#old - a piece of shit AND dog coded???

[vos-videmus]

🐉🐟

[2demondogs]

When You're A Stranger | Kieran/Male Reader

Tags: First kiss AGAIN!!, Kieran had PTSD and he's a little autism coded Words: 2k A/N: For Kinktober (SFW). Originally I was going to fill the frottage prompt but it was NOT sparking joy.

You know you put Kieran on edge. Kindness seems almost painful to him, and fear that you’ve pushed too hard follows whenever he has shied away from you.

Kicked dogs don’t cozy up fast, you’ll remind yourself, and then he’ll come around again.

He’s starting to learn that you aren’t intending to backhand him if he looks at you too long or speaks too softly around you. Even beyond the sweetness you’ve got stored on him, or maybe because of it and the strength love seems to give people to accept lonesomeness in favor of their darling’s happiness, you want him to have… someone, in some sense, that he doesn’t have to fear. Whether, in the end, it’s you or not— that doesn’t matter, but you’ll be the placeholder while he needs it.

His burgeoning confidence is starting to put you on edge, too, if it could be called confidence.

Kieran is bad at hiding his emotions, a real travesty as far as his general safety is concerned. You couldn’t place your finger on what exactly it was in his eyes until an evening where Molly had decided it was your turn to listen to her strife. She had glanced at Dutch the same way: soft-eyed, yearning, that little curl to her mouth. She hadn’t been angry anymore, merely… sad.

Good God, you’d thought, after she’d left you to sulk. He’s in love with me.

A lot of pieces fell into place, then: the patchy rosiness on Kieran’s cheeks that you chalked up to rosacea or sunburning; how he would straighten up when you did, sliding clumsily into mirroring your body language; his clinginess, laced with anticipation that kept him still-distant but much closer than he would ever be caught standing or sitting next to anyone else.

And those eyes, a cloudy color you haven’t gotten close enough to make out yet. They glaze over when you talk as if he’s in a trance — Jesus, you knew that your attention to detail had gone to total shit when that clicked into place, because it’s been painfully obvious ever since. You’d asked him once why he always stared when people spoke to him, and he told you his father had beat his ass raw for not looking him in the eye when he spoke.

That sufficed for the fact he stared, but not the way he did it. It had always been different, with you.

Meatier.

Kieran’s inhibition is palpable once he’s been drinking. Sean had been trotted into camp, loud as ever, and the group beer rations were quickly broken out to celebrate as dusk settled into the skyline beyond the Overlook. For the redhead’s piece, you’d asked him how the O’Driscolls didn’t fear what the rest of you were like after kidnapping his ass; more seriously, you’d ask how he was doing. He’d brushed you off, apparently preferring the taunting to genuine concern. Fair enough. You left him to talk someone else's ear off and wandered to a man you knew would enjoy your company.

He is nursing a beer, watching the campfire crowded ‘round with half of the camp. The tangible longing depresses you in its familiarity. Hosea's doing the same, from a fold-up chair beside his bedroll; Kieran squints when you greet him with: “Hey, old coot. Gonna join the party?”

It takes a second, but he huffs a tense laugh as you glance between him and Hosea. “Don’t think I’m missed,” he says, meeting your eyes.

There it is, that expression. It’s full to bursting.

“I’m missin’ you,” you say, nodding to the hay bale. “Mind if I join your party?”

“Sure thing." His voice sounds strained.

His beer is barely drank from, and neither is yours. The redness of his cheeks and nose, well— you don’t know what it’s from, and the daylight is so faded that it simply looks dark. Maybe it’s been a tan all along.

Or so you’d think, if he didn’t turn to you as soon as you settled a tad too close to him, eyes stuck on your face. The alcohol takes the edge off of your own carefully woven respect for his personal space, and by the time you realize how near you are, it has been too many peaceful seconds to excuse his staring for indignancy. His brows pull together like his mind has blanked in the middle of a thought before it could leave his mouth.

“Kieran?” You ask, and he blinks himself back to earth.

“S’rry,” he says, quick, mouth cracking back in a half-smile. “Real tired.”

“Oughtta be,” you say, taking a drink. He turns back to his own bottle and mirrors you. “All those gray hairs you got comin’ out, I’d be shocked if you weren’t tired. Stress’ll wear you out.”

The air eases. Stress is a word Kieran is familiar with.

“Aye,” he agrees. “Guess I do look pretty rough for my age.”

You smile some. “I was only teasing.” When, predictably, he turns to you— you wink. “Promise.”

He offers a short up-curl of his lips. It stutters when Javier’s guitar starts, sudden and sharp.

“I know,” he says. He tongues the inside of his cheeks, eyes glancing to the ground as if he’d like to watch it instead of you and yet can’t help himself. They roam over your face instead, as he struggles for the words; you let him find them, brows raised. “You never are mean to me. Not really.”

Simple. No juicy tell-all, but simple and sweet. The men start to sing around the fire, a song you don’t recognize.

“Never would want to be,” you say.

He swallows, and you’re certain now of everything you’ve suspected but found difficult to believe. Sure, the signs were damning on his part, and you’ve spent enough time mulling over each and every action to think of someone who does the same things, yet certainly does not fancy you; each one came up with an answer, except that look.

“Why not?” He asks, then, and you’re a little surprised.

“Oh, Kieran,” you say, gently. In your peripherals, Hosea raises to get another beer and Lenny tosses in his sleep. “Men choose to be mean. Well, maybe they’re mean by design, but they choose to show it, at least.”

The concept seems as comforting to him as it does alarming. “Most of ‘em choose it,” he says, eyes squinting. It’s a tic you’ve noticed he has, an irregular twitch of his muscles.

“I know,” you say. Chancing it, you lay an open hand on his upper back; he flinches, but then his shoulders fall an inch or two. “I don’t know what it is about you,” you answer the question before he can ask. “Maybe 'cause you never choose meanness yourself. Makes a man look inside of himself when someone makes a different choice than him, and I doubt they like what they see. To them, that's your fault, so they gotta beat it out of you.”

Kieran thinks the words over. To be honest, you have little idea what you're really saying, are flying off-the-cuff about a subject you probably shouldn’t be — but it feels crucial to answer fast, to speak whatever comes to you first whether it makes sense or not. Some people call gut reactions true feelings, anyways.

“Think I understand." He’s quiet, for a moment. “Y’never get tired of me?”

You huff a laugh. “I get tired of everybody, but I rest up quicker if it’s you.”

He seems to appreciate the lack of sugarcoating. “Me too,” he admits. Lifting his head again, eyes lingering beside your face and then at your jaw, he starts: “You’re really— you’re, uh, real,” — the scramble inside of his head to read your emotions is almost audible, and he finishes uncertainly — “Good to me.”

“You’re talkin’ in circles,” you point out, tone easy.

Kieran flushes. “I appreciate you,” he corrects, tears his eyes away. More to himself, he mumbles: “Yeah, ‘preciate you a lot.”

You smooth your hand across his shoulders. He tenses, but it doesn’t feel as flighty as it usually does. Disappointment might even flicker in him when you take it away. “I appreciate you, too, Kieran,” you say, and can’t help smiling.

Silence passes. Both of you watch the merriment around the fire, Kieran cringing when Dutch starts up his wailing gramophone and takes Molly by the hand. You’ve been thinking, now and again, of how she looked at Dutch just seconds after saying she hated him. Sometimes, I wish he’d grab me by the hair and put me on the boat so I could finally leave him. And then that longing, wanting the very thing you're sitting here watching.

At that, you feel shamefully voyeuristic. Sean is nowhere to be found, and you feel even more voyeuristic when you hear his voice alongside Karen’s over the cacophony.

God, there isn’t anywhere safe to turn your eyes or your ears in this goddamn place. You hope Kieran will start talking again, and then you remember it’s Kieran, so you’d better say something first or you’ll sit in silence the rest of the evening. For someone so stuck in his head, he doesn’t seem to think about many things he’d like to share.

You don’t know he’s looking at you until you turn to speak. It’s your turn to pause, the few lingering seconds of tolerance you have left for not bringing it up passing in the bated breath you share with him.

“Why’re you staring?”

He takes a breath. “You’re nice-lookin’,” he says, voice shockingly calm and even in a rare show of confidence. Then he takes a swig, much healthier than the rest he’s drank. “I jus’— you’re nice to look at.”

You bite the bullet. “Do you want to kiss me?”

Kieran blanches, apparently not expecting an equally as tactless dive-in response. A story crosses his face in an instant: relief, panic, pain, happiness, a few more expressions that you don’t believe have been named by science. “Why?” He asks, but his eyes aren’t behind the question. It’s a knee-jerk response, a self-defense against the idea that he might be worth something kind.

A smile finds you then. “Aren’t you flirting with me?” You ask, partially to get him to admit to it and partially to ease the doubt that prods at your insides.

He nods, and then pauses. Suddenly, he laughs. “Shit, yeah,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t— ‘m sorry, I’ve never… with a man? I ain’t even kissed a girl.” He flushes as if he didn’t mean to say that aloud. "Honestly, it kind of doesn't make sense how I'm s'posed to—"

“Kieran,” you interrupt his babbling, itching to grab him but knowing it would scare him. “Look me in the eye.”

He obeys instantly.

His face melts, and so does your heart. If watching the others feel voyeuristic, this feels exhibitionist; his adoration is so clear on his face, and you can’t help letting your own seep through the mask of nonchalance you try to uphold. To look sweet is one thing as a man; to look sweet on another man is something you avoid at all costs. Yet it doesn’t matter, without anyone watching, even if it chafes on your skin for the mere air of camp to contain it.

“Forget everything. Whether it’s right or wrong or new or old or whatever the Hell,” you say. He nods, throat clicking as he swallows. “Tell me: do you want to kiss me?”

“O’course I do,” he says, as if it’s a dumb question.

He tastes like beer and one of Sean’s terrible hand-rolled cigarettes, must’ve bummed one before the man hit the hay with Karen. The thought is humorous. His beard is scratchy on your face, and his mouth doesn’t move, uncertain how to work against yours — until it makes more sense, and his lips shift slightly, still inhibited.

You lean back first, because you aren’t sure he would even realize he’s supposed to.

[porcelaintoybox23]

BbRob snippets as promised

“Better or worse?”

“Worse.”

The doctor nods before moving the testing machine. Despite the room’s light being dimmed as much as possible, Dick still squints his eyes.

“Your glasses will be ready by next week. We’ll send you an email.”

He nods and fishes out his temporary lenses and flips on the shade attachments. The sun is still out and he can’t drive blind. He’s so tempted to call Alfred, but that would require a ouija board, and this line of humor isn’t funny. Fingers dig into his palms and he’s grateful the glasses hide the tears forming.

Alfred died over a year ago, but it’s only been a few months for him. It was a lovely service, one he couldn’t appreciate because he wasn’t there, Ric was. Dr. Kirk would tell him to work on acceptance, not in the “I’m okay with this” way but in the “You can’t change what happened” way.

He still doesn’t understand the difference. Either way, he’s furious and hurt, and he wants to fall down and scream—

“Mr. Grayson?”

Dick jolts and looks down. The receptionist is eyeing him from a distance, gaze focused on the door handle he’s currently ripping off its screws. Another lovely reminder that he’s no longer fully human.

“Oh. Sorry” He fixes it and hightails it to the car.

God, he’s already so tired and it’s only ten. This appointment was the only thing he had to do today, so he can head home and bury himself under three blankets and a double layer of fuzzy socks. He shivers as the car warms up and checks his phone. Bea messaged while he was inside.

You okay?

Yeah, heading home.

Lmk if you want any food.

***

“Dick?”

“Do I know you?”

“Duh,” he smacks his head. “It’s me Gar, beast boy? I’m just wearing a glamour. Why are you in Colorado?”

“I was looking at an apartment here but it just sold.”

“I don’t mind having a roommate. It’d be like old times.“

***

“Pardon my French *insert the French for your father is a fucking piece of shit.*

“You speak French?”

“I got bored”

***

“Uh, alcohol and antidepressants do not mix.”

***

Gar shifts back to normal and tucks his chin into his shoulder.

“Good morning?” Bea smirks

“I’m realizing that this looks strange.”

***

“Get off.”

“No. I refuse for my grave to read crushed into paste by Dick Grayson’s thighs.”

***

He deepens his voice. “Talon!”

Dick freezes, muscles twitching against the command. He takes a shaky step forward.

“Talon, at ease.”

He finally relaxes to parade rest. “What are your orders?”

I think I’m going to puke.

“Sit down on the couch. Don’t move unless I order you.”

There’s no tension in his stance as he moves. He sits with his hands folded and stares at Gar, waiting for his next command.

Gar gestures Rae to the door.

“Walk out normally. Your magic might freak him out.”

She nods and steps out.

He kneels in front of Dick, making sure to meet his eyes. “Dick?” Nothing.

“Can you tell me five things you can hear?”

“The air conditioner, the dog whimpering, Amalee Vong vacuuming downstairs, a doorbell, and your accelerated heartbeat.”

“Okay. Do you know where we are?”

“Denver, Colorado. Kensington apartment complex, floor 3, room 215.”

Gar nods. The light seems to be returning to his eyes. “Who resides here?”

“You, Garfield Logan, age 23, code name: menagerie.” His hands tremble and Gar holds them.

“And?”

“Richard…John Grayson, commonly known as ‘Dick Grayson’, age 25, codename: Nightwing.”

“And that’s?”

The tremors worsen and Dick pales. “M—me.” He yanks his hands from Gar’s and curls into a shaking ball.

“Dick. Look at me.”

He curls in tighter.

Gar sighs. “Do you want me to leave?”

He shakes his head.

“Would you prefer if I changed?”

“No.”

“I’m moving next you, okay?”

“O—okay.”

Gar leans in gently. Dick’s shiver are probably a mix of adrenaline and cold. “I’m wrapping us in the blanket.” He gets no response and proceeds. He drapes it loose around them.

“Could you talk?”

***

“A burden? What the fuck is wrong with you people? Loving someone isn’t a burden, he isn’t a burden! How—how can you…”

He grabs Dick’s hand. “We’re leaving.”

***

Dick’s smirk is threatening to split his face, but he can’t help it. Gar’s eyes shift between him and the mirror, face becoming grumpier with each pass.

“Who do I look like?”

“A kpop idol.”

“I literally hate you.”

***

“Vegetarian sushi. It’s all the rage in SoCal.”

He gestures with the chopsticks. “C’mon, it’s good I swear.”

***

Dick blinks as the code he’s writing becomes an endless stream of gibberish.

“Gar, what the hell?”

The cat rolls its eyes. “It’s 2 am, go to sleep.”

***

“This is a complete and utter waste of my powers and time.”

Dick flashes his strongest puppy dog eyes. “Please, Rae?”

She sighs. “Gar is taller by 2cm.”

Dick’s jaw drops as Gar cheers. “What do you mean he’s taller?”

“You’re both pretty short. It’s just a few centimeters, who cares?”

“Centimeters broke up the Pines twins!”

Gar gives him the stink eye. “It was a millimeter, Richard.” He looks to Raven. “Fake fans, am I right?”

Rae disappears in a plume of smoke.

“If she keeps doing that, we’ll never get our deposits back.”

***

“My uncle tried to kill me for my inheritance which wasn’t great. “

“It’s hard. I miss my parents but they weren’t always there, y’know? They dragged me all over for their research and it nearly killed me. I like being a vigilante but there are times that I wish I was normal, that I was still human and didn’t have ptsd from experimentation and Armageddon.”

“Which one?”

They both share a humorless smirk.

***

“So…wanna see the Barbie movie?”

Dick blinks. “S—sure?”

“Two tickets, please.”

“I hate that it was good. Why was it good? You’re the detective here. Explain.”

Dick shrugs. “Some things are inexplicable.”

***

“Okay, let’s do this.”

“You look like you’re heading to the chair”.

Gar sneezes. “It’s 32 degrees.”

***

“You’re sick.”

“just a cold.” His voice cracks and bends as he strains to reply. “Go to your thing.”

Dick throws a blanket over his shoulders and heads to the kitchen.

“Already asked for the day off.”

“You did this when we were titans. Pretend you’re fine, hide yourself away and suffer alone. Can’t say I’m any better.”

“Old habits die hard.”

***

Gar rubs his stinging eyes. “Jesus, fuck. I’m sorry.”

Dick feels empty, deflated. The confrontation he’s been dreading went to shit and the only person reacting normally is his friend.

“I just don’t get it. Like—how…ugh I’m making this about me. How are you?”

Honestly, a bit in awe. Few people can withstand Bruce’s glare, much less the full wrath of all the bats, yet Gar did. Stood unflinching, eyes glowing in animalistic rage on his behalf.

“I’ll be fine. I didn’t expect that to go well.”

***

“Where do your clothes go?”

“I don’t know and at this point I’m too afraid to learn”

***

You’re the type of person who makes tea in the microwave

[windbreakes]

get to know the mun! repost, don’t reblog.

——— BASICS.

NICK NAME(S): nana, nams, namnams, nami, nimnuts, i have been amassing an army. i don't care what people choose and actively encourage nicknames!!

PRONOUNS: he/they/it, please alternate!

ZODIAC SIGN: sagittarius! fun fact my bday is the same as sako's :>

TAKEN OR SINGLE: shingle

ANYTHING ELSE?: i volunteer at a local apothecary and just grind up herbs every week...?

——— THREE SERIOUS FACTS.

i realized i had bpd because my roommate who got diagnosed started talking about her symptoms and it was like something clicked. i had an "oh, shit" moment and it's actually been really helpful in processing my emotions ever since!

i have early onset arthritis. ripe old age of twenty. and carpal tunnel probably

unsure what else i can put here... this is sort of basic but i'm a junior in uni right now and i really want to do a semester abroad and go to grad school. not in that order and unsure how financially that will play out but we'll see.

——— THREE RANDOM FACTS.

i have a dog named milk who is evil but i love her anyways; i also technically have a cat named beef who is the cutest cat in the world. i say "technically" because i don't live with my friend who owns him but i basically do. (beef is my godson)

i have the cilantro soap gene...?

i binged wind breaker in like a three days. i don't think a piece of media has affected me this much since haikyuu and that's saying something because haikyuu made me throw up

——— EXPERIENCE.

i've been rping for over a decade now i think...? i started really young (maybe not even 12 oops) on places like wattpad, skype, kik, google+, animal jam, etc. i don't really remember why i switched to tumblr rp but it was one of the best decisions of my life—— i've met so many of my close friends here!

that isn't to say i didn't have bad experiences though. oopsies

——— MUSE PREFERENCE.

LMFAOAOEWRIJAMSDFLDSFM I WRITE ANYONE AND EVERYONE IF YOU COULDN'T TELL. i rarely make single muse blogs—— the only time i really do so are for ocs—— and even if i make a single muse blog for a canon character, i guarantee you i write others from the same media somewhere. i am physically incapable of only writing one character.

i do think i generally go for muses who have bad home lives, who have several mental illnesses (either confirmed, coded, or projected), and most of the time kind of bad people. examples: endo yamato, sylvain jose gautier, childe tartaglia, among others. i look like a walking red flag and i'm so sorry about it.

——— FLUFF / ANGST / SMUT.

FLUFF: i love fluff so so much! sometimes it's about the comfort and the happiness of it all... i'm always down for some feel good threads! however——

ANGST: —— i love to put my muses in situations. it is my favorite past time. call me a torturer the way i treat my muses because even though i love them they're always going through it cuz of me. i do love angst for angst's sake, but you will rarely see that from me because in the end i do need something to balance it out. it's always hurt and comfort with me!

SMUT: not on this blog, no, but i do write smut! i get embarrassed very easily though so it takes me a while to get to them. not my preference but if it happens, it happens.

——— PLOT / MEMES: i love love LOVE plotting!! i get so excited talking about how my muses would interact with others, it's why i may jump to respond to some things over others.

TAGGED BY: @cherriedrage !! thank you zag ♡ TAGGING: obligatory "if mari sparky and rain see this you have to do it" here; @prudenze; @taritsu; @timewounded; and anyone else who wants to!

[princemick]

MICKLORE for dummies

here;s part 1 with his racing history

because over roc weekend people seemed to have gotten to know him a lot better so here's a bunch more of mick info that I deem as essential

so under the tab I will add a bunch of stuff that kinda break trough that introverted pr trained wall he has.

this will be broken into facts, quotes, moments and videos.

--enjoy--

Mickfacts:

he speaks, english, german, french and italian but beraly speaks italian and french because he doesnt feel comfortable enough with them

the f-2002 is his favorite of his dads cars

during a lot of 2022's off season he has been dirt racing in the states where he bascially races for as long as the car runs together with gina's bf (x) (x)

apperantly recognizes the italian anthem before the german

can't choose himself for a dream team so his dream team is michael and seb

couldnt choose between lewis and max in 2021 "because theyre both nice to me"

he used to play drums as a kid

his middle name is 'junior'

he is named after Mick Doohan (5x mtotogp champ) who used to live close to Michael who were really good friends and so him and Jack Doohan (f2 driver) have always been and are still close friends.

apperantly introduced himself to kevin when he got back to haas with 'suck my balls'

modified said off road buddy that he does mud racing with so it goes quicker then intended

he seems to have extra clothes with him at all times bc he borrowed an extra pair of pants and shirt to callum for their f2 podium celebration

his dad wanted him to study engineering (also interesting piece of related information: he said he would have become a biologist if not an f1 driver in this video)

he refers to his dog angie as his best friend

in F3 he won 5 races in a row. race 22 til 26 of the 2018 season.

he started doing champions for charity where he organizes a football match every year with a bunch of german sports players

mick denies it but this man has bleached his hair

Mickquotes:

"a bomb, a knife, a serial killer. I mean that comes all together so.."

"I mean if poeple ask me if I'm mick I usualy just say no. I learned that from my dad."

"can I eat this?" procedes to eat it

"you guys are gonna do pushuupss"

"can I go and pet it?? play fetch??"

"those cars are so shit"

"deutsche, german..WHA??"

"you sure??"

"my dad, my dad, my dad, my dad"

"I just wanna get to my dad"

"beep beep beep"

"I won f2 and f3 for a reason"

"you guys are fucking brilliant, FUCKING BRILLIANT! fucking hell- sorry for all the swearing guys"

"I have a problem with italian bread tbh"

"PTW man, PTW" (pwt means prove them wrong)

"so you have to be smooth, realise that its an old lady and treat it that way, take it easy and enjoy the ride"

"hmm, have you ever driven on the road blindfolded?"

"ah, I was fine" after crashing

"I'm glad it was you I was fighting against"

Mickvideos:

prema stranger things - where he bascially just shouts his ideas and is loudly jock and himbo coded

The 5 Second Challenge - him having to really quickly talk and think shows how he thinks really well aka himbo

The Taboo Challenge - where he has to explain something without using specific words

Seb And Mick Take On The Formula 1 Tower Challenge! - where Seb and Mick ask eachother questions as they play mega jenga

Mick and Dan at the 2021 russian gp presser - just wholesome

Mick and Sean cook pizza together - him being wholesome and happy and speaking italian

Prema Trivia Challenge - giving ultimate himbo rights

him hugging every haas mechanic after his last race w them

mick post Q2 in Canada

the groundhog video

Some minutes with Cyrus Watches: Mick Schumacher

The Texas Red Hot Sauce Challenge - shows his relationship with gary (his old race engineer) really well

Guess the Flavour: Japanese KitKat Taste Test - shows how weird mick is sometimes

Map The Track - himbo.

Mick celebrates with the team after first F1 points - hes so beloved

Gina and Crorinna's congrats after his first points

okay there's much much more, if you wanna get more into it I reccomend watching more of his prema and haas videos and just keep updated with him over his time at mercedes

dont be afraid to send me asks with questions or anyting!

and special thank you to 2/3 of the pillars of mickblr @acrosstobear and @schumaclerc for helping me out w some micklore and @stoffelvandoornegf for this post

[justicefanged]

Professor Linus Reed. That's what the placard on the desk says, same as the name on the faculty roster. It's just hard to connect 'Professor' to the Linus Reed that Legault is familiar with. The one who's been missing for years—or presumed dead, depending on how much hope managed to flare to life in Legault's heart from day to day. It beats anxiously now, as he rifles through the contents of this mystery professor's desk for any sign that could connect it to the man he once knew. He's not sure what he's looking for—but he hardly has time to find it. Heavy footsteps come down the hall at a pace far too quick for Legault to make a swift exit out the window. With a curse under his breath and a swift excuse about getting lost on the way to the archbishop's chapel forming on his tongue, he prepares himself to face whomever it is who has claim to this room. And when the door opens, he faces Linus Fucking Reed. For a second, he's speechless. Wide eyes simply take in the broad, fearsome man in front of him. Years might've changed some things about them both, but the Reeds aren't a forgettable sort. "Pardon the intrusion," Part of Legault's pre-planned excuse comes forth, practically unbidden. He adjusts the rest, mouth twisting into a smile. "When I heard there was a Linus Reed teaching up here, I thought I'd see who was out here using an old friend's name. Never thought they'd hire a Mad Dog to run a classroom."

Linus is absolutely sure he's at the right room this time, and yet Saints' fucking dangly balls, there's someone already fucking in it! Maybe it's on account of the ass lighting at this time of day, or the fact that someone is clearly in his space and going through his shit -- or maybe it's that the sticky-pawed, sneak thief bastard was talking at him like they knew each other, real and code names alike.

Whatever it is, Linus doesn't waste any further time trying to place the guy; he puts on the heat suddenly and bull rushes the fucker.

He crashes into the slighter body full force, pinning arms against the intruder's sides with a crushing bear hug as they unceremoniously clamor to the floor. Through the still open door, Honk -- still growing into his paws and ears -- barrels on through at the sound of roughhousing, barking and trying to shove his big snout into the thick of things, tail pinwheeling in his excitement.

"Ya picked the wrong fuckin' asshole to try an' steal from, I ain't got nothin'--"

Linus goes horribly still, finally getting a good look at the intruder's face. He lets go as if he'd been burned, mouth working but nothing coherent coming out, before he's leaning in again and keeping the man's head from moving with a too tight grip of his hand on the guy's jaw.

Brown eyes stare into steely gray, and there's a shudder of breath through gritted teeth.

No gold.

He lets Legault go, forehead knocking against the other's chest for a moment in what might have passed as relief before he sits back on his haunches, bringing his weight fully off of the other man.

"...The fuck's this then, huh?" he mutters out, quieter than he'd been in years. He's not sure if he wants to crush the man before him in a hug or punch the daylights out of him. "Thought you'd already seen your way out of the Fang a while back, why ya give a shit now that it's in pieces?"

Linus isn't looking at him, has pulled Honk away from nosing curiously at the new person, rough fingers messing with dopey ears as the dog tries to lick at his hand. It feels stupid and petulant, like a child having a hissy fit, but he thinks he's doing Legault a solid by not beating the snot out of him right here and now.

He snorts, recalling the last thing the other had managed to get out before he'd been brought to the floor.

"Wasn't my idea, you should know better 'an that. Signed up for the wrong fuckin' gig."

[reveseke]

Why is there no Morgan x Hotch x Reader poly ships at all in general ??? This shit has consumed my mind for the past few months as an after thought and now I'm going to do it myself :( .

Soooo rogue and spontaneous headcanons time !! bc i can't keep track of new things and work on old things.

Feature ... Aaron "Hotch" Hotchner | Derek Morgan | nonbinary reader ( they them )

CW nothing much actually – absolutely nothing, I'm swearing here and there but nothing extreme. Bolded words highlight the headcanon's main topic and will continue to be of same topic untill it meets the new bolded words headcanon lol.

Disc ... Reader is nonbinary coded even if it's not outrightly said and all of my stories are towards masc intended readers.

DNI - Fudanashis/fujodashis, women & fem-aligned, profic/proship, anti - LGBTQ+ folk & exclusionists, anti-antis, Necro- Zoo- Pedophiles + (NO)Maps(and other terms), basic DNI criteria, kink/nude/nsfw/sh/vent/pro-ana/ed/18+ blogs

General headcanons – Grumpy meets the guard dog and sunshine.

Interpret it as you want, but we all know reader's the sunshine here when it comes to that sentence.

But i kinda see something akin to that that the grumpy is just Aaron and Derek is the guard dog who is as much talk as he can be bite.

Also imo Morgan and Hotch can mask and generally hide their relationship in BAU so fucking well behind general banter and professionalism nobody would suggest their together. It's surprisingly easy looking back at how the whole team in their hands is full of profilers and still they manage to share some touches and glances here and there away from the unsuspecting team. (Bc if I've understood correctly you can't date someone in your team and cannot be family to them bc emotional ties and rash/impulsive thinking when one is in trouble.)

Which leads to kind of fun situations with Hotch being asked if he found someone to be in his life after Hayley and he answers yes but never actually slips names out so everyone else but Morgan is kinda on the edge with the fact that they know he's dating, but don't know who. Bc i really think he would other wise be encouraged to meet more people if he didn't tell he was already in a relationship and it could became a nag.

But when it comes to off-duty work their guards just drop around each other knowing they don't have to hide it anymore. They'll just kinda be in comfort silence both knowing their safe and don't need much more on the topic. Bc i don't see either of them being really uh lovey-dovey if they are not in the mood and home.

Wkvdvdj thinking thinking ... if R was not part of the BAU but instead worked somewhere else and just spontaneously met the two or was part of a case by accident like as someone who may have seen something, as a suspect etc etc or just plainly seeing him work when they were on a date and both regonice the interest they share for the Reader.

Cuddle piles. Really it's going to be Morgan, then R and then Hotch depending on if your actually smaller than them. If your bigger then by all means it's going to be R, Morgan & Hotch. ( I'm thinking this perspective from laying in a literal pile on the sofa and trying their hardest to have the heaviest/biggest on bottom and lightest/smallest on top so nobody feels like they're going to die lmao) but otherwise it's alternating on who feels like being a side piece and who an in-between piece of the cuddle sandwich in bed.

Ooh also thinking of Jack, just when R comes and if he isn't part of the BAU he's got time to spent helping Hotch's SIL and lending a hand on taking care of Jack. Making sure he knows he's cared for and can trust them even if building that trust may take awhile.

Silently making fast friends with Aaron's SIL and Derek's family.

Also the reader in this is normal, there's no aus on it yet . But mark my fucking words I'm going to make a hybrid, spider maybe even BAU team aus off of this fucking ship at some point in time lmao.

[princess-of-the-corner]

Amnesia!Dabi

Ok, so like, I am going to preemptively apologize for how long this will probably be. I will be skipping around the timeline a bit, so if you see any plot holes, imagine that they happened off screen, or make up your own version of events! Cause I don’t know how likely this is, but it won’t leave my head till I write it down and share it!

(if brevity is the source of wit, then i am seriously short changed)

AHYWHO

(Okay this is a LOT so I’m gonna add my comments in parentasis and italics instead of at the end. Would love to color code it but for some reason I can’t do that rip)

a couple general ideas, so we know where everyone is.

The trial wraps up in Himiko’s favour. The Togas are arrested. Himiko (now a Todoroki) is technically going to U.A.. Really, she’s being tutored through U.A., as she’s still a bit “fragile” to be going into a regular school, and everyone is still a bit concerned about the LoV coming after her (I mean, not really, but any reason they can use is a brick in the wall that keep the HPSC FAR AWAY from Himiko). U.A. is also giving Himiko Quirk Training (something her parents never bothered with), and as Himiko improves, she’s spending a lot of time with Recovery Girl. Partly because using her Quirk, at the moment, can cause dizzy spells, partly because Himiko is seriously thinking about being a doctor at this point, and wants to use her Quirk to help people. RG has agreed to give her some pointers, and Himiko is basically interning with the woman now (calls her “Granny Chiyo”, & thinks she’s amazing). Himiko is also tentatively friends with a few U.A. students now - besides Shoto.

(She’s doing great! Get this girl some friends!! I think most of 1-A would jump immediately to friendship by now (both from Shoto’s talking and Katsuki being like ‘yeah she’s chill’ and seeing her parents) even if she’s just like ?????. Ya girl has a gameplan and she’s getting better!!!)

Dabi is … well, he now responds to Toya when people call him that. He mostly feels like Toya, too. Like, he, for the most part, feels “yes, that’s my name”. He doesn’t remember EVERYTHING (and being honest, probably never will) but he remembers enough that he’s getting bits and pieces of his old life back. He remembers his school friends, his teachers. His siblings. His parents … well, he remembers Rei. Enji … I headcanon any memories about Enji are the last things Dabi gets back. If he ever does. Most things he currently remembers about Enji aren’t so much about him, but about his absence. An empty training room. A spot at the dining table set up, but never filled. A feeling of heat, but Dabi can’t remember the source.

(SIDE TANGENT: part of my theory for all this is Dabi’s memories of Enji have gotten caught up in Dabi’s memories of the forest fire where he “died”, and his brain is still repressing that HARD. Basically until Dabi remembers any part of his “death”, his Enji related memories are going to be mostly out of reach.)

But, ya know, otherwise Dabi’s doing ok. He’s managing.

(So I said before but I think one of the things that’s hindering Dabi remembering Enji is how /different/ Enji is. Because the man got himself some help and his own mental health is better so he’s just. He’s there and encouraging and admits his faults. And that’s good! But it’s not triggering the memories of what he was like for a good chunk of time.)

Jin is … well, honestly, Jin’s probably the worst off right now. Like, he’s mostly healed at this point - physically. He’s walking around. He’s working with U.A. to figure out some things, LoV and otherwise. He’s, weirdly, made friends with Lunch Rush, and spends a few days a week helping out at the school cafeteria. Also made buddies with Hound Dog, they like shooting the shit together.

But Jin’s also having lots of nightmares. He’s basically insomniac. He catnaps, and wakes up screaming more often than not. His Quirk being stolen has really messed him up. Like, you’d think it would AT LEAST help with his identity problems. Which, if you want to get EXTREMELY TECHNICAL, it has! By kicking his old identity problems to the curb in exchange for brand new ones! So, Jin is having a ROUGH GO OF IT right now. However, he isn’t being left to drown. He has friends. Nezu himself managed to find the guy a therapist. He’s trying some medication that seems to be helping. He is coping and getting better.

(oof. Yeah no it. I talked on it before but being without your Quirk absolutely fucks you up. He’s getting help but that’s gonna leave a mark.)

Magne, by contrast, is doing GREAT. Leaving the LoV when she did basically started a domino chain effect that’s set her up to be in a pretty great place. She’s working at a small, underground clinic that caters to people who, for whatever reason, don’t feel comfortable going to regular hospitals. Quirk status, prejudice, possible crimes, lack of money. It’s run by an old couple with some fairly balanced healing Quirks, and their apprentices. Magne works the front, as both receptionist and security. The Doctors are both kind, compassionate people - if a bit grumpy - and while they can’t pay Magne a lot of money, they CAN get her any medicines or drugs she needs free of charge, which means Magne is doing fairly well for herself. She has her own apartment, but visits the Todoroki’s fairly often, where she has a standing invitation to stay over whenever she needs to. Enji is also helping cover certain “expenses” to help Magne out.

(Note: I remember what you said about the HPSC being transphobic, and that’s why they can’t get Magne - “Oh, you’re looking for a man? Well, we just had this lovely lady over for tea!” - but I kind of ran with that, so Magne is in the middle of medically transitioning. Enji has helped set her up with records, so she’s officially “Magne Smith” or similar, and has basically gaslit the HPSC that Magne’s deadname is a completely different person who’s run off to Tibet or something.)

(Honestly? Good for her! I love this.)

Now, let’s jump over to the League for a hot second.

The League is doing … not great. They have, at this point, figured out Jin didn’t just run off, but they are extremely confused and wary. Compress managed to contact Magne, and while she was reluctant, she’s given them a VERY basic run down - how Himiko’s doing, Dabi’s status … and the fact that Jin doesn’t have his Quirk anymore. 

The League knows there’s basically only one way that could have happened. But none of them really know what to do. Compress has nowhere else to go at the moment. Spinner and Kurogiri refuse to leave Tomura behind. And Tomura couldn’t leave, even if he wanted too. (And at this point, he’s beginning to …)

So that’s the general state of things, when Overhaul comes calling. At first, the meeting seems like it will go the same … except no one gets torn apart, cause Tomura says “yes” to joining up right away. So, when the Raid happens, the LoV are all there. It both changes things, and nothing at all. The Raid happens mostly the same. Overhaul goes nuts, Deku straps Eri to his back and fights him one on one. However, at the end, when Eri’s losing control, before Aizawa gets there, Compress gets there first. He manages to get Eri off Deku, and traps her in one of his spheres, which apparently negates her Quirk briefly … though not before Compress himself is de-aged (his bio says he’s 32, so let’s say … cut his age in half, he’s now physically 16. Congrats, you get to relive puberty).

See, I like to imagine this was Compress’s turning point. While working with Overhaul, Compress gets drafted to work with Eri for a bit. And Compress is horrified by the state this poor kid is in. Like, they all are, but for Compress, it hits him HARD. I imagine his own childhood wasn’t great, and he’s getting hit with “Similar situation, but this is SO MUCH WORSE”. And now not a single one of them trust AfO even REMOTELY, so Compress is struggling to think of a way to help Eri without causing all of them to go down in a fiery blaze. When the Raid happens, Compress basically goes “Welp, this is my best shot!”, and does his best to help the heroes. He makes sure Nighteye doesn’t die, and keeps a couple of the kids from being shot (though not Mirio, unfortunately). When Compress sees Eri losing control at the end, he doesn’t even think. He just moves. 

When Aizawa shows up, Compress releases Eri, and her Quirk is nullified. Compress then surrenders to Aizawa, and U.A. (somewhere, a HPSC Agent feels a sense of dread). After some time, U.A. decides to release Compress into Endeavour’s custody (the Agent wonders why they want to bash their head against a wall), and Enji decides hosting them ALL at his house might not be the best, so Magne offers her spare room. Compress starts adjusting to the fact he’s physically a teenager again - someone jokes about him signing up for U.A..

(Oh fucking RIP to getting de-aged he absolutely hates it but hey /technically/ he’s now underage which means getting him protected from the Commission is easier.)

Now, jumping around a bit, why does Tomura join up with Overhaul? Well, this time? He had orders. When the Heroes look through the base, they can’t find ANY of the Quirk Cancelling bullets. They find the research, and a few samples, but all of the PRODUCT is gone. Then, on the way to Tartarus, Overhaul’s transport is attacked … and Overhaul is taken. The Public is told minimal information. The Heroes are told he escaped.

(AfO smiles. He has another part of his plan.)

[Note: my general idea at this point is AfO is realizing his plan for Tomura is kind of falling apart. So, he’s thinking of backups. By utilizing Jin’s Quirk, and Overhauls, plus a few others, he’s hoping to make himself a new, back up body, up in case Tomura doesn’t work out. As Mimi pointed out, he doesn’t technically NEED Tomura for his plan. Using Tomura was more about the style points, with the kid being Nana’s grandson.]

(You’re absolutely right about the style points thing like I went on a tangent either here or in discord on how I kinda questioned AfO’s choices in backup bodies because Tomura was his first choice and then supposedly Toya was a backup if Tomura didn’t work out but like. Other than style points neither of them are really /good/ for this whole thing because he should really be going after someone whose body is capable of handling multiple Quirks due to his own Quirk’s nonsense. But also like. No way in hell is AfO going to just let Tomura leave at this point, even if he’s no longer useful as a new body.)

[not-alien-girl-v]

The Evans as Ethel Cain Songs

Tate: HEAD IN THE WALL!!!!!!!!! ok this is so so like omg right ok so like if you get it you get it so. so the raping part was so tate langdon and "Shooting up our old school when we get bored of shooting up Fuck the cops, and fuck god, and fuck this town for ruining us They'll put holes in all we own and in our heads, pumped full of lead You always told me i could only leave you once we're both dead" tate langdon coded you can try to argue with me about this but you're going to be wrong about it so

Kit: most of miss anhedonia's songs are all too toxic for kit so all i'll say is like specifically the one part of crush where its like he looks like he works with his hands and smells like marlboro reds is so kit but the rest of the song is more tate you feel me. and also thoroughfare because kit is american man with a truck coded. you get it.

Kyle: hard times :((((( and i don't want to elaborate so much on it because it makes me sad that most of kyle's narrative is based on his trauma with his mother and even in death he just continues to get used for his body.

james: i am feeling knuckle velvet and also lilies ok so for knuckle velvet the line ‘you come in so hard, gore me through the heart’ that just yells james directly into my ears idk what to tell u and for lilies ‘you’re like an angel, nothing can touch you, but i wanna hold you, i wanna love you’ like ok sure that could be any evan character cuz he’s beautiful like an angel but when i hear angel and beautiful in the context of evan peters im gonna think of mr march and mr march ONLY also like the entire first verse is SO james it’s like i can picture the exact scene in his silly little hotel room so vividly in my mind it’s like it’s a real scene from the show

kai: my little piece of shit <3 so for kai im feeling dog days and sunday morning. from dog days ‘you walk a fine line between god and animal, you’re just a feral dog i worship in bedroom ceremonials’ and also ‘cut me up and take me like the bread and blood at church’ like ok the kinkiness mixed with violence mixed with religion mixed with worshipping a man who’s literally just Some Guy that’s kai anderson shit right there. for sunday morning ‘when i go home at night i think about the ways that i can get out of the hold you’ve got me in’ mixed with ‘everything hurts except for you’ ok kai anderson kai kai kai anderson

and that’s all i have to say i don’t fuck with the other characters so this is all y’all get from me

[rodolfoparras]

Back on my oc shit ✊😞 god if you can hear me

I can definitely see Price getting pissed off because he just came back from hanging out with some friends, but he's drunk as fuck and is trying to type in a code but keeps pressing the wrong shit because hes got big fingers and the buttons are a bit small and is just

🧍‍♂️🎥 "one of you boys needs to get the fuck out here and let me in" at the cameras until someone comes out and escorts him inside (it will not be Ghost, because he thinks it's funny as fuck)

It's probably Gaz and/or Everett that does tbh, helps the old man inside and gets him all washed up and in his jammies (probably fucks him good for good measure) and then tucks his ass into someone's bed, he's out like a light fs

Everett is a huge cuddle bug when you get close enough to him. So lots of the time, if you're looking for him, you should be looking for whoever's in their room because good chance he's with them in bed

Also they do absolutely fight of parking spots, you're right, sometimes they park in each other's spots just to be petty. Finished Ghost's favorite cereal? Fuck you and your parking spot

Soap's got furr enemies because in the 2009 MW, in Captain Soap's journal, he talks about hating dogs and having a fear of them. So Ghost's pup Riley and Everett's pup are his biggest opps sometimes.

Both dogs are very well trained, so he'll slowly grow civil with them, they help him overcome that fear the longer they're all together, but he still doesn't like them much

Prefers Everett's little fluff balls, a mainecoon and a Norwegian forest cat (they're not little at all but they love Soap because he spoils them)

Once they're all retired, I don't think Everett would use a mask much at home, definitely when he goes out but at home he's pretty okay going without it, Roach and Ghost too. But sometimes Everett will probably wear his bunny balaclava for funsies

If he carries anything in the ears, it's probably lighters or chapstick

Weed smoker 100% after retirement, he gets really bad pains in his face sometimes from the piece of shrapnel and smokes to relieve it, probably smokes with Roach and Soap. The others may or may not join, probably depends on if they're still in the military or not

The boys do call him bunny and bun bun and other cute bunny pet names because they think it's cute 😞 man's a war criminal and missing his eye but he's his boys' bunny

Nsft headcanons 🤭...

(poly141 petplay when?!) ((Everett would probably dress up in white lingerie with bunny ears and a rabbits tail plug because Soap joked about it once and wanted to surprise his boys))

Lots of high and/or drunk sex, they've got so much left over energy now they focus it on each other. Get Everett high, and he's rubbing his pussy on whoever's closest to him

Sex between Everett and Soap is very sweet most of the time in my head, they're both scared of losing the ability to communicate with one another (Soap becoming hoh and Everett going partially blind) and so they're very sweet with each other, lots of cuddle sex, they take good care of one another

They all love to ruin their captain and lieutenant 🫡

4v2 fr, Gaz, Soap, Roach, and Everett all jumping Ghost and Price and melting their brains

Idk if you've ever seen those women who fuck men back?? Like the woman is standing and holding the man's legs against him and then riding him like that?? Idk if that's the best way to describe it, BUT Everett does that to whoever's cis in the polycule, especially if it's Ghost or Price, loves to dominate those two

I could probably go on for way too long about these guys...... Someone's gotta put me down, bruh

-🐧

Hello I’m kicking my legs and twirling my hair bc fucking price to sleep is a dream yes he’s an old man yes he’ll happily let you fuck him while he sleeps yes he gets lazily half way into riding and wants you to take over for him yes he’ll claim he doesn’t like being pampered bc he’s a “grown man for Christ sake “ but if you happen to forget to make tea for him at night like you usually do or you won’t offer him to put his cold feet onto you he’ll be huffing and puffing

May I also have a cuddle ses with Everett it’s been a rough day my friends 🧎🏻‍♂️

Wait I absolutely love them having petty fights like arguing over silly things like how someone (soap) ended up turning half of the white t shirts into baby pink and he’s like what pink looks great on ghost and Everett 😭

Oh no I forgot soap was a wee bit scared 😭 but also soap having some moments where he’s like “you’re cool…sometimes” to the dogs 😭

Soap having little tea parties with the kitties and talking shit about dogs and the cats are just blinking at him and he’s like exactly!

Everett wearing his bunny mask jst bc he secretly loves when the rest of the guys coo at him

I see price tryinf weed once and being all grumpy about the headache he got and how he’s too old for all this nonsense hallucinations he’s seeing 😭

Oh hello Everett and price dryhumping idk I just see price as someone who absolutely loves doing it especially with a couple of drinks in him

Soap and Everette finding their own ways to communicate just in case something happens 🧎🏻‍♂️

Oh I’ve definitely seen that maybe even imagined pricr doing it to me but that’s another discussion 😞

[beantothemax]

Oh hey would you look at that it’s an inbox fic

This one ended up running away from me a little bit, so it’s sort of a hybrid transcript format. Color coded for your convenience, of course.

And now for the mandatory pings: @lesbian-empress-nero @meme-boys-blog 

!!!!!!Major SMT IV Apocalypse Spoilers ahead!!!!!!!!

“Lord Dagda… You belong with us.”

“No. I’ll carve out my own path. And no one-no one- will stand in my way. Not you, not YHVH, not even that galla dorchadais.”*

“Oh? And who would that be? Another doll brought into your game of treachery? (Scoffs) I have no time to waste dealing with that.”

“...Dolls? What is the meaning of this!?”

———————————

“...a poison. We should strive to be true individuals, to think freely for ourselves.”

”My, my Dagda. You must be fond of your doll, speaking to and for him.”

”Quiet.”

“…How is that kettle, pot? Is it quite as black as you thought it was?”

“And here you are. I guess that makes it a party.”

“A party would imply one is having fun.”

“And you look like you’re having a blast. Cut the crap, what do you want.”

“You hold your vessel in your hands. You tell him that his compatriots are worthless, but we have seen much to the contrary.”

(Scoffs) “You’re as blind as Mother is. Those friendships he has? Crumbling. Turning to ash as they were destined to be.”

“And from the ash new life will rise. They will be forged anew, stronger than before.”

“Don’t give me that shit. You and I both know that this little group is going to splinter.”

“Perhaps they will. But shards can be made whole, glued together with gold and made into a finer piece than before.”

(Sighs) “Agree to disagree.”

(Laughs) “Capricious, are you not? You parade around telling your beliefs to anyone who would listen, but as soon as someone challenges you-”

(Seething) “…Shut. up.”

“Oh? Does the barking dog bite-“

[BOOM]

“…I won’t ask again.”

“Good.”

[Crashing, a muffled thud against a wall.]

“You won’t have to.”

“Listen to us well, High King.”

(Muffled indignation)

“We have seen your kind before. Building yourself a tower so tall with a matching Fool to manipulate. You remove his connections and have him chasing after a goal that will never be reached. All the while dangling salvation like a carrot on a string. Now where have we heard a story like that before?”

“Teammates!? Friends!? To hell with that! How can such a worthless piece of trash be more special than me!?”

(Gagged alarm)

“You teach him how to fight; You tell him it is needed for his duty. You tell him he shall be remembered, while he lays forgotten in chains.”

(Whispered) “You tell him his bonds are worthless, when it is all he has ever had.”

[Body hitting the floor, gasping.]

“We have danced with far more powerful beings than you, Dagda.”

“You-“

“We have seen the consequences of gods who are selfish in the face of selfish gods, High King. We know how this story ends. And we crave to see it to its conclusion.”

(Inscenced, shouting) “Don’t you dare lea-“

[Rocks falling, low rumble of room shaking.]

“-ve!”

“…Now how did you get yourself over there?”

[A pointed silence.]

(Mumbling)“Galla damn an dorchadais. Fuck i agus a tràill damn. Dè tha fios aice? Gun dad. Tha dè.”**

“Dagda, is there-“

[Dagda returns.]

[Flashbang.]

—————

Gaston is pink because there’s no yellow, and he is the next one to speak cause I needed to get canon back on track

Translation corner this guy got mad~

Full credit to Lance for having the idea of getting Dagda to insult Kuro in Gaelic. Because of course he would.

Used this site to translate, and key is below!

* bitch of darkness

** Damn bitch of darkness. Fuck her and her damn slave. What does she know? Nothing. That's what.”

GET POSITIVELY FFFFFFFFFFFFFUCKED DAGDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! KURO KILL THAT OLD MAN‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

ALSO GORO AKECHI JUMPSCARE BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY EX-FAVORITE-DAD GETTING HIS SHIT KICKED IN. LETS FUCKING GO. SLICK AS HELL FIC AS ALWAYS VIN

[danielle-dna]

To Shag or Not to Shag? - 8

The pasta was simple, yet delicious. We sat on the small balcony that had an amazing view. I could see the entire city. Of course, we spoke as well. Simon was a great listener. However, it did bother me a little that he wouldn't reveal much about himself. Sure, he told me that he likes football (Manchester United, naturally).

"You can't be serious, love. You've never seen a football match?" It was the truth. "....no? I mean I was never really introduced to it as a kid, so I was never interested." That was amusing to him. "Your dad didn't watch football then?"

Oh no! I have to talk about that piece of shit now?! Well...better sooner than later. "I don't have one." And I left it at that. Please don't be an asshole about it.

The man who calls himself my father left before I was even born. Never really had any interest in me. Not a single birthday card, phone call or visit. I find it odd, how single mothers get more stigmatised for being the parents who actually stayed and stepped up for the kid.

"I see. Sorry 'bout that." Thank fuck, please don't have follow up questions.

"Just you and your mum then?" Fuck. I flashed him a small smile and nodded. "Yeap. Just me and her." Please drop the goddamn subject now. I carefully avoided his gaze. "So tell me something, little nurse. You are 21 and you just finished A-levels? No uni and you already work in a hospital. Bit unusual." Shit.

"Well, I...took a gap year I guess. And I'm not a nurse. I'm nurses aide. You don't need to go to uni to be one." I could see him raise an eyebrow. "But if you only took a year, how-"

"Can we please drop the subject? I still don't know what you do for a living." Great job, dumbass. You just insulted the hottest man that ever laid eyes on you.

He picked up his glass of bourbon and smirked at me. "Guess."

"Say what now?" The nerve... "Guess, little nurse. You have three tries. If you get it, you get to feel even more amazing than the last time."

Oh hell yes, now this is my type of a quiz.

I nodded and stood up. "Where you going, love?" Turning around (making sure my butt was in a nice position, of course), I flashed him a smile and put my hands on my hips. "Look, you are offering one hell of a prize. I am looking for clues, because I hate to lose."

Think, woman, think.

Okay, we ruled out professional chef and anything else that makes less than £35 000 a year. What else is there? There is a gym. Maybe a personal trainer? Doesn't seem like the super social type though. He eats healthy and there is no processed shit in the kitchen. A doctor? Naaah? Too much. Well, he is fit. A surgeon maybe? He isn't a pilot, there is a dress code.

I walked back to him. "Say, Simon, how old are you exactly?" He leaned back in his chair. "28. Going to be 29 this year." Damn. He is way too young to be a surgeon making that kind of money. WHAT THE HELL?

That was when I noticed something underneath his shirt. Before I thought it was just a necklace, but now I can see there is more to it. Two small metal plates. Dog tags. Either he is wearing them as a fashion statement or....

"The army."

Simon stood up and walked towards me. I could feel the seriousness radiating from him. "What?"

I gulped and took a step back. And in that moment it hit me. I am in a man's flat. And said man is taller, stronger and scarier than me.

"What makes you say that, love?" I balled up my hands in fists and took another step back.

"Well, for starters you are very organised, tidy and hella fit. You make good money, but you aren't old enough to be a doctor, lawyer or a CEO. You don't come from money, so not a landlord or an office worker. You make at least £45k a year. The only place that I can think of is the army, but not the regular kind. You are either SAS or some kind of special forces. If you joined at 18, it would give you enough time to have a rank high enough to earn that kind of money."

He tilted his head and stared at me. "Damn it. You are...really clever, you know that?" I had no idea how to respond to that. "I mean, you got all that, just by observing me and the flat? I'm kind of scared, little nurse. You sure have potential."

Now that made me blush. "So, ghostie, you going to give me a wild night?"

[belphegor1982]

So someone had to grab the writer by the scruff of the neck and make his chapter longer than the entire fic so far. Dammit, Johnny. (I mean who’s complaining, right?)

Jigsaw Pieces

Chozen, uneasy

Daniel, adrift

Amanda, sleepless

Sam, shaken

Johnny, fixing things

Daniel, not alone

Johnny is used to fucking stuff up almost as many times as he keeps trying to fix it. He isn’t used to having things this good and keeping them that way. Or maybe he just lost the habit, because what wasn’t shitty when he was a kid was admittedly pretty great.

But right now, Robby and Miguel have put all their bullshit behind them and reached something that might just be friendship one day, they actually had Olive Garden takeout dinner together with Carmen last night, the four of them, and this morning Johnny’s at the Home Depot with his son shopping for a new latch mechanism for his busted doorknob. Like an actual dad.

So maybe he’s just happy about it. Sue him.

“Okay,” he says, “so – remember the number that was on the latch?”

“Sure,” says Robby, taking out his phone. He took a picture of that latch before they left, when Johnny removed the doorknob to check the stamp, instead of just writing the number on a scrap of paper. His kid is a geek sometimes – or a nerd, a dork, or whatever – and that’s one of the million little details that make Johnny really happy because he’s finally getting to know things like that about his son.

“It’s, uh, 2-3/4.”

“That means the backset is two and three-quarter inches. So we’re gonna need one of those suckers there. Let me see the picture again –”

If he’s honest, he kinda sucked as a handyman, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know things. He did most of the work of turning an empty space into a badass karate dojo, after all, and even jumped through all the hoops to make it “up to code”. He can show his son how to change a doorknob. That’s a thing a dad does, right?

“Hey, cool, this one has two keys already, you can have your own right now. So if you want to change a lock, lesson one. The first thing you wanna do is check your screws. There’s always the risk of old paint ‘cause an old tenant thought the door needed a new coat, or a screw loose because some genius decided to kick your door open for no reason at all –”

Robby shoots him a look that clearly says You are such a doofus, but there’s fondness in there too and that is new. Come to think of it, it’s a little like the look Miguel gets sometimes in response to something Johnny just said when he doesn’t just fully go Sensei, what the hell. It took Johnny a couple of years to identify that look as I love you but I really don’t get how your mind works sometimes and he’s still not sure just how offended he’s supposed to be.

“I know how to change a lock, you know,” says Robby with that small smirk of his that Johnny knows he got from him.

Johnny squints at him.

“’That have anything to do with the two chucklefucks you used to hang out with?”

“Yeah.” Robby shrugs and looks down at his shoes for a second. “I mean, I learned on my own, but it came in handy then.”

Johnny nods and doesn’t press the issue, which Robby appears relieved about. But hey, if Robby can let go of the past and accept that his father wants a shot at being an actual dad, Johnny can not be an asshole and let that kind of sleeping dog lie, as well.

They’re both saved from having to break the moment by his phone blaring the chorus of ‘Run to the Hills’ from his pants pocket. The name on the screen is daniel larusso, so Johnny picks up and grins.

“Hey man, I was gonna call you later. Guess what: I went with your idea, and turns out a little Johnny Classic was just what the kids needed to get over their shit. They whaled on each other for a bit and got it out of their system like a couple of champs—”

“Sensei?”

Oh – wrong LaRusso.

“You can call me ‘Johnny’, LaRusso, I’m not your sensei anymore,” he says. Robby glances at him, eyebrows raised. Right – there’s probably still some bad blood between him and Sam. Maybe they could fight it out at some point, too, clear the air? “What are you doing with your old man’s phone?”

“I didn’t have your new number.”

And asking your ex for it would’ve been awkward, Johnny muses. He picked up Miguel in pieces the other day after the break-up. The kid got real quiet after a while, but not angry. “She said she wasn’t okay, Sensei, what else was I supposed to do? We’re just… gonna be friends now.”

Jesus. These kids are handling their relationship drama better than Johnny did when he was twice their age.

…Wait. Isn’t Sam supposed to be several states away right now?

“Hang on, yesterday your dad told me you were in Ohio with your mom. What’d he do, hop on a plane and play an apology song on a boombox?”

That was all the rage for a while in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s after that movie: fuck up with your girl, show up on her doorstep with a boombox to say sorry, and annoy the hell out of the neighbours like that’d make it all better. But now it’s like, nostalgic or something, and it sounds exactly like something LaRusso might do. Dork. (Johnny really hopes it worked.)

A corner of Robby’s mouth twitches. Johnny wonders if he even knows what a boombox is – most of the kids these days don’t seem to.

“No, we came back home last night,” says Sam LaRusso’s voice at the other end of the line. “I mean, this morning. There was…”

She trails off. Johnny frowns. The hardware store is way too noisy for a proper phone conversation, but he’s starting to pick up on a vibe. A weird one.

“Hey, LaRusso, you okay?”

“No,” she says again, and shit, there’s a break in her voice like she’s trying not to cry. “Dad got hurt.”

Johnny’s stomach drops.

“What? What happened?”

Whether because of the look on his face or the tone of his voice – or both – Robby’s eyes snap back to him and he goes sharp and tense.

“Cobra Kai,” she snaps, her voice trembling a little. “Well, Terry Silver, anyway. He… he beat him. Pretty bad.”

Shit.

Shit.

Johnny learned the hard way that Terry Silver is not just some old fart with a fancy car and a stupid ponytail. The kick that man landed in his ear made his head ring for days, and he won’t forget the rest of the beating he took that night at the old dojo in a hurry. In his fifty-two years of life, Johnny Lawrence has never been defeated so viciously. The only other person who came close to kicking his ass like that was Miyagi, on Halloween 1984, and Johnny was a kid, so that doesn’t count.

The sad part is, Johnny is pretty sure Silver would’ve done a lot more damage if Kreese hadn’t stopped him.

Kreese is in jail. Not that the son of a bitch would step in for anyone who wasn’t Johnny, anyway, in between two attempts at choking him to death. But LaRusso was alone – how far did Silver go without a safeguard?

“I’m coming over,” says Johnny without even thinking. “I’ll be there in ten.”

“Twenty, Dad,” Robby corrects him, “and that’s if the traffic is fluid on Balboa.”

“Yeah, twenty. Listen, Sam –”

He wants to say Don’t worry, even beat up halfway into the ground your dad will claw his way back up, and I should know, because I almost did beat him halfway into the ground when we were kids and he still got back up eventually – he’s a stubborn little shit, he’ll be okay. But then he thinks about the LaRusso who showed up at his apartment yesterday, unkempt, desperate and disheartened. It would have barely taken a breeze to knock that guy down.

Goddammit. Silver really chose his moment to strike, huh.

Robby is looking at him oddly, and there’s silence on both ends of the line, until Sam’s voice comes back.

“Yes?”

“Nothin’,” says Johnny, who still hasn’t figured out what to say. “I’ll be right there.”

He hangs up, pockets his phone, and his gaze falls on Robby.

Wait. He can’t leave his son like that. He’s done leaving his son like that. Robby deserves better.

But no amount of relationship drama could compare to the epic levels of awkward that would ensue if Robby Keene just showed up on the LaRussos’ doorstep, especially after all the Cobra Kai crap he pulled in the last six months.

Johnny runs his hand over his face and into his hair.

“Shit.”

“What happened?” asks Robby, both voice and eyes sharp.

“Silver beat up LaRusso. ‘Pretty bad’, according to Sam.”

Robby’s face does something very quick and very complicated. There’s a lot of conflicting emotions there, but what Johnny doesn’t miss is that shock isn’t among them.

(His son spent months in a dojo co-run by John fucking Kreese and a nutjob who delights in screwing with people’s heads and beating them up. Just as well Johnny still has room for more in his bag of nightmares. In hindsight, LaRusso’s obsession with keeping Cobra Kai away from all the kids in the Valley isn’t so stupid.)

“You should go,” says Robby finally. “I can take care of the doorknob on my own.”

Johnny narrows his eyes at him.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I told you, I know how to change a lock.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know, Dad.” Robby gives his little half-smile, and this time the Lawrence smirk is absent. That guarded sweetness is all him. “I’m glad you and Mr. LaRusso are getting along now. I told you the two of you could actually be friends, remember?”

“You said we could learn a thing or two from each other,” Johnny points out. “There’ s a difference.”

“Am I wrong, though?”

Johnny stares at him for a couple of seconds. Then he smiles and awkwardly pulls an arm across his shoulders for a half-hug, relieved that Robby doesn’t even try to squirm out of it.

“No, you’re not wrong. Okay, got enough cash?”

“Yeah, but I don’t need cash if I take an Uber. The new doorknob’s on you, though. The escape room thing was your idea.”

From the way the smirk is creeping back into his smile, he’s calling his dad a doofus again. That’s fair. The escape room thing was a bust. But that’s okay, because Johnny kinda loves finding out Robby can call him a doofus and still want him as a dad.

The best part about trying hard to fix a relationship is finding out the other person is actually trying as well, just as hard.

Johnny pays for the doorknob. He stays with Robby until the Uber pulls away with his kid in it. And then he fires up the Grand Caravan and probably breaks some kind of record and a couple of traffic laws getting to Encino.

Funny how life works. The first time he went to that house – on a stolen bike, because his car was a still smoking wreck thanks to LaRusso’s dumb cousin’s biker friends – he wanted nothing more than to kick LaRusso’s ass. And now? He’s also racing up that road at breakneck speed, and then he’s also standing in the driveway with clenched fists, itching for a fight – just like that first time – but everything else is radically different. He takes a deep breath before knocking, for one.

It’s Sam who opens the door, with Amanda standing inside and a Japanese man he’s never seen before, who must be the ‘Chozen’ guy Daniel mentioned when they were catching up yesterday. They would look oddly formal if not for Amanda’s expression – the kind that always makes Johnny want to punch the mirror when he meets his own eyes.

And that’s as much a kick in the guts as the way Sam’s voice broke a little over the phone, because this expression doesn’t belong on Amanda’s face at all.

Johnny mostly ignores the dude for now – although he does note that the guilt and worry on his face reflects Amanda’s – and speaks quietly, like the words have to force their way out.

“How bad is it?”

“Could be worse,” Amanda says, no louder, her voice slightly unsteady. “But, um… could be a lot better.”

“Can I talk to him?”

“I don’t know if he’s up for a lot of talking, but you can try.”

LaRusso, not talking? Things really must be bad, snarks a voice at the back of Johnny’s brain with more fondness than bite. Force of habit. There’ll always be at least a little bit of friction between them, and that’s fine. LaRusso doesn’t seem to mind, either, at least not anymore; Johnny ribbing him just gets a snort and a shake of his head when he doesn’t counter right back with a grin. That’s kind of a miracle, considering where they started from.

“I’ll take my chances,” Johnny says, even though it’s not exactly what he means. Looks like Amanda gets it, though, because she lays a hand on his arm for a second with a tight smile before walking away.

For some reason he hesitates a second in front of the bedroom door. Maybe what LaRusso needs is to lick his wounds in peace, not for his old enemy to see him at his lowest.

But then LaRusso has seen Johnny at his lowest a few times, too, and even though Johnny was tempted to tell him to go to hell – might have done a couple of times, he can’t remember right now – having him around wasn’t the worst he could endure.

So Johnny knocks once and enters without waiting for an invitation.

LaRusso looked like shit yesterday, unshaven and pinched with shadows under his eyes, but he still looked better than he does now. Even in the relative darkness of the room behind the drawn curtains – which Johnny recognises from experience as the first line of defence against a really bad headache – he can see the bruising on the side of LaRusso’s face, creeping down over his cheekbone and slithering around his eye. It might bring back an old memory of glaring at him and Miyagi from across the old Cobra Kai dojo the day after that fated Halloween night, if not for one very important detail: the eyes that were big and nervous but razor-sharp then are now bleary and unfocused.

“…ny?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” says Johnny in response to whatever that sound was that makes his own throat tight in sympathy. What the hell happened to him? “Can I, uh, come in for a minute?”

LaRusso squints at him, eyes almost screwed shut. Then he waves him in with his left hand.

Johnny closes the door, knowing all too well how much a single ray of light can hurt when your face looks like that. He plunks himself in the armchair near the head of the bed and looks – actually looks – at LaRusso.

There’s something wrong with his right shoulder, and even in the dark his eyes are reduced to slits, with lines of pain adding to the crow’s feet in the corners. The bruising on the side of his face admittedly is pretty spectacular, and there’s some more across his throat that Johnny is just noticing now, but from up close that’s not what stirs up something sour in his stomach. Even when he was a teenager who kept getting his ass kicked – and the teen version of LaRusso always seems tiny in Johnny’s memory, gangly even for a skinny kid, all big eyes and crooked grin and long noodle limbs – LaRusso has never looked fragile. Cracked, sure, but never actually broken. Johnny didn’t know that was even possible.

Something happened – not just a beating. The bruises go deeper than that. And if someone knows just how far down bruises can go even after they fade – starting with a foot to the face and especially an arm around his neck in a parking lot – it’s Johnny.

“So. What’s the damage?” he asks in a low voice.

LaRusso gives a slight one-shoulder shrug, his eyes still half closed. Johnny leans forward, elbows on his knees. LaRusso has to understand that this is important, that Johnny is not messing with him.

He has no idea how to fix this, but he’s gotta start somewhere.

“Hey, I’m asking ‘cause I don’t know. Your kid called me and said Silver beat you up. She sounded upset, I got worried – for all I knew he’d cracked your head open or something. What’d he do to your throat?”

“Foot,” croaks LaRusso, a hand on his upper chest then on his throat, just below the chin.

Ice grips Johnny’s stomach and creeps up into his ribcage. The sensation turns into fire as it reaches the tips of his fingers, making him ball up his fists.

From the pattern of bruises, this means that steaming pile of shit put his foot on LaRusso’s throat while he was down and let gravity and his own weight do the work. No mercy indeed. If LaRusso is here and not in a hospital it means he’ll be okay once he recovers, but that’s a fucked up thing to do, especially to an opponent who isn’t a threat. Johnny’s done a bit of research since last December on the consequences of chokes and strangles just in case Kreese decided to pull that crap on him again. Silver could’ve severely damaged LaRusso’s windpipe that way.

“Son of a bitch,” Johnny says, softly but completely earnest.

LaRusso does that thing where he nods and raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t look up. He won’t quite meet Johnny’s eyes. Johnny doesn’t know what to do with that. It’s starting to freak him a little.

“Don’t worry, though. No way we’re letting him get away with this. What’s Stingray’s address? I know he wouldn’t talk to you but he’ll sure as hell talk to me—”

LaRusso’s hand shoots out, catches him by the sleeve of his hoodie in a tight grip – his right hand, which makes his breath hitch as he goes paler for a second.

“Don’t,” he rasps out, his voice low-pitched and raw and breaking like a teenager’s. “Don’t, it’s not… You were right. I’m out. It’s not worth it.”

Johnny frowns. “What do you mean, ‘it’s not worth it’? Guy’s just beat you to a pulp, and what – you’re just gonna take it lying down?”

LaRusso shakes his head gingerly.

“Gonna l—leave well enough alone. For once.”

Johnny’s eyes go round. That’s – no. That’s just wrong.

“You – what? You’ve never left ‘well enough alone’ once in your life, LaRusso, even when you should have! And now all it takes is one beating to make you give up? I did worse to you back in the day and you still got all up in my face!”

Alarmingly, LaRusso doesn’t rise to the bait. Instead he tightens his grip on Johnny’s sleeve and takes a few uneven breaths.

“The kids. Said he’ll go after the k—kids.” He swallows and immediately gives a full-body wince, eyes screwed shut for a second. “That it’ll be easy for him to – to rope ‘em into Cobra Kai.”

“That’s bullshit,” says Johnny firmly, even as his heart breaks a little in his chest at that. Kreese – and probably Silver, too – did snare Robby into Cobra Kai easily. But that was because Robby, more naive than he wanted to be even after basically all the adults in his life had let him down one way or another, just went to the one guy who hadn’t disappointed him so far.

Sam LaRusso took the whole Cobra Kai is evil thing to heart long before Johnny realised the harm the Strike first, strike hard, no mercy motto was doing to his students. She also has a wholly different relationship with her dad; the way things stood between them then, Johnny knows Robby wouldn’t have been as worried about his father getting beat up to hell as Sam was when she called him earlier.

Sam is safe from whatever crap Silver might try putting into her head. And whatever the hell her brother is doing, as far as Johnny knows he’s never shown any interest in karate, so there’s that. Little gremlin’s probably better off geeking out on video games and snarking at people.

At least Johnny’s tone makes LaRusso look up and meet his eyes fully. That should be a win. It’s not. The expression in them is sending goosebumps all across Johnny’s shoulders.

“You don’t know him,” LaRusso insists in that awful raspy voice. “That’s what he d—does, he… I knew he… He gets into your head, okay? Makes you invite him in, and then… th—then if you don’t step back you d—don’t recognise yourself anymore—”

Sometimes Johnny wishes he hadn’t been stupid about losing Miguel to Miyagi-Do somehow when Silver and Kreese crashed their lesson six months ago and freaked the hell out of LaRusso, to disastrous results. Maybe then he would’ve listened to what LaRusso was not saying when he told him about the ‘85 All Valley over drinks later.

“LaRusso,” Johnny interrupts him – and then, because LaRusso looks all set to continue despite how his voice sounds, “Daniel, stop. Silver’s not getting to the kids. I won’t let him, okay? Made that mistake before, and look where that ended. Besides,” he adds, “our kids know better. Not just Sam and Robby and Miguel, I mean all our kids. Even the ones who never set foot in Cobra Kai. They know how it works, they’re not gonna fall for that – and Hawk, Bert, Nate, the others? They’re not gonna fall for that shit twice. Especially after they hear about what Silver just did to you.”

Daniel’s hand relaxes and falls. His eyes lit up with fear earlier, and now they look dull again, and Johnny doesn’t know which is worse. It’s not even anger or shame at having had his ass handed to him – which, well, is not a feeling Johnny is entirely unfamiliar with – it’s just… like he’s not fully there.

Johnny tries to catch his gaze, grab it and not let go. It’s way harder than it should be.

“I mean, if you think you’re the only one who got the shit kicked out of him by that guy, you’re wrong. He got the drop on me too one time, you’re not that special.”

That does the trick. Daniel’s eyes widen, scan him in alarm as though searching for bruises.

“You – what…? When?”

“Remember prom night? Shannon came to see me when I got home after I dropped Miguel off, said Silver had given Robby his fucking car for the evening to take his date to prom, no strings attached, just because he wanted to ‘make sure Robby was taken care of’. Even offered her a job and a new place, because why not.”

Johnny saw red then, and he still doesn’t regret for one second his knee-jerk impulse to go beat the shit out of the ponytail creep to teach him a lesson – only that Silver sucker kicked him. He can’t help feeling a little vindicated when the same red-hot anger flickers across Daniel’s face for a second.

“Except Shan can smell a rat a mile away and she’s stone cold sober now, so he only freaked her out. So she comes to tell me right away, says You need to handle this, and yeah, I do – I’ve failed Robby in all the ways a dad can fail his kid, but I’m still his father. He wants nothing to do with me, that’s fine, but that shady fucker does not get to ‘take care’ of my son and my ex like that. So I break into the Cobra Kai dojo – don’t look like that, it was mine in the first place, that’s not really illegal – and Silver calls on the landline like some movie villain, says to meet him at the corner of Magnolia and Lankershim. Apparently he wanted a trip down memory lane or something.”

“That’s—” Daniel mouths, squinting up at him suspiciously, and Johnny nods.

“Where the old dojo used to be, yeah. It’s just an empty space now. Anyway, I go there, and first thing I know, I get a roundhouse kick in the head. Coward bushwhacked me. I couldn’t even strike first, he struck before I could even see him. I mean, I still got a few good licks in, but that guy can kick, man.”

There’s a wry downturn to the corner of Daniel’s mouth – like Yeah, he does that – but no smug look, no silent I told you so, even though honestly Johnny might have let him have this one. It’s not like he wasn’t warned. He can still see Daniel in that bar, hands flitting around his whiskey glass to stress his point, brown eyes wide and earnest, saying I’m tellin’ you, Silver knows how to fight and You cannot ‘strike first’ with this guy, trust me.

And then he’d wanted to take over the kids’ training and scrap all the Eagle Fang offence, and Johnny had gone Screw that, you just think you’re better than me but you’re not, and from there the chain reaction ended up blowing everything to pieces.

God, they’d been so stupid.

“So, yeah. Oh, you wanna know the kicker, though? He just wanted to impress Kreese. Here’s a Johnny Lawrence all beat up, happy fucking birthday, I guess. He figured that if Miguel saw me beaten to a pulp, he’d be too upset to win the tournament.” Johnny shakes his head. “That would’ve been useless anyway. I screwed up with the kid all on my own – didn’t need to get kicked in the head for that. Just to make it all about me and put too much pressure on his shoulders, especially just before that last match. Some sensei,” he can’t help but mutter. “The only difference with Kreese is that at least this time I made it clear to the kids that No mercy was out of the question.”

Sympathy softens Daniel’s whole face in two seconds flat.

“Johnny,” he says gently, or at least that’s Johnny’s best guess.

Johnny waves it off because first off no, he doesn’t want to go there, and in any case Daniel’s voice box is in bad enough shape and he doesn’t need to make it worse.

“Anyway – Kreese wasn’t too happy about that, for some reason. We agreed to settle this at the tournament, he said, and I thought you knew better than to question me, like he was Silver’s boss or something. I was too out of it to catch the rest, but I think Silver didn’t like that at all. So maybe that’s why he paid Stingray to lie and say Kreese beat him up – because he was tired of playing second fiddle to Kreese.”

He suspects there’s a lot more to these two’s relationship than that, but to be honest, he doesn’t really care. The threat of Kreese has dropped significantly since he got sent to jail and good fucking riddance. Unless the two of them are still working together somehow – which Johnny seriously doubts, considering Silver apparently framed his old partner like some psycho in a gangster movie – now they can focus on taking down Terry Silver and Cobra Kai without John Kreese in the picture.

This shouldn’t be such a relief to Johnny, but it is. The fact that he doesn’t have to worry about his old mentor getting under his skin like he’s so easily done in the past does give him a clearer head and a sharper focus. His beef with Silver, beyond an ass-kicking, isn’t personal – that one defeat is nothing to the ongoing struggle to claw out every single remnant of John Kreese from his mind and that of everyone he’s ever touched. The urge to scrub the world clean of Strike first, strike hard, no mercy, to scrape out every trace of paint of the motto on that wall, to erase every imprint he’s made like he never existed. After that, well, maybe Johnny will be left with a hole in his soul but at least what used to fill it won’t hurt anyone anymore—

Johnny blinks.

…Shit. This is pretty much what Silver is to Daniel, isn’t it.

That’s why he was so hell-bent on stopping Johnny from resurrecting Cobra Kai in the first place.

Johnny tucks the realisation into a corner of his mind for the moment, because Daniel’s eyes shutter closed at the mention of Stingray as abruptly as someone pulling curtains over a window. He’s checking out again.

“Hey,” says Johnny, laying a hand on his forearm, “stop that. Okay, I’m not gonna go ask Stingray, but we gotta do something. I said Cobra Kai had to go, last December, and I meant it.” He gives Daniel’s arm a squeeze and lets go to lean back in his seat a bit. “Things just got… It was a lot after the tournament, you know? Robby left Cobra Kai, Miguel disappeared to Mexico, and then when we got back there was…”

He stops himself just in time, thinks it over for a second. He can’t tell Daniel about the baby yet – it’s too new, too fragile, too uncertain, and anyway Carmen prefers to wait until the next sonogram to tell anyone, just to be safe. I’m dealing with some family stuff, he said to Daniel yesterday; what he meant was I’m trying to get my son and the kid who’s pretty much mine as well to get along without trying to kill each other. A few weeks ago he would’ve meant I’m in way over my head because I’ve got another kid on the way and I have no idea how to not screw that up and figure out how to be an actual family.

But family isn’t necessarily about blood, and it can be so much more complicated than just passing down genes. Look at Miguel and Robby.

Unexpectedly, Johnny finds himself grinning.

“That reminds me – you know the ‘family stuff’ I talked about yesterday? I actually took your advice and you know what? It worked like a charm.”

Daniel’s eyes liven up again – from suspicion, but still, it’s a far cry from the earlier dull, unfocused look that’s so alien to him it spooked Johnny just a little.

“Remember you said that maybe, if we’d gotten the chance to really fight it out when we were kids, we might’ve gotten our shit together a lot sooner? You were right, man. I got Robby and Miguel to go all out on each other – no tournament rules, just beat each other up until they had enough. And after a while they just… stopped and talked. And now they’re okay.”

If Daniel had been his usual self, Johnny would have really enjoyed the various shades of What the hell that flit across his face at this. Confusion turns into alarm, then dismay, which fades into wariness. But the squint that follows is still a bit too narrow-eyed to not be chalked up to the headache, and that just spoils things.

“Are they?” Daniel ends up asking, obviously having put a lot of thought into these two words since long sentences are out for now.

“Yeah.” Johnny smiles, completely sincere this time. “They’re good kids, you know – they just had a lot of pent-up shit. Turns out they just needed the chance to clear the air and just talk. They only needed to… I don’t know. Tire themselves out first or something.”

Or scare themselves straight first. Johnny will never forget being rooted to the spot like an idiot as the fight escalated and the boys ended up on that balcony, torn between a growing fear and the voice in his head that repeated trust them trust them trust them like a broken record. He’d been right, in the end, but those terrifying few seconds just before Miguel and Robby came to their senses is something that he’ll never share with Daniel, or anyone else for that matter.

The look on Daniel’s face softens into an actual smile with a touch of the open fondness Johnny never quite knows what to do with when it’s directed at him.

“Told you you’d work it out,” he says in that too-hoarse voice that raises the hairs on Johnny’s arms, if only because he knows all too well what it feels like to sound like that.

But also it just might be the nicest I told you so he’s ever gotten, especially from Daniel LaRusso, so he shakes his head, amused and just a little touched.

Then he sobers up.

“I get it now, you know. Why you were so obsessed with taking down Cobra Kai even when it was just me and one nerd in a crappy lot in Reseda. You were afraid of what it’d do to kids if it took off. And… I guess you were right about that, too, look at how Hawk’s and Miguel’s first tournament went.”

Strike first, strike hard – Johnny thought he could twist that into something positive. And maybe he had, at least up to a point. But now he has enough hindsight to recognise there was no redeeming No mercy. That part was just fucked up.

“Don’t worry, though, I’ll be keeping an eye on the kids. Silver is not getting to them – not mine, and not yours. Not just Sam and the other one,” he adds, just to make himself really clear, “I mean all the kids.”

Something like fond annoyance flashes on Daniel’s face. For a second it makes him look almost normal.

“Anthony.”

“Whatever. I’ll make sure Silver stays the hell away from that little punk too.”

Daniel makes to shake his head, then freezes and screws his eyes shut again for a few seconds, breathing slowly. Johnny can sympathise. Concussions are no joke after all; between this and the throat thing, Daniel’s out of commission for the next couple of days at least.

But that’s not what worries Johnny the most.

“I’m gonna go. Rest up, okay? Then we’ll take Silver down. Give Kreese his bridge partner back, he’ll like that.”

This time Daniel doesn’t grab Johnny’s arm. He just stares at him, eyes still slightly unfocused, looking grimmer than Johnny’s seen him in a long time.

“Promise you won’t go after him.”

Johnny’s hackles rise. An old reflex.

“I can take him,” he snaps. “I just wasn’t ready last time. And there’s no way in hell I’m letting him get away with – with everything.”

“Promise,” Daniel insists in that raspy voice that hurts to hear.

While the reason behind that adds fuel to the fire of Johnny’s anger, it doesn’t turn into a blinding rage like it does sometimes. It’s deeper instead, slower, colder.

“All right, I promise,” says Johnny, mentally adding for now. It feels like one hell of a concession already.

That son of a bitch is going down, and sooner rather than later.

Daniel looks relieved, which makes Johnny irrationally angry. That’s not exactly a new feeling; their talent for getting under each other’s skin has only improved in the years they haven’t seen each other. Learning how to fit their own jagged edges against one another’s took hard work and many, many false starts. But being angry on Daniel’s behalf, now, that is new. The urge to punch someone’s teeth in feels the same, but also it doesn’t. Johnny has a feeling there’d be more weight behind his punch, and it has a lot to do with the unsettling impression of just plain wrong that follows him out of the bedroom.

Because Daniel LaRusso is a lot of things – he’s annoying, he’s compassionate, he’s self-righteous, he’s too damn smart for his own good, and no amount of cultivated car salesman smoothness or time spent in Encino country clubs can truly hide the mouthy Jersey twerp Johnny remembers – but what he is not is weak.

Whatever Silver did – whatever Silver said – it broke his spirit, and that is what is making Johnny’s fists itch to crash into that too-wide smile.

He has to clench and flex them a few times (a technique he learned from Miguel) and take a deep, controlled breath (a technique he learned from Daniel) before he steps back into the living room, where Amanda, Sam and the new guy are all sitting together, like a war council.

Johnny Lawrence is good at breaking things. But it turns out he also knows a thing or two about fixing them.

“So,” he asks in a low voice when all three pairs of eyes snap up to him, “what do we do?”

______________________ 

Give me ALL the former enemies turned rivals turned reluctant allies turned friends. Seriously 💜

[whitehotharlots]

The miracle

The miracle started in the sky, came down to the ice, tore across the playing field, sacked the quarterback, guided a halfcourtshot into the basket, then slipped across the town, into ravaged blood of the little boy who had leukemia. 

“My blood hurts,” the boy would say.  The pain was evident in his voice but you could tell he didn’t want you to feel sorry for him.  Then he’d perk up, smile, and while nodding like a Mouseketeer he’d add “but that’s okay, since pretty soon I’m gonna get to see Jesus!” 

Oh how the nurses loved him.

This confused the miracle, which wasn’t logical and sensible, like you and me.  It was more like a very friendly dog.  It liked making people happy.  It could smell sadness in the same way a bear could smell fear, it could fly across the world as quickly as light, and it could enter anything, anywhere, at any time.  But it didn’t control itself.  It careened blindly seeking out and destroying misery and hopelessness.  It didn’t pick where it went anymore than a heatseeking missile picked its targets, nor did it show any more discrimination while slamming into them. 

Around the core of misery, though, swimming around the jagged blood cells that tore against the poor boy’s veins, the miracle could find no center.  There was no place to crash into.  And so it circled, panicked, round and round in tightening, concentric circles.  Where would it land?  When would it crash?  It was beginning to frighten itself in a vague, indescribable way.

“Ahhh” screamed the boy.  “There’s a ball of hot water swimming around my insides!”

They figured he had finally cracked.  The chemo had worn him down.  It’d been seven years, the poor kid; had it since he was three.  All he never knew was a little kick of fire every time his heart beat, doctors poking at him, nurses giving him bits of hard candy he could barely stomach the sight of.  Hard to keep up that kind of happy front for your whole life, you know.  Eventually you break up.

“Seriously!  Ahhhhhhh! My stomach is falling out! It buuurns!!!”

“It’s alright” said the nurse.  She turned a little knob that pumped something or other into him.  Calm him down.  Night-night knob. 

“Is it time?  Am I gonna get to see Jesus?”

“Uhh,” the nurse was checking a little CRT screen next to his bed.  “Nope, don’t think so.”

The miracle sensed an opportunity somewhere directly above where it was.  Impatient, it blasted itself several stories too far up, brushing against the throat of a man and curing his 27-day-long case of the hiccups.  Then, on its downward arch, made an old woman orgasm for the very first time, while she watching an episode of “Mama’s Family” alongside the bed of her dying husband.  She cried and cried.  Her husband was touched.  All this time he just thought she was waiting for him to hurry up and get it over with. 

The boy sighed with relief as it had left his body and then, one second later, let out a yelp so fierce it upset even the nurse.  She’d been trained to deal with this kind of thing.  Never heard a noise like one before. 

“It’s true!”  The boy was relishing his horrible pain, the whitehot miracle tearing up his insides like a dentist’s drill slipping through a cheek.  

“Ohh, ooh it’s true.  I am gonna get to see Jesus.”  It was a disgusting thing to see.  Disconcerting, sure, but the nurse saw disconcerting things everyday.  This little piece of shit was happy.  So happy that she hesitated, waited three or four seconds longer than normal to reach over the bed and calmly announce that there was a special code going down in pediatrics, a special code that needed immediate attention.  All the while the kid’s smiling from ear to ear.  She can hear his insides boiling and the kid’s making noises like he’s jerking off.  Goddamn disgusting. 

The miracle was spinning faster than it ever had before.  So fast that all the things around it were disappearing.  Started in the head, got rid of all the gloominess and doubt.  Yes, yes you are gonna get to see Jesus tonight.  Just you wait.  Down through the throat, the organs, the waste products, then all the poisoned blood.  It was more than the miracle could take in.  It kept spinning and spinning, tighter and tighter circles, its head consuming its tail.  Tighter still, shrinking smaller and smaller into a submicroscopic speck of superlight nothingness.  Tore a hole through the fabric of everything.  Right inside the little boy it crossed the whole goddamn everything. 

The boy let out a loud, long moan.  Then, right then, he was already with Jesus.

[ibjb]

I was loud bout some shit

quiet bout most

I ain't Lil Debbie

but definitely

an unforgettable hostess

JB who dat?

That's how they asked bout me

Don't let me hear my name outcha mouf

I'll have you playing jacks

wit cha teef

feel me?

Keep my eyes on the prize

FUK the crumbs and that slice

Napkin tucked in my neck I want the whole pie

Took a whole lotta

sleepy nights and yawning

lateral power moves

and reckless eyeballing

Movements in silence

never talk on a wireless

Kites not written

keep my DNA

off licked envelopes

Me and my hustle

bout ready to elope

send it via money gram

Got it western union

buy prepaid phone cards

MCI and random phone booths

Stick and move

be inconsistent

patterns interstate

Give the phone to my ex

Send my shit to ping off towers inner state wit CSX

I made it happen by my lonely

ain't really roll with an entourage

never stressed bout the loyalty

perfected cover perfect jobs

Go ahead pat me down

Im relaxed

take it and make it easy

Call the narcotic dogs

I'm allergic

Just keep em away from me

Got that shit

tucked and stashed

in my wig piece

Mad you can't get at me

Yeah I'm making em sick

Got twin and triplet burners

Forensics

can't trace my sig

old words

code words

I was elusive

and collected what was mine

Nah I don't keep receipts

money spent and splurged

stay in my mind cuz it's mine

I was already the product

I ain't need to brand it

A lotta glass jaws

a lotta dead hot boys

A whole lotta alibis

I was on bank cams

wit court approved

transaction hellos

Tying up real time loose ends saying goodbye to dem mofos

While you was battling fatigue

filling pockets in your fatigues

bruh

they couldn't lock me couldn't knock me

Being cocky was a sport

while I was sporting khakis

-- IBJB 🎤

[emilysarmstrong]

8- three songs that remind you most of summer and vacation

22- three songs you listen to when you’re sad

23- three songs that never fail to get you pumped up

Thank you, sweetie!!!!

8. summer and vacation

yes, I'm a piece of shit emo that watched MTV during my whole summer break, why do you ask? xD

summer break was also "watch ALL OF THE ANIME BLOCKS ON AIR TV" time so of course I couldn't miss some of these old timey gems

22. sad time songs

not much to say about these, they're usually my "got to rock bottom and BROUGHT A FUCKING PICKAXE" songs

23. songs that get me pumped up

this one actually has a lot of history <3 it was basically the theme song of my longest-lived RPG party, the Hooligans, back in 2011

it became sort of a hymn in the circle of friends that played that campaign, to the point that when our DM got married last year we were all Very Serious in our suits and gowns and ties and heels until this came up and the dance floor became a tavern as we were scream-singing about dogs stealing our beer

thank you <333