#obvious exception is cass. he will not win against cass

[oraclenthusiast]

everyone wants batman to be treated like a human and have him lose to his kids... personally i think dc should lean into his unbelievable wins. need to defeat this insanely powerful supervillain? call batman. need to fight god? batman. no explanation whatsoever, just him winning quite literally impossible fights. sic him on capitalism next.

[preciousthingsareprecious]

That Time Tim Totally Terminated Ra's Al Ghuls Entire Empire Part 1

So. I wrote something very silly. The title says it all, except it doesn't because this bad boy spiraled out to being over 10k and deserving of 2 chapters. Anyway, here is the first chapter featuring all the times Ra's kidnapped Tim because he wanted to recruit him.

Summary:

"Let us not beat around the bush,” Ra’s started, after taking a sip from his tea, “I have brought you here to make you an offer.” Tim nodded, that was obvious enough. Ra's had no reason to kidnap him this time beyond something like this.

“As you know, I’m always on the lookout for enterprising young individuals with both leadership and fighting experience to join the League of Assassins. Right now I’ve been on the hunt for the perfect person to fill a brand new executive role in a new chapter of my organization.”

AO3 Link

~

Tim wasn’t entirely sure how he’d ended up in this situation. No really. One moment he’d been in Gotham, crouched behind an old BMW that had been in the same spot for a month, waiting on Batman’s signal, the next he’d woken up in some lavishly decorated room. Was that silk? Or maybe velvet? He had no idea what was hanging around the bed he was laying in, but Tim really didn’t care.

What he was concerned about was his own personal state. He raised his arms --that alone was a good sign-- and confirmed that his mask was in place. He pushed himself up on the ridiculously plush bed, -which was unreasonably plush by the standards of a kid who'd grown up rich, and then gone to live with a guy who had both more money and even better beds.

The point was, the bed was so soft Tim actually had a bit of trouble sitting up.

When he did manage to right himself, he finished taking stock of his own situation and his surroundings. His Robin uniform was intact aside from his belt, but he saw that set on a trunk that looked at least as old as Bruce, a few feet away. The room was, as he already determined, lavishly decorated.

Tim pushed himself out of the bed and onto a carpet so thick he kind of wanted to pull off his shoes and curl his toes in it, but seeing as he still had no idea where he was, who took him, or why, he figured that was probably out of the question. He did make a mental note to ask Bruce for some better carpet when he got home. As a kind of gift for surviving a very weird kidnapping.

Instead, he moved to walk carefully around the room. He found no obvious traps, no cameras or speakers or microphones that were either hidden or out in the open, and both doors were unlocked.

The first he opened revealed a bathroom. The second he cracked open to peer out of. His eyes locked on that of an honest to goodness ninja standing guard outside the door. The man locked eyes with him and Tim snapped the door shut with a click.

Welp, that answered the who and maybe even the where of Tim’s abduction. Ra’s Al Ghul. He was pretty sure if he gave the ninja ten minutes to go find Mr. al Ghul himself, he’d have the why too.

While he waited, Tim snapped his belt back around his waist, comfortable to have its weight back, even if being in a League stronghold meant all the tricks in his pockets were basically useless on his own. Still, it was nice to feel fully like Robin again.

After that it was a matter of waiting.

Tim paced an actual trench into the thick carpet as he waited. Batman was of course looking for him. That was a given, he just had to wait for the man to find him. Or for Ra’s to send him home? He really wasn’t sure why the Eco-terrorist would have taken him in the first place beyond a really weird obsession with Batman's various sidekicks.

How come all of Bruce’s baddies seemed to have a strange fixation on Robins? It was weird how many went out of their way to kidnap and attempt to recruit him, Dick, and if the stories were to be believed, Jason too.

Just as Tim was starting to turn that particular thought over in his head, the door to his room opened and Ra’s himself strolled in.

“Timothy.” the man drawled.

“Ra’s.” Tim replied, suddenly totally and completely unsure what to do with his hands, voice, feet, and general self. This wasn’t a fight after all.

He settled for crossing his arms and being terribly glad his domino hid his eyes.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I brought you here.” Ra’s said.

Tim shrugged, “It doesn’t take the world’s greatest detective to guess that.”

The man frowned at him, and Tim started to wonder if maybe he should be watching his words a bit. He wasn’t in Gotham with Batman at his back after all. But then again, Ra’s must need something from him right? So a little sass was okay, what was Robin without a smart mouth after all?

“I mean--” Tim started, unable to stop himself now that he was thinking about it, “I can probably start to guess. You didn’t kill me and I’m not in a dungeon so you’ve got to want something from me right? I bet this is some blend of trying to win me over and also hold me above Batman because you--” he paused for a moment trying to remember if Bruce had been on Ra’s’ trail at all lately.

He dropped his arms and clapped, remembering, “You’ve been trying to break into energy and you want Wayne Enterprise to back you and legitimize your business. So you’re holding Tim over Bruce, but you probably want Robin because you and like half of Batman’s rogues have this weird obsession with teen heroes for some reason."

At some point he’d stopped looking at Ra’s and actually started pacing again. When he stopped talking his feet stilled and he looked back up at Ra's and grinned, ""So, am I hot or freezing cold?”

He expected Ra's to looked angry or irritated, instead he looked amused.

“You are quite warm. Though I would contend the assertion that I have a weird obsession with teen heroes. I am only interested in the exceptional, and you Timothy, are exceptional indeed.”

Tim gulped, “I mean--not really? But thanks.”

Ra’s waved him off, “We will speak more later. You are correct, I do intend to use you as a bargaining chip against your guardian--”

“Dad.” Tim interjected.

The man raised an eyebrow but continued, “However you are not a prisoner in the traditional sense. You may wander the compound with one of my men by your side to ensure you do not get into trouble. If all goes well you will be returned to Batman within a reasonable amount of time. Unless, of course, you do decide you would like to stay and learn from me.”

“I don’t really see that happening.” Tim said, “But I'll be sure and let you know if I make a sudden turn towards world domination.”

Again, Tim expected some kind of retaliation, but he was thankfully ignored. Ra’s left him with a warning not to cause undue trouble and soon Tim was alone in the room again.

He spent the next couple days wandering the compound somewhat aimlessly. He had a phone call with Bruce where he promised his dad that he was totally fine if a little bored, and spent the rest of his time trying to avoid Ra’s. The man was kind of relentless in his attempts at winning Tim over to his side and sought him out at meals, when Tim was trying to train a bit at one of the many gyms, and even once while Tim was wandering a rather fantastic garden. Each time, Tim did his best to wiggle out of the man's suggestions and just get back to wiling away the time between then and getting home.

Thankfully, it was all over in four days when Batman came crashing in with Nightwing and Batwoman to rescue him, and soon Tim was home and settling back into normal life.

He’d actually almost forgotten about the whole Ra’s kidnapping him until it happened again. Once had been a surprise, two times was starting to look deliberate.

This one lasted a week with Ra’s claiming it was because he still really wanted that energy deal and he just couldn’t understand why Bruce wasn’t willing to trade that for his ward (son Tim had ground out in irritation).

Tim almost believed him, until he woke one morning to find a pamphlet had been slipped under his door, it was literally a flyer promoting hiring in the League. Tim looked over it and had to laugh out loud. The text was done in a mix of papyrus and other fonts and whoever made it had used clip art. It looked like someone had typed it up in Microsoft word in like half an hour.

He spent the rest of his time there re-designing the flyer, with a ninja hanging over his shoulder as he used one of the League computers. The new one wasn’t the best flyer in the world, but Tim was pretty proud of it, and it was much better than the first draft.

When he was done, he pocketed the original, then pinned a note to the new one that said: Ha! Not until you get better designers.

Batman rescued him again, and Tim pushed the double kidnapping and Ra’s’ weird obsession to the back of his mind until the next time he was with Steph.

They were in the manor watching a Chopped marathon and Tim was telling her about both kidnappings.

“So he’s super into energy? How come he didn’t nab Dick? We all know he’s Bruce’s favorite.” Steph teased, popping a chip into her mouth.

“Setting aside that obvious lie, that’s the thing,” Tim continued, digging out the flyer he’d kept, “It has nothing to do with energy or Dick. I’m pretty sure Ra’s is trying to recruit me.”

He showed her the paper and Steph snorted, spraying chips out as she laughed, “No. Freaking. Way. I have to tell Cass. Let me show her this, please I’m begging you.”

Tim groaned, “Yeah, sure, but don’t you think it’s weird?”

She shrugged, taking the flyer to look it over, “Of course, but the B-man attracts weird like ice cream dropped on the ground attracts ants. Give him six months, and Ra’s will move onto a different way of trying to piss off Batman.”

“I hope so.” Tim said.

The third time Tim woke up in the elaborate room he was getting really sick of the decor and the headache that came with being knocked out and dragged halfway across the world.

“You know.” Tim started, the moment Ra's walked into his room (and it was actually Tim’s room he’d learned from one of the ninja guards), “You could have waited a month this time, to at least pretend this wasn’t all about your super weird plan to try and convince me into letting you adopt me.”

Ra’s opened his mouth to respond, but Tim wasn’t done.

“Which, by the way, I’m taken already. B did the whole adopting thing, so you missed that window. Though, I guess that probably doesn't really matter to you in the grand scheme of things since you keep kidnapping me. You are aware that kidnapping isn’t the best way to convince someone that your way is the right one, right?”

“Also, would it kill you to pick up some --I don’t know-- books on recruitment or something? I don’t understand how you’ve managed to get so many guys on your side it’s--” Tim started, but Ra’s had caught on to Tim’s mood at this point, conceded temporary defeat, and made a hasty retreat.

Tim didn't see him the whole rest of the day, and by the next morning Batman showed up, swinging in for another rescue and all was fine and good and normal for a while.

Until, of course, it wasn’t.

It was the fourth kidnapping that really set Tim off.

He woke up back in that stupid room with it’s stupid decor and those stupid posters ready to burn the place to the ground. But something stopped him, a premonition. Like if he was patient for just a little longer he’d find a good and proper form of revenge to take on Ra’s for his total inability to take a hint.

At some point two ninja came by to take Tim to meet with Ra’s. As they walked Tim couldn’t help but notice the posters literally lining the hallways they walked through.

They were of two wildly different styles, but both struck a thought of familiarity in his mind. One was obviously a play on the classic “I want you in the army” poster. The other ripped off old “pin up” recruitment posters. Both made him laugh, and Tim pulled a couple of each down to save to show the Titans. He had a feeling Bart and Kon would lose their minds over these.

He had just folded them up and shoved them in his back pocket when they reached an office. Inside, Ra’s sat in a chair and motioned Tim to sit in one across from him.

“Thank you for joining me, Timothy.”

Tim sat and shrugged, “Not like I had much of a choice.”

Ra’s waved him off. As he did, a different ninja from either of the ones who’d escorted Tim to the office came in with a tray of tea. He handed Ra’s a cup, then gave one to Tim, and left the set on a table between them.

The whole vibe was kind of awkward and strange. Tim felt very much like he had one time a year ago when he’d realized halfway through a date that things were not going to work out. He hadn’t been able to end the date then and there, and had spent another two hours awkwardly making small talk and trying to avoid promising a second date.

“Let us not beat around the bush,” Ra���s started, after taking a sip from his tea, “I have brought you here to make you an offer.”

Tim nodded, that was obvious enough. Ra's had no reason to kidnap him this time beyond something like this.

“As you know, I’m always on the lookout for enterprising young individuals with both leadership and fighting experience to join the League of Assassins. Right now I’ve been on the hunt for the perfect person to fill a brand new executive role in a new chapter of my organization.”

Tim took a sip of his tea in an attempt at avoiding having his mouth drop open in shock. Ra’s sounded like something out of a “Executive success seminar” that was just a veiled multilevel marketing scheme.

“To put it plainly, Timothy, I want you to become my apprentice. I know you and assume you might be hesitant to accept this lifestyle so I’ve prepared for you something of a presentation on what that might entail.”

Tim couldn’t stop a laugh from bursting out of him, but he did manage to turn it into a kind of cough.

“Wait--wait.” he said, almost choking on his tea, “Are you about to show me a powerpoint?”

Ra’s looked a bit put out at that suggestion, almost like he wanted to sigh, “Of course not, it’s more interactive than that.”

Tim held up his free hand, incredulous, “Is this--a job interview Ra’s? I thought you were pitching this to me.”

“No, no. It’s an interactive presentation designed to show you just what you have to gain from joining me.” Ra’s explained, as he did so Tim took another sip of his tea.

He lifted his cup and waved it lightly, “Oh yeah, so I’m just in one of those fairy tales then where you make me do three impossible tasks and at the end I get the happily ever after dip in the lazarus pit?”

“It’s only one trial--”

“So it is a task!” Tim declared, almost standing.

“Timothy.” Ra’s snapped, sounding a bit like Bruce whenever Tim and Steph’s antics pushed him a bit too far.

Tim crossed his legs and leaned back into the chair, “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Irritating the man was a bad idea, Tim knew that, but this was just ridiculous. He wasn’t going to be sent on a wild quest that might end up with him dunked in a Lazarus Pit or whatever else Ra’s had in mind that would supposedly prove how great it would be to work for him.

“If you are not going to take this seriously, then there are other ways of showing you why joining me is a good idea that are not nearly as pleasant.” Ra’s growled.

Tim held up his free hand, “I’d rather not find out, give me your pitch or send me off with your best ninja or whatever you were planning.”

He figured playing along would work for now. He could put off giving Ra’s an answer until Bruce came in for a third rescue. When he was home, they were going to have a serious conversation about ninja proofing the manor. Ra’s could not keep kidnapping him like this, they had to have some kind of security measures in place.

“Wonderful. I’m sure after your tour you’ll have a better understanding of what I have to offer you.”

Tim ended up following someone Ra’s called his “best general” around the compound for an hour. The guy showed Tim the training rooms, the medical suite, sparring rings, a variety of ninja’s actually practicing, and at one point they even ended up in the library. The general had been given instructions to pause anywhere Tim wanted him to, and so they lingered in the library for a bit.

He had to admit, Ra’s had a fantastic library.

The general didn’t seem worried about Tim getting lost, or escaping, and waited by the door while he wandered the massive room.

And boy was it huge. It was bigger than the main floor of the cave, with stacks and stacks of books on two floors. Some of the volumes looked ancient, and there were even scrolls shelved on the second floor.

He gingerly pulled one out to examine.

“That is worth more than you could ever imagine.” a sharp, young voice, declared, behind him.

Startled, Tim dropped it back onto the shelf and spun. Before him stood a kid, probably 8 years old, with tousled dark hair, dark skin, and a face that almost echoed some of Bruce’s school photos. It was startling.

“Hi.” Tim said, dumbly, “I know, it’s Ancient Sumarian right?”

“Tt.” the boy crossed his arms, “You are not an idiot then.”

Tim shook his head, “Nah, apparently I’m smart enough to be selected for recruitment.”

The kid nodded, “So you are Grandfather’s young detective. He speaks highly of you.”

Grandfather? Tim’s brain spun. This kid was Ra’s al Ghul’s grandkid? He ran the numbers, the kid’s mom was either Talia or Nyssa. If he had to put money on it, Tim figured the boy before him looked more like Talia than her sister. And his other features--like Bruce’s?

No.

No.

No. Freaking. Way.

“That is hardly language to use here.” The boy said, arching an eyebrow at him.

Tim hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud, but apparently his surprise had been so great he had. He cleared his throat, “Sorry, I just never expected Ra’s to have a grandkid.”

“It is not surprising to me, I am his heir. Born to inherit the League and rule the world one day.”

Okay, that was a lot to unpack. Just a totally wild amount, but Tim wasn’t super focused on the world domination thing just yet (maybe later when he had a chance to process all of--well, all of it), “Sorry to keep pressing but, doesn’t having an heir kind of--I don’t know, put his whole Eternal Ruler of the League thing in jeopardy?”

“Tt. It is not my place to question my Grandfather’s plans. I simply know what I have been told, that I will inherit the League one day in his stead.”

“Well,” Tim rocked back on his heels casually and grinned, “That might be a long loooong time.”

The kid’s brows furrowed as if he had not really considered that idea before. He opened his mouth to say something else, but seemed to decide against it, dropping his arms to his sides to shrug, “If that is his wish then so be it.”

“True.” Tim said, not really knowing what to say. Instead he settled on changing the subject, “You know, if your grandfather gets his way I’ll be spending more time here, so I guess introductions are in order. I’m Timothy Drake-Wayne, but most people just call me Tim.”

He held his hand out to the kid, smiling at him. If he really was Bruce’s then they’d be getting to know each other for sure. Just not here. Tim had zero intentions on letting Bruce’s child stay with the League. Did B he even know he had a kid? Tim thought he’d better figure that out first before kidnapping his little brother.

Little brother. Just that idea made something flutter in Tim’s chest. He’d always wanted a little brother.

The boy scowled at his hand, and did not take it, “You may be correct, even if I do not see what Grandfather seems to. I am Damian al Ghul, heir to the Demon’s Head.”

Tim bit back a grin at just how serious this kid was. He sounded like a little prince, all imperious and haughty. Damian, even his name fit him. He wondered how Damian would do around Dick? Or Stephanie. They’d figure out how to bring a smile out of him.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Damian.” Tim said, “I know we’ve really only just met, but I’m sure you’ll see what Ra’s does in time.”

Damian looked him over again, then gave a sharp nod, “I am interested in seeing what you have to offer.”

“Damian, I found it, where’d you go?” A voice sounded from deeper within the stacks.

Tim started at the sound of the voice. He knew it. Knew it from nights spent chasing shadows, from recording’s Bruce had watched a hundred times when he didn’t think Tim was watching. From Tim’s own desire to know and learn more about his predecessor. It was Jason Todd’s voice.

But that couldn’t be. Jason was dead.

“I am coming.” Damian returned, his tone more childlike than Tim had heard in their whole conversation. He turned back to Tim, “Do not ruin that scroll, I will see you later.”

Then he spun on his heel and walked away.

Tim stepped forward, reaching out for the kid, “Wai--”

“Master Tim, we really must be going.” Tim’s guide was back, stepping into his view as if from nowhere, and stopping Tim’s chase as short as it had been.

“Can we wait just one more second?” he asked, “I wanted to ask Damian something else.”

The man’s mouth turned down in a frown, “I do not have clearance to let you speak with Master Damian. Come, we have more to see.”

Frustration bubbled up in Tim, but unless he wanted to start a fight he wasn’t going to get a chance to talk to Damian right then. The kid had promised to see him later, so maybe he’d seek Tim out. If not, Tim would find a way.

As he followed the man out of the library, he kept searching the stacks of books for a sign of the others. It wasn’t until they’d left the room that Tim caught sight of Damian again, his small form waving animated at a taller, broader one. One that, while older, was unmistakably Jason.

Before Tim could say screw everything, the two turned around a corner, and someone else was clearing their throat. His guide seemed eager to move on, and so they did.

Tim tuned out most of the rest of the tour, and eventually found himself back in the office from before, once again seated across from Ra’s.

“Timothy, I hear you have met my grandson on your tour.” Ra’s started.

“I did.” Tim said, a bit hesitant to go into detail, his guide had seemed like talking to Damian was a pretty serious thing, and suddenly Tim was afraid he’d gotten the kid in trouble.

Ra’s smiled, “He is magnificent is he not? Already he is a skilled warrior, and well trained in his studies.”

“He said he was your heir?” Tim ventured.

The man waved a hand dismissively, “Of course he is, he is my grandson, but that does not mean he will inherit. The boy is valuable to me, for many reasons. He is an excellent tool to wield against my enemies already, and will only become more so as he grows.”

Anger bubbled up in Tim. There was something in Ra’s’ tone that made Tim sick, to call a kid a tool. To plan to just use him his whole life?

“And what, do you want to do that with me too? You said you wanted me to be your apprentice, but if your Heir is just a tool then--”

“No, as I said I want you to take over a branch of the League. You have talents and skills Damian will not. The boy is--” Ra’s shrugged, “Let us call him a vessel. A shell for me to wield in one way or another.”

Well, that just made Tim even more angry. Damian was his grandkid. What Tim wouldn't have given to still have his grandparents, and for Ra’s to just--If Tim wasn’t already dead set on getting Damian home, he would be after this conversation.

“You know what, Ra’s. Let me think on it a while. I’ll get back to you on my answer. I kind of want to see Damian in action a bit, learn what this training looks like in someone closer to my age.”

The man considered this for a moment before nodding, “I will let you watch his sparring session tomorrow. For now, I think we’re done. Have a good evening, Timothy.”

Tim nodded, and left. His mind was racing, he wanted another look at Jason. Wanted to tell Damian about his dad. Wanted to make sure both his brothers were okay.

He was so wrapped up in his thoughts, he missed the black and blue clad arm that reached out from behind a curtain and yanked him back. Nightwing put a hand over Tim’s mouth to quiet him, and then pulled him out the window the curtain had been hiding. They dropped, into nothing--except it was solid?

Tim found himself inside the invisible jet. Inside, and flying away from his newly discovered siblings before he could even argue they needed to be rescued too.

One flight with Wonder Woman and Nightwing later, and Tim was home again, being told in stern tones by both Batman and Nightwing that he really needed to stop allowing himself to be kidnapped by ninjas (like he didn’t know that).

Then he was in his room, in bed, staring up at the ceiling, his mind whirring. He had learned two things on this trip. Two impossible things. Two things he was going to leverage as soon as he could.

It was late, and he should be sleeping, but instead he texted Steph and Cass in their little group chat.

Tim: Want to cause some chaos?

Immediately he received a response:

Steph: Always

Cass: Who are we going after?

Tim smiled, his fingers dancing over his phone:

Tim: Ra’s.

Cass: Time to teach him a lesson?

Steph: I've been waiting for this, I’ll get the kerosene

Tim: There’s more.

Cass: Tell.

The light flashed on out in the hallway, Tim could see it flicker to life under his door.

Tim: Tomorrow, lunch at that place with the sweet potato fries. Come ready to plan a kidnapping or two.

The next day Tim found both Steph and Cass waiting eagerly for him at the restaurant, a heaping plate of sweet potato fries between them.

“Spill, Bird Brain.” Stephanie said, as he sat down, pushing some fries towards him, “I want to hear everything about this crusade against Ra’s.”

Tim rolled his eyes, and snagged a fry, dipping it in one of the sauces they’d gotten to accompany it.

“As you’ve probably already guessed, I had another visit to the League compound yesterday.” Tim started, “It was more of a day trip this time, but Ra’s did his very best to sell me on signing up.”

“More posters?” Cass guessed, then shook her head seeing Tim’s expression, “What did he do?”

Tim snagged another fry, “Yes more posters, but more than that he gave me a speech right out of a How to Recruit for Dummies book, then sent me on a tour of the building.”

Steph snorted, “Please tell me you recorded it.”

“I did not, but you will never believe what I found on my tour, or to be precise who.”

Both girls paused their snacking, waiting on him to continue.

Tim dropped the first bomb, “Jason Todd, alive and breathing.”

“What, no way.” Steph said, “How’d he even get there? I thought He was buried here?”

He shrugged, “I don’t have any of the details, but they’ve got a Lazarus pit, and Ra’s is weirdly obsessed with recruiting Robin’s, so I’d say his resurrection tracks.”

“Who else was there?” Cass asked, brow furrowed.

Now this he knew neither of them would be expecting. Tim hadn’t expected it. He still couldn’t believe it.

“Ra’s al Ghul’s grandson, Damian.” Tim said, watched both girls look even more confused, then added, “The son of Bruce and Talia. At least, I’m pretty sure he’s their kid.”

The fry Stephanie was holding dropped out of her hand.

Tim watched Cass processing the information, saw her realization that there was another child being raised in the League, then saw the determination cross her face at her own personal decision.

“We are taking them both, correct?” Cass asked.

“We’re taking them both, and burning the place down.” Tim confirmed, “That should properly pay him back for all the time’s he’s kidnapped me this year.”

Steph’s lips turned up into a sharp grin, “The law of equivalent exchange.”

Tim laughed, “You’ve been watching too much tv.”

“It’s prepped me for this very moment.” she shot back, voice falsely grave.

“Batman prepared you for this very moment.” Cass elbowed her.

“No.” Tim said, “I’m going to prep you. And then we’re going to put everything in action.”

They talked, and planned, and debated the pros and cons of letting Tim get nabbed again over just going himself, and eventually after many many sweet potato fries and sodas they were ready.

It was to be infiltration first, fire and kerosene second. Obviously the place was going to go up, but only after they set the stage for rebellion and convinced Damian and Jason to go home with them. Tim didn’t think it’d be a hard sell for Jason, but the kid was another matter altogether. If Tim couldn’t convince him to come along, they may actually end up having to kidnap Damian.

A key to the plan was that only Tim, Steph, and Cass were in on it. There was no way Bruce was giving the green light for such a thing. Besides, Tim wanted to see his face when they presented him with not one, but two, rescued sons from the League.

Over the next week Tim made himself the most kidnappable he’d ever been. He wandered outside, kept to himself, and tried to look as wide eyed as possible. He lingered in parking lots, and took shortcuts down empty alleyways. Basically, he did everything he could to signal he was alone and vulnerable besides hanging a sign around his neck that said “Take me to your (ninja) leader”.

At one point he even stopped, dead center in the middle of an alley and declared, “Wow this sure is a dangerous place to be! I hope I don’t get attacked and kidnapped by ninjas!”

The only response he got that time was from an older woman who stopped at the edge of the alley and very seriously called out, “Careful, young man. Don’t you know there are killer clowns out? You best be on your way before you get hurt.”

Then, at long last, Tim caught sight of one of the League members ducking behind a shadow. He paused his walk, and leaned over as if fascinated by something on the sidewalk in front of him. By the time he’d stood, the ninja was in front of him.

Tim held up his hands in surrender, doing his best not to actually look excited. Then, he was successfully kidnapped for the fifth --and if Tim’s plan worked successfully-- final time.

[ilguna]

Anteric - Chapter Eight (f.o)

summary: secrets have more worth than you gave them credit for.

warnings; swearing, blackmail, mention of underage drinking, BURIED ALIVE IN DETAIL, GORE, DEATH, SPIDERS, mild CLAUSTROPHOBIA

wc; 14.1k

NOTES; I give reader a last name to fit the world.

–

The hallway’s silence is deafening, filled with only your breaths. Bodies are lined up against the wall on each side, all sitting. Across from you are the Dauntless-born initiates, and on both of your sides are your fellow transfers. The person that stares at you through the darkness is Blaire, who twists the end of his shirt around his finger, stretching it and leaving wrinkles.

He’s obviously distracted, eyes not seeing you, but the space beyond it. It’s the exact same look that a few others have. It’s gone quickly, though, all with a simple accidental bump from Nestor. A smile spreads across Blaire’s face, eyes immediately going to his friend to give a gentle push back, ultimately starting a shoving match.

Down the line, from left to right, is Sydney, Nestor, Blaire and Ameer. As for Mirza, Horace, Cass and Lennox, they’ve already been called into the room with Laurel. She takes each of you one by one, in no particular order. You originally thought it was alphabetical, the theory was gone as quickly as it came when she called Thyme first. Her last name is Tattrie.

To your left is Trink, she twirls a strand of her blonde hair around her finger, laughing at Blaire and Nestor. To your right is Finnick, with Eytelle on the very end. There’s a large gap between you and Finnick, and that’s because Allio and Thyme were there before they were called in.

For the first stage of initiation, your two groups were ranked separately. The real challenge begins here, now that you’ve been combined. You had started with eighteen, but with four being cut in the last stage, there are now fourteen. On the way here, Laurel told you not to stress out, no one will be getting cut this time around. The next stage, the final stage, is when all final decisions will be made. This is just the preparation.

You watch as Nestor bounces against Sydney too hard, sending her to the side. Her hand slaps against the ground, stopping her from hitting the floor. Instantly, her hair flies out of her face as she glares at the back of Nestor’s head, “Can the two of you stop it?”

Blaire is laughing too loudly, causing Nestor not to hear. He knocks into Sydney, she doesn’t waste time making her point known. She shoves Nestor from behind, sending him flying into Blaire.

You crack a smile, watching as the two boys then go to gang up on her. In no time, the hallway is filled with screeching giggles, kicking to get them off. For a moment, Blaire turns his attention to you, eyebrows and hands raised as a challenge. If he even dares...

You back away from him, sitting flush against the wall, “Unlike Sydney, I’ll aim for the face.”

Trink lets out a noise that’s closest to a laugh, “Oh! That’s true, and she’s brutal.”

No one responds to what she says immediately, until Ameer is leaning forward, barely coming out of the shadows and into the soft blue light, “Brutal?” he challenges, “What did you rank, again?”

Sydney and Nestor are beginning to relax now, interested in the conversation that’s about to be had. You accidentally catch a glimpse of their hands intertwining, and end up forcing yourself to look at Ameer for a distraction. You can already feel the judgement rolling back on. After what happened during breakfast, you’re not sure if you want your friends to catch on again.

In Abnegation, relationships happen, obviously, but they are not physical and out in the open like this. They are supposed to be private and to keep others from feeling uncomfortable. Your parents had been married for years and there’s not a single time you can recall them kissing. Hugging, maybe, but all the intimate movements would have to be saved for private.

This is different, new and something you have to overcome before it’s recognized as a weakness by others.

Your eyes lock with Ameer, “Second.”

Something flashes across his face, disbelief, you think it is, “How many wins did you have?”

“Two.”

The doubt is settling in, you can tell by the way he squints his eyes, mouth puckering as he watches you carefully, “Who was first?”

“Allio, he had three wins.” your hands find each other, fingers intertwining. He’s going to come to the same exact realization that the rest of you did. That there is foul play and you are undeserving of your title.

Ameer’s eyes break contact with yours to find Finnick. His head is tilted in your direction, listening in on the conversation like he’s anticipating his turn to be the topic. But he doesn’t say anything, only waits patiently.

“I thought Finnick was leading?” Ameer asks, eyebrows drawing in.

“Not anymore,” your words are crisp, “He’s third, with three wins.”

There it is, the questioning look from Ameer. He doesn’t have to tell you that it doesn’t make sense, you’re already nodding. You know, Finnick knows, everyone else in your group knows. There is nothing you can do about it, not that you would want to anyway.

“I’m brutal,” you give him a smile, like that statement alone is enough to erase his questions. You won’t leave him hanging, it’s hard not to brag with the next sentence, “Who do you think did that to his face?”

Ameer doesn’t respond at first.

Since yesterday, you’ve decided that you shouldn’t let the others know that you’re semi-friendly with Finnick. On the off-chance that they let Thyme know, or she somehow finds out, you’ll automatically be fucked. However, it doesn’t matter that much, anyway. You were stopped in your tracks when you realized that this is the fastest that Finnick has ever turned around. It’s a red flag.

And it could be because of a number of things you’ve said to him. It could be because you’ve known each other since forever, since you were infants. To him, you are the last thing he has from home. He is almost the same to you, except you have someone to fill that gap of homesickness.

His name does not start with an F.

What you know for sure, is that you don’t want to head into things blindly regarding Finnick, not with Thyme around.

Ameer glances at Finnick again, the gears turning in his head. You watch his eyebrows raise slightly, “You have to be kidding. Finnick’s like a whole foot taller than you.”

You cross your arms instead, it feels more natural this way, “So?”

“So,” he mocks your tone, “You couldn’t possibly reach up that far, right?”

There’s a few things wrong with what Ameer is saying, and the first thing is that Finnick is not a whole foot taller than you. You and Finnick have got distance, but it is a much easier gap to close than what Amos had against Eytelle. The second, is that he’s suggesting that you’re not good enough. And you’re not sure if he wants to head down that path with you.

You can feel your face darken, teeth pressing into each other, “Would you like to test that theory?”

Ameer opens his mouth, going to speak, but nothing comes out. He closes his mouth, shakes his head, and falls back against the wall like he’s trying to escape the door he had just opened.

It’s too bad for him, because you still have more to say, “I’m not sure if you’re one to talk, anyway.” you lift your head back up, eyebrows in, “If I remember right, you placed fifth. Which is kinda embarrassing, considering you’re the son of one of the leaders.” 

His eyes narrow, mind changing again, “At least we know I didn’t cheat.”

You smile, “Ameer if it’s a fight that you’re looking for, all you have to do is ask.”

He stares at you, jaw clenching and unclenching. It’s pretty obvious to you that whatever minor friendship that had been forming between the two of you, is now gone. Which means that you can probably go ahead and assume that Mirza is off the table too. 

It’s a shame because Ameer isn’t all that bad to be around, but the timing of all of this is wrong. You’ve been walked on too many times in the past couple of days and it’s starting to get irritating. You’re not about to bite your tongue with him, especially since you don’t know him all that well, anyway.

In the end, this could all be reversed, you’re sure. A little spout like this won’t stick in Dauntless. Not when initiation ends and all of you have met the end of the tunnel. It’ll be like water under the bridge, a memory you can laugh at.

The door at the end of the hallway opens, making you all look over. Laurel is the one standing in the doorway, leaned up against the frame, “(Y/n).”

You rise from the floor, making a point to avoid Ameer’s extended legs, just in case he gets any bright ideas. Unfortunately, you think you’ve had more than your fair share of tripping during school. After Erudite started releasing the reports, it just got worse.

Laurel moves back and out of the way, allowing you to come inside. You only get a few steps in, looking around the room before you stop. Laurel has already reached out, pulling the door shut behind the two of you. She slips by as if your stillness isn’t a surprise.

In the middle of the room sits the same exact chair that you had sat in during the aptitude test. Beside it is the machine that looks a lot like the one that was used to measure your decisions for your future faction. However, in this room, there are no mirrors for you to stare into. There’s barely any light, and the only other object in the room is a computer sitting on a desk in the corner, emitting a small amount of light.

“Go ahead and sit.” Laurel says, standing in front of the machine, you slowly make your way over.

If the chair is here, it means that you’re going to be subjected to another simulation, there’s no question about that. What you’re really worried about is the results and whether or not they’re going to be reported. Laurel and Caspian might be okay with it, but they’re just two out of the several hundreds of people in Dauntless.

If Laurel has to report the results, there’s no way she’s going to be able to manually insert them like last time, not without seeming suspicious.

You slowly slide into the chair, “What simulation do I have to go through today?”

“You’ll be facing one of your fears today,” her eyes meet yours, “your results will be sent to the administrators for review.”

You press your lips together, wanting to ask her if there’s danger in doing this. But you don’t even have to ask, you already know the answer, and it’s yes. Mox told you plainly that this would be easy for you, which is basically a red flag, especially after how hard the first stage was. This should be just as, maybe more, difficult.

“Okay,” you say, as if you’re agreeing. You don’t really have much of a choice.

“Stay still, I have to inject the serum.” she says, coming around the chair. In her hands is the syringe, tinted orange because of the liquid. She has her thumb against the plunger, ready to go. The needle looks longer than what you’re used to at the doctor’s office.

With a shaky hand, you move your hair behind your shoulder so that she has easy access to your neck. You wonder why they can’t just make you drink the liquid instead of injecting it. Sometimes needles aren’t a bother with you--you’re sure that it won’t show up during the simulation--but it’s bigger than usual.

Either way, you sit as still as possible when Laurel presses the needle into your neck. The pinch is much more painful this time around, the ache begins before it’s even been removed. You stare straight ahead at the door, wondering what the others are talking about now that you’re gone. It might even include Finnick.

It’s an instant relief when the needle is removed, “You have sixty seconds before it kicks in,” Laurel sounds like she’s standing behind you, probably next to the machine again, “To put this stage simply, we’ll be training you to get over your fears--or at least make them manageable. Just in case you were to come across a situation that would involve it in the real world.

“The serum induces a hallucination, and I’ll get to monitor what you’re doing the entire time. After, this will all be submitted to the administrators, as I told you before. You will stay in the hallucination until you can calm yourself down by lowering your heart rate and controlling your breathing.”

While she talks, you can feel your heart start pounding in your chest, hands automatically gripping onto the arms of the chair. They slip against the metal because of the sweat, making it impossible for you to feel stable. When you realize this, you try taking deep breaths, desperate to know if you can end the simulation before it begins.

Laurel gently places her hand on your shoulder, coming around the chair and into your line of sight, near the door. Your eyes flicker to her.

“Take your time, you’ll be okay.” she smiles.

You fall back against the headrest.

And jolt awake hard enough to hit your head on the ceiling above you. A groan leaves your lips as you press your head back down against the floor beneath you. Wherever you are, it’s dark and it’s going to take you a second to adjust to see. 

You run your fingers against the floor, eyebrows knit together as you try to figure out what it is. It’s not cold or grooved, so you’d like to confidently say that it isn’t concrete or wood. It feels smooth, almost soft against your fingertips--silk? You move your hand to touch your forehead, still aching from your initial wake, when your elbow hits a wall.

You lift your head now, staring down at your feet through the darkness. When you extend your toe, you can feel another wall. The final one sits behind your head, which has to mean that you’re boxed in somewhere. You press your hands firmly against the top, pushing as hard as you can. They don’t think that you’re claustrophobic, do they?

You could sit in this box for the rest of your life if it weren’t for the elements. The problem is that Laurel said she’s just monitoring, she’s not actually picking and choosing the scenes you go into, unlike the aptitude test. She might be able to end the test early if needed, but you think that would be the extent of it.

The top of the box isn’t budging, and you’ve got your arms locked out straight, shoulder blades pressing into the fabric beneath you. You don’t know what’s locking you in here, maybe steel or wood, but you’re pretty sure you’re not going to be able to get out. Even a solid half-kick doesn’t break anything, only sends pains shooting through your toes.

Well, for a fear-facing simulation, it really missed the mark. A box with no escape doesn’t really have any effect on you, which means that with a couple of deep breaths, you’ll be out of here in no time. 

Resting your head against the box again, you close your eyes and try to focus on your breathing. Even a couple of seconds later, you feel much better. You can see yourself waking up in the chair, with Laurel standing two feet or so away.

The silence is disturbed by a thudding sound on the other side of the ceiling. You stare, mouth turned into a frown, “Hello?”

As you wait, you press your hand to the ceiling in front of you again, wanting to know if it’s going to come loose now, but it’s just as stuck as it was before. There’s no vocal response that you can hear, just another thud, except it sounds like rocks raining down on the other side, dirt that sounds like sand.

Maybe you weren’t loud enough, “Hello?”

Still nothing, besides the rock sound. 

Actually, there’s a faint murmur, you have to strain to hear what’s being said. Even then, you can make out only half of the words. You think you hear ‘dead’, ‘coffin’ and ‘dirt’ all in the same sentence. Which is ridiculous, right? You’re not dead, so there would be no reason to bury you. But it would explain the rock sound.

“Hey!” You scream, face twisting as you slam your hands against the lid. If this is a coffin, then the lid should’ve budged by now. It isn’t moving, though, not as far as you can tell.

You keep screaming, slamming the toe of your shoe in the same place over and over, hoping that you can kick a hole through the wood. Unless it isn’t wood, which would explain why they can’t hear you, concrete absorbs sounds like they don’t even exist.

They’re going to leave you down here if you don’t find a way to catch their attention. Then you’ll be left to starve, your family mourning even though they don’t have to. You scream louder, your throat becomes sore, tears appear in your eyes. You pause, huffing out air, making you realize just how warm it is in here, and how limited your air is.

“Help!” you fall back against the floor, breathing through your mouth, “please!”

The thudding on the other side of the coffin is much softer now, not as prominent before. You can already picture the dirt encasing you, ensuring that you won’t escape. It’ll look exactly like when your parents had been buried, one after the other. You remember thinking that you’ll never see them in person again.

You grit your teeth, letting the tears roll down the sides of your face and into your ears. You need to get out of here, and the only way you can do that is if you let this go.

Your nails dig into your palm, trying to ignore the music that’s playing above you. Laurel told you that the trick to this is deep breaths and slowing your heartbeat. It’s just a hallucination, you’re not actually buried underground. You’re in the chair, you’re in the chair, you’re in the chair…

You open your eyes, only to be blinded by the one light in the room. Without being prompted, you get to your feet, arms wrapping around your upper body as a hug. You don’t care what happens next, all you know is that you can’t be laying down anymore. The way that the chair is angled is too similar to how you were inside of the coffin.

Laurel is pulling wires off of her face with a neutral expression. Her eyes find yours briefly, before she heads over to the machine, which is clearly more important than your wellbeing. 

A gust of cold air from a vent makes you remember the tears on your face, and you work quickly to wipe the wetness off with your shirt. You sniff and readjust and rub your knuckles, the feeling of pounding on the lid won’t go away. It’s a phantom feeling, the sister of the pain in your feet from trying to kick free.

“Well,” Laurel drags out the word slightly, “In comparison to the other initiates I’ve seen today, you were, by far, the quickest to come out.”

You have to ask, “Is that good or bad?”

“If you keep it up, you’ll be number one when the rankings come out.” She doesn’t say it outright, but her eyes do. If you’re in and out then you’ll definitely attract attention, something that you don’t want.

“What’s the average time?”

“Sixteen to eighteen,” she presses her lips together, “You were out in a little less than four minutes.”

Oh.

Oh, that is not good at all.

“Okay,” you say, but it’s not, you feel like screaming. You need to find a way to purposely spend more time in the hallucinations. But you’re not sure how to do that, because what felt like ten minutes inside of the hallucination, was only four minutes for you.

“You can leave the same way you came in.” Laurel gives you a smile, “Don’t worry about it too much, okay? I’ll see you later.”

“Thank you.” you murmur, slipping out of the door and back into the hallway’s darkness.

Unfortunately, on the way out, you have to pass by your friends. When all of the others had come out of the room, you weren’t paying attention to their faces. Most of them, like Horace and Cass, you didn’t really care for. But now it matters, especially since it’s only friends that are left. And they’re definitely going to want to look at you.

Their laughter quiets the closer you get. The first person to look up is Finnick, eyebrows together as he looks over your face. You force a quick smile, passing by him while being careful to avoid Ameer’s feet again. No one speaks, until Blaire grabs your hand.

“Any advice?”

You place your hand over his, “Focus on your breathing.”

He lets you go, just in time for the need to hug yourself comes back. You carefully wrap your arms around your upper body, before taking the next corner.

You wait in that hallway for a while, leaned up against the wall to blend in. You don’t know who you want to see first, Blaire or Trink? Or maybe Finnick? You’re hoping it’s not Ameer, but you really wouldn’t mind hanging out with only Sydney and Nestor again.

The person that rounds the corner first is Finnick, you reach out to grab his arm, ultimately scaring him. When his eyes land on you, you can see that he’s already pretty shaken, so maybe this wasn’t the best move. You’re not sure standing in the middle of the hallway would have been much better, though.

“Hey,” you say, “Are you busy?”

He shakes his head, you go ahead and readjust your grip on his arm, pulling him along with you. You make sure to take the hallways that won’t bring you to the dormitory, or anywhere near it. If there’s a chance that Thyme is waiting for him nearby, you’d rather take the long route to the chasm.

The silence isn’t as uncomfortable as you thought it would be. However, you are surprised that Finnick doesn’t try to start a conversation on the way. You guess that since you’re the one taking him somewhere, you should be the one to talk. But it’s always been Finnick that can’t stand the silence, you know how to sit through it.

He’s lucky that the chasm isn’t a far walk. As soon as the roaring of the rushing water comes into earshot, you release him and let him decide how close he wants to get. The first couple of times you came out here, you didn’t want to get near the railing, unsure of how sturdy it was. Now you know it can hold your bodyweight, doesn’t tilt or come loose or anything.

“I would’ve talked in the dorm but I thought I’d show you where I disappear to all the time,” you say, turning to face him while practically sitting on the railing. You can feel the breeze blow against your back, reminding you not to lean too far, “I don’t want to argue, Finnick, so please just bite your tongue for a minute.”

He’s making his way towards you at his own pace, “Okay.”

You watch his face for a moment to make sure that he actually is calm this time, because every time the two of you talk, it always seems to end in an argument. It doesn’t help that the irritation is already high because Thyme is trailing him. But for once, with her not here, you feel good.

“I want to tell you everything, but I would rather do the meaningless stuff first.” you can be honest with Finnick, you know this. You’re just afraid of creating a problem that doesn’t need to be made.

Finnick stops across from you, leaning against the rock wall. He hums out a response.

“You also can’t tell Thyme I’m talking to you,” your words pick up pace, “I’ll explain it all later, she just can’t catch wind of this.”

A crease appears between his eyebrows, “Okay.”

You begin picking at your nails, feeling smaller than him. This shouldn’t feel like a confession, but it does, “It was mostly during the first stage, because we were fighting the others. And kinda during the gun training too, actually.” you shrug, “I don’t like it when you brag.”

His face relaxes, a smile peeking at the corner of his mouth, “That’s it? That’s why you were going off alone?”

“I told you it was meaningless.” you roll your eyes.

He’s not hiding his smile anymore, “Anything else while you’re at it?”

You shrug, “You should probably get back to the dormitory before it looks like you got lost in the halls,” you smile, “After all, I disappear all the time.”

“Right,” he says, standing up fully, “I’ll talk to you later, then.”

“Yeah, remember what I said about Thyme.”

Finnick winks, takes a couple of steps to leave, and then pauses. When he turns to you, his eyebrows are raised, “Can I ask you a question real quick?”

You grip onto the railing, “Shoot.”

He’s no longer smiling, “Did Thyme say something to you?”

--

Finnick sits across from you in the hallway, patiently waiting to be called into the fear facing room like the rest of you. There’s a noticeable distance between him and Thyme, an unmistakable glare in her eyes. You’re not sure what he said to her yesterday evening, but it’s made her sour. Not enough to push her away, though, she’s still sticking pretty close to him. Still, the distance between them is satisfying.

Much to his annoyance, you couldn’t tell Finnick everything. The root of the Thyme problem starts with you, and you can’t just outright tell him you’re Divergent. You know you keep saying that the two of you have known each other since you were kids, but if a person like Thyme can come in and wreck shit within a week… 

You told him what you could, specifically what Mox and Keely said about her. You couldn’t go into great detail, mostly because they didn’t give you anything to go off of in the first place. However, the moment you told Finnick that Mox was dead serious, he seemed to sober up and believe you.

If there’s one tell tale sign that Mox isn’t lying, it’s when he’s completely serious. It’s such a stark contrast to his normal lighthearted demeanor, and he never abuses the look. Unlike Reed, who’s had the same expression on his face ever since your parents died. It’s like the joy was sucked right out of him.

Anyway, you and Finnick are definitely making progress. He might not know all the details just yet, but at the pace you’re going, you two will be back to normal in no time. He knows that Thyme isn’t what she appears to be, and that she said something to you after your family left.

Thyme’s blackmail will end as quickly as it started.

“What was your fear?” Lennox asks Trink, fixing the laces on his shoe.

Trink half-shrugs, “Something stupid, I’m not even that scared of it.”

You resist the urge to contradict her. No one got a full night of sleep last night, which isn’t her fault. Everyone was stuck in their own personal nightmare as soon as they fell asleep. Sucked into a world they thought was under control and torn to shreds immediately because they didn’t make the rules in there.

Let’s just say you didn’t sleep in your bed for long after realizing that you might as well have been back in that coffin. Hard bed, dark room, only your thoughts to accompany you. There’s a sick feeling in your stomach each time you think about going back to bed. 

“You don’t have to act tough,” you murmur, causing Lennox, Trink and Blaire to turn in your direction, “I couldn’t even sleep last night.”

“Yeah, we know,” Thyme says, not missing a beat, “You’re so fucking loud.”

You look at her, “Are you sure it wasn’t the sound of your own sobs that woke you up?”

Her face twists, “Don’t you forget--”

“Thyme!” a voice shouts, it’s Laurel. She’s a few steps out of the doorway, “Are you fucking deaf? Let’s get going!”

Thyme shoots you a glare, not finishing her sentence. She gets to her feet, shuffling down the hallway and vanishing behind the Door of Hell.

It’s quiet for a moment, Trink is the one to break the silence, “Forget what?”

You wave your hand, trying to come up with some excuse. Trink will pry, and Lennox will go with it to add peer pressure. You’ve seen it too many times now, with Sydney and Nestor. They are purebred Dauntless, and they will raise the stakes to get what they want.

You need a pacifier, a sacrifice that’s small and insignificant to keep them from pushing later on.

A laugh peels from you, “She found out the fear from yesterday, and she thinks that she’s going to use it against me,” your eyes find Finnick’s, hoping that he catches the subtle hint, “But if I tell you guys, it’ll have no effect, right?”

Trink nods, bobbing her head right next to Lennox. The two of them are so hungry for drama that it hurts. You’re glad to know that you have one humble friend, Blaire tells you that you don’t have to tell them if you don’t want to.

“Oh, it’s okay. I don’t think any of you will get the chance to bury me alive.” you wink at Blaire, who smiles shyly back at you, “It’s one of those things that are ridiculous.”

Trink keeps nodding, “Yours makes me feel so much better about mine,” her face is turning a slight shade of red, “Like, public humiliation is the least of my worries, honestly. Not getting into Dauntless is my big number one.”

“Isn’t it everyone’s?” Blaire sighs.

Lennox lets out a scoff that sounds like a snort, “Not mine, I’m going to trump you losers in the next ranking round.”

You press your lips together, because unless he’s going to magically beat four minutes, he’s not trumping anything. You’re sure that it’s important to be confident in Dauntless, but you can’t imagine how many times people have to eat their words.

And that gives you an idea.

You turn to Lennox, “I bet the remainder of my points that you won’t be number one.”

Blaire sucks in air through his teeth, “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Lennox is the epitome of perfection when it comes to Dauntless standards.”

Lennox smirks a little, you know that he won’t turn down the challenge, “How many points?”

“I’m sporting nineteen right now.”

The smirk widens into a grin, “I have twenty.”

You hold your hand out, he takes it without a hint of hesitation. He’s going to get his ass kicked, and he doesn’t even realize. The two of you shake, and when you fall back against the wall, Finnick has a smile too. 

“What do you even need twenty more points for?” Trink asks.

“A new wardrobe.”

She lets out a dreamy breath, “Okay, I approve.”

You let out a laugh, which the others join in on.

About fifteen minutes later, Laurel opens the door, letting Thyme out and calling you in, “(Y/n).”

You take your time getting to your feet, thanking your friends when they wish you luck. You’re sure you’re not going to need it, it’s them who will have to worry about the rankings when they come out. You slip past Thyme, the door clicking shut behind you. 

“Good afternoon,” you say, heading over to the chair.

“Same to you.” Laurel murmurs, “The needle will go into your arm today.”

You’d prefer that, anyway. Having needles go into your neck is just wrong somehow. All the shots that have ever been delivered to you, have been through your arm. It’s less of a risk of doing permanent damage, besides scarring.

You slip in the chair, face twisting when you realize how warm it is.

“She was sweating,” Laurel comes around the side, syringe in hand, “You’re lucky that I could wipe it down.” You give Laurel a look, and after a moment she cracks a smile, “Sit still and stop mean mugging me.”

You let your head lay against the headrest, curling your toes when her needle breaks skin. The ache in your arm is a lot more forgettable this time, compared to your neck. The pinch is gone quickly, and you watch as she goes to tend to the machine. Once again, you’re left to stare into the empty room.

“You have sixty seconds before it kicks it.”

You don’t bother to tell her that you know already, and the fact that you can feel the effects begin to kick in around fifteen seconds. Unlike yesterday, today your throat squeezes tightly as if you’re having an allergic reaction, making it difficult to breathe. It doesn’t help that the urge to run is beginning to settle in, you grip the arms of the metal chair to keep yourself grounded.

“Remember to breathe,” Laurel’s voice is sounding faraway, a whisper compared to the rapid beating in your chest, “And take your time.”

You want to tell her that you will, but your teeth are glued to each other, mouth dry, and you’re drifting. Once again, you find yourself trying to hold on through the little things. Like how the metal is digging into your palm, and there’s sobbing coming from somewhere.

You fall, head slamming into the ground beneath you. Your face immediately twists, eyes squeezing shut. When you reach to rub the spot, you notice that you’re not confined in a coffin this time, but it is dark enough for you to feel like you’re blind. So, you take it easy while trying to sit up.

The floor beneath you is wood, you can tell because of the paneling. It feels worn, like it hasn’t been replaced in years. And a little uneven, some will dip in the middle, gaps between wood, drop offs that’ll catch the tip of shoes. Almost like the rock flooring in Dauntless, except wood is rare here. Besides the dormitory, the only other place is the training room.

With that, a single light floods the dark room as a reward for cracking the code. The light is on you, once again blinding you. You cover your eyes as you look around, you can see the door to leave is on the right, so you must be sitting where you used to stand during the fights. And if that’s right, then the circle is in front of you.

The light shifts as you raise to your feet, trying to squint through the white. You don’t know what fear this correlates to, but the sick feeling rising in your stomach is telling you not to underestimate the situation. Everything was fine in the last simulation up until you started to become aware of your surroundings.

You shuffle forward, being careful not to snag your shoes on the floorboards. As you get closer to the circle, there’s a familiar smell in the air. The stench is strong, though, enough for your stomach to hurl, pushing you to the edge. You cough to ease the tension in your throat, but it ends in a gag.

Sucking in air through your nose just makes it worse. The smell of blood is normally manageable for you, since it’s always been small or in adrenaline-fueled hazes, but this is different. This is all you can smell, all you can think about. You need to find the source, find who’s bleeding and stop it.

A few more steps, and you come crashing to the world. You slip hard, falling on your ass. The pain in your tailbone is enough to bring tears to your eyes, but you’re more concerned about the pool of blood you’re sitting in. And the person it’s coming from.

His face is tilted away from you, blood soaking his brown hair. You get on your knees so that you can lean over him, hands trembling. He’s pale, his green eyes are staring into the darkness. They quickly flicker to you when you accidentally let out the shaky breath you were holding.

Finnick Odair is bleeding out in the training room.

And you don’t know what to do about it.

His black shirt is stuck to his skin, riding up slightly. You think that the source is his stomach, but there’s no holes or anything. Which makes you think it’s his back, you shouldn’t move him though, right?

“I…” you whisper, he’s waiting on you, he wants you to save him, “I don’t…”

He looks exactly like he did after the fight, when you beat him to near unconsciousness. You can picture the way his head rolled to the side once he was on the wheelchair, Cleo pushing him out. How his eyes stuck with yours until he couldn’t look anymore.

Except, this time he’s bleeding out.

“Okay,” you breathe, even though it’s not, “I’m going to--I’m gonna help.”

You sniff, hands gliding through the air to grab the end of his shirt. You carefully pull it up, trying your best to avoid the red, even though your jeans are already soaked in it. If you took off your clothes, you’d be stained, permanently tinted.

No. No, only temporarily.

The wound is on his stomach, a slit that mimics the one of a knife, making you freeze. 

This is what your dad looked light, bleeding out in the factionless streets, all by himself. Hurt, pale, the grey clothes of Abnegation selflessness soaked the angry shade of maroon. And he was dead, curled up and clutching to his wedding ring.

You sob, throat still swollen, the back of your hand pressed to your mouth. You tilt your head back, white light shining in your eyes as you cry. You try to suck in air through your mouth, but the revolting smell of metal and dirt has infiltrated your senses, and you can’t without violently gagging.

A gentle touch startles you out of your train of thought, reminding you that he’s there. Finnick gives you a closed-lipped smile that reaches his eyes. He breathes in through his nose too sharply, triggering him to cough, sending blood out. His face is twisted in pain, you jerk forward to help him lower his head back to the ground.

You need to focus.

“Okay,” you breathe again, tilting your head to the side, “This will hurt.”

And it does. You press your hands to the wound on his stomach, hoping that will be enough to stifle the blood. There’s not much you can do in the first place without a doctor, and that job is normally dedicated to the Erudite. In the meantime, you need to get out of here.

The moment you start breathing deeply, a new problem arises. A second hole that you didn’t see before, further up his chest. But the more you move his shirt, more appears, like the simulation is trying to keep you from saving him. You have to, though, and you will.

You move to take off your shirt, placing it on the--what you now recognize as--bullet holes. You press down on the area with the other hand, since it’s separate from the first. You try to give Finnick a comforting smile, it’s hard to because you don’t know what you’re doing. The pool of blood is just widening, reaching the circle’s white line.

It gets worse, some pain in his leg appears, and then his arm. You can hear him moaning in pain, but there’s only so much you can do. You try to cut off the blood flow, and a wound will appear above it, defeating the purpose, getting you more wet. You’re sure that he should be dead by now.

It’s like he’s a test dummy, seeing how many injuries they can rack up on him. And instead of torturing him, it’s torturing you. You’ve used your belt, and your shirt. His shirt is too risky to take off, and Finnick doesn’t normally wear a belt. And you have both of your hands stopping blood, both of his barely pressing hard anymore, and a leg draped over his thigh as if you’re fucking helping anymore.

All the while his eyes are drooping, and you think he’s saying something to you but you can’t hear him, can’t read his lips through the tears in your eyes. Not to mention, you can’t breathe, can’t speak, can’t keep him awake. You can’t fucking help. Why was it you that found him? Why couldn’t someone else have walked in?

“Finnick, please,” your voice is scratchy, throat incredibly sore from the sobs, “Please don’t go, please stay with me.”

His head is rocking from side to side, is he shaking his head? You don’t know, you don’t understand. He can’t leave you, Finnick can’t leave you, not like this. He’ll hate you forever because you can’t fucking save him. All you want to do is save him.

You rock forward, hands sliding when you press your forehead to his collarbone. All you can do is apologize as you clutch onto his shirt. You can feel his arm shift from beneath you, rubbing up your back. You can’t do it, it’s a simple task and you can’t even do it.

“It’s okay.” Finnick’s voice is small, but it cuts through the silence. You raise your head to look at him, he’s got so little time left, “Breathe.”

You let out a sob, hand over your mouth. You don’t think it’s you controlling your body anymore. You think it’s autopilot, because you reach forward and cup his cheek in your right hand. A tear rolls down, creating a streak of cleanliness in a sea of blood on his face.

“Let go.” he whispers.

You jerk forward, suddenly awake in the fear facing room. Your hand is clamped over your mouth to make as little noise as possible, but you can’t help the cry that comes out. 

“Three and a half minutes.” Laurel says.

You slide out of the chair, wanting to scream because you don’t care. Five minutes, thirty minutes, one minute, it all feels the same! It feels like you’ve been holding onto dying Finnick for days, pleading for him not to leave you. You’ll be living this woken nightmare for the next few months, and you’re supposed to care that it took you three and a half minutes to get out?

You can’t shake the look that Finnick gave you at the end, the look of knowing. He knew that his time was up, and he opted for you to leave. And the worst part of it all is you don’t even know what fear that was supposed to encompass. 

“I’m done,” you say, “I can’t fucking do this anymore, I’m done.”

Laurel lets out a quiet noise, when you look at her, she’s shaking her head, “It gets easier.”

“Easier?” You ask before yelling, “Easier?! I just watched Finnick bleed to death in my arms, how does it get any easier?”

She hushes you, setting the face wires off to the side, “That’s one of your fears, something you need to come to terms with.”

You grit your teeth, “When is Finnick ever going to bleed out? Chocked full of bullet holes with no origin?”

“Fears are typically irrational, you have to know this already.” She reaches for the sleeve on her arm, yanking it up to reveal the mannequin tattoo, “I work with mannequins all day, so tell me why I would feel afraid of them if I already know that they’re harmless?”

You don’t know, how are you supposed to know?

She must not like your silence because she lets out an annoyed sigh. One that you’re all too familiar with, it sounds just like Reed’s sigh. The lecture is coming, “Haven’t you noticed the pattern so far? It’s been two days and I can already tell what you’re afraid of.”

“So tell me.” your voice is hoarse, a side effect from the simulation.

“Maybe you should spend some time trying to figure it out by yourself.”

The problem is that you don’t want to. You’ll already suffer later on tonight, so why should you bother torturing yourself right now? So much is on your plate, and more keeps getting shoved on. 

First it’s Caspian finding out that you’re Divergent, second it’s Thyme blackmailing you with it. Then Finnick crawls out of hell and decides that he wants to be friendly again, and you can’t even get help from Caspian because he’s been interfering too much already. And now you’re suffering through your own fears just so you can stay in a faction that--surprise, surprise!--is more ruthless than you initially thought.

And she wants you to spend your time thinking it over.

No. No, if anything, you think you need to get away from here.

You wave your hand, heading for the exit.

“Take the other door, you won’t be disrupted.” she says.

You spin around, heading for the door she’s talking about. It’s on the left wall, in the back corner. Compared to the right, which has the computer that contains your escape from Finnick’s demise.

You shove the door open, letting it slam against the wall on your way out. The hallway is a straight path for a while, there’s no side paths that you can take and it’ll magically bring you back to the others. Not that it matters much, it’s not like you can talk to any of them about it.

Your feet know where to bring you, straight to the same place you go every time there’s a dilemma. You don’t sit against the railing today, there’s no reason to. Finnick’s not here to talk to you, and you’re pretty sure that he’s not going to be out of the simulation for a while. And that’s under the assumption that he’s next.

You close your eyes and rest your head against the wall. The sound of the water is similar to the noise of static, making it easy to numb the mind. You need to seriously make a dent on Finnick before Thyme finds a way to draw him in again. The two of you are tugging at each of his arms, trying to get him to stay long enough to hesitate on going back to the other.

It’s been three days since the final fight, and two days since Thyme has blackmailed you. You want to think that it’s too soon to start pulling harder, especially since the peace has only been recently established, but you also don’t know how much time you have before Thyme comes in.

Plus, it’s not like Finnick has given up on you completely, right? There’s been a few instances where you’ve hit a chink in his armor, and all of them start with you. It’s never been the surface stuff, like the fact that you came from the same place. That can be easily forgotten, the saying ‘faction before blood’ doesn’t come from nowhere.

As soon as you told him that you left your family for him, he broke. And you’ll bet it’s because he knows how much family means to you. After everything that’s happened in your life, the one thing you had going was family, something that you would have never traded, but you did it for him.

It happened again later on, during the fight too. It was the vulnerability of your voice that made him hesitate. He also trailed you into the bathroom that morning, despite being tired. And you’ll bet that he wanted to talk to you, not use the toilet or whatever.

You think you’ve done it, finally cracked the code. 

He lives for the real moments, and you’re not talking about the heat of the moment when the two of you are arguing. It’s the softness, no secrets, no guards in front of the palace. The second it all started falling apart was the second you were told you were Divergent.

You and Finnick have never really had a reason to keep secrets from each other.

The sound of someone clicking their tongue fills the air, making you jump slightly. When you open your eyes, you’re met with Sydney and Nestor, both of them staring down at you. Sydney’s pulling her hair into a ponytail, Nestor has his hands shoved into his pockets, leaning back with a ruined posture.

“Are you crying?” Sydney asks, the words are slightly muffled because she doesn’t move her teeth. You think you can see a hair tie in her mouth, which is probably why.

“No,” you say. 

The tears dried themselves on the way here.

“Are you sure? Because you’re sitting out here all by yourself.” Sydney speaks normally.

“Looked like you were having a moment.” Nestor agrees.

“Haha.” you roll your eyes, getting to your feet, “What do you two want?”

Nestor half-shrugs, “Banding together a party. Ameer found some alcohol in the kitchen.”

You press your lips together, not sure which part of this story you don’t like, “Found it?”

“Ameer has sticky fingers, Mirza knows how to get in,” Sydney says, “If it helps, Maarja and a bunch of other older siblings will be there.”

You tilt your head, a sour face coming on, “Are you sure that Ameer wants me there?”

Nestor lets out a laugh, “Ameer doesn’t care, he’s probably forgotten about your argument already. Same goes for Mirza, the two of them don’t get hung up. They give it up, forget, and forgive. It’s their whole motto.”

“Which is lucky for you, because Maarja knows how to throw bomb ass parties.” Sydney says, “We just need to know whether or not Finnick should come.”

“Thyme’s already out of the question, no one wants to deal with her.”

“She’s going to know something’s up.” you say.

Sydney shrugs, “So? What’s she going to do about it?”

They’re right, as long as your name isn’t connected to the party in any way, you can’t be blamed for the fact she wasn’t invited. However, Finnick is another story. She might think you’re the one that wanted him there.

“Finnick is okay to come, but I can’t be the one to invite him. It has to be Blaire or something.” 

“We gotcha covered, we’ll pass on the message.”

Sydney grabs your upper arm, pulling you with them, “In the meantime, we’re gonna drop you off with the others.”

“The others?” you ask.

“Maarja and them, they think that you’re going to help out and get shit done since you’re from Abnegation,” Sydney says, “And we tried to tell them it was a stereotype but they said it’s worth a try.”

You can’t help but laugh, this is exactly the type of behavior that you’d expect from them. Pick at the stereotypes and hope for the best, they never really think things through. Yet, they’re in charge of important jobs like security and the entire army. 

God, is Dauntless ridiculous.

“I mean, I guess they were right.” You laugh, Sydney cracks a grin.

She slaps your upper back, “That’s the spirit! The more people you please, the more people will like you.”

“Or they’ll keep going to you for help, one or the other.” Nestor shrugs.

“And by the way, we were going to invite you either way, help or not. Maarja just wanted to push her luck.” 

“I don’t mind, seriously.”

And you don’t, because this is what Dauntless is all about. The ziplining, the fighting, facing your fears, and going to parties. You rinse and repeat the next day, and it’s just like this, over and over for the rest of your life. This is why you’re here, this is why you can’t quit.

Your two friends bring you down a series of hallways, straight to a single door. Sydney pushes it open with her hip, opening out one of your arms, as if she’s telling you to marvel. There’s not much to be amazed at, so you shoot her a questioning look.

She cracks, her laughter echoing through the large room. She catches the attention of the older siblings, they turn their bodies so that they can see. Sydney holds up a hand, “It’s just us, (Y/n) said she’d help out.”

Maarja cheers.

The floors in this room are wood, the walls rock and stone. Basically like the training room, except this room is much smaller, brighter, and there’s only one exit. You guess that makes it an easy way to lock up, but it’s definitely a fire hazard. You can’t imagine the last time anyone has been in here, though.

“I knew you’d help,” she smiles, “Do you think your Abnegation friend will too?”

“He hasn’t even been invited yet, Maar.” Sydney says.

“And he’s not exactly the selfless type, anyway.” you slide your hands into your pockets, “Hated it there.”

She shrugs, “Whatever, bring him anyway.”

You crack a smile, “So what do you need help with?”

“Everything, but shit will start coming in one at a time. We should be done before dinner.” Maarja looks past you, “Keep taking people, will you?”

“Sure.” Sydney begins backing up, “Good luck, (Y/n).”

You don’t need luck, because spending time with Maarja and the others isn’t nearly as bad as Sydney and Nestor makes it out to be. They’re fun to be around, they know how to break someone out of their shell if they’re shy. In no time, the lot of you are laughing, tears in your eyes as you change lightbulbs and set up speakers for music.

You can definitely see the resemblance between Sydney and Maarja, they’re sisters through and through. Of course, they look a lot like each other, but they also have the same laugh, the desire to be on the edge of danger all the time. Sydney had stood on the edge of that building, and Maarja stands at the top of her ladder on her toes, with no one to steady the bottom.

They playfully fight, as all siblings do in Dauntless, and bounce back as if hurtful words were nothing. If you tried half of this with Reed, you would have been scolded. Mox might have been easier, but it would have never been this fun. Mox and Reed are alike in most ways--more than you will ever know, according to Caspian--but you and Finnick are closer.

You guess it’s the age gap that does it. Mox and Reed are only two years apart, Maarja and Sydney are one and a half, you and Finnick are the same. Compared to Mox, who’s three years older, and Reed who’s five. It doesn’t seem like a gap, but it really is. Plus, all three of you have managed to have different childhoods, you can’t imagine what’s in store for Alyssum.

It’s weird to picture you and Finnick as siblings, though. The two of you don’t fight like that, don’t talk to each other like that. You wouldn’t exactly call each other polar opposites, either. However, you guess that definition fits better. You see the things he doesn’t, and he sees the things that you don’t.

“You know what they say about polar opposites,” Daziel says, he’s Lennox’s older brother. 

He’s got the exact same looks as Lennox, with the brown hair and brown eyes. He’s taller than Lennox, but shorter than Horace. When he laughs, it’s childish, yet there’s an edge to him. He leans forward as he talks, like he’s always delivering some sort of threat. 

Because of him, you’ve noticed that there’s two ends to Dauntless. The first side is like Maarja, carfree, party hard, laugh as loudly as you can and have fun because this is your youth. On the other side is Daziel, intense, scary, probably guards the walls or patrols the factionless areas, and he talks quietly because he knows that the room will fall quiet to hear. Everyone else, besides them, falls somewhere in-between.

If you were to put Daziel and Lennox together, you’d go ahead and say that they’re siblings. Their personalities don’t come close to each other--although, you do have a suspicion that Lennox looks up to Daziel, which explains the behavior--but they aren’t the same person. And yet, they were born a year apart, which contradicts what you said earlier.

You suppose that every statement has an anomaly to make it false, right?

“What do they say?” you ask. You’re currently crouched down to the floor, opening a water bottle. You’ve been trying to get the speaker to work for five minutes now, you’re sure that Trink would be better at this than you.

Torrac, Nestor’s brother, says, “They attract.”

It doesn’t take a genius to decipher that one. 

You roll your eyes, drinking the water. Like Daziel, Torrac looks a lot like Nestor, except he’s shorter. He doesn’t have that same bad posture either, and his voice is a whole lot deeper. On the spectrum that you made, he’d be closer to Maarja than Daziel.

“No, I’m serious.” Torrac stops, “It happens a lot. Sydney and Nestor weren’t always dating--”

“Much less, friends.” Maarja mutters.

“--but suddenly they came to some middle ground and started dating. Now there’s almost no difference between them. They balance each other out.” Torrac finishes.

There’s a long silence between you all, allowing actual work to get done. You get the speaker to work, and after that Daziel thinks it’s funny to speak into the mic and not help out. It’s a little annoying at first, but once Maarja cracks, you and Torrac aren’t that far behind.

“You know, you talk about Finnick a lot.” Maarja says, “Are you sure you don’t have some sort of crush on him?”

“Are you kidding?” Daziel doesn’t give you a chance to answer, “Lennox says Finnick talks shit about her all the time.” 

You were right when you said that Lennox is hungry for drama.

“I think you missed the part where she said that they were like this--” she crosses her fingers, one over the other, “--besides, a lot of people hate each other and then get together. Torrac literally said that ten minutes ago. Do you have cotton for brains?”

Daziel, who still holds the microphone, says, “You are the one that nearly killed yourself because you didn’t know how to harness yourself correctly. Please, keep talking.”

Maarja points her finger at him, which quickly changes into the middle finger. After that, she looks over at you, “Anyway, do you have a crush?”

You shrug, shaking your head, “No…?”

“Oh, she’s unsure!” Torrac says, he’s smiling.

“It’s official, (Y/n) has a crush on Finnick.” Daziel’s words echo loudly, “A stiff likes a stiff, why am I not surprised?”

“It’s not like that,” you say, looking to Maarja for help.

“You’ve just never thought about him like that before?” she says, you nod, “Well, congrats on your awakening, good luck.”

You open your mouth for a sarcastic response, but the door opens. The four of you look up and over to see Finnick, Ameer, Blaire and Horace. They’re all carrying different objects, with the exception of Finnick, who looks like he just came from facing his fears.

“We brought the goods.” Ameer says, holding two bottles of alcohol by the neck.

“Over here.” Torrac says, motioning them over, “Finnick, you can join (Y/n).”

You don’t like the wink that Torrac sends you, but the wolf whistle that Daziel lets loose into the microphone is worse. You cap the water bottle in your hand before hurling it at him. He has enough time to dodge, laughter filling the air.

“Hey, Finn.” You stand, he’s coming into the room, heading towards you, “Maarja is the one on the ladder, she’s Sydney’s older sister. Torrac is the one setting up the tables, related to Nestor, and,” you shoot a glare at Daziel, who gives you a bright smile, “the dumbass on the mic is Lennox’s monkey brother, Daziel.”

“They’re all older siblings?” Finnick asks.

“Yeah, they’re cool. Daziel’s on thin fucking ice.”

“I can tell,” he smiles, “Have you been here all day? Trink’s looking for you.”

“Yeah, Sydney and Nestor found me. Did Trink say what she needed?”

He shrugs, stopping next to you. He takes a look around the room, “Doesn’t look like much of a party.”

“We still have a long way to go,” Maarja agrees, she’s coming down the ladder again, “I think we just need to remove a few more bulbs and cover up the windows. Torrac can set up the tables with Blaire…” she trails off for a moment, looking at Ameer, “Hey, that’s not all you took, right?”

Ameer scoffs, “Of course not. Mirza’s taking more and he’ll be over with Lennox. I have to find a way to get us snack food, though.”

“We’ll have some chocolate cake, I know that for sure.” Horace says.

Maarja snaps, “That’s right. Okay, so snacks won’t matter, just drinks.”

“And we’ve got that covered.” Ameer is heading towards the door with Horace, “See you guys in a few.”

“Thanks!” Maarja says, she then turns towards you and Finnick, “You two work together to pull out lightbulbs.”

“Sure,” you push Finnick forward, “He’ll be the one on the ladder, though.”

“I thought you got over your fear of heights?” Maarja asks, Blaire briefly looks up from his table.

“Chicken shit.” Daziel says.

You ignore him, “I don’t feel like risking my life today.”

And you’re not lying, because you honestly don’t feel like standing on the top of the ladder like Maarja was. But the moment you see Finnick start going up, you begin picturing him standing at the top, falling, cracking his head and bleeding out on the floor, and you change your mind.

You grab the end of his shirt, “Get down.”

“What?” he asks, his face twists as he looks you over.

“Get down, I’ll go up,” you say.

“I can do it, if you don’t want to. It’s not a problem for me.”

“I know that, just... get down, please.”

He gives you a weird look, getting down. You head up the ladder, ignoring the screaming in your head. If you fall, Finnick will probably be able to catch you, but not the other way around. And you’d much rather take the chance, anyway, because he’s still recovering from the beating you gave him.

Finnick holds the ladder while you unscrew the light bulbs. When you ask Maarja how she expects all of these to get back in, she shrugs and says it’s not her problem. They plan on leaving the bulbs in a box by the door. You don’t bother to mention anything about someone stumbling along and turning on the colored lights.

Finnick does, and he’s immediately met with Daziel’s criticism. 

“You know, the older siblings are typically the smarter ones,” Finnick starts, he has to look over his shoulder to see Daziel, “It’s nice to know that you’re helping Lennox break the standards.”

You can see the sarcastic smile Finnick gives Daziel, you can’t help the giggle that leaves you. Daziel mocks it into the microphone, “Shut up and work.”

“You should be on one of these ladders, actually,” Maarja says, “You’re the tallest out of us.”

Daziel shrugs, not moving from where he sits.

“What did Daziel place in the final rankings?” Blaire asks.

“Like, fifth or something,”

“That’s not hard to believe.” Finnick mutters.

The room slowly comes together, with the lightbulbs out and the windows covered, the atmosphere is already setting in. There’s a row of tables along one wall that’s covered in the food that keeps coming, and Daziel gets up to start mixing the alcohol into other juices with Torrac and Lennox.

At some point, the only job left is to wait for the cake and start retrieving the only people that don’t know how to get to the room--Trink, Eytelle and Allio. Everyone else is on their own time schedule, and they look right at home when they enter. It’s always in clusters of three to four, with brightly colored hair and piercings that catch the light.

Maarja takes the microphone from Daziel and hides it somewhere. Then, she starts to play music somehow, none of which you and Finnick are familiar with. Music is typically only for enjoyment, so that was out of the question in Abnegation. Plus, you thought it was supposed to be an Amity-exclusive thing to listen to, anyway.

The tempo is typically upbeat, and if the artist isn’t screaming the words, then you can understand it fairly well. It isn’t long before Finnick has blended into the crowd, singing along to the repeated chorus and bouncing around. You watch him for a while, standing off to the side with Maarja as she watches the scene she created.

“Have you ever been to a party before?”

“Dinner parties with the neighbors.” you tell her.

“Dinner what?” Daziel shouts, leaning forward.

“Dinner parties! You guys probably don’t have those very often,” the looks on their faces makes you stop, “or at all, I guess. We all eat in the same room so it’s a foreign concept to you.”

“Not to me! I know what you’re talking about.” Trink nods, “Normally you invite someone over from a different house and cook for them. Sometimes they bring food so that they don’t feel awkward.”

You motion to Trink, “Except, in Abnegation it’s a custom to bring a few dishes. To let the entire other family cook would be extremely rude.”

Maarja and Daziel look vaguely horrified, “Okay, what do you do at those parties?”

“Eat, but you can’t talk about yourself. And typically gossip is rude, unless you know the family you’re eating with, really well.” you say, “You could always run the risk of someone else hearing, and reputation is very important.”

Trink’s twirling her hair around her finger, “Intelligent conversations, mostly. My family would have competitions to see who could come up with inventions that could improve lifestyle. I always won.”

Daziel stands up straight, “You two are incredibly boring.”

“How are your factions not getting along? Like, seriously?”

“Power.” you say, Trink’s bobbing her head in agreement.

Somewhere in the middle of the crowd, you spot Finnick motioning to you. You tilt your head, beginning to shake no, but Daziel shoves you forward, “Go get him!”

“I don’t dance.” you say, “It’s self-indulgent in Abnegation.”

“It’s a good time to learn, you’ll be doing a lot of it in Dauntless.” Maarja says, she then leans forward on your shoulders, talking in your ear, “Have a drink, if you’re really that nervous.” She pats you once or twice as encouragement, letting go. 

You sigh, dragging your feet as you go to find Finnick. He’s easy to lose in the crowd, since he’s just as tall as the rest of them. Still, you manage to catch a glimpse of his hair in the purple light, eyes locking with his. He moves forward slightly, hand extended to you. You slip your hand in his, and instantly get yanked forward.

It’s too loud to just speak normally here, so he leans down, “I figured out the trick, it’s just a bunch of jumping.”

He backs away, joining the crowd’s rhythm, a smile on his face. You stare at him, not moving at first, so he grabs a hold of your hands and starts moving them like a puppeteer. 

“Come on, (Y/n)! Feel the music!” he laughs, forcing you to twirl.

You want to tell him no, but you’ve already done a lot in Dauntless that you never pictured yourself doing. You’ve broken so many boundaries, disobeyed everything you’ve learned in Abnegation, and you’re refusing to dance? You ziplined off a building, hung hundreds of feet in the air, and you can’t do this?

You know, there’s a lot of things that you couldn’t do today, but this is something you can do. As long as it keeps that smile on Finnick’s face. If it stays, then you think you can do this.

“Okay!” you agree, waiting a beat or two before beginning to bounce too.

Finnick’s laughter fills the air, and for the first time in your life, you finally notice the butterflies. Light, swarming, and suffocating. You laugh too, holding onto his hands a little tighter. This is how it should be between you.

You’ve got a hold of Finnick again, and you’re never going to let go. Thyme can try to get in the way, but she won’t succeed. Finnick’s yours, he’s always been yours. By the time the rankings come out, she’ll be gone. Finnick will know your secrets, and he’ll help make sure that they don’t get out.

His smile fades a little, hand tilting your face up, “What’s wrong?”

You hadn’t even realized that you stopped smiling, “Nothing.” you grab his hand, squeezing it, “I’ll tell you later.”

Finnick gives you a look, “Promise?”

You won’t ruin tonight. You’ll tell him tomorrow if you can.

You beam, “Promise.”

--

It’s so painfully obvious that something went on last night. Every single initiate, with the exception of Thyme, is dragging their feet. A few people act like they turned into vampires overnight when they wince at bright lights and loud noises. Others are just in irritable moods in general, hungover from the alcohol.

Thyme is still sour from yesterday, you think, so there’s that. However, when you all came into the dormitory at three in the morning, she exploded. She didn’t yell, she managed to keep her voice level, but it was like all of you were in an interrogation.

One of the Dauntless-borns had said something to her along the lines of, “Shut the fuck up, this is why you weren’t invited.” and it worked. Thyme just glared daggers at the back of their head as they trudged their way to the bathroom. Now that you think about it, it might have been Lennox.

You also may have forgotten to mention an important detail about the dormitory now--it’s now occupied by the Dauntless-borns too. As it’s been said a hundred times before already, your groups had been kept apart. Now they’re combined, there’s four new bunk beds, and you get the pleasure of listening to Lennox and Sydney bicker in the mornings.

Anyway, Thyme went to bed after making a fuss with Finnick. He didn’t say much to her at all at first, then she wore on his patience--as she always does--and he snapped and told her to leave him alone. He was just invited to it, it’s not like he controlled the guest list. It was run by a bunch of the older Dauntless siblings.

And Thyme went, “Like who?”

Which made, literally everyone, point to either Sydney, Nestor, or towards the bathroom, where Lennox had disappeared inside of. Three people she doesn’t know, and therefore had no chance to actually build up some sort of friendship. It did raise the question on how Finnick got in, which was quickly answered by Blaire.

And, as if the salt wasn’t already bad enough, Cass went ahead and said, “Just face it Thyme, you’re fucking unlikable.”

A line with such irony, since the Amity are supposed to be the most liked. Yet here, she’s the most hated. Anyone could go ahead and say that Dauntless just hated Amity, and by default, Abnegation too. But then they’d have to explain why, especially since a former Abnegation is helping lead Dauntless, and you and Finnick are good in the books too.

Anyway, you can confidently say that Thyme is pissed. She’s been giving you a few looks every now and then, which is your fault because you’re the only other person that hasn’t been a complete asshole today. It’s weird to see, you came back with the rest of them, a little buzzed too. You shouldn’t be as on-top of it as you have been this morning.

You think it might have something to do with the adrenaline. To be completely honest, you don’t remember falling asleep, and each time you think of talking to Finnick, your stomach flips. Most of it has something to do with the fact of telling him you’re Divergent, but the other…

“Thyme.” Laurel says, hanging out of the door.

Thyme doesn’t move from her spot in the hallway, eyes on you, “Can you call someone else in?”

“No.” Laurel says, “You’ve had a shitty attitude all day, I want you over with. Get in here.”

Today also happened to be the day where gun training resumed. So, the first thing you got to do this morning was shoot. A lot of people complained, namely the ones who drank too much, but Caspian and Laurel were thoroughly enjoying themselves. You guess that the party was no secret, and you can’t really be surprised. The music just seemed to get louder the more time went on.

Not to mention when Maaja started playing popular songs, and the sing-alongs started. You swear that you’ve never heard a crowd yell that loud, drinks protruding into the air, swaying, harmonious. You and Finnick didn’t know what to do besides watch in awe.

Thyme gets to her feet, purposely kicking your ankle. You dig your nails into your palm, staring after her. Once the door swings shut, conversation takes over, forgetting her immediately.

“Does anyone remember how we got back?” Sydney asks, her hair is tied up messily, it looks like she got dressed in the dark.

“We walked back in a crowd.” you say, Cass immediately nods.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Cass agrees.

“I wish someone could tell me how much I drank.” Lennox groans, leaning his head back onto the wall.

You could probably tell him, but you think you stopped counting after three. Plus, you think he likes the attention he gets from Trink in response, how she immediately leans into him with a coo.

“We have to plan another party, right after initiation,” Ameer says.

Mirza nods, “We probably won’t be able to get as much alcohol as we did, but if we start taking some now…”

“I wouldn’t push it, we’re lucky we got any at all. Caspian had to pull some real strings.” Nestor says, earning two agreements from Sydney and Lennox.

“Wait,” you say, “Caspian helped?”

“Yeah!” Cass sits up straighter, “He’s the one that started the tradition, after all.”

You share a look with Finnick, “Why am I not surprised?”

“Caspian would start something like that.” Finnick laughs, you join in.

“Is Thyme always like that?” Horace asks.

There’s a lot of nodding, “Yeah, pretty much.”

“It’s a good thing she wasn’t invited, then.” Cass says.

“You can thank (Y/n) for that,” Sydney tucks some of her hair behind her ear.

Finnick gives you a glance, and for some reason, you remember that you need to talk to him. The only problem is that Thyme is obviously on your tail, so it might not be the smartest idea to talk to him just yet.

While the others talk about the party, you lean to the left, into Finnick. He leans back, already knowing what’s going on. He tilts his head a certain way, offering his ear to you. It’s a habit for the two of you, never listening to the Abnegation ideals. Abnegation says not to disturb others, which is typically interpreted as silence, Finnick finds a way to speak quietly. It took a couple of weeks for you to master, but you’re just as good as he is.

“I think we should cool it for a little while.” you watch his face, the crease appearing between his eyebrows, “I don’t want to upset Thyme, and after last night, she’s definitely pissed.”

“So when?” he asks back, it’s his turn to watch you.

You press your lips together and shrug, “A couple of days?”

A warning look.

“I promised.” you remind him.

He nods, sitting up. It doesn’t look like any of the others noticed the brief conversation. Which would be good, but it’s not like it matters anymore. Everyone saw you with Finnick last night, and you two hardly left each other’s sides. You’ll be lucky if they don’t say anything to Thyme, especially since you haven’t told them what’s happening between you and her.

Slowly but surely, one by one, you all get called into the room, with the previous person coming out. When Thyme comes out again, you criss-cross your legs, and watch as she gets to Ameer before his leg shoots out to trip her. She barely catches herself, and doesn’t even dignify Ameer with a look.

However, you all know she’s fuming when the laughter starts.

About eight people later, the only people left are you, Sydney, Lennox, Cass and Blaire. The conversation isn’t so much about the party anymore, and more so about what you think of their siblings. You had been left with them for four hours by yourself, you got the authentic experience.

Honestly, they aren’t all that bad. For Dauntless members, they’re pretty chill. The only intense one was Daziel, but it wasn’t all the time. Blaire is glad to know that he’s not the only one that thinks that. You go ahead and tell them about the microphone and most of the things that he said while he was in control. And then you inflate Lennox’s ego a little bit by saying he’s definitely the smarter one.

Sydney is proud to know that you think she has a cool older sister. She says that she’ll pass on the word, because there’s no way in hell that Maarja hasn’t grown attached to you in some way. As for Torrac, there’s not much to say, besides he was the most level-headed one, and he shares a close resemblance with Nestor.

“But would you hang out with them again?” Lennox asks.

“Oh yeah, for sure.”

Ameer comes out of the room, keeping you from going any further. Laurel points at you, gives a big motion for you to go after her, and then disappears into the room. 

“We’ll see you later.” Cass says.

You give them a smile, rising to your feet. Ameer looks like a zombie when you pass him, you wouldn’t be surprised if he was in some sort of autopilot mode. You gently push the door shut behind you, heading toward the chair. Laurel lets out a breath of air.

“How’d you like your first Dauntless party?” she says, you can see her preparing the syringe.

“It was exactly how I expected it to be.”

She laughs, “Yeah, but I’m pretty sure I saw you having fun.”

Your eyes flash to her, “You were there?”

“In the corner, I was there for Caspian. He couldn’t make it.”

“Leader business?” you guess, sitting in the chair.

“Something like that,” she comes around the side. You offer up your arm for her, she slides the needle in and slowly presses down on the plunger. “I need you to focus for a moment, okay?”

You nod.

“Let’s say you have twelve fears, about four to six of those will come out in the second stage, and the other half or so will stay hidden until the final stage. There’s a good chance that your fears will start repeating, since we still have a week and a half of initiation left.”

You don’t have the heart to tell her that you can’t focus on her face for more than a second. You know that the simulations are hallucinations, but this is a pre-hallucination hallucination. There’s little black objects zipping across her body, and the urge to reach out and grab one is strong.

You are hearing what she’s saying, though.

“You’re going to get a lot of practice in with the fears that do repeat, but you’ll be left in the dark when the final stage comes around, because all those hidden fears will reveal themselves.”

“Sounds like a nightmare,” you murmur, you think you’re going to be motion sick. The jolt from setting your head against the headrest, is enough to make you want to puke.

“It is. There are advantages, especially for people like you.”

“That’s phrased like an insult.” 

Most families in Abnegation are religious, it’s part of the traditional family roles stereotype. It was never that way for yours, and after your parents died, the idea was buried with them. You like to think that hell isn’t real, then shit like this happens. You’re staring face to face with Laurel, who no longer has eyes, just black holes and tiny black dots coming and going as they please.

With that, you’ve decided that you won’t try and fight off the simulation. 

You think you hear Laurel say something back. The words don’t sound like they’re in your language, much less coherent. And really, that is the least of your concerns, mainly because you blink and the scenery changes around you. You’re inside of an empty tank, which is, of course, inside of a dark room.

You let out a huff of air, getting to your feet, “I’m not afraid of the dark.”

There’s no one around you this time, no dirt to come raining down. You shift on your feet for a while, calves incredibly sore from all the jumping. Torrac had set up no chairs, claiming that no one would want to sit down, anyway. He must’ve forgotten that he had six inexperienced partiers inside of the room.

Needless to say, getting down from the top bunk was, most certainly, your own personal nightmare.

A tickling sensation ghosts over your ankle, making you absentmindedly lift your other foot to itch through your jeans. The feeling leaves for a few seconds, before quickly returning. It’s not just your right leg anymore, though, it’s both, and it kinda hurts. When you look down to see where it’s coming from, you see why.

A scream rips through your throat, loud and raw. It’s been less than a second, and tears have already appeared in your eyes. You can’t escape this box, yet you slam your hands against the walls anyway.

Spiders coat the floor, hundreds of them, of all different sizes, climb up anything possible, including your jeans. On top, underneath, the floor, the walls. You slap a shaky hand over your mouth, sobbing through your fingers, struggling to breathe.

You try to dodge them, kick them off. In an adrenaline rush, you try brushing them off your jeans but end up making it worse when they hang off your arms. They jump, attach themselves to your shirts, staring up at you.

“No!” You scream, stomping to get them off, “No, please!”

A strike of pain goes through your arm, a red welt immediately forming. You can hardly see, hardly breathe, anymore as you brush them off. This is worse, this is so much worse. You brush off the spiders that you can’t, and you’re forced to watch them crawl up your body in front row seating.

The lightheadedness only gets worse with the hyperventilation. You lean against an empty part of the wall to keep yourself upright. You need to get out. You need out. You need to leave. 

You close your eyes and grit your teeth hard enough for them to squeak. With your head leaned up toward the ceiling, you try to breathe normally. You’re going to get out now. You don’t care how quick it is, you want out immediately. It hurts, the spiders bite, and you think it’s starting to itch.

“Please.” you moan, the inhales through your nose are full of snot. A shudder runs down your spine when you feel a spider coming up, “Please…”

And just as it comes up your neck, heading straight for your chin, you wake in the metal chair.

“One minute--”

Your scream cuts her off.

--

ANTERIC IS A SPIN-OFF DIVERGENT AU //MASTERLIST//

add yourself to the TAGLIST

@amixedwitch / @justthatfangirloverthere / @fnnshelbys / @neenieweenie / @vxntae / @liaaacantwrite / @terezasworld / @i-dumb-bitch 

[adragonhoardingstories]

Daminette Soulmate AU Headcannons (1)

"Wait, so what you're saying is that you've occasionally just swapped bodies in our company and no one noticed."

"Grayson knew." Damian said; he hadn't let her get away since the bond formed and no one in her class except Chloe could come close enough to her. 

Jason was protective too and so Marinette found herself in a soulmate sandwich. 

"I think Alfred knew too or at the very least least suspected." She piped up. 

"That doesn't count." Tim said. "Alfred always knows everything." No one refuted that statement. 

Marinette was a little amused to be honest, her class had taken to just staring at the scene disbelievingly all taunts and lies died down. 

"Wait. Hold up one second-" Jason looked at her. "Did you ever switch when-"

"Yep." She grinned. 

"So you know-" Bruce interrupted. 

"Yup."

It seemed like she had broken Batman and both of her soulmates seemed all too gleeful about that fact. 

Dick on the other hand was all to smug to have been the only one in the know for once. "She's amazing. When they switch during a...well when she can't get away, she slides into his role perfectly."

That seemed to bring about another bout of realisation for the bats. 

"Detectives my ass." Jason muttered, lowly enough so that only they would hear and Marinette could help it anymore, she burst out laughing. 

~

"Wait so does Talia know about this?" Bruce asked. He was still miffed that he hadn't known.

They were lounging at the manor, Marinette having been invited to spend the rest of her time in Gotham there, and not that they could against the Waynes, but no one dared to argue due to her soulmate bond. 

She was lying in the couch with her head on Damian's lap and her feet on Jason's. Her soulmate was stroking her hair with one hand and had a book in the other. 

"She doesn't like me very much."  Was her answer and she felt Damian stop the stroking. 

"Unlike her father, she doesn't see soulmates as a weakness, that much I know, so why?" She could see that all the boys were eager for her answer. 

Instead she sought out Damian's hand and pressed her lips to his palm. 

"You know I won't tell them if you don't want me to." She spoke in Arabic. 

"Her reasons aren't fair. You just reacted as she herself would have."

She smiled up at him. "Maybe so, but even if we don't agree with it, fact is that she does have a reason."

Damian said nothing and instead just resumed stroking her hair. She took that as a go ahead. 

"The first time we met," She said nonchalantly, "I stabbed her."

There was a moment of silence before chaos erupted. The part of her that was Lady Noir revelled in it and it must have shown because Tim was looking at her with a considerable amount of awe on his face. 

"You terrify me."

~

"There's no way you can manipulate chaos." Tim said. 

"Well no," She conceeded. "But I know exactly what to say, what to do to influence it…"

"Prove it then." Stephanie challenged. None of them save Jason, Damian and Dick has know her for all that long so they didn't know that the biggest mistake was to underestimate her. 

"Fine." She said. "But all of you have to honestly answer the question I'll ask, no getting out of it."

Those who did know her didn't want to - smart choice - but eventually after needling from their siblings, they gave in. 

"So who, does each of you think, is Bruce's favourite child?"

Everyone in the room froze.

Marinette leant back in her seat and smirked as Plagg cackled. 

"You win." Cass said. 

~

"I've been wanting to spar with you since a long time. I've only ever seen the results of your prowess."

"Likewise." Marinette smiled. This was going to be a tough fight, especially since they were soulmates which meant that they were usually always on the same length. 

They also might not have seen the other in action before but they had worked with their other teammates and had a good guess on their fighting level and styles. 

Marinette had an advantage though. She had been through some of Damian's lessons, had Talia teach her because she didn't want Marinette to be a liability if they switched during a perilous situation.

Marinette on the other hand, had a street style that was uniquely here and that Damian would not be able to anticipate. 

But on the other hand, she didn't play fair and he knew that better than anyone else. 

They both eyed each other, both in position, waiting for the other to make the first move, waiting for that single muscle twitch for that opening…

As if a signal had been given, they both moved forward at the same time. 

Oh yes, this was going to be very interesting indeed. 

~

"Okay, okay, okay, there's something I've been wanting to ask you since a long long time." Marinette said.

She was once again, very much aware of the Waynes that had been observing her as if she was a zoo animal. She could understand them, she was the soulmate of the two most…difficult members of their family bar Bruce Wayne. 

Their interest in her was obvious. 

"What is it?"

She would have preferred to have this conversation when they were alone but she really couldn't help it. 

At least, her class couldn't overhear them right then.

"What the fuck were you doing in the middle of the Indian Ocean that one time?"

He winced. "A mission went wrong."

She see gave out a disbelieving laugh. "I just want you to know that you'll have to hold me back from punching Talia in her face - with a dagger - the next time we see each other."

"I mean sure," He said, Damian had taken to ignoring the constant bafflement from his family since Marinette had been discovered by them. "But it's far from being the only time we've swapped when my life was in peril, why does this situation have you wound up?"

"Two reasons." She snarked. "Premièrement, I didn't know how to swim before that Dove, literally the only reasons we're alive right now is because of your muscle memory. How that works when I'm in your body though, I have no clue et deuxièmement, there were sharks Dames, sharks and even I'm not reckless enough to try and fight sharks. I still can't believe we survived that to be honest."

Jason was gaping at them, she could tell. 

Damian on the other hand looked slightly amused but apologetic. 

"I did not know about the sharks."

But then he seemed to come to a realisation. "This reminds me, there's some things I'd like to inquire about as well."

She raised an eyebrow as an invitation for him to ask ahead. 

"How did you pull off the Afghanistan one. When I came back to my own body, the whole terrorist base was destroyed! You didn't have access to any of the information I had been given since I had needed to memorise them."

"That one was tricky. It did have me stumped for a bit." She admitted. "But one of the most fun I had. Their defenses were pretty great…"

The Waynes clearly didn't know as much about their youngest as they had previously thought - not even Dick. 

@persephonebutkore @hypnosharkrebeldreamer @satans-favorite-homo @mystery-5-5

@abrx2002 @clumsy-owl @daminett4life @18-fandoms-unite-08 @bluerosette23 @dawnwave16 @imanerddealwith @heldtogetherbysafetypins

@st0rmy-w1th1n @northernbluetongue @chez-pezeater @thebananathatwrites @black-streak

@ghostcryptid @zerotosiki @krispydefendorpolice @dur55

@northernbluetongue @weird-pale-blonde-person @casual-darkness @maude-zarella

@sonif50 @zalladane @dast218

I tried to get everyone in the tag list, sorry if I missed someone

[anzanity]

Like How (Batsis)

You have been living as batsis sit 6 months and only just started to come out of your shell. You have been shy around them and limit what you do in front of them, but Alfred convinced you that it is okay to be yourself around them. So today you have. 

You decide to wear a cute little blouse and jeans today, along with your vans. A nice outfit for your tiny body. Being the youngest, you are described by the brothers as a “short stick”. This is always amusing because even Damian calls you this. 

Once seated at breakfast, you smile and nod at Alfred, which tells him you are ready to show your true colors. He gives you 4 of his special pancakes, 2 pieces of buttered toast, and 4 pieces of bacon (unless you are vegetarian because then he gives you some celery; all parts of the meal are made vegetarian friendly, except for the bacon, already because of Damian). You also have your morning hot coco. You drink hot coco like Tim drinks coffee. 

The boys look at you in disbelief. 

“You’ll never eat all of that. You hardly eat one pancake. It’s worrying actually.” Jason says. 

“I was always nervous to eat in front of you all. Girls never are supposed to eat a lot, but Alfred convinced me it’s okay. I may even have seconds.” You explain, then smirk as even Bruce looks shocked. 

They seem to just accept your statement and go to eating. After finishing your plate you ask for two more pancakes, they really are your favorite, and some more hot coco. 

They boys gawk at your appetite. 

“Where is all of that going?” Dick asks. 

“Hopefully the places puberty has yet to fill out, if you catch my drift.” You state and smirk as Bruce spits the coffee he just sipped on out when he goes to laugh.

Damian looks rather disgusted. He never wanted to imagine his little sister having a feminine look, and he knows that when you get the look he will have to kill any boy who tries to get with you. 

As you finish your second plate Jason and Dick look impressed. They sat there even after finishing their plates to see if you could do it. Tim is sipping on a third cup of coffee and just looks disturbed. He can’t fathom that a tiny girl like you can eat more then Jason or Dick. 

“Like… How?” Tim says surprised. 

“We are totally having an eating competition.” Jason says and smirks. 

“You’re on. Dick?” You reply and smirk. 

He nods and smirks. 

Later that day the boys set up the eating competition. Tim is recording it on his phone, Damian is the judge, Bruce has Barbra, Stephanie, and Cass with him to be the audience, and Alfred is the cook. 

There are multiple types of food to scarf down. Each one is given enough for three people to begin with, and Alfred has more in case needed. 

Damian blows the whistle and the feast begins. After the first meal and a half, Dick gives in. He didn’t realize it would be this hard to keep up with Jason and you. 

At the third plate it is coming close to a tie. Jason and you both look full but keep going, that is, until Jason stops and grabs the trash bag from under his seat and hurls up the feast, leaving you as the Champion. 

The girls cheer for you and Bruce claps with a smirk. Damian just sighs because it is obvious that you won and he’s rather disgusted by it all. “Somehow (y/n) wins the pig contest,” Damian states. 

“Like… How?!” Tim blurts out again. He’s now on 48 hours of no sleep so the vocabulary is limited. 

“Told you boys. I’m trying to get my figure up.” You joke. 

“You could win against the speedsters.” Dick says and laughs which makes you stand proud. 

“I bet I could,” you say then add, “but not today.”

[haunt-the-stars]

Ornaments

Written for Batfam Christmas Stocking 2018 for @starknjarvis27 ‘s prompts “A seemingly normal holiday activity accidentally makes someone sad, someone else comforts them.” & “Jason’s first Christmas back at the manor”

Fandom: Batman (Comics)

Characters: Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd, Cassandra Cain (mentioned), Dick Grayson (mentioned), Tim Drake (mentioned), Damian Wayne (mentioned)

Category: Gen

Relationships: Bruce Wayne & Jason Todd

Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Angst

Every once in a while, Bruce wondered what it was like to have five mostly-grown children in a normal-sized house. Usually, he immediately wished he didn’t wonder about it, because the idea was terrifying. His family not being able to spread out to their own spaces...it would be awful for everyone except perhaps Dick. Even he sometimes retreated for a few hours, and Bruce would find him under a heavy blanket, headphones in, happily shutting the world out.

It was one of those times, when everyone was shutting the world out in their own way. As of this morning, all five of his kids were under his roof, and they would be having Christmas Eve dinner all together in about nine hours. Then Christmas Eve patrol, when Nightwing wore colorful string lights and Red Robin wore a Santa hat and Orphan’s humming of Christmas songs was constant on the comms. But for now, in anticipation of spending so much time together and so much energy trying not to kill each other, they were taking a few hours for themselves.

Bruce checked on Cassandra first, found her curled up with a tablet in the library watching what he had to assume was the holiday baking show she’d been watching so much lately. It’s relaxing, she’d told him. Ace sat on her feet, tail thumping against the chair. Cass waved at Bruce, not bothering to take her headphones out, then signed, “Do you need help?” Bruce shook his head, smiled, and waved back before quietly shutting the door and moving on.

Damian was harder to find, but Bruce eventually discovered him perched on a window seat in the study, fast asleep, sketchbook and a handful of pencils in his lap. Bruce smiled at the sketch of the large tree that stood outside the window. Damian had captured the falling snow, and seemed to have started adding a small bird with a tiny scarf before he fell asleep. Bruce gently moved the book and pencils to a table and replaced them with a blanket over Damian, hoping the chill from the window wouldn’t freeze him.

Dick was next, and Bruce didn’t even have to walk far into his bedroom before he heard the shower running and Dick’s voice drifting out of the bathroom with the steam. Bruce listened for a few seconds, thinking wistfully to himself how nice it would be if he actually remembered how to play the piano so he could share in Dick’s love of music. Damian had just started letting Dick teach him how to play the guitar, and Bruce would be lying if he said he wasn’t just the tiniest bit jealous of yet another connection they had that didn’t involve him.

He moved on down the hall to Tim’s room, and got another auditory confirmation of wellbeing in the form of Tim’s bright giggles, and then a, “It’s definitely just ‘moose,’ Bart.” A pause, then, “Well, house rhymes with mouse but it’s houses, not hice, right?” and then, “Kon, shut up,” and then more laughter, which made Bruce’s heart warm. He ignored the fact that the giggles were probably due to Tim’s obvious crush on Superboy, because to acknowledge it would be to acknowledge that yet another son of his had a thing for men who could bench press him. He had lost enough sleep over Dick, and Tim had his own contingency plans. Probably.

Bruce considered stopping his rounds there to avoid agitating his most volatile child. He had seen him just an hour or two ago, and it was unlikely that anything life-shattering had happened in the meantime. But a worried little drive always seemed to win over in situations like this. He couldn’t relax until each bird was accounted for, and after spending so long not getting to check on Jason, it was a privilege he never wanted to pass up. Especially today, given the circumstances.

All five birds in his nest for Christmas...for the first time.

True, each year had brought them a little closer to it, with Jason first sneaking in during the night to drop some mania-driven notes and presents, then the next year coming for an awkward visit during breakfast, and finally this year, a hesitant maybe to Alfred’s invitation. Truthfully, Bruce didn’t think he would come. His visits were slightly more frequent than they used to be, slightly more peaceful, and Bruce knew that he and Dick had a standing monthly dinner date, that he and Tim were steadfast video game partners, and that he genuinely seemed to like Cass and Damian. But when it came to Bruce, everything was still a battle.

He was sort of hoping for a Christmas miracle come dinner time tonight, that maybe they’d get through a whole twenty-four hours without conflict.

The room that had unofficially become Jason’s was empty, as was his childhood bedroom -- expected, since Jason usually wanted nothing to do with it. Bruce would have checked the library next, but he had been in there to see Cass and Jason wasn’t with her. Alfred was unaccompanied in the kitchen, putting a sheet of sugar cookies into the oven, and reported that he hadn’t seen Jason any more recently than Bruce had.

Beginning to worry, Bruce was about to make his way back to the study to check down in the cave when he heard the faintest of sniffles.

Oh no.

He stepped silently backwards until he could pinpoint the noise that was coming from the sitting room. It was quiet, but unmistakably Jason. Bruce could pick out the sound of any of his kids’ tears from a mile away, even if some of them were more apt to let him hear than others. He had to come up with a game plan, though. Dick and Cassandra both liked to be held when they were upset, while Damian usually calmed down with verbal reassurances and Tim was content to have someone sit with him and listen.

When Jason was young, he used to like Bruce to sit and listen to him too. But sometimes when he looked at his son now, it was like looking at a stranger. So different in the ways he talked and moved and felt that Bruce didn’t know how to take care of him, didn’t know how to love him anymore.

But he had to try.

Bruce came around the corner into the sitting room to see Jason sitting, legs crossed, face buried in his hands, under the Christmas tree. There were at least twenty Christmas trees in Wayne Manor, most of them in the front entryway and the ballroom, but those were decorated with big, plain, shining balls. The eight-foot beast in the sitting room was for all the ornaments each of his children had collected over the years, from the very first little elephant he’d given a nine-year-old Dick to Damian’s new tiny tray of teacups. Jason, despite his huge and intimidating stature, looked small beneath it.

“Jason.”

Jason started, lifted his head, and groaned. His voice was brittle and his face was red. “How much would it cost for you to go away?”

“I’m a billionaire.”

Jason huffed, rubbing his eyes with his sleeve, and Bruce stepped further into the room, doing his best to look open and non-threatening. Open palms. Loose arms. Just like Cassandra taught him. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Nope,” Jason said. Bruce shrugged, and sat down next to him, keeping just a bit of distance between their shoulders. Letting Jason come to him.

Praying Jason came to him.

“It’s not fair,” came Jason’s pitiful whisper after nearly a minute.

Bruce resisted the urge to turn and face him, hoping he’d feel more comfortable this way. “No, it’s not.”

“You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

“It’s probably not fair.”

A startled, choked half-laugh came from Jason, and then a hand was in front of Bruce’s face, uncurling to reveal an ornament. One of the first ornaments he gave Jason, in the shape of a tire.

It had seemed funny at the time.

“I was thirteen, when you got me this,” Jason says, and Bruce nods patiently. “And that was seven years ago. I’m twenty.”

Bruce had a bit of a feeling he knew where this was going, but he nodded again. “Yes, you are.”

“I’ve only been...a-alive, and...sane, for...sixteen years, total.”

Now Bruce did look over, saw Jason shudder and another tear slip down his cheek. “I missed so much. I missed getting my license, and my prom, and my graduation and birthdays and I’m here fucking crying because I missed getting some stupid fucking ornaments.”

Bruce felt his heart sink. “Jay…”

He had nothing else to say. Jason’s lip quivered and his breathing stuttered, tears coming in a slow trickle as he collapsed forward into his hands again. “I’m not twenty yet, Bruce. I can’t be twenty. I can’t be twenty when I was never sixteen or seventeen or--”

“Shh.” Carefully, Bruce laid a hand on his son’s back and rubbed up and down his spine. He wasn’t sure how well a hug would be received yet. But maybe this could be a compromise. “You don’t have to be twenty. You can be sixteen if you want.”

“I can’t be s-sixteen.”

“Why can’t you?”

Jason looked up at him like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I can’t be younger than Tim.”

That was another thing about Jason. No matter the circumstance, no matter if they were sitting on the floor and Jason was crying, there was no one that could ever make him laugh more.

For a few seconds, Bruce felt horror crawl up his spine as he let out the most inappropriate, uncontrollable laugh he had in years. A rare “bat-guffaw,” as Dick would call it. Jason stared, wide-eyed, shocked into breathing steady again.

And then he laughed too.

Bruce hadn’t really heard Jason laugh since he came back with an adult voice. He’d heard him cackle, heard him mock him, but never laugh earnestly like a child being tickled.

His new laugh was nice. Low and loud and bubbling up through his tears as they both dissolved back into giggles every time they looked at each other. A little bit hysterical. But that suited him, Bruce supposed.

When they finally calmed down, Jason scrubbed at his eyes again, sniffling. “I’m a fucking mess.”

“You should wash your face. I’d...like to take you somewhere, before dinner.”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “Where?”

“The mall, maybe? Somewhere with a Christmas store. I think...I think we have some ornament shopping to catch up on.”

Please be the right thing to say.

Jason grinned.

--

They picked out five ornaments, in the end. A motorcycle, a little stack of books, the Gotham skyline, a tiny pair of combat boots, and a pair of comedy and tragedy masks.

It wasn’t until they were checking out that Bruce noticed Jason had added a small bat to the pile.

Maybe this would be the first of a new kind of Christmas.

[mistress-wayne-blog]

Like How?

As the batsis, you are the current youngest of the family and the newest, so when you finally open up and show them how much you can really eat they are shocked. 

Word count: 683

You have been living as batsis sit 6 months and only just started to come out of your shell. You have been shy around them and limit what you do in front of them, but Alfred convinced you that it is okay to be yourself around them. So today you have. 

You decide to wear a cute little blouse and jeans today, along with your vans. A nice outfit for your tiny body. Being the youngest, you are described by the brothers as a “short stick”. This is always amusing because even Damian calls you this. 

Once seated at breakfast, you smile and nod at Alfred, which tells him you are ready to show your true colors. He gives you 4 of his special pancakes, 2 pieces of buttered toast, and 4 pieces of bacon (unless you are vegetarian because then he gives you some celery; all parts of the meal are made vegetarian friendly, except for the bacon, already because of Damian). You also have your morning hot coco. You drink hot coco like Tim drinks coffee. 

The boys look at you in disbelief. 

“You’ll never eat all of that. You hardly eat one pancake. It’s worrying actually.” Jason says. 

“I was always nervous to eat in front of you all. Girls never are supposed to eat a lot, but Alfred convinced me it’s okay. I may even have seconds.” You explain, then smirk as even Bruce looks shocked. 

They seem to just accept your statement and go to eating. After finishing your plate you ask for two more pancakes, they really are your favorite, and some more hot coco. 

They boys gawk at your appetite. 

“Where is all of that going?” Dick asks. 

“Hopefully the places puberty has yet to fill out, if you catch my drift.” You state and smirk as Bruce spits the coffee he just sipped on out when he goes to laugh.

Damian looks rather disgusted. He never wanted to imagine his little sister having a feminine look, and he knows that when you get the look he will have to kill any boy who tries to get with you. 

As you finish your second plate Jason and Dick look impressed. They sat there even after finishing their plates to see if you could do it. Tim is sipping on a third cup of coffee and just looks disturbed. He can’t fathom that a tiny girl like you can eat more then Jason or Dick. 

“Like… How?” Tim says surprised. 

“I was hungry,” you reply plainly. “What can I say?”

“We are totally having an eating competition.” Jason says and smirks. 

“You’re on. Dick?” You reply and smirk. 

He nods and smirks. 

Later that day the boys set up the eating competition. Tim is recording it on his phone, Damian is the judge, Bruce has Barbra, Stephanie, and Cass with him to be the audience, and Alfred is the cook. 

There are multiple types of food to scarf down. Each one is given enough for three people to begin with, and Alfred has more in case needed. 

Damian blows the whistle and the feast begins. After the first meal and a half, Dick gives in. He didn’t realize it would be this hard to keep up with Jason and you. 

At the third plate it is coming close to a tie. Jason and you both look full but keep going, that is, until Jason stops and grabs the trash bag from under his seat and hurls up the feast, leaving you as the Champion. 

The girls cheer for you and Bruce claps with a smirk. Damian just sighs because it is obvious that you won and he’s rather disgusted by it all. “Somehow (y/n) wins the pig contest,” Damian states. 

“Like… How?!” Tim blurts out again. He’s now on 48 hours of no sleep so the vocabulary is limited. 

“Told you boys. I’m trying to get my figure up.” You joke. 

“You could win against the speedsters.” Dick says and laughs which makes you stand proud. 

“I bet I could,” you say then add, “but not today.”

Master List

[wwesmutdonedirtcheap]

Mic Check

Summary: Miz knows you have a crush on Finn and when the two of you are thrown in a storyline together, Miz is ready to call you out in front of him. Except, Finn might have other plans....And feelings of his own.

Inspired by this imagine originally posted by @deseraysmiththings

Imagine being invited on an episode of Miz TV with Finn and when Miz tries to get a seat for you, Finn shoves the chair to the ground and pats his lap. Shit eating grin and all.

Tag Squad:

@beccabear | @littledeadrottinghood | @thedeboniardevistation | @caramara3 | @nightmareangeluniverse | @queenreignsempire | @withwordslikeweapons | @xfirespritex | @ashleymarie2021 | @ashleyvc88 | @wwefangirl69 | @greygirlmoxley | @theelitevillian | @dorkyvillain | @fluffyhales | @superrezzy00 | @wrasslin-x | @therattlesnakedaughter-devon| @harleyquinnnikki | @slutforchadgable | @vebner37 | @writergrrrl29 | @the-geekgoddes | @thatonegirloncealways | @bombomiver | @alexahood21 | @wweismyguiltypleasure | @alexispoo | @reigns420 | @helluvawriter | @shieldgirl95 | @imladylunaticbitch |  @rum-and-whiskey-gypsy | @aaaammber | @welshwitch5 | @iwannadiehere | @lilmisscrisis | @lip-sync | @valeonmars | @unstablenikki | @gelinas22 | @cute-face-chubby-waist  | @awkward-potato-imagines | @wafflovessyrup | @sarahmatthews7 | @laochbaineann | @giantbananas | @that-lolachick | @shelaughssheloves | @racheo91 | @blondekel77 | @crowleysqueenofhell | @bolieve-that | @queensofallshesees67 | @calwitch | @wwesmut88 | @lunaticfringe216 | @ineedyourlaughs | @devittslegos | @sgtbbxrnes | @heelturn-timesten | @wildandfreepinkv0dka | @sebastianandstyles | @alyhull | @crookedmoonsaultpunk | @sss2216 | @kianji | @secretagentfangirl | @lonewolfgirl17 | @ilovesamizaynn | @poe-slittleraven13 | @sonjashuterbugjohnson | @imagines--assemble | @ambrosegirlforever | @banrioncethlenn | @truconsciousramblings | @anerdysouthernbelle | @heeltothequeen | @macfizzle | @alynevelludo2 | @superkicksandchill | @kingslayers-angel | @hardcorewwetrash| @ambroseasylum022 | @northlamed | @suckthatskittlebiiitch | @monsteramongmen-tamer | @thedustyangel | @swamptrashwithasideofsass | @artemisapalla316 | @vixxyvampire | @wrasslin-writings | @balordarling | @luchaparasiempre | @ambrosegirlforever | @laigy2213 | @im-indestructible |  @queencflair | @asylumxclub | @ghostlybabe16 | @fioportella | @baeckyshorsewomen | @neeadinghugs | @sfreeborn | @shadow-of-wonder| | @p0tat0catofwesteros | @karleedaniels27 | @amantedelcalcio | @queen-twerks-a-lot | @spine-buster | @blissful-moonchild | @zombie-zayde | @whatsupitsmk | @kaitlynwwefan | @mainlywwe-shitposts | @wwe-alright | @taryndbiase | @mandi512 | @captainyoutube | @lavitabella87 | @jeffhardyenigmawwefan |

“Do you have to be so blatantly obvious?”

I cringed when I heard Miz’s voice as he walked up behind me.

“About what?” I groaned, flipping my head around to face him.

“This,” he scoffed, motioning toward Finn as he grappled in the ring with Sami.

“This what?”

“This googley eyed, drooling that’s been going on for months now,” Miz laughed, rolling his eyes for good measure.

“I don’t know what you’re...”

“Yes, you do,” he held his hand up as if to hush me “It’s pathetic. It really is. You and I both know that Finn friend zoned you a long time ago, so why torture yourself week in and week out?”

“Is this supposed to be some kind of heart to heart conversation?” I laughed in disgust “Miz, just mind your own business.”

I hated the fact that he knew so much. 

He wouldn’t, if it wasn’t for Maryse and her big mouth. I needed to learn that anything said to her, went straight to him too.

“I’m trying to help you,” he wrapped an arm sympathetically around my shoulder “You need to face the facts, cut your losses...”

“Is there a problem ‘ere?”

We both looked up to see Finn standing in front of us. Sweat was dripping down his forehead, soaking his t-shirt and he had a towel wrapped around his neck.

“No,” Miz quickly pulled his arm away “No problem at all...As a matter of fact, I needed to speak to the two of you together. I’m glad you’re done with that horseplay...”

Finn’s eyes narrowed and I could tell by the stance he was taking, that he wanted to kick Miz’s teeth in.

“Horseplay?” he scoffed “It’s thins’ like dat, dat will win ya tha top championships. Workin’ ‘ard and...”

“Yeah, yeah,” Miz waved his hand “You’re a workhorse, you put in your time, you’re great, you’re fabulous, we get it...We need to talk about Miz Tv tonight.”

“What about it?” I folded my arms across my chest.

“Well, since the two of you have been paired up for this mixed tag at the pay per view next week...I’m calling you both out into the ring to face off against Emma and Cass tonight.”

“Fine,” Finn shrugged, grabbing hold of my shoulder to lead us out “We’ll see ya out ‘dare.”

“Yes, yes you will,” Miz smirked.

Before we could leave,  he opened his mouth and I knew I was going to want to die from whatever he said next.

“Oh,” he looked at me “Try to keep yourself together out there tonight. No googley eyes at Finn on Miz Tv.”

I felt my cheeks turning red and I wanted to crawl under the nearest chair. 

He turned and left before I could say anything, not that I had the capacity to say anything at the moment.

“What’s he talkin’ about?” Finn scrunched his nose up, letting go of my shoulder and standing where we were facing each other.

“I, I don’t know,” I shook my head “He’s just an asshole.”

“Well I know ‘dat,” he laughed “But, why would ya be lookin’ at me...like ‘dat?”

“It’s, it’s nothing,” I shook my head, humiliated at that point.

“It’s not nothin’,” he stared at me “What does he know, ‘dat I don’t?”

“Nothing,” I echoed myself again “He’s just, he’s trying to start trouble between us before our match. You know how he is.”

“Rootin’ for the ‘otha team,” he smirked “As long as it’s not us.”

“Asshole,” I mumbled again, before following Finn toward the locker rooms.

I asked for a heavier than usual makeup job, later that night. I had a feeling that Miz would call me out again and I wanted to hide my flushing cheeks as much as possible.

Finn and I had been friends for a little over a year. Fairly early on, I had wanted more but I never told him. Finn made an effort to tell everyone that he didn’t have time for a relationship. His relationship, he always said, was with wrestling.

We had become incredibly close though. We rode together, sometimes we would room together, he helped me train....He was my best friend and he always told me I was the secret female member of the Bullet Club. He would be so cute when he said it too; ‘too sweeting’ me to make me feel better after a loss or to cheer me up after another in a long line of terrible dates.

Finn would always tell me I was too good for them and to focus on my wrestling, just like he did...but I couldn’t. I wanted a relationship. With him.

“Hey!”

I heard Finn’s voice behind me as I walked down the hallway. I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath before turning around.

He was dressed for the ring. His jacket already stretched across his shoulders, his abs bared.

“Hey,” I smiled, trying my best to keep my heartbeat down.

“Listen, I talked ta da Miz,” he ran his hand up the back of his neck anxiously.

“You did?” I was able to squeak out.

“Yeah, listen if ya don’t wan’ ta do this thin’ tonight just tell me and I’ll get us out of it.”

Fuck. 

Miz had told him. 

All about my googley eyes and my feelings and what I wanted. 

Damn Maryse. I would never tell her another secret again.

She wasn’t there or she would have gotten an ear full by now.

“No, not it’s ok,” I nodded, brushing my hair back over my shoulders “I’ll be fine.”

“Listen,” Finn stepped closer, his eyes staring into mine as his tongue danced along his lip nervously “If ya feel somethin’ for me...”

“I don’t,” I lied, “I, I don’t. Miz is just saying that to get under our skin. He’s wanting to get us off our game so he can fuck with us and get a spike in the ratings.”

“Well, he’s doin’ a good job,” Finn laughed, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

“Yeah,” I nodded “So, I guess I’ll see you out there.”

“Yeah,” he stared at the ground “Yeah, I’ll see ya...”

And with that, he walked away. 

Had I pissed him off? 

I was just trying to make things less awkward for him. He didn’t need to tell me what a good woman I was, how I’d make someone really happy..All the things I knew a guy like Finn would say.

If I couldn’t have him...My relationship was with wrestling.

I waited backstage, watching Finn make his entrance and step inside the Miz Tv ring.

I already wanted to throw up. Miz was such a wild card. Nobody knew what he was going to say next. I knew I had to push through though. We had a match to hype up and execute. I wouldn’t be the weak link and disappoint Finn.

“So Finn..”

I looked back up at the monitor, after having zoned out in thought for a minute.

“Finn, tell me what it’s like to get to tag with one of your besties, hm?” Miz folded his arms across his chest, leaning in closer to Finn as they sat side by side in their director’s chairs.

“Damn it,” I groaned, resting my hands on my bared hips nervously.

I was dressed in my ring gear too but I wished I was anywhere else.

“It’s...” Finn started to answer.

Miz cut him off. Of course.

“Because let me tell you, it has to be incredibly, incredibly difficult...Almost painful even, for her to have to come out here and work alongside you so closely...When we both know, she wants what she can’t have from you.”

The whole crowd reacted, mostly in shock, to the burn I was receiving.

Finn stood up and he and Miz started staring at each other.

My music hit and I was ushered to the gorilla.

Fuck, I didn’t want to go out there. I should have let Finn handle it like he said he would.

I made my way down the ramp awkwardly and slid in alongside them. I stood shoulder to shoulder with Finn, glaring at Miz.

“Oh, did you hear us talking about you?” he laughed, as my music faded “I was just about to reveal your little secret but by all means if you want to tell Finn and the whole WWE Universe how you’re madly in love with him...Be my guest.”

I wanted to slap him. It took everything in me not to. I didn’t want to risk being kicked out of my match, replaced.

Miz shoved a microphone at me and I took it, my eyes trained to the mat in utter humiliation.

“Ya don’t hafta ansa’ dat,” Finn spoke into his mic “As a matta a fact, we don’t have to ansa’ ta ya at all.”

“So true, Finn...So true,” Miz smirked “You do have to answer to Emma and Big Cass a week from Sunday, so if you want to skip the minor details...Let’s get down to business.”

My eyes were burning as I tried to hold back the tears. 

Miz grabbed another chair and set it beside Finn’s. 

Finn walked in front of him and smirked, before he kicked the second chair flying across the ring. 

Miz recoiled in surprise, the crowd cheered and I didn’t know what to do.

Finn sat down, propping his feet on the footrest of the chair, his knees spread slightly and he patted his lap.

“Come on,” he smiled at me, his mic not to his lips.

“Finn,” I whispered.

The whole crowd had reacted to this with catcalls and cheering. Miz looked as confused as me.

“Sit,” Finn instructed me again.

I smiled as I slid down into the comforts of his lap...and his arms, as they wrapped around me. 

He stared across the ring at Miz, that huge grin plastered on his face, much to Miz’s disdain.

“You were sayin’, Miz?” Finn picked up his microphone.

I could feel Finn underneath my ass...He was getting turned on...What in the hell was happening?

I sat there as Miz asked him about fighting Cass and blathered on about nothing...All while feeling Finn’s semi-hard dick pressing against me. I rested my hand against his chest and he glanced over at me, winking.

“I’m sorry,” Miz stood up “But what is happening here? I bring you two on here to talk about this match, not be all over each other.

“Maybe ya shoulda’ thought about dat one before ya decided ta put our personal lives on yer lil show,” Finn grinned even wider, the kind of grin that was actually for enticing anger.

Cass’ music hit and we both stood to our feet. 

I made a point to stand in front of Finn, giving him time to not have quite such a large bulge in his ring shorts.

The next few minutes were a blur and ended with Finn taking a huge bump from Cass and me being laid out by Emma.

Once the segment ended, I sat up and crawled out of the ring. I had to get out of there before I had to look Finn in the eyes.

I got changed as quickly as possible and went straight to the hotel. 

I was so confused and humiliated and devastated and every emotion possible.

First, Finn finds out I have feelings for him.

Then, its gets blasted all over tv...Despite the fact it was probably perceived as storyline.

Last, there was the fact that Finn got a hard on with me on his lap. What did that mean? Was it just the adrenaline rush of doing exactly what Miz didn’t want?

I spent a good five minutes getting all the makeup off my face and slid into my pajamas. 

I checked my phone before I plugged it in for the night. No missed calls from Finn. 

He was supposed to be rooming with Sami and I got a single for a change. I had never been so thankful in my life.

I reached to turn off my bedside light and was interrupted.

There was banging of a fist on my door and I froze.

If it was Miz...I was going to strangle him where he stood.

I slung the door open, fully expecting it to be him but it wasn’t.

Finn stood there. He had on a t-shirt and jeans, his arm framed in the doorway. Our eyes met and I immediately felt embarrassed.

“Finn, I,” I shook my head, unable to think of anything else to say.

“Ya shoulda’ told me,” he spoke dryly, his other hand reaching out so that he was holding the top of the doorframe with both hands now and leaning toward me.

“Why?” I whispered “What difference would it have made? Finn, you are married to your career...You say that all the time and I’m sure you have things with other women sometimes...I get that and...”

“Ya shoulda told me, so I coulda said I felt da same,” he leaned closer and our faces were inches from touching.

“Oh,” I gasped, barely audible.

“Ya gonna let me in?” 

“Yes, yes, I’m so sorry,” I realized and moved to let him pass by me.

He walked straight to the bed and sat down on the edge of it.

“Finn...”

“I neva’ knew,” he shook his head “I mean, I thought dat maybe ya felt somethin’ too...but for fuck’s sake why didn’t ya tell me?”

He wanted what I did. It was difficult to process it.

“I’m telling you now,” I moved in front of him.

Fuck it.

“I’m telling you right now, Finn...I think...That maybe...I’m in love with you. You’re...You’re everything to me. You’re my best friend and you’re my coach and you’re...”

He grabbed my hand, pulling me so my stomach rested at his face level. His fingers slid up under my shirt and I gasped from surprise.

His warm mouth started kissing my stomach and his hands slid around to glide up my back. Without thinking, I grabbed his hair between my fingers and tugged on it lightly.

I felt him smile against me, leaning back and pulling at the bottom of my tank top. 

Breathlessly, I pulled it off and he stood up. 

Finn cupped my face in his hands and his eyes stared deep into mine. 

I was standing there, half naked, in front of my best friend...and it felt right.

“From now on,” he grinned at me “Don’t keep thins’ ta ya self.”

“What about...” I started to ask.

“I think...No, I know dat I love ya,” he answered me mid-sentence “Now let me show ya.”

He kissed me and I practically squealed into his mouth. I could feel the pent up frustrations in each kiss and it only made me want him more. His tongue pushed at mine aggressively and I whimpered against his lips.

His mouth started sliding down my throat and I giggled. His facial hair tickled my skin and he started laughing against me.

We were such dorks. 

And I loved us.

“What are ya laughin’ at?” he nipped at the base of my throat before he leaned back up.

“You,” I smiled “When I sat on your lap earlier...”

“Ya felt dat, huh?” he smirked, a hint of embarrassment on his face.

“Mhm,” I giggled, pushing him to sit on the bed again.

I reached for his shirt and he slid it over his head. I moved to straddle him, linking my hands behind his neck.

I started grinding on him immediately, my panties and his jeans between us. 

“Maybe I can cause it again,” I smiled at him.

Finn groaned, his hips bucking up to make better contact and his hands gripping my waist.

“Does that feel good?” I whispered in his ear and he groaned again, louder.

He stared at my breasts as they moved in from of his face, then he would look up to stare into my eyes. 

I wound harder and harder on him.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he grunted, as I started to move faster.

His tongue reached out and flicked across one of my nipples as they slid up and down in front of him with each of my movements.

“Are ya gonna cum dis way?” he finally broke free and panted, with wide eyes.

He got his answer fairly quickly. The excitement of him being there and the way he was looking at me, touching me with his tongue, the feeling of his dick now being hard underneath me...

“Shit,” I whispered, leaning forward and gripping his bare shoulders.

He moved me faster with his hands and I felt myself cum, right on top of his lap.

“Finn,” I gasped, my nails lightly scraping his skin.

He stood up, holding me and turned around. He dropped me onto the bed and started to take my pajama shorts off, ripping my panties off with them.

I looked him straight in the eyes. 

They looked hungry but they also looked nervous.

He fumbled with the button on his jeans and they dropped to the floor. Discarding them and his shoes, he crawled up over me in only his boxer briefs and I moaned when I felt his dick brush across my completely bare pussy.

I arched my back up to him, as he reached me and lowered his face to mine.

“Ya sure?” he smiled, his tongue running across his lips “Dis is what ya want...Ya want me?”

“You know when I said that I thought I loved you?” I whispered, his fingers tracing my cheek.

“Mhm,” he grinned.

“I lied,” I smiled back at him “I know that I do.”

“Sucha ‘lil lya’,” he laughed, sliding his hands down my body achingly slow “One day, I’ll hafta punish ya fer dat.”

I knew he meant it and my mind started spinning with all the things that his darker, demon side could and would do to me.

“But not tonight, love,” he growled.

I reached up and grabbed the waistband of his underwear and he shimmied out of it. 

His dick popped out and slid across my stomach. He was every bit as large as I already knew.

He flipped us again, so that I was on top, and then he sat up, his arms wrapped around me.

“Let’s try dat again,” he whispered in a deep voice “Only wit ma dick in ya.”

He lifted me a little by my waist and I let out a loud moan, as he slid himself up inside me and eased me back down.

“Ya ok?” he smirked, as his hands grabbed my breasts and squeezed them.

“Yes,” I gasped, as I started to wind my hips on top of him again.

“Dis feels much betta,” he grunted, his body moving in sync with mine.

He slid his thumb down to massage my clit and his eyes got so dark, so serious...It turned me on even more.

“Just like dat,” he threw his head back, as my rhythm increased “Fuckin’ shit, baby.”

This was happening. 

Fuck. 

This was happening.

He picked me up again and threw me down, much harder, onto the bed. He slid inside of me again and his hips started snapping against mine. Sweat was starting to slide down his temples and he bit down on his lower lip.

“Ya look so beautiful,” he managed to growl out, his whole body moving much faster above me.

I wanted to reply but he felt so good...I couldn’t think straight. Instead, I grabbed his face and pulled his lips to mine again. 

He growled as he kissed me, one of his hands gripping my cheeks between his fingers. He sucked on my lip before it popped out of his mouth.

His pace increased again and he was slamming himself into me.

“Oh my god,” I panted, wrapping my legs around his waist.

“Ya feel so fuckin’ good,” he gasped “I can’t slow down.”

“Harder,” I whimpered.

He grinned and then his face grew stoic, sexy...

His hips snapped against me and I knew it wouldn’t be much longer.

“Like dat? Hard like dat?” he asked in a commanding voice.

Fuck, I couldn’t wait to be punished...

“Yes,” I squealed as he started thrusting against my g-spot “Oh, shit!”

“Ya gonna cum wit me?” he asked in the same voice.

I nodded, reaching up to kiss him one more time. 

“Fuck,” he broke his mouth away and his hips jerked hard against me.

I felt my orgasm start to spasm around him and he brought his fingers down to rub across my clit again.

“Jus’ like dat,” he growled, before his hips bucked hard and he tensed up.

“Just like that,” I whimpered, letting him know I didn’t want him to move.

“Shit!” he yelled, as he snapped against me one more time.

“Finn!” I leaned up off the mattress, my teeth biting into his arm to keep from screaming too loud, as I spasmed all around him.

Once we both had stopped moving, he dropped down beside me.

His strong hand pulled me to face him and I giggled, again.

His finger reached up, patting me quickly on the nose, and his sweet grin spread across his face.

“Ya meant it?”

“Every single word,” I smiled, scooting closer to him.

He rolled on his back and I crawled closer, my head resting on his chest.

“Did you mean it?” I had to ask, as his fingers started combing through my hair.

“Ya damn right I did,” he chuckled, causing his chest to shake “Miz betta’ not call us out again..He might get more dan he bargained for.”

“What do you mean?” I raised my head up.

“He wants a show. We might just give da bastard one,” he laughed.

[moiraineswife]

A character: Nesta

*cracks fingers* 

general opinion: fall in a holeand die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them!!! | actual love of my life hotness level: get away from me| meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! |10/10 would banghogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuffbest quality: Her will. 10/10 can conquer entire continents with a glower level will. It’s inspiring. Also how much she cares? Just because she can’t quite put that into words doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel it. (And her sisters are both 100% aware of it. Even Feyre ‘I can be a bit of a dense potato when it comes to people’ Archeron gets it: ‘“But know that deep down, she is grateful, and perhaps doesnot possess the ability to say so. Yet the feeling—the heart—is there.”’ *cries into handkerchief for six years* worst quality: U can be a smidge too pragmatic at times child, makes people think you’re like...the opposite of who you are. ship them with: Cassian. Because like. Obvious reasons. My two strong, stubborn fierce hearts. I love you both. (And I feel like they’d....bring out the best in each other too. And they’re like 99% confirmed mates which is fun) 

Mor. Mesta is life people, I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules.  brotp them with: Elain!!!!! Obvious reasons. FEYRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Feyre and Nesta’s dynamic is fuck off fascinating (and is something I am passionate about...as you will know if you have followed me for more than two minutes) 

Rhys, actually. People keep assuming these two are automatically going to clash in ACOWAR but I’m not as certain. (I’m not saying that it’s not possible/even probable) but...the “That was why you painted the night sky” scene exists and I actually think...these two are more similar than people might realise. 

Lucien: give me snarky bickering and continual ‘everyone thinks we’re literally on the verge of murdering each other but we’re just fucking with them and it’s hilarious’  needs to stay away from: Tomas fucking Mandray -_- the negativity of small minded peoplemisc. thoughts: It’s time to voice some Unpopular Opinions. This is not what I think is going to happen in ACOWAR (we don’t do that over here, we suck at it) this is just....what I would prefer to happen even if it’s deeply unlikely. *clears throat. stages tiny drumroll for my underwhelming ‘going against fandom gradient’ thoughts* I don’t want Nesta to be trained as a badass warrior queen.

 That’s not who she is. That is never who she’s been. And I don’t want her story to just be a rehash of Feyre’s ACOMAF storyline but with different characters (Cass instead of Rhys for instance) I know, I know there are arguments for it, that she never helped before because she didn’t have Feyre’s physical skills and practical knowledge and in taking that from the Cauldron we can have some interestingness and growth and change and rebirth and blah blah blah. That’s fine. That’s probably what we’re going to get but..... 

I don’t know. I don’t like the idea for a start that a female character has to be able to physically fight someone/wield some kind of violent power for them to be ‘badass.’ And it just...I enjoy the dynamic between Feyre and Nesta, I enjoy the similarities but I also enjoy the differences and Nesta has always had other strengths. And I think it’s high time she’s allowed to actually put them to use and let them flourish. 

Feyre has used what she was given as a human to survive/grow since ACOTAR. It’s always been her practical abilities, her pragmatism, her logic, her determination, stubbornness and strength of will. She’s a survivor; she’s a fighter and she always has been. That’s Nesta’s stumbling block, it’s the biggest cause of friction between the two sisters: Feyre could do what Nesta couldn’t- in keeping them alive by hunting, she was demonstrating skills that Nesta didn’t and couldn’t attain for herself (and they both knew it) 

 The interesting thing about these two is that they really are two sides of the same coin. Nesta has Feyre’s same pragmatism, logic, determination, stubbornness and strength of will what she doesn’t have is her physical abilities. Nesta isn’t a fighter; Nesta is a tactician. Nesta uses her intelligence and her calculating mind to get ahead in the same way that Feyre uses her practical skills. (There are so many examples of this my favourite is still the one where she argues with the queens, and uses good solid logical and numbers to make her case for them helping) 

 (Consider for example: Nesta UtM; she would have struggled with the Middengard Wyrm task but on the other hand she’d probably never have had to face it since she’d have likely been able to answer Amarantha’s riddle in the way that Feyre just couldn’t) They’re so similar but so different at the same time (and since they patch each other’s weaknesses so well they’d be a fucking powerhouse if they decided to work together) 

I’d like this to come to the fore in ACOWAR. Because they’re at war. And more than warriors win wars - they need people like Nesta and I want her to be able to finally use that mind of hers, to find the value in the things that she has, the things she can do; not simply be jealous and bitter about the things that she can’t. 

Just like...please for the love of god give me strategist Nesta, okay. This was the girl who, in her early teenage years, had already devised a plan to see if she could force her father into action (maybe not...the best idea in the world since it sort of involved STARVING but she gets points for determination, ruthlessess and outside the box thinking) Nesta is good at this, Nesta is highly intelligent, she has a mind for figures, numbers and has already been shown to be able to consider large numbers of people in terms of logistics. “I have calculated the numbers.” JUST GIVE ME NESTA DOING WHAT NESTA ALREADY DOES OKAY. LET HER FIND VALUE IN WHAT SHE CAN DO. LET HER REALISE THAT SHE IS NOT A BURDEN, THAT SHE IS A GODDAMN ASSET THAT THEY NEED BECAUSE OF THAT BRAIN OF HERS LIKE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. 

And the nessian potential for this is literally off the charts okay? Like...Nesta studying Cassian’s maps, his troop movements, his battle plans...brow creasing she steps forwards and shifts a few things around then steps back and he just....stares at her like she’s the Mother herself come to ground because she’s just halved their march time and supply lines. Like...Battle!couple nessian is fun but scheming, tactical, battle planning nessian is even better tbh. And Cassian would listen to her okay and value her advice and her opinions in a way I’m pretty sure no other man ever has because nice little ladies don’t think about this stuff. EXCEPT NESTA DOES OKAY JUST GIVE IT TO ME. 

As a part shot, pls consider: “ I think I’d like to see what else is outthere, what a woman might do with a fortune and a good name.”No limits, I thought. There were no limits to what Nesta might do,what she might make of herself once she found a place to call her own. I prayedI would be lucky enough to someday see it.” 

Nesta is made to build, Nesta is made to rule, Nesta is made to plan and dream and rise. She can be so much more than another powerful fighter/warrio.. And I want it. I want it all. 

Right. Rant concluded. I talked too much. It happens. I’m not sorry. 

[wrestlingisfake]

Fastlane preview

Kevin Owens vs. Bill Goldberg - Owens is defending the universal championship.  Owens got roped into this match because his buddy Jericho ran his mouth, so Owens brutally assaulted Jericho a few weeks ago.  No matter what happens here, it is extremely obvious that Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar and Owens vs. Jericho are locked in for this year’s Wrestlemania; we just don’t know which one will be for the universal title yet.

This is the first time Goldberg has wrestled a one-on-one match against anyone not named “Brock Lesnar” in 13 years; Owens was barely old enough to vote back then.  If Goldberg wins, it’ll be the first time he wins a championship from someone who is not older than Woodstock.

This is a clash of both generations and styles--Goldberg perfected the two-minute squash match, Owens is on the Mount Rushmore of super-indy workrate.  This can either be a Goldberg kind of match or an Owens kind of match, and not knowing which it’ll be should make things interesting.  Assuming Goldberg doesn’t immediately crush Owens, the question will be whether Owens can carry a 50-year-old guy with shoulder problems through an intense 20-minute brawl.

Theoretically, Owens could retain.  The Goldberg-Lesnar match doesn’t need a championship on the line, and WWE could decide--right up to the last minute--to keep it non-title.  However, the smart business move is to build Goldberg-Lesnar up as a rare special attraction.  A loss now--which would be his first one-on-one defeat since the Clinton administration--would not do WWE much good.  I can’t rule out an Owens retention, but it seems far less likely than Goldberg winning clean or Goldberg winning due to interference from Chris Jericho.

Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman - Strowman has been steadily gaining momentum from squash matches, and since Raw has almost no top babyfaces there’s nothing left for him to do but fight Roman.  I’m expecting one of those “bowling shoe ugly” matches, especially since the crowd will only get into this to cheer Strowman just to spite Reigns.

Roman hasn’t won a pay-per-view match since September, so he’s probably about due.  He’s reportedly slated to face the Undertaker at Wrestlemania, and it wouldn’t make much sense for him to do that coming off of a loss.  (Unless they were going to turn him heel, and they’ve spent three years proving they don’t wanna.)  It’s not great for Braun to do a job at this point, but he’s not WWE’s priority right now.  Roman wins.

Bayley vs. Charlotte Flair - Bayley won the Raw women’s title from Charlotte a few weeks ago, so this is the rematch. 

Since her main-roster debut in 2015, Charlotte has never lost a match on a traditional Sunday pay-per-view, and they’ve been making a big deal about it for about eight months now.  So the pattern has been that she’ll win the championship on a PPV, then lose it on Raw, then win it back on on the next PPV.  I hate to see them do that again, but if they’re going to break the streak you’d figure it’d be at Wrestlemania, not here.  The smart money’s on Charlotte.

Samoa Joe vs. Sami Zayn - Joe debuted last month as an enforcer to keep Seth Rollins away from Triple H.  Unfortunately he did his job a little too well and Rollins was injured, so the Joe vs. Seth match planned for this show had to be scrapped.  That didn’t leave anyone else for Joe to fight except Zayn, who fought him a jillion times last year in NXT.  So this match isn’t quite as exciting as what had been planned, but it’ll have to do.

The bottom line here is that Joe is being pushed as Triple H’s hand-picked destroyer so he will be kept strong, and Sami is rumored to be in the doghouse so he is regularly made to look weak.  Put simply, Joe is gonna kill you, Sami.

Sasha Banks vs. Nia Jax - This is a rematch from the Royal Rumble, where Jax clobberized Banks.  Sasha does the “size of the fight in the dog” bit well, and she ain’t gonna give up till she finds a way to beat the unbeatable monster.  The Mania rumor mill is saying the match is Charlotte/Bayley/Banks/Jax in a four-way, which leads me to think this match won’t have a very definitive finish.  But hey, maybe me and the rumor mill are both wrong, who knows?

Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson vs. Enzo Amore & Big Cass - Gallows and Anderson’s Raw tag title is at stake.  Enzo has been acting like a bigger dick than usual lately, which I assume is going somewhere.  Unfortunately for Enzo and Cass, it’s probably not going somewhere that involves the tag belts.  I’m predicting miscommunication between the challengers leads to a win for the champs.

Neville vs. Jack Gallagher - This is for Neville’s cruiserweight championship.  Gallagher, the gentleman’s gentleman who ties people in literal knots and does spots with an umbrella, is the only guy to come out of the Cruiserweight Classic with an honest-to-goodness capital-G gimmick.  So you gotta figure Vince McMahon loves the guy, since he stands out in a way Vince understands.  I don’t think that’s going to translate to a title win anytime soon, but it should keep this little fella employed for years to come.  Neville retains, looks grumpy.

Rich Swann & Akira Tozawa vs. Brian Kendrick & Noam Dar - This is for the pre-show.  Swann and Dar have been feuding over Alicia Fox, I think, except Swann dumped her so I’m not sure what the problem is.  Tozawa recently debuted to do the feud with Kendrick that they had been booking for Tajiri before he got hurt.  This is probably just going to be filler that doesn’t blow off any of the storylines, and I kinda don’t care because I’ve lost interest in the cruiserweights.  I guess Swann and Tozawa win.

[grizzlefur]

WWEm - A Monopoly On Punching

In case you haven’t noticed, this will prove that Emma is really not very keen on Jerry Lawler.

Transmission date: 28/29/ August 2017

Still doing the thing, still not even vaguely punctual, let's have some SATURDAY AFTERNOON RAW!

cold open on miz and his crew in the ring

and the announcement that we're not having booker tonight

i'd be happy, but it's because of hurricane sandy

and we get lawler instead

fuuuuuuuuck

cries

so later tonight, we have brock existing, alexa/sasha for the belt, and roman/cena contract signing

but now, a miz

and maryse in trousers, of all things

miz gets half a word into whatever he was doing before kurt interrupts everything

miz is not even slightly impressed

kurt is here to semi-apologise about there being no ic title match at slam, but promises one at no mercy

miz responds by defining the word respect

just so kurt knows

and delivers an impassioned speech on behalf of a belt

kurt responds by making a battle royal for a title shot next week

so that's what we're having now

aaaaaaaa

it's the big show

but he's shaved

he looks like somebody inflated kurt

why would this happen

welp, five minutes in and there goes my ability to take this ep seriously

and now the hardyz

one day i will understand the purpose of the toilet paper hanging out of jeff's back pocket

but it is not this day

oh yeah, and the miztourage are in this

and now finn

for fuck's sake, jerry, stop yelping

just turn your mic off and be misogynistic in silence

cole and graves can handle this

does the arms

apparently this is going to be a 15-man fight, but here's an advert break while the rest arrive

myc advert

(hint: watch the mae young classic, it's dope as fuck)

and we're back

with jason jordan entering

now his bad music has some rap over it

also present are goldust, kalisto, curt hawkins, r-truth, apollo crews, elias [NAME] and gallows and anderson

hawkins eliminated by everyone while i type that, because fuck that guy

well of course you had money on curt, jerry

that's because you're a twat

and now everyone turns to the big show

although nobody wants to make the first move

so all the jobbers do so

chaos ensues

the miztourage throw kalisto out

apparently cole hates people having friends

you heard it here first

jerry makes a fart joke, because once again, fuck that guy

big show is just ignoring the rest of the match while he slaps a guitarist

(a guitarist has no name)

the club take show out, with some unexpected rebulletening courtesy of finn bálor

finn gets to do his pin rollout dropkick thing on elias, despite that pin attempt making precisely zero sense

truth gets eliminated because eh

everyone keeps almost eliminating jeff

must be hard for him to actually try and stay in an elevated position

bless

the panel put their money on jj, so let's see how obvious this booking can be

goldust gets eliminated by a combination of gallows, anderson, and his own inability to follow up on moves

ad break, during which apollo eliminated himself by being an idiot

why would you do anything springboarding off the top rope in this match

sigh

matt eliminates gallows with a well-timed shamble, almost gets taken out by anderson

and then they punch the tits off each other on the apron

anderson gets whipped into the ring post and goes out, gallows just rips matt off the apron

miz gets the idea, jumps in to help his minions

memphis is not pleased at the loss of seven deities

thanks for that replay, the camera didn't really show miz's interference there

finn gets to do his usual comeback/grimace sequence

kicks elias off the turnbuckle, but he manages to stay in

slingblades jj, i do my usual pop

faces off with jeff hardy, crowd goes mental

and then gets dropkicked in the dick

which is totally fine if you're jeff hardy

dropkicks him and bo into the corners, everyone is down until wyatt cut bray throws him out

what can you do when your nemesis can teleport

cue finn slumped against the barricade with a face like what the actual fuck

jj does a cool reversal spot, only marred by jeff almost accidentally rolling under his feet, eliminates the miztourage, elias eliminates him, jeff eliminates elias and...wins?

huh

well, i guess they didn't go with the obvious booking

cut to miz, who looks to have had the same reaction

so miz/jeff next week

sure, why not

jeff's just thrilled his music is playing

god, but does jeff love that music

ok, i got a couple of those last eliminations the wrong way round

jj took out elias, was taken out by jeff

thanks replay

jeff is still taking off and putting on random articles of clothing

dude, you wear too many clothes

consider consolidating a bit

you're not a final fantasy character

(full disclosure: i would play the absolute shit out of a ff-style rpg about the hardyz)

(or p much any wwe characters, tbh)

(theres a market, guys, exploit it)

(you don't need people to take your angles at face value any more)

but yeah, here's a video package about the ongoing brauk lesman sitaution

and reminding me how hilarious it was last week

10/10 would watch brock get put through the floor again

so yeah, brock's back tonight

we can only hope it goes as well as last time

but up next, enzo's first cruiserweight match

but first, apparently, charly interviews alexa

who's splashed on a pretty great denim vest

alexa again leans on how sasha can't defend belts

so clearly she will

charly's interview face has crossed the line from 'serious journalist' to 'kind of in love'

and i don't think any of us can blame her

but yeah, here's enzo

time to see if he can actually wrestle

so yeah, spoilers if you don't watch 205, i guess

enzo's a cruiserweight

comes in, does his usual thing

well yeah, jerry, of course you love enzo

that's because you're a twat

enzo reminds us that cass got injured

apparently that's legit?

torn acl, out for months

boo

so yeah, step to enzo and you'll end up accidentally breaking your own knee

unless he's claiming he has some kind of probability powers, that makes no sense at all

mentions mayweather/mcgregor, gets super mixed heat

and apparently he's fighting noam

who he says has two last names?

dude, you're from the northeast, learn some jewish names

noam hasn't got a mic yet, so a trick has officially been missed

his face is very much how the fuck an i the responsible adult in this ring

and then just kicks the fuck out of enzo

pan out to neville watching

or possibly just staring into the middle distance as usual but someone's put a tv in front of him

noam tries to rip enzo's hair out, jerry decides the best use of all our time right now is for him to make fun of neville's hair

enzo does an arm drag headkick thing that he totally got off the mae young classic, and gets a pin that builds no heat whatsoever

well, i guess that happened

and then dabs on him

dude, that gimmick's taken

and now charly's here to ask neville what he thinks of enzo

he's just like hahahahaha fuck seriously?

i'm gonna be champion forever

drops a how you doin, end thing

but next, brock is alive

after we tell you how we win at social media

no, stop introducing jerry

but yes, here we have a bouncing simpleton

also his manager

paul says words, you can all fill in the blank yourself

and then a new section on the theme of how braun's pretty great but brock's still gonna win

paul is the only one left in this company who understands the importance of hyping your opponents, it seems

and also here's a verbal recap of everything's that happened in this angle

"i don't believe in monsters, but i believe braun strowman is one"

that's a sentence that needs some serious philosophical unpacking right there

brock takes paul's mic mid-flow, manages to restrain himself to a "suplex city, bitch", so at least we didn't have to cut it for profanity

drops the mic, paul follows him out like welp guess we're done

but now, here's a seth

just with a solo match for tonight, but dean's here with him anyway

dean gets down to the ring, puts the belt he was carrying on backwards just so he could do the dramatic spin thing

smart money says he'll have taken it off again by the time we get back off this break

but first, an advert for the show we were once upon a time meant to be competing with

ok, no, dean's still got a belt on

jerry, never tell us about total bellas again

on which note, here's a video about the return of cena

which makes total sense in the middle of the intros to this seth/cesaro match

and the package keeps him saying 'certaint'

bless

fuck, this package is long

and there's not even anything i can say about it, because this angle was balls except for cena making fun of people, which has got entirely cut

but finally back to the actual match that's happening now, here are the kkb

i love their entrance, even if it is just their solo entrances bolted together

their jackets have gained some chain epaulette things this week

and were their kilts camo before?

because they are now

not thrilled

pan over to dean hanging off the ropes doing the loser sign and sticking his tongue out

the apex of maturity right there

but now that we're actually in the match, i am a very happy internet person because seth/cesaro is always a great match

casual standing moonsault, why not

i do still kind of miss his heel hair, though

sheamus gets some distraction time by just kind of lurking at ringside and not doing anything

cut to ads, come back on cesaro doing a massive military press/leg drop combo

like i say, this is a good match

apparently seth started the match "like a house of fire [sic]"

shut the fuck up, jerry

seth counters a top rope crossbody into a nearfall and a great enzuigiri, commence to comeback

one day an announcer will pronounce enzuigiri correctly and i can just stop watching forever

cesaro puts seth on the top turnbuckle, then is shocked when he immediately eats a blockbuster

like seriously, watch a match some time

sheamus tries to interfere, dean starts a really awkward brawl, distracts seth long enough for cesaro to hit him with a massive uppercut for the pin

i'll be honest, this feud could run and run and i'd be happy

and now sheamus has a mic

to talk shit and challenge dean to a match RIGHT NOW

which is apparently happening

sure

does kurt just fuck off home after the first hour of the show and leave it to run itself

this match is less technically sparkling, as you might imagine, but scrappier and still fun

sheamus puts a stretch muffler on dean

when the fuck did we last see that move

dean tries to counter out, sheamus just transitions into a cloverleaf

i'd watch submission specialist sheamus

does three beats of the bodhrán before going eh fuck youse

again, puts his opponent on the top turnbuckle then is surprised whren he jumps off

dean counters another bodhrán into a hotshot, but is selling a hip injury hard

sheamus hits white noise from the top rope, dean kicks out because fuck your elevated finisher

brogue countered into dirty deeds countered into getting kicked in the face

cesaro gets up on the apron, seth pulls him off then runs into the ring

ref gets distracted by cesaro following him, seth breaks up a white noise attempt and dean hits dirty deeds for the pin

and now emma's backstage

with mickie, who's continuing to up the Native stuff in her gear

they've got a match later

so lets have a long argument about hashtags

they really need to give emma more to do

mickie takes emma's phone, makes a bet

emma wins, mickie will tweet anything she wants, mickie wins, emma has to stop saying she started the revolution

fuck, that angle's for shit

and now we have a bunch of superstars telling us to donate to the hurricane harvey relief fund, and i have no jokes there

also, i'm reasonably sure i called it hurricane sandy earlier

that was a different thing, and i clearly need to pay attention

and straight from that into burger king giving us a video package about kurt's olympic history

a propos of nothing

but back in the ring, here's mickie and her new headband

WAIT WHAT THE FUCK THEY'VE CHANGED EMMA'S MUSIC FUCK EVERYTHING BURN IT DOWN

seriously

what is this

that was the best music

fuck you, raw

jerry, stop talking about hashtags,you're like 803

and the only thing he can think of to say about emma is making fun of her lipstick

seriosuly, jerry, you're what we had the women's revolution (such as it is) to get away from

and emma gets a rollup out of nowhere for the pin

and they play THE WRONG FUCKING MUSIC

emma gets a mic so she can walk out saying she started the women's revolution three dozen times

so that happened

w/e

but up next, two people you may or may not enjoy do some paperwork

thrilling

after a trailer for the bruce lee film we're producing, seemingly for no other reason than because wwe want a monopoly on punching

but back to the ring, and kurt's back again

here to hype cena/reigns

memphis can't decide which of the two it hates more

cena comes in, hugs lawler

we had such high hopes for you, john

cena's here to talk roman up, presumably because he heard what i said about heyman earlier

claims to "have zero f's to give"

skirting the line, john

does a pithy promo, signs the paper

and here's roman

cole makes the error of asking lawler for an opinion, jerry just flounders for a while while roman sullenly slouches down the ramp

roman starts saying words, memphis immediately commence the booing

roman is basically all i'm not scared you ain't shit

doesn't think he needs to fight cena, drops the undertaker reference to get heat

(it works)

cena sarcastically bends the knee, addresses the concept of him turning heel

and calls roman a "cheap-ass, corporately-created, john cena bootleg"

ouch

maintains that roman is, in fact, a guy

openly pulls out that taker was old, injured, and generally past it

you can poke the mystique if your name's john cena

he is getting enormous pops for just shitting on roman

which is fair

mic passes to roman, who's just like yeah well you suck

cena's like yeah, so does this guy here, but he got a gold medal, so

and now roman's trying to find his second point, not helped by cena taking every pause to be sarcastic and shit on his promo skills in so many words

today's cena is inside baseball cena

shouts "See ya, fourth wall!"

love it

so roman calls him a phony/yes-man/fake bitch

then when he graduates to 'part-timing fake-ass bitch', they actually blank the sound

i love their criteria

roman comes back about cena being part-time and burying upcoming talent to stay on top

say what you will about the people involved, cena has pulled the best promo out of roman in basically ever

roman doesn't want to sully his legacy by chasing cena

so cena calls him a fool

not a thing you hear so often in wrestling

and calls him out for doing the same thing as everyone forever

and congratulates him for cutting a halfway-decent promo after five years

focuses on debunking the rumours of his "mythical golden shovel"

we're back in that rpg

but yeah, points out how he's not nearly as dominant as he used to be and he's been putting new talent over for years

which is true by any objective logic

and he's like yeah i'm only on top because everybody else ain't shit

and i can part-time better than you ever could full-time drops mic

this promo is fire, and memphis loves him

after some more goading, roman finally signs

then flips the table because he's a tool

and now...anderson and gallows are here?

to tell roman and cena they aren't good brothers

gallows's jacket has sprouted some shoulder chains as well

and kurt's like welp, fuck it, tag match

kind of feels like those promos should have just been allowed to breathe on their own rather than going into a largely pointless match

ad break later, cena's in the ring getting beaten on by some bad cousins while roman stands on the apron like oh hey that looks like it hurts

incredibly long headlock by gallows as roman sarcastically calls for the tag

my favourite thing about tag matches is wrestlers lying in the middle of the ring slowly streeeeeeeetching to their partners like they expect to turn into mr fantastic

roman finally gets the tag

and delivers an incredibly shoddy driveby

cena picks gallows up for an aa, then waits for roman to get in  position so he can synchronise it with roman hitting a spear for the pin

because before all else, john cena is in service of the show

cena sarcastically applauds as roman's music plays, end segment

but up next, a song

after this smackdown ad, at least

and an nxt ad about the roh invasion

but yes, here he is

wearing obnoxious sunglasses

just does a blues break for no particular reason before doing his spiel

namechecks dusty, memphis don't even react

sort it out, guys

apparently dusty called him the elvis of the wwe

[citation needed]

lawler interrupts his song about how memphis is shit

to say the crowd are pleased would be underselling it a bit

i, on the other hand, fill up slightly more with bile every time lawler says words

and he's brought out pelvis wesley

(for those of you who don't watch southpaw regional wrestling or havent done the wrestling, it's heath slater dressed as elvis)

(i should really watch them)

starts a weird dance-off with elias, who then just kicks him in the crotch

seems reasonable

kicks him around a bit, then hits drift away and stands on him for a bit

that bullshit aside, it's main event time

corey, you don't need to tell us about sasha not defending the belt again

the point has been made

but before that, the myc ad again

watch the myc: it's better than 90% of the shit on this show

but before the match, let's shill jerry's club

and run replays of the battle royal from earlier

and now here's miz and guests backstage

renee's here to get his thoughts

(spoiler: he's not impressed)

objects to it taking one match to get a title shot, flounces off

and now we have charly backstage with sasha

they've changed her hair, and i don't like it

tl;dr: alexa ain't shit and sasha plans to win

in the ring, here's alexa

and the camera focuses for a weirdly long time on some guy with a BLISS IS BELT-LESS sign

if there's a joke in there, i don't get it

but now a burger king ad with the kkb bickering

but agreeing on burgers

sure, whatever

and another hurricane harvey appeal

wow, they're putting everything into the pre-main event buffer

and an ad for a pointless 6-man tag on 205

i'm sure there was a main event on its way, but it's faded into the mists of time

right, here comes sasha, so it'll only be another half dozen adverts before the match starts

aaaaaaand here we go

alexa kicking off with a rollup because fuck the fans

(it doesn't take)

wow, yeah, they've both just decided to go into finishes right away

at this rate, the finish'll be a side headlock

this match is just sasha beating on her, so it's looking good for alexa

double knees to the outside

ish

didn't really connect properly

shockingly, alexa turns it round in the ad break

sorry, jerry, when you try and sell the prestige and importance of a women's title it just makes me giggle

also, i hate you

alexa gets sasha in a really nasty half-bow and arrow hold, just sits there for a while

they are still committing to going for the cheap pin wherever possible

right up until alexa just punches sasha in the face and does a flip piledriver

which doesn't get as much of a reaction as it should have

sasha kicks out, because alexa needed a chance to throw a tantrum

even as enormously long superplex setups go, that could have done with a kick up the ass

ended up with a lovely spot that looked no fun for sasha at all, but still

alexa crawls over for the pin, sasha gets the bank statement out of nowhere

alexa manages to roll over it and hit a brutal lifting ddt for the pin

did somebody need a new mat finisher

so yeah, the belt gets passed again

does the raw women's belt have some kind of bottle imp thing going on

nia comes in to raise alexa's hand and beat some more shit out of sasha

carries alexa around the ring a bit

and then backdrops her into oblivion

the crowd loves it, because there are few things wrestling fans like more than betrayal

brandishes the belt a bit, then walks up the ramp so she can deathstare the ring as we fade

so that was an odd episode

for segment quality, you had a stark choice between great (the contract signing, weirdly enough), ass (mickie/emma, jerry the walking trashfire lawler), and ??? (jeff hardy has an ic title match)

well, that's wrestling, i guess

up next, the same but blue

but first, after a protracted absence during the hiatus, there's another dazzling return to watch

friends and fans, your friend and mine, the horizontal line

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

damn, but it's good to see you again, line

best timeskip mechanism since the text crawl right there

but now that we're done getting reacquainted, let's get down to brass tacks

and by 'brass', i mean SUNDAY EVENING

and by 'tacks' i mean SMACKDOWN!

(shut up, you think of a better segue)

but yes, here it is, the unfolding conspiracy that is kevin owens' life

just watch, he'll have a pinboard full of string this week

straight in, announcing orton/nakamura v jinder/rusev for the main event

um

why?

apparently it was just announced

but here in the arena, it's the the singhs

and their boss, natch

i will keep maintaining that this is just aj's music in punjabi until someone steps to my headcanon

and then i will fire back with my headcannon

#gpoy

away from my raving and magrittening, we get a recap of shinsuke fucking up the singhs last week

and sunil/samir tapping to a hold that did not yet exist

one day i'll be able to tell them apart

who am i kidding, i still can't tell jimmy and jey apart 70% of the time

and now jinder says words

little rock do not care for him

or randy, by the sound of it

weird

oh, apparently now he's a representative of all of asia

somewhere shinsuke's like ano

usa chants start the noment he mentions asia, because fucking murica

jinder highlights the very real problem of racial discrimination in public services, gets booed

pronounces 'revered' to rhyme with 'severed'

fucking boo him for that, if you need something

jinder says someone has to pay the price, the singhs immediately start thundering out the apologies

apologising to the entire population of asia

while getting all teary

jinder is not the best actor in this ring

the crowd are just getting into sunil (i think)'s performance

samir (maybe) says he can somehow promise shinsuke will never touch jinder again

gets annoyed because arkansas are not taking their public apologies seriously

only made more difficult by them begging to kiss his feet

"...Really?"

for once i agree with you, john

they don't quite get there before the best music not played by a midi synth hits

oh look, an asian man

i'm sure he's thrilled to have the singhs speak for him

they form a barricade between shinsuke and jinder, he just pushes them out of the way like why the fuck are you even here

and brawl commences

all three of them swiftly dogpile shinsuke

and i am mostly distracted by their ugly sky-blue shirts

oh hey, here's randy

and rusev, who has figured out the element of surprise comes from not having your music and lights hit every time you enter the room

thanks to such devious tactics, randy gets kicked out of existence and shinsuke takes a khallas

end thing

later tonight, aj tries to do an open challenge again

can't see it going well

but next, and which should go far better, american alpha 2.0 have a match

hyped for this

but first, the myc ad again, and i kind of could rewatch the first round

announcement: next week, randy/shinsuke for a title shot

for whatever reason

it's not like they've actually done much to earn it

cut back to the ring, the ascension are already here

remember when they got to win at things?

and here come benjamin and gable

as they are being called

and they have new music, which is a shame as i fucking loved the american alpha music

not as bad as emma's, though

still p decent, is the difference here

starting off with gable/viktor

aka chad gable reminds you that you love chain wrestling

shelton tags in, let's see how this goes

overhead butterfly suplex, can't for the life of me think who i last saw using that

chad gets thrown out of the ring, ugly landing

cut to ads, chad gets slapped around a bunch

i think the real question here is will your finisher be anywhere near as sweet as grand amplitude

or have an even more randomly-generated name

hot tag to shelton, who is, as it happens, still p good

hits a top rope clothesline into a massive jumping ddt for the pin

the internet assures me it's a leaping reverse sto

notable for being a) basically the same fucking thing, and b) not quite grand amplitude

but yeah, cautiously hype

and later we have new day/usos, with the winner picking the stipulation for their title rematch

so expect weirdness

but next, aj v mystery guest

and here's baron backstage

no reason

renee comes to ask him how he feels about "squandering" his briefcase

baron is pissed about her word choice and cena fucking off to raw

oh yeah, forgot baron was promised a spot in the open challenge

or was he

ambiguous wording is the booker's friend

but first, hurricane harvey appeal with the smackdown roster

including ziggler

you'd think they'd just have the faces on it

and now an advert for total bellas

smackdown continues to have a tenuous relationship with the word 'next'

ok, here we are

they don't want none, which will make this open challenge awkward

they love them some aj styles down in little rock

does his cena-lite intro while reminding us that kevin isn't allowed into the picture

and here's...tye?

you, sir, are no baron corbin

but sure, why not

he's not got his ppv disco vampire coat on, so take that as you will

and here comes a man who very much is baron corbin

scuffle ensues

and baron learns a valuable lesson about turning up to shit on time

aj punches baron in the face, tye gets in the ring, bell is rung

that bell has the power of a god

incredibly fast-paced fight ensues, ending in about two minutes with tye tapping to a calf crusher

seriously, that was like it was on fast forward

baron throws tye into the barricade, takes a phenomenal forearm for his trouble

and throws a tantrum and ringside

baron corbin is very much the male alicia fox

aj just stands there with the belt like what up

and now jinder talks to rusev in the locker room

jinder does a speech about nationalism, rusev's just like stfu, i don't like you but i hate these guys more

let's fuck them up so i can take your belt

but up next, booby rooooooooo

cut back from ads, the kanellises are here

we have been deprived most of their awesome trash music

speaking of whGLORIOUS

bobby comes down in his sparkly dressing gown, starts doing a flair strut

what a twat

love that gregg gets in on it, announcing him as BOBBY ROOOOOOOOoooooooood

best ring announcer in the company right there

wow, mike is wearing some truly eye-bleeding hot pink tights

and wasn't he feuding with sami five seconds ago?

bobby has already said 'glorious' four times

maybe stop it and wrestle

mike deploying his unique fighting style of 'just punch them in the face a lot'

bobby does a top rope blockbuster, because this is apparently a thing he does now

and glorious dt for the pin

that match joins the illustrious roster of ones this episode that have certainly happened

and bobby stands on the corner like look at my weird triceps for a while

but now, kevin is backstage

byron like welp we were meant to have a mach next but guess kevin's coming

cut from ads, and here are aiden english, his pipes, and his john lennon shades

but not for long, as we hit the kevining

aiden's stood there like excuse you peasant

kevin opens by assuring him that nobody in arkansas has the cultural erudition to appreciate him, so he should just go

works surprisingly well

kevin is pissed because of the ref shenanigans last week/in this whole angle

have a long vt of said topic

mostly notable for shane's facial expressions and a+ powerslide

kevin appeals to the legitimacy and logic of the wrestling referee's profession

it's apparently the first anniversary of kevin winning the universal belt

and he's like well this would have never happened on raw why am i on this trash show

criticises shane for shamelessly abusing his own power, i can't argue

oh hey, here's shane to shamelessly abuse his power

and get cheap pops

shane's like hey dude don't blame me for your poor life choices

now please leave my ring we don't want to hear you talk more

and aiden, get back in, your fighting sami

and here he is

kevin's stomped off to take a spiot on announce, so everything is good

immediately picks a fight with byron

sami is taking remarkably little abuse to gather the power to overcome aiden english

we should use that as a metric for power levels

kevin despairs at the poor performance apparently displayed by the ref, so he gets in the ring, steals the man's shirt and declares himself the ref

sure, that's totally how it works

sami stops fighting to be like what the actual fuck is your problem, gets unsurprisingly blindsided

and then powerbombed by kevin

aiden's like sure whatever, goes for the pin

kevin counts at the speed of sound, end match

ooh, aiden's got his solo music back

so drama

kevin gives the ref his shirt back, swags off

up next, that tag match before the tag match

after this ad for jeff hardy having an ic title shot, just in case you'd convinced yourself that was a dream

and now burger king tells us how great sergeant slaughter was

would pribably be even more popular today, which is something of an indictment

and now, renee interviews shane

he's like that match never happened, i'm going after kevin, talk among yourselves

and now dasha interviews dolph

guys, learn what 'next' means

dolph is not in fact unveiling his new thing this week because fuck arkansas

but here, have a standard ziggler-issue rant

proposes he should ride a motorbike to the ring playing a double-neck guitar

hey, i'd watch it

steps to finn's charisma

fuck you, dolph

dolph enigmatically promises something for next week, end thing

and now here are the usos

and a replay of their summerslam match, tom actually makes the mistake of mentioning that it as basically the best match on the show, even though it was on the kickoff

e's pouring cereal over the fans again

seems like it's been a while

xavier's got a kneebrace on, but more conspicuous than that is the massive IT'S SORE sign round his neck

like, it seems like you should notice these things in the opposite order

the last ref was apparently too traumatised to continue, since we've got charles in now

cut to ads, and we come back on jimmy already shitkicking big e because fuck you, tv audience

kofi tags in to do some standard gravity-fucking shit

fuck it, this match is moving far too fast for me to narrate

tbf, that's been true of p much every match tonight

does the smackdown editing staff have even more add than usual

and dirty rollup by jimmy for the pin

end thing, apparently

dasha tries to introduce carmella for an interview, ellsworth's like um no and does it himself

asks her her plans, she's like nope i am never telling you secrets again

throwaway line about ellsworth stealing flowers from a funeral hiome

nattie turns up, promises to make carmella the baron corbin of the women's division

makes a match for next week, ellsworth like oh cool next week, well in that case shutting up

and then naomi turns up to announce a title rematch in a fortnight

fuck, this is moving fast

and up next, fashion files season 2 begins

breather while this myc advert happens

but actually now, lana is here?

what the fuck is going on with this episode

she's here to do a dodgy hyperbolic intro for tamina

greeted by little rock with a resounding piss break

oh, and here's a jobber

tina stock, we hardly knew ye

lana's doing the manager barking orders thing, but with a mic so none of us can avoid it

tells tamina to crush, this was apparently some kind of trigger word, because she goes berserk

and one superkick later, end match

with loads of super ugly bumps packed into its 90 seconds

and lana's got her girl some paparazzi

well this is weird

also, tamina, that cravate throw is totally nia's thing, get your own

and now, fashion files

and its early 90s credits

still not starring chuck norris

fashion files: back 2 basics

dango's stacking boxes with all their shows in

tyler proposes a vacation together, dango's like nope

tyler unveils the new gadgets from the lab

including some headphones, a blacklight, friendship bracelets, and a belt

this is really cute

tyler kills the lights so he can play with the blacklight

finds a circle of arrows on their old files, gets stuck for a while

and then a hidden message

Two B Or Not Two B

which variously leads them to shinsuke, aiden english, and bob ross

they roll out, dango puts a second pair of sunglasses on and clips another to his shirt

but up next, the main event

but of course, we have some ads before that, because otherwise you wouldn't recognise smackdown

including the raw version of the hurricane appeal, for some reason

someone's getting fired

and an ad for 205 live, with a disembodied voice doing it instead of a semi-bothered wrestler for once

back from ads, and we've missed most of shinsuke's entrance

this will not stand

but to be fair, we've also missed all of the heels'

randy gets a full intro though

were they just ranked in terms of how close to arkansas their home town is?

barely gets in the ring before brawling breaks out

given every other segment in this show, i expect the main event to last about 2.6 minutes

and they start the match during yet another break

seriously, smackdown does not give a shit for you, tv viewer

and by 'you' i very much mean 'me'

but clearly we needed to see this long-ass headlock

this match is actually moving at a speed i can narrate, but i also don't give a shit

randy spinebusters jinder on the barricade, gets massive pops because douchebag face v foreigner

the singhs interfere because randy and jinder only have one match, and they want rusev and shinsuke to get out of the way so they can do it

byron claims rusev had a statue of himself built in his hometown

huge if true

jbl responds by casually claiming to have had a bunch of statues made of himself

horrifying if true

jinder tags in to switch his long-ass headlock for a long-ass hammerlock

got to keep your moveset diverse

shinsuke gets a hot tag off jinder basically deciding to break his own shoulder on the post

the match turns into just shinsuke/rusev, which it should really stay

so much more promise there

naturally, jinder reappears as i type that

randy takes him out with the draping ddt, kinshasa to rusev for the win

i was exaggerating before, but not by much

that match was officially short as fuck

awkward randy/shinsuke faceoff ensues

they both grin, respect is given, aaaaand rko because randy is fundamentally a tool

crowd are not sure how to take this

love american man but also love charisma for miles, what do

well, that episode...certainly happened

from a raw highlighted by a contract signing to a smackdown featuring tyler breeze accidentally hypnotising himself

what a time to be alive

[dapaywinduh-blog]

Wrestlemania 33 Predictions

I've been gone for a bit, but I'm back now. I'll pick up the Raw Time Machine again very soon, but since it is coming up this Sunday, I thought I'd give my picks for Wrestlemania. Subtitled "The Ultimate Thrill-Ride!!!", because Vince apparently hates the "Granddaddy of Them All" nickname, this year's show comes to us from somewhere in Florida and will last like 12 hours. I gotta be honest, I'm kinda checked out this year. WWE programming has not been as compelling to me as other things, like Lucha Underground. But I can't say I won't be watching this Sunday. It is Wrestlemania, dammit! The TWO GODDAMNED HOUR LONG PRE-SHOW! - Andre the Giant Battle Royal - This concept has never been the star creator they make it out to be. It is really just an excuse to get lower midcarders on the show and give them something to do. Cesaro won the inaugural match, then Big Show, and last year it was Baron Corbin. This year is full of tag guys and jobbers and Braun Strowman, making it pretty obvious who will win. He is my pick, but I would prefer Dolph Ziggler to win, because Jesus, he is still in the company after the way they've treated him. At least throw him a bone. - Neville vs Austin Aries for the Cruiserweight Title - Neville has reinvented himself recently, and his bitter hardass villain persona really works. Austin Aries is a real life douchebag who acts like a jerk and gets cheered. He will probably win here so a face gets a win, but I don't see a benefit to him going forward. Neville has the better upside. WRASSLEMANIAAAAAA!!! - Alexa Bliss vs Becky Lynch vs Naomi vs Mickie James vs Natalya vs Carmella for the SmackDown Women's Title - Another "get them all on the show" match. SmackDown's Women's Division benefits from some great wrestlers (Lynch, Nattie, Mickie) as well as supreme hotties (Alexa, Mickie, Naomi). I can't imagine this will be a show-stealer, but it will probably be fun for five to seven minutes. Lynch, Bliss, Naomi, or even Mickie are believable as winners for this, but I'm going to predict Naomi, since she had to drop the title immediately after she won it recently due to an injury. She got a great response when she won, and I think WWE would like to recreate that, especially since I think Naomi is from Florida. - Gallows & Anderson vs Cesaro & Sheamus vs Enzo & Big Cass for the Raw Tag Titles - Another multi-man match. This type of booking smacks of indecision. They can't decide who should be in the match, so fuck it, put everyone in. Wrestlemania 15, anyone? Honestly, any of these three teams could win and be fine going forward, but I'm going to pick Gallows & Anderson to retain. Enzo & Cass will do their entrance promo and continue to never win the big one, and I guess Sheamus will Brogue Kick someone. I guess it will be fine, but it is criminal to me that these teams get a featured match, while American Alpha and the revitalized Usos have to languish in the Battle Royal. - Dean Ambrose vs Baron Corbin for the Intercontinental Title - Dean has a weird thing, where he spends the better part of the year in the main event picture, until Mania roles around and he gets relegated to the midcard. Here he is defending the IC belt against Vince's boy Baron Corbin. Baron has come into his own, but he still suffers at times from the "big stiff hoss" disease. I bet he wins here, probably with some chicanery. - John Cena & Nikki Bella vs Miz & Maryse - I fervently believe that Miz is the best heel in the company right now, and while I think he ultimately deserves better, a featured match against Cena is nothing to sneeze at. The involvement of the ladies here is unnecessary, but I get why - they gotta promote Total Divas/Bellas. Miz is great and Maryse is gorgeous, but there is no way they win over SuperCena and Juggs McTwinsy. - Chris Jericho vs Kevin Owens for the US Title - Like Neville, Y2J has reinvented himself, this time into an arrogant prigg who puts his enemies on "The List of Jericho". His best buddy run with Owens, and the subsequent break up, is easily the best storyline WWE has done this year, and I think it is criminal that this match is for a midcard belt and not the Universal Title. Goldberg/Lesnar didn't need the belt to be the main event. It is Punk losing his title to make Rock/Cena 2 a title match all over again. Anyway, I figure Owens wins here. Jericho is leaving soon to do his rock star bit, and Owens getting the rub from Y2J is more useful than Jericho winning for a brief happy moment. - Bayley vs Sasha Banks vs Charlotte Flair vs Nia Jax for the Raw Women's Title - Another multi-person match? Damn you, D'Lo! First off, Nia has no business being in this match. She had the potential in NXT to be a Bull Nakano-style monster, but the WWE's insistence on focusing on her "pretty eyes" and having her squash better wrestlers for no reason isn't doing her any favors. Sasha has appeared to be teasing a heel turn by helping Bayley for a while now, so I predict that Charlotte wins the belt when Sasha costs Bayley the win, thereby transitioning Bayley and Sasha into a feud, to recreate their chemistry from NXT. Charlotte will go on to feud with newly-face Dana Brooke and they will have terrible matches. - Holy crap, is this still going??? - Shane McMahon vs AJ Styles - AJ deserves so much better, but at least he isn't in the Andre Battle Royal. Shane will jump off something high after selling like death for AJ's offense, and if Styles - the best wrestler in the world - does not beat a 50+ year old non-wrestler, then we will riot. - Seth Rollins vs Triple H in an Unsanctioned Match - I have never understood the idea of an "Unsanctioned Match". So the company feels like having this match is unsafe and a bad idea, but they still put it on the biggest show of the year and assign a WWE ref to count three? Why? Nonsense aside, I'm glad Rollins gets a Mania match after missing out last year and almost missing this year too. The Unsanctioned bullshit is just a fancy way to say No DQ, so expect Samoa Joe to show up and help Hunter. I'd love to see Finn Balor return to even the odds and help Rollins pull out a victory, but I suspect Seth falls to the numbers game and a blatant sledgehammer shot to the knee and Triple H gets the win. - Undertaker vs Roman Reigns - I think this is going to be terrible. Taker should have retired after his Mania 30 loss to Lesnar in a terrible match with a shocking finish. He can barely walk anymore, and while Roman is a much better wrestler than folks give him credit for, his best matches are with guys who can work really well, like Lesnar and AJ Styles. Taker won't give him anything to work with, and Roman will likely not know how to work around him. I hope I'm wrong, and Taker has one last barn-burner in him, but I'm not optimistic. Undertaker wins here because Roman isn't stupid. - Bray Wyatt vs Randy Orton for the WWE Title - Randy Orton's defection to the Wyatt Family has been a surprising success, and he and Bray have surprising chemistry. I think this may be the sleeper match of the night, and I would be shocked if Randy doesn't win. Not saying he is a dead lock, but Bray pulling out a retention will likely only happen if Luke Harper or Erick Rowan come back into the fold and cost Orton the title, and I suspect that is unlikely. - Goldberg vs Brock Lesnar for the Universal Title - Oh my god we made it! So, after their horrible abortion of a match at Wrestlemania 20, Lesnar and Goldberg have another shot. This time, though, neither are working a regular schedule and both are thirteen years older. Leading up to this match, Goldberg has been well protected through the WCW-style ten second squash matches, while Lesnar hasn't done much of anything except lose badly at Survivor Series. Word is that this won't be a long match, likely since Goldberg can't wrestle and Vince remembers what happened last time. I predict ten minutes of entrances, eight minutes of garbage brawling with chairs and gimmicks, a couple spears, a few thousand F-5's, and a victory by Lesnar to send Goldberg off into the sunset. Lesnar will move ahead to feud with Rollins or Owens or maybe Balor, and Goldberg will go into the Hall of Fame next year. So there you have it. Seven-plus hours of Wrestlemania looms before us. Brace yourselves...