#one time it did take like 2 months for the op to reply so i will try and be patient

[avicebro]

I know it takes time and may never happen but it is like, a bit disheartening to not receive feedback when you've done a fill for someone. Like it's petty but there's some fills I would do, but knowing that when I filled for that ship before/that character I didn't get a response makes it so I'm not compelled to fill it.

[lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks]

when I took a month off work I was lowkey worried I'd come back and find everyone had been fine without me and I wasn't needed at all (because being terrible at every previous job I've had did some ✨damage✨ to my self confidence)

but that is not what happened

I have never encountered someone so fucking happy to see me as my boss' wife was on my first day back, her face lit up like it was christmas, she was practically jumping for joy because now that I'm back she doesn't have to do the ops team's fucking timesheets anymore

I have been told by one of the ops guys that my leave of absence had caused a genuine rift in the boss' marriage because his wife hated doing my job so much they were actively fighting about it

to be clear, his wife is lovely, she doesn't usually throw a shit fit about just anything, it was just that my job is just so fucking annoying that she hated every second of it, and that was the most validating shit I have ever experienced in my LIFE

and the reason she was pissed off at my boss/her husband about it is because he's too soft on his crew and doesn't make them all report their hours for the week

which, as you can imagine, makes building their timesheets extremely fucking difficult

it basically turns the whole process into a puzzle that I have to solve using roughly three different sources of information, one of which is the boss himself who isn't always easy to get ahold of when he's on a site

this puzzle is made even more difficult by the fact that a glitch in our form system keeps messing up the dates on the timecards, so I have to cross reference the time cards from the two (2) ops team members, who actually DO fill out their forms, with the roster, but my boss often changes the roster at the last minute without telling me or noting it down, so then I have to cross reference with the reports they have to submit for certain ongoing jobs because they'll have correct dates and also a list of who was present (if they were doing one off smalltime jobs that week I'll have no physical records and will rely entirely on the boss' memory to confirm dates and staff numbers, unless I can get ahold of one of the ops team members themselves and there's only one who will reliably communicate with me but only when he's not currently on a site)

I tried to explain this process to boss' wife before I left and, looking horrified, she asked me 'is there no way to streamline this?' I replied 'this is streamlined'

as far as I'm aware, as long as I've worked there, there has only been a handful of times people were paid incorrectly, and it was because I was not given correct information by the boss, in the time I was gone, his wife told me that she had incorrectly logged several pays because of this broken ass system

so, as you could imagine, my ego is through the fucking roof right now, I am GOOD at this bullshit job, I took an impossible system and made it work, I am playing on hard mode and killing it, in a field I had zero experience in before taking this job other than a natural inclination for organising and scheduling

and to be clear, I love this job, the boss is too soft on his staff but he's a good guy, he makes us all feel valued and appreciated, he paid me above my award rate, he's absurdly accommodating, and I have an insane amount of freedom to do what I want with company files

I may be working with a bullshit system but I can take naps in the office whenever I want and tell my boss off when he's being too soft (one time his wife literally started clapping when I told him off for sending clients their reports before they'd paid for them) and I get to control when I work, and whether I work from home or the office (which is GREAT when my back flares up)

I might not get many hours (only 16 hours per week) because the company is so small and I run out of things to do because I've streamlined everything (boss literally called me TOO EFFICIENT), but he'll give me those 16 even if I spend half of it playing solitaire and watching youtube

so just, yeah, it feels so good to be confident in my work, to feel valued and appreciated and like I'm actually successful at something after being handed dud jobs for years that I wasn't cut out for, and now knowing that what I'm doing is actually genuinely hard but I've been doing it anyway without fail, makes me feel good!

so tldr; taking a month off work taught me I have phenomenal job security because if my boss ever fires me his wife might actually fucking kill him

[ddagent]

I've been really loving your writing! How about C1 for the prompts? I must know what that season 2 AU is. And maybe, if you have the time, D6?

Fanfic Menu Challenge

Aleida Rosales' first day at NASA had been intense. It was the first time she'd stepped foot into JSC since the day her father had been deported. There had been a scheduled field trip during her senior year but she'd called in sick that day; not wanting to see the familiar halls, to see Margo Madison. Aleida had long wondered what returning would feel like. But it had felt...right. She belonged in these halls, had worked her ass off to get a place in these halls. And not only was she now an engineer at NASA but she was working on one of the biggest missions since Jamestown: Apollo-Soyuz. With none other than one of the men who put Alexei Leonov on the moon.

At the end of her first day, Aleida wanted to make sure she said goodbye to Sergei. He had been kind: not pushing her to open up; asking only questions about the work. Always with a smile. But he was nowhere to be found.

In the ops office, she caught Elaine. "Hey, have you seen Sergei?"

Elaine tried her best to hide a smile as she finalised the new ops procedures. "He'll be with Director Madison."

Aleida felt a chunk of ice settle in the pit of her stomach. Why was he with Margo? Was she checking up on her? Did Margo think so little of her that she needed to be babysat? "Are you sure?"

Elaine checked her watch. "Well, it's about seven. He'll be there."

With a nod towards Elaine, Aleida fled the office and went to find Margo's. This would be the third office Margo had had since Aleida had known her. The first was nothing more than a cubicle: dim lighting, a mug full of tootsie rolls and toothpaste. The second had been larger, with a window no less and a couple of chairs. As Director of JSC, Aleida was expecting her office now to take up a whole floor. Maybe there was even a goddamn piano in there. Aleida felt rage build with every footstep, every clench of her hands. She was pissed at Margo for checking up on her. Pissed at Sergei for lying to her. He wasn't her friend. He was her damn babysitter.

As she rounded the corridor, Aleida caught sight of the open office door. Margo's assistant, Emma, had gone home. Light spilled from the open door, as did laughter. She recognised Sergei's laugh: he was incapable of getting through a shift without it. But in the months that she had known Margo, she had never heard that woman laugh.

"You do not think I will look fetching, yes, in a fake moustache and wig?"

Margo laughed again. What the hell? "Sergei, we are not hiding you when the Soviets come. You're with NASA, now. Front and centre."

"A perfect place to be for their snipers."

Through the open door, Aleida watched as Margo jabbed a finger in Sergei's direction. "Don't joke about that. Refill?"

"Please."

Margo stood up, took his empty glass, and went to a small bar by the wall of windows to refill their drinks. Aleida wondered what they were drinking. Vodka, maybe, as Sergei was Russian? Whiskey, brandy? Pepsi? But her speculation was cut off as her eyeline settled on Sergei. He wasn't staring at the artwork on the walls or at the bland carpeting. He was staring, unwatched and unbidden, at Margo Madison. His gaze was soft; his smile playful. Sergei stared, every atom within him yearning, as Margo poured them both another drink. Then, as soon as she turned around, a mask went up and Sergei was laughing and his eyes were harder. Like he'd never been watching her at all.

Margo sat back down and a new topic was introduced. "So, how was your new engineer?"

This was Aleida's moment. This was her time to storm in, to challenge them both. But she was rooted to the spot. Sergei replied and all Aleida could see was the familiar way he addressed Margo, the familiarity between them both. "She was wonderful, as you told me she would be. I am not surprised; you were her mentor."

"Hardly." Margo took a sip. "I knew her for four and half months eight years ago. I may have got her started but everything she is...it's all her." Another drink. "You'll keep an eye on her for me?"

"Margo—"

"—Sergei." He paused. She faltered, then spoke: "Please. You...you know what this means to me." Two drinks were quickly put aside. Sergei took Margo's hand in his. Their eyes met, and for a moment Aleida wondered whether she would watch her former mentor and her new one kiss in a quiet office. But Aleida blinked, and Margo was out of her chair, downing her drink, and putting it on the sideboard. "It's getting late."

"Of course." Sergei reluctantly finished his own drink. "Goodnight, Margo. See you tomorrow."

"Night."

Sergei left Margo's office, pulling the door closed behind him. He muttered words in Russian – Aleida didn't understand, but they seemed to be chastisements, hissing at himself and his behaviour. Sergei raised his head to leave and found Aleida standing in his path. He came to an abrupt stop. No questions about how long she'd been standing there, what she'd heard. Just: "This was a private conversation."

Aleida crossed her arms. "Looked pretty cosy."

"It is not. Director Madison and I...we discuss things. We have known each other a long time." Sergei joined her, sunk his hands into the pockets of his pants. He relaxed the closer he was from the door. "She does not question your capability, Aleida. She means only to make sure that you are well, that you are happy here."

"She could ask me herself."

Sergei smiled, softly, almost to himself. "Ah, but that would require Margo to challenge what has been instilled in her since she was first mentored: that this hallowed place is only for calculations, procedures. Not friendship or...love. She does her best, Aleida." His hand lightly patted her shoulder. "Please, give her space for her best to become better."

Aleida, reluctantly, nodded. Maybe she could give Margo a little leeway. But only a little. The moment she found out that Sergei was making detailed reports about her back to Margo, she'd cut both of them out. It would only dawn on Aleida later, when she understood the true reason behind the seven o'clock meetings, that discussing her work performance was the very last topic of conversation Margo and Sergei wanted to indulge in.

[levyfiles]

Hi there! Unfortunately the OP made their post nonrebloggable, but I wanted to thank you for adding that fact check on Watcher vs Try Guys. I'm so tired of seeing everyone shit on them based on bad faith takes and not keeping up to date with the changes they immediately introduced. It wasn't an ideal situation but this constant hate campaign over nothing is starting to grate. So thank you for stepping up! I guess the fact that the post is no longer rebloggable shows the OP was afraid people would agree with you.

It has been such a week. The Try Guys launch happened and my job immediately got more demanding for the rest of the week I only had the most minimal time for fandom and I honestly only had the energy for the more positive aspects like this week's episode of Survival Mode. Anyway, it's Sunday night; I'm geared up for work tomorrow so what I'm gonna do for this post is repost the original post without the OP identified seeing as how they don't want to be held accountable for spreading lies and I'll also repost my reply

1. Watcher didn't call anyone poor. They called $6 affordable and people inferred that from the statement.

2. Watcher did the same. The website isn't region locked where do you get your info?

3. Watchertv will be posting everything they already have on the streamer for free in a YouTube friendly format a month after.

4. They are not and were never removing their backlog. This was a myth started by the variety article.

The misinformation that caused most of this attitude is really so telling. The only thing the try guys did different is watch their old colleagues get harassed, bullied, and reamed across the drama channels on YouTube, delayed their own announcement which was supposed to be not long after Watcher's, adopt rhetoric to make fun of what their colleagues went through, and pivoted the focus of their video to butter up their audience so they forget that people were telling Watcher to lay people off, to fire their cofounder, to go back to making Buzzfeed limited budget crap, to continue to slave over ad specific parameters to get paid when that is the one thing Watcher And the Try Guys are trying to escape.

The concept of "spin" has never been so hilariously in practice. All you guys need is for the video to "feel good" in order to comprehend that two different companies said the exact same thing, are both valid for making the move, and that controlling their content is supposed to be a beautiful thing on this shit plain of a platform.

It just so happens one party didn't spin it right, so people are acting like the endgame isn't meant to be the same on different scales.

@ THE GENERAL PUBLIC: STOP SPREADING MISINFORMATION TO MAKE YOURSELVES FEEL JUSTIFIED FOR HARRASSING THESE CREATORS.

[mariejordans]

i honestly don’t even know where to begin with this post, so i guess i’ll start with hi! sorry, i’ve been gone so long, though probably most of you didn’t even notice i was gone lol. sorry for not giving any warning to my absence, and i am especially sorry to the mutuals who have reached out to me that i haven’t responded to. i was and still am struggling with anxiety and depression and towards the new year it was getting to be a bit much for me, so i decided to take a mental health break from social media.

i’d honestly been contemplating coming back, but today i received a dm from someone with a link to a post that was accusing me of bullying and creating fake accounts to bully other people in this fandom. first of all, i would like to emphasize that this is not true. attached below is a screenshot of all the blogs that i own (EDIT 2/9/24: i have since deleted the screenshot for my own privacy and i believe that since i made this post, there has been more than enough evidence to clear my name.) milfsociety is my main account, which i have linked before on this blog and many of my mutuals also follow me on my main, and the rest of them are just me saving my old usernames or other sideblogs that i rarely use, but all of them have been inactive for two months at least.

i do NOT condone bullying ever, and to be continually accused of it by this person is very disheartening. it started with this post (seen below) that i made back in november after seeing a post discrediting marie as the main character of gen v. i admit that my language was probably a bit harsher than was necessary, but honestly my intention was not to send hate to op (which is why i never tagged it with any gen v related tags) but to defend marie. it also wasn’t meant to be solely specific to this one person but as a general post because at the time, there were lots of accounts discrediting marie and to be honest, i was just kinda venting bc of how sick of it i was. (also, just to mention, i have intentionally left out their username because the last thing i want is to send hate to this person.) this was the only post i made on the topic and later i heard that apparently op blocked me afterward (which does not offend me in the slightest since i have since done the same thing) so this honestly should have been the end of it.

i honestly hadn’t given this post a second thought until a little under a month later i received this ask out of nowhere, accusing me of ableism and bullying. i replied to this ask, which i will link here. honestly this ask came as a complete shock to me, because i had honestly forgotten all about my previous post.

i responded to anon and in the reply i apologized to their friend for my hurtful comments and expressed that it was never my intention to attack anyone, especially anyone with a disability, which i did not know about when i initially made the first post. i also explained my side, stating why i made the post in the first place, which i still stand by. originally, i had linked their post in my reply, which in hindsight was a mistake that i regret and i should’ve known better. again, my last intention ever is to spread hate and negativity or to bully anyone, so i deleted the link when i was asked by a third party. this person has also since deleted that post about marie entirely.

shortly after i posted the reply, i guess i can only assume that whoever anon was told them about the reply. i’m honestly not sure if they’ve ever actually read this reply or not, but they made a response to my reply, accusing me of harassment and bullying. honestly, it really confused me at the time, since i’d only made two posts in reference to them, and one was a reply to an ask, but we ended up having a third party account who was mutuals with both of us acting as a mediator to settle things and i genuinely wanted to move on from the situation. we both had each other blocked and it seemed to me that anon was just trying to instigate more drama between us, so i thought it best to just leave it at that. i was also going through some mental health issues at the time (unrelated to this situation even though it didn’t help) and had been considering taking a break from tumblr, and so i thought it would be best to just go inactive for a while.

this is honestly the first time i’ve used tumblr in the two months since i’ve been gone, so i have no idea what else has been happening regarding any other blogs and this person, but apparently i am being named as the sole instigator here and i just wanted to once and for all clear up this issue and my name. i’m honestly not sure if this person will see this post or if they’ll even accept it as truth. i can’t force them or anyone to believe me as i really don’t know what else i’d have to do to prove that i don’t have any other secret accounts other than making this post.

i will probably continue to be inactive on this account as i think it is in everyone’s best interest. i never wanted to contribute or start any drama in this fandom, but i feel like i am partially responsible in how this situation has turned out, so i would also like to apologize to you all as well. i’ve never had an account of mine get as big as this one has (thank you to everyone who liked and supported my silly little ramblings!) and i can honestly say i have had the best time interacting and fangirling with you all about this show and these characters that i love so much and i will continue to enjoy and love gen v and marie from afar!

goodbye for now,

rose (aka mariejordans)

[realityescapee01]

Wounds and Scratches

Steo | Stiles x Theo

Theo came back to the pack house, bloodied and wounded. He just came back from an undercover op for the pack. He was able to capture a rogue omega.

He was stabbed to his stomach, slashed on his arm and cut on his palm. He took the omega back to Scott for interrogation. Afterwards, Scott gave him an order to patrol the tunnels.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Scott! He's hurt, send someone else!" Stiles had enough.

Theo is hurt and Stiles goes off on it.

Theo snarled, he struggled to get on his feet. He just got slammed to a wall by their enemy. He was in pain but he was still able to distract the enemy enough for Stiles to lay the mountain ash prison around it.

"Good job, guys."

Scott and them went back to the pack house. Stiles watched Theo bend over a bit, holding his tummy and has a pained expression on his bloody face. Dried up blood from his forehead. Busted lips and a sprained ankle.

Stiles thought back at the bad things Theo did to him and the pack. That is why Stiles thought Theo deserves all the beatings he's taking.

Scott decided to take in Theo despite everything he did. Scott being the kind and giving person he is. Stiles was against it. He doesn't want Theo in. But Scott insisted they could use Theo's skills.

What skills? The manipulative skills? The cunning, the smarts, deceptive skills? Well, yeah, those are useful. Stiles begrudgingly admitted.

So here is Theo in their pack. Being used as a scout, a spy, and first liner. Scott always sends him in first, first to whatever danger they're facing.

It's strange to Stiles because Theo wouldn't put up with those, but seeing as Theo was indeed putting up with all of it, maybe, Theo is doing everything to be better now, to be good, to make up to them, to make up for everything he's done.

Stiles heard all about it from Liam. Theo's redemption arc. Stiles wasn't buying it at first but later on, he started to believe too.

Or maybe the courting of Theo is affecting his judgement.

Oh, yeah, Theo is courting Stiles.

For about 2 months now. At first, Stiles is just playing Theo, but things got shitty for him and he genuinely needed Theo's help.

Like when he's jeep broke down. Theo drove him to and from his FBI internship. Every weekend, when he comes home and goes back to the FBI classes.

The long drives gave them a lot of time with each other. And Stiles found himself enjoying those times.

Stiles found himself chatting and calling Theo at nights after classes too. Sometimes while Theo was in tunnel patrol. To discuss and bounce off ideas from his homeworks of cases; murder mysteries and investigations. And Theo gave him very good insights every time.

Maybe because Theo is one little psycho himself that is why he understands how those criminals think. Stiles laughed on the idea. He is like those FBI agents having a serial killer to talk to and consult cases about.

-+-+-+-

Theo calls him, all wounds and injuries healed up. He is driving Stiles home. Stiles jogs to Theo's truck and they go and get drive thru food. Stiles ask if Theo's okay. He looked hurt really bad.

He's got bandage on his hand. Again.

"What happened there?"

"Oh, I got cut. And I keep getting cut there so it's getting harder and harder to heal." -Theo explaining, trying not to put pressure on it too much while driving.

"I'm fine, Stiles."

Stiles have an idea of what happened. Having seen how hard Scott is using Theo out there. Then he received a chat from Scott to remind Theo about his underground tunnel rounds later tonight. Stiles felt irritated. Theo just recovered and now Scott is on him again with the errands.

-Isn't Liam on tunnel patrol tonight?- Stiles replied to Scott.

-I'm taking Liam with us in the talks. Where are you guys now? Will you be here in an hour?-

-Yeah, we're close. Keep Liam on patrol, let's bring Theo in the meeting-

-Why Theo?-

-It's decided. Just wait for us.-

They are to meet with the new group in town. Invite them to join forces or discuss terms on co-existing in Beacon Hills.

Scott met up with Theo and Stiles on the way to meet the werejaguars. They learned they're all female, a small group of 5. The talks start. Stiles let Scott do his thing while he observed.

"... We don't wanna join forces, we do not wanna stay near the Nemeton, which is basically a signal light to all hunters. Just let us be for a few days, I promise we won't cause trouble."

Their leader explained. Scott huddled with Stiles and Theo.

"I don't know about you, but werejaguars are highly aggressive." -Theo muttered.

"I agree." -Stiles nodded, remembering a certain Kate Argent.

"Yeah, I think so too. I will ask them to leave by dawn. Liam and the others can stay here to watch them until then" -Scott relayed the decision to the group leader. There were some friction but Scott brandishing his alpha status made the leader back down.

"Okay... but... we will only leave if he comes with us."

"What?" -Scott didn't expect a request.

"Him."

"No way." -Stiles strongly disagreed.

The group leader was pointing at Theo. "At least give us some protection. A capable mate for me."

Theo just scoffed. "I'm not up for mating."

"That or we stay as long as we like."

"... How about this." -Stiles proposed. "The real reason you're here is because you're all sick. You plan to steal our herb reserve. Preferably tonight because you know our resident doctor wouldn't be home."

The gang leader took a defensive stance.

"Okay, I'll give you a generous amount of 9 herbs and then you leave tonight. No taking Theo with you."

"What if I don't agree?"

"Well... you have to deal with a true alpha." -Stiles turned his head to Scott, who was half shifted by now.

"It was said this place and your pack is sanctuary to all supernatural beings!"

"Not if you threaten to take anyone away." -Scott said with a growl.

The group leader knew there is no way they'd win. "Fine. Get me the herbs."

After Scott's new recruits arrived with the herbs, the werejaguars left. But their leader really likes Theo, and as she passed him by, she said:

"We'll be 2 towns over, if you change your mind." -plus a hand, slowly gliding down Theo's muscular arm.

"I have my eyes set on someone else." -Theo shrugged the leader's hand away from him.

Theo watched the group leave and looked at Stiles. Having a renewed faith on a chance.

A chance that Stiles actually likes him back. With the human getting all no-way-you're-taking-Theo upset a while ago.

After that, Scott still wanted to send Theo on tunnel patrol duty but Stiles said Theo's driving him home even before Scott got the chance to say it. And so Theo drove Stiles home.

"Hey, Theo. If you like, you can stay here. Liam could use the tunnel patrol experience." -Stiles invited him to stay there to avoid the patrol task.

And Theo did. They went up to Stiles' room and Theo acting all strange.

"Hey? What's the matter?" -Stiles just went about the room as normal.

"...This is the first time for me. Here, in your room."

"What?!? You've never been here?" -Stiles remembered all the pack members whose been in his room. And yeah, this is Theo's first time to be here. "Well, there's a first to everything. You never know, you might be coming here more often in the future."

"W-What?" -Theo didn't expect that.

"Nothing! Nothing." -Stiles blushed. He was just being playful, flirty if you will. Because it's true, if he decides to answer Theo, then definitely, Theo would be in his room more often.

Theo was smirking and shaking his head, thinking of a comeback, but that caught him so off guard that he couldn't come up with one.

"Uhm, I'm gonna head to bed. By the way, use this on your wounds." -Stiles threw him a poultice Deaton taught him to make. Something to make the wounds stay clean for a longer time.

Theo caught it and sat on the chair by the window. He took the gauze off his hand and tended to it. He lifted his shirt and applied the poultice to random cuts on his torso.

Stiles just watched him. He memorized all the spots Theo has wounds and scratches and bruises.

"Well, uhm, Theo, I'm tired, I'll go to sleep, stay as long as you like." -Stiles headed to bed.

As he laid down, he smiled to himself on how things turned. Before, he couldn't stand Theo, but now he can sleep in the same room with Theo present.

The next day, Stiles woke up and Theo was gone, left a message of thanks and that he headed to school.

Theo goes to school on weekends, in a special program to make up for the lost time when he was dragged to hell; and once made, he can go back to school to continue his last sem of senior year.

Stiles thought to give Theo a visit.

He finds him on the lacrosse field. Coach Finstock recruited him.

Theo sensed Stiles and looked at his direction. Stiles waved.

"Bilinski!" -Coach Finstock intercepted him. "What are you doing here?"

"I missed you, coach!" - Stiles attempted to give coach a kiss.

"Ugh!" -Coach Finstock stopped him with a hand to his face.

Stiles knew that way, coach would leave him alone. Theo jogged towards him.

"Hey." -Theo in lacrosse practice uniform.

"You joined?" -Stiles sat in the bleachers.

"Yeah." -Theo stood right in front of him.

"I never knew you like sports. Sports aside from hunting and killing."

Theo laughed at that. "Just to release some aggression."

Stiles just nodded. He looked at the other players. He remembered his lacrosse days back then. And that winning shot he got. It was the fun days. Way before the shit hit the fan.

Stiles stayed to watch Theo practice with the team. He decided to stay even after and play with Theo a bit.

"Fine! But make sure you tidy up the things!" -Coach Finstock let them stay.

"Want a serious match or just for fun match, Stiles?"

"Just for fun." -Stiles gripped the lacrosse stick.

"Okay." -Theo smirked and threw the ball right past Stiles' left shoulder and into the goal.

"Ha! For fun, I said! Not for the Olympics or something!"

Theo laughed. They change places. It's now Theo's time to be goalie.

"Theo, no superpowers!" -Stiles was gearing up for a shot.

"Okay."

Stiles kept licking his lips and aiming and aiming for the goal before actually taking the shot. And of course, Theo caught it. Stiles was mad accusing him of using chimera powers but Theo didn't. Stiles is just really not good at it.

"Okay, that's it. I don't wanna play anymore!" -Stiles throwing the stick down.

"I didn't use supernatural powers, Stiles. You're just really bad at it."

"Just- Forget it!" -Stiles waving his hand off.

Stiles waited for Theo in the lockers. He looked at the seat where they confronted Theo. And where he said: "I came back for you." Stiles didn't really know the gravity of those words.

Theo wanted him. From day one. And there he is right now, feeling the same. He wants Theo now.

He turned his attention to the sound from the showers.

Theo is in there. Naked.

Stiles felt a little panic and stepped out of the lockers. A few minutes after, Theo stepped out too.

"Stiles, are you okay? I smelled panic."

"I'm fine. Let's get outta here." -Stiles walked away. Fast. He wanted to answer Theo but Theo is not asking him the question yet.

"Drop me by the tunnel entrance. I'm on patrol." -Theo said, settling in the passenger seat of the jeep.

"Oh. Okay."

"Stiles? Tomorrow, will you go out with me?"

"Oh? Where are you taking me?" -Stiles smiled. Theo courting him, does this quite a lot, take him on dates.

"It's a surprise." -Theo was smiling.

"You know my anxiety, I don't like surprises."

"I know. But you'll love this."

Stiles agreed. And so their date was set.

The following week, Stiles gradually calling out Scott for using Theo too much. Scott took the use and abuse too seriously.

Stiles would lightly tell Scott to give Theo a few minutes or hours before being sent for work again. Sometimes they'd be out, hanging out, and Stiles would tell Scott to let Liam do the patrols. The kid needs that experience somehow.

Their date night arrived. Theo was driving them in his truck when Scott called. An emergency.

Theo sighed. "I guess date night is cancelled."

"Apparently so." -Stiles confirmed as he gestured for Theo to make that U-turn.

They were called towards the Nemeton and they saw Scott and Liam, shifted, chasing after their enemy of the week. The werejaguar leader came back.

"I warned you." -Scott intimidating the werejaguar. "Why are you back?"

"Nothing much... just some petty reason." -she spotted Theo and Stiles running over to them.

Liam lunged at her but missed. She charged towards Stiles and Theo.

Theo was fully prepared to intercept her but she made a sharp and quick turn towards Stiles.

They rolled over the ground. Stiles tried to wrestle her off but to no avail. She pushed Stiles over the cliff.

"Holy sh-" - Stiles couldn't do anything.

He was falling off the cliff. He could only hold his hand up, hoping to be saved.

"Stiles!" -Theo jumped after him.

Theo caught him and held onto exposed vines on the cliff.

"Tch!" -Theo exclaimed as the vine rope burned through the bandage on his hand. And brutally so onto the wound there. Making it bleed again.

They slid for a little bit more before finally getting caught on bigger vines, stopping them from falling.

Back at the top, Scott and Liam were trying the werejaguar to a tree and then hurrying to help Theo and Stiles. Lowering down a rope to get them back up.

"Stiles! Oh man!" -Scott pulled Stiles into a tight hug once the two was saved. "I was so worried!"

"I was too." -Stiles hugged him as tight, looking at Theo, nodding him a thank you.

They subdued the werejaguar leader, and as agreed -Scott will try to talk to the supernatural beings walking into Beacon Hills, with the goal of peace, and when it is not achieved, the hunters will take care of it- Scott called Chris Argent to deal with the werejaguar.

As they were walking, Scott was going on about checking the old werejaguar hideout before calling it a day.

And Scott wanted to send Theo and Liam.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Scott! He's hurt, send someone else!" Stiles went off.

"O-Okay. Me and Liam would go." -Scott conceded. He felt guilty afterwards, he never checked on Theo. And now only saw Theo's hand. "Sorry, Theo."

"Yeah. Apology accepted." -Theo soothing his wounded palm.

They parted ways. Scott and Liam towards the hideout and Stiles and Theo towards Theo's jeep.

Stiles applied poultice on Theo's palm. "Thanks. A lot."

"No problem. As if I would just let you die on me right there. You owe me a date."

"Well... our sched just freed up."

---

And so, they revisited their original schedule for tonight. The date:

"W-What the-" -Stiles was greeted by tiny lights floating in some enclosure far from the reserve. "What is this? I've never... there were no fireflies in Beacon Hills. Ever!"

"There are now." -Theo watched him enjoy the view.

There were so many. Flying, floating, near the trees too... it looked magical.

"Since when? How?" -Stiles wanted to get to the bottom of this.

"I don't know. Must be a Nemeton thing. Again."

Stiles wanted to ask questions again, but the view was so beautiful, he just accepted that explanation. The Nemeton does make and affect all sorts of stuff.

"Stiles? Can I ask the questions now?"

"Sure." -Stiles waved his hand, eyes fixed on the sea of fireflies in front of them.

"Will you... be my mate?"

"..." -Stiles blinked. A lot of times.

"Stiles?" -Theo was concerned.

Stiles looked back at him. The fireflies are near them now, surrounding them. Making Theo have the background of little lights floating.

Beautiful.

"Yes." -Stiles said.

Theo smiled, ear to ear.

"I was waiting for you to ask that." -Stiles revealed.

"I was waiting for you to be sure." -Theo walked slowly towards Stiles.

Reached for Stiles' waist and pulled him into a kiss.

-+-+-+ (complete) +-+-+-

thank you. more on my master list here

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[ladywaffles]

Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47442676

T | 1/1 | 2.4k

Ilsa tries to make sense of the world, after being welcomed back into the fold.

or: how the IMF learned (to varying degrees) to trust Ilsa.

Title from Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18. I’m particularly fond of Movement II: Adagio sostenuto. Often considered one of the most popular piano concertos of all time, it was used as the score to the 1945 film Brief Encounter, and parts of it inspired Lorne Balfe’s score of Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part One.

After two years at Lane’s side, Ilsa knows she should feel at ease in London. It is her city, her sanctuary; Lane, like her, was MI-6. He didn’t like coming back to London any more than she did, too aware of C’s eyes on him whenever his feet touched British soil.

Ethan Hunt and his IMF team have effectively freed her. Atlee confessed to setting her up; her government has taken her back. She is reinstated, avowed, welcomed back into the fold.

And yet.

She feels eyes on her everywhere she goes. It is hard for her fellow agents to trust the woman they have not seen in months, years. Some of them—the new ones, fresh-faced Oxbridge grads seduced into espionage by the false belief they could be the next Ian Fleming—do not know her as anything but a ghost story. Some of them—the older ones, her former fellow agents, already on edge and inherently distrusting, given that they are the ones who survived where their compatriots did not—still believe the story Atlee fed them: that she is a traitor to her government, her queen, her country, and she has duped them all into believing she is not, a triple agent waiting to strike.

It’s hard to let go of old habits when everyone acts as if nothing’s changed.

London is her city, it is her base. So why does it feel like she hasn’t come in from the cold until she feels familiar eyes watching her and turns to see a flash of green and a muted grin, a hooded figure that looks too much like Ethan Hunt—

And winks at her, staring her dead in the eyes, and before she can blink, her phone is buzzing with a text she knows will be from an unlisted American number with new mission parameters and he’s gone again—

Why does it feel like coming home?

///

Ethan believes her outright.

It’s the rest of them that take time to come around.

Despite the fact that he’s survived nearly three decades in their line of work, Ethan is still an optimist at heart and believes the best of people.

(“You know, he once asked me if I remembered being sweet,” Luther tells her when they’re on a sleeper train. Benji is knocked out in the bunk above her, happily snoring away. “If I could remember that far back. Ethan thinks he’s jaded, but he’s the best of all of us.”

As if I need you to tell me that, she wants to say.

“I know,” she replies instead.)

It should be Benji who opens up to her first—he’s the newest field agent of them, the easiest to dupe, the least experienced. Not to mention their shared country, even if Benji foreswore any allegiance to Her Maj when he took that IMF job.

Then again, she did stun him with a defibrillator. And shoot at him.

Brandt, she knows, will trust her when hell freezes over. Luther loves his gossip, and he coughs it up easily that Brandt was a part of the operation Ethan used to go undercover in Serbia that involved the murder of no less than seven people—and Brandt was the unwitting fool whose visceral reaction was used to sell the fact that Ethan really had gone rogue.

He’s as likely to forgive her for playing the double agent as he is to sprout wings tomorrow and start to fly.

No, it is Luther who comes around next; he too know what it is like to be disavowed by your government. There is no announcement, no balloon. One day, Luther goes from holding her at arms’ length to sharing knowing looks with her over Moroccan tea while Benji and Brandt snipe at each other.

Benji may have fooled Hunley’s polygraph for months, but she’s much better than a polygraph, and Benji’s not trying to hide as much anymore now that the IMF has been reinstated.

He openly adores Ethan, and who can blame him? They’re all here because of Ethan. Ethan is the sun they all revolve around, his gravity pulling them in closer and closer until he’s all that they can see.

It grates on Benji, that Ethan likes her and he can barely stand to be in the same room as her alone. He questions himself and his judgment of her.

But Ethan, endlessly kind and much more observant than she thinks others give him credit for, knows.

She’s not stupid. She knows that part of the reason he treats her the way he does—smiling, body relaxed, posture open—is to show the team, his team, that she is one of them. They can bring her into the fold. He is giving her his own seal of approval the best way he can.

They’re in Manila, backing up another IMF team, when it comes to a head.

Ethan is out doing what Ethan does best, which is to say, running down an agent like an idiot chicken with his head cut off, causing thousands of dollars in property damage as he does, and so it’s just Ilsa and Benji waiting for him at the extraction point.

Benji’s shoulders are hunched towards his ears as he guides Ethan through the winding market streets. A chill runs down her spine, and Ilsa puts her hand in between Benji’s shoulder blades and shoves down, just as a hail of bullets rains through the walls. She puts her body over Benji’s; she can barely hear him yelling directions at Ethan, the automatic rifles pounding through her ears.

She grabs her pistol and waits for a moment, but before she can return fire, a bomb goes off and Benji sighs.

“That’ll be Luther and Brandt. C’mon, we should get going before they come back.” Ilsa lets him help her up.

“Thank you,” Benji says.

“For what?”

“Saving me. I guess Ethan was right.”

She raises an eyebrow, and Benji huffs a laugh as he runs down the stairs to the idling van where Luther and Brandt wait for them.

“I can trust you with my life. Sorry it took so long.”

He slides the door open for her, ever the gentleman.

“I can’t say I blame you,” she says with a wry smile. “But I’m happy you’ve realized that. The feeling is entirely mutual.”

“What’re you yapping about? We’ve got places to go!” Brandt yips from the passenger seat.

“Oh, nothing,” Benji says as he slams the door shut behind him. “Just how I’ve finally confessed my undying love for Ilsa, and we’re going to elope in Vegas the second you turn your backs.”

Ilsa grins, toothy and bright, as Luther hits the gas and they all go flying down the road.

///

Benji is playing barista in the lobby while Ethan tries to break into the building from the roof. It’s been a whirlwind of activity since MI-6 officially “loaned” Ilsa to the IMF. In theory, she still owes her allegiance to Queen Elizabeth and Great Britannia; in practice, Ilsa has made a bubble for herself with Ethan’s merry band of men.

She sits shotgun in the utility van they’ve coopted as their mobile base. Brandt is behind the wheel. He’ll let anyone drive but her.

Ilsa turns off her radio and cuts him off before he can work himself up. “I know you don’t like me,” she says bluntly. “I don’t need you to like me. I don’t care, frankly, if you do. But I do need you to trust me, however little that may be.”

Brandt’s jaw clenches.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he starts. “You’re too good of an agent. To go undercover for two years, limited check-ins, almost no handling…. It’s hard. You sold it to Lane. You sold it to your country. How am I ever supposed to know if what you’re telling me isn’t a lie?”

“You were an analyst,” she says. “Analyze me.”

“That’s not my job on this team,” he grits out. “I don’t get to judge.”

“You’re right, it’s not.”

It’s Ethan’s, goes unsaid between them.

“But you do it anyway,” she states.

His grip tightens on the wheel. For a spy, he’s doing a terrible job of masking his emotions. Then again, he has no reason to hide the fact that she makes him uncomfortable.

“I keep it to myself,” he mutters.

“You don’t have to. I thought that was the whole point of Ethan’s team. Being open with each other. It’s unnerving, I understand. I’m British, the stiff upper lip comes much more naturally. And in our line of work, trust can get you killed.”

Brandt turns to look at her finally, fully engaging in the game of wits they’re playing.

“Lane trusted you.” Ilsa scoffs. “Lane didn’t trust me. He needed my skillset and my access. ”

“Ethan trusts you.”

“Ethan Hunt is a good man. I would never do him harm willingly.”

“And unwillingly?” Brandt asks.

She shifts in her seat, redistributing her weight. She’s starting to lose feeling in her legs. They never do tell you how much of espionage is hurrying up to wait for hours on end.

“There are casualties. But I do not intend for Ethan to ever be one of mine.”

Brandt tilts his head back ever so slightly.

Approval.

“You can’t protect him forever, you know,” Ilsa tells him. “It’s not your job to keep Ethan safe. Ethan is more than capable of doing that himself.

“I let him down once before.”

“And you think he holds that against you? From what I’ve heard, he couldn’t care less about that. You played your part perfectly,” she says.

Ilsa quirks an eyebrow. “Unless… You’re still angry that he played you?”

Brandt looks away. Bullseye.

She wants to laugh, but it would be cruel. “We’re all pawns in the game, Brandt. We use each other and burn each other and leave and do it all again the next day. If you can’t handle that, then why are you still here? It’s messy out here in the field. Go back to your desk, be an analyst again. Do good work from there. ”

“Because I believe,” Brandt says. He reaches over and turns her comms back on, and that ends the conversation.

She understands. It’s as good as she’ll ever get from Brandt. Even the most cynical of agents would fall victim to it, Ilsa thinks to herself.

Ethan Hunt is a force of nature. It’s hard to go back to real life, once you’ve had a taste of him.

///

“I thought you were bad news,” Luther offers. They’re in Miami, fresh off of a flight from the middle of nowhere after thirty-six hours of running down the newest threat to global security. Ethan handed them all hotel room keys and told them to shower, sleep, and eat. Ilsa fell face-first into bed and slept until sundown.

After a shower and a selection of the best street food Little Havana had to offer, she and Luther returned to the hotel bar. They’re sipping daiquiris, watching the night life explode around them.

“I know,” she laughs.

“You remind me of a woman I used to know,” he says. “She was brilliant and smart, and Ethan loved her.”

“He’s too kind for the likes of us,” Ilsa replies.

“I didn’t like you. I didn’t want to. I’ve watched Ethan go down this road before. The last time I had to pull him out of it, I ended up scuba diving in the San Francisco Bay to retrieve an unexploded nuclear ordnance that nearly ended life as we know it.”

Ilsa sips at her daiquiri; the rum is making her cheeks flush. Benji told her this story on one of the long flights they took, crossing from one corner of the world to the next. She knows how it ends.

“I’m flattered that you think that, Luther, but—”

“I’ve known Ethan longer than anyone. Don’t tell me that I’m wrong. I’m not. Ethan doesn’t let people in like he used to. I knew him when we were fresh-faced kids who didn’t know a goddamn thing. So when I tell you that Ethan has kept you here for a reason, I am telling the absolute truth.”

“Of course he needs me,” Ilsa says. “Otherwise you’d only have Brandt left to help keep him and Benji out of trouble, and where would that leave us?” she jokes, smiling easily with the alcohol in her system.

But Luther is stoic. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

“Don’t hurt him,” he says. It’s not an order, more of a request—an entreaty.

“I don’t mean to.”

“And that’s why you will, eventually.”

Ilsa watches the boats on the water, bobbing through the tides. The sails stand out bright against the inky darkness of the night.

“You all love him so much,” Ilsa says. “He can take care of himself.”

“He can,” Luther agrees. “But we care about him enough that he doesn’t have to do it himself.”

///

In her line of work, there is no such thing as personal space. Close quarters are simply an occupational hazard.

Why she’s ended up in the trunk of the getaway car, pressed on top of Ethan as they brace themselves against the walls with every wild turn that Brandt takes, she could not explain.

“Are you okay?” Ethan asks. “I’m not squishing you, am I?”

“Ethan, I’m on top of you. I should be the one asking that question.”

“But I’d never tell if you were,” he says with a toothy grin. “I was married once. I know better than to say anything.”

In the space between breaths, he becomes solemn again. He’s probably seeing his wife’s face.

“Is she safe?” Ilsa asks.

“As safe as she can be, after being married to me,” Ethan answers.

“Not as safe as you’d like her, then.”

He smiles sadly. “If I had my way, I’d know where she was, locked away in a part of my brain that no one else could get to. Just for my own peace of mind, to know that she’s happy and alive. Thriving. That’s all I wanted for her.”

“But you can’t.”

“But I can’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” “Still,” she says. “I’m sorry. Our lives are not easy. But there are people who love you.”

“The best people in the world,” Ethan agrees.

“Doesn’t it ever grate on you? How they hover?”

He shakes his head. “No.” He stares at her. Even in the dark, his eyes are bright. “I understand why they do it. They mean the best, in their own ways.”

Brandt hits a curb, and Ethan’s arms circle her waist, pulling her to his chest to keep her from hitting the top of the trunk.

“Thank you,” she tells him.

She means it.

[lostfirefly]

You’ve Got the Same Dream as Me (Ch.4)

Hello, kiddos! The idea for this fanfic came to me from a dream (again) I had about a month ago. Тhe main characters were Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill (don't ask me why), but with a light hand they have been replaced (sorry, guys). The main action of the dream took place somewhere in the sands. Аlthough this fanfic will feature Sir Crocodile and our beloved Buggy, the action shifts to the desert. No marines, ships etc. Sorry, not sorry :) The devil fruit's abilities are preserved. Catch the Mummy and Indiana Jones vibes :) I have no idea how many chapters there will be. Different titles and names from the original source material will be used to emphasise the general OP's vibe.

Since English is not my native language, errors may occur. As always, feel free to share your thoughts :) 

And thank you to my dear @yujo-nishimura and @laurasoretta for believing in me :)

Description: Catherine, a librarian who is searching for the trail of her sister who went missing on an expedition. Notes in books and diaries lead her to Cairo. There she finds a retailer from an artifact shop who, in exchange for selling her a map and equipment, insists that Catherine take her along. They get into a little (or maybe a big) adventure.. 

Warnings: 12+, I think. As always, no smut, angst, violence. Adventures and fun only. Buggy x OC, Sir Crocodile x OC.

Words: 1236

The title is taken from «You've Got the Same Dream as Me» (Sonya Belousova & Giona Ostinelli) (One Piece, Netflix)

✎﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3

✎﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

"A car?" Catherine looked in amazement at the big black jeep. 

"What did you expect?" Buggy asked, leaning back on the bonnet, taking off his striped bandana. 

"Well, I don't know. We’re in Cairo… But.. You got people around town who look like fish. And there's… just a car", she said, glancing at his long blue hair.

"Sorry, cotton candy, my personal flying dragon is at home. I can take you for a ride next time", he replied with a sneer in voice, wrapping his hair into a ponytail.

"Ew, jeez", Catherine pursed her lips.

"If you keep yucking, I'm not taking you with me,. You can go to the nearest rental shop and book yourself a magic carpet if you want". 

"Tell me, were you born to be such an asshole? Or did it come with age?" Catherine drilled Buggy with her eyes. 

"Stop it, both of you. Save your love quarrels for later!" Rika said loudly, locking the shop door shut. "By some completely idiotic irony, we all need to get to the same place. Let's focus on the case. Cathie, get out your maps and records".

"He started it first!"

"I don't care! I'm not going to be your mom or dad. I said, get out your maps and records now! Here's your book by professor Alabasta", Rika put it on the bonnet.

It was a large book, in a brown cover with golden monograms on it. The pages were a little yellowed in places, but fortunately the text was legible.

"Woooow", Catherine whispered and gently ran her hands over the sheets.

"You see?" Rika opened one of Cathrine's diaries and pointed her index finger at one of the entries. "The numbers here and here match. I think that old man Alabasta knew something. I don't know if they point to the location of the treasure or not, maybe it's just one of the dots, but I'm more than sure that this is where we should be heading".

"But if he found treasure, for example, why didn't he take it? Maybe it's not there anymore", Catherine asked, "and why did my sister go there? She and I are both adventurers, but I still don't understand".

"Maybe she didn't go looking for the treasure. Maybe your sister got so tired of your endless whining that she decided to join a caravan and hide from you forever. That's what I would do", Buggy said, leaning between the two girls, glancing briefly at Catherine and putting his hand on her back.

"You're pissing me off already", she whispered.

"Well, I don't know your sister, so her motives are unclear to me, - Rika said, shaking her head, "but I know what I want to find there".

"And what is that?" Catherine asked with surprise.

"It doesn't matter".

"Look, there are several routes", Catherine ran her finger along the lines on the page. "I think we should take the shortest route so we can get there faster. The less time I spend in the car with this clown, the better".

"No, no", Buggy shook his head negatively. "You see, this short cut is guarded by Baroque Works men. We can't make two steps out there. We'd be quickly captured and sent to some underwater prison. Believe me, you won't like it there. We'll take this way", he pointed down the long road, "sorry, you'll have to bear with me".

He started to put the bags in the boot of the car.

"Trust me, you'll be happy to be in those places with me. Because if we meet a man with a hook there, I'll be your best bet for salvation".

"A man with a hook? Have you been drinking since this morning?" Catherine moved closer to his face to test her hunch.

"Where the hell did you come from, cutie biscuit?" he whispered in her ear.

"Loguetown, why are you asking?"

"Oh, just curious. Alright. Hop in, girls. Rika. And my cotton candy", he said with a wink, getting into the car.

"Stop calling me that!"

⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥫⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭⥭

The journey to the coordinates indicated on the map took about two hours. The car stopped somewhere in the middle of a hot desert. There was only a small building, which looked more like an old barracks.

"Well, where are we? You said you could read maps", Catherine got out of the car and looked around, "I thought we'd be in the right place on time".

"Can you stop nagging, I'm getting a headache", Buggy said, looking for something in the boot of the car.

"Don't tell me what to do and what not to do. You're the one who brought us here", Catherine walked briskly over to Buggy. "Fuck, if I'd known you didn't know anything, I wouldn't have messed with you in life".

"Listen, pie", Buggy grabbed her arm and hissed, glaring at her with his green eyes. "I'm sick of your hysterics. If you don't stop acting like this, I'm gonna leave you here in the middle of the desert to be eaten by the local sand creatures. And drive back. Believe me, I'd rather be in a bar than stuck here with you right now".

Catherine felt his warm hand squeeze her arm with force.

"Okay, people, break", Rika said, getting closer to them. "According to the coordinates, we're in the right spot now. Catherine, anticipating your question, no, we're not at the final point of our journey yet. While you two were arguing the whole way, I was trying to get a good look at the map. But it was difficult, with your love dialogues distracting my attention".

Catherine rolled her eyes.

"And? What's next?" she asked.

"We should go into that building over there. There must be something important in there, since it's marked on the map. It looks like a shop or a small hotel. I don't know. At least it's on the map and in the diaries. You see it?" Rika pointed her finger in the notebook.

Catherine noticed Buggy re-hiding a small black, oddly shaped box.

"What's that in there?" she asked, placing her hand gently on his back, peering over his shoulder.

"It's nothing special".

"Okay�� We'll go to that building then, see what I can find out".

Catherine took two steps forward and stopped. She turned round and was about to take half a step back.

"Buggy…"

"What?" he sounded annoyed.

"I'm s... You know. Never mind".

Catherine and Rika walked into a small building together. Inside, there were shelves with some bags of herbs and jars of oddly coloured water. The place smelled of coriander and lavender for some reason.

"What can I do for you, young girls?" a hoarse voice came from the corner of the room. A grown big-boned man with a grey beard and long grey hair sat in a chair.

"Good afternoon, sir. We seem to be a little lost. We need to go to the Sab...", Catherine didn't have time to finish her sentence because Rika stepped on her foot, silencing her.

"Rayleigh, I bet they're going there for the same reason I am", a low voice came from the front door.

"Sab... what? The Sabaody Desert? Why would you want to go there?

" the man asked, rising from his chair.

The tall man slowly began to approach the counter.

"Well, lassies, tell me what you're looking for there?", he asked, placing both hands on the table.

Catherine whispered in Rika's ear.

"Do you see that too? Does he have a… a hook instead of a hand?"

[chrisodonline]

Finale Spec/Wishes, pt. 2

For an explanation of what exactly this is, you can visit part one. Again, not really formatted because who has time? It’s really more like I’m recapping or liveblogging my brain.

This is part 2 of ?? (To think. I thought this would just be one post. LOLZ.)

Kensi and Deeks make their way to the bullpen. They notice Callen’s back. They welcome him back, and both seem a little off and distant. Sam asks if they’re okay, and they quickly reply that they are. They were just talking about some plans they were making, working through logistics, etc.

Callen tells them, “Well, just be sure not to make plans for the first full week of next month.” They both look surprised, “Well, actually, we’re not sure when we’ll be able to go through on these plans. So first week of next month is kind of up in the air.” Callen looks disappointed. “Oh. I was just talking to Sam about moving the wedding date up.” Deeks, “First off, you know the way you said that it makes it sound like you and Sam are getting married. Second, are you sure you want to move it up? Not that you should scheduled around us, but our next month or month and a half may be busy. Or not.” Sam asks what’s going on. Kensi and Deeks both say, “Just some personal stuff.” No one prods them further. Callen, “Um, let me talk to Anna.” He pulls out his phone and goes to walk off when Kilbride appears on the stairs. 

Kilbride bellows, “Agent Callen. My office now. The rest of you, get to Ops. There’s a case.”  Callen asks if he can make a phone call real quick. Kilbride quickly comes back with, “Unless that phone call is 9-1-1 because you are in the middle of a medical emergency, I would advise you not to make me wait and get to my office right now.”

Callen reaches Kilbride’s office. Kilbride invites him to sit down. Callen’s face says he’s registering this as big. Kilbride explains that his son has recently been diagnosed with a serious medical issue, and he plans to go and spend time with him — help take care of him — to just try and make up for some things. Callen says he’s sorry to hear that Kilbride’s son is sick, but Kilbride assures him that the prognosis is actually very good, but he’s overdue to be a caregiver. Hopefully even when his son is better, they can still stay connected. 

Kilbride says, “Obviously, I won’t be able to be here.” Callen nods. “You’re taking a leave of absence?” Kilbride explains, “Yes, a permanent one.” Callen is definitely registering this. Kilbride out. No sign of Hetty. Who would they send? Kilbride says, “I had a very long conversation with Director Vance. He doesn’t usually ask someone something again if they’ve said No once because it looks like begging. However, since your last no was over 10 years ago, he’s willing to give you another chance.”

Callen is surprised. “Director Vance wants to offer the job to me?” Kilbride nods. “I believe that’s what I just said.” “I guess I’m surprised you didn’t try to talk him into somebody else…Unless you did?” Kilbride just stares at Callen. “I’m the one who brought your name up.” This surprises Callen even more. Kilbride continues, “I know we haven’t always agreed on things, and I would personally like weekly therapy to be a contingency for you in this job offer, but that part isn’t my decision to make. You realize you would’ve been gone a long time ago if I wanted you gone. I think this team can be better. I think the spirit of Hetty will always linger over, and that isn’t completely horrible. But I also can’t have Hetty 2.0. The higher brass doesn’t want that either. I only ever wanted you to see that Hetty wasn’t always right, and you can’t run this place as if she were.”

Callen nods. “When do you need a decision?” Kilbride explains, “I understand you would want to take a day.” Callen nods again. Kilbride adds, “This may not be field work, but don’t think you’re just pushing papers all day. Steadier workdays, though.” Callen says, “You’re not exactly selling me on it.” Kilbride finishes, “I didn’t tell you about my son for pity. I don’t want teddy bears with balloons, or fruit baskets, or some special message on TikTok. I want to remind you to think about the next 5, 10, 15 years. Things are going to be a lot different when you have someone waiting at home for you.” Callen notes, “I’ve had someone waiting for a while now.” Kilbride buttons with, “When you make a vow, though, it’s different. We’re taught to be honorable. Nothing less honorable than a broken promise.”

In Ops:

Case stuff. Nothing difficult. Y’all know it’s gotta be solved in like 15-20 minutes of screen time. I don’t know. Some high ranking official is beside himself because someone stole his prized chicken. (Do you know how much eggs are these days? Talk about a High Value Target!) Let’s make that the placeholder.

Anyway, Callen enters, and they catch him up briefly. Callen nods and says, “Okay, we should go talk to some people. Do we like anybody for this?” Deeks asks if they can list Wiley E. Coyote as a suspect. Callen explains that they cannot. Deeks ask if they can list a general coyote as a suspect. Callen agrees that’s a possibility, but they wouldn’t be working this case if the TPTB didn’t think it was relevant or a case with merit. (LOL.) Everyone else is kind of suspicious of this number that has called the high ranking person a dozen times in a week, but doesn’t appear to be a main contact. Someone new and aggressive if you go by call logs alone. They checked the number, and it belongs to a lady who has a booth at the farmer’s market. Highly sus. Callen sends Kensi and Deeks to interview Farmer’s Market lady. Fatima and Rountree are supposed to go look at the crime scene. Callen says he and Sam will stay back. Everyone looks a little surprised by this, but they all go their ways.

Sam looks at Callen, also a little confused. Callen never volunteers for Ops. Callen just looks at him and says they need to talk. Callen grabs an ear piece and tablet then asks Sam to step just outside the door. It’s a private conversation, but he’ll hold onto the devices in case they go off and need to be addressed. Callen tells Sam Kilbride offered him the job. “And I wanted to get your opinion on—“ Sam cuts him off. He tells G flat out, it’s time he took it. Think about Anna. Just because he takes the job it doesn’t magically mean he thinks Hetty is never coming back. It just means he’s ready. They can do what they planned. He would be ridiculous not to take it. Callen says, “Actually, I wanted you to be the first person to know that I said Yes. But good to know you agree.” Sam excitedly says, “You said yes? You really did? The job. The office. The meetings. The bureaucracy. Everything?” “I didn’t say yes to the office. I don’t want that thing. I plan to talk to Vance about turning it into a Conference Room. Apparently the main HQ has one. Somewhere. We probably should, too. I figured I’d work downstairs or in Ops when needed. Closer to the team.” Sam asks what Callen needed his opinion on then. Callen says, “Don’t take it the wrong way. I was going to ask Kensi to be team leader. I just think —“ Sam interrupts, “She’s more than earned it. It’ll be a pay bump for her, which is good for her family. I’m happy to back her up. I won’t be here forever. Besides, my dad’s going to need more and more care. It makes sense, since I might need even more time off.” Callen notes that Sam’s new boss is pretty understanding about those things. “‘My new boss.’ I think you liked saying that a little too much.” Callen just smirks. Sam adds on, “You know what I just realized? You’re going to have to wear a suit every day.” Callen looks annoyed. “Don’t worry. We can go shopping. And I promised I’d introduce you to my tailor.”

The other partners are doing the investigation thing. We see Kensi and Deeks talking, and Deeks admits he’s more than just looked at job openings. He’s made actual calls. Put feelers out. Someone might be calling soon. He asks if Kensi is still in. She says she is. He points out she may have her own contacts that could help. They should think of specific questions and positions to talk to people about.  Fatima and Rountree are at the crime scene, looking for any extra clues. They’re in the chicken coop, which for some reason is decorated like a castle. “This guy really loved his chicken.” Fatima points out, “He did name her Good Queen Bess.” They talk about why a chicken could be so important, and why its loss would be a matter of national security. They are at a loss. “Do you think it’s just a case of someone getting more eccentric when they’re older?” Rountree, “I don’t know. Why? Are you worried you’ll become eccentric?” Fatima shrugs and says maybe. Rountree says, “I’m imagining Old Lady Fatima now.” “Stop!” “She has cars she never drives but she loves dressing them up like animals. She has a cat car, and a dog car, and—“ “Oh, well how about Old Man Tree? He likes to keep the wrong holiday decorations up just to make a point. [imitating old craggy voice] It’s the principle of the thing!”  High Ranking Chicken guy walks up. They pull themselves together. And ask if he could think of anything from the last week or so that might help, even if it just seemed odd at the time. Anything could be something. He says, “No, not really.” Beat. “Wait, there was something.” He shares something that sounds pretty dang important, and Fatima and Rountree look at each other to let us know it’s super important. Whatever it is. I can’t think of everything here.

[laxmovrevx]

𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍

NAME : Rose / Versace

PRONOUNS : She/they

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION : I tend to be the most responsive on discord since I'm hardly here, but I don't tend to give that out till I really trust you OURGEOGUREH. Idk I'll probably say hi if we wind up on a server together.

MOST ACTIVE MUSE : This and Jack probably, but I say that loosely considering I'm not on Tumblr all too much BYE. But over the years as well? Specs.

EXPERIENCE / HOW MANY YEARS : I Oh boy quite a while.. I think we just hit around the 5 month mark for my time in the Tumblr rp community! In terms of roleplay in general it's more like 10 years.

BEST EXPERIENCE : Overall just meeting the Tumblr besties @jardinae and @serpentsexile. Ily both, and you guys really did change my life for the better. I loved all the discord events. All the stupid dash commentary. The unhinged stuff that happens in and out of the servers. Though, I do severely apologise that it meant dealing with the likes of Specs, emo and the other blonde bitch. I wake up every morning eagerly waiting to know what we get up to next and what stupid shit we'll do. Love you guys <3.

RP PET PEEVE : I have a few different ones but my main 2 are probably having your entire character revolve around shipping and also having a stupidly powerful character and then just. Not elaborating at all. I've been in groups where the entire theme is MURDER and HORROR and yet they spend the whole time making out and ignoring any plot hooks. I've also seen characters who can apparently take on gods or have ridiculous powers but that whole backstory is ignored, never used or has no depth to it. Like if they're an all powerful god, what does their role involve? What are their worshippers like? What's their influence in the world? There's no point having an OP character if all you use them for is to flirt around or just have an excuse to counter everything against them so they never show weakness.

PLOTS OR MEMES : I Memes are easier for me to answer quickly, but I'm a huge sucker for plots. Even if we never get around to writing them properly, I love throwing around ideas or blabbing on about stupid scenarios or AUs or relationships AAA. Sometimes I'll spend more time talking about a reply than I will actually replying BYE

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES : Long replies! Short are fine for memes but I feel like they can go nowhere at times. I like adding detail since it's more fun for me and I feel like it just makes things flow on a lot nicer.

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSES : Oh To a small extent. I have a few similair interests to Specs and Jack, but personality wise they're different. Especially Specs. Extroverts lowkey scare me so the only time I come off that fucking crazy is online OIUHEUH. Hee's someone I'd like to be friends with though. Opposites attract kind of situation.

For the most part, a lot of my ocs kind of spring from personal experiences though. Jack was a way to kind of process my own situation. At times Specs is a bit of a vent character, but also just kind of a comfort character to help me through it. Alistair is a stand in for people I despise and sort of acts like a punching bag (though I haven't written him in ages for personal reasons lol) and characters like Lust, Dorian and William are kind of based around me as a person. All in all, I love most of my muses and oc (through they are on thin ice lol). If they were real I'd like to get to meet some of them one day.

Tagged by: Tagged by the bestie @serpentsexile

Tagging: steal

[jmagnabo92]

I started off so pissed at this post until I got to the Harry Potter Defense Squad Replies - fuck yeah, Team, defend our boy he deserves better than this.

Just to recap - OP basically shamed a 12 year old boy for not offering to buy a 9 person family their schoolbooks because they had to rescue him (literally break him out of his own home, where he was abused and would have starved to death had they not done that).

BUT who the fuck expects a CHILD to take care of a family that he didn't create???

Like seriously, I like the Weasleys but it would be fucking shitty as hell to take money from an abused, child orphan. When you have 2 grown adults (and 2 adult sons at this point) that can and should be providing for their family. Because let's face it, you are responsible for your own choices, if they couldn't afford it, they should

a) take one of Arthur's offered promotions (this gets mentioned as he rejects them because he likes his job)

b) have Molly get a job (since Ginny would be old enough to go to a friend's or something and of course is off to Hogwarts this year) and / or

C) if you're really hard up asking your adult sons (the ones that you raised) to help you. I'm sure they would.

There's also a few facts people always ignore - a) Harry doesn't have the luxury of support from anyone if he runs out of money before he gets a job. He literally needs to keep his vault and the money to get him through the next 6 years. If he runs out, he has no one to turn to.

B) Harry absolutely would share if he could but the Weasleys are good people and would never accept it.

C) in fact, Harry actually gives Ginny his Lockhart books, he gives the twins his winnings, and he tries to buy things for Ron multiple times (which is refused).

D) if the Weasleys were that hard up, they could just share the Lockhart books, plus the next summer while Harry (who literally saved their daughters life) is back suffering with the Durselys to the point of running away, they go on vacation- this tells me that they have a good enough handle on their money that they DONT need to take from an orphan.

I'm sure there's more things I can add, like them living off of Sirius in OOTP and the fact that they support him for only a month in book 2 (when this post is taking place) and that hardly impacted them given how much food they have and their ability to duplicate it. It's not as if they had to BUY more just for Harry. There's also the fact that I can't remember but isn't it George that says thus, not Molly?

Anyways, my point is - you're an asshole if you think an abused, 12 year old child orphan should be paying for grown adults' choices and Harry deserves better than people thinking that a 12 year old should even offer. Also the Weasleys would be assholes if they did.

Whew that was long but Harry deserved a defense (that I wanted to add to).

I vividly remember the scene in like the second movie where the Weasleys were looking at their school supply list and Molly was like “I really don’t know how we’re going to afford it this year” after they had just risked life and limb to rescue Harry and Harry was sitting there eating their food like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[sadoeuphemist]

r/relationshipadvice · Posted by u/iiherneck 3 hours ago

My (24f) boyfriend (27m) just told me that he thought my tattoo made me look "desperate."

Okay so this is a weird one. Throwaway account, because my boyfriend knows my reddit username.

My boyfriend and I have been dating for almost a month now, and I just found out that he thought my tattoo was functional this whole time. For the record, the tattoo is a pair of eyes that I got on the back of my neck. They're smoky eyed, long lashes, and wink offset on a three second cycle. Normally they're hidden by my hair, so I can brush my hair to one side to reveal them. I thought they looked sexy and flirtatious. I've gotten compliments about them before.

Apparently, my boyfriend has thought all this time that I could see out the back of my neck. What's even weirder is that he apparently leaped to the assumption that I got the tattoo because I was paranoid about people stalking me, or something like that? I've tried to find out more, but I kind of laughed at him when he admitted this to me and now he says he doesn't want to talk about it anymore. He verbatim said he thought I looked "desperate", because he thought they were blinking one at a time, so one eye would always be open to keep watch???

I feel like I'm going crazy. Nothing like this has ever come up in our relationship before. He's always been very supportive of me, every time I tell him I'm going somewhere he asks if I want him to come along. Maybe almost to the point of being clingy, but frankly I appreciate that sort of attention. And now I find out that all this time he thought he was protecting me?? somehow??? from some vague unknown threat????

At this point I'm wondering if our whole relationship was based on false pretenses due to some ridiculous misunderstanding. I don't know, am I taking this too seriously? Should I just laugh it off? Help me, reddit. I have no idea how I should react to this.

692 comments

__________________________________

montressorsrevenge · 3 hr. ago

Wow. That was not what I was expecting when I clicked the title.

Did your bf know about your tattoo when you started dating, and did he say anything about it then? You have to give us more details here. Is he following you around everywhere? Keeping tabs on your location? This sounds insane.

♡ 1.6 k

iiherneck OP · 3 hr. ago No see that's the crazy thing, my tattoo is part of how we first met! I saw him checking me out at a party, and I thought he was hot, so when I walked by him I made sure to move my hair to the side to show off the eyes. He is not a stalker or a weirdo or anything so don't worry about that. If anything he was trying really hard not to seem pushy when we first met. We didn't even start dating until a few weeks afterwards. ♡ 232 28 more replies

49 more replies

MeowthGrindset · 3 hr. ago

Let me guess: your boyfriend also believes they're putting microchips in the vaccines to track people, shares facebook memes about how human traffickers are hiding beneath your car to slash your achilles tendon, and thinks January 6 was a false flag.

This guy has some serious hang-ups and he's displacing his paranoia onto you because he thinks everyone sees the world the same way he does. Sever.

♡ 1.9 k

Activia1143 · 3 hr. ago So much this. That is a MASSIVE red flag. Guys like that can only conceive of women as property that needs to be protected. You can't get a tattoo just because you think it looks good. Everything a woman does has to be in relation to men, either to appeal to them or to mark herself off as unavailable. OP, you're dating an incel who thinks of himself as your white knight savior. ♡ 1.2 k 81 more replies iiherneck OP · 2 hr. ago He is nothing like that. I don't know why you think it's okay to say things like this about a person you've never met. ♡ - 12 22 more replies

55 more replies

holly-jolly-jolliday · 3 hr. ago

I know that there are people who use body mods as a form of transhumanism, extra eyes and anti-surveillance sigils and everything, but even then it's such a leap to assume you were doing this out of fear and not because it's cool to have 360 degree vision.

It sounds like maybe he read a bunch of William Gibson and got into the whole mindset. Does he have tattoos of his own? Maybe that's why he made the assumption?

♡ 794

iiherneck OP · 3 hr. ago No, he has zero tattoos of his own. I don't think he knows anything about them. Like why would he think I need them to blink out of sync in order to have one eye open at all times?? They don't have tear ducts. They don't dry up. You could just tattoo on an unblinking eye. I actually know a few people irl with functional eye tattoos. They all say it's really disorienting at first but eventually your brain rewires itself to accommodate it? I do not want to rewire my brain. ♡ 153 14 more replies

half_a_cock · 3 hr. ago

I have no idea what's wrong with your boyfriend, but I just want to say that sounds like a really cool idea for a tattoo.

♡ 171

iiherneck OP · 2 hr. ago Haha, thanks! I got the idea from the Great Gatsby. ♡ 82 4 more replies

9inewives · 3 hr. ago

I don't know why you felt the need to humiliate your boyfriend like this. People who mod themselves with extra eyes statistically tend to be disproportionately concerned with countersurveillance/ sousveillance. It's hardly an outlandish idea to suggest that someone willing to tattoo eyes on themselves might be slightly paranoid about keeping watch.

♡ 35

iiherneck OP · 2 hr. ago Humiliate??? How am I humiliating him?? And I already said that the eyes are purely decorative not functional! ♡ 22 188 more replies

doge65124 · 2 hr. ago

You are totally in denial about what a freak your boyfriend is. Your tattoo might not be functional, but you should definitely start watching your back.

♡ 43

idiots_on_parade · 1 hr. ago OP is absolutely going to end up locked away in her boyfriend's "safehouse" somewhere. ♡ 15

batemanbegins1988 · 43 min. ago

This is not fucking real. On the off-chance that it is, is he some feminist cuck who gets uncomfortable when women flirt with him and needs to buy into the narrative that women are all victims of male attention? Oh no, a woman winked at me, she must have been signalling for help!

♡ - 46

iiherneck OP · 12 min. ago Okay so according to reddit my boyfriend is a feminist cuck, a misogynist incel, a Trump supporter, an abuser, an anti-surveillance expert, and I'm abusing and emasculating him by posting this thread. I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea to go to this website for help. Anyway, if you really want to know, I finally got him to open up and he said he knew someone with functional eye tattoos before, and he assumed they were all like that. That's it. I hope the experts at reddit are happy now. ♡ 2

bidenbathbomb · just now

If he didn't get you were flirting with him, maybe he's gay?

♡ 0

Text: The eyes tattooed on the back of her neck only ever blink one at a time. I wonder what kind of person is that desperate, to always have something watching their back.

[abduct-me-helen]

r/legaladvice

Posted by u/ebouchard 2 months ago

My husband has embarrassed me at the annual institute holiday party for the last time. I want another divorce.

My husband, soon to be ex-husband if all goes as planned, was leering at an archival assistant the other day. He also had a bit too much to drink, and started talking about various…personal activities that I would’ve preferred be undisclosed. Now, I’ve divorced him before, but this time he seems fit to antagonize me and not sign the papers. Not just that, but he’s also disappeared, which isn’t uncommon but is still frustrating when I’m trying to divorce him. He always gets in a hissy fit when I divorce him, but this time he’s just being petty.

Is there a way to divorce him without needing to track him down in order to have him sign the papers? He’s the captain of a ship and when he gets…petulant, he often sails for a few months before returning to his moorhouse. During these times, it’s notoriously hard to contact him, much less find him.

tl;dr: my husband ran away in an attempt to be petty and now I can’t divorce him. What do I do?

Edit: Please stop making remarks on the healthiness of our relationship. It’s none of your business, and we are perfectly fine.

Edit: We got divorced again since I made the first post.

Edit: We are now remarried again.

 crawbed008 3.1k points · 2 weeks ago

    | He always gets in a hissy fit when I divorce him, but this time he’s just being petty.

wait, what do you mean by “always”??

     ebouchard 1.5k points · 2 weeks ago

             whenever I try to divorce him, he acts petulant.

                  sisenore_k 675 points · 2 weeks ago

                          do you divorce him often lmao???

                                    ebouchard 1.2k points · 2 weeks ago

                                        yes.

                          [expand]

getsome_69 352 points · 1 week ago

            op how many times have you two gotten divorced so far

                 ebouchard 2.1k points · 2 weeks ago

                       six, though there were a few we didn’t go through on legally.

                              kokobura2 126 points · 2 weeks ago

                                        SIX??? good god op why do you even keep remarrying

                                              ebouchard 1.5k points · 2 weeks ago

                                                      money.

                                           stonks 782 points · 2 weeks ago

i know op in rl and the real reason is that they’re the    

only people willing to put up with each other

                                                                                   [expand]

r/relationship_advice

Posted by u/bigboyman 1 month ago

I (48M) feel like my husband is very clingy and I’m a person who needs solitude to survive. What should I do?

My husband is always talking to me. I just want to be left alone, but he just keeps on scheming. He’s always ranting about hiding tapes and the watcher’s crown and it is getting tedious having to listen to his, well, words in general.

How should I ask for more space?

 poorandtiredbutyolo 2.2k points · 2 weeks ago

I have a clingy partner too, and what I do is set clear boundaries. I also make sure to set time towards my partner outside of those times when I’m alone, like having dinner every night and having movie/games night once a week.

      bigboyman 1.5k points · 2 weeks ago

           I interact with him far less already then I would if I did that.

                   asunachan3 203 points · 2 weeks ago

                        how much do you talk to him?                                   

                                     bigboyman 1.5k points · 2 weeks ago

                                               at least once every three months

asunachan3 203 points · 2 weeks ago

                                                                   and you’re MARRIED?!???

                                                                            bigboyman 1.2k points · 2 weeks ago

I know, it’s a lot. You see why I can’t stand him being so clingy?

[expand]

 tania9 421 points · 2 weeks ago

    from reading the replies, I can only assume you hate your husband.

                bigboyman 1k points · 2 weeks ago

                                despise, actually.

 [expand]

Pastasauceandspagett 608 points · 1 month ago

      I don’t know how OP could possibly salvage this relationship if they hate each other and only talk every three months.

bigboyman 4.2k points · 1 week ago

                                The wedding is in four days.

 Allicecarter2002 4.2k points · 1 week ago

                               I thought you were already married??

                                                                      bigboyman 4.2k points · 1 week ago

oh, we got divorced about a week after I made the post and then he proposed again a week after that.

                                                                                                 [expand]

 r/pettyrevenge

Posted by u/notjonnydville 3 weeks ago

I had my archival assistants spit in his tea.

My boss is a huge bastard. He is just, awful. He always looks like you’re amusing him but in that kind of way where he’s looking like you like a meal. He is just a horrible human being. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if he killed someone. That’s the kind of person he is.

Anyway, I usually try to keep a professional relationship with my assistants but a few nights ago they invited me to go out for drinks with them and my friend blackmailed me into it. We got hammered. It was a truly…special experience. Ever since then, I’ve been on better terms with them. We even have a groupchat.

The situation goes like this: he’s been ranting to me for the last hour about things I ALREADY KNOW in that pompous, annoying voice of his. Anyway, I texted one of my assistants, I’ll call him M, and M comes in mid rant. I very sternly ask “why haven’t you made [our boss’s name, I’ll refer to him as E] tea yet?”

I kind of put him on the spot and he just stayed there with his jaw dropped. I told him to go make E a cup of tea, so he scurries out.

I wait about 30 seconds and then discretely text the groupchat: “spit in his tea M.”

Anyway, they go absolutely *ballistic* and T, another one of my assistants, sprints halfway across the building (I hear he even knocked into our secretary), just to spit in E’s tea too. My last assistant is a bit wearier but she does it too.

M comes back with the tea and hands it to E before quickly leaving. A few minutes pass and E still hasn’t touched his tea.

So I remind him that M makes very good tea and he’d be disappointed if E didn’t drink it.

There is a quiet battle of wills.

Now, I don’t know how to put this without sounding insane, but our boss…he just *knows* things. He’s psychic, or something like that. There is absolutely NO way he didn’t know the tea was messed with. He knows, he knows I know, and we silently stare at each other without moving.

Finally, *finally*, still making direct eye contact with me, he takes a sip of his tea and purses his lips. I ask him if he isn’t thirsty.

He says he isn’t, and leaves the room. I never did find out what happened to that tea.

tl;dr: I got my archival assistants to spit in my asshole bosses’ tea. It was glorious.

leavemealone 2k points · 2 weeks ago

    holy *shit*, OP, did you ever get in trouble????

           notjonnydville 2.1k points · 2 weeks ago

                   he didn’t have any evidence, so no.

maya_herse331 782 points · 1 week

    did he ever try to get revenge?

           notjonnydville 7.1k points · 2 weeks ago

                   he framed me for murder, but I’m still not sure if that was directly related.

                  [expand]

[championofsanghelios]

Watch Dogs Legion - "M"

This was written by me, remember. So expect the usual errors, typos and word bugs (bzz.) --- [11.11.2029] [THE EARLS FORTUNE] [2044 HOURS] --- "...that's not my point!" Jackson says as he pushes the door open, his waterproof dripping wet from the rain that was lashing down outside. "You need to stop being so reckless, and actually consider the risks to yourself...as well as others."

"There's no fun in being careful!" Wrench replies, following him in. He was absolutely soaked through, but didn't seem to care. "It takes away the unpredictability...which is what I love about those Ops. Just showing up with my Lady Smash and some home made explosives...it's great!"

"That's another thing I need to talk to you about." Jackson pulls off his waterproof, draping it over one of the radiators near the wall. "There's breaking things, then there's vaporizing them..."

Connie comes out of the back room, letting out a laugh when she sees them both. "Well Well, you two took your time getting back."

"Only because this one here decided an Albion Comms Tower needed to be demolished." Jackson says, moving past her into the backroom where he locates a towel to dry his hair. "I'm yet to figure out how he wasn't caught or killed."

"You're making a name for yourself, Reggie." Connie says, moving around to the other side of the bar. "Not entirely sure if it's a good one, but...a name nonetheless."

"Yeah well, I'm just prepared to do whatever is necessary to take this city back." Wrench shrugs, gladly accepting the beer she places on the bar for him. "If that involves blowing up Albion property or smashing up Blume server stacks with my hammer, so fucking be it."

"It's dangerous." Jackson appears from the backroom, tossing the towel at him. "You better change that sweater by the way. You'll catch a chill."

"What are you my mother!?" Wrench let's out a modulated grunt, pulling up his mask slightly and downing about half of the beer he'd been handed. "Give me a break, we made it back okay!"

"And what happens if you end up getting arrested, or seriously wounded?" Jackson asks, opting for a bottle of water instead of anything alcoholic.

"Oh no." Wrench shakes his head placing his bottle down on the bars surface, his exposed mouth smirking. "There's no injuries with me. Either I get the job done, or die trying."

"You genuinely don't care if you live or die?" Jackson asks, giving him a look. "Seriously?"

"I don't have this for nothing." Wrench points at the anarchy symbol on his neck. "I don't live by rules, that includes the ones to do with life and death."

Jackson is about to say something when the door pushes open and Aiden comes in, feeling about as miserable as he looked. He was wet, but not in the same way the two of them were, something else had happened to him. "Wow! What happened to you!"

"I fell in the Thames." Aiden grumbles, shaking the water from the sleeves of his overcoat. "...actually I dove in there after some thugs caught me stalking them."

"Oh that reminds me!" Connie suddenly pipes up, her hand tapping Wrench's right forearm. "There was a bloke in here earlier on. He was asking for you."

"A bloke?" Wrench replies, questions marks lighting up his askew mask. He downs more of his beer. "Who was it?"

"No idea." Connie shakes her head, smiling. She reaches under the bar, taking out a small piece of white card paper. "But he was lovely, all charms...asked me to pass this onto you."

Wrench eyes the card for a second, opting to pull off his mask entirely. He takes a hold of it, turning it around. Someone had written a note in red-ink.

YOU NEED TO ANSWER YOUR PHONE, MAN ALSO THE WEATHER HERE IS NUTS!!! SEND ME A MESSAGE WHEN YOU GET THIS oh...and thank Connie for the free cookies. - M

He suddenly let's out a cough as he chokes on the beer he's drinking. Lifting the card up. "...motherfucker!"

"What?" Jackson stops trying to wrestle his Uncle out of his coat. "What is it?"

"I'll be right back." Wrench says, leaving his beer and his mask at the bar. He heads out into the rain, ignorant to the fact that it was making him wetter than he already was.

Taking his out his phone, he swipes up the contacts tab, scrolling down until he finds the right number. He thumbs it, his Optik lighting up and dialling.

After a tone or two, he hears a click.

"You took your time." Marcus' voice was something that he would never ever tire of hearing, especially now, especially after all of the shit he'd been through the last year or two. "I was wondering if Connie would get that to you."

"You're here." is all Wrench can say, unsure of what he should do now. Part of him wanted to jump for joy, another wanted to cry. "...you're actually here. In London."

"Yeah, I guess I couldn't just sit there in SF and let you have all the fun." Marcus chuckles. "...that little job we did together a few months back reminded me of how much I enjoyed having you around."

"Where are you right now?" Wrench asks, reaching up this face, rubbing at it. "Are you nearby?"

"Why?" Marcus asks, a smile evident in his voice. "You that desperate to see me?"

"Yes." Wrench admits it there and then. In truth there hadn't been anything he wanted to do more than see him again. "...It was the same for me. I didn't realise how much fun I used to have with you until you found me through, Jordi."

He moves over to one of the benches, sitting down on it. All around him, London was going about it's business, people were walking past, umbrellas in hand, hoods covering their heads. Looking out across Parliament Green, he sighs.

"I hear you've been having some fun outwith our little shared Op." Marcus says. "Something about killing Nigel Cass?"

"He had it coming." Wrench snorts bitterly, shaking his head. "Fuckin' maniac thought he could subvert justice and launch a coup...which reminds me, I've got to introduce you to the Dick."

"The Dick?" he hears the Hipster's confusion. "Who's that? Dusan's cousin?"

"Might as well be." the Anarchist nods, smiling to himself. "His name is Richard Malik...and he's a massive prick...but he's been useful to us."

"Wait...is that the same Richard Malik who was appointed Director of SIRS, only to be exposed literally 2 days later?" Marcus asks.

"That's the one." Wrench nods, sitting forwards. Staring at the concrete between his shoes. "I should send you the vids from when Bagley used his own FILAMENT against him."

"FILAMENT?"

"...what were his exact words?" Wrench's eyes narrow. "It's like...Nudle, but with instant access to all information about every person in the UK...basically George Orwell's wet dream."

The laugh that Marcus let's out is cathartic, such a delightfully bright noise, and one he could never get enough of. One he hoped he would hear more of soon.

It's short lived though, as a whole load of other feelings come to the surface in the pause that follows. He deflates a little. "I've missed having you around, M."

"I know." Marcus replies.

"So where are you?" Wrench asks. "Are you coming back this way? Or am I going to have to find you?"

He gets no response to those questions. His eyes narrow slightly. "M?"

Suddenly there's a movement in his peripherals, at which point a hand appears, holding his mask. He looks at it for a second, almost stunned.

"You're making a habit of leaving that thing lying around..." Marcus says, having just sat down next to him. "...am I gonna have to retrieve it for you every time you misplace it?"

Wrench doesn't move, he just sits there, frozen in place. Marcus had aged, much like himself, but not in the way he was expecting. He still looked pretty much the same as he always had, spare the scruff around his face and neck, which had turned into a full beard...and a little tinge of silver hair on his fringe.

Something shifts inside him at that moment, a tightness in his core that he wasn't even aware of unravels. A laughs bubbles out of him, one that turns to a sob half-way, and without so much as a word he puts an arm around him and pulls him into a hug, hiding his face in his shoulder.

"Huh." Marcus says, placing the mask onto his lap and closing the hug. "Of all the reactions I was ready for...this wasn't one of them."

"Shut up." Wrench says, his voice muffled by his shoulder. "Just-...Just shut up."

Marcus laughs out loud again.

. . .

[lostfirefly]

You’ve Got The Same Dream as Me (Ch. 3)

Hello, kiddos! The idea for this fanfic came to me from a dream (again) I had about a month ago. Тhe main characters were Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill (don't ask me why), but with a light hand they have been replaced (sorry, guys). The main action of the dream took place somewhere in the sands. Аlthough this fanfic will feature Sir Crocodile and our beloved Buggy, the action shifts to the desert. No marines, ships etc. Sorry, not sorry :) The devil fruit's abilities are preserved. Catch the Mummy and Indiana Jones vibes :) I have no idea how many chapters there will be. Different titles and names from the original source material will be used to emphasise the general OP's vibe.

Since English is not my native language, errors may occur. As always, feel free to share your thoughts :) 

And thank you to my dear @yujo-nishimura and @laurasoretta for believing in me :)

Description: Catherine, a librarian who is searching for the trail of her sister who went missing on an expedition. Notes in books and diaries lead her to Cairo. There she finds a retailer from an artifact shop who, in exchange for selling her a map and equipment, insists that Catherine take her along. They get into a little (or maybe a big) adventure.. 

Warnings: 12+, I think. As always, no smut, angst, violence. Adventures and fun only. Buggy x OC, Sir Crocodile x OC.

Words: 1430 (sorry, not sorry)

The title is taken from «You've Got the Same Dream as Me» (Sonya Belousova & Giona Ostinelli) (One Piece, Netflix)

✎﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

Chapter 1 Chapter 2

✎﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

Rika and Catherine held their way to a small bar. 

"Is this man of yours reliable? Can he be trusted?" Catherine could hardly contain her excitement.

"I wouldn't trust a clown like him one hundred per cent, but yes, I can vouch for him", Rika said, scratching her left arm.

"I don't trust you much either, but you probably know the local best, so I don't have a choice".

"I'm sure I do", Rika laughed. "God, you say the strangest things sometimes.

"Okay, well, you have to explain one thing to me. Why we're going to a bar when it's not even noon?".

"Other days we would go to his circus tent. But at eleven o'clock on Wednesday morning this man can be only here", Rika pointed to the bar sign. 

“Don't be like Tangerine and Drink at Arlong's”? Catherine squinted, putting a hand to her forehead, shielding herself from the sun, she read the bar’s title. "What idiotic names these places have". 

The girls entered the bar. Inside, there were massive wooden tables and chairs, the floor was scuffed. Yes, it had clearly seen better days. The air smelled of alcohol and tobacco.

"Why are there pictures of people who look like fish on the walls?" Catherine whispered, nudging Rika lightly in the shoulder.

"Because this bar is run by Arlong, damn it. Once upon a time it belonged to someone else, I honestly don't know who. But the last owner owed Arlong money, so-- The owner was never seen again, and the bar had new owners". 

"But why are they fish?" Catherine whispered again. 

"You've never heard of fish people?" Rika asked in surprise.

"Fish people? No, there aren't any in my country", Catherine shook her head negatively. 

"God, you live a boring life there. Wait a second..."

Rika suddenly stopped a man passing by with a tray. Honestly, he looked more like a squid or an octopus with the human body. 

"Hey, Ernie. Have you seen our mutual friend? He should be here by now", Rika asked, taking two whiskey glasses from the fishmonger's tray.

"He's over there by the bar top. How did you not notice him right away", the squid replied with a grin. 

"Thank you, sweetie, you can go now", Rika nudged Ernie lightly in the back and turned to Catherine. "He's here, just as I thought. Please, Catherine, honey, do me a favour. Just don't stare at his nose, or he'll freak out and we won't get anything out of him".

Catherine shrugged, not fully understanding the last comment. 

"Buggy, mate! You don't change! It's good to see you in good health", Rika said cheerfully as she approached the blue-haired man.

"And hello to you, my cookie", the man turned round in his chair towards the girls. 

Catherine could barely contain her surprise. He was a tall man with blue hair that was covered by a striped bandana. His face was covered with makeup. Lipstick smeared around his mouth, drawn crossed white bones and blue lines near his green eyes adorned the man's face. But the first thing that caught her eye was his red nose. 

"Now I understood why she asked about the circus. Damn, he looks like a clown", the thought flashed through Catherine's mind.

"Please tell me that glass is for me. You owe me one after your loss in our drunken roulette game last month", said Buggy, pointing to the drink.

"Don't remind me of that night, please", Rika rolled her eyes and placed one glass in the clown's hands. 

"Come on, it wasn't that bad. You even went home with a cute cook", he replied with a laugh.

"You're a jerk", Rika replied with a chuckle, sipping her whiskey. 

"I think we figured that out a long time ago. So.. Wait...", Buggy glanced at Catherine, "who's that with you? Is that for me, too? Well, look, Rika, my biscuit, you certainly lost last time, but this is too generous".

"Gross", Catherine cursed out loud.

"What did you just say, cotton candy?" Catherine could hear the irritation in Buggy's voice.

"I said tha….", she didn't finish the sentence. 

"Okay, okay, guys, calm down. We got off on the wrong foot", Rika took Catherine by the shoulder and sat her down at the bar to Buggy’s right. "Buggy, this is Catherine. Catherine, this is Buggy. And I'm not going to ask you to make up on pinky toes. Now let's have a drink to lighten the mood". 

When the waiter brought everyone a glass of whiskey, Rika sat down on Buggy's left. They began to whisper about something. Catherine leaned slightly over the counter to get a better look at his big red nose. 

After a couple of seconds, noticing her interested look in his side-eye, Buggy stood up abruptly and walked away. 

"Could you please not stare? I told you!", said Rika with irritation in her voice. 

"I di…, I didn't... I've never seen anything like it. Is it real?"

"What? His nose? Yes, so what? Do you have a problem with that?" Rika sipped her whiskey, giving Catherine an angry look.

"What? No, I don't. He’s… He's cute. Even with that nose", Catherine blushed a little. 

The girls sat alone for a few minutes, until finally Buggy came back and plumped down on a chair. 

"Hey, fishy, let's have some more whisky! A bottle!" he said, making a characteristic gesture with his hand.

"Look, Buggy", Catherine mumbled, "I'm sorry if I offended you… by staring.. staring at your nose". 

"Baby, I'm Buggy the Genius Jester, you can't offend me", he said with a laugh, "So, Rika, my dear pie, what brings you to me? I'm sure it wasn't just a drink".

Rika cleared her throat.

"Listen, we need to get to the Sabaody Desert. You've been there a few times before, you know the way". 

"Why do you need to go there?" asked Buggy, opening a bottle of whiskey. 

"I'm looking for my sister", Catherine said loudly, she was very surprised at how loud she sounded. 

"And? What do you want from me? Find some young boys or grandfathers, I don't care who will take you there", he sipped the whiskey from the neck of the bottle. 

"But you know those places better than anyone in this town", Rika replied, putting her hand on his shoulder. 

Irritation came over Catherine. She seemed to be wasting her time with meaningless conversations.

"Look, I was told you're the coolest guy in this town", she made air quotes, "And you can be trusted. But the way I see it, you're just a drunken piece of shit". 

She jumped up from her chair. 

"Catherine, calm down and sit", Rika hissed.

"No, let's leave and find someone else. I don't want to waste my time talking to a grown man who painted himself to look like a clown".

"She's so boring, why did you bring her? She's ruining my buzz!", Buggy looked at Rika with surprise, pointing the neck of the bottle at Catherine.

"Don't you dare point that slobber bottle at me, you jerk!" she slapped his arm. 

"Sorry, your highness", he bowed royally. 

Rika threw an angry look at Catherine.

"I said sit down!" she drilled her with her eyes.

"Shit.. Are you sure that jackass is the best and can help us?" Catherine asked with surprise in her voice, pointing at Buggy.

"Baby, I'm the best at everything", he said, running his hand down Catherine's neck.

"Alright, lovebirds, that’s enough", Rika slapped her hands on the table, "Cathie, show him what you showed me". 

Catherine growled and quickly pulled diaries, maps, notes out of her bag and placed them on the table.

"See?" Rika smiled. 

"Fuck me! What's that? You think this is... Coordinates?" Buggy grabbed the diary and started flipping through it. "I wonder... Very interesting. You're not so simple, pumpkin", he reached out and started running his hand through Сatherine's hair. She yanked back.

"There's what you love so much, my dear clown. Treasure! Don't tell me looking at those cards didn't make you think of it", Rika whispered in his ear. 

"I can pay you to take us there. And if there's really something in there. I don't know.. gold or diamonds or women or whatever you want to find, you can have it. Please!" Catherine looked at him with pleading in her eyes.

"Of course, you'll pay, my cotton candy, I wouldn't get out of my chair for free", Buggy glanced at Catherine. She suddenly felt goosebumps run down her spine. "Well, when do we start?"

[just-dreaming-marvel]

Love and Medicine ~ 14

MASTERLIST

< previous chapter

Word Count: 5,000ish

Summary: Just another day at the medical center, right? (Based off Grey’s Anatomy)

Heading back into the hospital, you went straight for Natasha’s room. The other interns were already in there, surrounding her bed.

“Hey,” you smiled, walking over to her. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay,” she responded. “I’m okay.”

You grabbed her hand and gave it a slight squeeze. She needed to know that you were there for her, but you weren’t going to push her into talking about something she wasn’t ready to talk about.

~~~

You slammed down a shot, needing to feel the alcohol rush down your throat. 

“How was Nat when you left, Scott?” Val asked, bringing more drinks over.

“She said she was okay, again,” he responded with a slight shrug.

“Nobody goes what she went through and is totally over it by now.”

“Natasha can.”

“She’s fine,” you added, taking another shot.

“Too fine,” Val said. “She’s cold.”

“No, she’s hardcore,” Clint said. “She’s got ice in her veins. She does what she has to do to get through it.”

“She lost a baby. She lost a fallopian tube and she’s acting like she doesn’t even care. She’s acting like she has no emotions or warmth, like she’s missing a soul.”

“She’s gonna make a great surgeon.”

“Clint!”

“It’s true. You show no weakness, you make it to the top.”

“Some people just keep their feelings to themselves,” you commented.

Your eyes were on the door, where Steve had just walked in. If he noticed you, he didn’t make it noticeable. You watched as he walked over to the bar and sat beside Gamora. Steve ordered a drink from Happy before talking to Gamora. Too bad you were too far away to hear them.

“Y/N kissed me,” Steve told Gamora. “Peggy kissed me… My wife and my girlfriend kissed me on the same day.”

“Happy, do I look friend to you?” Gamora asked.

“Oh, you’re a tiny little kitten of joy and love,” Happy responded, only for Gamora to make a face. “What? He saved my life.”

“His first mistake.” She took a sip of her drink. “Captain McDreamy, go sit by someone who cares.”

“Oh gee,” Steve mocks hurt, but doesn’t make a move to go. “Everything’s gonna be fine. Peggy will leave. Y/N and I will start over. Everything’s gonna be fine. Right?”

“You are so damn stupid.”

~~~

“With Natasha out, I need everyone focused today,” Gamora told her group of interns as you all headed off to rounds. “I have a feeling it’s gonna be be one of those days and since we’re short an intern, you do not want to get on my bad side.”

“When are we not on her bad side?” You whispered to Clint.

“Speak for yourself,” he replied with a scoff. “Scott and I are her favorites.”

The group walked into their first patients room. The woman was sitting on the bed, enthralling a group of hospital workers with a tell.

“So we're in the middle of the Belizean jungle and this jaguarondi jumps out and bites one of the guides,” the woman says. “They all look at me. They're yelling, "You're a doctor, help him!" This is one time a PhD does no good.” The people laugh.

“Sorry,” Gamora interrupted, “did I miss the memo about social hour?” Everyone quickly began leaving besides your group.

“Tales of missionary life,” the woman explained.

“You’re a missionary?” Val asked.

“No, my parents. We traveled a lot. Well, they still do.”

“Lang, tell me about our patient,” Gamora ordered.

“Okay, um, this is Dr. Banner’s patient, Talya,” Scott explained. “She, uh, presents with multiple syncopal episodes and ventricular arrhythmias.”

“So you’ve been passing out?” Gamora asked.

“Yeah,” Talya confirmed, “and having palpitations.”

“Talya has past medical history of rheumatic heart disease with mitral valve stenosis,” Scott added.

“They had to ship me from Zambia to the States for 3 months of treatment when I was 8,” Tayla said. “Rheumatic fever almost killed me.”

“Someone please tell me what the primary causes of ventricular arrhythmias are,” Gamora said.

Before anyone in the room could responded, Natasha appeared in the doorway. She leaned up against it in her hospital gown with her IV stand.

“Valvular disease, mitral valve prolapse, stimulants, drugs, and metabolic abnormalities,” Natasha answered.

“Out!” Gamora ordered.

“I’m fine.”

“Out! And you better be in your bed by the time we round on you!”

“And when will that be?”

“In 15 seconds. 14. 13. 13. 11.” 

Natasha turned around to head to her room, revealing her underwear through her nightgown. The group of interned laughed.

“Nice panties, Romanoff!” Peter laughed.

Natasha flips him the bird as she keeps waking. “In your dreams, Quill.”

They followed Natasha into the room, where she huffed as she got back into bed.

“L/N,” Gamora called.

“Right,” you responded. “Natasha Romanoff. Post-op day 3 from a unilateral salpingectomy.”

“And ready to get back to work,” Natasha said. “I'm taking solids and my pain is controlled with oral meds. I'm ready.”

“Well, it says here on your chart on you had a fever?”

“Y/N,” Nat growled.

“Natasha, did you have a fever?” Gamora questioned.

“Temp spiked to 101 last night. Big deal.”

“She worked 2 shifts last month with a 102 degree flu,” Clint added.

“Yes! Exactly, Clint. Thank you.”

“And we appreciate your dedication but you're staying in bed until it normalizes,” Gamora said. “You need to relax, shut up, and get better. You're a patient this week so you can be a doctor next week. Understand?”

“I understand,” Natasha grumbled.

~~~

Rounds had finished as you were heading to your assignment when you ran into Steve near the elevators.

“Skipping rounds?” He wondered.

“No,” you replied. “They just finished.” You kept walking, when Steve took your arm to stop you.

“Y/N…”

“You’ve got a wife.”

“Yes.”

“You’re life is complicated.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t need more complicated. I have that all on my own.”

“Yes.”

“Stop saying yes.”

Steve smiled. “I’m trying not to make any sudden movements.”

“You think this is funny?”

“Peggy’s leaving. She doesn’t have any more patients. There’s no reason for her to be here.”

“No reason? Really?”

“No really whatsoever.”

Steve stepped closer, bringing his hand up to brush your cheek. You stood there, trying to not let it get to your head or, well, anywhere else. Suddenly, Peggy appeared.

“Well now, isn’t this cozy?” She said. “Can I join in or are you not into threesomes?”

“I have to go,” you said, rushing away. You didn’t go too far, interested to watch everything unfold.

“Y/N…” Steve called with a sign. He turned to Peggy. “You really are Satan. You realize that right? If Satan were to take physical form, he'd be you. Everywhere, all the time.”

“I am so not Satan,” Peggy responded.

“How come you haven't got on your broomstick and gone back to where you belong?”

“Stop being petty.”

“Stop being an adulterous bitch.”

“You know, you are going forgive me eventually, right? I mean you can't just ... I mean there was a time when you thought of me as your best friend.”

“There was a time where I thought you were the love of my life. Things change.”

Peggy sighed and pulled some papers out of her bag, handing them to Steve. Steve quickly flipped through them.

“Divorce papers,” he said.

“Your lawyer said they're ok. I haven't signed them yet. The ball's in your court. If you sign, I'll sign. I'll sign and be on the first plane out of here.”

“I'll sign them immediately. I want you out of here as soon as possible.”

“Steve, have you ever thought that, even if I am Satan and an adulterous bitch, that I still might be the love of your life?”

Not answering, Steve walks away, completely not noticing you listening in from behind a pillar.

“What are we looking at?” Tony asked, appearing out of nowhere.

“Ah!” You exclaimed, jumping slightly. “Don’t do that!” You playfully hit him. “You scared me.”

“Sorry,” he laughed. “I just saw you over here and I was interested in seeing what you were observing.”

“I think… I think Peggy just handed Steve divorce papers.”

“Really? That actually surprises me. I thought she would put in a little more of a fight.”

“Yeah…”

“I guess that’s good news for you, right?”

“I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I want him to choose me because of me, not because of a divorce.”

“In my ever humble opinion, I think it will always be you. Trust me. That man is whipped.”

~~~

Natasha snuck out of her room and stole her chart. She sat in her bed as she made changes to it. Walking by, Banner looked in and noticed that no one else was in there. He quickly took the chart of Nat.

“Hey! That’s my chart,” Natasha complained.

“You're the patient. Not the doctor. Act like one,” Bruce reprimands as he studies her chart. “It's been tough finding you alone.”

“Yeah? Well…”

“How are you doing?”

“Well, you have my chart, you tell me.”

He sighed. “Natasha, how are you doing?”

“I’m fine. Perfectly okay.”

“I had a right to know.”

“Well, now you do.”

“Natasha—“

“Look. Now you know. It’s over. There’ soothing for you to deal with. So I don’t know what else there really is left to say.”

“Plenty. For starters you could've come to me—“

“And what? We could have raised it together? Or you could have held my hand when I got the abortion? I did not need any of that. I’m an intern.”

“Nat—“

“Can you just go? I need to rest. Doctor’s orders.”

~~~

Gamora called you to help her with a patient. You two walked into the patient room together, revealing a younger man on the bed.

“I thought I told you I never want to see you again,” Gamora said to the patient.

“That's only cause you're too lazy to learn anything more,” the man responded.

“Dr. Y/N L/N, this is Nick Tate. He thinks he knows so much cause he was one of my first patient's as an intern.”

“I knew as much as she did. She was clueless about how to treat cystic fibrosis. A simple cholecystectomy turned into a month-long stay.”

“Better not be alleging malpractice. Guy raises about a 100 grand a year for cystic fibrosis, running triathlons. Thinks he's a big shot.”

“Wait, you run triathlons?” You questioned, confused how it could as a patient with cystic fibrosis.

“Yeah, why not?” He responded.

“It’s a pain for one,” Gamora replied, flipping through the chart. “Says here you're finally admitting to feeling a little unwell?”

“A little.”

“How little? Truth.”

“Oh, enough to keep me awake at night. Had some seizures. Um, too weak to work out.”

“Anyone been through here with your CT results?”

“No. It's probably just my pancreatitis kicking up again.”

“All right then. We'll be back. With your results and a plan.” Gamora walked to the door, with you following. She glanced back at Nick. “Huh, where do your parents think you are this time?”

He smiled. “Hmm, San Diego.”

Gamora shakes her head as you follow her the rest of the way out of the room.

“What about his parents?” You asked. “Shouldn’t he, or we, tell them?”

“No, he doesn't like to bother them until he's well or about to get discharged. He understands his reality. He just chooses to ignore it. Denial works for him, L/N.”

~~~

After Bruce had left, it only took Natasha two minutes to have found blue scrubs and change into them. She took out her IV and snuck out to the nurses station. She began looking through patient charts. The head nurse, Phil Coulson, found her like that.

“Where’s your IV?” He asked, looking at her with a disappointed father face.

“I've taken solids. I HEP-locked it,” Natasha replied.

“On whose orders?”

“Mine.”

“Okay.” Phil quickly found her chart and began reading it. “Romanoff. How about this order: best rest, out of bed to chair, bathroom privileges. Nothing about stealing charts at the nurses station.”

“Okay, you know what….” She quickly looked around to find a nearby empty wheelchair. She brought it over and sat down in it. “There, satisfied? I’m out of bed to chair.”

“I’m telling your intent on you.”

“Y/N?”

“Yeah.”

“Oooh, I’m so scared.”

She wheeled off with a patient chart, heading to Tayla’s room. When she arrived, she witnessed Tayla, by herself, taking a pill.

“I saw that!” Natasha exclaimed from her wheelchair in the doorway. “I saw you take that pill.”

“Oh it's, it's my pill,” Tayla excused. “You know... the pill.”

Natasha quickly looked over the chart. “It’s not at all in your chart and you are supposed to tell us the meds you are on.”

“You’re not my doctor. You shouldn't even be here.”

“She’s right,” Val said, appearing from behind. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I saw her take unauthorized medication!” Natasha continued.

“Well, you’re unauthorized to be here.”

“I’m on the pill and I had grapefruit juice this morning,” Tayla explained. “Since the juice inhibits enzymes involved in the metabolism of OCPs, I thought I'd avoid the interaction by taking it two hours after my meal.”

“She's has a doctorate in neuropharmacology, Natasha.”

Natasha huffed, “Well, Val, I don’t see any place where oral contra—“

“Okay so now you will. Will you just go back to bed and stop bothering the other patients?”

Tayla’s heart monitor suddenly started racing, bringing the other women attentions to her. She fell to the floor, unconscious, and Val rushed to her.

“She’s in V-FIB!” Natasha said. 

“Call the code,” Val ordered as she began compressions.

Natasha practically jumped out of her chair to call a code, which didn’t feel good. Val got Tayla back as the code team arrived.

“No code?” The nurse questioned.

“Not anymore,” Val answered. “Can you help get her back into bed.

“I’ll—I’ll help,” Natasha breathed got, struggling to get back to her wheelchair. “Just give me a minute.”

“Would you just go back to bed? Seriously, please just go.”

Natasha nodded as she finally made it to the wheelchair. “Just… if she’s on OCP’s, mark it down. Okay, Val?”

“Yeah.”

~~~

You had gotten Nick’s x-ray’s back and were currently putting them up to view them with Gamora by your side.

“Nick’s got a mass in his midepigastrium,” you explained. “Diffused enlargement of the pancreas. That, with his hypoglycemic seizures—“

“He's going to need an exploratory laparotomy. But, despite his triathlons, his lungs still make me hesitant to cut,” Gamora added.

“What are we going to do?”

“I haven’t gotten that far yet.”

“Doctors,” Peggy greeted.

“Dr. Carter-Rogers.”

“How old is he?” Peggy asked, studying the x-rays.

“26.”

“Survivor, huh?”

“And them some. My patient for at least 5 years. I'm not gonna lose him now.”

“You planning a laparotomy?”

“Hmm. You know, I think I could help you with this. I've seen one case like this before in a 9 year old. We ended up having to do a total pancreotectomy.”

“I'd be honored to take any help you can give me.”

“You’re a neonatal specialist,” you said. “What, uh… this isn’t your area.” Gamora looked at you, annoyed, as she shock her head. “I’m just saying that—“

“I did 2 years genetic research in cystic fibrosis,” Peggy told you. “I've pretty much seen it all, Dr. L/N.”

“Oh.”

~~~

Walking down the hall, Steve found you. Always trying his best to make a conversation with you. This time it was easy.

“Are you sure your wife is leaving?” You questioned. “She offered to help on the case Gamora has me working on.”

“Just because she offered her services doesn't mean she intends to stay,” Steve responded.

“Well, what does it mean? Because it seems to me—“

“It means that she's a good doctor.”

“Huh… why are you suddenly defending her?”

“I’m not. Y/N, she gave me divorce papers. She filed.”

“Good for you.”

“All I have to do is sign, and I’m free… We’re free.”

“Is there anything to think about?”

“No,” he shook his head, “of course not. I have to read through them, sign, then Peggy’s on the next plane out of here.” He grabbed your hands. “This is going to work.”

~~~

After the conversation he had with you, Steve immediately went searching for Gamora.

“Of all the fine doctors in the city, you accept a consult from Peggy Carter,” Steve said, angrily.

“Carter-Rogers, isn’t it?” Gamora retorted.

“The point is she should be on her way home. Are you purposefully trying to drive me crazy?”

“You think this has something to do with you?” Gamora’s voice was loud and upset. “You think I’m even thinking about you and your romantic problems? I’m trying to help a patient very near and dear to my heart. And if consulting with your wife—your ex—your mistress, what ever it is that she becomes! If that’s the thing I have to do to save my patient, them I’m damn well gonna do it.”

“I understand… and I totally deserve the yelling. It’s just that—“

“Just, you look! You have put yourself between two very fine women and you looking for an easy way out and you wanna use me, and the hospital and... somebody to make the decision for you, and it's not gonna happen!”

“Could I just… could I just say a couple of things?”

“No.” Gamora stormed off.

~~~

You found Natasha sitting in her bed, in her room. Thankfully. Though she was looking through another patient’s chart. You pulled a chair up to her bedside and sat down in it with a sigh.

“What’s your problem?” Natasha asked.

“Peggy gave Steve divorce papers, which is good. I mean she’s still here, being Peggy, but it’s not like I’m jealous or anything.”

“That’s odd.”

“It’s odd I’m not jealous?”

“No, you have every right to be jealous. It's your territory and she's peeing all over it.” Natasha went back to focusing on the chart in her hands. “What’s odd is Banner’s patient.”

“Tayla?”

“Yeah. She’s been in 4 other hospitals this year. You know something’s not right.”

“You seem awfully interested in Banner’s patient.”

“This has nothing to do with Bruce.”

“Natasha, you lost a fallopian tube, a baby and a boyfriend all in one day. You have the right to be upset.”

“And you’re losing Captain McDreamy to his perfect wife. You have the right to be jealous.”

“I did not lose Captain McDreamy. Divorce papers, remember? And I’m not jealous.”

“And I’m not upset. I really need to get out of here.”

“You’re on bedrest, remember?”

“Okay, if the situation was reversed, would you wanna spend time with your mother in a confined room with one window?”

“No. I guess not. But still. You need to stay put.” 

Before Natasha could respond, your pager beeped. You looked down at it and groaned.

“I got to go,” you muttered, leaving.

“Good luck!”

~~~

Peggy and Gamora met you in Nick’s room. There you began explaining the surgery to him.

“We won't know for sure until we go in there, but it looks like that I'm going to have to take out your pancreas and re-route your intestines,” Peggy said.

Nick looked at Gamora. “Did you tell her that my lungs don't do well with anesthesia?”

“Don’t I always have your back?” Gamora retorted.

“Your kidney function is decreasing rapidly and I'm afraid you're gonna go into multi-system organ failure if we don't operate,” Peggy continued.

“If I say no?” Nick wondered.

“There’s no guarantees, Nick. You know that,” Gamora answered. “It's gonna be a long, hard surgery and put a lot of stress on your body.”

“Yeah,” he smiled, “but I’m me.”

She smiled back. “But you’re you.”

“So if we don’t operate, I die. And if… we do operate, I may die.”

“Basically, yes,” Peggy responded.

“Well, I like those odds. And 26 years with this disease is awesome. And that's the reality. So if I get lucky ... great. And if I don’t…” Nick grabbed Gamora’s hand, “it’s been sweet.”

“It’s gonna stay sweet,” she replied.

~~~

Natasha was laying on her bed with her harm over her eyes when Clint walked into the room. Tayla’s chart was laid out on top of her.

“Why do you have that?” He asked.

“I’m working,” Nat answered. “Trying to figure out what’s going on with the crazy woman on four.”

“You are the crazy woman on four. Though, I have to say, you have a better patina than me and you don’t even really have a patient.” Clint plopped down in the chair next to her bed. “Y/N’s got a CF case. Peter has a gunshot wound. Val’s got the mystery arrhythmias. I have babysitting a crazy old lady! I’d rather do scut with Scott than this! I’m a surgeon. A cutter. I don’t want to be a fake surgeon! I want to be a real one!”

“She’s faking it,” Nat repeated to herself. She quickly got off the bed. “The missionary. Talya… Thank you!” 

She patted Clint’s head as she walked by. Natasha headed straight for the nurses station, where she saw Val looking around for something.

“Val!” Natasha called. “How how Talya’s studies been?”

“Hey!” Val responded, not pleasantly as she took the chart from Nat. “I’ve been looking everywhere for that!”

“Negative, right?”

“Oh! The echo tests showed mild mitral stenosis, the tilt test was negative. We're doing EP studies.”

“I can tell you what's wrong with her without sticking electrodes in her heart.”

“Really. Just by the chart?”

“No, from the pill she took.”

“They were contraceptives, Natasha! Why are you so obsessed with this? Just go back to bed!”

“I think she’s doing this to herself.”

“You think she's inducing ventricular arrhythmias? She'd have to be crazy to do—“

“No, no, no. She'd have to have Munchausen’s.”

“Okay wait. You think she's secretly ingesting something to produce real symptoms? Seriously?”

“Yes. Run it by Banner and tell me what he thinks.”

“Why don’t you tell him yourself. He is standing right behind you.” Val made eye contact with the man. “Dr. Banner.” 

Then Val left. Leaving Natasha will Bruce. She sighed as Bruce guided her into the small office nearby before listening to her.

“I mean, she obviously loves the patient role. She practically lives in hospitals. And... and, and we're like an imaginary family to her because her really family blows her off to go take care of other people.... And, and I saw her take something.”

“It's not enough,” Bruce said, shaking his head. “We have to rule out everything else. Everything physical.”

“She even lied about her job. She's a pharmacy tech, not a PhD.”

“So she's a liar. I've been lied to before.”

“Hey, we're not talking about us here.”

“Maybe we should be.”

“I didn’t lie!”

“You withheld the truth from me. How was00”

“Okay, you know what? I distinctly remember you breaking things off with me. And you didn't seem so upset about it. And this?” She motioned between herself and Bruce. “This is, this is not a relationship. This is not real.”

“Natasha…”

“Okay, and, and so what's with the big display of fake hurt and drama?” She began walking out of the room.

“Natasha!”

“I’m supposed to be in bed.”

~~~

You absolutely did not want to be in surgery with Peggy. Yet there you were.

“I need more traction,” Peggy stated. “Dr. Y/N?” You quickly did as you were told.

“Here,” Gamora called, “give me some suction there.” So you did. “Now L/N, retract the duodenum. Good. How’s he doing Vis?”

Vis was keeping watch over Nick’s vitals and such. “Harder to ventilate and no urine output since we started,” Vis informed.

Peggy shook her head, “he’s shutting down.”

“Did you increase his peak pressures?” Gamora asked.

“Any higher, I blow his lungs,” Vis responded before the monitor beeped. “Bradycardia. Pushing 1 of atropine.”

“Try ventilating him manually,” Peggy ordered, “see if he starts coming back up.” Vis began pushing on a bag.

“Did we miss any bleeders?” Gamora wondered.

“The surgical field is clear.”

The monitor began beeping faster. “Agonal rhythm,” you said.

“Any pulse with that?” Gamora asked.

“No carotid,” Vis answered.

“Okay, starting CPR.” Gamora handed over her tools and begun CPR. “Push one of EPI.”

“No extraordinary measures, Gamora,” Peggy warned. “He’s DNR.”

“No this is just good medicine.” Sh continued CPR, almost frantically. “Come on! Come on! Don’t give up. Come on.”

“You’re getting tired,” you noted. “Let me take over, Dr. Gamora.” She nodded, letting you quickly switch her places.

“Gamora, his intestines are cyanotic,” Peggy stated. “There’s no blood circulating.”

“It’s been shunted to his brain where he needs it,” Gamora responded as she studied your CPR form. “You call those compressions.” She shoved you to the side and took over CPR. You and Peggy made eye contact, worried. “Fight it. Come on.” Peggy looked around, shaking her head, and everyone stopped what they were doing. All but Gamora. “Why isn’t anyone moving? Whose recording?”

“It's been ten minutes since we've had a perfusing rhythm.” Peggy goes to stop Gamora but is shrugged off. The monitor flat lines. “It’s your call, Gamora.”

Taking a shaky inhale, Gamora stopped. She pulled off her mask as the monitor continues to flat line. “Asystole.” She looked up at the clock. “Time of death: 19:35.”

Gamora rushed out of the OR, trying not to cry. She went straight to the sinks and began cleaning her hands furiously. She paused when she noticed people covering up Nick’s body. Peggy walked in and started washing her hands as well, with you following. You both eyed Gamora a few times, worried. Soon, she left.

Peggy sighed. “It’s hard to accept the end when you’re too close.” She looked down as she slipped her wedding ring back onto her finger. She noticed you watching. “Look, I don't want someone who doesn't want me, Y/N. But if there's the slightest chance that he does, I'm not leaving New York.”

~~~

Val walked into Natasha’s room, not excited for the news she was about to tell her.

“Well?” Natasha asked.

“You were right,” Val sighed. “Talya definitely suffers from Munchausen’s.”

“See I was right…. I was right…” She closed her eyes. “I was right…” Nat began to cry. “I was right. I was… I was right. Oh… I’m—I’m—“ She let out a sob. “I’m right. I’m—I’m right.”

Val looked out of the room to see Clint walking by. “Clint! Page Y/N!”

Clint hurried in. “Why? What—what’s happening? What did you do to her?”

“She just started crying and I don’t know what to do!”

“I’ll get one of the nurses to page, Y/N.” Clint rushed out.

“Natasha,” Val tried, slowly coming closer. “Natasha, calm down.”

“The nurses paged her!” Clint came rushing back in.

“It’s okay, Nat.” Val went in for a hug, only for Nat to shrink away and cry harder. “Okay, okay. I won’t hug you.”

“What’s going on?” You came running in, panicked.

“I can’t stop!” Nat cried. “I can’t—-I can’t stop…”

“Crying,” Val finished for her. “She can’t stop crying.”

“I can’t see that!” You replied. “What did you guys do to her?”

“Nothing!”

“She’s going to dehydrate,” Clint said. “Nat, do you want some water?”

Nat shook her head, “no, no…” You tried to go in for a hug, only to be pulled away.

“NO!” Clint and Val exclaimed.

“I already tried that,” Val said. “It just made it worse.” Clint tentatively handed Nat a tissue.

“Natasha,” you tried again.

“Make—make it stop,” Natasha sobbed. “Make it stop… Somebody sedate me!”

“What’s going on in here?” Bruce asked, walking in. He was dressed like he was about to leave. There was clear concern etched on his face. 

“We can’t get her to stop crying,” you replied.

“Y/N, get everyone else out of here.” Bruce was taking off his jacket. “Watch the door.”

You nodded, quickly ushering Clint and Val out. They voiced protests, but willing left. You shut the door behind you and watched. Peeking through the window, you watched as Bruce got in the bed beside Nat. He wrapped his arms around her and brought her close, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. Natasha willingly curled into him, welcoming his comfort. You sighed and turned away, leaning against the door to keep watch. Steve noticed you and came up.

“Hey,” he smiled.”

“Hey.”

“When are you off?”

“Uh,” you glanced at your watch, “in about an hour. Why?”

“Meet me at Happy’s when you get off.” He started walking backwards, sly smirk on his lips. “Don’t be late.”

~~~

Steve and you arrived at Happy’s bar at the same time. He gave you a smile as he held the door open for you. You walked over to an empty table, Steve close behind.

“I’m glad we’re doing this,” you said.

“Me too,” Steve replied. He set it briefcase on his chair. “Want a drink?”

“Yes, please.”

Turning around, Steve knocked his briefcase onto the ground. A stack of papers slipped out.

“I’ve got it,” Steve quickly said, bending down.

“I’ll get it,” you said, picking up the papers.

You glance at the papers as you stand back up. There his divorce papers, that he has yet to sign.

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