#or did sam just hear something about a weird old white guy and assume it was bucky

[textsfromtheavengers]

[lovelybarnes]

baby blue- b. barnes

pairings: bucky barnes x reader, tony stark bruce banner, steve rogers, sam wilson warnings: child bucky, language, this is long. why is this so long about: requested by @cherry-season (apparently can't tag you)! bucky turns into a baby/toddler and is clingy a/n: okay so i know virtually nothing about three-year-olds. can you tell? thank you so much for requesting!! I had so much fun writing this <333

[@tylard-blog1]

bucky’s day wasn’t particularly fantastic to begin with.

he was already exhausted when he woke up in the early lights of the morning, his nightmares had kept him up all night-- which you theorized was due to the mission the day before that took place in one of the same hydra bases bucky had been held in. you had frowned when you realized it the day of, turning your attention to bucky and making sure he was okay with it because if he wasn’t, you would make sure someone else took care of it. he had insisted it was fine, even though the next night proved him wrong. you had done what you could, running your fingers through his hair and humming lightly until you fell asleep and he refused to wake you up, resigning himself to a sleepless night.

his morning started with his flesh arm reaching out to feel your side of the bed, hoping to find your soft, warm skin to pull you closer, but instead being met with the unkind sheets that missed the gentleness of your body. he had frowned when he realized you had already left for a meeting with some important hotshot in space with carol (you couldn’t find a better excuse to go get breakfast at your favorite alien restaurant with your favorite aliens) and wouldn’t be back for a solid few hours too long. groaning, and with no real reason to stay in bed for any longer without the excuse of getting to feel you for a few more hours, he dragged himself out of bed.

it didn’t get much better from there, because he was greeted with the sight of sam eating the last bowl of the last box of cereal in the whole damn tower because everyone rejected to go grocery shopping. since bucky refused to eat any of the frozen breakfasts tony loved so much and the stark kid swore were “the best thing ever,” he grunted at sam and walked away without eating, knowing he’d regret it later when his stomach would growl and you would immediately know he skipped breakfast.

for some unknown reason, tony had found out about bucky’s lack of things to do, and with a few winks and manipulative large-worded engineering phrases, convinced him to join him in the lab, which bucky had only really been able to see through the clear glass that separated the lab from the rest of the tower, and from the occasions where he would take food and drinks to you while you locked yourself away inside, building something alongside tony.

being inside, so close to the various machines and objects bucky cant begin to figure out the purpose of, his memories of being in school and at the top of his math and engineering classes bubble to the surface, filling him with the pride he remembers having every day at school. the thought that he could probably understand everything if you or tony explained it to him passes through his mind and urges him to ask tony to do just that, but tony beats him before he can get the chance.

bruce is eyeing them wearily from the other side of the lab, attention mostly on the test tubes in front of him. he gives bucky a smile when he comes in, but seems to ignore him for the most part until tony shows bucky to bruce’s work station, pointing out a blue liquid in a test tube marked TESTING. bruce’s neck snaps to them when tony open his big mouth, “you know, y/n was actually supposed to test something out for me today,” tony begins innocently, a suggestion laced in his words that bucky catches but decides to ignore because of the high he feels from understanding the equations scribbled on the clear glass, “do you know where she is?”

bucky narrows his eyes at him, then looks up at the clock, realizing it’s still a while before you get back, “not even on earth,” he recipes blandly, slyly sneaking a glance at the liquid for any indications of what it could be.

tony sighs dramatically, his shoulders sagging, “oh no, how do i test this now?” bruce shoots tony a warning glance that is blatantly ignored.

bucky’s shrugging before he can help it, the reminder that since you were going to do it, what could be the harm if he did? “i could do it.”

tony claps, “great!” he gestures to a door behind him, “please go in there to sign non-disclosure agreements and wash your hands.”

bucky’s shoved inside before he can fully understand the implications of his stupid offer.

-

the thought of asking the basic questions he should have asked before he agreed to test an unidentified liquid comes to bucky nearly an hour later, when the small vial of weird blue liquid sits in front of him, waiting to be drunk. tony and bruce sit in chairs a couple of feet away, clipboards in both of their hands, and interested expressions settled on their features.

“what does this do again?” he asks, squinting at the vial that he doesn’t notice tony isn’t looking at, furrowing his eyebrows when tony waves him off, “something super smart. no side effects or anything.” bucky’s eyes flit down to the little vial again, before they nearly bug out of his head at the humongous laser that is rolled into the room, “what the hell is that.”

“ah,” tony grins, bouncing from his seat to stand next to his invention proudly, “this is what you’re testing out.” bucky cocks his head at the man, “i thought i was drinking blue water. y/n was going to drink blue water.” tony shakes his head, adjusting some dials on the machine, “yeah, no, it was this. pretty sure i told you.”

“you didn’t-” bruce is looking at tony in concern, about to tell him to slow down so bucky has a chance to think all this through again and maybe ask if there is any chance the laser will melt him, when tony clicks a large red button and a bright white light clouds bucky’s vision just as he sees the clock on the exact same time he saw an hour ago, realizing the clock in the billion-dollar lab is broken, and you’re probably getting home any second.

“tony!” he hears bruce yell before his vision goes dark.

it’s only a second until he can pry open his eyes again, a hand curling into a fist, ready to pound stark into tomorrow when he can suddenly feel the nails of his hand digging into his palm. the surprising feeling of it where his vibranium arm should be forces him to look down at a small arm, fully skin and thin. he looks around, noticing his surroundings suddenly have grown very large around him, and the sound of his voice is higher when he tries to speak again.

“what the f-” he mumbles, cutting himself off when a sudden memory of his ma yelling at him to wash his mouth out if he wants to talk like that floods his mind, and he stares down at himself, eyebrows furrowing when he spots his short stature and the tiny hands and feet that look up at him. realization floods him like a wave, raising his chin at the two, tall, gobsmacked men in front of. “was that supposed to happen?” bruce asks quietly, nodding slowly when tony shakes his head, “no.”

there’s a light knock at the door, your hand pushing it open before anyone can stop you, and your tired face peeks in, a glowing smiling adorning your face and your eyes searching for your boyfriend, “hey, do you guys know where bucky is-” your voice cuts through the stunned silence, pausing when you catch the little boy’s eye. at first, you stare at him, your eyebrows pulling together as you get a good look at the familiar cerulean of his eyes and scan the clothing you’d seen on bucky before. for a second, everything is silent, bucky’s eyes are wide and staring as yours bore into them, searching for something you’re nearly touching until you gasp, “bucky?” you choke, reaching for him when he nods, his legs already trying to reach you as fast as they possibly can but they buckle. bucky realizes just then how old he must be now. “oh, baby,” you murmur, gathering him up in your arms before he can fall to the hard ground of the lab. “what the hell did you idiots do to my boyfriend?” you demand, turning to the two scientists who are going over tony’s notes.

bruce glances at tony, tilting his head at him as if to say him. you roll your eyes, not having any more information than when you asked, “tony?” you growl, walking over to the man, not missing the way little bucky’s hand grabs onto your shirt.

“it didn’t- that wasn’t supposed to happen,” tony defends weakly, a lazy shrug pulling at his shoulders. your eyes flash with velvet red, and, without moving a finger, tony’s pulled in front of you, wrapped in red swirls bucky can’t help but gawk at.

“fix it.” you order. tony nods, pursing his lips, “we’ll do that.” bruce looks a little taken aback, looking up from tony’s scribbles and equations. “i don’t think it’ll last more than a day,” he offers helpfully, “whatever it was tony was trying to do wasn’t either.”

bucky’s eyes start to droop, which he assumes is an effect of the sleepless night he just had on his infant body, something that usually wouldn’t affect him in his one-hundred-and-six-year-old self. he hums when he realizes the irony, leaning his head against the welcoming crook of your neck and catching your attention. you turn to him for a moment, softening a little before turning back to tony and glaring at him, “fix it.”

-

steve catches you when you walk out of the lab, his eyes nearly bugging out of his head when he spots the toddler in your arms, “holy shit, that looks exactly like bucky,” he breathes, scanning the dark mussed-up hair and stepping back when bucky opens his eyes. from next to him, sam looks from bucky to you, “did you two have a kid and not tell anyone, because this-”

“is bucky. that’s bucky.” you interrupt, looking at the toddler, “tony messed up with something and… this happened, i don’t completely… bucky’s a baby.”

steve raises an eyebrow, squinting at his best friend, “ha,” he laughs, “wow, he looks exactly like his pictures. he must be about three years old.” bucky blinks at him. “his ma said he was chatting up a storm at that age, though,” steve informs, looking back up at you. sam grins, “has he said anything? i kinda want to hear if he still sounds old.” bucky frowns at him, his pout deepening when sam bursts into laughter, “his grumpy face is the same!”

you look at your boyfriend, tilting your head and smiling a little when you realize he’s right, “you’re cute,” you coo now that you get a good look at him, “you’re so cute,” you murmur, poking his nose with your finger. bucky can’t help the blush that comes to his cheeks. but he slaps away sam’s fingers, scowling at him, “no.” he argues, “no.”

sam frowns, “no old man voice.”

“i hate you,” bucky says to sam, and you laugh, “i think we should leave for now. i need to figure out what will make three-year-old bucky not as grumpy.” sam looks at bucky’s furrowed brows and the same two little lines between them, his eyes flickering back up to yours, “i think that may just be a bucky thing.”

-

you bring bucky to the living room, sitting him down at the edge of the couch and crouching in front of him, watching him and his little crossed arms, bottom lip jutted out against his own will. bucky isn’t used to the emotional control of a child who’s three and can’t control the frustration that’s coursing through him at the moment. the only thing he knows for sure is that he doesn’t want you to leave him again.

“bucky?” you start, looking deep into the wide blue eyes that let you know it is bucky you’re speaking to. “what do you want to do? are you hungry? d’you want to sleep?” bucky shakes his head stubbornly at you, “i want tony to fix this.”

you sigh, “i know, baby. i do too, but until he finds a cure to this, you’re gonna stay small for a couple more hours.” he pouts at that, and you smooth your thumb over his cheek, “no pouting. we can do whatever you want, buck.”

just as he’s about to reject any idea you have, his stomach rumbles loudly, directing your attention to the arms that guiltily cover up his middle. “bucky... did you eat breakfast today?” you query, a lecturing tone sneaking into your words. “sam ate my cereal,” bucky grumbles, crossing his arms.

“bucky!” you exclaim, standing up to turn to the kitchen, “that’s no excuse. i told you you needed to eat--” you’re barely three steps into the kitchen when you hear the pattering of his feet towards you, grubby hands pawing at your legs.

“don’t leave,” he whines, hugging your ankles and sitting down on the floor, “you left all morning,” he mumbles, smushing his cheeks against your calf.

“i’m sorry,” you apologize, bending over to brush away the hair that falls over his eyes. “c’mere,” you murmur, reaching down to pick him up again and bounce him on your hip while you head to the kitchen. “what do you want to eat?” bucky thinks about it for a minute, before smiling, “i want pizza and ice cream.” you frown at him, “i don’t think three-year-olds can eat that. actually, i don’t think anyone should.”

after consulting google on what three-year-olds should eat, you have bucky’s head resting on your shoulder, refusing to let you put him down even as you made him the mac and cheese he had agreed to, still a little upset over the fact you wouldn’t let him eat all the other things he wanted. the only time he let you not carry him was when he was eating, still insisting you sit right next to him to watch as he smeared cheese all over tony’s expensive table.

“okay,” you whisper breathlessly after watching him eat his third bowl of the meal, “i think that’s good.” you shove the dirty dishes in the sink, washing bucky’s hands and wiping at him cheeks with a warm cloth to get the mess he managed to create off. “did you forget how to eat?” you wonder aloud when you finally fnish cleaning him up, watching his small shoulders shrug.

“what do you want to do now? anything you want,” you propose.

“i want you,” he says, reaching his stubby arms out, “cuddles. ‘m sleepy,” he yawns, making grabby hands at you when you take too long to pick him up. “bucky,” you chuckle, complying with him and bringing him into your chest, where he leans his head on your shoulder. “you sure you don’t want to play or something? you don’t want to…” you trail off, trying to think of what three-year-olds do, “walk or read or something?”

bucky grunts in your ear, his eyelids already closing again, “cuddles,” he repeats, balling your shirt up in his little hands.

“okay,” you sigh, bouncing him gently while you walk to your shared bedroom. you pick up a stuffed animal you brought for bucky from one of your most recent missions, “did you sleep last night? is that why you’re so tired?” bucky hums, cuddling further into your chest when you lay down with him on top of you. you hand him the little dog plush, pressing a kiss to his head when he takes the gift, hugging it with you. “honey, i’m sorry,” you frown, gently threading your fingers through his short hair, humming the same song bucky sings to you when you can’t get to sleep. it doesn’t take long to lull him into the calmness of rest.

you only wake up when the weight on you is suddenly multiplied, completely taking your breath away, “bucky!-” you exclaim, rolling from underneath him to meet his closed eyes. you shake your head with a light laugh, drawing a strand of hair behind his ear before you press your lips to his cheeks, snuggling in with him again, “sweet dreams, darling,” you murmur, placing the stuffed animal he dropped on your dresser.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

I decided to watch the Walker pilot so you don’t have to. #1

I don’t know why I’m doing this, but I’m doing this and the more I put it off the less I’ll want to do this. So. Let’s start.

The fist thing we see is Jared Padalecki, em Walker, driving. He’s vaguely smiling and there’s the sun behind him. He seems happy. He’s driving a truck, for some reason my mind goes to Twilight. I’d rather watch that. At least there are vampires (not dressed like clowns) there. Anyway. Walker is meeting someone. He’s meeting his wife! “Look at you!” she says. The camera makes us look at him. He looks like this

I am unsure whether we’re supposed to see this as sexy or cool. It looks frankly ridiculous. I don’t know if I’m just not American enough to appreciate the aesthetic of this. But I didn’t go through 15 seasons of Americana-in-British-Columbia for nothing. If a character appeared like this on Supernatural, it wouldn’t be presented seriously. It would be played for a chuckle or in a light-hearted way at least. Not even Dean Winchester would find this hot.

The Padaleckis tell something to each other. Apparently he needs to go home with the kids and his parents because it’s game night. My mind immediately goes to Game Night the episode and I am sad now. But Walker lifts my mood in its own weird way.  He doesn’t know the rules because every time she tells him the rules, he blacks out. I would make a fun quip about this, but the truth is that I relate to him a lot right now because I blacked out during the entire scene. I’m not sure what they said other than the game thing because I wrote it here. I already forgot the rest.

Anyway. What we’re supposed to get from this scene that they’re Very In Love (see that soft warm light?), and that he’s anxious because he’s not great at being a father because he’s shit at games apparently, but his wife is like ~don’t worry so much~ because she’s a kind, understanding wife. He tells her to be safe, because the Texan countryside is dangerous or something. She needs to stay on a route he approved for some reason. Is she traveling with supersoldier serum in her car? Is Hydra going to murder her? [cue the Marvel snipers shooting me to death because they don’t want Marvel to be associated to this]

Later, everyone is having fun playing fake monopoly, but Walker (whose mannerism is just Jared, he’s not even trying) is apparently too stupid to understand a game for kids. Plot twist, this is anti-cop propaganda because it says cops are dumb.

“Et tu Brute” Jared says when the kids point out he broke a rule so they get an extra turn. I thought I was safe from hearing Jared speak Latin! I thought I was safe! I am never safe!

Emily (Gen) suddenly texts him “SOS. Answer” which is OMINOUS! Oh my god! Aren’t you feeling the tension. The rest of the family keeps playing fake monopoly. Someone throws dice. Are we supposed to go “oh! The dice are ~symbolic because someone’s playing dice with her life” or have I been watching too much good tv.

She is running somewhere in the countryside, wearing a white shirt (is this the cowboy lady equivalent of the Wife Nightgown?). She says something is not right. He’s worried. Then he hears gunshot and her scream. He does the Alarmed Jared face, presses lips together and does a Upset Jared face.

Then he goes out, tries to call her again, and again, does a Jared Upset Sniff--

Oh! We actually see her! She’s alive, but she’s been shot in the stomach. Her white shirt is definitely the cowboy lady equivalent of the Wife Nightgown! Ah the blood coming from the stomach! How terrible! Her phone is ringing but she cannot reach it. She is definitely alive right now, though. She’s breathing heavily because of the wound, which is breathing, which is the opposite of being dead.

He decides that she’s dead, and lets out the already infamous manly scream of anguish.

It would be sad if it wasn’t that literally one second ago we saw her wounded but alive. Her turning out alive in the season finale or so will shock everyone. Nobody will have seen it coming. Who wrote this? They should have just shown the ringing phone and her bloody hand/side, making the audience assume she was dead, instead of showing her breathing. Now the audience is gonna assume she didn’t actually die, and wonder “why didn’t he call someone or went looking for her” but apparently Jared’s characters have forgotten that, like, ambulances are a thing. Jared’s manly screams of anguish are more important than common sense.

I’m not going to say anything about the manly scream of anguish. I’m not going to say anything about the manly scream of anguish. I’m n

We’re just 4 minutes in, guys. Why am I doing this?

Eleven months later, says the screen.

It’s night, outside a house. The son is waiting for him. The daughter doesn’t think he’s coming. On the porch there are two men, one is his brother and one is apparently his former partner, now new boss. He’s dressed like you’d expect a normal person to be dressed in a casual Texan night, hat and tie and all. If you are law enforcement in Texas and don’t wear a cowboy hat at any moment, you will be executed. That’s what the death penalty in Texas is for.

Somebody arrives, but to the kids’ disappointment is some dude whose function is to tell us the men’s names. The brother is Liam, the cop dude I forgot.

Walker is being sad on the back of his truck and drinking alcohol, which is the only way television can express a man having trauma. Holy shit - he reminisces of his wife like this is some emotional Lord of the Rings scene in a place where Elves live except this is not the Lord of the Rings and is just ridiculous, look

She’s seen running towards the gazebo, then she turns

This is exactly shot like the scene where Arwen has a vision of her son. Flowy hair and all. I cannot take this seriously.

He smiles sadly. Then a cop car arrives.

Mexican Lady Cop(TM), whose function in the story is to be a Mexican Lady Cop(TM) asks for his licence since he’s drinking alcohol in a public place.

“You ask so nicely” drunk Walker says. Ew. “Yeah, they train the girls special” Oh! Can you see? She is the Feminist Icon who Takes No Shit from the Dude! I’m so excited. I am slowly losing the will to live.

She drives him home on the police car. His legs don’t fit. At least this is realistic.

He does exposition in the car, including “I needed to visit a ghost instead”. There-there was no need to say it. What’s the demographic they’re aiming for? Five year olds? Do they have to spell everything out loud?

“It’s been a while since I had an actual conversation” he says, which supposedly explains why he’s making awkward exposition, but it’s just bad writing. At least they acknowledge it’s bad writing.

She figures he’s law enforcement coming back from an undercover mission from some drunken ramble he makes. This is worse than the Sherlock phone cable port thing.

She says she just got promoted from state trooper, ehe she will work with him wink wink nudge nudge. Is she going to be a cop-buddy-character slash love interest except when they’re almost about to realize they’re into each other, his wife comes back and draa~ama? I can already see it.

He goes home, makes some Jared grunts, and falls asleep on the couch.

Next morning, he goes out and jogs to where he left the truck. He puts on a cowboy hat which is supposed to be an artistic shot.

I’m slowly dying. He makes some Jared Deep Breaths, at least this made me laugh.

Wait, he’s now wearing a black hat. He’s in mourning, see? What.

He drives to his father’s ranch. His father is Super Not Impressed. It’s awkward. They took about horses. Mitch Pileggi is thinking that at least the other show was more exciting and there was Jensen Ackles in it.

He gets into his parents’ house and the dogs run to him, he does the Jared Dog Chuckle. He hugs his mom. He hugs his son - “August, my boy!” he says, like a normal person his age says.

He hugs his brother and they joke-wrestle and he says “I’m still the big brother” and did I mention I’m dying inside. I just can tell this is SUPPOSED to be reminiscent of Dean and Sam’s first meeting at Stanford in the pilot except Jared is the big brother now. Ew.

We learn that the brother is a DA and gay. All pilots suffer from Forced Exposition Syndrome but it’s like this isn’t even trying.

He goes to work and hugs (very manly hug of course) his friend-now-boss, who is called James. James asks him if he’s good and he’s like yeah I’m good, which our I’m Fine Lie Moment #1. Some things never change.

Enter the case of the week - a cop offered roadside assistance but he was assaulted. We’re already starting with a “Oh No Poor Cop :( Someone Doesn’t Like Cops And Gets Violent” plot. Yay.

Ta-da! Mexican Lady Cop appears, cowboy hat and all. James says she’s Walker’s new partner. My heart cries while Walker says “figured you’d be a guy” and she replies “so did my mom”. The feminism is so strong :’) She’s such a strong female character :’) I’m so happy :’)

Then Walker makes such a quintessential Jared thing with his mouth that I need to stop this here and take a break.

It’s been 13 minutes. So much still to go. I’m bored. Why am I doing this.

[wenellyb]

My journey in the MCU fandom on Tumblr: Sharing my thoughts on the Falcon and the Winter Soldier, racism in the MCU fandom and the best and the worse of the fandom

I wasn’t going to write this much but here I am… I don’t even know where I’m going with this but since The Falcon and the Winter Soldier just recently came out, I wanted to share some thoughts.

I joined Tumble because of a show I loved but most of you don’t know it “ Hit the Floor”

I stayed on Tumblr for two reasons only, Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan.

Before the Captain America:Civil War premiere, a friend sent me the link to the Sebastian and Anthony ET interview, and I was hooked. In just one interview. I discovered Anthony Mackie. The guy was hilarious!!! I just couldn’t get enough and I knew I had to know more about him. How could he improvise so many funny lines on the spot? He was just amazing.

I had pretty much watched all the avengers movie but that was it. I was not involved in the fandom. So I knew Sam Wilson’s face, but I couldn’t even remember his name if my life depended on it. That’s how much the MCU treated him as a side character.

I was like how the f*ck don’t I know this guy?

His talent reminded me of Eddie Murphy, Jim Carrey or Robin Williams, like yes they can make some emotional or serious movies, but when they want to make you laugh, you will laugh. Whether you want it or not.  I kept wondering how this guy wasn’t more famous.

And the banter with Sebastian Stan? Wow, you could tell their friendship was strong, the way Sebastian lighted up when Anthony was talking, and keep bouncing off his jokes. It was art. the way Sebastian said “ I love you” at the end of the interview. Pure gold.

I then started to watch some of the interviews and boy was that a mistake!!! I literally couldn’t get enough. So I watched all and I say all their interviews, it was the best. We got some gems:

“Why aren’t you looking at me as much”

“Which way is the beach Seabass”

*Them saying nonsense in Spanish and then Sebastian Saying Papi Chulo*

 ¨And so many more, ....

I watched other solo Anthony interviews and he was still HILARIOUS, but you could also tell he felt a little bit more at ease with Sebastian around. I won’t pretend I know him or his personality, but Sebastian seems like a little bit more of an introvert and looks like he doesn’t enjoy the interview experience unless Anthony id around him. Just my thoughts

I watched the interviews before I went to see the movie, I even cosplayed as the Winter Soldier to the movie premiere and I was IN!!! When I saw Captain America Civil War, I became a SamBucky shipper, these two were hilarious and I really so the potential for a great realtionship I love enemy to lovers stories.

I also shipped Stucky because, to me, the trope of the movie was Superhero gives up everything to protect his long term friend” Hollywood movies have some codes and if Bucky were a female character, there is no doubt in my mind that the movie would have been marketed as romance.

Stucky really was an easy ship! But then the MCU fandom of Tumblr fandom messed up everything for me. You see I really liked the CACW and I I liked Stucky, I liked Sambucky, and I loved the introduction of t’Challa’s character, but one of things that affected me the most in the movie was that it was the first blockbuster I watched with 3 black main characters, Rhodey, Sam and T’Challa. That, and the fact that they were planning to realease a Black Panther movie in two years, I was super excited, and that’s the main reason I got involved in the MCU fandom so much, when before, I was just a casual watcher.

If this seem weird to you, then you have no idea how we were only getting crumbs before. For me it was soo huge, I even told all my friends, and they were laughing at me. But usually blockbusters, especially superhero movies get one black character and that’s it, usually the best friend or something and never the leads. So, for me it really was a big deal. How sad is that by the way…

I became more involved in the fandom and, at first, I wasn’t focusing on anything special, Sambucky, Stucky, Stackie, the Black Panther, and even Zemo, whose character I really liked.

But soon I noticed that the CACW tags were always flooded, and I mean flooded with the same two white characters: Steve and Bucky. I told myself, ok that’s fine Steve is the lead after all, but it would be good to see the other characters too.

And then I noticed another interesting trend: Evanstan…. Wait what?

Chris Evans, and Sebastian Stan… did I miss something? Listen, obviously I’m sure they must be friends or something, but you’re going to tell me you watch all MCU the actors and you’re going to focus on Steve and Sebastian? I’m sorry what?

Sebastian and Anthony are right there… Or Chris and Anthony, they even have a secret handshake, only the 2 of them do… what more do you want?

Tell me one iconic Evanstan moment… go ahead tell me… See??? There isn’t.

Because of this and because of how badly some Stuckies were treating Sam and Anthony. I became less and less of a stucky shipper . I mainly focused on SamBucky, Stackie and the Black Panther,

And then the Sebastian Stan stans saw how popular Stackie, Sambucky, were becoming and I started to see some problematic stuff in our fandom too.

I don’t want to generalize, but when you go into the Stackie tag, and you see cropped pictures of Sebastian without Anthony, it’s easy to assume that a Sebastian fan did that. And we know damn well you cropped out Anthony because we watched all Stackie interviews and know exactly which interview your picture was taken from. We know that Anthony was sitting right next to Seb.

You post a picture of Sebastian laughing but you crop out the person who was making him laugh??

“but it has nothing to do with race” How do you know that?

“Sebastian had more screen time” More screen time than Anthony in CATWS or CACW? I don’t think so.

“I have been a fan of Sebastian for longer”, that’s fine but don’t go out cropping Anthony, just post gifs of Seb in his usual, sad, and Anthony-less interviews, not the ones where he’s smiling because his best friend is next to him.

Some of you really are the worst. And just so you know, your fave Sebastian is Anthony’s biggest fan, if he saw pictures where you cropped out Anthony, he would block you on the spot.

When I realized that Anthony Mackie would be the next Captain America I was screaming, no actually, I was crying, Sam Wilson will be Captain America, and Anthony would finally get the recognition he deserves.

You would think that the MCU fandom would focus on Captain America or at least one the two leads, instead of just Sebastian? Right? Right? WRONG.

Anthony is handsome, he’s funny, he’s a great actor, he went to freaking Julliard, he’s at the top, I don’t see what else the man can do??? He should already be a superstar, but no, you will side-line him even to he is the lead of the show.

Even when they are the actual leads, you guys would do anything to bring up the White characters even if it means ignoring the Black characters.

I remember I was having a conversation about Black Panther with my friends and I asked one of my white friends who was his favorite character in BP was and he told me Martin Freeman (don’t even remember his name in the movie) Martin Freaking Freeman, there are half a dozen of great characters and your fave is the only white man??? Ok, ok, that’s great.

Don’t give out automatic reply like “It has nothing to do with race, if you haven’t thought about it first”, because there’s a high probability that it is indeed about race. Stop saying it isn’t, sit down and ask yourself, “Am I biased?” “Why am I reblogging only stuff related to the white characters”.

One of these days you guys are going to make me hate Sebastian with the sh*t you are pulling.

I looove the Stackie friendship and the Sambucky dynamic but after seeing the way some of you treat Anthony and Sam’s character, it make me want to focus on Sam’s character and forget about the rest.

 I remember they were some posts about how Anthony was problematic, and I just lost it. Apparently, there was an old article that resurfaced were Anthony was making a joke about women making sandwiches or something.

If you were offended by the sandwich joke, that is totally ok, and I can understand that.

But if you were offended by the sandwich joke, and saying Anthony is problematic BUT you still stan Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, ScarJo or even Sebastian Stan, just know that there is a high probability you’re racist.

They have all said or done problematic stuff, and people only seem to remember stuff related to Anthony, which was probably just a joke by the way.

Chris Evans and Jeremy called Black widow a wh*re, ScarJo took roles that she maybe shouldn’t have and I didn’t forget Sebastian shady Instagram post, when Kaepernick was kneeling. There are so many more things to be said about Jeremy Renner but google is your friend.

Anthony also got hate for hating on Tom Holland? Like what? Do you guys even hear yourselves? Don’t you have any friends you like to tease? If you hate someone, do you go around talking about him every chance you get? It was obviously friendly banter but some people wanted to turn it into something it was not. Sigh.

I really cannot with this fandom

 The stackie fandom was small at the beginning and the Sambucky fandom even smaller, but we were there and it was amazing. Sebastian and Anthony received the same amount of love from the fandom and I wish we could go back to those days.

Stop pretending the fandom isn’t racist. Stop saying “it isn’t about race” when you haven’t even thought about.

Saying “it has nothing to do with race” only shows that you haven’t thought about anything but don’t want to be called a racist.

There is racism in this fandom and it will always be there, but if you guys want to do anything about it, you have to acknowledge it first.

You can’t be pulling off stuff like “I don’t see colors”, “ it has nothing to do with race”. Stop, sit down, think about it and then we can have a conversation.

If you’ve made it till the end, I apologize for the typos and grammar mistakes, I wasn’t planning on writing this much.

[urimaginespimp]

Gorgeous (pt2 of This Love)

Bucky x Elemental Witch Reader x platonic Steve

Setting is during Civil War

Read the prologue here to know about your character’s story.

--------

Midgardians were indeed strange. Natasha and the rest of the team did their best in making sure you would settle well with them, and so far, you were getting the hang of it. They were always amused watching you and Vision try to act what they call “normal.”  

Along with being introduced to everything was also knowing about your personal preferences. You love reading almost all kinds of books, and you found horror movies funny, especially the ones about possessions. You could almost hear the Norns that raised you snort at them. You also love exploring the numerous genres of music they have.  

Steve and you have become quite close, and his favorite pastime were telling you about his life before becoming the Captain America. His stories about a best friend he calls “Bucky” was your favorite. The man you’ve never met reminds you of your favorite men in the romance novels you’ve read – charming, handsome (you assumed), and he sounded kind. You were surprised when Steve told you about finding out that he was alive all this time after being brainwashed by Hydra. The captain still looks like he’s longing to get his friend back.  

Despite being over a century year old, the team treated you like a younger sister because of your naivety. Sam was like the bad influence brother - always teaching you about pranks.  Overall, you were settling just fine in the lifestyle you were only introduced into over a year ago.

The Norns have taught you that challenges and doom were always going to be lurking at every corner. Tony and Steve were currently in disagreement. World leaders were trying to get the team controlled and regulated. An explosion rocked in Vienna during a meeting, and some people are killed among them is the King of a place called Wakanda. Now the authorities were claiming the bomb was planted by the Winter Soldier – the man Steve has told you so much about.  

Now the team was divided, and you didn’t know where to place yourself. Your family was falling apart. You still weren’t considered a Midgardian and could easily leave Earth. You thought about reaching out to Thor, but how could you, when the same man who told you to reach him through e-mail, didn’t even have a phone? And Bruce himself was still nowhere to be found.  

Cap has assembled a team with Sam, Clint, Wanda, and an Ant guy you were yet to meet, to stop another man named Zemo. But by operating outside of authority, they all become renegades. You almost laughed when you heard that in Tony’s side was a Spider guy.  

Everyone was currently at an airport in Stuttgart, Germany. You were sitting on the roof of one of those ramps, looking over the team as Tony was still trying to negotiate with Steve. You noted the man with the metal arm standing next to him. So this must be Bucky. He was much more handsome as you imagined him to be – tall, piercing blue eyes and dark long hair. The girls you’ve met around the city would’ve gushed over him, joking about what they’d like to do with him. And you almost kicked yourself for agreeing with a conversation that hasn't even happen yet.

“You sure you want no part of this, princess?!” Tony called out to you, making everybody’s attention turn your way.

“Frankly I could’ve left, Tony.” You stated, looking over everyone, trying to take in that this may be the last time your family would be in the same room. “But I learned that Midgardians love blowing off steam. I’m just here to make sure nobody gets seriously injured.”  

“She’s not human?” you heard Steve’s friend ask him quietly. You heard him respond that it’s a long story. You shot the man a quick wink and a grin, making him cough in surprise.  

So what if you might have a little crush on the man? Technically, witches your age are still considered mentally young – almost comparable to a Midgardian in her 20s.  

A pitched battle breaks out, and as intended, you were going around making sure that nobody got gravely hurt.  

You were now running alongside Nat.  

“Is it weird that I may have a little crush on Steve’s friend?” you chimed.

“No surprise there. Is that why you refused to take sides?” She asked you, panting.

“Of course not, Nat. Plus you and Wanda are in different teams.”

“And?”

“We women should be sticking together. Leave the men acting childish.” you replied.

“Where’d you learn that?!” She was amused.

“I hang out with drunk women in club bathrooms!”  you exclaimed.  

You honestly thought Nat was intent on stopping Steve, but she took you all by surprise when she suddenly turns on Black Panther, allowing Cap and Bucky time to get in the Quinjet.

“You’re not even gonna introduce me?” you called him out.

“Not really the best time but Y/N, Bucky. Bucky, Y/N.” He hastily answered while getting in.

You and Bucky were staring at each other. He couldn’t quite decide whether to say to you. It was the first time a stranger was looking at him with glimmer in their eyes, as if she was genuinely glad to be introduced. And it was not the appropriate time.  

“I find you incredibly attractive.” You found yourself blurting out while gazing at him. You heard Nat snort behind you, and you almost laughed at how taken back Bucky looked.

“Uh... I’m too old for you.” He awkwardly replied, and you chuckled.

You were about to tell him that you’re older than he’ll ever be, but a groan from T’Challa snapped you all back.

“Alright, time to go. Nice first date, kids.” Steve called out from the pilot.

“I’ll see you again, soldier.” You gave him a genuine smile. He scratched the back of his neck and gave you a shy nod before turning back to take his seat.

“You should ask those girl friends of yours to teach Steve a thing or two with flirting.” Nat commented, giving you a sly smile.  

“Shut up, Nat. I wasn’t flirting.”

--------

It was no surprise when Steve sought you out to help him break the others from prison. The authorities didn’t know what to do with you, and you think it was because you never really broke any rules, you’re not from here, and they might be afraid of angering the god of thunder himself if they even touched you. So without thinking twice, you joined him.  

“So...” you thought about asking him what happened to Bucky.

“Can’t say I’m surprised that even a witch would be crushing on my best friend.” He chuckled. He was now flying you in the Quinjet to god knows where.

“I blame you, Steve. You kept talking about him.” You punched his arm gently.  

“If it helps, I think he finds you beautiful.”  

But before you could respond, your mouth went agape as the view of the forest around you suddenly became a whole other place full of beautiful infrastructures you’ve never seen before.

“Welcome to Wakanda, Y/N.” Steve told you when he noticed you’ve gone quiet.  

--------

Steve and you were welcomed by T’Challa and the princess named Shuri, and they escorted you both to what seemed to be a lab. Shuri was funny and you both hit it off immediately.  

Stopping just outside a bar, Shuri turned to you. “I’m hoping to see more of you, Y/N. Your boyfriend awaits you.” She snickered and left before you could say anything. Steve gave you a sheepish look and told you that when they were asking who he was bringing in for security purposes, he might have told them that you have a crush on their patient.  

Going in, you decided to stop by the doorway to assess everything.

“You sure about this?” You heard Steve asked someone, making you snap at their direction.  

Sitting on a small bed was Bucky. His metal arm was gone, and he was wearing a white top and pants.

“I can’t trust my own mind.” he replied, and turned to where you were standing, giving you a polite smile. “So until they figure out how to get this stuff out of my head, I think going back on there is the best thing for everybody.”

Steve nodded in understanding, and turned to you. “Are you just gonna stand there?” He asked you with a teasing smile.

“That depends if you only brought me here so you could properly embarrass me.” You replied, biting your cheek from smiling. He started walking back towards you with a small smile. Standing face to face, he started speaking a bit more quietly.  

“Well, yes.” He answered and you shook your head at him, chuckling. “But I also wanted to ask you something.”  

“Anything, Steve.” you nodded at him.

“Will... Will you uh- come back here if Shuri calls you that they’re finally waking him up? I’m just going to lay low for a bit, and I don’t know if I’d be still on the run when that happens.” he looked almost embarrassed to even ask you the favor, but before he could start rambling, you surprised him with a hug.  

“You’ve taught me so much, Steve. Of course, I’ll look after your hot friend.” you chuckled to mask that your eyes were brimming with tears. You were going to miss him.

Breaking off from the embrace, Steve cupped your face and wiped a stray tear on your cheek. “Don’t scare him off, okay. I don’t think he’d be able to handle how much bolder women are these days.” you rolled your eyes at him but proceeded to give him a small nod.  

---------

The lab was now preparing to put Bucky into a cryogenic sleep. When Steve left that morning, all he told him was that he was going to meet with a friend who might want to check out Wakanda. He didn’t expect that Steve meant you.  

When he first saw you at the airport, he was taken back to how beautiful you were. He’s seen attractive people around when he was trying to live like a civilian, but there was just something refreshing about you. As soon as it was implied that you weren’t actually from earth and that you were a witch, he settled with that explanation. Maybe being beautiful came with your power.

But then you unexpectedly winked at him and even said you find him attractive so unapologetically. He tried to be sly about asking Steve about you but it was obvious that he caught on and was beaming at him like crazy. He told him about you, how you were raised by Norns, that Thor took back with him to earth, and that you’ve spent the year knowing how to be like the humans.  

“She’s adapted to the world today better than I have, Buck.” Steve smiled at the thought of you. “I think she’d be the perfect teacher for you in the future.”  

He was watching as Steve talked to you by the doorway and when you hugged him and started crying. After Steve comforted you, you turned to look at him again, now a cheeky smile was on your face as you walked towards him.  

“I don’t think we’ve formally met. I’m Y/N.” You offered your hand for him to take.

“I’m James. Or you can call me whatever you’re comfortable with.” Your hand was soft and warm against his.

Steve heard what Bucky told you and flushed pink when he had an inkling to what you were going to respond to that. He could almost see you smirking.

“How about da-”

“Y/N NO.” Steve cut you off, fighting laugh. Bucky looked between the two of you, confused and intrigued at the same time.  

“Steve, I called you that one time.”  

“Those civilian friends of yours really should have more manners.” He shook his head at the memory of you calling him ‘daddy’ one morning after your friends told you to do so.

Turning back to the confused man before you, you gave him a full-blown smile. “I’ll call you by your name, Bucky.”  

“Are you going with Steve?” He asked you.

“Nope. I still might be here once you wake up.”

----------

Main Masterlist   Marvel Masterlist

[soldierswar]

Kobik - Chapter I

Bucky x Reader

(Fluff, Angst)

Plot: You and Bucky's relationship is anything but ordinary. Something that you've been used to since day one. But one day when Bucky brings home an unexpected little guest with superpowers, you reluctantly find yourself thrusted into something close to parenthood much sooner than you had ever expected to be.

Notes: I've been obsessed with Kobik and Bucky's father/daughter relationship with her since I read the Thunderbolts comics. Enjoy protective dad!Bucky.

        *Ring* *Ring* *Ring*

           “I’ve got to change that ring tone,” was your first thought after your atrociously loud phone woke you up in the middle of your mid-day nap. But you always felt the need to keep it off silent when Bucky was away from you for emergency use.

           You groggily propped yourself up and picked up the phone.

           “Everything okay?”

           “Let me guess. You just woke up?”

           There were no signs of real distress in his voice. So why the hell was he calling instead of texting?

           “Mmmmm,” you groaned.

           You being an investigative journalist had just finished working on an important writing piece that took over a month and a half to write. A piece that involved multiple trips across the ocean for in-person research. So you were pretty exhausted nowadays.

           “What’s up?” you asked mid-yawn.

           “Y/N…I need you to meet me somewhere as soon as possible. At…our spot.”

           Now you began to get worried.

You and Bucky had a special secluded spot in a nearby building that had been abandoned halfway through its being built years ago. It was safe to assume that it was just another private abandoned project after the blip that was never followed up on. So you and Bucky deemed it your secret place to go to if you needed to talk about something urgent where nobody could hear or see you.

           “Are you in some kind of trouble? Do we need a lawy—”

           “No, Y/N. It doesn’t have anything to do about me…for the most part.”

           “For the most part?”

           You could suddenly hear Sam’s voice echoing in the background again.

           “How worried do I need to be, Barnes?”  

           He hesitated.

Those pauses always made you incredibly anxious, and he knew that.

           “Are you safe? Are we safe?”  

           Another pause as he swallowed nervously.

           “James?”

           “I wouldn’t have called for you to come if I didn’t think that we’d be safe.”

           You shook your head. And although he couldn’t see it, he knew you enough to know that that was exactly what you were doing.

           “You trust me?”

           “Would I have married you if I didn’t?” you sighed lightheartedly.

           “I can be there in 30, okay?”

           And before you could hang up he said those three words that almost never faltered in making you smile, even in the worst of time.

           “I love you.”

…

           Despite the fact that he said that there was nothing really to be truly worried about, you couldn’t help but feel a pulsing anxiety surge through your body. In the years that you had been together, you never really had to use your spot for any type of unexpected emergency.

           You stumbled your way to the building being careful to not fall over the chunks of broken concrete protruding from the dirt before making your way to the door that was almost completely broken off minus two feet of it from the bottom still hinged to the door frame.

           “Hey,” said a familiar voice.

You turned around to see your husband’s beautiful face. You hadn’t seen Bucky in almost a week, so when he wrapped you in his arms you had no choice but to feel nothing but comfort and warmth. But after a two-second tender moment, you snapped out of it.

           “James,” you said.

“What is this about? Why am I here?”

           Before he could say anything, you could hear  Sam’s voice in another area of the house. It sounded almost as though he were giving orders to someone. Which was then followed by the echoes of a little childlike voice…

           You shook your head and reasoned that you were either hearing things, or things were about to get really weird.

           “Bucky,” you said raising your voice and crossing your arms.

           “How bad can it be?”

           Suddenly the only sound in the house was the sound of little footsteps sprinting towards you followed by Sam’s voice.

           “Kobi—”

           And right before your eyes, there was a little girl. A little girl that couldn’t have been older than 4 or 5 years old. She was incredibly pale and had blonde – No, white hair in two high pigtails. But the strangest thing about her was her inhumanly glowing blue eyes.

           “Everything okay Buckaroo?” she asked seeming concerned about him.

           “Shit,” Sam said under his breath as Bucky gave him a death stare.

           “Kobik,” Bucky scolded lightly, crossing his arms.

           “I told you not to come out until I said –”

           “I know,” she said as her little face and shoulders fell.

           “But someone seemed mad at you. Are you okay?”

           She turned her gaze over to you and gave you a once-over as if she were scanning you to see if you were a stranger and potential threat to your own husband.

           Sam finally joined you guys looking somewhat embarrassed.

           “Sorry, I couldn’t stop her.”  

           Now you were staring at Sam giving him the “What the hell is going on?” look.

           He didn’t seem like he wanted to be the one to answer.

Great, now you had two men who didn’t want to answer any questions about the strangest looking child that you had ever seen.  

           “Kobik,” Bucky said.

           “This is my wife, Y/N.”

           Her intense stare immediately softened, which eventually evolved into a big smile, and waved at you.

           “Hi!”

           You were awestruck, and couldn’t even answer. You just turned your stunned gaze away from her and back on to Bucky.

           “Bucky…” you said under your breath.

“I’m gonna ask you again. Why am I here?”

…

           Bucky took you outside next to a pile of large concrete rocks to sit on which you were grateful for because you were feeling pretty dizzy, and even felt a little sick.

Who was she? Did he have a kid that he decided to never tell you about? Did he feel the need to take her for some reason? Those were all logical thoughts that any rational human could think up for this type of situation. Right? And also, why did the poor thing look like…the way that she did?

           But when you finally did get Bucky to talk, everything came out of his mouth exceeded anything that you could ever imagine. In fact, for a moment of time if felt as though you were watching Bucky say a bunch of nonsensical sentences pre-exploding brain aneurism.

           But the longer he continued to speak, you realized that he was serious. This wasn’t some type of psychiatric meltdown or a sick joke.

           You shook your head as he reached over to put a comforting hand on your upper arm.

           “I know it sounds crazy, Y/N but—”

           “Crazy? No,” you shuddered, pulling away.

           “Crazy would be telling me that, I don’t know, you had some kind of accident child with someone during our marriage and you’re just bringing her over to tell me for the first time.”

           He opened his mouth to say something but you shoved your index finger in his face to continue.

           “Crazy would be telling me that you found a literal child with superpowers and you just decided to take her to see what she’ll do. But you’re meaning to tell me that it’s not even a human?”

           “Y/N—”

“You’re meaning to tell me,” you said pointing to the door.

           “That I’m supposed to believe that some extremely powerful force of ‘cosmic energy’ formed itself into a little girl, and you decided to make the impulsive decision of just taking it with you?”  

           “It’s not like that, Y/N,” he replied.

           “I’ve known about her for a little over a year now.”

           You couldn’t lie, that shocked you a little bit.

           “A year?”

           “Listen,” he said.

           “A year and a half ago were investigating a situation in Norway. One thing led to another and we ended up in an underground science lab with two scientists observing some type of glowing anomaly in the shape of a cube that they were carefully monitoring and studying. Sam and I made it our responsibility to keep this hidden and make sure it stays hidden.”  

           “So what does this have to do with—”

           He stopped you from finishing your sentence.

           “Two months later they call us to fly over and it seems that overnight this glowing anomaly somehow formed itself into this little girl that calls herself Kobik.”

           If you didn’t trust him as much as you did, you would be calling bullshit at this point. You didn’t even know that these kinds of things were humanly possible. Granted, you also didn’t think it humanly possible for a bunch of aliens to pretty much destroy New York, or for another batch of aliens to come down and somehow make half of the earth’s—No, the universe’s population disappear. So you continued to listen.

           “A few days ago we get a notice that the lab’s been breached, and by the time we got there, the two scientists are dead. When we get there to check out the scene we find that the five grown men that broke in were also dead. And a minute later we found Kobik shaking all alone in a corner.”  

           Your heart broke for her for a split second. But then you let his words sink in before realizing...

           “Wait,” you said

           “You said the intruders were dead.”

           He nodded.

           “Who killed…”

           He knew that you knew that answer.

           “She had to defend herself,” he shrugged.

           “And how did she do that, Bucky? She’s tiny.”

           And that’s when you realized that there was even more to the story.

           “Once she took form, they made it their focus to study the extent of her powers along with her behaviors. She talks, plays, and overall acts like a child of the age that she took form in…But in the wrong hands she could be used and abused into being a powerful weapon.”

           “So why did you take it?” You asked.

“It obviously can defend itself.”

           He didn’t seem thrilled about you talking about it like it was an inanimate object.

           “We don’t know if it was a fluke or not. She may not know how to properly defend herself and won’t get so lucky the next time. Next thing you know she could end up in the wrong hands. And she was scared, Y/N. I…We couldn’t just leave her.”

           You stressfully ran your fingers against your scalp through your hair.  

           “So what now?” you asked.

“She’s going to just stay here? In this abandoned half build house?”  

“No.”  

“…So is Sam going to keep her somewhere?”

The longer he stared at you the dizzier you started getting, understanding what he was actually asking.

“Y/N,” he said softly.

“I’m the only one she trusts.”

His last words fell into the background as you suddenly leaned over and threw up the entirety of your lunch…maybe even breakfast.

He held your hair back until you finally stopped.

“Bucky, you’re not saying,” you croaked while wiping your mouth.

“Tell me you’re not saying that you want to take her in.”

“Y/N, she’s scared. And I’m the only one she trusts to be around.”

You shot up and involuntarily started shaking your head.

No. This was not happening. He was not bringing a lethal science experiment into our house.

The world began to spin again as you probably got up too quickly, but you were good at playing it off. Why couldn’t he just be normal and bring an abandoned puppy home or something?

Regardless, there was no way that this could happen. There was no way that you could let this happen. You didn’t know who was going to invade your house to try to come to collect it. Much worse, you didn’t know how dangerous this thing was. What it could do to either of you when you least expected. What if it…she got startled in the middle of the night and activated some type of lasers in her eyes and cut you in half?

So you said what you needed to say.  

“No.”    

“Y/N,” he replied sympathetically.

“I know that this may be a lot so suddenly but—”

“No!” you said again putting your foot down.

“We can’t…Not right now. It’s not a good time”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Damn it.

“This isn’t some abandoned puppy that you found across the road, James! You brought home this radioactive weapon that people, might I add, bad people are looking for. And they’re not even the ones that I’m scared of!”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“After all that just came out of your mouth in the past 15 minutes, you really just had the nerve to tell me that I’m the one that’s not making any sense?” you exclaimed.

“What doesn’t make any sense is that your excuse is that this isn’t the right time. What do you mean by it’s not the right time, Y/N?”

“We…I have a lot of serious shit going on right now, okay?”

“I thought you were taking time off of work,” he pointed out.

“I am, okay? It’s just…”  

You paused, you didn’t know what to say or even how to say it.

“Is there something that I need to know? What does timing have to do with anything?”

“I…well…” you stuttered.

“Spit it out, Y/N.”

You sighed in defeat. You didn’t have a choice now.

“Because damnit, Bucky!” you shouted, startling yourself by how loud you were. But there was no stopping now.

“I’m pregnant.”

[tvitr]

uwu I don’t make the ruwules

(Okay fine, reasons/opinions below the cut but be warned! I won’t be holding back on game or book spoilers. Or rambling. This got longer than I anticipated lol)

BETTER IN THE BOOK

Eis “Fireman Sam” Glover: I don’t know what the game was trying to do with this one. I guess he gets overwhelmed by the fire and loses his composure or gets scared or... something?  Also why did he not bring a hose. Or a mask.  This is why so many reviewers thought Wonderworld was a metaphor for purgatory and all the inhabitants are dead I swear. Who cares, the book handled it a lot better. I wouldn’t say it’s perfect, but there’s definitely a good idea here with some interesting themes. The gist is that he feels ashamed following his captain’s orders to retreat during a serious blaze, which his colleagues disobeyed, and his colleagues are later hailed as heroes by the press.  Is Balan the Book trying to take on toxic masculinity...? How brave. Tl;dr, the book conveyed the story a Hell of lot better than the game. Honestly I’m surprised this is the only one.

BETTER IN THE GAME

Haoyu “Airplane Boi” Chang: So the book tried waaaay too hard to draw a parallel between Haoyu and Fiona (aka, Dolphin Girl) to the point that they both share a similar backstory, in that they had a hobby which led to a near-fatal accident and now they’re too traumatised to resume said hobby. And that’s not a bad thing per se but... “near fatal accident” was already Fiona’s backstory. We didn’t need a duplicate. And this is more personal preference, but I kinda liked Haoyu’s story in the game anyway. His failure at building a functioning aeroplane out of crap he found in his garage is endearingly funny in the game, and the resolution of him taking time out to sit down and study before building anything is a nice spin on the whole “if at first you don’t succeed” theme the chapter wanted. 

Sana “Bird Lady” Hudson: So the book decided they didn’t want to make Cal an angry sore loser so guess what? They made Sana an angry misanthrope. Wonderful. Okay maybe that’s harsh, but she definitely came off as very bitter and unsympathetic in the book. Like there’s a scene at the end where she harasses a firefighter and tries to steal a fire engine because they’re working on a building fire and not supervising her park. That’s not a character you wanna root for. That’s a Karen. The game had a better plot thread and resolution to her story rather than a boring cookie-cutter “humans vs. nature grrrr humans are so evil” story, like the game story here had a bit more depth to it and approached the topic more maturely than the book did. Which is ironic considering how hilariously edgy the book gets sometimes, but I guess throwing a few smashed eggs and frozen bird skeletons into your story doesn’t mean anything if you’re still going to paint such a black-and-white narrative.

Iben “Frozen Elsa” Bia: This story didn’t need dialogue. Like... we don’t need her to justify why she’s upset her parents are dead because we’d already assume that. They’re her parents! Of course we’d assume she’d be upset! They died! Simultaneously! That’s horrible! WE DON’T NEED HER TO EXPLAIN THIS! Also her dialogue in the book was... pretty terrible, not gonna lie. Like if you’re gonna insist on dialogue at least make it gOOD. I’m actually planning on just reviewing her book scene so I can fully articulate just how bad it is anyway, so stay tuned for that mess lol.

FINE IN BOTH

I mean there’s not really too much to say here but anyways:

Jose/”The Farmer” having a family in the book gives him a bit more depth, even if we never hear from them again after his backstory dump.

Fiona/”Dolphin Girl” almost drowns in a slightly different way, with a dolphin straight up pulling her mask off rather than knocking it out of her mouth, and the book also goes more into detail about her love for diving and dolphins. Also the book ships her and Haoyu like. So hard. Like they never shut up about how similar they are or what they other’s doing or if the other’s okay or not. By the end of it I was expecting them to just start making out in front of everyone, they’re that obsessed with each other. And it would be funny if they didn’t use this to wreck Haoyu’s backstory like I mentioned earlier.

Yuri/”Bug Kid”/”Is that a Pokémon reference?” is now being kinda bullied for liking bugs, which yeah gives her more depth and reason to be upset but I also kinda related to her just being that One Kid with interests that nobody else had. But it’s not as bad as some of the other changes, so I can let it slide.

Atillio/Clown and Bruce/Old Man are the same, nothing to say here.

Lucy/”The Artist” is a total drama queen but then again so are Art People so I can let it slide. I did like them changing her problem from “artist’s block” (seriously?) to her feeling too under pressure to create masterpieces, unless that’s what the game was aiming for? Oh who cares.

JUST A BIG MESS

Cass “Dead Cat Girl” Milligan: This is a weird one because the story is the same between the game and book (though the book mentions she witnessed a more severe car accident rather than a speeding car which she assumes kills the cat, and the cat isn’t even her cat, it’s a stray) but the story itself is... flawed. According to the book, they wanted to convey the idea that running away from the accident was irresponsible, and she just needed to look back and she’d see her cat is okay, but the game kind of makes it look more like Balan turned back time to save her cat, and the book mentions a serious car crash which I don’t think anyone would willingly return to. I feel there’s a better way to convey this idea of being responsible for your pets, like say her cat escapes from the house and gets lost, and her resolution is going out and properly looking for it. That’s a more effective (and natural) way to relay that message, especially as they weren’t going to commit to the idea of grieving a lost pet.

I’M CONFLICTED

Cal “Chess Daddy” Suresh: God this was a tough call. On one hand Cal’s game backstory is one of the ones most YouTube players single out as the weakest backstory in the game. He’s just “that guy who lost one game of chess”. Being right before Iben’s level certainly doesn’t help. I could honestly write a separate post about how bad the story placements are in this game but that’s too long for here.  On the other hand, I still... kinda like it? Like I like this idea of him being a sore loser with a bad temper who needs to learn some humility, sure it’s not as serious as “I almost drowned” or “my parents are dead” but one of the few good things about the game is that it balanced “serious” stories with “benign” ones, if that makes sense. HOWEVER His book scene is... probably one of the best written in the whole book. Which isn’t saying much, but it felt like it hit the intended degree of darkness that the rest of the book was trying to hit. One of my main issues with the book is how much it edged up everyone’s backstory, which doesn’t sound bad but when you have 12 characters with edgy backstories to sit through, it starts to feel like a 14 year old's first attempt at writing an angsty fanfiction very quickly. And yes, Cal’s story is dark and angsty but it felt like the perfect balance of dark and angsty. Or as perfect as the book can get. Like even Balan’s annoying rhyming dialogue sounded good for the tone of the scene. Man maybe I should just do a review of both his backstories in a bigger post.  Obviously I could be biased because I’m a sucker for chess aesthetics and dark skinned men with long permed hair so I’m just putting more thought into him but still.

[ckneal]

So, there’s this one angel story in the back of my head that I know I wont write. I wont write it, because it’s utter nonsense, with very little regard for the canonical timeline of Supernatural, and a willfully blurry view on what is and is not “in character.” It’s fluff. It’s all fluff, in the form of a bunch of smaller stories that gradually weave together, following the Love, Actually style of storytelling, but instead of problematic love stories, it’s all about angels playing hooky from Heaven after the Fall.

(Seriously, there is no substance here, I swear.)

Stories include Abner, living out the first half of the movie Family Man, struggling to figure out how to be a good father and house husband after he steps into the life of the raging alcoholic who agreed to be his vessel. There’s also a very minor story about Esther (not to be confused with Hester, who is not in this story because she never deserted her post in Heaven) learning to play the part of a little girl and navigating schoolyard politics, but kids can be mean and Esther learns the hard way that Michael’s approach to asserting dominance in Heaven does not translate well. There’s also Daniel and Adina, who both settle into vessels in the same movie theater where a romantic comedy is playing, and fall into a very innocent, play-acting sort of love after they leave the theatre—like little kids pretending to be in love, recreating the scenes from the movie, but at the same time not really understanding it. Balthazar, Gabriel, and Anael each trying to roll with the luxurious high roller life style, and awkwardly running into each other at VIP poker games, exclusive spas and clubs, and the occasional orgy that they promptly leave IMMEDATELY after running into a sibling (don’t give me weird looks, Balthazar and Gabriel canonically include that sort of thing in their definition of luxury, and the whole thing of their story is their siblings keep cramping their style). Tyrus is in there bowling, somewhere. Benjamin’s playing arcade games with his wife. And then there’s Thaddeus, my pet favorite minor angel character, realizing what’s happening as he’s falling with all the other faithful angels during the Fall and seizing the opportunity to abandon his life as a guard and torturer, settling into a pop star for his vessel—initially for the sake of the cushy lifestyle, but then gradually looking back, before the garden and Lucifer, before everyone was assigned a job in Heaven, like it or not, and the options were to adapt or to be smote, and remembering that back then, he could sing.

And of course, Michael and Adam get a story too—in which Michael lowkey gets into a pissing contest with death, as he and Adam travel the world, hitting up hospital after hospital to heal people. Because the first thing Adam wanted to do after getting out of the cage (okay, second thing—burgers came first) was go to the nearest medical center and start healing people left and right. And at first, they’re having a great time. Adam steals a white jacket he finds in the breakroom somewhere, and anytime someone says he looks a little young to be a doctor (Adam still looking nineteen years old, because I say so), Michael wipes the poor sap’s mind. But eventually—sometime after they’ve cleared out the children’s ward, the cancer ward, the cardiac ward—Billie shows up, sniping at them that they can’t just go around healing people who are destined to die, because there is an order to life and death that cannot be shoved aside. And Billie tries to make a show of it, as Terra did with Dean, by having several people who Adam had healed over the course of the day inadvertently cause several massive accidents. The news suddenly comes pouring out of the television, channels flipping as newscasters talk about tragedies occurring in several different parts of the city they’re currently in. The sound of approaching ambulance sirens fills the air, as in the hospital hallway, doctors and nurses begin hurrying to receive a rush of ER patients.

Adam’s horrified.

Michael does not take kindly to this. He snaps his fingers and makes it so that the carnage has never happened. Because he is the archangel Michael, only two steps away from being a god, and if he says that all of these people are going to live, then they are going to live, and he WILL NOT be intimidated, especially by an amateur reaper whose only qualification for her position was dying at the right time.

Billie in turn lands Michael with a cold stare, and points out that the order to life and death is beyond even God’s authority, let alone daddy’s blunt, sniveling instrument.

As Michael’s eyes start to glow, Adam steps in and says, “So, to be clear, you want us to stop healing people on the verge of death? We can do that.”

After Billie leaves, Michael is outraged, but Adam says, “No, Michael, THINK about it.”

We then cut to other stories, where newscasts in the background reveal that ailments that are not IMMIEDATELY fatal (AIDs, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, etc.) are mysteriously disappearing overnight, worldwide.

Billie is not amused, and tells her reapers to be on the lookout for an archangel at every major hospital in the world.

Cut to Michael throwing open the door of the bunker, muttering aloud to Adam that he’s going to do it, he’s going to bind Death, just like Lucifer did—how hard can it be? Sam and Dean see him as he goes stomping off toward the cabinet where they keep all of their magical dry goods, but Michael snaps his fingers and the two of them are abruptly half drunk in Dean’s man cave, sitting in front of Dean’s flat screen TV, watching some campy monster movie, because that’s lowkey what Michael and Adam assume they do all day.

As they’re raiding Sam and Dean’s supplies though, Adam says, “Wait, I have an idea.”

Cut to Abner looking up while pushing his vessel’s daughter in a park swing, and literally seeing Michael and Adam chasing an ambulance, so they can technically heal the person inside before reaching the hospital.

Yes, I’m aware that Abner was dead by the time Michael and Adam got out of the cage. But see, this story? This story is like when someone gifts you a goldfish unexpectedly, and you put it in a bowl, checking in to feed it a couple times a day, lowkey expecting it to die. But it doesn’t die, it gets bigger. And you’re not a cruel person, so you put it in a bigger tank, but it just gets bigger again, and you don’t really know what’s going on, but you know, you just kind of keep checking in, meeting the minimum requirements but not really getting in there as a guiding force because it’s a goldfish and it’s surely going to die any minute now—but then you look over and there’s giant tank taking up your living room, and you’re thawing out bloodworms twice a day, and looking into tankmates to keep Charles company, and realize that “Oh wow, I guess this is a thing now.”

In short, the story says we’re ignoring the timeline, and it’s calling the shots. I’m just keeping the tank clean.

The angels all eventually wind up running into each other. Abner and Esther happen upon one another in a park, where Esther is morosely realizing that she is terrible at being a human child but she does not want to go home to Heaven, and it just happens to be the same park where Abner goes with his “little nibblet” once a day to let her toddle around the playground while he chats with nannies and other house parents. Anael, Adina, and Daniel meet up when the latter two’s game has reached the point where they’ve decided to get married, and they apparently need to buy something new—preferably blue—as per this very important rhyme someone told them about. Esther and Gabriel run into each other in an ice cream parlor. Thaddeus gets recognized while doing an interview on TV that everyone sees. And, while out joyriding in a Lamborghini, on their way to meet up with the growing community of angels who decided to opt out of their responsibility to Heaven and their father’s legacy, Balthazar, Gabriel, and Anael are all startled to see Michael land on an ambulance stopped next to them at a red light.

Balthazar and Anael are both terrified, as if they’ve just been busted by a parent, because Michael, of course, is the guy who enforces the rules, and isn’t he supposed to be in Hell? They both shoot Gabriel looks as if to say ‘what the hell are you doing’ when Gabriel, watching as Michael climbs down and matter-of-factly wrenches the ambulance doors open, calls out, “Hey, Mike! Is that you?”

Michael looks over, freezes for a second—not prepared to be suddenly thrust into a social situation in the middle of his self-imposed mission to spite death—then his eyes flash and Adam takes over. “Oh hey, you’re Michael’s family? What a small world! I’m Adam, I’ve heard so much about you. Wait, hang on—”

The light starts to turn green, but Adam snaps his fingers and it promptly reverts to red.

Three jaws drop in the luxury car, and they don’t even hear Adam politely explain that he and Michael are in the middle of something, as he ducks into the ambulance, because Michael’s evidently letting a tiny human use his powers like it’s nothing, and what does that mean?

“Sweet dad in the unknown, Michael’s shagging a human. . .”

“Nooo!”

“HOW?”

“Hey, kid, you like weddings?”

At some point in the story, all the MIA angels are together, and Benjamin or someone comes running in saying, “Quick, they’re coming! Everyone hide!”

And everyone scatters, except for Michael, who stands in place, saying, “Gabriel, we’re archangels, two of the most powerful beings in existence. Why would we—”

And then Gabriel picks Adam up like a sack of potatoes and sprints off, calling back, “Trust me, you do NOT want to get involved with them!”

Being a projection, Michael is obligated to follow.

Team Free Will then walks by, looking constipated from whatever Big Awful Thing is currently threatening to destroy the world.

The story, of course, culminates in the wedding of Adina and Daniel, who still don’t quite understand what marriage is beyond promising to love each forever, which of course they will, after all, they are the very best of friends—which is about the same concept that most of the other angels present have. Adam is the first one to actually approach the big awkward question, upon finding out who the bride and groom are.

“Wait, aren’t they brother and sister?”

To which Serafina’s Adam, (who is of course there since Serafina was the original angel to play hooky) whose sons married his daughters, and all the angels, who do not understand what that has to do with anything, all cock their heads in unison and respond with, “So?”

Adam struggles to find words, looking into so many innocent faces. Then Benjamin’s wife puts a hand on his shoulder, whispering, “Shhh, let them have their fun.”

Benjamin’s wife and the two Adams wind up sitting at the venue’s bar, where they order nachos from a very confused bar tender, and watch as the angels go about setting up a wedding. But given that most angels haven’t been on earth regularly in roughly two thousand years, none of them have a clear grasp of what a human wedding entails.

“I heard it’s traditional for the father to give away the bride.”

“I think they’re supposed to kiss over bread.”

“Do humans still slaughter cows at these things?”

“I’m pretty sure someone is supposed to break a glass—”

Several angels promptly throw glassware on the floor.

At no point do the angels ask the humans for advice.

Occasionally, Gabriel knowingly throws out obscure details to keep the confusion going.

“You know, the groom needs to stand with the right arm to the aisle in case a sword fight breaks out.”

“Right! . . .How do we know which one’s the groom?”

At the bar, Adam open’s his mouth to say something, but the original Adam shushes him.

“No no, son, let them get there.”

The angels agree that being the better fighter, Adina should be the groom.

They’re nearly ready to start when Michael suddenly doubles over with his hand over his mouth. It coincides with the sound of Adam pounding the bar top, having just eaten a Carolina Reaper pepper on dare. Michael’s eyes quickly flash silver-blue as he straightens, and both he and Adam are abruptly fine—even if their eyes are still watering somewhat. But a different sort of damage has already been done, as Anael, Balthazar, and Gabriel all abruptly turn toward the triad of humans, having been reminded that the Michael walking around with them is actually a projection. In actuality, Michael is anchored to the human ex-college student sitting at the bar.

All three of them rush toward Adam, but Serafina gets there first, asking Adam if he’s ever tried mushroom tea.

Balthazar gets there next. 

“Adam, was it? We didn’t get to talk in the car, let’s fix that. Are you over twenty-one? You know what, this is a family affair, don’t worry—CAN I GET TWO SHOTS OF DON JULIO OVER HERE?”

From that point on, any time Adam turns around, there’s one of Michael’s siblings, wanting to get to know him—by consuming some sort of beverage. Because Adam and Michael are sharing body—and that means they share a liver too. A bet ensues as to how much it will take to get God’s alleged favorite wasted.

Gabriel’s actually one of the first out, having been convinced that Michael would be a lightweight. Little does he suspect that Benjamin and his wife caught onto what was happening soon after Adam was fed his third long island iced tea and second jager bomb, and began quietly cleansing the alcohol from his system through casual shoulder pats and high fives.

Adam does not know what to make of any of this, but it’s Michael’s family and he wants to make a good impression, so he just goes with it.

Thaddeus, of course, is in charge of music, Gabriel and Esther consume the majority of the cake, and Michael catches the bouquet (he may have cheated after finding out what the bouquet toss is for).

[ayoitsnic]

Platonic! Sam x Reader x Dean

Word Count: 2.5k

Trigger Warnings: None? Violence that's pretty typical for Supernatural

Summary: Sam and Dean found out they have a sister. They're very skeptical at first but upon meeting they find out that despite 2 totally different upbringings they have more in common than they expected.

*Disclaimer* I wouldn't normally describe y/n in fics but in this one I did so purposefully to show the similarities between the siblings. I've been told some people are a bit touchy on that.

Oh also this is the first fanfic I've ever written so I'd be happy with constructive criticism.

'This is John Winchester. I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son Dean 866-907-3235. He can help.'

'Shit' Y/N thought to herself as she was put through to her dad's voicemail. 'Wait....it said call his son....does that mean...? Wait do I have a brother he never told me about!?' Grabbing a pen and a pad of sticky notes she called again, this time hoping for voicemail so she could write that number down.

'This is John Winchester. I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son Dean 866-907-3235. He can help.'

She got his voicemail again, quickly scribbling down the number before hanging up and dialing it.

~

Sam and Dean were just finishing up a ghoul case in Indiana when Dean's phone began ringing in the glove compartment of the Impala. Reaching over from the driver's side Dean quickly found his phone, glancing at the caller ID "Unknown Number?" He questioned out loud. He assumed it was a scam caller, but answered it anyway just in case "Hello?"

"Is this Dean?" A female voice asked, sounding mostly nervous, but also just a teensy bit excited.

"Who's this?" Dean questioned skeptically, causing Sam to look over curiously from the passengers side

"I'm Y/N. I umm....this is gonna sound crazy but I'm your sister." She felt weird saying that. Until 5 minutes ago she was an only child. "I tried calling dad but it went straight to voicemail and said to call you if it was an emergency...I kind of need help.."

Shocked with the idea of possibly having a sister Dean pulled the car over to a screeching halt, putting the hazard lights on. He needed a minute to take that in. He put the phone on speaker so Sam could hear what was being said "No that's impossible. Dad already had one kid we didn't know about. No way he had a second." Dean said, obviously in denial.

"He what?" Y/N asked, a grin spreading across her face. Regardless of the circumstances that prompted this call, she was elated to find out she had more than one sibling

Realizing what he had just said, Dean shook his head "Nevermind. Where are you?" He asked as Sam began to flip through John's journal, looking for any hint that there might've been another Winchester out there. It didn't take long for him to find the missing pages not even halfway through the book. It would seem she was born long before Adam.

"I'm in the Poconos, in Pennsylvania." Y/N responded

"Okay well we're about 10 hours from there. We'll be there in the morning." Dean told her "Text me the address." The phone call ended and Y/N texted him the address. They weren't sure what the emergency was that she had to call their dad for but regardless of whether or not it was their kind of thing, Sam and Dean were definitely gonna haul ass to go meet this mystery woman.

~

The next day Sam and Dean found themselves in Northeast Pennsylvania before noon hit. When they finally reached their destination they realized that this woman had grown up so differently from them. She lived in one of those fancy gated communities. Well THEY considered it fancy. Y/N was used to it, but then again the bar wasn’t too high with the childhood Sam and Dean had. The houses were big, the yards green, you needed a pass from security to get in, the only thing missing were picket fences.

"Are we sure we aren't walking into a trap?" Sam asked Dean as they stood on the big white porch, ringing the doorbell. "Well if we are, we're certainly prepared." Dean had grabbed holy water and had his gun tucked into the back of his jeans. Sam, a little silver and the Demon killing knife. It wouldn't protect from /everything/ but it'd save them from most of their most common threats.

When Y/N opened the door you could definitely see the family resemblance between her and Sam. She was tall for a woman, standing around 5'10, had light brown, shoulder length hair. Her eyes though, those were a beautiful shade of green like Dean's. It was almost like looking in a mirror for the boys "Hey." She greeted, letting them in

"Which one of you did I speak to on the phone?" She questioned

"That would be me." Dean replied, raising his hand a bit "This is my brother Sam." Sam was still trying to get over the fact that it looked someone took him and hit copy/paste.

"Wow. Dad really got around didn't he?" She commented without thinking. "4 kids, good for him." Just like Adam whom Dean had very briefly mentioned the day before, John Winchester while still her father, wasn't in the picture that often. Sure he seemed like a cool guy the few times a year he would visit but they never really had a proper Father/Daughter connection. She did care about him, but at the end of the end of the day he was just a person she knew she could trust, hence she didn't think twice about making comments like that until she noticed the look on her brothers' faces when she said it. "Sorry, I want thinking when I said that." She quickly apologized, wanting to move on.

Upon entering, the whole house smelled like Palo Santo wood. She found the scent very calming. "Anyways it's a hell of a drive from Indiana. You hungry? I made pie." She offered.

Dean's face lit up at that "What kind?" He asked with a small grin

"Blueberry. It's my mom's recipe." Y/N replied as she motioned for them to sit at the kitchen table. While she took out a knife to serve the pie, Sam had swapped out her utensils for ones they knew were silver.

"So what was so important you felt the need to call us up here?" Sam asked. Y/N could already tell she liked Sam. He gave off good vibes.

Y/N stayed silent for a moment before telling them "My cousin was found dead the other night. He had his throat ripped out. Cops say it was a Mountain Lion but it sounded like something that might interest Dad. Where is he by the way? I tried calling him a few more times and it just kept going straight to voicemail. Doesn't even ring."

Sam and Dean both looked a bit sad as they had to break the news that their father had passed away and had been dead for quite some time now. Upon hearing that, Y/N didn't really react. She wasn't sure how to. Of course she should've felt something because it was her father, but at the same time, as mentioned previously, he wasn't around a lot. He was absent for most of her life just like he was for Sam and Dean's. Sure he was there for the big stuff like birthdays, her high school graduation, or prom night where he let her drive up in the impala, but it was the small stuff she wanted him there for.

"So you know about the whole 'fighting monsters' thing then?" Dean asked as he splashed a small amount of holy water on her leg under the table. Sam kicked him under the table for even mentioning it. What was he thinking!? She didn't even notice the holy water but the question caused Y/N to look at him weird.

"What the hell are you talking about? Mom always said he was a fed." This almost forced Sam to hold in a chuckle.

~

Despite looks from Sam telling him it was a bad idea to tell her what they really do and that it was probably a vampire that killed her cousin, Dean told her anyway. They already made the mistake of not being totally upfront with Adam. Dean wasn’t making that mistake again "Yeah, okay." She chuckled dryly "You fight monsters. Sure you do." Like any sane person, she thought they were bullshitting. "Next you're gonna tell me you've found bigfoot out something." She said sarcastically

"Actually Bigfoot's one of the few things that isn't real." Dean told her with a smirk

"Tell ya what, you fight monsters?" She motioned towards her two brothers "Prove it. Show me these monsters. Let's go find the 'Vampire' " she said with finger quotations "that killed my cousin."

"Oh no no no." Sam finally spoke up "I was against telling you about what we do to begin with, but I'm drawing the line at having you go out on a hunt. You could really hurt. Or worse, killed."

"What is this, some bullshit male chivalry thing? Do you think women can't do the job?" She questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"No, no that has nothing to do with it." Sam quickly back tracked "It's just that you only found out today that monsters are real, you've never hunted before, and we don't want you getting hurt."

Y/N got quiet for a moment, contemplating how she wanted to respond to that. When she finally spoke, she leaned across the kitchen table and told the boys very calmly, like eerily calmly "He was my family. I'm going and we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your choice." It was loud and clear, in no uncertain terms that she would do anything for her family. That included killing vampires.

The group went silent again. Sam and Dean exchanged a few glances before Dean relented "Alright fine, but you follow our lead."

"Deal." Y/N nodded

~

It didn't take long to locate the vamp nest. Only a day or two. In that time Sam had given Y/N a full rundown of everything she'd need to know about Vampires. How they're nocturnal but that doesn't mean they can't wake up during the day, how the whole 'stake through the heart' thing doesn't actually work and you gotta cut the heads off, and how they normally live in groups.

Thankfully it was a small nest, only about 6 or 7 of them. When the 3 of them pulled up to the old, long abandoned Birchwood Resort, Dean popped the trunk revealing their weapons cache. Y/N looked surprised to see all that stuff, peeking over Dean's shoulder to get a better look. "I've never seen so many weapons in one place. That's awesome." She grinned as Dean handed her a machete. Sam looked at Dean, thinking to himself how similar she sounded to him.

"Alright, Sam and I are gonna go in. Stay out here and if you see any of them try to run out just chop the head off." Dean told her

"You're crazy if you expect me to stay out here and miss all the action." Y/N told Dean as she leaned against the side of her dad's car. She didn't care how long the old man had been dead. To her, that would always be his car. NOT Dean's. With a sigh, she looked up to the night sky and ran her fingers through her hair "Alright fine, whatever. You're the master. I'm just the padawan." She shrugged, kind of annoyed but not in the mood to argue. Sam chuckled at the Star Wars reference.

"This place is huge though." Y/N added "It's really easy to get lost in. You might be better off with someone who grew up here and is familiar with the area. I wonder where you could find someone like that." She hinted, as her and her friends would explore this place as teenagers. "I think we'll be okay." Sam declined. They really were set on having her outside. Thinking about it, she could definitely understand the decision. They'd probably see her as a liability.

Once Sam and Dean had found the nest, the massacre began. After killing half the nest Dean found himself pinned under a vamp, his weapon thrown across the room where he could reach it. "Sammy!!!!!" He called out but Sam was busy with 2 vampires of his own.

Outside Y/N had grown bored of waiting for the boys to return. How long did it take to kill a few 'Vampires'? 'Fuck it' she thought to herself 'I'm going in.' And that's exactly what she did. Looking around the place for her brothers she ran into 1 vampire. Too Easy. She cut the head off as it made a move to go after her. Looking at the decapitated head on the ground made her nauseated but she pushed on.

Before long she heard a commotion From inside one of the private cabins. Peeking through a window she saw the bad position they were in. Scared, and sick to her stomach she ran into the cabin. Swinging the machete in her hand she killed the vampire that had Dean pinned. It was a clean cut and came centimeters from Dean's throat.

He got up, grabbing his own machete to help out Sam. After the vamps were dead Y/N averted her gaze, trying to avoid looking at more dead bodies as she caught her breath.

"I thought we told you to wait outside!" Dean told her to which she instantly responded with "And I thought Sam said you guys would be okay on your own but I just had to come and save you. You should be thanking me."

With a sigh Dean nodded "Are you okay?" He asked, just making sure. "I'm fine. I'm covered in blood and I just killed 2 Vampires, but I'm fine." Despite the nausea, she grinned. The whole hunting thing wasn't supposed to be fun, but this was the most excitement she had in a long time. "Alright, I don't know about you guys but I would kill for a shower right now. If you want after that I know a great bar off main street. I could use a stiff drink."

~

Sam and Dean left 2 days later, having found a case in Virginia. "We are gonna keep in touch, right?" Y/N asked as Sam and Dean put their duffel bags in the Impala

"Of course we are." Dean agreed while Sam added his contact info to her phone. She of course already had Dean's info saved. "You sure you don't wanna come with us?" He asked which caused Y/N to shake her head lightly "As much as I would love to, I have responsibilities up here. Work, family, what's left of a mortgage to pay off...Maybe one day though." She offered a soft smile.

After hugging both boys and telling Dean to drive safe, they took off for Virginia. "Dude," Sam looked over at Dean "I know we were skeptical at first but can we agree she's definitely related to us?" 

Dean looked at Sam weird “I don’t see it.”

“You’re kidding right?” Sam asked “Aside from the fact that she’s like a walking replica of me, she makes really good pie; you love pie. You saw how defensive she got when I told her it’d be safer to sty at home while we took care of the vamps. It’s clear she’d do anything for her family. Sound like someone you know? and while we’re on the subject let’s talk about the fact that she’s not a  terrible hunter. She’s far from a natural and a little weak stomached, but for someone who’s probably never killed a thing in their life she wasn’t bad.” Sam listed all the different ways she was just like Dean.

“What was the first thing she said when she saw the arsenal he keep in the trunk?” Sam asked his brother who responded with “I dunno. What’d she say?”

“She said ‘That’s awesome. She sounded just like you.” Sam insisted

Dean sat silent for a moment, focusing on the road ahead of them before relenting “Yeah okay when you put it like that she’s definitely related.” He agreed

[voxymoxyboxy]

Drabbles for my Various Sam and Max AUs 01- Ghost Max AU

Hi there! I wanted to actually publish my writing for once, so I decided to write a whole bunch of drabbles of my various Sam and Max AUs! I’m gonna try to make at least one for every AU, so wish me luck! Here’s the first one!

P.S. If you wanna hear more about them, please ask! I wanna talk about them! Don’t be shy!

TW: Mentions of Death and Cursing 

Drabble 01- Ghost Max AU

Max had never really seen himself as a ‘people’ person.

When he was a kid, the only ones who’d ever tolerated his presence were his parents and a handful of his siblings, and even then it sometimes felt like that was stretching it. That had been fine by him. Playing too roughly with others usually sent him to time out while playing by the rules bored him out of his mind. At the end of the day, it just seemed easier to keep to himself.

The lagomorph had even preferred it, regardless of that weird pang in his chest.

In all of his life, Max could honestly say that he had grown fond of his workmates. Would never openly admit it, but the signs had been there. Whenever the rabbit teased Sybil, poked fun at Superball, eventually turned into something akin to affectionate after a year of knowing them. Hell, the lagomorph remembered the days he’d spent trying to get them together, leaving notes and gifts as the other.

There was a small part of him that yearned to go back. If anything, they were the only things worth living for.

Being dead put a damper on all that, of course.

In the beginning it had been great! Being a ghost was amazing! No responsibilities (taxes who?), all the free time in the world to do whatever the lagomorph wanted. Sure, not being able to enjoy the luxuries of food was a bummer but flying was pretty neat! It was only when Max tried leaving when it hit him. Literally.

What appeared to be some kind of force field prevented him from leaving his little ramshackle apartment. That hadn’t bothered him at first. After all, learning what ghostly powers he held could keep the rabbit entertained for hours! Could being the key word. While fun to start, progress was slow then came to a stop completely when it became fruitless. Roaming the same halls grew boring. Floating lost its charm. The yellow of the walls started taunting him almost.

Going to Heaven would’ve been preferable to the pseudo-hell he was trapped in.  

A tiny sliver of hope came when the corpse cleaners came a few days after his death. Hermit that Max was, someone must’ve finally called the police after the smell became too much to bear. They’d burst in, covered head to toe in white before getting right to work. Which was weird, but not unexpected. Someone was making sure that his death was but a blip to be forgotten.

That was okay. The lagomorph planned to have the last laugh.

Opportunity struck. Jumping in one of their paths, the rabbit had snapped at the man, laying out every insult in the book (that he’d written, by the way). Imagine the look on his face when the fucker simply walked through him, face set in stone as if he hadn’t heard a damn word.

Because he hadn’t, Max had realized, horror thrumming in his core.

Nobody could.

They left. A few more people entered. The lagomorph tried everything. Shouting, yelling, kicking their kneecaps, pushing a tumbler off the kitchen counter like in those old horror movies his ma told him not to watch. Nothing. No flinching or yelps of pain left their mouths. Only sounds of exertion and mumbling before they too were gone, leaving the rabbit in silence.

Quiet. It was too quiet. Noise kept Max busy, kept that small ball of darkness from spreading through his brain like poison. Silence, for some, was comforting.

For him it was deafening.  

Forced to see the same things day in and day out, the rabbit soon discovered the pang was back in full force. When exactly had it disappeared? The thought, while elusive during the day, always crept back at night, when Max couldn’t sleep to keep it at bay. It grew, evolved into what-ifs and questions he had no answers for.  

How had Sybil and Superball reacted to his death? They had to know it was murder, right? A little bump to the head was the last way he wanted to go out, right behind getting shot but ahead of choking on a gummy bear. Were they looking for the bastard that did him in? A tiny voice from who-knows-where told the lagomorph that the pair didn’t care enough.

Max tended to agree.

What of his family? Funnily enough, getting offed made the rabbit more appreciative of his family. They certainly weren’t the most loving or caring, but there were hints here and there. A kiss on the forehead, an older sibling giving him the slightly bigger half of a cookie, little Milly coming to climbing into his bed during a particularly bad thunderstorm. Despite not thinking about them for countless years, Max couldn’t stop the memories from playing over and over.  

It didn’t take him long to learn that they kept him sane, let him forget the pain in his chest.

(Let him forget how lonely he was-)

It hurt to confess that he desperately craved contact. With humans, animals, anyone! Even a scrap would last him a lifetime at that point-

You could say Sam was Max’s saving grace, as pathetic as that sounded.

The day the dog moved in was perhaps the happiest moment of Max’s- well, not life, but whatever the ghost equivalent was. Non-life? Existence? Guy was noisy for sure. Talked through mundane tasks, whistled random tunes, turned up the tv to the point where the lagomorph was sure the neighbors could hear every gunshot from the noir films Sam was so fond of, all of it blended into a wonderful symphony of cacophony.

Max loved it. Even his terrible banjo playing. Found it endearing even, but he would take that lil’ tidbit to his grave… If he could find it, that is.

The rabbit had watched from afar. Not really a point to creep on the guy up close when the chance of seeing him was zero percent. He was used to stalking people from afar anyway (obviously), so it felt nice to fall into a rhythm.

Watch Sam wake up. Morning routine included bathroom necessities, of which Max had only peeked once (by accident!). Least he could do was give the poor dog some privacy. After that was breakfast. Usually a slice of toast or bowl of cereal (something sugary and tooth-rotting, so the rabbit knew he had good taste) along with the essential cup of coffee. It amused Max to no end that it was more a glorified cup of milk and sugar, yet it was-dare he think it- kinda cute actually.

From all his observations, Max could only assume the dog was a detective of some sort. His oak desk was covered with endless amounts of papers and folders, of which he would spend the entire day looking through until Sam came home to do the same. Almost felt like he was some kind of housewife waiting for her husband.

Almost like he actually meant something again.

If he’d met Sam when he was alive, what would’ve been different?

Everything. There was no doubt about it.

Sam was special.

Max just hadn’t known how much until that special night….

Maybe ‘people’ weren’t that bad after all.

[boop-le-snoot]

PARTY FAVOURS I CHAPTER 28

First time reader click here

TWs/SUMMARY: Hulk interaction Hulk interaction Hulk interaction. Plot is thickening. Feelings. Operation Baby Thief! A wild Coulson appears. Lokireader besties <3 There's just a lot going on.

Bruce hulked out within minutes of my confession.

As I stood in the middle of the common room, partially hidden behind Loki and scrunching the fabric of my hoodie, I had no choice but to observe the reactions of various Avengers to the fact someone might have... Predictably, Sam, Tony and Stephen looked like kicked puppies. I trusted Loki to handle that part. Steve, Bucky and Natasha had murder on their mind and Thor, Pietro just stared at me, aghast.

I noticed the tinge of green before anybody else, perhaps, because I'd been used to automatically seek comfort from Bruce. My interactions with Hulk, however brief and few and in-between, were positive. As much as they could be with a someone's alter-ego that possessed the emotional intelligence of a twelve year old. So I could safely say that what startled me was the noise of Bruce transforming and not the Hulk himself.

The Hulk growled, zeroing in on me - I remembered of Loki, who stood frozen, and their mutual disregard. The decision was prompt - I stepped out from behind the Asgardian, waving shyly at the large green creature. He was LARGE. Like, I could comfortably sit on one of his shoulders.

"Hey, Hulk. I'm alright, don't worry big guy," I took unhurried steps towards the agitated creature. He seemed to be satisfied with my statement, giving me another once over and growling quietly in the back of his throat. An idea struck me: "Wanna get out of here? The gym has more space, we can sit and talk there."

The stares I was getting were downright incredulous. Here I was, an average human being, fearlessly making my way over to the destruction machine that was the Hulk. I knew he wouldn't hurt me - on purpose.

"No," He growled. "We find bad man. Then Hulk smash." The green creature raised, I had to admit, valid points.

"It's going to be pretty boring though. We have to sort through the security footage, then probably traffic cams, then hold Steve back from going in there in Terminator mode..." I listed off all the logical steps of the investigation until I reached the Hulk. My neck was going to get a crick in it from tilting it so I could see his face. "I'd rather..." I didn't get to finish my sentence as I was suddenly picked up. One large hand gently cradled me to Hulk's chest, akin to a kitten, the other hand landing right under my butt.

I heard a collective exhale from the team, acutely aware of the way they were eyeing me and Hulk.

"Boring," The green creature agreed. His face briefly contorted in what I perceived to be an intense thought process. "Necessary." The word had to come from Bruce; it slipped out with difficulty off the Hulk's tongue, stiff.

"Not you too, big guy," I giggled-slash-groaned, giving a playful slap to the hand wrapped around me. "Fine. Let's get this over with." I looked around in search of a spot for Hulk to park his butt somewhere. The ceiling was barely tall enough for him to comfortably stand.

I needn't have worried as he simply sat down cross-legged right where he stood, still holding me to his chest. "Now," He announced, looking expectantly at Tony.

The engineer chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief. "Yeah, you're right, big guy. Let's find this sonuvabitch." Tense snorts and sounds of agreement filled the room, drowning out the noise of Tony tapping on his keyboard and communicating with Friday.

I poked Hulk in one green, large finger. "Maybe I could sit on your shoulder?"

He nodded, letting me crawl all over his green, hard chest and arms to sit on the large expanse of his left shoulder. It was comfortable as far as shoulders go; inwardly, I squeed like a mad woman. I was friends with the Hulk and I was sitting on his shoulder! Lost in my fangirling, I absentmindedly began messing with his dark hair, only noticing it when satisfied rumbling started coming from his chest. The Hulk was... Purring?

"Puny Banner upset," Hulk declared shortly after the team found the man who drugged me and started tracking his movements. It wasn't someone who'd been invited to the party, which meant there was a serious security breach - it was all hands on deck kind of situation.

"Yeah, I can understand that. I'm pretty upset too, the hangover I got was terrible, I threw up in Loki's apartment," I said, frowning. "And my boys are going to mope now," I rolled my eyes.

"Banner says he will talk with them," Hulk replied, placing hand over my legs. "Hulk will help Banner."

I couldn't help it, I snorted. "Gonna smash some common sense into them?" He grinned at me, too mischievous for someone who was described to be a mindless destruction machine. "I think they're beyond that."

"I can hear you two talking shit about me and I do not appreciate it," Tony piped up suddenly, shooting us a hurt look. To be fair, his shoulders looked considerably less tense and the cloud over his face had dissipated by a little bit. Me and Hulk managed to erase at least some of the guilt away. I think. Stephen, however, still remained frowning and closed-off.

"You're stupid, Tony." Hulk answered, sounding a little bit smug. I gaped at the exchange together with Natasha and Steve. It seemed like Hulk's sense of... Humor was a novelty.

"Hey, don't pick on my dumbass white boys," I chastised the green... Man, side-eyeing him. "Only I can pick on them. If someone else does it, I'mma throw hands if I have to."

"Puny," Hulk replied petulantly, poking me with a finger, making me sway in my spot. I rolled my eyes fondly, settling in to mess with his hair again for the sake of having something to do with my hands. The brief exchange helped to get my overactive brain off the case but the tranquility didn't last very long.

Natasha and Bucky left to interrogate the guards responsible for the security breach, Loki shooting me an apologetic look and following the two. I smiled back, knowing the Asgardian wasn't fully comfortable being around the Hulk due to his previous experiences with the big guy.

"Wait, hold on. That guy. I know that guy." As an array of faces appeared on the large screen, a familiar pair of mismatched eyes stared at me from it. Hulk tensed under me and the team turned towards me expectantly as I shrunk slightly under their combined gaze. "The one with anisocoria - with the weird eyes. He works at a coffee shop near my school, actually he only started working recently, few months ago. He tried to flirt with me but Peter said he felt weird about the guy so I stopped going to that café." I explained the situation as eloquently as I could, seeing Clint's eyes widen at my story.

"Are you sure?" Stephen Strange raised an eyebrow. "Because that man is a mercenary that we have been looking for months."

I felt my heart skip a beat. "A what now?" My ears were ringing. Hulk growled quietly under me, evidently sensing my distress.

"A hired man," Clint typed on his phone rapidly. "Mostly sells not-so-harmless trinkets on the black market. Hydra, AIM, you name it. Anything for the highest bidder." Clint muttered. "I'm calling Peter, maybe he can tell us something more. This is an Avengers level threat." The Hawk's jaw was firm and his face was hard.

"Already on it," Tony looked shaken. I understood him - someone like that had invaded his tower, his home. Hell, I myself felt like someone had spit right in my soul. It was my home, too, to some extent.

"Let me down please, Tony needs a hug," I whispered to the Hulk, who begrudgingly did as I requested. I padded over to Tony, wrapping myself around him, burying my face in the crook of his neck. He always was my comfort; expensive cologne and motor oil filled my senses as my arms clutched at his chest from behind. I didn't expect reprocitation - Tony wasn't the one for emotional vulnerability.

"He could have gotten you," He whispered, almost inaudibly, fingers shaking where they typed rapid-fire commands.

"Bold of you to assume I would have gone down without a fight," I answered as calmly as I could. "He is either dumb, or reckless or has nothing to lose. Planning a coup in the middle of your tower..."

"Or he's showing us that he can just do that," Clint supplied unhelpfully. "The guard who let him in just has been found dead and his family is missing. Natasha texted, she's calling in SHIELD. This is now Operation Baby Thief."

I couldn't help the snort that escaped my lips. "Baby Thief, really?"

"Nobody's stealing Princess," Tony barked, finally turning his head and pressing a sloppy kiss to my cheek. "Not if I have to do anything with it."

"I will make sure the pathetic mortal scum never walks," Thor finally piped up, voice low. In the distance, the harsh noise of thunder and pouring rain echoed through the city.

I frowned but withdrew from Tony, finally feeling well enough to do something. My hands itched to help and as appealing as snuggling with Hulk appeared, my brain had gone straight into overdrive. "Should we take a blood sample to find out what he dosed me with? It's not Roofies, and the hangover is too shitty for it to be anything like Ecstasy." I mused out loud, pacing in the small space between the Hulk and the nearest wall.

"That is a sensible idea," Doctor Strange piped up, giving me an appreciative look. "We'll wait for Romanoff," One angry look at his own scarred, shaking hands, Stephen went back to the book he was reading. He needed a hug, too, I decided.

"Puny Banner will do it," Hulk suddenly announced, reaching out for me.

I obliged, giving the green giant a hug. "Maybe we can go play in Central Park once it's warmer, whatcha think?" I looked up at him, brain just so full of different things. Ideas bounced off one another like ping pong balls.

The Hulk grinned and... Well, I didn't see the transformation, my eyes shut themselves as soon as I felt the flesh under my palms begin to shrink and expand. It wasn't that I was afraid, rather, the feeling was so bizarre that my racing brain had to automatically shut down in fears of being overstimulated.

"Hi," Bruce supplied meekly, an adorable blush staining his cheeks. I didn't resist the urge to kiss and hold him close, and we stood there with him holding up his pants with one hand and clutching my hoodie with the other until Tony cleared his throat.

"You good, Brucie-bear?" The engineer gave a distracted smile towards us, not taking his eyes off the keyboard.

"Yes, Tones," The scientist replied easily, adding with a frown: "I'm glad me and Hulk finally agree on something." With that, he departed in the search of normal pants and the tools needed to acquire my blood sample.

I gave it without much fuss, waving to Bucky, Natasha and Loki that had returned with a middle-aged, balding man in tow. The shared look of amusement between Steve and Bucky and the man's starry-eyed look towards the Captain let me deduce it was one Agent Coulson, the very same man Tony couldn't stop telling stories about, the one with the Captain America trading cards.

So, mayhaps, me taking place in Stephen's lap while Bruce filled up three whole vials full of my blood wasn't exactly the smartest way to go about it. Tony found it amusing, Steve was shaking his head in fond annoyance and Stephen himself struggled to maintain his indifference, yet, the blush betrayed him.

"Agent, what brings you to our humble abode?" Tony snorted, seeing the man raise an eyebrow at the display of affection.

"Operation Baby Thief," Coulson replied with a sigh. "I see the Baby is secure. Keep it that way." Oh, the man was cheeky. I liked him already.

"The Baby has a Tony, a Sorcerer Supreme and a Hulk," I retorted haughtily. "And a functional brain. Fuck that guy."

"Indeed," Coulson snorted. "Tell me, what do you know about the Hamptons incident?"

I blanched, immediately tensing. Bruce withdrew the needle and pressed a bandage over the wound, running gentle fingers over my arm. Everybody must've noticed my surprise, turning to me with their faces full of expectation. Stephen's touch was calming, slightly trembling at the nape of my neck.

"Not much, to be honest. I was about thirteen when it happened and my mother tried to hide it from me," I chewed on my lip, looking away. "What I managed to find out is that there was a robbery that resulted in two deaths, my father being one of the suspects because he was high as hell on coke and he was found sleeping in the same room as the open gun safe," I recalled the memories of mother angrily screaming at dad, calling her law firm colleagues late at night. "I don't need a law degree to know the evidence was flimsy. Dad got a drug charge, his buddies got the same and both the killer and the gun were never found." I exhaled loudly, tapping my foot on the floor, supressing the need to pace.

Coulson nodded, opening a thin manila folder and producing an image of a small, wooden box with carvings that looked like runes on it. "Have you seen this object?"

I felt my blood run cold, my vision swam. "Yes," I swallowed dryly. "That's my end-of-the-world box. I buried it in my grandparents' backyard two years ago."

"End of the world?" Coulson asked, alarmed. "Did you open it?"

"No," I shook my head negative. "I found it in my room at one point and every time I looked at it, it felt... Wrong. Like it was a glitch in a computer game. I couldn't sleep, so I stuck it in my closet and that gave me terrible nightmares and sleep paralysis. I took it with me when I went to visit Gramps and buried it three feet deep under the cherry tree." My hands were shaking once again; I had forgotten about the box but my body remembered the primal, untameable terror that I experienced in it's proximity. At fourteen years old, I just thought I had an overactive imagination or something, too many horror movies, hormonal storms.

"That is a magical artifact," Stephen's voice was quiet and concerned. "A very dangerous, destructive at that. How long were you in it's presence?"

"About nine months, give or take."

"And you didn't open it once, not even a little bit?" Tony had caught on the trend, almost a hysterical edge to his voice.

"No, and I think I know why," I looked to the side. "I saw Wanda on the TV, and, like, magic was confirmed to be real, so I guess I was sure whatever is in there, it wasn't good. During that time, my parents told me I was sleepwalking but I can't remember any of it. I might have wanted to get that box to someone of your... Specialty," I briefly messed with the sleeve of Stephen's shirt, exhaling loudly when his hand grasped mine and held it with care. "I think that box messed with my head... Because I swear that I had no recollection of it until you brought it up," I realized suddenly, my eyes shooting up in blind panic. What else have I forgotten?!

"That is astonishing," Loki's baritone exclaimed. "Nine months is a long time to resist the pull of such a strong artifact." My best friend stated with a great deal of respect.

People in the room started talking all at once. Stephen and Tony declared I needed to get checked out by a professional - Tony meaning s doctor and Stephen meaning a healer of the magical kind; Bruce scooted over and pulled my frozen body in a solid hug; Steve and Bucky planned out to get the box from my grandparents' house, debating whether to take Loki or Thor with them; the SHIELD part of the team discussing the intel and further plans to catch the rogue mercenary.

The door opened quietly.

"Hi everybody, hello Mr. Stark," Peter was disheveled, his ratty backpack in one hand and an enormous sandwich in another. "Got here as fast as I could. What's up?"

THE TAG LIST IS NOW OPEN! @another-stark-sub ​ @mostly-marvel-musings  @vozit ​ @littlegasps ​ @pilloclock ​ @shereadsinquiet @downeyreads ​ @hermione-grangers-wife ​ @individualistfem ​ @sleep-i-ness @capbrie @lillsxd @agustdowney @dee-vn @justanotherblonde23 @fanngirl19 @persephonehemingway @softie-socks @schemefrenzy @letsby @cutenessloading @romeo-the-cactus @jelly-fishy-babie @mikariell95

[headoverhiddles]

Wrapped In Plastic - Marilyn Manson x Reader [Smut]

Synopsis: The new kid at school intrigues you. He’s infatuated too, but beneath that scary exterior, you’ve got no idea what’s in store. 

Notes: Era: Spooky Kids! Requested by anon: “High school Brian having a crush on you.”

There he is, sitting in front of the principal again. Brian Warner. You're surprised he hasn't been expelled yet, frankly, even though he just moved here to South Florida recently.

You watch from afar, sitting with your friends. He's making that face. That expression... or lack of expression. He doesn't give a fuck what he got in trouble for, and you, he and the principal know it.

"Hey. (y/n)," your best friend says, "What the hell? Are you listening?"

"Yeah," you mutter, glancing back into the office. God, he would probably fuck like an animal, taking you in some old haunted forest somewhere while spanking you and telling you you're his dirty little slut...

Your friend scoffs when she sees where you're looking.

"That guy is dangerous, quit fantasizing. That isn’t your picture perfect bad boy-- that’s like dating the next Son of Sam killer.”

Your other friend chimes in. “My sister told me she saw him and his pack of weirdos out lighting an abandoned house on fire. My sister’s friend said she hears him jerking off in the washroom every lunch hour. The whole school knows about it. Also apparently in creative writing, he turned in this story about this guy fucking his sister's corpse or something. Seriously weird, probably evil. He's gonna end up in jail, mark my words." You ignore your friend, but turn back into the conversation.

Eventually, the principal gives up, dismissing him. You see Brian join his friends outside the office door, who have been waiting-- Jeordie and Stephen, you think you've heard them called in class. The one with the brown comb-over is called Pogo outside of class, because of his fascination with serial killers. You think it's funny. Those guys just do whatever they want. 

Your breath hitches. Brian tucks his long black hair behind his ear, looking up and grinning at his friends. He's describing what he did, and he looks like a gleeful child who just got away with murder as the other two bust out laughing and dig for details. How could anyone think he's evil? 

Cold chills run through your body as he meets your eyes. Oh, fuck. He smirks a little bit your way, but you quickly look away. His features harden, and he turns back to his friends. You turn back to yours.

You can't help watching after him as he walks down the hall to fourth period, though... his head nearly reaches the ceiling, and that metal Planet Of The Apes lunchbox makes you smile. You've heard him make a threat or two to beat someone's ass with it, and you believe he'd do it. For every bully who promised him he'd be nothing, there's something about him that promised so much more.

--

The bell goes, and Brian sits down at the desk. 

"She was looking at you." 

"Yeah, she was talking to her friends about me," Brian mutters back.

"She looked like she was wetting her panties over you," Jeordie grins, "She looks like she wanted to suck your dick right there in front of Mr. Ogilvie!"

"That'd be the day," Brian sighs. 

"Yeah, you'd have beat off material forever," Pogo laughs.

"But she wasn't," he said, "You guys are just fucking blind."

"I don't know, I got some blow job vibes from her,” Pogo says. 

“You get blow job vibes from everyone.” 

“I’ll blow you for lunch money,” Jeordie mentions. Pogo shrugs. 

“I might take you up on that.” His obnoxious laughter rings out as you walk by the door. You recognize it immediately, and look back. Brian’s sitting there, knees tucked under the desk like his legs won’t fit. Shit. In your experience, being this preoccupied with someone meant you were into them... or at least, wanted to see more of them. 

Brian looks up again, and sees you staring at him. This time, he frowns. You’re drawn away by your friend, who pulls you toward your next class. As you're walking, someone calls your name.

“Hey! (y/n), right?” 

You turn as your friend keeps walking ahead. You scoff slightly as he approaches. “Like you don’t know my name.” You pause, backtrack. “I- sorry. That was mean."

“That’s okay. I’ve been known to be a little mean too,” he smirks, and he flips his hair out if his face. “I guess when you hang around a bunch of catty bitches all the time, it rubs off on you.” His voice is so deep and calm. It throws you off whenever he speaks, but does other things to you as well.

"Hanging out with a pair of delinquents can do the same." Your eyes dart inside the classroom to his friends, who are carving something into a desk. He gives a small smile.

"Touché."

“Speaking of rubbing off,” you raise an eyebrow, “Did you want to talk to me?”

He blushes, then forces his embarrassment away. “That rumor’s not true.”

“No?”

“Nah. I did light that abandoned house on fire though.” He grins, and you do as well, hugging your books closer to your chest. 

“So. You’re a rebel, huh?”

“If not putting up with everybody’s bullshit counts as rebelling, then yeah. I guess so.”

“I can respect that,” you nod. “I feel the same way... but I’m not as fearless as you.”

“Are you saying you might commit arson with me, (y/n)?” 

“Maybe. How did the conversation progress to lighting things on fire with you?” 

He laughs, ducks his head nervously. “Well. Um, I saw you staring like a creep, and... I was wondering if you wanted to be creeps together. Y’know... hang out sometime? Come see my band, or...?”

“Are you asking me out?”

“Yeah, I am.”

You smile, poking his black shirt that read Christianity is Unnatural, Abnormal, and Perverse. “You’ve got balls, Brian.” You look at the clock, and back to his class. “What do you say we fuck off for the rest of the day?”

His eyebrows shoot up. “You wanna skip class today?”

“Sorry,” you walk your fingers up his chest. “I know I’m not quite at your level of rebellion yet, but it’s a start.” 

He laughs as he follows you to your locker. 

---

“So. Do you have a car?”

“No.” He scratches his head. “We can walk back to my house, though. My parents aren’t home.” 

Following that plan, you make it back to his house. For someone hailed as the Antichrist of the school, he's got a relatively normal looking home, white picket fence and everything. All that changes once you get to his room.

"Wow," you say, looking up at everything. He's got serial killer-like writing scrawled on the wall by his bed, lyrics that seem like they're straight out of a porno or a horror film, or both. There are pentagrams drawn on his bed posts, and posters of bands like Nine Inch Nails, Ozzy Osbourne, KISS on his walls.

"I know it's stupid, but I'd give anything to meet those guys," he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck.

"It's not stupid," you say, examining the edges of the posters, freyed from the move no doubt. "I actually think it's awesome. I love Ozzy."

"One day I'm gonna beat his record for most drugs consumed over a lifetime."

"Have you started practicing?" you tease.

"I... well, I haven't had the chance."

"Right. Let me know when you do." You smile, going over to sit on his bed. He looks down at you, seems to have a mini panic attack, then acts cool with it, playing with his lip ring and sitting beside you. You look around the messy floor. He's got a strange mix of stuff that oddly seems to perfectly fit his personality: leaking boxes of black hair dye, various lipsticks and nail polishes, a bag of weed, books on the rise of fascism and Carl Jung's red book, an antique-looking switchblade, a Willy Wonka hat, condoms with little angry faces drawn on them, an old deflated football with "FIGHT" written on it, and... "What's that?" you ask, leaning down. Brian coughs.

"Oh. Yearbook from last year."

You pick it up, looking at all the little drawings of candy, needles, Charles Manson and other doodles he's defaced the book with. "But you didn't go to this school last year."

"I traded my mom's diet pills for it."

"Huh. Hustling already. Must have been some good stuff." You hesitate. The page was open to the photos of you as the lead in the play last year. You smirk, pretending to squint. "Is that a cum stain I see on my face?"

"You wish," he huffs, but he's blushing, hair curtaining around his face. You give him a look, turning fully toward him.

"Why'd you really invite me over?"

"To tell you I hate you, knock you out, and bury you in my backyard." You laugh.

"I mean, if you think about it..."

"It's the perfect plan. Invite the girl you've got a crush on over, assume she's gonna make fun of you, lure her in, then get your revenge." You smile, laying back on his bed.

"You just admitted to having a crush on me."

"Wasn't it obvious?" he asks. "I only ever threaten to kill the people I really wanna fuck."

"And do you really wanna fuck me, Bri?" you ask coyly, crawling dangerously close to him. He swallows, Adam's apple bobbing in his long, graceful throat. "You wanna fuck me right here, right now, while your parents aren't home, make me scream your name while you blare your favorite metal record and act like things'll never change?"

"That sounds good," he groans. His hands wander up your thigh, and you smile, bouncing on his leg. "...I also wanna share my music with you. Read a book over your shoulder. Maybe pop a few pills, key someone's car, grab a milkshake and look at the stars on Special K so we feel like we're floating, you know. Before I bang the shit out of you. Date stuff."

"Is this not our first date?" you ask. His tongue flicks up over his lip ring again. 

"I guess you could say it is."

"Good. Cause I never fuck on a first date," you say, "Or so I tell people." He clenches his jaw, and braces a skinny arm beside your head, leaning down to capture your lips. His lips taste sweet, like mint and those sugary rocket candies. He takes his shirt off, and you rub your hands down, feeling a few scars. He lets out a whimpered noise at your touch, shuddering a little. 

You make out and grind against one another for a few minutes, your hands pulling his hips closer by his black belt loops and his fingers tangling your hair. Your breath gets faster as he grinds harder, more desperately, and you reach a hand down to help him out, give him something to rut against.

"You feel so big," you moan, and he runs a hand through his hair, lips falling open.

"I'm gonna..." He makes another desperate noise, and you feel it right where you need him. But since all his condoms in here seem to be used or have faces drawn on them in scented marker, you opt for over the clothes stuff only.

"Use your fingers?" you breathe. He looks like he's about to cum, and you know it'll tip you over as well, what with all the times you had thought of him like this.

He reaches into your jeans, unzipping them, and messily finds your clit. For a teenage guy, he's not bad. He starts to rub, then reaches three fingers down to thrust them into you.

"Fuck, Bri! Three?!" you breathe. He looks into your eyes, not stopping.

"I thought girls were whores for that kind of thing!"

"It's..." you moan, "That's... oh... y-yeah... Jesus...” He really start to work them in, watching your reactions while rutting his clothed erection against your leg. "Fuck, Brian, grab my tits... yeah... this is just how I imagined it when I..."

He freezes for a second, and his whole body convulses. He gasps, and you see him reach down to cover his crotch, face going beet red. He doesn't stop, though. He keeps fingering you, and now that he's not worried about grinding, he can explore you in other ways. He attaches his lips to your neck, and sucks a hickie right below your ear. 

“Brian... Bri, make me c--” 

"Cum for me, you filthy little slut," he snarls, and you arch your back up, grinding down into his fingers as your orgasm hits. You rock through it, and he kisses you again, sloppy and hot. When he pulls away, he gives you your fingers to lick clean, which you do through a heated stare.

Things calm down into you laying back against his pillows with his stringy body tucked in a cramped position beside you. "I didn't know you were that..." you search for words. "Experienced?" 

"What, you thought I was a virgin?” 

You giggle. “I didn’t know what to think about you, to be honest. Kinky, inexperienced, I had no idea. Of course, I hoped that you were kinky.”

“I’ve been known to use restraints when asked,” he smirks.

“I’ve got that to look forward to. I thought you were cute too, though. I don’t care if you’re some devil worshipper who parents and teachers everywhere shiver at the thought of." He's quiet for a second.

"I thought you were scared of me." 

"That too, a little bit. But what scares me turns me on." He rolls over to face you, a vulnerable position for him, you can tell. 

"The way I dress is what I perceive to be beautiful. Looking like this, doing what I want to, it keeps the assholes who like to give my face their own version of plastic surgery away if they think I'm a Satanist who's gonna... cut off their mom's head or something if they fuck with me. Makes the hypocrites who call themselves teachers question their morals too, ‘teaching’ someone like me to be a good little boy and follow society’s rules. It’s all brainwashing, everything they feed us with their sugar and shit, and I’m the bad guy for standing up to it." 

You stroke hair out of his face, and he looks up at you, lips pursed. "There’s always gotta be a scapegoat. I guess you fit that role.” You look beyond him. “You think it would ruin your image if those bullies found your poetry books?” He smiles. 

“Nah. One day, I’m gonna grow up to be a big rock and roll star. I’ll use my own poetry and turn it into music, and I’ll look ten times more extreme than I do now. Then they can all say they knew me, and I’ll tell them to go to hell.” 

You snuggle into him. "Mmm. Speaking of extreme... we should pull a Sandy and Danny. I'll come to school dressed all goth and shit Monday. Throw my friends for a loop."

"Does that mean I have to dress like a cheerleader?" he asks.

"You've got the ass for it."

He grins. "Stop it, you're making it very hard for me not to wanna fuck you for real right now."

"Here's the deal," you say, "I'll show you where I live this weekend. You tell me what your favorite fruit is, because that's a soul searching question. At that point we'll know each other better... and I'll be fair game."

He bites his lip. "I feel like I've known you forever."

"Yeah. Me too."

Just then, there's a knock at the bedroom door. Startled, you sit up quickly, and who you can only assume to be Brian's mom pops her head in. "When the fuck did you two get home?!" Brian blurts.

"About five minutes ago, honey. Don't worry, we didn't hear anything. Jeordie called, said he 'left the smoke bomb under the urinals.' I hope you aren't getting up to trouble like the last school, your father had a heck of a time getting you into this one.”

“Mom.”

“He had to switch jobs too, and with his back, you know how difficult long drives can be. Oh, how rude of me-- hello sweetie, you can call me Barb."

"Mom--" 

"Brian, is this the sweet thing you had that dream about the other night?"

"MOM!"

“Hugh, Brian’s got a girlfriend over, we should turn the TV up to give them a little privacy.” 

“GIRLFRIEND?!” a voice calls up, “GOOD ON YA, SON. THAT’S MY BOY!” 

“Jesus fucking Christ...” Brian groans, burying his face in a pillow. You laugh so hard into his chest you nearly tumble off his bed. Most dangerous guy in school, your ass.

[mystilotls]

Tokyo Soul Au: Chapter two

Song: Touch-Tone Telephone

Tw: Main characters in peril, main character harmed (its ok, its just Sam), Shipping

Pleabs reblog

Asks for the characters are open in @ask-mystis-aus (PLEABS SEND THEM QUESTIONS)

Taurtis sighed as his back hit his locker. Right now while he is waiting for Sam to organize his locker, he is lost in a train of thought, he missed Grian. Ever since he held that damn book, he has been acting weird. 

He often wore a black jacket over his red sweater, a pentagram necklace on the outside yet no matter what, he wouldn’t take off this amulet that glowed a distracting red. He had a lock of his hair dyed red yet he always hid it from view, his eyes were a glowing, you guessed it, a piercing red and it always struck fear into Taurtis. 

His personality altered for the worst as well. 

Grian seemed to constantly avoid Taurtis and whenever Sam insulted him, he huffed and walked away, not even bothering to acknowledge his existence. For Sam, being ignored was was the most shameful insult you could ever do and he was not having it. 

Right now Grian was talking to Igbar, more often than Taurtis or Sam yet no matter how much Taurtis was around or near them when they talked, Taurtis couldn’t understand anything they were saying. 

“Sam, do you think we did something wrong?” Taurtis asked while Sam peeked his head out of his locker to look at his headphones friend. 

“Gree-on? He thinks he’s better than us and it makes me sick,” Sam said as he turned his head to see Igbar and Grian turn their backs to them. Sam made an inaudible growl and glared. 

“Don’t bother worrying about him Taurtis, he must have a thing for tentacles SINCE HE HAS A SQUID FOR A BOYFRIEND” Sam yelled loud enough for everyone to hear while Taurtis heart pained hearing “Grian” and “boyfriend” but not his name in that sentence. Sam smiled when Grian turned his head to look at him. Taurtis saw his eye’s turn a dark maroon before returning to the unfamiliar red color. 

Then a painful wail ripped through the hallway.

Taurtis got out of his trance when he heard a locker slam and Sam scream in pain. He quickly spun his head back to see Sam crying as one of his bunny ears were clamped by the locker. Taurtis tried to tug his ear out before Sam shoved him and screamed his combination through tears of embarrassment and agony.

Meanwhile Grian watched the scene with a smile on his face.   

Taurtis decided to come to class early so he could save a seat for Grian. He assumed he was giving the silent treatment because he felt underapreciatted so he wonders if a kind jesture will let him know that he cares about him. Taurtis saw Grian enter and smiled while patting the empty desk, his hopes shattered as he saw Grian sit in the back of the room, completely away from Taurtis.  

He then looked up to see Dr. Nurse leading Sam to class with a bandage wrapped around his ear, Snugglemuffins in his arms and a congested nose of sniffling.

 He sat down and slammed his head on the desk before groaning in disgust. He looked at the desk and saw a wad of chewed gum where he had rested his forehead. Sam tugged on his ears in annoyance before remembering that he hurt his ear and yelled in pain. 

Taurtis turned his head to hear a faint chuckle coming from Grian, who was writing something in a notebook and trying to hold back a smile.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Taurtis sat on the couch and looked through his contacts, Sam for some reason didn’t come home the same time he did and Grian left the house only to say “I will see you in a few hours” and that was the only thing he heard from him all day.  

Sam did come home an hour late and when Taurtis glanced at him, he looked horrible (but then again he wore torn clothes constantly). Sam was covered in garbage, reeked of fish blood, fish bones were in his natted hair, Taurtis looked down to see stray cats climbing on Sam before he shooed them away and slammed the door. 

“New fashion statement, Sam?” Taurtis asked and heard Sam growled. Before he could sit down however, Taurtis shooed him off the couch, exclaiming he smelled worse than before.   

Sam just groaned, grabbed paper towels and threw them on the floor before sitting down. It was a small amount of silence before Sam answered Taurtis’ unspoken question. 

“I don’t know how but I got lost, and when I at least found Sushi-wushi, your ‘girlfriend’ threw a trash bag that was supposed to go into the dumpster but landed on me and now these dumb cats won’t leave me alone!” Sam folded his arms and rested them on his knees before slamming his head into his arms. Taurtis nodded before having another question

“Did Grian tell you where he went?” Taurtis asked and saw Sam move his head to look at Taurtis before scowling. 

“Why should I care, he is the one who hurt my ear!” 

“Sam, he was nowhere near u-” Taurtis stopped talking and stared, he realized that he wasn’t acting like this until he got that stupid book. Cthuhlu knows what is going on! He will fix Grian!

“-but i did see him hanging out with Cthu-” Sam was interrupted when Taurtis jumped up from his seat and into his face. 

“Where?!” 

“The warehou-” Once again Sam was interrupted when Taurtis grabbed his phone, a jacket and ran out of the house, shouting something that Sam didn’t hear well but it was under the lines of 

“I’LL BE RIGHT BACK, DON’T YOU SIT ON THE COUCH UNTIL YOU TAKE A BATH”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Taurtis walked into the warehouse entrance before hiding behind a wall when he heard voices. He peeked his head and saw Grian walking to where Cthuhlu was standing. 

“Out of all the places we could talk in private, this was the place you picked. A dingy warehouse that everyone can see” Grian chuckled. 

“We could have talked in my meeting room but those mortals trashed it, anyways I have a present for you” Cthuhlu beckoned Grian to follow him before he lifted his tentacle to open a rectangle shaped portal to another realm. The whole room went dark as the portal turned a bright red, the whisperings of the damned echoed throughout as 

Taurtis was almost flown back before he gripped the wall tightly, trying to pull out his phone to record what is happening. He tries to watch the scene before he saw a shadow like arm reach out of the portal. 

The demon climbs out of the portal before collapsing, and with a wave of Cthulhu’s tentacle, the portal faded. With whatever just crawled out of the portal, laying on the floor motionless. 

The creature looked like it was made of nothing but shadows, its long claws scraping against the floor with a chain on its wrist clinking, its pair of black demon wings slightly twitching as its tail sweeped back and forth. 

“Hello, Inanis. Welcome to Earth,” Cthuhlu helped the demon up and Taurtis saw its face. The demon’s only feature was two glowing white eyes as a jagged smile was practically carved into his face. The demon walked before looking at Grian. 

“Inanis” Grian spoke with a smile

“No matter what form you take, you always look devilishly handsome” ‘Inanis’ spoke before cupping a claw onto Grian’s face, who nuzzled into the touch. 

Taurtis watched the scene and tried to fight the tears building up, he was going to walk away in shame before he heard them speak again. 

“Necro, my dear. Where am I, and what is this ‘new look’ of yours” The shadow demon looked around which made Taurtis panic when he walked near his direction. Wait, why did this guy call Grian “Necro”

“Relax, I just made a simple deal with a human, he graciously and generously let me have his body,” Grian spoke trying to hide a giggle and the shadow demon smiled.  Cthulhu walked up to them.

“Well apparently we all need disguises or else these mortals will try to get rid of you” Cthulhu  spoke before “Inabis” realized that he needed a human to fit in here. He looked at Grian and he knew what he wanted.

“Oh no, Inanis, I got this body fair and square!”

 Inanis pouted before flying up the dangling lights and perching there, looking to see the faint glow of light and people walking around the night, some drunk while some are just tired from a long day. Inanis’ smile grew as he picked out ideas for his disguise. Grian chuckled before talking to Cthuhlu.  

“So, this is the plan old friend, Steal humans bodies and destroy this world from within?”

“That will be somewhat the plan. We cross that bridge when we get there my impatient friend. Right now we need to worry about our guests from back home following our costume ball guidelines”

Taurtis backed away before his back hit something, he couldn’t think before a claw covered his mouth and dragged him to the darkness, dropping his phone. 

The faint yet gentle ringtone of Sam calling him was the only thing that accompanied the fearful silence

[katehuntington]

Title: In Bad Waters - part nine Word count: ±3300 words Episode summary: Still in possession of the Winchesters’ belongings, Zoë meets up with the hunters on her next case. When it turns out to be a little more complicated than anticipated, she accepts their help in order to make an important deadline. Part nine summary: After splitting up, each hunter has their own part to play in order to solve the case. But when Sam has a vision, things go south real quick. Episode warnings: Dark! NSFW, 18+ only! Descriptions of domestic violence/child abuse. Drug use/addiction. Angst, gore, violence, character death. Description of blood, injury and medical procedures/resuscitation. Swearing, alcoholism. Supernatural creatures/entities, mentions of demon possession. Descriptions of torture and murder, drowning. Illegal/criminal practices. Mentions of nightmares and flashbacks. Author’s note: Beta’d by @winchest09​​​​​​ and @deanwanddamons​​​​​​. Thanks, girls! Gif isn’t mine. If you are the creator or know who made it, please tell me so I can credit you.

Supernatural: The Sullivan Series Masterlist

S1E02 “In Bad Waters” Masterlist

     Bored out of her skull, Zoë flips the page of her newspaper for the third time, pretending to read it. She found a good spot on the terrace of a Pizza Hut restaurant. Traffic drives by on Highway 412 constantly, but from her table she has a clear view of a house on Magnolia Drive. Taylor Dawlson, Laura’s former teacher, lives in the suburban home.

     It’s 14:30 and Zoë has been guarding the Dawlson residence for over an hour now, but nothing has happened so far. She hasn’t had a call from the boys yet either, so she presumes everything is quiet at the Shire place, and Dean is probably talking to doctor Hughes.

     Taylor Dawlson is home, busy maintaining the household while keeping her daughter entertained. The husband, whose name is Jeff, is working the lawn at the moment, a sprinkler system watering the pink magnolias by the white wooden fence. On the table in front of her, next to the slice of pepperoni pizza, Zoë installed her Macbook, which shows some information about the Dawlson family, just so that she knows who she’s dealing with. Taylor is a teacher at the Woodrow Wilson Elementary School, Jeff is into sportswear and merchandise. They’ve been married for seven years  and have a three year old daughter named Lesley. No criminal records on the parents, nothing out of the ordinary. Just a happy family, living in a normal neighborhood, right next to a church. One thing doesn’t show up on her screen, though, and it’s something the huntress knows for a fact; the mother happened to be in one of her flashbacks.

     She lets out a bored sigh and takes another bite of her pizza, but then feels her phone vibrating in her pocket. Quickly, she takes out her Nokia and checks the screen; it’s Sam.      “What’s up?” She yawns.      “Your stake out is that exciting, huh?” Sam responds sarcastically.

     Sam is comfortable in the driver’s seat of the Chevrolet Impala, which he parked across the street of the Shire residence, located on Reynolds Park Road. He has the window rolled down and rests his elbow on the door as he holds his phone to his ear. The streets are almost empty in this neighborhood just outside the downtown area of Paragould. A beautiful house by the lake seems like a fairytale to live in, and yet this place was the setting for violence and abuse for many years.

     “It’s like watching a documentary on snails,” she comments, after which she bites off a piece of pizza.      Sam can hear her chewing food and furrows his brow. “Are you eating again?”      “Dude, you sound like my dietician,” Zoë responds with her mouth full.      Sam chuckles and realizes how stern he must have sounded. “Burgers again?”      “No, I like a bit of variation in my cuisine,” she claims, putting up a snooty voice. “I’m having Italian right now.”      “Let me guess: pizza?”      Zoë laughs. “Pizza Hut to be precise.”

     “How do you do it?” Sam wonders, still chuckling.      “Do what?”      “Eat so much, without… well, you know--” he starts carefully, instantly regretting it. He’s on thin ice.      Zoë can’t help but grin, deciding to mess with him. “- getting big? Are you fucking kidding me, Sam? Someone who had a long term relationship should know this; clothes, weight and age are the forbidden subjects.”      Quickly, Sam sets things straight. “I’m sorry, I just think it’s extraordinary.”      “What? The weirdness of women or the fact that I eat so much?” she jokes.

     Sam chuckles, now that he can detect the trace of mockery in her voice.  “Seriously, though. How can you consume so much food and still look - you know - like you do?”      “Because I kick ass,” she answers, sassy.      Her response might have come out rapidly, for a brief moment there, Zoë analyzed that sentence. Was Sam’s remark a compliment or a flirt? She’s not sure what to think of it, but presumes the flirtation wasn’t intentional, considering he’s clearly still struggling to deal with his ex-girlfriend’s death. And come on, she has given him a pretty hard time; she’s been anything but charming.

     Zoë changes the subject before an awkward silence follows. “How’s it going over there?”      Sam glances through his windshield at the two individuals up at the house. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Mrs. Shire seems to mourn by cleaning up the entire house and her son is sitting by the lake, just staring out over the water,” Sam describes.      “The guy was an asshole, but he was still their family,” she realizes, after which a beep sounds in her ear; she has a different call coming in.       “Gonna put you on hold for a sec, Sam,” she notifies the hunter, and pushes the green button on her phone. “Sullivan.”

     “Doc ain’t talking.”      Dean walks down the stairs of the Arkansas Methodist Medical Center. He unbuttons his blazer and loosens his tie.      Zoë narrows her eyes, even though the recipient on the other end of the line can’t see it. “What do you mean, he isn’t talking?”      “He got all nervous when I started asking questions. There’s no way I can get a word out of his mouth. But he does know something, alright,” Dean explains.

     “Did you try everything?” she checks, questioning Dean’s interrogation skills.      “Well, I didn’t torture him, if that’s what you’re asking. I didn’t tell him the truth either,” he admits.      Zoë realizes it’s a good thing he didn’t reveal his true identity. If Dean starts talking about killer ghosts and the guy freaks out, they might have a serious problem, considering that they are identified as FBI. A call to their chief at the Bureau will ultimately result in a blown cover, which will not make solving any future case any easier.

     “You have the death report, right?” she threatens with a tone.      “Who the fuck do you think I am? Of course I have the death report,” Dean ensures cockily, as he takes out the report from his inside pocket. “Stole it from his file case. Piece of cake.”      Zoë doesn’t bother to compliment him for his deed. “Anything interesting in there?”      “Not really,” Dean presses his phone between his ear and shoulder and leafs through the pages, which contain a lot of medical talk that he doesn’t understand one bit. “It says that Laura Shire was brought in by her father around 11 PM, yada yada. Cause of death…” Dean pauses as he reads the line again and halts. “Didn’t you say that both dear daddy and Van Dyke broke their neck?” he recalls, looking up from the file.      “Yeah.”      “Laura broke hers too. Robert Shire claimed she fell down the stairs.”       Zoë scoffs. “Well that’s complete utter bullshit.”

     “One other thing,” he points out as he continues his way down the street. “Shire wasn’t just a colleague, he was his boss. Guess who the second signature on Laura’s death report belongs to.”      “Shire himself?” she assumes, stunned.      “The one and only.”      “But he’s a family member of the victim, he should have been excluded from the examination!” Zoë exclaims in disbelief.      “That’s why he got Hughes to do the autopsy. All they needed was his signature as Chief of Staff.”      The huntress gets the point now and rolls her eyes skyward. “Which makes the report valid.”      “So, what now?” Dean questions, his current mission having been completed.      “Hughes played a part in this cover up, so he might be her next candidate,” Zoë ponders, glancing at the Dawlson residence, where it’s still quiet. “There is no way you can keep an eye on him in that hospital, is there?”      “We don’t need to. Laura only attacks when her victim is alone, right?” Dean mentions.

     Zoë thinks about that for a second, her mind going over the first two murders. She didn’t notice it before, but he’s right. There were people in the house when Shire and Van Dyke were killed, but never in the same room.      “Now that you mention it. As long as the doc stays amongst people, he’ll be safe. When does he get off?”      “Already checked that; not until 6 PM,” Dean informs.      “Good, so we don’t have to worry about him until six,” she concludes, trying to think of a plan.      “Everything nice and quiet over there?” Dean wonders.      “I’m wasting my time. I’m not sure if Laura would target her anyhow.”      Dean walks into the parking lot of the Kentucky Fried Chicken only blocks away from the hospital. “And Sam?”      “Do I look like a fucking mailman to you? Why don’t you ask him yourself?” she returns annoyed.

     He enters the KFC and takes a look at the menu, even though he always goes for the classic. When Dean ignores her remark, the silence however ignites a reaction from the huntress nonetheless.      “You two had a fight or somethin’?”      “Sort of,” he admits with a mutter.      “Ah, brotherly love. What did you fight about?” Zoë asks nosy.      “That’s none of your business,” Dean returns defensive, stunned by her boldness. “Damn, you’re not curious at all, are you?”      “I’m not curious. I just want to know everything.” She shrugs, her correction sassy. “C’mon, spill it.”

     Dean sighs somewhat agitated. He doesn’t owe her an explanation, but he figures that once she knows, she might stop poking him. He keeps it as short as possible, though. “It was about Dad. Sam and I have different ideas on how to find him.”

     Surprisingly, there’s no smart counter that follows up his words. Instead, Zoë swallows back a mean remark and decides not to respond for their own good. They are finally having a conversation without yelling at each other, and although the fighting doesn’t bother her since she has no interest in becoming friends with the older Winchester, she’d rather keep it civil. Like it or not, she can use their help, so now would not be the best time to counter the hunter.

     Dean breaks the deadly silence. “Still there?”      Zoë clears her throat. “Yeah, sorry. Got distracted.”      “Want some chicken?” he jokes, as if he could teleport it to her place.      She laughs, guessing where he is. “Where are you? KFC?”      “Ahuh,” he confirms, and turns to the guy behind the counter. “One bucket of chicken wings, please.”      “Is that all?” Zoë comments.      “You’re right,” he agrees, looking back at the restaurant worker. “Could you add a Crispy Colonel Sandwich and a coke?”

     He pays for his second lunch of the day and tells the employee to keep the change.      “Did you eat?” Dean asks Zoë, as he walks out to the terrace and settles down in the sun.      She smiles at her phone. Apparently they have found common grounds.      “Yeah, pizza,” she mentions. “Which reminds me, I still have Sam on hold. If you wanna crash some place, feel free to break into my motel room.”      “Alrighty, you didn’t boobytrap it, did ya?” he checks first.      “Unless you’re a demon or a ghost you’re free to waltz in,” Zoë replies, referring to the demon trapping pentagram under the doormat and the salt lines in the windowsills.      “Room number?”      “Seventeen. Don’t break anything.”

     With those words, she disconnected her call with Dean and returns to Sam. “I’m back,” she lets him know.      But there’s not a sound on the other line. He didn’t hang up on her, she can still hear static.      “Sam? You there?”      Then she hears Sam’s voice, but it’s not comforting. A painful moan sounds from the other side of the line.      “Sam, answer me! What’s going on?” Zoë calls out, sensing something is wrong.      Sam groans. “I’m here.”

     He has the palm of his hand pressed against his forehead, eyes shut firmly. He doesn’t know what just happened to him, but a stabbing pain in his head almost knocks him out cold. The images that flashed before his eyes a moment ago remain on display, but he cannot place any of them. Visions in his sleep are one thing, but he has never experienced them during the day before.      “What’s happening?”      He hears Zoë’s voice and presses his Blackberry against his ear. “I - I think I just had a vision.”      Zoë’s eyes grow large. It has started. “What did you see?”      Sam looks up, stunned. By the sound of her words, she experienced this too. “You had one of those while awake?”      “That’s not important right now. What did you see?” she repeats firmly.      Sam thinks back, trying to recover the recollections behind closed eyes. “I saw a house, white woodwork,” he remembers. “A woman inside is terrified, screaming, and I heard a child’s voice, saying ‘You didn’t stop it’.”

     Zoë’s eyes drift from her laptop screen to the house across the street; the Dawlson home has white woodwork. Her eyes widen as she realizes what might be going on.      “It’s Laura. What else did you see, Sam?!” she pressures while getting up so abruptly, that her chair tumbles over.      “A guy mowing the lawn, sprinklers... and a church, right next to the house,” he recalls, concentrating on possible clues.

     Zoë’s runs down the terrace, leaving her Macbook behind on the table. As fast as she can she crosses the street and is barely missed by a car, but she doesn’t have eyes for it. Her eyes are fixated on the front door and she knows; Laura is here.      “Get to Magnolia Drive, now!” she orders Sam, putting away her phone right after.      Adrenaline rushes through her body as she grabs the doorknob, but the door seems to be jammed. She pulls as hard as she can, but there’s no movement whatsoever.

     “Hey! What do you think you are doing?” Jeff Dawlson exclaims at the intruder. He left his lawnmower on the grass and now approaches her with large steps.      “Your wife’s in danger! We need to get inside the house,” she tells the man straight forward.      The facial expression of the tall man changes from mad to worried, his gaze shifting to his home. “Who are you?”      “Jeff, I don’t have time to explain! We need to get in the house!” Zoë cries out, losing her cool.

     She puts her shoulder into it and tries to lift the door from his hinges, but it won’t budge. Frustrated, she looks around for another way in.     Jeff hastens to the back door, but returns soon after, panicking. “I can’t get the back door to open! My daughter is in there too!”      The huntress curses, ramming into the door again. Laura is doing this, she’s shutting them out so that she can work over her victim without being interrupted. It’s amazing how fast this little ten year old developed into the monster she is now. This isn’t a ghost problem anymore, this is a poltergeist.      Without hesitation, Zoë draws her gun from behind her waistband and aims for the kitchen window. She pulls the trigger, but instead of breaking the glass, the shell flings back as if it just hit bullet proof glass.

     “Taylor!” Jeff calls his wife's name, desperately.      But they don’t hear a sound, not even a horrific scream and Zoë wonders if that is a good sign. Not willing to give up, she creates some distance between her and the door and drives her shoulder into the wood again and again, until she feels sore to the bone.      “Goddamnit! Let us in!” she yells, furiously.

     In the meantime, Jeff got his hands on a shovel and starts hitting the windows, but none of them break. While he keeps calling out for his wife and daughter, Zoë hears the roar of a V8 engine coming around the corner. With screeching tires Sam stops the car and jumps out, rushing for the trunk.      Without pausing her efforts to get in, Zoë calls out. “You better have a bright idea, Sam!”      With two loaded shotguns in his hands he runs up the lawn, but stops in his tracks when he glances at the window. “Zoë?”

     She looks over her shoulder and sees the staggered expression on his face, triggering her to back up glances at the second story. In front of the window stands a young girl, but the sight is anything but endearing. This time she isn’t the sad little innocent kid, she looks terrifying. Here eyes seem to have sunken deep into their sockets, blood and bruises cover her pale body. Her head is tilted to the right in an unnatural way, twisted at the base. The image distorts, then she disappears.

     The next moment, they hear the sound of shattering glass. The hunters’ attention is drawn to the kitchen window; Jeff managed to break it. Hastily Zoë rushes for the door, knowing it’s unlocked now and enters the house. Sam is right behind her and hands her the shotgun in the hallway, just in case.      She looks at the gun for a moment. “This isn’t gonna help.”      “Loaded with rock salt,” Sam elaborates.      Her eyes dart to the rifle again, this time appreciating the weapon. She heard of many ways to fight ghosts, but this is a new technique. It must be a Winchester invention, seems like those lumberjacks aren’t that stupid afterall.      “You get their daughter,” she orders.      They split up and when Sam glances into the living room, he sees Jeff's and Taylor’s little girl. She doesn’t seem to realize what is going on, apparently she didn’t hear a thing. The child is playing with her dolls, as her mother told her to.

     While Sam picks up Lesley and takes her outside, Zoë rushes to the second floor. Quickly she climbs the stairs, her shotgun ready to fire. Alert, she scans the corridor; all clear. Knowing Laura might still be inside, she takes a deep breath and busts the door to what she assumes to be one of the bedrooms. What the huntress sees inside makes her stomach turn, even though she has seen her fair share of blood and violence.

     What she feared the most has happened. Laura made her teacher die an even more horrible death than her own. Taylor has collapsed against the wall, her eyes stare at the ground, as if she was unpleasantly surprised by her attacker. But she doesn’t move, she doesn’t flinch; she’s dead. Her arms and neck seem to be broken, a bad head injury that cracked her skull giving Zoë a glimpse of her brain. Blood prints of her head and hands are smeared over the pink wall paper of her daughter’s room. Crimson stains the carpet, the teddy bears on Lesley’s bed, the covers, even the ceiling.      “Damnit, Laura,” Zoë says, breathlessly.

     Footsteps echo from the staircase behind her. She looks back and sees Jeff, running onto the corridor.      “You don’t wanna see this,” she warns, trying to keep him from the doorway.      But as she would have done, he steps inside anyway. As soon as his eye catches the sight of his wife in the state that she is, he freezes. Unable to say anything, unable to move like a deer in headlights, he looks down at her dead body as tears well up in his eyes. Zoë watches him, but she can’t get a word out of her mouth. After she swallows apprehensively, she averts her eyes away from the heart wrenching scene.

     “Taylor…” Jeff whispers as tears run down his face. The cry that follows      gives Zoë chills. “Taylor!”      In a blink of an eye this family’s life has changed forever. The woman Jeff loves dearly, the mother of his child, just got ripped away from them, murdered, and there is nothing he can do to reverse that. Zoë knows the feeling, she knows it way too well. He falls down on his knees in her blood, but he doesn’t hit the floor. He hits rock bottom.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate every single one of you, but if you do want to give me some extra love, you are free to like or reblog my work, shoot me a message or buy me coffee (Link to Kofi in bio at the top of the page). 

Read chapter ten here  

[seagreen-meets-grey]

The Last Slide: Ch. 2

@feeisamarshmallow here is the second chapter ♥

Read on ao3

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Chapters: 1 2 3 4

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The smell of chlorine hit Jake’s nose as soon as he stepped through the front door of the Tropic Thunder Aqua Park. Following Amy to the information desk, he envied the little groups of people striding past him to the ticket window, bags slung over their shoulders, inflatable crocodiles and donuts and flamingos under their arms. Once this case was closed, he needed to find a free day for Amy, Mac and him to come back here. Or maybe to a different water park, one with less murder history.

Amy greeted the teenager behind the desk, flashing her badge and ID. The boy’s brows scrunched in momentary confusion, then he paled a few subtle shades. But when Amy mentioned his boss calling because of the case, his shoulders relaxed. Jake wondered if the boy had done something to assume they were here because of him, or if he was just nervous. The name tag on his orange t-shirt read Julius.

He picked up a desk phone and pressed a few buttons, relaying the information of their arrival. Then he fumbled with his hands and bounced on his heels. “Can I get you anything? A water? Dolphin-shaped cookies?”

Jake opened his mouth to ask for those, but Amy spoke before he could.

“No, thank you, Julius.” She offered him a sympathetic smile. “It must feel awful to be working right now.” The boy nodded, relaxing further and dropping down into his chair.

“It’s weird,” he admitted. “When I came to start my shift, there were crime techs everywhere. And they wheeled out a gurney with a black body bag. I thought this only happened on TV.” He shuddered, glancing off into his memories.

“Did you notice anything unusual lately, Julius?” While still smiling motherly, her tone was ever-professional. The kid was easy to trust her. A wave of pride welled up inside Jake. This was his wife.

Julius shook his head. “I don’t think so. I mean, Francesca said she saw the dead guy argue with Darius last week, but she also believes in yetis, so.”

“Who’s Francesca and Darius?” Jake asked.

“Francesca Roberts and Darius are lifeguards; they work here as pool attendants. I don’t know Darius’ last name, I’m sorry.”

“Did Francesca hear what the argument was about?”

Julius shook his head as behind him, a door opened and a tall middle-aged man with sandy hair and the body of a swimmer stepped through. He wore the same white shorts as Julius but his shirt was baby-blue, without a name tag.

With a polite smile, he reached out his hand over the desk. “Sam Kirkwell, I’m the head of Tropic Thunder. I spoke to your colleague on the phone this morning.”

Amy shook his hand. “Lieutenant Santiago of the 99th precinct, this is Detective Peralta. Is there anywhere we can talk more privately?”

“Of course.” Kirkwell waved them behind the desk and through the door he had just entered through. They walked through a small break room, then down a narrow, cream-painted hallway and into an office. Kirkwell sat behind the desk and gestured at the chairs on the other side, waiting for them to sit before leaning forward and folding his hands on the desk.

“Now how can I help you?”

They went over the details of the case, Amy taking notes rigorously while Jake painted a picture in his imagination, forming the scene, adding everything he’d already read in the file and everything Kirkwell told them. So far, the details added up.

The water park had opened at 9 in the morning. At 9:53, a man – Lars Pearson, 43 years old, Caucasian, warehouse worker – came out of the Disco, a popular water slide, with a poisoned dart in his neck. The first cops on the scene assumed he was hit before going down the slide, but security footage showed him happy, healthy, alive at the top. In the middle of the ride, he came through the funnel, but with the disco lights dancing around and no extra light source, the camera in there didn’t show enough to see the dart. No one followed him down in immediate succession, the next person started the ride once the victim had already been at the end.

Everyone leaving the water park since then had left their contact information. Witnesses could only describe that nothing had been out of the ordinary when Pearson had waited in line for the slide. Nobody had seen anyone with a blowpipe or dart gun. Pool attendants as well as camera footage didn’t deliver them any more information, either.

The victim had no family except for a bedridden father and a brother. Had come to the water park with two co-workers who could also not report anything unusual. No fingerprints had been found on the dart.

“I reopened the park, including the slide, about an hour ago,” Kirkwell continued. “Your people were already gone and the officers said there was no more evidence that had to be saved.”

Jake and Amy both huffed in annoyance. It was one thing to move the body if it otherwise floated around the pool. Any possible evidence left in the water slide, however, they could forget. Kirkwell didn’t seem to have thought that far ahead and whoever had given him clearance to reopen hadn’t either. But they would go and see what they could make of it.

“One more thing,” Jake said when Kirkwell was about to show them the slide, “Julius mentioned two pool attendants we’d like to talk to. Francesca Roberts and another one named Darius.”

“Darius Erickson, yes.” Kirkwell looked at his watch. “Francesca should still be around here somewhere and Darius is about to end his shift in a few minutes. I’ll have them wait in here.”

“Actually,” Amy held up a hand, “we’d like to see them before we inspect the slide.”

That didn’t seem to fit into Kirkwell’s plans, but he schooled his expression into a polite smile and nodded. “Of course. I’ll be right back.”

As soon as the door closed behind him, Amy groaned. “How careless can you be?!” she grumbled. “Now we’ll have to investigate in-between a horde of civilians!”

Jake smirked. “You mean we’ll have to ride the slide to search for clues?”

“Seems like it.” She sighed in defeat but Jake was having none of it.

“Admit it, you want to. Otherwise, you’d just order Kirkwell to close the place until we’re done with the investigation.”

“We don’t even have our swimming gear and– You packed it, didn’t you.” He didn’t have to say anything, the grin on his face confirmed her assumption.

The door opened again a few minutes later and Kirkwell pushed a man and a woman inside. Before he could close the door behind himself, Amy turned to him. “We’d like to speak to them alone, please. Mr. Erickson, if you could also please wait outside while we talk to Ms. Roberts.”

“This is stupid, I already talked to the cops this morning, my shift is over! I want to leave, right now,” Erickson ranted but Jake just sternly gestured at the door. It was something he’d practiced a lot on Mac whenever he’d come out of his room before his tantrum-induced time-out had ended. Erickson reacted similarly while leaving the room, slamming the door behind him.

“Ms. Roberts, please sit,” Amy told the woman. She looked in her mid-fifties, had bleached hair with a gray hairline and her orange t-shirt looked a size too small. “We’ve been told you witnessed an argument between Mr. Erickson and Mr. Pearson last week. Can you tell us more about that?”

Roberts shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. When I left the building last Thursday after my shift, I saw Darius in a heated conversation with someone. I didn’t care because he’s been moody ever since his wife left him a few months ago. I only remembered about it when I saw the body…” She gulped. “It was the guy Darius argued with, I’m sure.”

Darius Erickson confirmed that not much later. “Fine, yes. I knew Lars. That son of a bitch is the reason my wife left me.” He was sitting on the edge of his seat, arms crossed in front of him. The light from the ceiling was shining on his balding head and the crease between his brows was thicker than Terry’s biceps. (So to speak. Jake wouldn’t want anyone to actually hold him to that.)

“I know what you’re thinking,” Erickson continued, “but I already told your colleagues this morning, I didn’t do it! I was late to work, my car’s in the shop, my brother drove me. When I arrived, cops were already here.”

Amy neatly wrote everything down on her notepad. “We’ll need your brother’s contact information, Mr. Erickson.” The man threw his arms up in the air with a huff. “We need to check your alibi in order to drop you as a suspect. We ask you to not leave the city and to be ready for more questions.”

For now, they couldn’t actually bring him in for anything yet. Jake hoped they didn’t need to. Not just because that would solve and end the case way too soon, but also because Erickson would be out and about as long as they didn’t have actual evidence to link him to anything.

After the pool attendant had left, Jake relayed the information to Charles, and by the time they were following Kirkwell through the water park, barefoot and pant legs rolled up, Erickson’s alibi had checked out.

The air inside was warm and humid, tropical, with no breeze to provide a little cooling. Kirkwell showed them where the body was found. The Disco slide ended into a small pool area which in turn was connected to a large non-swimmer’s pool. If the body had been left in here, it really would have been floating around the park by now.

People were coming out of the tube and splashing into the tiny pool every thirty seconds or so. The chlorine in the water should have tainted every bit of evidence so far. And since the murder must have happened somewhere between Pearson’s start and end of the slide ride, Jake absolutely saw no other way than to don swim trunks and bikini and start the investigation. For the sake of work.

Amy grumbled a bit about feeling unprofessional in her own bikini while at a crime scene, but Jake could tell she was looking forward to this. She’d been way too overworked lately. And even though they were basically going to enjoy themselves at the water park, they were still going to do their jobs. It was a win-win situation.

The first three rides, though, brought no new revelations.

(That’s probably because Jake didn’t exactly go to great effort. Amy said she wanted to first get a feel for the slide so she could concentrate on the important things. So same thing, basically.)

(She couldn’t fool him.)

The slide wasn’t bustling with people anymore, so a race up the stairs to the top – so they wouldn’t lose precious investigating time, of course – made absolute sense.

“Ha!” Amy exclaimed as she hit the wall first. Jake made sure not to slip on the tiles as he came around the corner not a second later, out of breath and beaming. “I get to ride first this time.”

She got ready in front of the slide, the water gurgling down the dark tube. The light was green, so she put her hands on the pole over the entrance, leaned back for momentum, and flung herself down the tube. She disappeared behind the first turn, her adorable cry of “wheee” echoing back up to Jake.

He positioned himself, head turned to the side to get a good look at the light. As soon as the red would turn green, he’d use all his strength to propel himself down the slide. But the light didn’t change.

A handful of people gathered behind him during the next minutes, waiting in line and growing increasingly impatient. Was the signal broken? Was Amy stuck somewhere down the slide? Did she somehow manage to hit her head in the funnel and now she was lying there, unconscious, and whatever motion sensor was waiting for her at the end of the slide was going to leave the light red for all eternity?

Okay, maybe he was being a tad bit dramatic. But when it came to his wife, he wouldn’t take any chances. (Plus, he was so eager to go again, and he would be careful not to crash into her and everything, right?) She was probably waiting for him downstairs and he was still up here, contemplating ignoring a red light.

He had to admit, it felt slightly weird to do just that, but then he was already gone. Gravity took him down the black tube, around several corners, water splashing in his face constantly. He wasn’t able to see much until he took a sharp turn and found himself in the funnel. Strobe lights and LED cones in plenty of different colors were dancing across the walls, highlighting the path to where the slide continued.

As Jake let the centrifugal force carry him through the funnel, he almost bumped into a pair of legs.

“Ames!” he called out in surprise, his voice carrying around the funnel. “There you are!” With his feet, he decelerated, coming to a stop. It was harder than he’d imagined to climb to Amy at the side of the funnel, the stream of water constantly tugging at his feet. Not to mention the slippery ground in general. “I thought you broke the slide when the light didn’t turn green.”

“I just don’t understand,” she mumbled, narrowed eyes inspecting every inch of the funnel. “How could Pearson get hit with a dart in here? The whole slide is a closed space.”

Jake had an idea. “Maybe the killer waited for him in here. And when Pearson thought he’d waited for the green light long enough, he went in, and when he came here, all the killer had to do was shoot the dart, wait a bit and follow him out at a safe distance.”

Amy shook her head. “That’s what I thought as well, but remember what Kirkwell said? The cameras didn’t show any unusual patterns right before and after Pearson came out. The intervals in which people went on the slide and came out on the other side were all on par with the usual 30 seconds, give or take. And anyone waiting in here would have been filmed, anyway.”

“When did you even have time to look at the camera feed?”

“While you took forever to change into your trunks.”

“There was a long line by the changing rooms!” he exclaimed and gesticulated, which was a mistake. He almost lost his balance, teetering on the spot, one hand against the wall, the other hovering near Amy to use her as a support pillar if necessary.

“Careful, babe.” She took a step, one foot slipping, but she caught herself.

“Let’s try this,” he said, grabbing her hand and bracing himself against the wall with the other. She did the same and, using the wall and each other for balance, they walked through the funnel to wherever Amy wanted to go.

When she reached her destination, she pointed upwards, to one of the light machines. “This one’s not visible from any angle the camera can take. Do you see a dart pistol attached or is the light playing tricks on my eyes?”

Jake carefully stood on his tiptoes, narrowing his eyes at the small black device above. It wasn’t easy seeing clearly with the multi-colored strobes darting around. “Nah, there’s nothing. And I squinted pretty hard.”

Amy let her arms fall against her sides. “Then I don’t get it.”

“He could have brought the dart himself. Maybe he rode the slide one too many times and went crazy from the strobe lights.”

“Then he went home to prepare a poisoned dart arrow, returned, rode the slide, and impaled himself while the lights were watching.”

“Exactly– no, wait, you’re mocking me.”

She nodded with a glint in her eyes. “I am. I am mocking you.”

“Well, I feel very insulted, now I have to go to the wave pool to treat myself. Maybe some fries after?”

And there was the eye-roll he’d been waiting for. “Jake, we’re still working – okay, now you’re mocking me.”

He grinned and leaned over to kiss her, staggering a little but catching himself in time.

“Very professional, Peralta.”

“Hmm, I don’t hear you complaining when–”

Suddenly, a torrent of water flushed into the funnel, followed by a pair of feet, then legs, then the rest of a young teenage girl with dark pigtails and a red-and-black swimsuit. She eyed the pair confused while the pair stared at her, until she disappeared in the tube again, one single eyebrow raised at them.

Jake realized they made quite the sight, poising on the high side of the funnel in the middle of a dark water slide, one arm each around the other’s back while standing half a foot apart for balance, faces close, eyes wide, and Jake was sure his swim trunks were hanging a little low on his butt. He reached down to pull them up.

“Maybe we should–” Amy started, but that was when he lost his footing, and the fall was inevitable. They went down together, the water carrying them out of the funnel, Jake with his head first. The tube was too narrow, the ride too fast for him to change his position as he and Amy were flushed down the drain. All he could do was splutter and turn his face so that less water got into his nose and mouth and eyes, the tunnel’s change of lighting all but a blur of colors, like a disco lightning storm.

What could only have been about ten seconds until they landed in the pool felt more like a small eternity spent preparing for the end. Shaking his head like a dog, he wiped his hands over his face and accepted Amy’s hand helping him up.

“That was an unexpected ride,” she commented.

“Title of your sex tape.”

“Again, very professional.” But she was grinning, half the hair from her bun hanging into her face, tousled from the sudden wild journey.

He was about to retort with another “Title of your sex tape!” when he spotted something. “What if he wasn’t dead yet when he came out here?”

Amy followed his eyes, latching onto the same thing. “Oh my god!”

Simultaneously, they turned to each other and exclaimed, “The vents!”

They went to find Kirkwell who confirmed that, indeed, the vents were big enough for a person to fit into. Someone could have fired the deadly poisoned dart from up there as soon as Pearson exited the slide. Kirkwell promised to have every employee who had access to the vents at the precinct by the next day.

Jake tried to convince Amy to stay at Tropic Thunder a little longer, but she threw one look at him and he knew he didn’t stand a chance against the Amy Santiago Stern Mommy Look. It always worked on Mac, and it never failed to make Jake at least a little bit horny.

That night, Amy left a little late to Rosa’s as Jake hurried to meet the landlord.

He can’t remember if he ever arrived.

[feverinfeveroutfic]

chapter one: from rhode island with love

*chapter one of book two of course

Zelda smelled of old books and soapy perfume, something which made Sam reminisce about her old life on the West Coast. She had taken her seat on the arm of the couch, right next to Marla, and she let the toes of her shoes hover about an inch above the floor. She held the drum sticks in either hand and she twirled the one in her right hand. She dropped it at one point and she stooped down to pick it up from the hard floor beneath her.

She twirled the stick again, that time with two fingers. She had long, slender fingers which held and twirled the stick like a series of serpents: Sam took a second look at her hand to find deep dark green nail polish on her fingernails that shone under the daylight from the window across the room. The men in the front room burst out laughing at something and she tossed the stick in the air. She caught it as if she had twirled a baton. Zelda turned her head to the two of them with a glimmer in her eyes.

“Are you in a band at all?” Marla asked her with a bit of excitement to her voice.

“I am, yeah!” Zelda declared. “The Cherry Suicides, we're called. We're a tiny li'l gang of girls who play loud, raucous, and kinda sexy hardcore punk. Straight outta Narragansett.”

Sam hesitated for a second.

“Rhode Island?”

“Correct a mundo.” Zelda showed her a smile, one where her cheekbones actually resembled to ripe cherries right off the tree. She crossed her slender, toned drummer's legs as Billy emerged from the hallway once again, that time with little white cups in either hand.

“This is courtesy of Eric and Steve,” he declared as he handed the cup in his left hand to Zelda. He handed the one in his right to Marla.

“I'll be right back for you,” he continued with a gesture to Sam, and he ducked back into the hallway.

“Our goal at the moment is go on tour with either Black Flag or the Ramones,” she continued as she tipped the cup back into her mouth. She knocked back whatever was in there in three large gulps. Marla cradled her cup in her lap. “How 'bout you ladies?”

“We're artists,” Sam told her.

“Like, actual artists?”

“Yeah.”

“She's waiting to hear back from the school people,” Marla explained with a gesture to Sam. “I'm already in school.”

“Oh, that's cool! Our lead singer and guitarist, Morgan and Minerva—they're sisters—they tried going to school a couple of years ago and Morgan said she hated it. Min survived the two years and said, 'fuck it, I'm a guitarist.' I thought of doing it when I got out of high school but at that point, I met Min and she invited me to jam with her and Morgan. We've gone through about three bassists already.”

“Why's that?” asked Sam, to which Zelda shrugged.

“Our first bass player, Di—she didn't want to commit, like she wasn't comfortable with going out and touring, which I don't understand because that's the whole point of being in a band, if you ask me. Our second, Victoria, she had bad chemistry with both me and Morgan, like she called Morgan controlling—which is complete bullshit. Morgan's been my friend since high school and she's anything but controlling. And she called me enabling, which is... fucking weird.”

Sam chuckled at Zelda's gratuitous swearing: the way in which she did it sounded so natural and fluid to her train of thought.

“And now our current bass player, Rosita, she's been doing real good with us.”

“So third time's a charm?” Sam followed along.

“Apparently so! And it's funny you say that, too—what'd you say your name was?” Zelda knitted her eyebrows together.

“Sam.”

“Sam! It's kinda funny you say that, 'cause we actually have a song titled 'Third Time's a Charm'. It's gonna be part of our demo tape.”

Billy returned to the room with two cups in either hand again, and that time he handed the one in his right hand to Sam.

“Thank you,” she said with a sweet smile.

“The speed metal paradox—the boys are inexperienced with girls and yet complete and total gentlemen,” Zelda remarked.

“What kinda metal?” Sam asked her as she took a small sip of the cold water.

“Speed. Quick, to the point, sharp, and yet kinda... melodious. At least, that's what I always hear it being called in the past—year or so, since we started comin' to New York City from Rhode Island.” Zelda turned towards Billy. “I assume that's what you guys are.”

“Stormtroopers?”

“Yeah.”

He shrugged in response as he brought the cup to his mouth.

“I guess? We're just Stormtroopers, if you ask me and Charlie.”

“Charlie says Anthrax are just... y'know, Anthrax,” Marla replied with a shrug herself.

“Labels are for cans of soup, not people,” Sam declared.

“Yes!” Billy said with a point to her. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

“We just call ourselves punk because we like punk,” Zelda explained as she twirled the drum stick in her right hand again. “We like punk—we like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, and I like to play fast like Charlie. But we don't really go anywhere beyond that, though, for the same reason.”

One of the guys from Legacy, a slightly hefty boy with a round face and a sheet of lush curls spread down his face, emerged in the doorway right then with his hand up by his chest.

“Bill's in a room full of girls,” he joked with a little nod of his head.

“At least we take care of him,” Marla retorted, which brought a laugh out of him. He rested his large hands on the sides of the door frame for a second, and then he lunged for them.

“I didn't introduce myself, by the way—I'm Steve.”

“Better known as Zetro,” Billy added as they each shook hands; “if anything, he actually goes just by that. Everyone knows him as Zetro.” His hand dwarfed Sam to the point it made her think of a bear paw.

“Why Zetro?” Marla asked him.

“It's been with me since I was a kid,” he explained. “Let's just say I've got a thing for cartoons.”

“Us, too,” Zelda replied with a gesture to Marla and Sam, even though the three of them had only known each other for a few minutes.

“By the way, we're handing out cups of water because we have a couple of dudes runnin' around here who aren't twenty one yet, Frank and—”

“Oi! Zetro!” Another of the boys from Legacy emerged from behind him. He had smooth straight inky black hair, part of which spread over the side of his forehead and hid his left eye a bit, and a round little boyish face with smooth, slightly angled dark eyes. Even though Sam didn't want to think that, he looked as though he could have walked right out of the Chinese neighborhood of San Francisco.

“Zetro,” he repeated as he flipped back his hair with a flick of his head.

“Yeees?” Zetro replied with a flick of his tongue.

“We're outta cups,” he said.

“How are we outta cups?” Billy asked him.

“I asked Jon and he was like 'we're fresh outta cups.'” He nodded to the three girls on the couch. “So—keep those in hand, ladies.”

Zetro gestured over to him with finger guns.

“Rhythm guitarist Eric Peterson,” he introduced him.

“I'm half Swedish, half Mexican,” he explained. “My dad came here from beautiful Sweden.”

“Oh, wow, I feel dumb right about now,” Sam blurted out.

“Why's that?”

“I thought you were Asian at first.” Eric burst out laughing at that and smacked his knee.

“I thought you were Asian!” Sam insisted. “I feel so dumb for that now.”

“Don't be,” he said with a sharp gasp so as to catch his breath. “If it makes you feel any better, you're not the first person to think that.”

Marla and Zelda glanced over at Sam with raised eyebrows and little smirks on their faces; the latter giggled a bit.

“Well,” was all she could muster out from her lips. He was kind to her to top it all off.

“By the way, when's your gig?” Eric asked Zelda.

“At five,” she replied with a toss of her drum stick.

“Are we all going together?” Billy folded his arms across his chest.

“Who, us an' you guys?” Eric gave his hair another toss back with a flick of his head.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, I think we are.” Eric turned to Marla and Sam. “Would you girls come along? We're gonna see Zelda's band at this little bar down the block. We're all walkin'.”

“At least we're walking!” Marla exclaimed.

“Yeah, I don't really wanna get back into the car again,” Sam confessed. “I don't think Aurora does, either.”

“Just goin' right down the block here,” Zelda repeated Eric's words, and she dropped the stick on the floor again. “I'm gonna get ahead of you guys in a little bit 'cause I'm in the band, y'know.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Zetro, “it's imperative you've gotta. It's important. It's necessary. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's—”

“Yes!” Zelda cut him off as she picked up the drum stick. She stood to her feet and followed Eric out of the room. Sam and Marla climbed to their feet but they stood there for a second. Billy ran his hands over the crown of his head and he turned to them with a thoughtful look on his face.

“A metal show last night and now a punk show today,” he stated, “I'm kinda jealous of you girls.”

“And Aurora's comin' along, too,” Zetro added as he followed Eric out of the room.

“The three of us and all you guys,” Sam stated, “when we were driving together over here, I swore it all felt like a dream.”

“It is kinda like a dream, isn't it?” Billy showed her a little grin. He led them out of the room to meet up with the huge group of guys, and they all walked together up the block to the little dark lit bar at the end of the block. Marla linked arms with Charlie and Sam and Aurora strode behind them right next to Frank; right in front of them, Zelda broke out in a run at the second cross walk.

Sam peered behind her to see Scott and Billy side by side, followed by the other two guys from Legacy. Meanwhile, behind them, bringing up the rear was the boy with the yarmulke. At some point, he had removed his yarmulke and he revealed that little plume of white at the right side of his head. She couldn't see it for very long but it shone under the afternoon sun like a little pearl. He ran his fingers through his otherwise jet black hair as she returned to a forward position.

It was implied he was the other one under twenty one, or so she assumed. He looked under twenty one with his boyish round face and slightly prominent little tummy at second glance back at him. When they stopped at the first crosswalk together, she glanced back at him again. Even with his little tummy, his waist was slender and almost delicate, and even with his blue jeans, she could tell his thighs were toned and slim. Aside from the little plume at the crown of his head, he was quite striking and even if he was closer to her, he could have stood out in that small crowd of people: he had a prominent aquiline nose and brow, sharp high cheekbones, and smooth sensual lips, and add to this, he was long and lanky; quite tall for a youngster.

“Sam!” Aurora exclaimed over the traffic.

“Huh?” She whirled around to find them crossing the street, and she clutched her purse even though she had slung it over the opposite shoulder.

“Hey, it's Joey,” Frank remarked as they came closer.

“You sure that's Joey and not Zelda?” Aurora asked him.

“Zelda's not that tall,” said Charlie.

“Well, Joey isn't, either,” she pointed out.

But indeed, it was Joey as his thick black curls entered their view. Zelda meanwhile emerged from the side of the bar with a bottle in her hand. The men meanwhile, each showed the man there at the door way their ID cards: Sam gazed on at the boy at the back, and she knew there was no way he could get in.

“I should tell you ladies,” she started in a low voice, “I can probably get you both in for no charges if you'd like.”

“How's that?” Marla asked her. Zelda turned to the man at the front door and pressed her hands to her hips.

“I'm with the band,” she proclaimed. “And these two chicas behind me are with me.”

“Lemme see some identification,” he commanded.

“Here's your identification—” Without hesitating for a second, Zelda lifted up her shirt part of the way up her stomach and he stopped right in his tracks.

“Okay, okay, but none of that in a little while, okay, sweet heart?”

“We'll be the judge of that,” she sneered at him as she dropped the hem of her shirt, “and don't call me sweet heart.”

“Wait, what about him?” Aurora gestured to the boy at the back.

“It's okay, Aurora—I'm with all those guys, too.” His voice was even striking, like it didn't match up with his body. He looked so odd and he sounded so powerful, like he knew what he was doing and his body just dripped with testosterone.

“If you're underage, you can come in at least until nine—that's when the kitchen closes.”

“Okay, good.” Aurora gestured for him to follow them into the tiny but bright lit bar. The wooden floor looked as though it had just been polished and all the dark tables and accompanying spindly chairs looked brand new; at the right side of the room stood a small, cramped but bright stage with Zelda's drum kit already set up. Sam took another drink from her cup when Zelda herself darted across the wooden floor from the bar on the left side of the room.

“Morgan!” she called over the chatter of the gathering crowd in there. “Morgan!”

Joey, Frank, and Charlie had ducked over to the bar, as did the boy with the stripe in his hair. However, Sam watched him at the far end and by the mere look on his face, she could tell he wasn't asking for a drink like the three of them behind her. Aurora huddled closer to her and adjusted her bra strap with a jerk of her arm. Marla joined them and she gazed on at the bar herself.

“How old is he, by the way?” Marla asked Aurora; Sam followed her gesture to the boy with the stripe in his hair.

“Who, him?”

“Yeah.”

“He's—” Aurora paused for a second. “—seventeen. I think? Seventeen or sixteen. I'm drawing a blank on his name, too—Eric told me all of their names, but I forgot to write it down because Jon was trying to talk to me at the same time.”

“You had all that paper with you, though,” Sam chuckled at that.

“That was all the legal, business nonsense,” Aurora pointed out. “The stuff you don't see that comes when you're handing in a demo tape or a recording of literally any kind and signing to a major label. The stuff that's like totally mind numbing, but—you know, somebody has to sift through it. Anyways, of the five of them, all I know is Eric and Zetro because they talked to me first and the two of them did all the talking no less.”

“I'm just—drawn to that little stripe in his hair,” Sam confessed with a gesture to her head.

“Yeah, it's—it's—” Aurora ran her tongue over her top row of teeth.

“It's odd,” Marla finished for her.

“It's odd and it's interesting, too,” Sam added. “Like, why does he have it? And right there of all places?”

“My grandmother from North Korea had something similar to that,” Aurora said, “like just a single part of her hair was gray and the rest of it was solid black, almost exactly like his. Except hers was—on the side of her head, like her temple, not over her forehead. It's a mutation, I think? According to my dad, she didn't have it show until she was like fifty years old, though, and that was when he fled the North and went to Seoul.” She ran her tongue over her bottom lip and frowned. He just sat there at that little table with the yarmulke hanging out of his jeans pocket and the glass in hand: from across the room, Sam could tell it was club soda. He glanced about the room like the kid in the cafeteria whom no one wanted to sit with at lunch time. “Let's keep an eye on him—he looks lonely.”

“Yeah, maybe we should,” Marla added. “Poor guy's underage and he pretty much had to shout at the guy at the door just to get in.”

“I think Eric is underage, too?” Aurora recalled. “He told me their ages and he told me he doesn't turn twenty one until the middle of May. But he's almost like a high school student, though. He's a sixteen year old baby.”

“A sixteen year old baby who's already going gray,” Sam said in a soft voice.

“Exactly!”

He glanced to his left and he brought the glass up to his lips; Frank came over to him to talk to him about something and his eyes sparkled under the warm lighting of the bar. Sam thought about the man in her dreams, and she wondered about him. Zelda breezed past them with one of the bar backs.

“I told them I was going to get them into the club—” Sam couldn't hear the rest of it given she fell out of earshot. She watched Zelda weave her way through the crowd once more; she disappeared behind a large black speaker, and Sam caught the abrasive sound of a downtuned guitar in that direction. Several more patrons gathered around the stage and all around right in front of them: the three girls stood at the back of the crowd.

Every so often, Sam glanced over her shoulder at the boy at the far end of the bar. At least he was talking to Frank, who was underage himself. But he still looked so out of place there: out of place and alone.

Within time, Joey and Charlie joined them with drinks for themselves. Joey showed her a little grin and a raise of the brown bottle; he did the same for Aurora and Marla, too. Charlie meanwhile put his arm around Marla's shoulder and offered her a sip from his bottle.

“Quite the place to be, isn't it?” he asked her over the roar of the crowd.

“Absolutely!” she replied with a smile and an adjustment of her purse strap. He tipped the bottle into his lips and she thought about the night before. She was about to ask him what he had done upon leaving her place when that distorted guitar sliced through like a knife. Lead guitarist Minerva and lead singer Morgan were both little black girls with short bobs of black dread locks: Minerva had bright white dyed shocks that dotted her hair and a little red star tattooed on her shoulder. Morgan meanwhile had a big red ring on her right middle finger and long red and white striped acrylic fingernails, and she wore nothing but a black lace brassiere and a black leather mini skirt. Bassist Rosita had long black hair down to her waist and wore a black satin camisole over a pair of black leather jeans and matching black leather boots: before she took to the stage, she set a big floppy black hat atop her head and Sam could see a blue rose and a fiery red rose embedded at the brim.

The Cherry Suicides were loud and fast, and powerful, and yet they were straight to the point. Morgan had an abrasive voice that filled out the whole room: Sam was mesmerized by her and the way in which she ran her fingers through her dreads and down around her chest, and the way she closed her eyes at certain points. At one point, Rosita put one foot up and she showed off the inside of her thigh and the bell shape of her jeans. She had big narrow heels on her boots that resembled to knives. Zelda, meanwhile, was the only white girl up there and she barely moved her arms when she drummed.

Sam noticed a tattoo of cherries on stems on Morgan's right hip. Cherries on stems that looked to be bleeding. The Cherry Suicides.

She turned her head again and the boy with the little pearly stripe in his hair stood on the far side of the room with a little glass in his hand. He looked so out of place there in that club, given he was so young and the look on his face was one of confusion. Sam turned her head to Marla and Aurora, both of whom were in awe by the sight of them.

They began that song Zelda had talked about before, “Third Time's a Charm”, which was slower and a bit more heavy in comparison. Morgan crooned out about wanting to make her lover climax three times after he tried to use a knife, and that the third time was a charm.

Sam turned her head yet again, and for a fleeting moment, she pictured herself pressing her lips onto those smooth sensual ones. She shook her head at that thought.

No, she thought. No, no, no. Bad Sam. He's only sixteen!

He took a sip from his glass as Zetro and one of the guys from Legacy joined him so he was a little less lonely, or so she assumed. They huddled near the corner of the room like three boys in a strange place.

Third time's a charm after a dance with the knife. Third time's a charm after a dance right with your wet cock...

Joey, who stood on her left, took a swig from his bottle and flashed her a wink. She had no idea if he was tipsy yet, but he had already been loosened up from that single bottle. It was such an odd place to be right at that moment with the lyrics coming out of Morgan's cherry lips; Marla, Aurora, Charlie, and Joey on either side of her; and that boy with the plume in his hair, right on the other side of the room.

Zelda gave her right drum stick a twirl and she caught it between her thumb and her index finger as a final touch. Sam and Marla glanced at one another in awe as the crowd before them erupted into applause.

“They were badass!” Aurora declared.

“Loud and not giving a single fuck,” Charlie added, “that's pretty rock n' roll if you ask me.”

“By the way, you ladies want get something to eat?” Joey offered them. “I was talking to Kirk a little bit ago and he offered us to go and meet up with Metallica across the street.”

“So,” Charlie added, “again, we won't have to drive anywhere.”

“Big ol' party,” Marla remarked. Zelda emerged from the crowd in front of them with a glass in one hand and a soft blush in her face.

“Didn't even break out a sweat!” Sam said.

“Not even feelin' it, fellas,” Zelda boasted as she took a big drink from the glass.

“Wanna get sump'n to eat?” Joey offered her.

“Oh, definitely—I could use a bite to eat. I'll ask the girls, too.”

“From Rhode Island with love?” Sam asked her.

“From Rhode Island with love, kids,” Zelda echoed with a raise of her eyebrows and a raise of her glass towards them.