whatever issue he was confronted with. “It’s also been a while since you covered for the costs my dad would have to pay for raising a child. I felt free enough to pay it back,” not once did your step falter or shake when you approached the ravenette and dropped an envelope full of money on his desk, a few of pairs of eyes watching your every move. However, even you knew that coming for their boss’s neck would equal your death sentence. Mori counted the money and made a rough estimation - he could let Ango check the accuracy of the money later. Handing the envelope over to Chuuya who tucked the money away safely in his coat’s inner pocket, Mori reached for the document he had earlier once again and had a light smirk tugging at his lips.

“But did you really think that you could buy yourself free with a bit of money?” You furrowed your eyebrows. Honestly, you did think that you could buy yourself free from the shackles your father had unwillingly put you in, but that revelation wasn’t the worst. It was the way Mori spoke like he had even more to say, like he was digging for something deeper, eager to see your reaction for whatever he was about say with that venomous mouth of his. “I would've expected some more questioning from you, [Name]. After all, it was your mother who didn’t want you and gave you into the hands of very compatible surgeons who gifted you your ability. You of all people should know that life is never that easy, right?”

At once, the entire room heated up bit by bit. Odasaku had to loosen the collar of his shirt, Kouyou fanned herself in an attempt to cool her skin down and strands of hair stuck to Chuuya’s forehead. Suffocating heat filled the room, seemingly sucking the oxygen out of the spacious office and making it hard to breathe. Chuuya was ready to jump into action, but Mori hindered him by simply raising a gloved hand, the material of the glove unpleasantly sticking to Mori’s skin. 

The expensive carpet beneath the soles of your shoes slowly melted and turned into an ugly black, smoke rising from the costly decoration while your hands reached for the document on Mori’s desk, burning the paper along with its ashes. All that was left was smoke. “You know too much,” the smile on your face didn’t reach your eyes and remained void of any emotions. Dangerous knowledge should be buried, destroyed and burned for it comes with a responsibility and a kind of power that would end up putting innocent people at risk. The fact that Mori knew what happened in your childhood, knew about your mother, was enough for you.

“Oh, did I bring up some unpleasant memories? My apologies,” Mori swiped some sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief and let out a huff of breath at the stifling heat. He was pleased with how well you could control your ability and that was all he needed to know for now. “If you wish, you may go. But I figure you’ll need our help, soon.” 

Needless to say, you didn’t trust that man’s words one bit. Even if you were to go blind and Mori was the last human being on this planet, offering you his help, you’d rather choose death. Thinking about him made you realize what detesting someone tasted like. “Thank you, but I’ll have to decline.”

With those words being said, you left the office with a wave of your hand, your back turned towards the mafia members.

“Jeez, I’m glad she’s gone,” Chuuya let out a breath of relief as the entire room rapidly cooled down to its original temperature. “Got me feeling like a baked fish.”

“Chuuya, you are a baked fish,” Dazai added, snickering as the ginger popped a vein.

The clock read 9 pm when you crossed the threshold to your beloved home and the long-awaited smell of Yukino’s ramen filled your nose, making you feel like you had never been gone. However, your nerves were still strained thanks to that guy named Dazai and his boss Mori who ran an entire mafia. Great, just great.

You kicked off your shoes and dragged yourself into the kitchen, a tired smile spreading your lips at the sight of Yukino warming up the leftovers she had probably made earlier. Well, you couldn’t exactly tell her that you would come home later than anticipated, but you didn’t blame her. The fact that Yukino still waited for you made your heart swell with happiness.

“Jeez, who got you hot and bothered?” Yukino pouted and turned off the stove to pour you a bowl of ramen, the added heat of the steam from the noodle soup made her visibly cringe. “Quite literally, it’s burning hot,” she complained, handed you the bowl and sat down at the dining table with you, her chin resting on her hand. Dark eyes watched you slurp away the noodles with a bit of worry swimming in them - after all, Yukino knew about the deal your father was responsible for and was very aware of your ability as well. Besides your mom and dad, Yukino was the only one who knew every little detail about you. “Ah, nothing. Just got stuck in the subway and everything was kinda stressful, you know?,” to give your roommate some peace of mind, you let a chuckle slip your lips, hoping she’d buy it for the time being. Your thoughts were still a bit messy and circled around Mori’s last words like a loop. Something was going on and it bothered you that you didn’t know what exactly it was. 

Yukino didn’t know what happened to you, but she was still keen on cheering you up. “You know what!,” she almost slammed her palms on the table and nearly made you choke on your dinner. Her arm found its way around your shoulder, pulling you flush to her side and causing a proud grin to adorn Yukino’s suddenly excited face. “Tomorrow, we’ll spend the entire day together after your job interview! It’ll be great, trust me!”

Oh, right. You totally forgot about your job interview.

[these-are-the-first-steps]

For @lilithsaur -- Thanks for all the art that converted me, and I hope you like it!

To everyone else, sorry it’s not star wars this time!

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

Taryn’s child is two weeks old when it happens.

Like all newborns, my sister’s newborn was seen by the High King (and Queen) hours after birth, despite Vivi’s protests that human mothers shouldn’t be moved right after birth, but of course it didn’t stop her.

But it took two weeks before we could break away to see them in their own house. Before Cardan could hold her in his arms himself and give me a look that will be etched into my memory forever.

Taryn was timid, at first, handing over her child to our old schoolyard bully. But he was the High King now. And my husband. And the child’s uncle. Even if she didn’t want to, it’s not like she had a choice. We brought as few people as possible, the smallest audience we could for when the baby was finally placed into his arms, awkwardly at first, until settling right in- the little one suddenly fixated by his eyes.

It was then when he began to rock her in the same way Vivi had coached him on months earlier that he looked at me like that, cradling her head with his hand, and I could feel a nervous heat, but a heat none the less, dive through me. All I could do was swallow as discretely as I could without seeming affected in the slightest.

We were back in the carriage before he spoke again. “You know….I have not held many babies. Probably none, in fact.”

I gave him an incredulous look. “Probably? You mean you don’t remember?”

He scoffed with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. I guess you didn’t really have to remember when you were an unruly prince. Or maybe people just didn’t hand their babies to notoriously cruel people with too much power.

“She is…” he began, as if picking out the right words. “…more than I expected.”

I blinked, tilting my head at him as I looked over, but he continued to stare out the window. His hand crept across the silk cushioned seat, however, until his fingers brushed over mine to grasp my hand.

I couldn’t help it. I took in a sharp breath. And with a sly smile, he glanced at me. I couldn’t help what came next either. I smiled.

Taryn’s little one was five, a now boisterous little girl with golden eyes and fur-tipped ears, as she climbed over her uncle with her best approximation of a bear roar (she’d been fixated on nature shows during stays with Aunt Vivi). They tumbled and laughed, roared and pawed, the High King of Faerie and his little niece, hidden away in our private chambers where we could all be ourselves.

Cardan grabbed her, laughing as he playfully bit her hand that had come too close to his mouth. She grinned a toothy grin of sharp teeth in return. I was flipping through a collection of documents as they romped, but when I let myself totally focus on my work at hand, I quickly found myself ambushed by the pair, dragged to the floor until I was rollicking with the both of them, festooned with giggles.

When her mother came to pick her up, he smiled jovially but wouldn’t look at me, almost sad.

That night, when he had me in his arms, his body tight against mine as he filled every inch of me with him, he seemed almost desperate.

“…Beautiful…Enchanting…Mine…You Enchant me….Please…..PLEASE—“

And it was just before her tenth birthday, in the middle of planning an egregiously overdone palace-wide party for the now girl-child that the High King had himself insisted on, that he comes now storming into my study. He’s out of breath, his doublet missing as his chemise hangs loosely open. He’d slammed the door open as he now leans against it heaving. I move to stand up from my seat, fighting down a terror that something horrible must have happened for him to come here like this.

“Cardan? What—“

But I am cut off as he heaves himself towards me, swinging my seat around so that I must sit in it again as he gets down on his very knees in front of me and snatches up my hands in his. Grasping each one, he kisses the tops of them, runs his lips against my knuckles, before turning them over and leaves a heated kiss at the heart of each of my palms. He does not let me go.

“…Jude,” he croaks roughly.

Even after ten years….no amount of time could ever pass that could alter the affect this faerie has on me. My heart speeds in my chest as I look down at his beautifully bowed head. I have the overwhelming urge to run my fingers through his black hair, whisper to him sweetly to find out what’s wrong, but he’s got me caught with his fingers and I cannot. It claws at me.

“Jude,” he says again more steadily now, and as he looks up at me, his eyes are absolutely on fire. He is the only one I would ever let entrance me like this, and now, in this moment, I am entranced.

“What is it, Cardan?” I ask breathily.

He searches my face, and I can see him think behind his gold-rimmed eyes. As if he’s searching for the words, the right words, for whatever he’s about to say.

“Let me give you one,” he says suddenly, passionately. My eyes widen.

“What?”

“Please,” he begs.

“I don’t understand.”

“Let me give you a child. Let me give you one, Jude. I swear we could keep it safe. Since Eva was born I have thought over everything and tried more besides. And everything has worked. We could protect it, you and I. Please. Let me—“

I am stunned, listening to him ramble through what his brain has clearly been turning over repeatedly for who knows how long. Maybe since he held her when she was two weeks old. I break away one hand from his grip, his lips still moving to struggle to speak, and I place my hand along the side of his face. He stops and looks up at me with such deep longing that I am shocked when I feel something wet tumble down my cheek. Since the land was settled and we two began our reign, we have tried, together, to look at our metaphorical Armor and pick and choose what was good to keep. And what was good to throw away. Emotions have been mine. I wanted them back. And sometimes they ambush me, unused to them as I am. Like now. Right now, I am completely ambushed.

My silent tears drop to our joined hands.

“Cardan,” I whisper. A child. His name is like a prayer to me. And I am praying it now.

“Jude, I swear to you. Let us have a child of our own. One we can keep and hold forever. One we don’t have to send home after a day. One that has your beautiful face.”

“And your tail?” I choke out with a tearstained laugh. And he laughs, too- a soft thing filled with feeling as he looks up at me with ineffable hope.

“And my tail. If you like.”

There is a pause as he looks at me, eyes searching. And I look back. And with a squeeze of his hand, I bite my lip.

“I would like. I would like very much,” I say.

Suddenly it occurred to me how much I really did enjoy Eva’s visits. And also how I would often preoccupy myself with work on days she would be over. Consciously I ignored all the signs. I ignored how fully Cardan gave himself over to that child. Because I was scared. I still am scared. Terrified, even. A child! Of ours? God help this kingdom in the face of a child made from both of our flesh.

I laugh suddenly at the dangerous thought. And then Cardan is laughing with me, too. He slides his free hand beneath my thigh and begins to lift me bodily from my seat until I am sitting across his lap, our chests pressed together as he runs his hands across my back before resting his fingers behind my neck. His thumbs brushing away the tears on my cheeks.

We seem to inhale and exhale as one, our bodies stilling, when he leans over, eyes closed, and kisses my forehead. My eyes close, too, and I feel his lips there, lingering, and I dive into his arms. I bury my face against his neck, and his arms are there, circling around me, holding me, grounding me to the spot, against him, and he breathes out as if every burden he’s ever had on this earth is forever gone from him.

“Jude, Jude, Jude…” he whispers, and when I rise up again to look at him, his eyes, those beautiful gold-rimmed eyes, are there to meet and ensnare mine. And then his lips are, too. His lips are everywhere suddenly as we tumble to the floor in a fit of giggles.

“You are already ready to become a father. But I worry about my mothering. I lost mine when I was young, and Oriana wasn’t much.”

“I’ll help you,” he says, face hovering between my thighs as he shoots me a look that sends a liquid heat running through my veins. And suddenly the absurdity of Cardan, the Cruel Prince, of all people, being a better parent than me hits me like a ton of bricks and I succumb to an absolute fit of laughter. He smirks evilly at me, his brow flickering up in an enticing arch as he licks and then sinks his teeth lightly into my stomach. A mark. A presage. A promise.

“Are you sure?” I ask him, and finally, finally, I have my hand in his sinfully exquisite hair.

He nods against my hand, catlike, nuzzling my palm. “Mhmm,” he hums.

Thinking as I look into his face, I bite my lip again. “Well come here then,” I invite. Freely. Perhaps foolishly. Because now he’s on me, and we’re laughing, delighted in one another, and there is absolutely no turning back. Besides….why would we even want to? Why would we want to…when our future holds so much more than our pasts ever could.

So come to me, Cardan. “I love you,” I whisper into his ear, and I feel him shudder against me at my words. My fingers at the back of his neck.

I love you.

[ambitionsource]

S2 Rewatch - Maggie’s Take [ 207 ]

oh honey we’ve got a big storm coming...

Favorite scene

We’re getting to the point now in the season where all these questions become a million times harder to answer. All the scenes have an oomph to them. All the characters are at their richest. All the performances go off. So forgive me for cheating and giving multiple answers from here on out most likely. So in 207, three answers jump to mind. 1) The sequence where Farkle is having his true meltdown, before “Santa Fe.” From a writing standpoint, I remember I was really proud with how that scene turned out. It was a fun challenge, trying to capture that anxiety and panic and loss of reality. A fun fact that you may or may not know is that nearly all of the lines of dialogue said by the hallucinated characters are repetitions or variations on dialogue that has actually already been said in the show, meant to highlight how Farkle’s brain has taken these (usually offhand) comments and held onto them obsessively and in some cases even warped them into something more antagonistic than they were. Then there was the pattern of tying the sentiments together into one overarching monologue of sorts, repeating that thematic word over and over, “enough.” It was just so fun to write, and I’m really happy with how it came together. 2) The Dylan, Lucas, and Asher argument in the booth. Ooh, buddy. This was a true turning point, both for the narrative and for Asher and Dylan as characters. To me, that is the scene where they rise from supporting characters to mains, and in some ways it’s a long time coming. I love how it highlights the imperfections at play between that trio, and the way that Lucas and Asher know exactly how to get at one another, but nothing gets me more than Dylan’s “HEY” and stepping in between them. How Dylan snapping seems to be what pulls Lucas out of his anger, and how Dylan’s anger only lasts seconds before it shifts into like shock / concern... ugh I love him. I love them! Definitely a standout scene, even back when I first wrote it, but even more so now that Dylan and Asher have such larger roles in the third season. 3) The unintentional coming out scene between Riley and Charlie. The whole thing is just rich with tension, like I love the moment where Charlie is like you can’t tell anyone you can’t -- and she just interrupts him and it goes dead silent until she’s emphatically like I would never tell anyone... like chills, bro. Chills. And the relief that comes from Riley finally understanding why he’s been acting the way he has... so good. The follow up to this choice is the Zay and Charlie scene at the end where the freedom of someone knowing seems to allow him the strength to kiss Zay in their studio... I love them. I love it all. Whew. 

Favorite performance

It’s getting hard... it’s getting tough to choose... like “Santa Fe” is up there because of the raw emotion of it and what it represents for Farkle and his arc. “Loser” is great too, mainly in concept, as we have Dasher acting as Lucas’s subconscious mind essentially and all of the cool choices in the production of the number. But I think I will have to go with “Waving Through A Window,” as that is such a standout performance in my opinion. It delivers emotionally, it has a cool flow and concept, there’s snow... whenever it comes on AMBITION shuffle I’m like oh yeah. Now we’re talking. And I love the visual of Isadora being stuck on the acting block / courtyard table, always inches from falling off the ledge but managing to avoid disaster. It’s just a really cool visual in my head. So that’s the top for me I think.

Favorite character (within context of the episode)

I literally can’t choose. I don’t know what to say. I think I’ll say maybe Charlie and Zay? Both in their storyline together as well as individuals. They’ve both got great solos (“Consideration” and “Exhale”), Charlie has his devolution emotionally and Zay finally (righteously) snaps at Angela. They find refuge, in Riley and Harper and of course each other. There are standout moments throughout the episode for their relationship -- holding hands at the top in the studio, Charlie hugging Zay in the hallway to comfort him and telling him it’s okay, the fraught moment of Charlie snapping at Zay about being at his locker which feels like a tiny unintentional step back, Charlie’s frazzled kiss on the cheek in public, the ending scene with another handhold and the softest kiss... ugh I love them. They were at a peak this episode, which makes sense considering what’s about to come...

Favorite line(s)

“You know what, you’ve got a lot to think about. Let me just get out of your hair. Best of luck with this next phase in your life, sir. Save a little social security for the rest of us provided climate change doesn’t kill us first!” --Lucas James Friar, to Eric

“I mean, but what am I going to do instead? Follow in the footsteps of my mom? I won’t survive veterinary school, Mister E. And you can only cure lung cancer once!” --Darby Winters

“Might be nice to help combat the impending danger of climate change and issues with renewable resources by studying environmental sciences or maybe aeronautical space engineering in pursuit of space materials that could be used as new energy sources. Ooh, or a rodeo clown!” --Dave Williams

“Actually, I’m near-sighted. But I wear contacts.” --Dylan Orlando, in response to Eric asking if his future plan is “short-sighted”

“I looked into “space cowboy,” but as it turns out you need a degree in aerospace engineering as well as a license to boy cows, and that seems like a lot of work. So then I thought, well, if I don’t have the capacity to work, what else is there in this capitalistic hell we call society? Sure, I could probably enter myself in human cage fights and scrap to death for spare change, but I think that would hurt after a while and to be honest, I think I’d feel a bit like a piece of meat if I took up that mantle. Who would I be fighting to impress? The bourgeoisie? Hard pass. But after some deep, probing soul-searching, I finally hit the one. Trophy husband. Now, I know what you’re thinking. To accomplish such a grand ambition, I’d have to get someone to like me. And that’s a pretty hefty task, believe me I know, but I’ve devised a work around. This is, as Dave would say, galaxy-brained thinking, Mister E. I’m going to put an ad on Craigslist.” --Lucas James Friar

“It’s easy to say you believe in someone. Showing up for them is a different story.” --Zay Babineaux

“We’re friends, Lucas. We care about you. Asher wasn’t lying about that. And when you decide you want to do something about this, we’ll be there. When you need us... we’re going to be there for you. No matter what.” --Dylan Orlando

“I don’t know if this will make you feel better or worse, but the truth is it all comes down to endurance. How long you can take it, how long you can stick it out until it ends up being your shot. The true test of who lives the dream is who hangs on… and who gives up.” --Harper Burgess

An underrated moment

There are so many it would be so hard for me to pick one if I thought about it too hard, so I’m gonna go with my gut. My favorite mini moment in the episode is during the end montage, when Dylan climbs in the window to comfort Asher. There’s a lot of small details I like about it that occur just within like 30 seconds -- Asher’s routine with crushing up his anxieties (a thing elaborated on in Cruel Summer), how commonplace it is for Dylan to climb in the window, and how he jumps into comfort mode and they both fall into that without any words at all. I just love it. And I can picture the way Dylan kisses his cheek and then his shoulder and then rests his head against him so perfectly... I adore them. They are angels.

First impression vs your reread impression

Obviously, even when I wrote this last year it felt major. Because it is. This is the turning point episode, literally and narratively. It’s smack in the middle, and from here I knew everything was going to be bigger and more, especially since we pulled the (metaphorical) trigger with Farkle. We knew that was a narrative risk, but we felt strongly about it, and we took every method we thought possible to set it up well, be cautious about it to y’all (with trigger warnings and hotlines, etc.), and then follow through on it in a way that balanced realism with care and attention. I think we managed to pull it off, but it was a great relief that you all reacted so well to it (in terms of the narrative, not like joyously LMAO) and trusted us to carry it forward. That kind of trust in a writer means a lot, and that’s what I’ll always remember when I think about this episode. Thankfully, we all survived it, and now here we are on the cusp of S3. Insane. And now onto 208... the storm is here...

[ramblinganthropologist]

N7 challenge - 3 and 4 (Cooperation and War)

Summary: Well... that just happened. Genophage cure set, now Alistair’s setting the stage to get the krogan to help out. You know it’s serious when he’s wearing clothes that both fit AND match. Clearly, we need all the help we can get.

---

There were things Alistair liked about the retrofitted Normandy. The war room, however, was not one of them.

That was where he was sitting, staring out the window and waiting. Outside, they were stationary and waiting. Soon, they would be boarded by delegates in an attempt to smooth things out with the salarians after what had happened on Tuchanka.

Apparently, they were a little steamed he hadn't stopped Mordin from ending the genophage. Go figure.

“This is going to be a headache.” He was already massaging his forehead at the thought. It was hard to think about Mordin, too. Someone had gone back for his body, but what they were going to do with it should they find it was beyond him. During his studies, what salarians did with their dead wasn't really covered.

It was probably something quick – live fast, die young and all that. Mordin would probably appreciate that.

“Trying to get the best seat for the meeting?”

Alistair looked up. A familiar face was standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his carapace. Garrus looked a little tired, but that was to be expected. The last week had pretty much been nonstop action on Tuchanka. Now that they were back on the Normandy, it was the first time either of them had really had the chance to catch their breath.

He stood from his spot, smoothing down the front of his shirt. For once, he wasn't dressed down. It had been his idea to wear his formal uniform; it was a move that had shocked most of the Normandy when they found out. Apparently, it was kind of a big deal when the guy who went around in neon blue sneakers and a hoodie with ears dressed the part of a military officer. Once again, go figure.

“I'm the host, so I can move people around if I want.”

Garrus gave him an appreciative eye as he approached. “Pulling out the dress blues to impress the dalatress?”

“Nah, I plan on baffling her into silence so I can actually get a word in edgewise.” Alistair chuckled weakly as he reached out to squeeze the turian's hand. It was pleasantly cool, probably because he hadn't been clutching at a red hot weapon for hours on end. “I think it's a pretty solid plan, don't you?”

His boyfriend chuckled like the giant space chicken he was and nudged him on the cheek with his faceplates – his version of a kiss due to the lack of lips. There was nothing charge behind it, of course – there were too many people around for that. Hell, there was still a chance the primarch would bust in, and where would that get them besides a lot of hot water?

Not that he minded the primarch – he was a pretty decent guy, all things considered. Garrus was still his favorite turian, but he probably ranked about a solid 3, maybe even #2.

“Well, I'll certainly appreciate the view.” Garrus chuckled, but then the sound died as he stared out the window. Beneath the Normandy loomed Tuchanka – there was a large dust storm raging on the planet's surface below. Somewhere down there, the genophage cure was spreading like wildfire. How long, he wondered, until it took effect?

Maybe he should have asked Mordin before... but it had slipped his mind, he supposed. It wasn't like he had expected it all to go down like that.

“You really know how to shake up the galaxy,  Al.”

Alistair chuckled weakly as he squeezed Garrus' talons gently, avoiding the sharp edge thanks to experience. It wouldn't do to get blood all over his uniform just before his guests showed up, though it might have upped his intimidation factor from -2 to a solid 0. Not that he needed it – negotiation was more his forte than beating people up.

If he needed the latter, that's what his XO was for.

“You can say that again, babe.” Still, he sighed. “Though, I better figure out what to say. You know it's going to be cranked to 11 when everyone gets here, and once the krogan pop in that knob's getting ripped off and thrown out the airlock.”

He could practically imagine it floating through space, eventually going to fuck someone's day up just like Sir Isaac Newton intended. After all, he was the deadliest son of a bitch in space and had a reputation to uphold.

Garrus shook his head at that as he nudged him in the side. “I think that metaphor got away from you.”

“Must've climbed over my head, it's the easiest escape route.”

They both shared a chuckle then, but something about it just felt... quiet. It was just too damn quiet in the War Room. Plus it was impossible to forget what had been there only months prior. In a way, maybe it was appropriate they were standing in the remains of Mordin's old lab as they discussed the outcome. Maybe in some small way, he was there with them.

He missed him. He really did. Maybe if he had been a little faster...

“You did what was best for everyone, Al.” Garrus was apparently a mind-reader now as he gently squeezed his hand. “Mordin chose-”

Alistair sighed as he shook his head. “I know... it just never gets any easier.”

He should have been used to losing people by now. After all, he had lost a planet as a child, and then his entire unit as a young marine. Hell, he had died himself once. It shouldn't have bothered him... but it did. There was probably never going to be a moment it didn't bother him.

That was what made him human, most likely.

“Well, at least you'll have something to take your mind off things. Look who just showed up.” Garrus pointed a talon out the window as a ship appeared alongside the Normandy, already beginning the process to link up. “That the salarian ship?”

Alistair squinted as he made out the details. “Doesn't look like it. Maybe they sent someone to tell me to fuck off.”

“Something about you swearing in uniform does terrible things to me. “Garrus let go of his hand as he stepped back. “I'll be here if you need me.”

Duty was calling. Alistair nodded as he stepped away from his boyfriend and left the war room behind. After a scan, it was straight to the airlock. Someone was waiting for him there – it was a salarian, but not the salarian he had been hoping for.

Well... this was going to be a headache.

“Commander Shepard?”

One of them anyway. Alistair resisted the urge to joke and kept his face as neutral as possible as he nodded. People said his skill was reading a room, but really his hidden talent was knowing when to keep his damn mouth shut. It was a highly underrated ability, especially among military officers. Not for him – it had full skill points applied.

The salarian cleared their throat. “The dalatress sent me to remind you of your agreement – which you broke.”

“She couldn't have seriously thought I would go with that, Wrex is one of my closest friends.” Alistair kept his tone neutral. “But, yes. I suppose I did break it by not letting Mordin sabotage the genophage for you.”

Sorry, not sorry.

His guest didn't look amused by this. “You realize this ends the cooperation between Sur'Kesh and Earth, yes?”

Pretty much. Though, personally, he thought the dalatress was being an utter moron. Eventually, the Reapers would be kicking her door down just like they had done to Earth. Without the alliance, who would they have to rely on? Their brains were great, but... they kind of min-maxed there. It wasn't a good look.

But, who was he to tell people what to do during a war? He was just trying to muster a galactic army to save everyone from the Reapers...

“My line will always be open should she change her mind.” He swore he saw a blue number pop up in the corner of his vision as he watched the salarian twitch in front of him. “Is... there a problem?”

“Just the fact he's still standing here breathing.”

A deep, grumbly voice drew Alistair's attention. Probably because he had been busy trying not to tell his guest how he actually felt, he hadn't noticed the fact they weren't alone. Someone else had come up to the Normandy, and now they were in the airlock.

Wrex filled the small space, practically forcing his other guest into the Normandy proper. Apart from a few scratches on his armor and some superficial cuts that were already healing, he looked pretty good. Not bad for someone who went to battle with the Reapers.

Alistair smiled. “Nice to see you, Wrex. You're early.”

“Wanted to get the best seat.” He gave him a once over. “You're wearing clothes that match. That serious then?”

He felt his eyebrow twitch a little, but the smile never left his face. “World's on fire, how 'bout yours?”

“That's the way we like it.” Wrex stepped past the salarian, already heading for the war room. He wouldn't be alone for long – it was something of a conference call. Still, he would have been a shitty host if he left the krogan alone.

He just had to eject the trash out the airlock first...

“I will be taking my leave. It is clear what side you have chosen.” The salarian would've looked down their nose if they had one probably. Instead, they turned on their heel and started going through decontamination. Alistair just shook his head as he watched the messenger leave, taking with him any hope for Sur'Kesh.

Why did he get the feeling he'd have to break his neck to save their asses later? Some days it just didn't pay to be the good guy.

“Still don't regret it.” He shrugged and turned away. Back to the War Room it was. Wrex was waiting for him, and they had a lot to talk about before the actual meeting got underway. He had to focus on that in his mental task of putting one foot in front of the other.

First step – figuring out what the krogan could help with. That was easy enough. Who said planning a galactic war was hard?

[stopforamoment]

Wacky Drabble #9: A Lesson in Metaphors and Irony

TRR after Book Three Bastien Lykel and OFC Rinda Lykel Word Count: 1,151 This is written for @emceesynonymroll wacky drabble challenge #9 Maybe you’re too innocent. Prompt is bolded in the story.

Bastien and Rinda are married in this one. Bastien is the Head of the Cordonian Emergency Response Program, Drake is the security officer at Valtoria Primary School, and Rinda is now a professor at the Cordonian University. Colin is Rinda’s close friend from grad school and another professor at the University. His wife Deirdre is a primary school teacher in Cordonia, and the couple share Rinda’s political views. A/N: This one is ripped from the headlines—Secretary Betsy DeVos visited a school in Milwaukee, WI and this is where my brain went.   This drabble is totally off the rails, so suspend reality with me and enjoy! Also, of course alcohol isn’t allowed on school property, as much as teachers may need to drink to get through the day! If you are a fan of President Trump, Secretary Betsy DeVos, or school choice, this won’t be your thing.

A Lesson in Metaphors and Irony “Can you believe that crazy bitch has the audacity to spin her anti-public education bullshit as ‘education FREEDOM’? And these fucking cherry-picked examples. Public schools do this stuff too. And they could do even more if these mother dick vouchers didn’t drain resources from our public schools. What a clusterfuck.” It was no secret that Rinda was a proponent for public schools and that she loathed Betsy DeVos. The idea of DeVos as the United States Secretary of Education, a person who should advocate for public education, was an oxyMORON. And now Rinda was fuming because DeVos visited Milwaukee, Wisconsin for some shitty photo ops, pontificating on the importance of vouchers and charter schools so parents could have better taxpayer-funded options for their children. And don’t even get her started that DeVos considered Milwauke the “birthplace of education freedom” because the voucher program started there. Bastien smiled because Rinda still considered American public schools to be “our” public schools, and he put down his phone to he could give his full attention during her Rinda Rant. He knew Rinda was appalled by the racial divides and socioeconomic inequalities in the city where she lived for so many years. Bastien also knew it was empathy, along with anger over any injustice, that motivated Rinda to make a difference. However, when Rinda was this pissed off and reacted out of anger, it never ended well. Bastien knew his Tria, and Rinda Rants were a much safer way for her to blow off steam. However, Bastien also quickly sent a message when Rinda’s back was to him. It wasn’t announced yet, but President Trump and Secretary DeVos scheduled a trip to Cordonia to visit some of the primary schools. Bastien knew he had to deny all security clearances for his dearest wife, and it was probably best if Rinda wasn’t allowed near Valtoria Primary School or the duchy during that time. Bastien did the math in his head. A restraining order for thirty miles should be enough. Rinda would be working at the University, and she could spend the night with Colin and Deidre while the President and Secretary were in Valtoria. . . . . . King Liam and Queen Riley smiled diplomatically as they listened to Secretary DeVos’ ideas on Freedom Scholarships, and Bastien maintained his stoic facade as President Trump pontificated on the benefits of arming teachers in classrooms. Thank God Tria isn’t here for this shit storm—there’s no way she would keep her composure for this. The Secret Service would have her detained by now and we’d have an international incident. The meeting was tolerable, although King Liam and Queen Riley soon needed to excuse themselves for an urgent phone call. That left Bastien with President Trump and Secretary DeVos. He began to wish Tria was there. She knew by heart the statistics about charter schools and vouchers, along with their negative effects on public schools. She also had detailed rebuttals for every counterargument against public education. And her inappropriate comments about President Orange Cheeto and Cruella DeVos would help make this meeting tolerable. Maybe even fun. He almost started chuckling as he thought about the jokes Rinda was making regarding the latest Betsy in his life. Betsy Beaumont the Badass Bastard Bird and now Betsy DeVos. I fucking hate the name Betsy. President Trump was still talking, unaware that Bastien wasn’t even listening, when Bastien’s phone rang. Drake needed his help with a school security matter and no, it couldn’t wait. Bastien let out a sigh of relief before turning to President Trump and Secretary DeVos, promising to return as soon as he could. In the meantime, they were welcome to explore the school and observe the students. When Bastien got to Drake’s office he was surprised to see Liam and Riley there, drinking very expensive whiskey with Drake. Whiskey that Rinda gifted him before she was banished from Valtoria for two days. Bastien’s jaw twitched. “What did Rinda do?” No one answered. Bastien glared as he called his wife. “Tria, why are the King and Queen drinking expensive whiskey in Drake’s office instead of finishing the meeting with President Trump and Secretary DeVos? Drake snickered as he watched Bastien pinch the bridge of his nose while he listened to his wife’s response, and Riley giggled when she heard Bastien hiss “Maybe you’re too innocent” as he abruptly ended the call. “Have a seat with us.” Liam gestured for Bastien to sit next to him, but there was an impish gleam in the King’s eyes. “Plausible deniability, Bastien. As far as we know, Rinda is simply working at the University and waiting until you say she can come home. Now, would you like a drink?” Soon there was the sound of secret service agents running in the halls and shouting directives. Drake swirled the whiskey in his glass as he automatically chanted “Use your walking feet. And zero volume in the halls.” There were several minutes of confusion, but Bastien finally pieced together what happened. A climbing rock wall had been delivered to the school, but it had inadvertently been dropped off in a location that sealed President Trump and Secretary DeVos in a section of the school. They were trapped behind the rock wall, and the only ways out were to climb over the rock wall or remove it. Riley and Liam started laughing when they realized the predicament, and Drake poured himself another whiskey. Bastien called Rinda again, this time putting her on speaker. “Tria. Do you know anything about a rock wall being delivered today? Or where it was dropped off?” “Hi, Tiger! Oh, did that finally arrive? I know the gym teacher has been waiting for it. They’re doing a unit on—” “Tria! I know you’re behind this. What were you thinking?” “Um, metaphors? Irony? Trump on the wrong side of a wall, barred from reaching a safe place that has more resources and opportunities? DeVos trapped in a public school, left behind because the rest of you had a voucher to get out and didn’t give a shit about her?” “I love you Tria, but I’m furious with you.” “Hey, at least I didn’t send the gift basket. I just couldn’t decide. Bags of Cheetos? Or I could really go for it. Fruit basket with oranges and peaches. I’m not orange. I’m peach.” Rinda laughed. “Impeach. Get it, Tiger?” Bastien took Rinda off speaker and turned around, speaking in a whisper that everyone else could still hear. “You know what this means. I want you to come home tonight where I can keep an eye on you, and you’re waking me up with a blow job for the next week.” Everyone heard Rinda’s laughter through the phone, and Bastien needed to excuse himself as his very contrite Tria told him what else she would do to make it up to her Tiger.

[amwritesstuff]

Forget Me Not 3 (final): We Found Our Way (Bakugou/Reader)

Part 1

Part 2

Films had a habit of using weather to depict whatever mood was happening. No matter how bad the hurricane, the main characters would come out basking in the shining light of a new day. Good things happening when good news was given. Bakugou understood it was all metaphors for visual entertainment, but he couldn’t help wishing movie makers were a little more realistic, maybe his expectations wouldn’t be so high.

He swore loudly as his foot sank into a pothole, cold water now soaking his sock and pant leg. He had been doing so well with trying to keep dry from the downpour, only for this to happen in the parking lot. His car got a flat tire on the long road from the highway to the property. He didn’t have a spare, so he called a tow-truck but refused to sit an wait, giving them permission to do what they needed to while he hoofed it the rest of the way, huddled under an umbrella. Like hell he was going to waste any more time.

He entered the familiar lobby, making a ’squelch’ with every other step. The woman behind the counter smiled when she noticed him, scowling and shaking his foot in vain. She handed him his visitors pass without anything being said. He’d been coming long enough that staff knew him.

Bakugou all but stormed down the halls, the unfortunate plight of his car and shoe making him irritable. However, once he rounded his final corner, he faltered in his step, suddenly nervous. The hall looked a lot longer than it ever had before. Your door looked that much farther away.

How many times had he made this trek? Enough, he felt. The shitty carpet pattern and smell of old people would be forever etched into his brain. It was automatic now. He wasn’t aware that he had been moving until he stood before your door.

And he just stood there.

He felt unsure. Would anything be different? Would it all be the same? The weather indicated that there was no happiness to be found here. That whatever miracles had been taking place recently were washed away.

He was afraid.

Afraid that he’d open this door and find nothing but a blank stare. Find that the past few days were flukes, that your mind had begun caving into itself, much like his chest had been for so long. Afraid that this was a calm before the storm and it was just going to get worse. Could he handle it if that were the case? Or would he finally crumble away beside you?

Another door banging shut in the quiet was enough to jar him from his thoughts and nerves. He scowled to himself. What was he getting worked up over? He was Katsuki fucking Bakugou! He didn’t back down from anything! And he sure as hell wasn’t going to turn tail from you. You were improving, that’s what was happening now. Everything else be damned!

His newfound vigor was near instantly put out when he heard your startled yelp from his harsh bangs on the door. He could have kicked himself. You were confused more often than not, sudden aggression was not going to help. The hell was wrong with him?

The door was suddenly wrenched open and Bakugou found himself pinned under your harsh glare. There was a fire in your eyes that he hadn’t seen in a long while. A burning he knew so well, that challenged anyone to dare rub you the wrong way. A challenge that he always found himself tackling because it was you who initiated it.

However, he didn’t jump into it with his own shit-eating grin and snark. He simply stared. You weren’t asking who he was, what he wanted, asking if you could help him with something. There was recognition in that heated gaze. It held him in place, crushing him under its weight, much like years ago when he started getting to know you better.

You were looking at him. You knew him… But, you weren’t seeing him. Not in the way he was looking for, but a vast improvement to all the previous visits.

God, he wanted nothing more than to hold you.

You sighed, looking unimpressed. “Is there a reason you're trying to break my door down?”

A handful of seconds passed before his brain finally caught up. “Just... wanted to make sure you heard me.”

“Rooms so small there's no way I wouldn't hear you,” you pulled the door open wider. “Well, come in then.”

Bakugou stepped in and almost immediately felt like he was suffocating. He hated how stuffy and cramped the room was. He usually tried to get you outside whenever he visited. It was currently a mess, clothes all over the place and objects in the process of being moved around.

“So,” he snapped his attention back to you, watching as you started folding clothes and putting them away. “What brings you to my humble abode? Dropping off a house warming gift? Something that was salvageable from my now flattened apartment?” You pinned him with a hard, accusing stare from over her shoulder.

Ah. He knew exactly what memory you were playing through. A duo of pretty nasty villains had popped up, just wreaking havoc. Bakugou had been among those called in to take care of it. The Heroes had gotten the all clear that civilians had been evacuated, so the fight turned from trying to just keep them contained to a spot, to trying to actually take them down.

One of them was more or less brushing off the hits being dealt. The best thing Bakugou could come up with was to set a trap and simply bring a building down on the villain. It worked. The guy was knocked out and sustained very little in the way of injuries. However, that building he used? Yeah, your apartment had been in it.

It was a hell of a thing for you to cut your vacation short for. You were understandably upset, but you didn’t hold it against him, not entirely. You were offered a temporary stay at the agency, in what staff jokingly referred to as ‘sleeper cells.’ They were basically tiny rooms with a bed, meant for those not well enough to go home after pulling an all-nighter, or in need of a break before going back to the paperwork grind. You were living out of a suitcase during your time there, which you didn’t really have any problem with. You seemed to be more perturbed over losing your apartment overall if anything. However, you did come off a bit cold to him, which made him think you did lose something important to you. It had annoyed him that you wouldn't say anything about it.

Honestly, though? Bakugou couldn’t think of a better place for your current headspace to be in. At the time, he had been coming to terms with… feelings that had manifested and grown without his knowledge or permission. He actually had stopped by with what he had hoped was a peace offering. A little something the cleanup crew had found near where your apartment had crumbled, thinking of you the second he had seen it. While also mildly hoping some kid wasn't missing it.

He didn't have anything with him now, so he fell back onto the banter that he enjoyed partaking in with you. He shrugged, matching your stare with a smirk. “Is my presence in this shithole not gift enough for you?”

Your cheeks turned a pretty red, in embarrassment or irritation, he couldn’t tell. You turned back to your task, now stuffing drawers with such force that the clothes were coming undone.

“I’m in this ‘shithole’ ‘cause somebody thought it’d be a good idea to use an entire building to stop one villain.”

“And you could've done better? Besides, you said you weren’t mad about it.”

“Well, if you’re going to come here and be a prick about it, I just might change my mind!”

“So, you’re admitting you couldn’t have done a better job?”

“No! I’m not admitting- I can catch bad guys without resorting to property damage! Don’t change the subject, asshole!”

“Hm, can you back that claim up?”

“I don’t have to prove anything to you! You-you… you, porcupine!”

He almost choked at that. He was remembering now. How could have forgotten? This had been the first time you’d called him ‘porcupine’. Over time it turned from a cute insult, into a term of endearment.

You were facing him now, red-faced and flustered. Trying in vain to keep your emotions in check. You were so fucking adorable. Fuck, he missed this.

“Porcupine?” He hadn't meant for it to come out as breathless as it did. He was supposed to sound amused. Luckily, it seemed you didn’t notice. Too caught up in the memory and high emotions.

“Yes! Porcupine! A big rodent that puffs up its quills and attacks anyone that tries to get too close to it! Quills that get wedged up under the skin of the unfortunate victim, and are incredibly painful and obnoxious! Just digging right up in there! Then they pull a complete one-eighty on you! Completely out of nowhere! And return something that meant so much to you when you thought it was gone! Just turning into the cutest little shit, never once thinking they could be so sweet, and will actually let you touch them if they trust you enough, and you realize that maybe they're not all that bad. Maybe… maybe they just need… a chance…” Your voice lost its momentum as your eyes glazed over, staring off at something on the bed. Bakugou felt his heart clench at your words. He remembers the more biting bit, but the rest… Did you really think that about him after he gave you that toy?

You stood there like that for several long, agonizing seconds. Bakugou knew better than to disrupt whatever your mind was trying to do. Instead, he followed your gaze, eyes widening at seeing the well-loved stuffed toy.

That was what he brought you. Turned out it had been yours. You had been so overwhelmed when he presented it to you that you had flung yourself at him in a bone crushing hug. You explained it had been given to you the day you were born, and, if it was still intact, you wanted to pass it down if you ever got the chance. If Bakugou had to think about it, that little thing was the catalyst to the start of your relationship.

“You… you're going to pester me about calling you that…” your voice was light but firm in conviction. “You're going to bother me for weeks… use it as a reason to talk to me more… you'll never admit you're doing it to watch me get flustered...” Your gaze shifted to the shirt in your hands. “I'm not going to realize that you're doing it to… not until your friend mentions it…”

You blinked rapidly, eyes coming back into focus. You looked around the room as though seeing it for the first time. Your back was turned more to him. He was doing all he could to keep himself from throwing caution to the wind and embracing you.

You set the shirt down, gently picking up the stuffed toy. “You never said anything about this. Not once.” You hiccup out a laugh. Bakugou found himself holding his breath. “I was so sure you'd hang it over my head, use it somehow to mock me. But, you never did. It honestly surprised me.” Your grip tightened. “You… well, you didn't ask me out. You gave me a time and a place, and I guess you hoped that I'd show up. I wasn't sure that I should… but, I'm so glad that I did!” Your voice held a smile. A watery one, but a smile nonetheless.

“And your stupid proposal!” A laugh forced itself out of you. “You weren't romantic, you didn't plan it- Hell, you were just coming out of the bathroom! You just… handed me this,” the hand holding the toy flopped to the bed. “Said it was in good condition, good enough to be given to a kid, if I was ready to part with it!” You started laughing in mirth. “I'll never forget how angry I got! I thought you wanted me to get rid of it!”

Just as quickly as it came, your laughter became choked. Your hand came over your mouth as you struggled to pull yourself together. “But, I did…”

Bakugou felt his chest clench painfully at how broken you sounded. He had his teeth clenched so hard to keep from making a sound. You needed to sort through your head without interference. It was killing him.

“I forgot I was a Hero. Forgot everything I'd gone through. People that I've come to know and care about. That I had been attacked… my quirk is-” You choked, unable to get the words out. You straightened and turned to face him. Fat tears were streaming down your face as you looked him over. As you saw him.

“I forgot you.”

Bakugou shot forward, clutching you to him as you broke down. Your grip on his shirt was weak. He tried to give comforting words, saying he was there, he had you, only to realize that he was also crying too hard to get anything out. He sat you both on the bed in fear that his legs would start to give out as well.

The two of you sat there for a time, letting out all the pent up emotions. The sobs died down to hiccups and sniffles, eventually simmering to Bakugou lightly running a hand over your head as you held him. The quiet was comforting in a way.

It terrified him. He had been in this position before. Every second that ticked by caused his fear to grow. How long would it be until you pulled back and asked who he was? Until you looked up at him without any recollection of who he was? Could he continue to be strong so soon after such an emotional breakthrough?

And yet, the longer you kept your face buried in his chest, the more hopeful he couldn't help but become. You knew him when he showed up at your door. You remembered him as your husband not even ten minutes after. This was the longest that you've remembered him for. You were getting better. It took some time to get the ball rolling, but now you were getting so much better with each day.

His heart nearly stopped when you shifted, pulling away from him. No. No, this was still much too soon. He was trying desperately to keep his breathing even. He just had a breakdown, he didn't know if his heart could handle another.

As you looked up at him with puffy eyes and a small smile, he felt that he still might break from relief. God, you were so beautiful. You reached up, taking his face in your hands. He felt a couple tears escape. You gently brushed them away as you brought him into the most tender kiss he swears has ever existed.

If you forgot again, so be it. He had promised to be by your side through thick and thin. And it was well known that Katsuki Bakugou didn't make promises he couldn't keep.

[bigskydreaming]

So this is kinda a Bobby Drake post but its also kinda not because its more of a just in general musing on characterization and what distinguishes between a character being written as in character and as wildly OOC. So its actually rooted in a lot of Dick Grayson thoughts I’ve been having lately, as well as being relevant to some Scott McCall musings.

Its a Martha Stewart Home Living pot-pourri thingamabob! Something for everyone! I think. I don’t really know what pot-pourri is or even how to spell it and I don’t really know why the fuck I pulled a Martha Stewart reference out of my ass in the year 2019, like, none of these things are like any other thought I’ve ever had ever, like...who am I right now. Whatever. Shut up. My metaphor absolutely works and this isn’t just my brain on sleep deprivation. I like, totally get symbolism.

OKAY! RIGHT! ACTUAL CONTENT OF THIS POST:

So, the only adaptation Iceman’s had just a very minimal presence in was the 90s X-Men animated series. He only appeared in one episode, in one of the later seasons, and most people talk about that episode as though Bobby was wildly out of character because he told no jokes, yelled quite a bit, and told Scott to fuck off a lot, which is also what he did in a flashback scene to when he quit being an X-Man years before the show started, and retired from the hero life to settle down with Lorna.

Except the thing is, that episode is actually WAY more true to his overall characterization than Frosted Flakes in the X-films ever was, or also, pretty much any time Bendis writes him or other writers use him in similar ways to him - like that thing where Bobby stands in the background and says one-liners and also occasionally does something with his powers whilst monologuing about what he’s doing and how.

Because Bobby absolutely is that cheerful, determinedly optimistic heart of the team at a lot of times (sound familiar, lol)....but like.....he also historically has a decades long history of being written as the team hothead when for instance its just the original five and there’s not one of the X-Men’s other resident hotheads available to fill the role of the impulsive troublemaker who second guesses Scott’s decisions in order to make Scott actually think things through. Like the thing in the cartoon about Bobby quitting the team and storming off because he was fed up with Xavier constantly lying to them all and keeping secrets from them - that was lifted STRAIGHT from the original run of the comics, where he did precisely that, for precisely those reasons. Bobby was actually the X-character calling Xavier on his bullshit long before Scott started being written that way, ironically enough....

In fact, during Simonson’s original X-Factor run, it was pretty much ALWAYS Bobby filling that role going against the grain and questioning their official decisions and making everyone else think things through. Because at the time, Warren was pretty much entirely focused on his Archangel issues, Hank was dealing with his continuing physical mutations, that also had a side effect for awhile of giving him a host of mental health issues that interfered with his ability to reason through things as intelligently as he usually did....

And Scott and Jean were of course constantly getting bombarded with Sinister drama and trying to raise their kid except oh no, an evil fox person from a thousand years in the future has kidnapped him and infected him with Minecraft and now this giant asshole who looks like the bastard lovechild of a Transformer and a Smurf is quoting the Book of Revelations like he’s standing on a NY street corner wearing a sandwich board and ringing a damn bell. They all had shit going on, so it was actually Bobby who the kids staying with them (Rictor and Tabitha and Rusty and Skids and Wiz Kid) usually went to first when they had problems or like, Julio got kidnapped again or shit like that. 

Point being, there are many many instances and entire runs of different books between the 60s and the early 90s where Bobby is a happy go lucky jokester, its true....but he’s equally depicted as this guy who runs pretty hot and he’s not going to blindly follow orders that sound fucking dumb to him, he’s going to ask Scott to break it down for them or go back to the drawing board because “why are we pretending to hunt other mutants again and just leaning into the anti-mutant hysteria? Guys? Is it just me or does this all seem really fucking dumb and counter productive?” Like he makes jokes when he can afford to spare the spoons for that, but he knows how to be serious when the occasion calls for it.

Its just after the big Blue/Gold relaunch in the 90s, writers just....stopped writing him this way. But given that the cartoon was written and aired....in the early 90s....those previous decades of Bobby being written this way WERE the source material they were going off of at the time.

So that character most fans EXPECTED to see when they watched the cartoon in later years and saw he was guest-starring in an episode - like yeah, that is very much his characterization and always was.....on his good days. But like everyone (and certain other faves of mine, lmao) he has his bad days too, and guess what counts as a bad day? 

Coming home to find out that secret government agents have kidnapped your girlfriend and when tracking her down to rescue her discovering that no, wait, actually she was not kidnapped at all, that was a job offer and she accepted and just....did not tell her live-in boyfriend that hey, I’m gonna go be a superhero again but like...for the government which is completely the opposite but whatever, look the point is don’t freak out or think I was abducted or anything because that’s definitely not what happened here, I just dumped you and started dating my new team leader Havok and forgot where I put my Dear John letter. (You want to talk OOC in that episode, it wasn’t Bobby that was unrecognizable, it was Lorna).

But like, that’s a BAD FUCKING DAY. That’s a day where it would be utterly bizarre for Bobby to be acting the way he often does, like he doesn’t have a care in the world, trying to make light of situations and buoy spirits, which he can AFFORD to do, because usually he is not the central focus of big team-encompassing plots....its rarely him tied directly into the angst of the story, freeing him up to be the guy who focuses on making sure the morale of the teammates more directly affected by the angst doesn’t like....dip into the negative integers.

But you just flat out can’t do that with him in a story where THE ANGST IS ALL HIS, its CENTERED around him, because if he was right in the thick of all that and wisecracking and acting like this was any other mission, its no big deal....he’s going to come across as the world’s most immature, shallow and emotionally insensitive dumbass, because there is a time and a place for that, and that time and that place is not when you think your girlfriend has been abducted by the government and then find out that nah dude, she just disinvited herself from your relationships, whoops, sux2BU.

So if you take any given scene from that one episode and hold it up for comparison against say, a comic written in the last five years where he himself has relatively low stakes in whatever adventure he���s having.....those two characterizations are going to look COMPLETELY at odds. Like one or the other has to be WILDLY OOC because like, the two depictions seem like they’re depicting two entirely different men.

But they’re not. They’re just depicting one man in two entirely different contexts. We all take our cues from the situations we find ourselves in and our physical and social location and environments. We’re all totally different people on our best days than we are on our worst days. But these are all just....different facets of any given individual because we’re all fucking complicated little contrarians who often don’t even make sense to OURSELVES let alone outside perspectives. We each contain freaking multitudes. We are a million different things over the course of our life, and snapshots taken twenty years apart often are gonna look like we got a personality transplant between now and then...because we’re not MEANT to skip over twenty years of in between continuity and act like that doesn’t make all the difference in the world. The journey IS just as important as the destination.

And I guess the point of this particular post is that....IMO the key to strong characterization is recognizing that any character can theoretically be capable of just about any response or action or choice....in the right situation. None of us, no matter how well we know ourselves, can actually say we know for sure how we would react if suddenly dropped in a situation we had zero prior experience with. So I think where a lot of writers get turned around when writing characterizations is they go into a plot, an outline, a narrative, with their mind focused on the characterization they want to show, the way they want to depict a certain character.....instead of letting the situation, the scene, the narrative, inform that character’s actual characterization in this specific context.

If you try and FORCE a certain behavior with a character because you’ve rounded up and that’s the over-all characterization you personally enjoy best with that character, so that’s what you want to write....without fully taking into consideration how the stressors and other aspects of the situation they’re in that are UNIQUE to that situation, that are things they perhaps haven’t encountered before or dealt with often...and thus are things that would be MOST likely to prompt or provoke an unusual or more extreme response from a character than they would normally show in most other situations....that’s when characters get bent out of shape and end up most OOC, I think.

Because writers try and squeeze specific attitudes or reactions or behaviors out of characters caught up in a scenario where those attitudes are just....not appropriate responses to what’s happening around them. And thus they end up coming across as 2-Dimensional, more aggressive than the actual situation calls for, or more immature than the gravity of the actual situation warrants...they end up coming across like they’re a name card placed on top of a situation rather than a character immersed in all three dimensions and existing fully as PART of the situation...because the writers aren’t LETTING them. They’re not letting the character actually engage with what’s happening, react in the moment, have an unexpected response....because they’ve already decided what they want the character’s overall ‘feel’ to be before the actual situations were even written in the first place. 

And written like that, a character is never going to feel real. They’re always going to feel like an afterthought, like something hastily thrown on top of the otherwise completed project as a last minute addition you want to at least make sure is THERE because it just occurred to you that crap, I totally forgot to include this totally crucial element, and you don’t want it to seem like you just completely forgot that thing existed.....but that slapdash shot taken from halfway across the court when the buzzer’s already started ringing and you’re late to school with absolutely no more time to make changes...like....its still usually not gonna do anything to help improve your grade, because just because you threw it in at the very last possible second doesn’t mean that its presence is actually contributing anything to the entire project...especially not when compared to all the other elements you took your time thinking through and carefully integrating into their proper places.

[lunawings]

King of Prism SSS Episode 3 commentary (Taiga)

I am SO RELIEVED that this episode is FINALLY out. 

I finally get to show you guys what the inside of my head has been like for two months. 

THE FESTIVAL THAT HAS BEEN INSIDE ME

GET BUCKLED IN

Taiga’s room is divided into half Kazuki worship, half Aomori. Seems about right.

Let me start off by saying it brings me SO MUCH JOY how much Taiga loves Aomori. Aomori is way far removed from Tokyo, on the northernmost tip of the main island, and pretty much in the countryside. I went there 4-5 years ago before King of Prism existed AND I. LOVED. IT. There was a cool breeze even in the brutal Japanese summer, the atmosphere was refreshing and wonderful... and the festival. Two of the biggest things Aomori is known for are apples and, of course, the Nebuta festival which I’m convinced has to be the best festival in all of Japan. Those giant festival floats are just fucking amazing and I will be inter-splicing this post with my travel photos from that time. 

But even so, I’d think a boy at Taiga’s age would still think Tokyo is a lot cooler and want to be in the big city. BUT NO. NOT TAIGA. And since I also CANNOT FUCKING STAND TOKYO either, every time Taiga in this episode says Aomori is better than Tokyo I just want to stand up and be like 

FUCK YEAH IT IS 

Okay moving on, sorry this post is gonna be long enough as it is. 

When I first heard this line I swore it sounded like he was saying something about “Las Vegas” ahah... ha...

I am very happy with this screenshot. 

*ahem* Anyway. I looked up “rassera” ages ago because I had no idea what that was about and apparently it’s a phrase that lost it’s original meaning over time as it got muddled together, and is now only used as a festival chant. It used to mean “bring out the candles” or something?

The “us” in the sub kind of annoys me because Over the Rainbow isn’t a part of Edel Rose anymore but maybe that’s.... just.... meeeeeeeeee..............

I took the night bus from Tokyo to Aomori before. It was 10 or 11 hours. It was... unpleasant.

Old dude club in the back row.

I really wonder what people who have never seen Pride the Hero are gonna think of this exchange. If you have not seen Pride the Hero, sorry to disappoint you(?) but taxi is actually not a metaphor. 

I wonder if Kakeru would have really kept hounding Taiga if he didn’t pay him back. It’s not like Kakeru needs the money. I think it’s more that Taiga just has his pride and wants to do right by Kakeru and not take advantage of him. Or at least I like thinking that way. 

My second favorite line by Taiga in SSS. 

People at the cheering shows are like “Gimme the apron!!”

No, I have no idea why they decided to design Taiga’s cousin(s) to look like Ann and Wakana. 

My third favorite Taiga line in SSS. I just love how perfect the timing is. Taiga just watches everyone walk past him trying to debate if this is really happening or not and then just HOLD ON WAIT--

Behold Yukinojo examining what I think is supposed to be the armor that made Taiga pee his pants in Young of Prism. This is the Easter egg I was talking about. 

I LOVE OZORA. 

Another great thing about SSS is learning how all of the boys have these amazing female characters in their lives. 

The first/only anime reference to Taiga’s distaste for apples. In side material it’s been explained that Taiga can’t stand apples because they are everywhere in Aomori. Even the sound of someone biting into the skin of an apple drives him nuts. Minato has used it as punishment before in Prism Rush. 

People in the theater like to say “Don’t forget the apple!” 

At the midnight showing I think the girl next to me had a brain aneurysm when she saw Wakana here. And I might of as well. 

At this part I always yell “WAKANA DON’T GO!!!!”

Just.... ahhhhhh Taiga being seamlessly inserted in the Rainbow Live continuity like this is just... kjlfjfkljfls.......

Even though I know in the logical part of my brain that Taiga did not exist when Rainbow Live was made, I still kinda want to go back and look for him in the background of that episode anyway. But I hesitate because I know I won’t want to be disappointed with not finding him. 

Still, the idea that Wanana, Ann, and Kazuki all supposedly knew him from way back when is crazy and makes my heart warm. 

(Oh but WAKANAAAAAAA so sad)

So. “Gaudy” huh. We’re goin’ with that huh. HUH. “Gaudy” I know for a fact is the literal translation you get when you look up “charachara” in a Japanese-English dictionary. I have used it too... AS A PLACEHOLDER....................

Seeing this and trying so hard not to FUCKING SCREAM at the midnight showing was a moment for all of us. Taiga.... Taiga.................. Taigaaaaa................. I can’t see this without feeling it travel through every nerve in my body. 

WakanAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Accurate description of summertime in the countryside of Japan. Everyone hangs out and eats copious amounts of fruit probably from a neighbor’s farm. Just go out and walk down the street and you’ll come home with fruit. 

So this is Aomori city, the area not far from the station. When I saw this in the theater I was like, that looks.... kinda familiar. Then the next day I went searching for photos from my sideblog @mdawnjpn and....

I found this and I just immediately started tearing up, like hand over my mouth trying not to cry on the bullet train from Tokyo back to Nagoya during that first weekend. I was there I WAS THERE. 

So I mentioned previously I got to Aomori after a 10 or 11 hour night bus. And I didn’t sleep for almost any of it because I just can’t sleep on buses. And I felt LIKE. DEATH. But I couldn’t find an internet cafe or anywhere to sleep for a while because Aomori city just doesn’t have a lot of things. So I ended up literally just sleeping on a park bench by the ocean for a couple hours. Like around here.

And I remember seeing them starting to set up the festival when I woke up and being like woooah where am I this is amazing. But.. Just like, since Over the Rainbow performs here every year I guess I must have slept through their show. Oh NOOO ahaha

Anyway

And here it is. My number one favorite Taiga line in SSS. Just like the way he says it

OVER THE RAINBOW

THE FUCK IS THAT 

Ohhhh Taiga you’ll know very soon......

Also notice the different colored tie. I wonder if this was his legit school uniform at the time. 

People hold up two concert lights and break them apart when Hiro’s pride is broken in the first movie, and they do the same here.

Oh Taiga...... why is your pain so hilarious.........................

Sometimes I ask myself the same thing.

I love the contrast here between the overly realistic uncomfortable crowd, overenthusiastic Ozora, and poor Taiga. I love it. I LOVE IT. I WAS NOT KIDDING WHEN I SAID EVERY FRAME IN THIS EPISODE IS A FUCKING MASTERPIECE 

It took me two or three viewings to realize that Taiga is actually crying here. Or rather trying really hard not to cry. 

I’m not sure if I’m counting favorite Kazuki lines or not since he doesn’t have a big roll in SSS, but if I am this little “Huuuaah” might be it. 

Poor Kazuki. He does nothing on purpose to incite the storm that has brewed around him with both Taiga and Alexander.

Taiga’s Mom is the fucking best. Like I said, I love SSS for bringing out all these amazing, supportive, strong female characters. Everyone’s Mom is great but Taiga’s Mom might be best Mom. 

Or at least I thought so until I met Alexander’s Mom but the jury is out right now. 

It took me like five viewings to realize their watermelon switched to corn and I laughed way harder than I should have. 

OTSUKARE TAIGA

I loved seeing him be a big brother here eheh. 

Taiga why did you even ask. You know how Edel Rose works.

Shin just looks so happy. He’s a puppy. 

My goal in life is to enjoy everything the way Shin enjoys things.

Yu’s AHHHHH MOOOOUUU in this scene might be my favorite Yu line ahaha. 

I don’t know why, but I the more he whines the more I love him. That’s just how you know Yu is having a good time.

RIGHT

RIGHT

FUCK TOKYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

AHHHHH I WANT TO GO BACK TO AOMORI RIGHT NOOOWWWW

I’m like 40% considering going back this summer. 

I live in Aichi not Tokyo by the way so if I don’t fly that’s about UMMM 16 or 17 HOURS ON TWO BUSES BUT

Okay okay okay. So NOW it’s “street style” huh. Well what the fuck was with that whole “Solid Style” thing in episode 1 then? I guess the translator didn’t realize they were literally talking about street dance? Like WHAT? Or did they just forget?

And you know what actually this kinda pisses me off more, because the least they could do is keep it consistent. 

Because now that whole important line where Shin actually explains it for the first time in the main canon MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE ANYMORE 

ALSO

WHY IS ACADEMY CAPITALIZED AND STREET NOT

WHY

FOR FUCKS SAKE IM GONNA K--

Taigaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

(I’m OK now.)

Giving him a shojo reaction here was a choice. They didn’t have to. It was a deliberate choice. To portray Taiga’s feelings for Kazuki. Ahhhhhhhh

So remember when I stayed up translating this all of a sudden after I watched SSS Part 1 for..... reasons..... 

No I do not know why he’s an apple. Well I assume it has to do with the job he’s doing. And I do have a hunch from a creative standpoint but I’ll talk about that later. 

First timers in the theater always be like “R... RINGO..?????”

NO YOUR ASS IS BIG

....Is one of my favorite callouts of this episode. 

AND WHY IS JOJI EVEN IN THE CAR ANYWAY 

At this point during the midnight showing I was like.... is the real villain of SSS just gonna be Joji going around casually inconveniencing everyone? ....I’d watch that. 

This is the storage area near the main festival stage where you can go and see the floats before the festival starts. 

Here’s what it looks like in real life: 

One of the few instances where I can assure you real life is just as good as the anime. 

For people who read my shitty out of context spoiler about how a character beat Louis for the amount of skin showed in a prism show. Wasn’t kidding. 

Tasuku kinda spoiled this outfit in the first day greeting show by saying something like how it was an outfit which fit Taiga’s tastes well (festival wear) and everyone else was like NO STOP--

But yeah. This show. This soonggggg

Taiga’s voice is just SO. BEAUTIFUL. He has my favorite singing voice in all of Edel Rose. 

So after the first weekend I made a post to Tumblr about how I thought I had avoided getting any of the songs in my head, but then a certain one started CREEPIN IN...

IT WAS THIS

Taiga’s song is both the first one to get stuck in my head, and the one that keeps getting stuck in my head the most often to this day.  

I just love how he makes Nebuta floats of all his friends ahhhhhh 

Here are some more photos of the real thing..

It was raining the year I was there, and when it rains they put plastic over them so they look like snowglobes. That’s kinda cool in itself though.

I’ll never forget seeing this for the first time, realizing what was about to happen and being like NO... NO WAY.... IS THIS REAL LIFE NO WAY IS WHAT HDHFKHFDFH;LSFHDLSHFDS 

I’ll never forget it because I basically still feel the same way every time. 

They didn’t have to set this up like a confession scene. But they did. It was a choice.

But during this scene at cheering shows, I am much less concerned with what Taiga was trying to say and much more concerned with prepping blue and green lights for..... 

Words cannot express how happy this made me. If you haven’t picked up on it already Wakana is my favorite girl from RL. MATTE NYAAAAAAAAAA

Oh look here. A GOOD translation for “charachara”. One that I might actually steal from now on. Usually the best I can come up with is “flirty”, “carefree”, or “showy” depending on the situation.

So it seems at this point the translator finally understood what “charachara” actually means in the context of King of Prism. So of course, the logical thing to do here would be to go back and correct the previous wonky line where they used “gaudy” to make it consistent... right.... RIGHT??

Does Crunchyroll actually translate line-by-line as soon as the episode comes out in the hour before they post it? 

They don’t even get any time to edit it?

ARE

YOU

FUCKING

KIDDING ME

I dunno about you but I would wait a few more hours for fucking slightly more decent consistency in the translation BUT MAYBE THATS JUST ME 

OH LORD Kakeru’s episode next week is gonna be A SHITSHOW. 

The sitcom ending to this episode is so dorky but I love it. 

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT

FRAME IT

DIP IT IN COPPER

SEND IT TO SPACE 

DONE 

It was really cool to finally see the details in these festival floats in the ending since they go by so fast in the episode. Shin’s has a rainbow! I wasn’t expecting Masquerade, but I suppose it fits Taiga as well. And it’s not that the Taiga version isn’t good but...  

It’s just that... I.... I want the CD but I..... I already have three different King of Prism covers of it on my phone........... nnnrhg

So. 

I dunno about you guys. 

But basically my interpretation of this episode is that no matter what Taiga says....

Everything he’s done...

It was never about the street style.

It was always

ALWAYS

about Kazuki

And that makes a lot of sense.

Kazuki spends this entire episode being an apple. Taiga hates apples. Kazuki is a personification of something Taiga hates. But it changes nothing. He loves him. HE LOVES HIM. 

I always questioned whether Taiga’s feelings for Kazuki were pure admiration or true love. And now I know the answer. Probably both. 

So this ends what I know to be King of Prism SSS Part 1, as per the theatrical release. 

Next week is Kakeru and also the beginning of what I know as SSS Part 2. 

I don’t want to de-hype you guys that much, but I actually feel the Part 2 episodes are a good deal more low key than Part 1. But then again that doesn’t say that much for the King of Prism standard.  

I have been looking forward to Kakeru’s episode being released with subs for the sole reason of finally being able to clarify a lot of things I didn’t understand about it. But after seeing the subs this week. HMMM. 

[blkpnkwriting]

something to nothing

part i. / part ii.

Lisa x Reader

Warnings: swearing, alcohol, all the Lisa angst

Word count: 6,414

NOTE: “Hi!! Not sure if ur taking requests or not and I'm super sorry for bothering u with this if ur not but if u r, is it possible to request a part 2 for something to nothing? Love ur writing by the way!! Thanks for all the amazing stories!!”

there was also another request that i lost in tumblr for this as well aslkdfjaslkdjg SORRY but omg here we are and i sincerely hope everyone enjoys !!!

happy holidays and happy new year’s !!! xoxo Q 💕

    “I’m sorry,” you whispered brokenly. Again.

    How many times was it going to be like this? Salt stained lips parted and you watched as Jennie didn’t bother to wipe them away even as you slipped the back of your hand across your mouth. The same gesture meant to clear the memory away as well.

    Every time you closed your eyes and tried to let Jennie near, all you could picture was her.

    Jennie knew and she understood. A sad smile appeared like it always did and she wrapped you in her arms, expecting the tears to fall more freely as they often did on her shoulder. The sobs cracked through your ribs. You couldn’t keep doing this to Jennie. Told her that. The only response you got in return was always the same. That she would always be there for you, to be the strength you couldn’t find some days.

    It wasn’t fair.

          .♡.

    You had found a dear friend in Jennie. In some ways, you thought she needed you too. You frequented the bar she tended most weekends, when there was the time to spare. Drinks were on the house but you tipped her anyway, sneaking the bills into the jar when she wasn’t looking, lest she pull them out and toss them back in your face with a blown kiss. She was too good to you, and god, why couldn’t you just fall in love with her instead?

    Maybe it had something to do with the fact that her heart wasn’t completely in it either. You never asked — never felt your place to — but there was something holding her back. Someone. And you knew just where to look in her features to catch that glimpse of regret you were all together too familiar with.

    It was fleeting. But if you were careful, you could see it. In the late hours of the bar, when there were few to serve and mindless chores to cater, Jennie would stand there. At the end of the bar, cleaning a glass that had already been polished. Cat-like eyes staring off into the inky dark distance but with a melancholy to them that made your heart weep. It would last a moment, and then she would find her answer somewhere out there in the black and look away. The moment would pass. You would look away before she could notice you watching her.

    You’d never want to interrupt a moment like that, especially ask about it.

          .♡.

    “The bar’s hosting a Christmas party this weekend,” Jennie informed, sliding over your usual lemon vodka on the rocks. You opened your mouth to reply (to decline) but she knew you better by now and continued, “And you’re coming. I want you to meet my friend, Jisoo. You’ll love her, and that way, you won’t feel alone while I’m trying to be two people at once.”

    “There’s no use arguing, is there?” you replied, smirking. You took a sip from the tumbler, smacking your lips at how she managed to perfectly mix it every time. You didn’t even need to pop in the lemon wedge she sliced neatly and perched on the rim.

    Jennie shook her head with a smile. “You’ll enjoy it. And you’ll need to dress up. It’s an event, actually. We’re part of the Santa Claus pub crawl but we also have our own costume party during it, so people dress up as anything Christmas related. Best ugly sweater gets free drinks for the rest of the night!”

    “Ugly sweater it is.” The thought of meeting Jennie’s friend dressed as Slutty Mrs. Claus was less than appealing.

    The bartender laughed despite herself, only stopping to take an order from a man who had stepped up beside you. The beer hissed, bubbling over slightly as she cracked the top off with practice and tossed the cap into a bucket nearby, handing over the drink. “You mean you don’t want to dress up as some promiscuous version of Vixen? You won’t be the only one.”

    “I’ll pass,” you scoffed behind your drink. When Jennie raised a brow and you rolled your eyes, you amended, “On the costume. I’ll come to the party.”

          .♡.

    You were regretting the stuffy, ugly Christmas sweater by your fourth drink. That might’ve been the alcohol making it worse. Or the amount of people crammed in the bar.

    Jisoo was just as amazing as Jennie promised. More than, even. The girl never met a stranger, a personality so charming it made you jealous because how could someone be so perfect? Nonetheless, she did well in keeping you involved and keeping you happy. Freeing your mind the second a storm cloud looked about ready to pass over your face. And if you were beginning to sulk, she made sure to push another drink into your hand and add another kiss mark to your cheek. She said it was a tally on how many you shots you had taken but you were sure they were starting to overlap and lose mark.

    “I need some air!” you shouted over the strange variation of club and Christmas music that you actually quite liked even if you couldn’t hear anything else.

    “Want me to come with you?” Jisoo yelled back, already setting down her mostly empty drink, licking shimmering pink lips that oddly enough reminded you of a heart. Behind her, Jennie was taking the glass away, glancing at you every few seconds.

    “No, I’ll be right back!”

    Jisoo’s hand hesitated on your arm as you turned to walk away. Your eyes scanned the crowd, a mix of Santa Clauses in various stages of undress, reindeer, elves, and whatever remotely related to the holiday. There was even a girl who managed to pull off wearing a set of bows as her outfit, and you had to applaud her bravery. It looked great but you could never. Setting your best course through the sea of merriness, you started off.

    The room tilted and you stumbled into a shirtless partier. You were going to apologize for being so rude and jostling his drink down his glittery chest, but over his shoulder you saw her.

    Or so you thought.

    The words lodged in your throat. The bump forgotten. The man moved on without foul but you were craning your neck and trying to find the vision again. You couldn’t, and you were thinking it wasn’t even real, but the bile that tainted your mouth was and you had to get outside now.

    The crisp air burned in your lungs but you gulped it down anyway. It steadied you, brought sobriety to your brain. What little it could. Most days were spent in some level of stupor because you couldn’t handle it. Anything. And this was proof. One little glimpse of disheveled blonde hair and high cheekbones and you thought it was her. There were plenty of girls out there who probably looked like her.

    Lie.

    Why couldn’t you move on?

    Because you love her.

    But she moved on, she’s with someone else, she’s happier without you —

    Stop. Please.

    Brick dug into the palms of your hands. You had managed to stumble around the side of the bar, somewhere Jennie couldn’t see you. And couldn’t save you. God, you were going to throw up right here, weren’t you?

    It had been months. Too long. Just the mere sight of her made you sick. Because she wasn’t yours.

    Never had been and never will be.

    Drunken calls and whoops echoed down the alley, disorienting you further as they bounced. Red and green lights flickered above you, hanging like drops of dyed ice from the gutters and awnings. You were still hot and you were reaching down to rip off your sweater, sit down in the dirty snow under you, wanting to cry —

    “She’s here, isn’t she?”

    The voice cut through the cold haze. You looked up sharply to see Jennie slipping and sliding a little in her heels as she navigated the alley toward you, stopping only to put a steadying hand on your shoulder. You were keeled over, you realized, looking about ready to retch. The moment she touched you, hell, the moment you heard Jennie’s voice, it all started to melt away.

    “I don’t know,” you said truthfully. Tearfully. You sniffled, wiping at your nose, feeling how cool you had become despite the confused heat of the panic attack that had you believing differently. “I think so? I — I don’t know…”

    “It’s okay,” Jennie hushed, stepping closer. Drawing you into a hug, warming you. You closed your eyes, inhaling her familiar scent and the sweat of the overpopulated bar. She stopped working for you. “It gets easier — the first time is always the hardest.”

    Her words opened your eyes, and you pulled back a little to find hers. See that sorrow you never questioned. The tears that danced in the light but never fell.

    “You…” There was nothing you could say.

    Somehow Jennie knew. And she nodded. And she hugged you again.

         .♡.

    It had been a week since then.

    It had been another party since then. A house party with close friends like Jisoo and Jennie, and too many cocktails.

    Jennie sat with you in a closet, drinking her courage as she cried.

    You weren’t alone. You weren’t the only one left behind. Jennie saw the same in you as she had witnessed herself, that first time you had met at the bar. There was no way in her good conscience that she could have left you alone to pick up the pieces of what remained of you, much like Jisoo had been there to do the same for Jennie.

    Now? Jennie was okay, and she said each day she could breathe a little better. Even if the metaphorical scar remained from where her heart had been ripped apart.

    That was what she meant. That night at the Christmas party. It gets easier. And seeing what you had thought had been her for the first time since… since the last time was hard. But the worst was over, Jennie assured. If it happened again, you wouldn’t grow sick and want to scream and cry and never see the light of day again.

    It had been a week.

    You sat at the bar and threw peanuts in the air, attempting to land even just one in Jennie’s waiting mouth. You had always been a bad aim. You laughed as you missed again and Jennie groaned, grabbing a nearby broom.

    “I swear you just doubled how much I’ll have to clean tonight.”

    “Maybe if I had something to motivate me, I would care enough to actually make one in your mouth.”

    “Wanna bet?” Jennie jumped at the chance. You rolled your eyes. “Every time you miss, it’s a shot. Every time you make it, I take a shot. Deal?”

    “I’m gonna be an alcoholic by the end of this.” You popped a peanut into your mouth. For protein and to laden your stomach before you inevitably drank your weight in liquor.

    “You should’a realized that when you became best friends with a bartender,” said she, reaching along a shelf to select a cheap bottle the bar could afford to lose. You stole that moment to smile sheepishly, a bit of light in your life in the form of Jennie. Your best friend.

    The next series of tosses went surprisingly even, and didn’t stop until Jennie was sloshing more of the drink across the bar than into the shot glasses and you were laughing when you rested your elbow and slipped on the tarnished wood. You banged your arm but the alcohol kept the pain at bay for the morning, where a bruise would remind you that you could be happy like this. That you didn’t have to torment yourself with thoughts and memories.

    It was getting easier.

    That’s what you tried to hold onto as Jennie’s hand rested jovially on your thigh, as you watched her laugh that adorable laugh and she tossed back chocolate waves of hair and you motioned to clink your glass to hers and missed, tipping nearly out of your stool if she wasn’t right there in front of you to catch you.

    Jennie caught you that night and she caught you now. Just maybe, it wouldn’t hurt when you pressed to her mouth and she was kissing you back. It didn’t hurt, even as your lips slid along hers and a leaden tongue sought entrance.

    But maybe it was that lack of fine control. Alcohol was like that, providing false confidence and then sweeping the carpet out from under you. When you fell, it hurt. The picture clashed behind your eyes, and abruptly, Jennie was losing reality. Chocolate became honey blonde, and the hand on your hip suddenly mirrored the one that used to hold you down with a grip like she would lose you if she let go, and the noise you heard in the back of her throat was the sound of Lisa’s voice when she said —

    “Get off of her!”

    This time, someone else was tearing you and Jennie apart instead of your own guilt and shame.

    You were out of your seat, stumbling drunkenly on unsure feet, a hand twisted around your wrist as you were ushered behind a figure that hadn’t been there seconds ago. It took your brain several kicks to register, to comprehend, what had happened, and you glanced at the shock riddling Jennie’s features before forcing glassy eyes up to the blonde hair you had been imagining.

    Lisa.

    “Seriously, it’s not what it looked like,” Jennie slurred, blinking rapidly but expression melting into something like it was all just a misunderstanding, like it wasn’t as dire as it seemed.

    You were shell-shocked.

    “What are you doing here?”

    The words came before you could stop them and they were surprisingly level for all the things you felt right now.

    Lisa turned on you then. Anger written in the snarl of her nude lips, the slant of her brows, the glare of her eyes, but all that softened the moment she saw you. Her hair was drawn up in a high ponytail, like she hadn’t the time to change after work. You took in the scarf around her neck against the bite of the cold, and the long grey peacoat, and remembered the position she held at her job now, the promotion she failed to tell you about until you were confronting her about it.

    You remembered the boyfriend and the bile started its acrid crawl back up your throat.

    There must have been something on your face then because Lisa was losing traction. She glanced between you and then Jennie, and then down to the wrist she still held tightly in her grasp, having torn you away from the sight she had seen. From where? Where did she come from? How did she know you would be here? What was she doing here? She never answered you. Until —

    “I — I don’t know.”

    It was uncanny how she repeated the same words you uttered the night of the Christmas party. Brown eyes turned caramel danced in the low light, fresh tears catching the reflection. She looked beautiful and torn and… like a stranger.

    “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

    And then she was letting you go. It felt like a burn remained where her fingers released your wrist. Tapered heels clacked against the floorboards in the now empty bar, and whereas you couldn’t find her before, you were free to watch her leave. She headed for the door without so much as a backward glance, bursting through into the snow speckled wind.

         .♡.

    It felt like a dream. Or more like a bad dream. Not quite a nightmare but nothing pleasant you would try to cling to in the early hours of a morning to relish.

    Jennie tried to distract you in the same vein as apologize. She had nothing to apologize for, and really, you felt like you should be the one to say sorry, realizing later that Lisa had shoved Jennie out of her seat and away from you.

    It didn’t bother Jennie, and she didn’t hesitate to embrace you when she saw you next. There was a moment of mutuality, and then she was teaching you how to mix cocktails with Jisoo who had a day off and wanted to spend it with you both.

    Jisoo butchered yet another vibrant green lime with a knife she blamed poor maintenance of and so Jennie left to fetch a fresh batch when the door to the bar opened far earlier than any patrons dared to drink.

    A girl with pale pink hair and a cute, meek smile and a body molded like a model strode in, bouquet of summer flowers cradled in her arms. You had no time to ponder the appearance, even ask what she could be here for, before Jisoo was digging the tip of the blade she still held into the chopping board, and yes it was still sharp for how it gouged the weathered wood, but what rattled your spine was the look you had never seen twist Jisoo’s features in the slightest.

    “Get out.”

    The voice was not her own but it still came from Jisoo. It made you feel like you should leave, but she was clearly talking to the newcomer.

    “You don’t need to see her.”

    The smile on the girl’s face faltered, becoming wary, and then her eyes shifted from you and Jisoo to the return behind the bar.

    “Okay, I’m afraid to see you murder another poor —— Rosé…”

    Jennie’s hands must’ve gone numb as the small box of fetched limes fell from them and bounced across the floor. Neither you nor Jisoo moved to pick them up.

    “Hi,” Rosé murmured a sing-song voice, trying not to look at anyone else but Jennie. After a moment, she stepped forward, glancing at the bundle of flowers before lifting them up as if they couldn’t be seen. “These are for you.”

    Still, Jennie didn’t move a muscle. Jisoo chewed her lip until you were sure you saw blood dotting her white teeth, knife still clutched in her hands. You felt suspended, out of place. Rosé saw that Jennie didn’t budge so she took another brave step closer to the bar and set them down on the counter, patting where the cord tied them all together, and then retreated back a pace.

    It felt private, and so you removed the knife from Jisoo’s hand and replaced it with your own, forcing her to help you pick up the limes and then yourselves.

         .♡.

    The girl you came to familiarize as Rosé returned at random intervals. Sometimes with flowers to brighten the winter dull, sometimes with a coffee procured to Jennie’s exact taste after a long night, and then with movie tickets.

    Each time, Jennie grew softer. But never gave in. A quiet thank you for the gifts. A second of eye contact. The briefest of touches on their fingertips.

    “I can’t accept this,” Jennie said after she rebuffed the contact and the tickets. You stood to the side, wiping down the counter for her. At this point, you were an honorary employee who didn’t get paid. Not that you minded.

    “I knew you’d say that,” the pink-haired girl replied, tucking a wild lock behind her ear, a small smile on her lips. “That’s why I bought four.”

    That caught Jennie off-guard, and she spluttered out, “Four?”

    Rosé nodded excitedly. She had gotten braver over the visits, seeing you there with Jennie most of them, and she turned to you now to hold out a ticket she revealed hidden behind the rest. “Would you like to come? It wouldn’t be right without Jennie’s best friend there.”

    You opened your mouth to — accept? Decline? — glancing at Jennie for any sway in the decision.

    A gust of cool February air wafted your back. Before you could turn, you glimpsed the look on Jennie’s face morphing from confusion to concern, something else to focus on. Goosebumps prickled your arms.

    “Actually, I was hoping she could come with me.”

    Jennie was around the bar and at your side in a blink of an eye. Fingers prodded at the inside of your wrist, prepared to shield you, and it made your heart flutter. Or it could have been who was speaking.

    Lisa looked breathless, like she had run here. You knew it was because she was nervous. Knew it without even thinking about it.

    “I have four!” Rosé interjected, oblivious to the tension. She held them up, fanned for good measure, smiling brilliantly like it was the answer to all their problems. “I don’t think Jisoo would’ve come anyway, and if she did, it would’ve been to try and drown me in my coke.”

    You didn’t miss the fond tilt to Jennie’s eyes as she glanced at Rosé.

    “That could be fun,” Lisa said, fingers wringing together in front of her. Warm brown eyes gazed into yours, too intently, and it had to be because she didn’t want to see the way Jennie’s hand still rested loosely on yours at your side. “If that’s alright with you?”

    Your heart was in your throat. Why was she here now? You knew logically that you should say no, that you shouldn’t let her back into your life after she so willingly left it.

    What did you say you were to her — a coffee cup sleeve, picked apart and thrown away?

    You didn’t have to answer.

    “No.” Jennie was speaking, a hard line to her voice, cutting. It worked. It cut through Lisa and you saw it in how she practically sagged from the blow, the smile cracking. It hurt you still to see that. “You’ve done enough.”

    “Jennie,” Rosé chided, she too losing her enthusiasm. When she reached out to touch the bartender’s arm, Jennie jerked away, against you. Rosé recoiled like she had been shocked.

    “What’s going on?” Jennie snapped, a half-step in front of you. Both girls ahead of you appeared as though they had been simultaneously struck. “Did you plan this together?”

    “What? No!” Rosé immediately responded. She threw a glance at Lisa, growing perplexed, and then stepped closer, desperate. “I’m sorry, Jennie. I’m sorry! I’ll say it over and over again! I’m sorry I let what my parents wanted for me decide our relationship!” She held up the tickets in both hands. “I just want to see you. Please, please come to the movies. It doesn’t have to mean anything. I miss you.”

    In the background, Lisa flinched. She flinched again and again as Rosé clutched those stupid movie tickets and heard her spill her heart the way Lisa never dared, never tried, to you. You couldn’t look away.

    It wasn’t planned. Just a sick twist of fate that they were both here. And you were sure that Lisa would leave again. You saw it in the tight pull of her shoulders and the droop of her pouty lips and the raw skin around her nails as she picked and picked and picked —

    Rosé snatched her hand. Lisa’s eyes widened, glancing from Rosé, this stranger she had never seen, to you. Pleading.

    “I don’t know what this means for you,” Rosé addressed you now, dragging Lisa closer as you stared at the captured blonde. “And we didn’t plan this, I promise. But please, let me take you and Jennie and—” she stuttered to glance at the stranger’s hand she was clutching.

    “Lisa,” she supplied tightly, chest too tight for volume.

    “— and Lisa to the movies.”

    You failed to notice the nails that were scraping the back of your hand until this moment. Jennie was holding yours, and it was such a strange mirroring of the four of you.

    “Okay,” you rasped. You didn’t know why you said that, only that when you looked at Jennie, it did seem to be okay.

    What was more — Lisa looked ready to break. And she did, into a wide, watery smile. In the same breath as Rosé.

         .♡.

    pikachu⚡️💛     look behind u

    You and Jennie spared a look between yourselves before glancing over your respective shoulders. Across the movie theatre lobby stood a lone figure donning a plain grey sweatshirt, hood drawn up over a large pair of dark sunglasses. The only detail you knew it to be Jisoo was the heart-shaped lips, and as you both squinted at what she could possibly be doing, she slowly lifted a hand to press a fake moustache beneath her nose. Like it somehow made her more inconspicuous rather than ridiculous.

    It did make you laugh despite the jitters.

    jen bun-bun🍸🧡     how the fuck does that help???

    pikachu⚡️💛     lauren or whatever doesnt know what i look like but that other loser does

    pikachu⚡️💛     and itll be dark in the theatre so this is just to help

    jen bun-bun🍸🧡     if ur gonna be here ur gonna be nice

    jen bun-bun🍸🧡     or at least try to

    jen bun-bun🍸🧡     and its lisa and rose

    pikachu⚡️💛     right

    pikachu⚡️💛     the dumbasses who gave up two of the greatest people i know

    jen bun-bun🍸🧡     ur the dumbass wearing a fake stache

    You     that is falling off right now

    Jisoo gave up texting in order to fix her disguise on her face, and Jennie rolled her eyes before she was punching you in the arm, suddenly nervous.

    “She’s here.”

    The pale pink hair you had come to recognize was become more honeyed blonde as the days passed but it was still Rosé walking through the movie theatre doors and right pass Jisoo. You tried not to laugh again as Jisoo made a gesture like she was about to lunge out from the wall and stab her in the back.

    “Hi!” Rosé greeted the both of you, skipping to halt and taking the tickets from her cardigan pocket. She handed out two and then paused as she realized there was still another person missing, adorable brows furrowing. “Where’s Lisa? Is she buying snacks?”

    “She’s not here,” you responded emptily. Just as you thought, leaving you behind again. For what it was worth, the pain didn’t sink as deep as it would have in the past. Perhaps you were just becoming numbed. You waved a hand at Jennie and Rosé, adding, “You guys should get in line for the movie, I think I’m just gonna head home.”

    Rosé didn’t even look at Jennie as she darted forward, touching your arm gently like she was afraid to break you. “No, please! Still come to the movie, I don’t want you going home like this.”

    “I should’ve expected this,” you said, removing yourself from her touch even if it felt sincere and not like she needed a buffer between her and Jennie.

    “I’m coming with you,” Jennie chimed in, taking the steps to close the space between you.

    You stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “No, go see the movie. Rosé spent a lot of money on the tickets.” Rosé shook her head with a frown like it was nothing but didn’t try to interrupt. You still turned, giving Jennie a look that told her to stay before you did, and then started for the door.

    Jisoo was preparing to move from the wall and bar your hasty exit but you rooted to the spot anyway.

    Lisa flung open the door, unaware, busied with settling her hair from the wind and then smoothening her skirt. The way her lips were parted spelled out her breathlessness again, and her cheeks were flushed the same way you had seen them after a haunted house excursion.

    For whatever reason, Lisa was anxious.

    When her eyes lifted and caught sight of you, standing apart from the other two, she knew it meant that you had been about to leave. You watched idly, surprised — relieved — she had actually shown up, as Lisa hurried closer, a shaky smile forcing its way out. There was a stammer to her movement, in her hand, like she had been about to take yours but thought better of it and started picking at her cuticles again instead.

    There was fresh blood lining the nail bed.

    “I’m sorry I’m so late.” Lisa wasn’t really. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting.” Lisa had for a long time.

    “It’s okay,” you said anyhow. Lisa was here now.

    “Perfect!” Rosé exclaimed, beyond elated that the original plan was working. She bounced on the balls of her feet, handing over the last ticket that finally had Lisa playing with something other than her fingers. “Why don’t you three get in line and get some good seats, and I’ll try and get us some snacks before the previews are over?”

    “Allow me,” Lisa chirped. A gentle brush, as though she wanted to touch you under the guise of stepping by you, and the blonde was patting the other’s shoulder. “You’ve already bought the tickets, it’s only fair I split some of the costs.”

    “Hellooo,” Jennie jumped in, glaring at the two. “Do you think we can’t provide for ourselves? I make decent money.”

    The pair of taller girls gaped, trying to find the right words to say.

    pikachu⚡️💛     LET THEM PAY ITS THE LEAST THEY CAN DO!!!!!!!!! 😡😡😡😡😡

    “Okay, fine,” Jennie sighed, clicking her phone shut once more. “I want —”

    “— Sour Patch Kids! I remember,” Rosé finished, beaming.

    Jennie let a small smile pass. It was the kind that wanted to be bigger but she was holding back.

    Lisa, on the other hand, was fighting to keep from crumpling the ticket in her possession. It didn’t offend you that she didn’t jump at the ready to get you your favourite snack or display the same eagerness. It was enough that she was here at all.

    “I’ll come so you don’t have to carry everything yourself,” Rosé breezed over, a hand on Lisa’s elbow to guide her toward the snacks.

    “Let’s see if there’s any good seats left,” Jennie said as she looped an arm around your waist.

    There was an expanse of four seats situated near the back of the theatre that worked. The space was already dimmed and humming with hushed voices, the previews started but ignored by most. Without thinking, you sat beside Jennie, leaving a spare seat on either side, and again you shared a look to question whether this was smart or not. Jennie’s phone buzzed in beat with yours.

    pikachu⚡️💛     thanks for only leaving two rows between us Jerks

    You didn’t even have to look over your shoulder to know the moustached stranger two rows behind you was watching.

    A few minutes before the start of Wreck-It Ralph Breaks the Internet, Rosé and Lisa appeared. Their arms brimmed with snacks, Lisa balancing a tray of drinks on her forearm and Rosé hugging two large buckets of buttered popcorn. This time there was no containing the smiles from either you or Jennie as the others barely skipped a beat at the seating arrangement and separated.

    “Hi,” Lisa whispered, a genuine smile across her glossy mouth as she slunk her long limbs into the theatre chair and started passing out drinks. As she leaned to hand over Rosé’s, you swore a spark flitted in the close proximity of your bodies, and Lisa’s eyes fell to yours. Like she felt it too. Then she was saying low enough only you could hear, “You smell nice.”

    “Thanks, I showered.” It was a joke, one you both had used back in the early days of your fling.

    Lisa giggled and there was no stopping your heart thudding against your ribcage.

    The movie started, and the time passed slowly. It was funny and cute, a good decision on Rosé’s part, but you couldn’t quite grasp it when all that occupied your mind was Lisa.

    One hand held her drink, high enough that she could chew on her straw. Her other hand, the one on your side, remained in her lap. Even without her other hand, Lisa fumbled, picking at the side of her thumb or using her thumb to pick at the rest. They weren’t bleeding yet, no dark colours spreading over the tips, but you didn’t want them to start.

    Couldn’t bear to.

    You swallowed around the knot in your throat, and without removing your eyes from the blurred screen, you willed your hand to not shake as you reached over and threaded your fingers through the pliant ones you sought.

    Effectively stopping the restless pick, pick, pick.

    Lisa didn’t look away. Even in your peripheral, you could see the grin curl wide on her lips. The hand in yours tightened, and didn’t let go.

    You didn’t want to let go.

         .♡.

    The movie night went without incident, and Jisoo texted the group chat that she quite enjoyed the movie. That was ironic, considering Rosé had to sporadically turn and try to find just who it was in the crowd that kept carelessly tossing Sno Caps, managing to hit her in the head each time.

    Lisa had asked if she could escort you home. It ended up with her asking Jennie’s permission, who finally allowed it after giving a look that said more than any threat could.

    A hailed cab ride home and your heart was back in your throat, wondering quietly what would happen once you reached your apartment door. A neighbour passed in the hallway and the best you could offer was tight-lipped smile before you were coming to an end at your entry mat.

    Turning around, Lisa took a last step. The entire night, the only touch had been the hands you held during the movie and nothing else. Even now, the distance was respectable, Lisa not wanting to invade. How strange it all felt now when there had been so many nights that resulted in a much different entrance across the threshold.

     You weren’t sure where to start.

    “How’s…” and you suddenly noticed you never caught the name of the man Lisa had been dating. You swallowed and finished, “whatever his name is?”

    Lisa blinked. Opened her mouth and then closed it and then opened it again.

    “I ended things with him.” It was said like it had been obvious.

    “When?” Your shoes were much more interesting then, finding it hard to keep looking up at her.

    “New Year’s,” she said softly. “I didn’t want to start the year with a lie.”

    Butterflies alit in your stomach but you didn’t let them show.

    “Did you think I would be here if I was still with him?” The inflection of her voice was crafted carefully, without any accusations. If anything, it sounded hurt but only a little. Maybe she couldn’t keep it out.

    “I don’t know.”

    I don’t know you.

    “I’m sorry.”

    The dangerous waver in her words lifted your head. Lisa’s eyes were closed, chin bowed. Your heart was breaking in a way that was different than the last.

    “I didn’t say it before,” she continued. “But I’m sorry. I’m really so fucking sorry.” Each word was becoming more jagged. “I was so scared. I couldn’t control what I was feeling, what was happening, and I knew if I didn’t do something to stop it that I was going to fall in love with you. I was so stupid. I was so stupid because even after I tried everything I could to feel in control, I knew I made a mistake. I couldn’t keep lying to myself, to everyone. To you.”

    Those same fingers started their picking of her nails again. This time, they did start to bleed. You noticed too late that you were crying as you reached out to take her hands, stop them from hurting herself. You had believed that she had torn you apart like a play thing in her reckless hands but now you knew it was simply because she didn’t know how to hold onto you.

    Before you, Lisa was tearing herself apart, piece by piece.

    “I’m in love with you and I shouldn’t have tried to stop it,” Lisa cried, breaths short and sharp. Eyes still closed as the tears leaked from beneath long lashes. “I didn’t know how to make it better and I didn’t know if you’d ever want to see me again. I — I didn’t know what to do.”

         .♡.

too scared of what she’ll see, somebody holding me

    Lisa saw it all.

    Through the frosted window panes, the love of her life drowning in drinks of clear liquid, presumably so that when the tears fell inside, no one could tell.

    Between the Christmas costumes and decorations, the love of her life kissed over and over on the cheek until the red lipstick smeared and the laughter was for someone else.

    Before her, the love of her life kissing another, prettier woman whose touch was gentle and intimate and everything Lisa should have been.

    Lisa saw it all.

    Lisa lost control.

         .♡.

    Sheets tangled in your legs. You tried to kick them away and kicked someone else instead.

    You startled in bed, peeking through bleary eyes at the soft glow of sunlight dripping down the wall from curtains and then at the person beside you.

    Lisa was still asleep, honey hair splayed across her pillow. It took you a moment to remember that you had only fallen asleep together, unwilling to let her go home alone but wanting nothing more than to be in her arms again. The strap of your camisole you lent her had slipped over her jutting shoulder, and you took a steadying breath as you tenderly slid it back into place on her collarbone.

    Your fingertips lingered, replaying the memory of the few times you had been gifted this rare time to watch her.

    In the past, you wondered how many more times you were going to be allowed this before it all went away.

    The pillow felt plush and welcoming as you settled back against it. You could be late to work this morning. You wanted this. To hold onto it for as long as you could. Who knew when it would all end?

    Sooner than you thought. Lisa stirred, sensing your gaze, lifting lanky arms to rub at her face. Then she was turning, finding you, smiling happily, shuffling closer to wrap you up flush against her.

    Something was ending, that was for sure.

    But something new lied in the wake.

[letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked]

Words On My Skin (Part 12)

Bucky Barnes x Reader Soulmate AU

A/N: Thank you all for the wonderful feedback (even if the last part shocked a lot of you)! I love comments, replies, asks, messages, etc. They make me want to write so much more! I posted this early, since I’m going up north this weekend! (I go every weekend, basically. LOL)

Warnings: Unedited and angsty.

Main Masterlist // WOMS Masterlist

 Tears streamed down your face, dripping off your nose while you scrubbed. The smell of green apple dish soap permeated the air as you furiously scrubbed the – already clean – shelf of the fridge that you’d ripped out. The food was in large coolers, so they wouldn’t go bad while you stress cleaned the entire kitchen.

Your hands trembled, stress causing your heart to race and heat your face. You quickly rinsed off the suds to lay the shelf on the drying rack, thoughts in hyperdrive. You grabbed the second shelf, shoving your hands in the scalding water to wet your scrubber and harshly scrub at a small spot where some yogurt had leaked out onto the glass. The pressure of your grip nearly snapped the glass shelf as the memories of what had just happened replayed over and over in your head.

After Bucky had stormed from the kitchen, leaving you with your mother, while you stared at where he’d rounded the corner.

Oh… god.

“I cannot believe the nerve of that man!” Your mother huffed out incredulously, breaking you from your despair. Replacing it with anger. “He should’ve never been allowed back into society. I knew he’d be nothing but trouble when he was allowed to join this team. He’s nothing but a menace.”

You stopped, ears ringing while your jaw tensed hard enough to hear a small pop. “What?” Your voice was laced with venom as you whipped around, fists clenched in fury. “Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?”

“Excuse me? Watch your tone with me.” She snapped, raising a perfectly plucked eyebrow at you. “That man yelled at your mother, and you didn’t even defend me. You just watched, whining like a toddler, while he got in my face.”

Is she for real? Is she fucking delusional?

“While he… Are you kidding me? You got in his face and accused him of domestic violence!” You cried, voice cracking at the end. “He’s been nothing but kind to me! He’s the kindest, gentlest, and most caring person I’ve ever met in my life!”

“He has you brainwashed, darling.” She scoffed, shaking her head. Her face was soft with condescending sweetness. “You’re too naive. I knew I should’ve raised you to be more like me.”

“Thank fucking god you didn’t!” You scrubbed at your face with your hands, trying to remove all traces of tears. “You’ve done nothing but beat me down, force me on a path I didn’t want, ruin any relationship I ever had, force me into a diet I didn’t want… I never want to be like you.” You couldn’t even think. You wanted to give her a list of all the awful things she’d ever done to you, but your mind was reeling so bad that you couldn’t even comprehend what you wanted to say to her. “I had to be in fucking therapy because of how you raised me!”

“Oh, here we go!” She threw her hands up, rolling her eyes. She crossed her arms over her chest, face flushing with anger. “You’re always the victim, aren’t you? God, darling, you’re so dramatic. I raised you a million times better than I was raised. You think you had it bad? I don’t ever remember you complaining when I was giving you money, a home, and proper schooling. You’re so ungrateful! I’ve done nothing but teach you-”

“Teach me?” You screamed, taking a step towards her. You’d finally snapped. Holy shit. You’d never spoken to your mother like that, before. “I knew nothing when I left! I had no money, no place to live, no knowledge of the real world… I couldn’t even fucking support myself! You made me dependent on you!” You felt the tears welling up, again, as twenty six years of anger finally bubbled over the metaphorical pot. “You were so concerned about having the perfect daughter, that you made me hate you! I fucking hate you!”

You took a breath, trying to steady your voice. “Bucky is one of the best things to ever happen to me, and you fucked it up. You had to know that there was a reason I didn’t tell you I’d met my soulmate. It’s because I knew. I fucking knew! I knew you’d ruin it, just like you ruined me!”

“You-”

“No! You’re going to shut the fuck up and let me fucking speak, now.” You cut her off, taking another step forward and pointing a finger at her. You could still feel Bucky’s residual hurt and anger, powering your own. “He’s my soulmate. He’s always going to be my soulmate, and you hurt him. I won’t fucking stand for that. You can terrorize me with your condescending tone and rude comments, but I will not let you accuse my soulmate - the man that I fucking love - of abuse!”

You watched her eyebrows raise, but you continued on. “He has tried so hard to become a better man and fight the soldier in himself. I’ve seen people stare at him, judge him, call him names… But you know what I’ve seen him do? I’ve seen him talk to children, I’ve seen him hold doors for people, donate to charities, give his food to homeless people, fight for peace… I’ve seen him do more of an effort to be good than any other human being on the planet. You think I deserve better? Well, you’re wrong. He deserves better. He has always deserved better than he got.”

She closed her eyes, pinching her nose in frustration. “I’m trying to protect you. You don’t see-”

“No, mother. You don’t see.” The tears spilled over, again. Leaving trails down your cheeks as you gulped down the lump in your throat. “You aren’t protecting me. You’re protecting your image. Just as you’ve always done. Even if it pushed me away.”

“I’ve done everything for you.” She sighed, removing her hand from her face and standing straighter, “You’ll never understand how much I’ve done for you. I am the way I am to make you better than I could ever be.”

“I don’t want you to make me better.” You wiped under your face, pain starting to numb you. “I want you to be my mom.”

She shook her head, turning to grab her purse from the table, a long exhale from her nose being the only noise in the kitchen. After a moment, she replied: “I’ll see myself out.”

“Mom.” You sagged in defeat, sliding down to the floor and leaning your back against the kitchen island. “Mom, please.”

She ignored you, heels clicking against the hard floors as she made her way around the corner – where Bucky had taken his exit minutes prior.

Fuck…

After sitting on the floor for a few moments, the stupid kettle started screaming, and sent you into ‘clean the kitchen from top to bottom’ mode.

Your life might be a mess… but at least the kitchen wouldn’t be.

You finished scrubbing the stupid shelf, attempting to transfer it to the other basin of the sink where you were rinsing, but the damn thing slipped from your fingers. A number of expletives flew from your mouth, loudly, as it fell to the tiled floor – crashing upon impact. The shards spread like droplets of water in a splash, tinkling against the stupid floor and looking impossible to clean up.

Big pieces first, then use a piece of bread to get the small shards.

You bent down, trembling hand moving too fast as you went to pick up the largest shard.

“Motherfucker.” You hissed, a sharp sting starting from the palm of your hand and radiating up your arm. “Fuck me.” You – stupidly – brought your hand up to cradle near your chest, staining your tee shirt with blood.

You slid to the floor, slipper-clad feet scraping the glass away as you fall to the tiled floor. A sob escaped before you could control yourself. Your breath came out in short gasps, as you drew your knees to your chest and cradled your hand between your thighs and chest.

Fuck… was this a breakdown?

Why the hell were you so upset? Bucky was the one who deserved to be upset. Your mother was the one who had insulted him, called him a monster, and completely rejected him… You could still feel him through the bond. Do you really want him to feel you through the bond? You need to calm the hell down.

You started working on your breathing, trying to count your inhales and exhales like you usually did. Inhale for five seconds through your nose, and out through your mouth for five seconds. Slowly. Your palm was throbbing in pain, so you decided to focus on that while steadying your breathing.

You heard the water shut off in the sink, and footsteps crunching through the glass slowly.

You ignored whoever was there, continuing your breathing and pressing your thumb against the small slash in your palm. You heard a small huff, as the person attempts to slowly lower themselves down next to you and sit.

“‘Being above the threshold of perception of a stimulus.’”

Tony?

“What?” You croaked, lifting your head slightly to wipe your face with the neck of your tee shirt. “Tony?”

“That’s my next vocab word.” He shrugged, crisscrossing his legs while avoiding glass. He held out a dark red handkerchief with a monogram of his initials in the corner. “Want to help a guy out?”

“Oh…” You take the cloth with a trembling, bloody hand. You pressed it to your hand with a sharp hiss, closing your eyes until the sting lessened. “Supraliminal.”

“Subliminal?”

“No,” You shook your head, leaning your head back against the counter. “That’s when you’re not aware of something affecting your brain. Like coloring in a movie. You don’t realize the impact of dark colors affecting your mood during a sad scene.” You sniffed, feeling much calmer than you did minutes before. “It’s unconscious.”

“Oh… makes sense.” He nodded, typing on his watch for a moment.

“Why are you on the floor?” You asked, eyebrows pulling together. “There’s glass.”

“Why are you on the floor?”

“I dropped the stupid fucking shelf from the fridge while washing it.”

He snorted, flicking a small piece of glass of his leather shoe. “Well, Natasha told me she heard the argument from the living room.” He gestured to the hall on the other side of the kitchen, “She heard the meltdown, too. She came to get me when she saw you sobbing over the sink.” He grabbed your injured hand to assess it, removing the small cloth. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened.” You lied, looking down to where his fingers were prodding at your cut. “It’s nothing.”

“That’s the biggest crock of shit I’ve heard come from your mouth.”

“I technically work for you guys.” You sighed, shaking your head and leaning your head back to stare at the ceiling. “This is completely unprofessional.”

“You also live here.” He pointed out, not looking up at you but wrapping your hand back up with the blood-stained cloth. “Plus… I’d like to think we’re all friends. You’re a huge part of our team. You kind of made us dependent on you. You’re too good at your job.”

“Bucky said that, too.” You chuckled, the feeling of anger dissipating the longer you talked to him. “He told me that I could come to you guys with anything. That you guys would be there for me, just like I’m there for you.”

“I hate to agree with him, but I agree with him.” Tony replied, letting your hand go. “You don’t have to be worried about talking to us.” He suddenly snorted, turning to you with a small smile. “Never thought I’d be telling somebody with a bachelor’s in counseling to talk to somebody.”

“I’ve developed the bad habit of wanting to help other people face their issues, versus facing my own.” You sighed, chewing on your lip for a moment. “It’s pretty common, actually.”

“I would know.” He mimicked your position, head back against the cupboards and fingers tapping on his knees to a random rhythm. “I do it all the time.” He turned, looking at you closely, “Do you want to talk about your nightmares?”

“How do you-”

“Oh, please.” He waved you off, rolling his eyes. “We all have nightmares. We know the signs.” He bit his lip for a moment, thinking hard for a moment before continuing. “Did you know that, before my house was destroyed in L.A, I had a nightmare so vivid that one of my suits tried to attack Pepper?” He let out a long exhale, ceasing his tapping. “I wasn’t talking to anybody about my nightmares. I wasn’t letting anybody help me, even though everyone knew I needed it.”

“Accepting the fact that you need the help is the hardest part.” You pinched the bridge of your nose, headache coming on from all the previous crying. Just… tell him. He understands. “They started after the attack.”

He nodded, waiting for you to continue.

So, you did. You told him about the nightmares, and about your meltdown in the gun range. You told him about how the monster in your dream changed to the face of your father. The change had scared you, because you never hated your father. Not like your mother… You told him about how your father just… stopped being there for you. How he stopped acting like a dad, and more as a person who was just… there.

He talked about his relationship with his parents, as well, and how he reacted when his parents had died in the car accident. You knew a little about what really happened, from what Bucky had admitted once you had both started opening up to each other, but you never heard Tony talk about his parents. Ever. He would make silly little jokes – or jabs about his father’s personality – but he never actually talked about them.

It made you realize that you both had more in common than you’d initially thought.

You’d both had rough childhoods.

When you recapped the fight, you watched as Tony’s face shifted from empathetic to stony.

“She thinks he’s abusing you?” He finally asked, after you finished talking, butt starting to hurt from sitting on the hard floor, “I’ll admit that Bucky and I have our… problems… but I don’t believe that he would ever intentionally hurt you. Ever. I think that man would rather me blow off both of his arms, than ever see you hurt.” He shook his head in disappointment, exhaling slowly through his nose. “You weren’t here before, so you wouldn’t know, but he’s changed. A lot.”

“I don’t doubt that.” You agreed, hurt still lingering through the bond as you traced the intricate lettering of your tattoo. “Though he hasn’t told me everything… He’s told me about how he was after you guys found him. He told me how closed-off he was, and he blames himself for a lot of the shit that has happened.”

“It was a big fight.” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Those were complicated times. The government was trying to pass The Accords, Steve found him in Bucharest, everyone was gunning for arrests and trying to take control… it was a lot of high emotions for every party involved.”

“I’m just happy that it’s all in the past and everyone was able to come to an agreement.” Your lips lifted into a small smile, “Though… it makes paperwork a bitch.”

“Why do you think we hired an assistant?” He snorted, tapping away on the screen of his watch. “We hate paperwork.”

“Believe me, I know.”

“Well,” He grunted, starting to stand from the floor, “I need to get off this hard floor. My back is killing me. We should’ve had this little pow-wow in the living room, so we could sit comfortably.”

You grasped his hands as he pulled you off the floor, your back cracking in response, “I agree… though, I didn’t exactly know that I was going to be on the floor for-” You looked down at your watch, eyebrows raising in shock, “Three hours.”

“Time flies when you’re having a heart to heart.”

“Don’t I know it.” You groaned, hips screaming in protest as you stretched out. You glanced at the floor, grimacing at all the shards of glass littering the tiles. “I have to clean this up.”

“Go clean yourself up.” He gestured to your hand, which had stopped bleeding but was covered in crusted blood. “I’ll call the cleaners to fix this up and order a new shelf for the fridge.”

“Are you sure? I can do that.” You insisted, stepping away from the glass to go find a broom. “I made the mess.”

“What happened to letting people help you?”

Fuck. He was right.

“Thank you, Tony.” You smiled, clean hand grasping his forearm in thanks. “I feel a lot better.”

“No problem, kid.” He patted your hand, before tapping away on his watch, again, and heading towards the elevator. “Now, go talk to your soulmate.”

God, you needed to see him.

Part 13

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

DON’T FORGET: Sunday is the last day to submit your masterlist/fic for my 2K Follower Celebration! 

For those who don’t know what I’m talking about: for my 2K follower celebration, I am celebrating you guys! So send me your masterlist and/or fics via message or ask, and I will add them to the list! Also, read them! 

If you’re an avid reader, like me, you can submit your favorite fics to me, too! Anything to help other writers!

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

Forever Tags (OPEN):

@bettercallsabs @itsanerdlife @luckynumber1213 @sassyandclassyx @mrsnegan25 @impossiblepizzapeace @glitterquadricorn @pigwidgexn  @iamnothereimnotlistening @saltymaddiee @ladyxred @pabegay1 @kgbrenner @nataliehasgrace @mellorine-paprika @i-just-wanna-run-hell @igiveupicantthinkofausername @goshdarnitthatsalongname @trashimaginezblog  @ssweet-empowerment @thefridgeismybestie @wildefire @httpmcrvel @geeksareunique @whatmakesmebeme-tblr @breezy1415 @saltyy-fresh @artemis521 @usetheforce3434 @aparadoxsstuff @iamwarrenspeace @gaining-confidence-for-life @come-with-me-and-imagine @courtneychicken @impalatobakerstreet @tbetz0341 @softlysgtbarnes @castellandiangelo @churchs-little-girl @sophiealiice @jurassicjosie @punkrockhufflefluff @thatoneboredkidhelp @riseabovetheexpectations @revivedrumble @cordelia-sagewright @readeity @fuckthatfeeling @greeneyedsuccubunny @theglowstickofdestiny @krazyk99 @demonspawn2468 @randomfangirl101things @iamzion-therealhabesha @wildlingsandcoffee @the-criminal-soldier @purpstraw @daynight-dreamer-stuff @wordlesscaptain @ilovetvshowsblog @a--1--1--3

WOMS Tags (OPEN):

@fangirlinacoffeeshopweshare @lucky-fic-recs @st0onehearted @artemis521 @darkheartvamp @buckyflippinbarnes @sawdustandsugar @lovemarvelousfics @jadepc @importanttimemachinenerd @sebtrashcan-stan @markusstraya @redcresent @bookdragonhere @shitty-imagines-95 @i-honestly-don’t-care-anymore @crazybutconfidentialaf @901seconds @slender--spirit @loving-life-my-way @wantingtobekorra @sebastianstandoms @polarbearnamedpanda @learisa @1stladyofhell @lovemarvelousfics @what-the-heck-life @bowties-and-wallflowers @fandoms-who @writing-in-winter @bitchy-ginger-1 @vechkinfan @amidblogger @iamwhoidecidetobe @winterquicksilver @bluethingsandmagic @artistic22dragon @ineedsleep-help @beckieandhertardis @mala-firebringer @this-is-happening @creation-magician @rosep16 @caticorndancingonrainbows @lovethroughthemiles @carrietoddrick @reallyfuckingangrylatina @vxidnik @attentionseekingprincess @charlotteannvogt @marvelouspottering @buckyssxxhair @absolukeyrh @tiasun897 @youtxbemusic @viioletdelights @part-time-patronus @falloutboywifey @drinkingwhileblogging @scarecrowsragdoll @elizabeth-rose771 @unicorntrooper @avenisselina @growingupnrealizing @rainbowkisses31 @darkblueeyedperson @buckysrcse @ani808 @cutiepiemimi13 @mariekoukie6661 @embarrassinqly @whatthe-forck @sweetboybucky @bookluver01 @yellow--springs @mad4oak @itsjustjackieg @emilylovesmusic14 @flourescent-light @fallenaristocat @niall2017 @imfuckingnoone @classy-sassy-enjolrassy @aekr @idakohlen @tildaharoldsegna @coffee-laced-with-poison @lilmissperfectlyimperfect @wordsonapagexoxo @iamtrashsry @reddiebichie @lanavintagez @love-you-more-than-starlight @meganpringles8 @ptvrnike @a-d-d-i-s-o-n-z @skiemi @lynnskata @introverted03tiff @musicfreak180 @paprika0437 @4-a-m @thatonelittlerose @thorslovechild @n7siha @fadingculturemuffin @stonecold-witharmheart @bucky-to-my-barnes @zombienaomi @uwu-sebastianstan @the-crime-fighting-spider @maddieisaacs @arrow-barton

[404botnotfound]

Deliverance [2]

Careful when you’re swimming in the holy water.

SERIES: Far Cry 5 WORD COUNT: 7,557 SHIP: Quinn/John Seed CHARACTERS: quinn leonis, john seed, eli palmer, wheaty, jacob seed

HERE TAKE THIS IM SICK OF LOOKING AT IT

It had never been apparent to her just how debilitating losing her sense of time’s passage could be until now.

She imagines it’s been weeks since she’d fled the Whitetail Mountains, but between the lack of sunlight and the hours that crept by so slowly they felt like days instead she had no idea how much time she’d been stuck here in the cell she’d been thrown in after the baptism John had performed on her.

Part of her still found that amusing. She’d been raised Catholic (her mother’s insistence, not her father’s), and that meant she’d effectively been baptized twice. It’s not technically unusual and she knows people sometimes chose to have another, but it wasn’t something she would have ever chosen herself—she hadn’t been any semblance of religious since her pre-teens.

A breath is huffed out as she lowers herself on bent arms, chest almost brushing the ground before she pushes herself back up again.

For the first time since escaping Jacob’s clutches Quinn can feel herself regaining the strength and good health she’d had before her initial capture in the mountains. Being stuck in a cage once again was hardly a great feeling (dehumanizing, at best) but unlike his older brother John seemed to actually give somewhat of a damn about keeping her healthy. It was probably some kind of manipulation tactic, but she could hardly complain about not starving and having a cot to sleep on rather than the ground.

Whether or not that applied to his other prisoners, she wasn’t sure.

It was slow going and she knows she won’t be back to peak health for a while, but she was on her way and that was good enough for her. The degrading health had been the worst aspect of her time with Jacob—not the starvation itself or the deplorable conditions they were all kept in or even the mind-fuckery, but the fact that she could feel herself weakening with every day that passed.

His methods hadn’t made any sense to her while there; what was the point of trying to train soldiers when you were keeping them too weak to so much as throw a halfway decent punch?

She’d gotten John to clarify it a bit after she’d discovered that once he’d found out she gave as good as she got in wordplay he could be sufficiently distracted from pulling her metaphorical—hopefully metaphorical—teeth.

(maybe she’d batted her eyelashes a few times and maybe Jacob’s demeaning question of if she abused flirting to get her way all the time drifted into her head whenever she did, maybe Jacob Seed could go fuck himself)

Jacob’s game was deprivation of sustenance and rest, keeping the ‘trainees’ weak and demoralized until they were physically and mentally pliable enough to push and twist in the direction he wanted. Classical conditioning. Pure psychological warfare confirmed.

There wasn’t any comfort in having her suspicions validated; it had almost made her less comforted when she again heard a faint echo of come home, kitten whisper through her mind like a passing breeze.

The cat and mouse games her and John had started up from the moment he first strapped her to the chair in his workshop was something she hadn’t expected to get away with, but he’d actually seemed to enjoy it—at least in the beginning. His patience for it had begun to wear thin, if his increased threats and agitation as the days passed were anything to go by.

Though she managed to dig a few more things out of him during their ‘sessions’, he was talented at swerving around questions and idle comments that would have given her something to actually work with; in itself, that was telling. He’d probably been in a white-collar profession judging by the well-kempt appearance and intelligence, but that assumption had a wrench thrown in it every time he slipped and let the monster of Wrath loose.

Jacob had been easier to read even considering the cool and distant demeanor. Posture and vernacular said military career, careful speech patterns spoke of both intelligence and pointed restraint, and Darwinian beliefs combined with the classical conditioning he was employing meant he was well-read and clever.

John, on the other hand, switched gears so frequently and with such ease that whenever she thought she had a grasp on him it slipped through her fingers. All she knew about him was that she didn’t know a Goddamn thing about him. One minute he played the calm, considerate man of God and the next he was the embodiment of rage and hate, another he was charismatic and likeable, and the next he was a grotesque caricature of a human being.

They had to have been masks, but the question of which one was the true John Seed remained. Were they just techniques to bend people the way he wanted them to bend, simply more subtle than the closed-fist punch of Jacob’s? A way to drag out the answers he wanted to hear from the people he brought into what amounted to a torture room?

Whatever it was, it was effective—some days she’d seen him pry a confession out of a begging victim before he’d even begun to cut and carve into them.

If she thought about it long enough those confessions actually seemed to aggravate him and she couldn’t put a finger on why, since it was confessions he was after in the first place.

The sadism combined with the chameleon nature of his personality made it easy to ignore the stories of his childhood that she overheard him impart to his victims (and to her, once) as well as the sympathy they dredged up in her, but there was something raw to his anger every time the people he interrogated refused to play by his rules. He would insist that he was trying to help them, that he could free them from the bonds of lies and sin, and why were they fighting that freedom?

Psychotic behavior at its finest, but how much of that was true disposition, and how much of it was a direct result of upbringing, provided those horrific stories were true?

A grunt of exertion leaves her mouth with another push-up; she needs to stop psychoanalyzing the bastard, she knew, but there wasn’t really much else for her to do while she was stuck here waiting for her turns in that chair.

Humming and singing tunes when she was left alone with the rusty smell of blood and phantom screams seeping from the walls around her was her only other pastime aside from trying to pick apart the brain of a madman like she’d been trained to do back at Quantico. Sleeping too much just gave her headaches, and though exercising to the best of her ability gave her something to do it really didn’t do much to stop her from thinking and thinking and overthinking.

Maybe the Rolling Stones had it right, she muses, a strained hum of a familiar tune about sympathizing with the devil leaving her mouth as she continues her routine.

At least she was getting practical experience she could boast about if—when—she got the chance to appeal for her badge.

She wonders if Stevie was having any more luck with figuring out how to stop the Seeds while she counted out her repetitions; so far, she’d had no luck staying away from the bastards long enough to even breathe.

Pausing with her body flat to the ground as the unmistakable, skin-prickling sensation of being watched hits her, she purses her lips.

Wordlessly she resumes, not happy with the burn she was beginning to feel telling her she wasn’t going to be able to do much more. Her captivity with Jacob had taken more out of her than she had realized. “What is it with you boys and staring? It’s fucking rude.”

Sure enough, the voice that responds is exactly the one she expects, preceded first by a disapproving tsk. “That Pride of yours again. Hadn’t you thought that, maybe, I was just waiting for you to finish?”

“I know the feeling of eyes on my back, John.” She replies, her next push-up more strained and slow than the rest; she was shaking with the effort now. “I also know the feeling of eyes on my ass.” With a heavy sigh she pushes herself up to her feet to stretch, lamenting that she’d barely counted half of what she’d been capable of before coming to Hope County.

Baby steps.

John scoffs at the accusation as he crosses the floor towards her. “Every day you make me more certain of the sin my brother suggested you suffered from.”

“Oh, I’m not suffering from it.” Her back pops nicely when she stretches upward as best as she can with the low ceiling of her cell. “You seem to be taking a hell of a lot longer to commit to mine than any of the other victims of your insanity here. Why the delay in mutilating me?”

Not that she wants it—fuck, it’s the last thing she wants.

“Because you have to willingly acknowledge it. You have to want to atone for your sin. You have to say yes.” He says, and she lifts an eyebrow at his failure to deny the mutilation comment. Considering his convictions—otherwise decent—she’d have expected him to defend his methods.

Her shoulder begins to ache, aggravated by her exercising in spite of the injury he’d given her by tipping the chair she’d been bound to over in a rage. She rolls it, folds her arms over her chest, and then in a completely deadpan voice says: “No.”

The change is immediate; he steps closer to her cell, fury in every hard line of his body.

She goes rigid. It’s a miracle she manages to not step away in reflex, but her knuckles go white where they grip her upper arms and she has to swallow the sudden stone in her throat.

John was nowhere near as physically imposing as Jacob was but his unpredictability made him every bit as dangerous—not that her constant and conscious attempts to provoke him were doing her any favors in that regard. Stop playing with fire, Quinn.

Their tense staring contest is broken by him first, and she watches as he storms over to the workbench she’d grown painfully familiar with in the last few days as he lost patience for her glib attitude and games. With an angry roar he places his hands on the edge of the bench and shoves, tipping it over and sending it crashing to the floor. All the tools stacked and lined up on its surface clatter to the ground and either roll or bounce away.

Her eyes are wide as she stares at the workbench. Silently she scratches out her previous mental assessment of his physical capability; clearly, his lean frame was deceptive.

Then a quiet ting near her feet catches her attention and she looks down, blinking at the sight of a thin screwdriver that had rolled from the bench and bumped into the bars of her cell. Adrenaline pulses through her veins at the sight and she quickly lifts her eyes back to John, schooling her features and praying he wouldn’t notice it lying there. Please, for once, let my luck turn out in my favor.

He doesn’t turn away from the workbench immediately, but once he’s apparently collected himself he returns to her, smile all teeth. “This could be so much easier if you just bared your Pride and let me free you from it.” He hisses.

“I already told you,” she says carefully, licking her lips and not missing the way his expression flickers and eyes follow the motion, “I’m not interested in being saved and I’m definitely not interested in baring myself to you.”

Wait—fuck.

She wastes half a second hoping he didn’t notice the accidental entendre, but the way his fury is fully doused and replaced by a heat of a different kind has her swearing a blue streak internally. He leans forward, hands on the bars of her cell and expression now an open leer. “My, my, Agent, where did your mind go just now?”

Oh, no, he was not going to stick her with the Scarlet fucking Letter. “Get bent you son of a bitch.”

“And Wrath makes an appearance as well! My dear, you must have a lot to own up to that’s just aching to come out.” He laughs, and her skin prickles. “I could help you with that. You just. Have to. Say. Yes.”

Christ, he’d circled through about half a dozen personalities and attitudes within the span of just five minutes—whether she’d been napping in the dirt and starving or not, she was starting to miss Jacob. At least he was consistent.

Her mouth opens, scathing comment ready to go, but before she can get the words out there’s a hiss of loud static from the two-way attached to his belt. “John. You there?” Gooseflesh ripples over her skin and she shivers, recognizing Jacob’s voice and trying not to wonder what the odds were that he’d contact John right after she’d thought about him.

The smile on John’s face drops and his jaw ticks; without breaking eye contact he reaches for the radio and clicks the receiver. “I’m busy, brother.”

“Stop being busy.” Jacob says, and Quinn has to chew on her lip to keep the mild laughter that bubbles in her throat from the flat disregard in his voice. “You’ve got a problem heading in your direction.”

A lightness settles in her chest at Jacob’s words that she fights to keep from showing; the only real problem the Cult had been dealing with in recent events, so far as what she’d heard from Eli and the Whitetails, was one determined as hell and very pissed off Stevie Brewin, who had in just two months managed to light a fire under the local Resistance’s ass.

John stares at her for a long moment before finally stepping back, pointing at her with the antenna of the radio and smiling easily. “I have business to take care of, it seems—don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”

She says nothing, watching him with sharp eyes while he leers at her and hoping that karma would smack him in the face in the form of tripping over one of the tools he’d sent scattered across the floor while walking backwards. When he finally turns away, unfortunately skipping the delightful opportunity for schadenfreude, she listens to his footsteps fade away as he disappears down a stairwell beyond a grated dividing wall.

There was no way for her to tell if he’d just been fucking with her by saying he’d return, but either way she was going to be balancing a fine line here. If she waited too long, she risked running into him on his way back, and if she didn’t wait long enough she risked running into him before he’d even really left.

She won’t let herself consider he wasn’t planning on going far at all and she’d have nowhere to slip past him anyway.

Tense as a board she counts out two minutes before scrambling for the fallen screwdriver at the foot of her cell and then setting to work on forcing the lock on the door open. It’s a long shot, but in a relieving upturn of her luck it works.

Resisting the urge to toss the tool away and just book it, she instead slowly slides the door open and gently sets it aside. There’s a knife on the floor ahead of her, tossed along with all of John’s other tools, and she quickly snatches it up. There was one other door in the room opposite the direction he’d left in, but it’s locked fast and requires some kind of key—one that John probably kept on his person rather than floating around.

Unhappy about it, she turns and follows after John.

The landing at the bottom of the stairs leads to an industrial room like his workshop, this one packed with crates and shelves of stored tools and supplies. All of it was stark and military in appearance, an orderly form of chaos, adding to her confusion as to where in the hell she was; this hardly seemed like the kind of place a man like John with his fancy shirts and designer shades would willingly spend time in.

It sort of made sense considering his clear and disturbing fondness for torture, but that left the supplies—she doubted he needed so many just for getting his rocks off by cutting a few people open. Her gut feeling said that, no, this place had nothing to do with John’s extracurricular activities.

There’s an open door up ahead, blocked by a cultist looking out into the hall beyond; she waits, watching and hoping she didn’t plan on standing there until John returned. Luckily, she turns around and Quinn quickly doubles back, ducking under a shelf at a near-crawl and bypassing the unaware cultist entirely.

Exposed pipes, stark metal, and solid concrete walls that almost reminded her of manufacturing facilities and laboratories, hoses and power wires crisscrossing the floors, and a few open pipes large enough for her to crouch and move through to dodge more cultists all became familiar sights to her as she moves through the facility quietly and unseen.

A lot of the Peggies were working, packing away boxes and taking inventory of their contents, moving equipment into different rooms and occasionally stopping to gossip about their boss. Much as she’d like to stop and snoop, she wasn’t about to risk her chance at getting free. Learning about the Seeds wasn’t at all worth getting found out and either shot full of holes or dragged back to John’s workshop. She’d already pushed him far enough, and that would just give him an excuse to get even more aggressive in forcing a confession out of her.

What gives her heavy pause and leaves her with an ill feeling in her stomach is the sight of repurposed sections of hallways, blocked by metal gates, with groups of shaking people huddled with in. If she weren’t a lone woman armed with nothing but a knife and her wits and had some idea of where she was going, she could take the time to try and free them.

Her stomach twists as she does, but she ignores them all and continues moving, careful to stick to the shadows as she moves up a flight of stairs and filing away a growing suspicion that whatever this place was, it had something to do with the Collapse the Cult seemed so obsessed with.

Sneaking around Jacob’s operations up in the mountains with Jess had served her well—save for a few close calls where one of the cultists catch a glimpse of something skulking around she manages to avoid confrontation through a dozen rooms and up another flight of stairs without much struggle.

Any of them that did happen to spot her moving around in the shadows just mumble something about too much Bliss before simply returning to work. Apparently the Cult’s best brainwashing weapon was also a double-edged sword.

As she passes another doorway a familiar voice catches her attention and she pauses; ultimately it’s the sight of the bow and quiver she’d nicked from one of Jacob’s hunters in the room beyond that alters her path into the room. It’s empty save for a few pipes stretching from the floor to the ceiling in one corner and a workbench up against the wall, next to which sat her recurve and quiver.

Her radio is nowhere to be found, but that doesn’t surprise her.

She carefully slinks past an open doorway with a soft glow lighting the floor from within and quietly slings both her bow and quiver over her back.

The she refocuses on the voice, John’s smooth tone coming from the room she’d just passed by and now returns to, hiding just beyond the frame and peeking inside. His back is to her as he leans over a desk in the center of the room, a single desk lamp illuminating whatever it was he was staring at and throwing enough ambient light for her to see what looked like a facility map taped up between the rows of obsolete screens and computers lining the walls.

Some kind of security hub, maybe, but all she cares about is the map and it’s what she focuses on with intent as she listens in on him.

“—is why Joseph is so insistent these two need to be converted to our cause, or why they should be important to us at all. We’re expending a lot of effort and people trying and all the while they’re helping the Resistance undermine our efforts.” She’d missed the first half of his statement, but she frowns at the half she does hear.

Joseph wanted her and Stevie to be part of the Project? Well that had a snowball’s chance in hell of happening—Quinn would sooner stab herself in the eye, and she knows Stevie well enough to know they’d be in agreement on that front.

“It doesn’t matter. You know how he gets when the Voice is involved.” Jacob says, clear disinterest in his voice even through the wash of static that distorts it. That catches her interest, however—did Jacob not actually believe in Joseph’s overarching goal for the Project?

It was far beyond a long shot, but she wonders what the possibility was they could convert him.

John lets out a scoff. “Your lack of faith in Joseph’s gift never ceases to astound me, Jacob.”

“You’re the one asking why.” Ever the dutiful soldier, it seemed, if Joseph gave the order and Jacob followed whether he believed or not. “The Deputy’ll reach the south gatehouse in the next few hours unless she deviates.”

“Hours? I thought you said your hunters last saw her by the ranger station?”

“Apparently she knows how to hotwire.”

Damn. Quinn makes a note to ask Stevie to teach her that trick; spending three days dodging Jacob’s hunters on foot just to reach another section of the County had been the exact opposite of fun.

Speaking of—

She stands from where she’d been crouched by the doorway and lets out a sharp whistle just as John presses the receiver on the radio. He whirls around and she grins at the look of bewilderment on his face. “Hey, you mind pointing me in the direction of the restroom? I think I’m a bit lost.”

This was so fucking stupid, but totally, one-hundred-percent worth watching the gears in his head struggle to get back up to speed.

The second his expression turns some mixture of impressed and wickedly amused she shoots him a cheeky two-fingered salute and then turns and bolts, a wild smile on her face as she goes. He gives chase immediately, heavy footfalls following after her as the industrial architecture of the facility blurs around her.

She jukes around cultists on her way through, following the map to the best of her memory and hoping she’d gotten a long enough look to be heading for the entrance; they all shout in alarm as she passes, silenced shortly after by loud thumps and crashing that tells her John wasn’t bothering to be nearly as careful as he followed her.

He was taller than her and had longer strides, but even with her diminished health and knowing she was on an endurance clock that would’ve made her instructors cry, she was faster and had freerunning—one of her hobbies—on her side.

The distance between them begins to grow, and he seems to realize he was losing ground. “You’re only making this more difficult, my dear!”

“Difficult for who? You sound out of breath!” She calls back, darting through a doorway and nearly running over another Peggie; they were starting to look more urgent, and that meant the ones they’d already passed had radioed ahead. Things were about to get more difficult.

Without slowing she jumps directly for the solid wall that greets her past the open doorway and plants a foot on it, pushing off at an angle and taking the sharp turn without losing speed.

“I will catch you!” He yells. She’d expected him to sound angry or frustrated, but instead he just sounded invigorated. He was having fun.

Her intent had been to piss him off and the fact she’d misjudged and failed spectacularly should have frustrated her.

It didn’t. She was having fun, too.

A doorway halfway down the hall up ahead would take her to the facility exit if her memory served her well, but she’s forced to skid to a complete halt to make the turn with no wall to bounce off of. Even with the immediate push forward she still feels a rush of air just behind her as John misses her by inches.

Alright, so he was bad at cornering but really good at open sprints. Noted.

Through the doorway she sees a large room littered with stacks of more crates and boxes, and the sheer size of whatever operation this was suddenly occurs to her; they were really digging in for something, and Quinn wonders where the line blurred between paranoia and preparation.

Two Peggies are startled at her sudden appearance, both standing on opposite sides of a stack of crates half her height.

John yells for them to grab her and the two step forward to intercept, ready for her to try and dodge around—instead, she leaps directly for the stack of crates, slapping her hands down onto the surface and expertly vaulting right between them.

Maneuvering around the rest of the room slows her down, but when she breaks through the organized chaos into the open landing, only one cultist between her and a stairwell that would lead her to freedom, she’s still moving fast.

Fast enough for her to drop her shoulder and body slam the cultist into the wall near the stairs. He collapses, wheezing and nearly dragging her down with a desperate grab for her shoulders but she skips back, spinning and taking the stairs two at a time.

Her lungs were starting to burn uncomfortably. Just a bit further, she reminds herself.

Footsteps echo after her up the stairs, and those four simple words become a mantra.

When she reaches the final landing of the absurdly tall stairwell—no windows, industrial, tons of bulkheads, were they underground?—she sequesters the bud of victory that starts to form in her chest. A false sense of security would be her worst enemy when this would be the most dangerous stretch of her escape.

Brilliant sunlight nearly blinds her as she bursts through a final bulkhead, thick metal door ahead of her ajar and beckoning her forward.

She nearly tumbles right over the edge of the raised landing outside the door, forced to quickly redirect and move for a ramp that led down to the flat, open ground of the yard in front of her. It’s a loading bay, littered with even more scattered supplies and a semi-trailer parked back up against the raised landing. A trio of white pickups were lined up ahead with their sides facing her.

She could risk checking for keys in the trucks, but she’d already gone beyond pushing her luck by taunting John rather than fleeing silently and without attracting attention. If her dad were here, he’d definitely be giving her one hell of a disappointed stare for the impulsive decision.

“There! She’s there!”

“Don’t shoot her, the Father wants her alive!”

“Aim for her legs!”

Not only did that sound hellishly unpleasant, one good shot to her legs would put her right back at square one, incapacitated and ready to be dragged back down into the depths and right back into John’s hands.

She glances around, noting the wire fence penning in the area, the opening flanked by gatehouses up ahead, and the trio of heavily-armored cultists blocking the exit—and her eyes settle on the line of trucks.

Alright, so this wasn’t her most brilliant of ideas, ever, but it was better than making a fool of herself by getting all the way to the end of the line only to have nowhere to run.

The first shot rings out across the yard and spurs her forward.

A stack of crates unloaded next to the nearest truck is used as a springboard to launch her up onto the wall of the truckbed, and from there she hops up onto the cab and then across each of the trucks with the thought in her head that Frogger was a hell of a lot less fun than she remembered.

“What the fuck is she doing?”

“Go! Go around!”

When she reaches the third truck she braces herself and then leaps, clearing the barbed wire topping the yard fence by scant inches. Her heart drifts into her throat as the freefall grips at her, the sound of more gunfire breaking the silence of the surrounding forest and sending nearby flocks of birds into panicked flight.

Pain flares up her leg as she lands, the force of her fall sending her sprawling; a noise of pain leaves her, but she forces herself back to her feet and keeps running, pouring every ounce of speed into her burning limbs and ignoring her tiring lungs.

One of the cultist’s bullets finds its mark and she stumbles as fire erupts in her arm, more pain that through sheer force of will is ignored in favor of running. It’s not a bliss bullet, or she wouldn’t have made it to the trees—the only dizziness she feels is purely the result of a tiring body begging her to slow down and stop.

She’s pursued into the woods, frantic shouts and barked orders and gunfire that causes her to instinctively duck as she runs as quickly as she dares down a slope following after her. The forest thickens as she goes, giving her more cover as she ducks in and around trees and bushes as often as possible.

After what felt like an eternity the sounds of pursuit leave her behind, fading farther and farther back until she feels comfortable enough to duck and hide under a rocky outcropping in the sloped landscape; the shade does little to ease the inferno in her blood from so much exertion and sweat drips down the side of her face.

It’s a struggle to calm her breathing as she waits, hating the way her tired limbs start to shake.

Five minutes pass. Distant but still too-close-for-comfort shouts from John’s followers reach her ears. Their hair raising calls of “come out, little girl!” and “play nice and we will!” do nothing to assist in calming her.

Ten minutes. Footsteps crunch in the underbrush on sticks and dry leaves nearby. None approach.

Fifteen.

“She’s gone.”

“Damnit. I’m not telling him.”

“Quit complaining. All of you head back, I’m checking ahead.”

The other voices drift off along with the groups of footsteps she’d been hearing until only one is left; her body is starting to shake more with the adrenaline fading and it’s a struggle to keep upright as she listens with bated breath.

The steps drift towards her hiding spot. Her eyes narrow.

With her body so unsteady she has no idea if she’ll be able to accomplish what she needs to if she’s found, but she steels herself for it anyway. The bow would make too much noise if she tried to slide it off her back in the quiet woods, so she instead reaches for the knife she’d tucked under her belt back in the bunker.

She holds completely still, keeping her breathing as even and quiet as she possibly can when a pair of booted feet enter her vision to the left of the rocky outcropping.

What she assumes is one of John’s Chosen steps fully into her sight, passing her completely without even bothering to check behind the outcropping. Fucking idiot. He stands there scanning the area; her knuckles are white where they grip the knife.

When he does finally turn around his gaze settles on her with a startled expression; she springs forward with a snarl, jamming her knife into his throat before he can lift the gun in his hands, surprising both him and herself for two very different reasons. His eyes widen and the gun drops from his hands, clattering to the loose dirt and leaves between them, one of his hands fisting in her hair in dying fury and yanking.

A yelp of pain leaves her and her fingers slip from the knife when his other hand snaps around her throat—a single painful squeeze is all he can manage before his grip on her slackens and gaze goes distant, her hair and her throat both released as he collapses to the ground on his back in a twitching heap.

She stumbles back on unsteady feet, falling back onto her ass and watching with something she can only describe in the moment as horror while he grasps furiously at the blade in his throat until his movements slow and eventually stop, blood still leaking around the sharp edge of the weapon and bubbling in his throat.

Nausea rises in her own and she sucks in a sharp breath, pressing her lips together tightly to keep herself from retching at the sight of the still body and glassy eyes laid out in front of her.

She’d wanted to be an FBI agent since she was a teenager—still did. She’d known from the beginning that there was a more than high possibility that her choice of field would lead to her having to kill someone at some point, but she hadn’t ever expected it to be like this. Not even when the stories Eli had told her gave her an idea of what Jacob might have been trying to do with her, not even when she’d been up in the mountains helping the Whitetails—that had been at a distance, cold and impersonal. It still made her sick at first, but it had been getting easier to deal with.

Suddenly, that decent ease she’d begun to grow with killing meant absolutely nothing, and she felt like she’d just made her first kill again. This was up close, she’d been near enough to see the life leave the man’s eyes, and she decides immediately that she does not fucking like it.

Worse was knowing that, sooner or later, she was going to have to get used to this as well. She’d been lucky up in the mountains and had a partner watching her back, both of them taking enemies down at a distance.

This wasn’t going to be the only time she was going to be on her own and at risk.

Swallowing, she gathers her wits and stands, moving forward with palpable hesitation and reaching down to grasp the handle; her shoulder flares with pain as she pulls it out with a sickening, wet noise. More bile rises in her throat at the immediate gush of more blood from the wound without something blocking it.

Pulling arrows from corpses was no different. It wasn’t, but no matter how many times it runs through her head her skin still crawls.

It’s only knowing that the longer she sticks around the likelier it is she’ll be found and that she was up shit creek without the metaphorical paddle—paddle being supplies—that gives her the constitution to search the body for anything she can use. She has to avoid looking at the man’s face in order to do so.

A pair of throwing knives are both tucked into her boots. Nothing in the way of food or water are on his person, but she’s not surprised considering she’d caught them all of guard.

It was still worrying. She was who knew how many miles from any semblance of civilization, and between the marathon she’d just run and the bullet wound on her arm she risked dehydration at least.

Hell, she’d be lucky if she could make it anywhere between the wound and the ache in her ankle that was more prominent in her mind without the adrenaline and urgency keeping her focus elsewhere, and that wasn’t taking into account the exhaustion that was going to settle over her quickly now.

There’s a radio clipped to his belt, and having decided that she’s not going to find anything else truly useful, she snatches it off him with quick fingers and steps away. Her eyes drift around as she tries to get her bearings and decide a direction to go; if she keeps lingering, it was tantamount to her just turning around and walking right back into John’s hands.

And she didn’t go through all this for nothing.

She lingers long enough to rip a strip of fabric from the bottom of her shirt and tie a makeshift tourniquet around her bicep just above the bullet wound, and ultimately she decides to simply follow the ravine she’s in downhill. Ravines meant water erosion, and if she was lucky she would wander across a body of water at some point. The question was whether or not she’d get to one before passing out.

After an hour of walking, her ankle slowly paining her more and more, she was struggling to motivate herself to keep going rather than finding a bush to just lay down and rest. Despite the tourniquet there’s a slow trickle of blood that’s doing her no favors, either.

Come home. Come home. Come home.

She hesitates, staring with blurry, blinking eyes up at the bridge spanning the gap of the ravine fifty feet above her. The sun was starting to set and more than the exhaustion itself—or maybe a direct result of it—the thought kept creeping into her head. Come home. Jacob’s voice was like a ghostly whisper in her ear and she sways with indecision.

She sure as fuck wouldn’t be able to make it back to the Veteran’s Center from here, but maybe if she went back to John—

Holy fucking shit.

Her head shakes rapidly to break the thoughts in her head, a shaky breathe leaving her and the motion making her even dizzier. Jesus, Tammy had been right. He gets into your head, she had told her, venomous and warning, there’s no avoiding it. No matter how long you’re with him. He gets into your head.

The knowledge that within three weeks he’d been able to plant control into her brain leaves her disturbed. What would he have been able to accomplish if she’d been there longer?

She’s too tired to be ashamed of the startled yelp that leaves her when a voice crackles through static on the radio clipped to her belt. “Brayden, do you copy?” It’s not John, just another of the Peggies.

Her fingers grasp the radio and unclip it, and she wars with the same thoughts—come home come home come home—as she stares at it and debates on responding. She could be a petty little shit and taunt them, but she has no idea how far she’d actually managed to get away from John’s bunker and she didn’t want to give them the idea that she was still nearby.

The voice that wasn’t her own told her that was exactly what she wanted to do.

“Brayden, do you copy? We need an update. Are you tracking her?”

Definitely the guy she’d killed. With him not responding they were probably going to suspect foul play and send a group out to look for him—and, by extension, her. Ignoring the voice that sounded suspiciously like a red-haired, blue-eyed wolf of a man, she decides she needs to get oriented and find somewhere safe that wasn’t with John.

With the sun setting she’d be at one hell of a disadvantage if they were still out looking for her. She’d never been taught to navigate by stars, and she was alone with no supplies and no idea if there was any shelter nearby.

It was looking more and more like her luck had been used up by managing to dodge Jacob’s hunters for nearly a week after this nightmare had begun, and Lady Luck had wiggled a glimmer of it in front of her nose with this escape only to take it away again.

Blinking down at the radio, she switches the frequency to one she hopes wasn’t too far out of range. “Eli, this is Quinn. Are you there?”

Only her footsteps as she resumes her unsteady and slowed walking pace answer her at first, and she starts to doubt that she could still reach the Militia out here. She’s about to press the button to try again when she finally gets a response. “Shit, Quinn, is that really you? Jess told us what happened, we’ve been trying to get in contact with you for weeks!”

His voice is slightly garbled, likely a result of the distance, but it’s unmistakably Wheaty on the other end. She sighs in relief. “It’s me, Wheaty. Good to hear you.” Then what he said gives her pause. “How long was I dark?”

“A little over two weeks, after that ambush. Hey, you’re breaking up real bad—where are you?”

It couldn’t hurt to share the wildly general area, considering she truly had no idea. “Somewhere in Holland Valley, I think.”

“You don’t know?”

“I just spent two weeks held captive underground, so no. That’s why I’m contacting you guys. I need help getting my bearings.”

There’s a longer pause and she assumes that Wheaty was processing what she’d told him or looking for a map, but the next voice that speaks is the one that she’d called for in the first place. “John got hold of you?” Eli must have been listening in and had chosen then to cut in. She feels a momentary pang of regret for interrupting whatever he might’ve been working on, but the concern in his voice soothes it somewhat.

“He did. I’m okay, Eli, just exhausted. I gave him a swift metaphorical kick in the nuts on my way out, so it was worth it.”

“You and the Deputy are something special, Quinn. Been at this resistance thing for years but none of us have been able to kick over the Cult’s sandcastles the way both of you have in just a few months.” Eli says, amused and relieved in equal measure. “Can you give me some landmarks to work with? Get to high ground if you can.”

She’d already anticipated the request and had—with difficulty thanks to both her leg and arm—begun to scale the hillside of the ravine she’d been traversing, wary of the open road and bridge she’d just bypassed. Once at the top she squints at the mountainside to her right and the waning colors of sunset. “I’m facing south right now, been traveling through a ravine down the mountain I think.”

She’ll need to get moving as soon as Eli gives her a direction to go in, now. This was an unsecured frequency the Whitetails monitored, and anyone could’ve been listening in.

Scanning her environment, she lists off anything noteworthy she can see; a lone church down by a small lake, spire just barely peeking up over the top of the trees, what looked like an airfield somewhere to her southeast, plus the bridge she’d just passed, and—

She blinks, having turned around to see if there was anything behind her and suddenly wondering if the blood loss was causing her to hallucinate visually as well as audibly. There above the trees was a massive Hollywood-style billboard featuring exactly three letters: YES.

What. The. Fuck.

When she realizes she’s keeping Eli waiting she clicks the receiver down, unable to tear her eyes away from the sign. “I—there’s a big ‘Yes’ sign up in the mountain northeast of me.” Really, John?

Eli doesn’t comment on the billboard and she almost wishes he would—it’d make the surreality of what she was looking at make her feel just a bit more grounded. “Can’t tell exactly where you’re at, kid, but in a general sense keep heading southeast. I remember right, Grace Armstrong is holed up somewhere near the foot of the hill you’re on.”

She winces, heading carefully back down into the ravine. “Thanks, Eli. Hey, I’m on a stolen radio right now ‘cause John took mine, so I don’t have the encryption channels anymore. Until you can swap out the keys, avoid details on the radio.”

“Got it. Damn miracle they haven’t intercepted us yet.”

“Yeah.” She says. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. Put a bullet in John and help your friend put a few in Jacob and we’ll call it even.”

She laughs, feeling light in her chest and unsettled by the fact she can’t tell if it’s from the blood loss or exhaustion or she was just happy to hear from someone friendly. “Will do, Eli. Quinn out.”