#ortegas once again proving why shes the best

[pinazee]

Erica probably has the healthiest coping of the 3 though. Chapel just keeps it all inside and M’Benga does a little recreational murder. Gotta vent that stuff out babes.

[house-of-lovin]

legally binded - 9

Jenna Ortega x F!Reader

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Chapter 9 : Grand Prix and Grand Gestures

Summary: After getting caught in some hot waters with the press, you are forced into an unexpected agreement with America's sweetheart, Jenna Ortega to save your career.

Warnings/Tags: famous!reader, actress!reader, mentions of substances, intoxication, mature language, real people. (do not read if any of these make you uncomfortable)

(this is all fiction!)

Note: sorry for the long wait for this new chapter, just enjoying my summer yk! anyways, thanks for your guys' continued support and patience! much love!!

Word Count: 5.6k+

When Jenna stepped out of her room at precisely 4:45 AM, with the early morning sun yet to rise, the last thing she expected to find was the shared kitchen to be a mess. 

Courtesy of you, of course. ‘Cause who else?

“What the hell are you doing to our kitchen?” Jenna croaked out, running a hand against the plastered wall as a guide as she tiredly rubbed her sleep-filled eyes with the other. When the blurring in her vision goes away, they settle on you looking… wired, like you’d had three cups of espresso already. 

“Good morning!” You whispered, admiring her messy bedhead with a large toothy smile. “I’m making you breakfast.”

“Why?” She asked, voice hoarse. You rolled your eyes as you passed her a steaming mug of coffee without a word causing her to flick a brow up, opting to take a sip instead of questioning it. 

“I’m making you breakfast so you don’t go to work hungry, again.” You explained matter-of-factly, turning your back to check on the stove. The younger actress couldn’t stave off her surprise that you’ve noticed her skipping the most important meal of the day. “Now I’m not the best cook. But, I learned a thing or two about making a mean avocado toast, and since you’re vegetarian… it’s really the only thing I can make you.”

Jenna didn’t expect her heart to be racing so early in the morning. Since your talk, the two of you have been more at ease around the other; falling back into that natural banter, every once in a while. But she can’t lie… the friends' agreement has been difficult to follow through with, especially since you’ve started with gestures such as this. 

The younger actress finds she’s started to… allow herself to enjoy these domestic moments with you, knowing that now, feelings are very much reciprocated — just, without a label yet. 

Placing the steaming mug down on the kitchen island, she chose not to comment on how her coffee was made exactly how she liked it. “I appreciate the gesture, Y/N. I hope you didn’t wake up early just to make me breakfast.”

You turned off the stove, took the pan off the burner, and rolled your eyes. “Get off your high horse, I was already up.” Turning around with the pan still in your hand. 

“You were already up or you didn’t go to sleep?” She countered, expression flat.

You smiled sheepishly, “Jet lag is kicking my ass.”

Jenna snorted and watched as you plated the perfectly-browned toast on a dish and spread some avocados on top; garnishing it with the utmost (adorable) concentration on your face before sliding the plate across the island with a small but proud grin. 

“Consider it compliments of the chef,” you send her a playful wink, glancing down. Jenna follows your line of sight, reading the printed words on the apron. 

Kiss the Chef.

She tried to fight the smile creeping on her face but it proved futile when she felt the familiar warmth enveloping her pale morning cheeks. 

“You’re not as smooth as you think you are…” Was the best response the younger actress could trust herself to utter. “When did you even buy that?”

You laughed, picking up your own cup of coffee. “I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

Jenna ignored you, electing to take a bite of the toast. She almost felt bad for eating something that you put so much effort towards. But when she takes a bite, she finds herself letting out a muffled moan, making you flush red at the sound. “Holy shit, what did you put in this?”

Plastering a smile, you teased, “it’s a secret.”

“You’re annoying…” Jenna covered her mouth, as she ate. 

“Finish eating or you’ll be late.” You reminded, taking off the apron. The time zone change still messed with your internal body clock, meaning at times, you’d still be up when Jenna awoke for a day of work.

You noted the times she got up and at which of those mornings she managed to eat. After the third day of her waking up late, you decided that the next day you’d be kind and make her a healthy breakfast, knowing it’s often difficult to find time to eat during a busy day of filming. 

“Wait…” Jenna called out before you could leave the kitchen. “What are you doing today?”

You racked your brain; thinking for a moment. “I gotta start packing for Monaco, I leave this Wednesday.”

Jenna remembered you telling her that you’ve been invited to the F1 Grand Prix. She doesn’t really understand the race, but she found your childlike glee over a bunch of cars… endearing. It’s slightly childish that she feels a bit upset by you leaving so suddenly, but these last few weeks have felt blissful ever since your confession. She finds herself wanting to stay in this bubble the two of you have created for as long as she can. “Oh, right…”

“Why, what’s up?”

“Nothing… just wondering ‘cause my family’s actually flying in this weekend,” Jenna admitted, gauging your reaction, noting the way you stood straighter on your feet.

“They are?” 

Jenna hummed. “Yeah, they’re here for a week. They were gonna stay at a hotel but if you’re going to Monaco then…”

You blinked, unsure if you should ask why she didn’t tell you her family was flying in sooner. “Oh yeah, no problem. Listen, it’s your apartment.” 

Jenna rolled her eyes, correcting you, “It’s our apartment. You’re living here too.”

Chuckling, you averted your eyes. “Well, in that case. Mi casa es su casa.”

“Your Spanish needs a bit of work...” But Jenna can’t fight her smile.

“Rude,” laughing, you added, “it’s probably best to skip town though— your family’s probably still mad at me.”

Jenna immediately rounds the counter to stand in front of you, shaking her head in denial. “They’re not mad, Y/N. I already told you.”

You shoot her a grimaced smile, “I know, I’m just joking, but I’m still scared of your sisters… Also, your mom may or may not have texted me about that paparazzi pic of you smoking cigarettes.”

Her brows raised, as her jaw dropped, “she did?”

You hummed in response.

“Fuck…” She grumbled, causing you to laugh. “What did she say?”

“Nothing you haven’t already heard from her Instagram stories…” You smirked, enjoying her annoyed scowl. 

“Shut up.”

“Hey, it’ll be alright.” You placed a hand on her shoulder, lightly rubbing it. Ignoring the way she straightened her posture at your touch. “A scolding is probably the most you’ll get out of her.”

“I’m 20 years old, I can do whatever I want.” Dropping your hand, you laughed again.

“You may think you’re grown but she’s always going to be your mom. She’s just looking out for you. Not to mention, she’s a nurse, what'd you expect?” You jest but she rolled her eyes, staring up at you with a slight pout in her frown causing your heart to stop dead in its tracks; desperately trying to stare at her lips for too long. 

Maybe it was the confession, or the ‘clearing the air’ that you two have done. But every touch and look from Jenna feels weighted — in a pleasant way, this time.

She sighed heavily, leaning her hip on the kitchen island. “I know… it’s just embarrassing.”

“At least you know she cares.” You chuckled, patting her shoulder reassuringly before walking off to the living room. 

She ignored the possible meaning behind your words. Although she’d love to dive into the story of your mom and hear it from your account, maybe having that conversation at five o’clock in the morning isn’t the best idea.

“Come on, finish up and go shower. You’re gonna be late.” You called out behind you before plopping on the couch.

“You better wash those dishes…”

“Ugh, later.” You groaned. “I need a nap.”

—

Jenna (2:35 PM): hope you’re having a great time in Monaco 🖤

“Get off your phone…” Tom said before snatching the device right from your hand. 

“Dude…”

“You’re in Monaco with the best cars and drivers in the entire world and you’re glued to your phone – what’re you looking at anyway.” the Brit commented, reading the text before you could stop him. “Aw… how cute, she sent a heart.”

“Shut up. You literally made us late ‘cause you spent all night talking to Z.” Attempting to grab your phone back was futile when he held it out of reach, tossing it to Link who was enjoying this interaction judging by the large grin smacked on his face. 

“She’s my girlfriend.” Tom defended but it fell on deaf ears as soon as you saw Link begin to scroll through your past messages with Jenna.

“Link… give it back, I need to respond!” 

“Don’t worry, I’ll text her back.” Link winked before typing a response. You immediately leapt out of your seat, plucking your phone out of his grasp but it was too late, he’d already sent the message.

“Thinking about you? Really?” You deadpanned despite the warmth coursing fervently through your cheeks. “You’re such an ass…”

“You’re just mad that I finally said what you were really thinking.” He called out as you walked away, fingers slightly trembling as you hit the call button. You wait a few (agonizingly long) seconds, listening to the line ring.

“Hey…” 

“Oh, hey,” there was some shuffling on the other line, “I was just about to text you back.” 

“About that… sorry about that text, Link was being an asshole and took my phone.” You muttered sheepishly; trembling fingers picking at your trousers to counter the nerves that suddenly overcame you.

“Oh? So you weren’t thinking about me?” Her tone is light and teasing. You paint a mental image of her bright, wide smile that usually accompanied her playful taunts; it sent a flurry of butterflies swarming around in your belly.

You pass it off as a stomach ache from your breakfast this morning.

“Come on…” You trail off, not wanting to admit it.

“Wow, I see how it is…”

“Jenna…” You sighed, dropping your fiddling fingers. “Of course, I was thinking about you.”

The line is silent as Jenna doesn’t respond and suddenly you feel embarrassed at your school-girl-like confession. Though it’s technically only been two days since you left London for Monaco, you’d be lying straight through your teeth if you were to deny the fact that you’ve been thinking about the younger actress since the moment you stepped out of the shared apartment.

“I’ve been thinking about you too.” Jenna replied in a small voice. Her admittance causes your heart to stop momentarily but what you couldn’t stop, however, was the satisfied smile creeping on your lips.

Was it pathetic that all Jenna had to do was say a simple, cliché sentence to you and you were practically a puddle on the floor? Maybe, but you couldn’t care less about that right now.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah…” 

“Glad we’re on the same page then…” You uttered, glancing around, hoping no one could see your Cheshire grin. Immediately catching Tom and Link at the other end of the balcony making kissing faces at you. You stick up the not-so-nice finger at them before turning your back on the two men, ignoring their blatant and obnoxious laughter, “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything when I called.”

Jenna was supposed to be on set working today, you’d hate to interrupt a busy day’s work…. That’s a lie, this phone call was totally worth it.

“Oh no, you didn’t. I’m actually at the apartment.”

“I thought you’d still be on set?”

“Um, about that…” She trails off in a sheepish tone.

“Jen? What’s wrong?” You asked, panic evident.

“I might’ve—uh—injured myself at work today.” She admitted.

“What?! Are you okay? How? Do you need me to come ba—“

“Y/N… breathe.” She interjects your nervous questioning but it merely goes over your head. Your nerves sky-rocketing the longer she doesn’t answer your questions.

“Are you okay?” You repeated what you really needed to know first.

“I’m fine, I promise,” she chuckled, “just a sprained ankle. I twisted it during rehearsal. It’s not a big deal but they sent me home early to rest.”

“Are you icing it? Keeping it elevated? You know what, send me a picture I wanna see if the swelling is bad.” 

Jenna’s laughter doubles. “I’m okay. I promise. Yes, I'm icing it and yes I’m keeping it elevated. You don't have to play doctor. I’ll even send you a picture, just relax.”

“I’m just worried.”

“I know you are.” She said, almost like she was endeared. “But like I said, it’s just a sprained ankle. They gave me crutches, so I’m good.”

“Crutches?! Do I need to come back home?”

Jenna ignored how her heart swooped at the word: home.

“No,” she laughed, “enjoy your time with the boys and your cars. You looked good on that racetrack, you sure being an actress is your calling?”

You rolled your eyes at her choice of timing for a joke, “You know I’ll leave them in a heartbeat. Just say the word and I’ll be on the first flight back.”

On the other end of the line, Jenna is torn between swooning and mentally cursing you for being so sweet. She bit her lip to subdue the smile creeping in, “that’s very sweet, Y/N, but I promise. I’ll be okay, my family’s flying in on Sunday anyway. I’ll be fine until then.”

You sighed unsurely, “Are you sure?” That’s still a few days where she’d have to be alone until someone could help her around the house.

“Yes! Now go, enjoy Monaco. Maybe I’ll even turn on the racing channel or whatever and get a glimpse of you.”

“You did not just say the racing channel…”

“Go!” She laughed and this time, you relent at her assured tone. 

“Fine… but if anything else happens, call me, please?”

“You’ll be the first one to know, I promise.”

“Okay…” You take a deep breath hoping to calm your nerves. If Jenna says she’s okay, then you have no reason to go against her wishes. “I’ll text you?”

“Mhmm. Bye, be safe.”

“Bye…” You hang up, dropping the phone from your ear, anxiously tapping it against your other hand as you contemplate your options.

“That was a long call,” Link swung his arm over your shoulder, leaning into your side. “You already miss your girl? It’s only been a day.”

“Quit it. She’s not my girl.” You back-hand him squarely on the stomach causing him to heave out a rough, pained puff. The satisfaction of seeing your best friend in pain was a dull noise in the background of your restless thoughts. “She injured herself on set, I was just making sure she’s okay.”

You chewed on your lip nervously, ignoring Link’s probing eyes as he scanned your faraway look.

“Is it serious?”

“No, just a sprained ankle.”

Link continued to observe you; seeing straight through you. An amused smile painted itself squarely on his lips. “... you’re gonna leave, aren’t you?” 

—

“What the— I told you to stay. What are you doing here?”

“And I told you to send me a picture of your sprain.”

Jenna frowned, closely watching as you slipped the duffle bag off your shoulders; landing on the hardwood with a loud thud. 

“Get back on the couch. You shouldn’t be walking.” You ordered, briefly scanning her head-to-toe and letting out a concealed sigh of relief that her ankle didn’t seem too bad. 

“I’m injured, not crippled.” She replied unamused. You meet her eyes, mimicking her expression until the brunette realized you’re not backing down. “Fine…”

“Let me help you.” You stepped forward, taking a closer look at her injury. Her left ankle was covered in a compression wrap as she hobbled around with a single crutch. 

“I’m fine.”

“Jenna, let me help.” You said in a serious tone, not backing down.

She rolled her eyes, slowly turning around with her crutch to walk back to the living room, hoping you missed her rosy cheeks. She ignored the intense thudding in her chest as you walked together. The thought of you leaving a trip that obviously meant a lot to you, sent the younger actress’ heart into a frenzy. 

“What are you doing here?” The younger actress asked again once she was comfortably seated on the sofa.

You took a seat beside her, “I was worried.”

“I told you I was fine, you’re acting like I’m on my deathbed.”

Rolling your eyes, you grabbed the pillow behind you and placed it between you and Jenna. Scooting back to gesture for her to rest the injured ankle on the pillow. “I wouldn’t have enjoyed the race knowing that you’re back in London with an injury… so, I left.”

Jenna stayed silent, not trusting herself to say what she was really feeling. So she opted to stare as you examined her wrapped ankle, seemingly satisfied that her injury wasn’t as bad as you had thought.

“I’m just trying to be a good friend… and roommate.” You joked, grabbing the discarded remote off the coffee table. Ignoring the way your skin burned the longer she stared at you unspeaking.

Jenna snorted at your words, grabbing the pillow behind her and playfully lunging it at you. You caught the feeble attempt. “Right, roommate.”

You laughed at the tone that accompanied her words, “how did you hurt yourself anyway?”

If Jenna’s cheeks turned any rosier, she’d be the human embodiment of a tomato. It was embarrassing, really and she blames Aliyah for sending that video. 

She might’ve been too distracted watching a clip of you and Tom walking along the racetrack, waving to the crowd. As luck would have it, she was supposed to be rehearsing for a scene, walking over to her next marking. However, one misstep over a wire sent her ankle twisting in an abnormal way. “I wasn’t paying attention to the marking on the floor and I tripped over a loose wire.”

Jenna was definitely not going to tell you the truth. You’d never let her hear the end of it.

You sent her a questioning look, “I don’t know whether to laugh or feel bad.”

“Is it too late for you to go back to Monaco?” She joked, straight-faced.

“I’m kidding, of course, I feel bad.“ You settled back into a comfortable position.

“How did you get back so fast?” She inquired.

“It’s only a two-hour flight.”

Glancing at the clock on the wall, Jenna noted that you were on the phone merely two and a half hours ago. “You got through security that fast?”

You blush red.

As soon as the jet landed on the tarmac and the seatbelt lights turned off, you were posted by the doors; impatiently tapping your foot on the floor.

“Miss L/N, your driver is waiting just outside.” The flight attendant alerted you. You nodded, sending a tight-lipped smile.

“Thank you.”

When the doors opened and the stairs hit the pavement, you were already rushing down the steps, making eye contact with the driver.

“Miss, I can take your bags.”

“That’s alright.” You tossed them in the back seat before shutting the doors. “How fast can you get back to the apartment?”

“GPS says 45 minutes but there is heavy traffic on the highway.” 

“I’ll drive.” You held your hand out. He looked unsure before seeing that you were not playing around, swiftly handing the keys over.

“Yes, ma’am.”

You made sure to tip the man handsomely after noticing his white-knuckle grip on the grab handles as you maneuvered through said traffic.

“Uh yeah and I got lucky, no traffic. Anyways….wanna watch Breaking Bad? Unless you finished it already, in that case, we can watch something else.” You changed the subject, Jenna didn’t need to know how you drove that SUV like it was a race car and broke multiple speeding laws just to get here.

“No, Breaking Bad is good. I haven’t watched it since we were at my parents' house.”

You turn, evidently surprised that she kept your unspoken promise. Trying to hide your growing smile, you face the TV again before the staring becomes too obvious.

“Me too.”

—

“Are you sure you’re fine to go to work today? It’s only been like, a day.”

It’s Sunday morning, too early for anyone to be awake. With the sky still covered in a blanket of darkness, you tiredly lean against the wall, trying your best to string coherent words together as you reason with Jenna, who lightly limped around the large room as she gets ready for work.

“Technically, it’s been two.” She glanced at you momentarily. “I don’t want to delay production.” 

“Jenna, you're injured. They can get a stand-in or just not film your scenes today.” You argued. Having had your fair share of on-set injuries, you knew that a major film could afford to delay filming for the sake of an injury. This was merely Jenna’s workaholic tendencies making her feel that she couldn’t stop working. “They can and should accommodate for you, Jenna.”

At your gruffed tone, Jenna dropped what she was looking for, walking over to stand in front of you. “Hey…”

You glanced at your hands, ignoring her soft tone. “Look at me, please?”

Jenna grabbed your hand, drawing your attention to her. “I’ll be okay. If my ankle starts to bother me, I’ll let the director know.”

“You promise?” You asked, glancing down when she started rubbing soft lines against your skin.

“I promise.” She squeezed for good measure.

You studied her soft gaze, attentive to the assured glimmer behind them. Letting out a sigh, you pushed your worries aside. “Okay.”

She smiled at your obvious concern, dropping your hand to walk back to the living room. 

You try not to draw attention to the way your fingers twitched at the loss of contact. “By the way, my family will be here at noon. Are you good to be alone with them while I’m at work?”

“Yeah… I think I’ll be fine.” To distract yourself, you walked off to the kitchen, grabbing a mug for your morning coffee; allowing a gentle silence to envelop the room as Jenna hobbled around and gathered her things.

“Crap!” Jenna suddenly said, emerging out of her room.

“What?” You turned, slightly startled. “What’s wrong?”

“I forgot to set up the guest bedroom for them.”

“Oh.” Your shoulders dropped. “I already did it, don’t worry.”

Her brows raised, “you called the housekeeper already?”

“No. I did it myself. We don’t need him.”

Jenna seemed surprised if the raised brows were anything to go by. It was amusing truly, but you elected to stay silent, turning back to make your coffee.

“Thank you…” She finally said.

“Don’t mention it.” You shrugged, “If you want, I can pick up your family at the airport too. Heathrow is a bitch to navigate.”

Jenna didn’t respond, just staring at your back from her spot in the living room. You were unaware of her internal turmoil.

“Jen?” You turned around when you realized she didn’t reply; just staring at you with an unwavering intensity. “Jenna?”

“What?” She blinked a couple of times. “What did you say?”

“I said I can pick up your family from the airport.” You sipped on the steaming mug, a single brow flicking upright in question.

“Oh–uh, no. T-That’s alright, I’m sending a car over to pick them up.” She stuttered pathetically; grateful that the dim lights from the lamp in the corner of the room did well to hide the crimson rising over her neck. “You shouldn’t be seen at Heathrow. You might get spotted.”

“I can wear a disguise.” You thought out loud.

Jenna snorted, pushing away her inner strife. “Oh yeah? Like what, a baseball hat and sunglasses?”

“Hey, it works!” You defended. “Not everyone can just blend in with their height.”

“Was that a short joke?” Jenna arched a sharp brow.

“Nope.” You stood wide-eyed. “Oh hey, I just remembered I left something in my room. Okay. Bye. Have a good day at work.”

Jenna laughed as you scurried off to your bedroom, glad that she hasn’t lost her edge with you.

—

“I can’t believe you cancelled on the driver.” 

The younger actress said as soon as you swung the front door open. Faintly, she can hear the familiar sounds of laughter farther into the apartment. “You’re so stubborn.”

“You act like that’s a new fact.” You snicker, a pleased smile plastered on your lips. “I’d like an apology by the way. The disguise worked perfectly — just like I said it would.”

“You’re too much sometimes.” She shook her head, stepping into the hall. 

“In the best way, though. Right?” You asked, letting her in.

“If it helps you sleep better.” Jenna shrugged, chucking her work bag on the side table.

“Now look who’s being stubborn.” You replied with a knowing smile.  “Go say hi and then wash up. Natalie and I are making dinner.”

She raised her brows in surprise as you walked away. Her footsteps faltering when she walks into the living room. Gaze instantly landing on her sisters and Dad lounging on the couch, in the corner of her eyes she finds her mom who was chopping up vegetables on the kitchen island. 

“Hey, guys…” She said slowly, still taking the scene in front of her.

“Jen!” Mia sprung up from her seat and tugged her sister into a tight hug. 

One by one, Aliyah, her dad and her mom sauntered over to greet and fret over her. Sentiments of I miss you, echoing in the vast apartment.

“It’s good to see you, honey.” Her mom said with a smile. “I hope you’ve been taking care of that ankle.”

Jenna rolled her eyes at her Mom’s fretting but nodded reassuringly. “I’m okay, Mom. Y/N’s been helping me.”

“So I’ve heard.” She winked, walking away.

“Uh– you guys made yourselves comfortable…” Jenna cleared her throat as she watched how her mom swiftly walked back to the kitchen where you were leaning against the island, observing her family with a small smile.

“Y/N said to make yourselves at home. Blame her.” Aliyah said, tugging her onto the couch. “How’s filming been? How’s working with Winona Ryder, tell me everything!”

“Great uh–what’s for dinner?” Was the first question the actress asked, too distracted by watching your concentrated expression. The slight scrunch in your forehead as you closely listened to her mom’s instructions was more interesting than what her sister was asking her.

“Mom’s teaching her how to make frijoles.” Mia smirked at her sister’s doe-eyed look. 

“Oh…” Jenna replied with a vacant tone. “Sounds good.”

“Do you have any pictures in your wardrobe—“

“Why frijoles?” She added, interrupting Aliyah when she tried to spark another series of questions.

“Y/N heard it was one of your favourites, said she wanted to learn how to make it for you.” Mia replied, her tone smug.

“She did?” Jenna’s brow raised, still unable to look away from you. 

“I think we lost her,” Aliyah sighed to Mia, giving up on having her questions answered.

Jenna rolled her eyes when her sisters burst into laughter, blinking back to reality. “Shut up. What were you saying?” 

She forced herself to look away and give her undivided attention to her sisters. Pretending not to notice as you kept glancing at her from the kitchen.

—

“Wow this looks amazing, are you sure you helped, Y/N?” Aliyah teased from the dining table.

“Ha-ha, you’re hilarious.” You mocked, walking over with a bowl of guacamole, placing it at the centre of the table. “Wait ‘till you try my guac.”

“I always make the that.” Jenna trailed off, sneaking a peek at the bowl.

“I know.” You took your seat beside her. “Your mom showed me how you like to make it. I hope it’s close.”

“I think I’ll be the judge of that…” She reached for a chip and dipped a large chunk into the green goodness. You watched intently for a reaction but she gave you none; continuing to chew on. 

“It’s good.” She finally says.

“That’s it?”

“What? I said it’s good.” Jenna laughed at your sullen expression; almost feeling bad. Once your bottom lip popped out in disappointment, she dropped her act, reaching for your arm and squeezing it. “I’m kidding. It’s great, it tastes exactly how I make it back home… but you know, you can’t beat the original.”

You rolled your eyes, shaking your head. “I think I’ll be the judge of that.” You repeated her words.

Before Jenna can reply with a quip, her mom walked over with the last bowl of food, disrupting your conversation. But it was all forgotten when the younger actress’ nose welcomed the familiar scent of all of her favourite dishes. She enthusiastically eyed the various dishes scattered on the table, not having had her family’s cooking in what felt like forever. Living with you wasn’t bad – actually, it’s been more than great, but you were serious when you said you lacked skills in the kitchen. That resulted in dinners mostly being take-out these days.

“Have you tried frijoles before?” Jenna asked you. 

“Uh–no.” You blushed. “I actually didn’t even know they were beans until today.”

“You’ll love it.” She grinned, reaching over to plate you a generous helping. You refused to tell her that you didn’t necessarily love beans because her excited expression overpowered any dislike you had for the legume.

—

“You’re still up?” You called out after a brief glance, the pitter-patter of light footsteps coming down the hall, alerting you of her presence.

“Mhm, I heard the clanking of dishes from my room.” She replied, leaning against the counter, watching as you dried off the dishes one by one. “What’re you doing?”

“Sorry. I’ll keep it down.” You grimaced apologetically. “I couldn’t sleep so I figured I’d unload the dishes.”

“It’s okay, I’m actually not too tired too.” She stepped forward, only an arm’s length away from you. “Can I help?”

Wordlessly, you passed her a dry cloth and a bowl from the dishwasher. For a while, silence enveloped the room. You were grateful that you and the brunette can exist in silence, sometimes. Her mere presence provided a certain level of comfort that you’re still trying to get used to.

“So…” She spoke up after a few minutes, gaining your attention. “You’re really pulling out all the stops, huh.”

You raise an amused brow at the baiting look in her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jenna would’ve believed that statement if it weren’t for the small smile at the corner of your lips telling her otherwise.

“Right… so, you just pick up all your friends’ parents from the airport and do chores, willingly.”

“I’m turning over a new leaf.” You shrugged, continuing to wipe away remnants of water from the plate. Hoping the mundane action hid your trembling fingers well.

“Oh, are you?”

“Yup.”

“So this isn’t you trying to win me over?”

“Me try to win you over? Whaaat?” You puffed out an airy scoff, “that’s ridiculous. I would never. I wholeheartedly respect your decision.” 

But the crinkle in your eyes told her that you were enjoying this way too much.

“Sure…” Jenna rolled her eyes, “even if you are just doing this out of the kindness of your own heart—“

“Which, I am.”

Jenna sends a playful glower at your interruption. 

“Just wanted to put that on record.” You added.

“Thank you.” Jenna declared, her tone soft yet serious. “You’ve been incredible these last few days.”

“Oh.” You blink, a pleased smile plastered on your face. “You’re welcome, Jen. It’s no big deal.”

“It’s a big deal to me.” The bowl and cloth in her hands were long forgotten on the counter as she closed the distance between you. “No one’s ever done any of… this, for me—thank you.”

The air feels charged as she suddenly looks at you with that doe-eyed stare. Feeling like your heart rate instantly doubles, the longer she stares at you like that.

“What? Be nice?” You said evenly, “You need to set your standards higher.”

She huffed at your antics. “I’m being serious.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop.” you laughed shakily, trying to gather some semblance of control over your racing pulse. “Like I said, it’s not a big deal, Jen… cause I’d do anything for you.”

She blinked, voice caught in her throat she took in the serious glint in your eyes; voice dripping with conviction 

“And this isn’t me trying to win you over. You’ll know when I do.”

The younger actress’ body feels like it’s on fire the longer she listens to your words. 

“Uh, sorry, too much?” You said apologetically when she remained unspeaking. 

But Jenna was already shaking her head, a faraway look in her eyes that you couldn’t quite decipher. 

“No…” She murmured, her sight drifting down to your lips before they flicker back up to your eyes. “Not at all.”

“Okay…” Your gaze bore intently into hers, waiting to see if she’ll make the first move. “Good.”

For a brief moment, her eyes flicker back down for a second time but then she’s blinking out of her self-induced stupor, “um–I should go to sleep. I need to be up early.” Jenna hoped her ogling on your soft lips wasn’t too obvious. 

She steps back and almost instantaneously, the tension in the room dissipates with each movement she takes. 

You nod, smiling softly despite the slight tinge of disappointment you felt; knowing that you shouldn’t rush into this with her. “Good idea, you should rest your ankle… good night, Jenna.”

Just before you turned back to grab the discarded dry cloth, Jenna takes a hesitant step—before she can lose her nerve and leaned up to plant her lips on the pad of your cheek.

Your brain felt like it short-circuited; not having felt her lips in forever as your skin burned against the delicate contact.

“Good night, Y/N.” She whispered, her soft lips grazing your cheek in a way that drove you crazy.

Before your brain could rewire itself well enough to form a response, Jenna was already turning around to retreat back to her room.

Biting your lip to contain the growing smile, you couldn’t look away from her figure until she disappeared behind the door.

Shit…

You’re in deeper than you thought.

——

if there was any mistakes… look away (i tried my best 🧍‍♀️)

taglist is closed

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[adamwatchesmovies]

Miller's Girl (2024)

I suspect that on another day, my rating for Miller’s Girl would vary wildly from the one I’m giving it now but that’s ok. Sometimes a movie hits you at the right time. There are too many flaws for me to call it "good". It's not "so bad it's good" and it's not a fascinating trainwreck, but it is the kind of movie you keep watching even when you recognize all the flaws.

Cairo Sweet (Jenna Ortega) has to write a college admission essay for Yale University when she realizes she has nothing worth writing down as “her greatest achievement to date”. Her best friend Winnie (Gideon Adlon) suggests having an affair with a teacher - she’s trying to do the same with the school’s gym coach, Boris Fillmore (Bashir Salahuddin). Cairo chooses her creative writing teacher, Jonathan Miller (Martin Freeman).

Miller’s Girl is an erotic thriller, though admitting that makes you feel a bit dirty. At first, the film comes off as simply weird. Cairo Sweet lives alone because her parents (whom we never see) are wealthy lawyers working in some faraway country at the moment. Their house is an enormous mansion on the side of a large forest perpetually covered in thick fog. Everyone talks like they’ve been pulled out of a classical novel - not a bad thing, but it does make it feel more otherwordly than it normally would. Combined with the premise and the heavy emphasis on the written word, this film often feels like the novelization of some provocative short story… but it’s an original piece written and directed by Jade Hally Bartlett. Until Cairo decides to tempt Mr. Miller, you don’t think Winnie is seriously trying to seduce Mr. Fillmore so you have no idea where things are headed. Then, we get a clearer picture of Miller’s home life. His wife, Beatrice (Dagmara Domińczyk) is a successful writer that’s too busy for him. He's only written one book and that was years ago. When Cairo gives him extra attention, all sorts of alarms start going off because you think you know where things are going… but you can't say for sure and you're not certain if you should be creeped out or not. In your defense, the film never tells you how old Cairo is supposed to be but Jenna Ortega is 21 and as performers who have to convince us that an affair might happen, she and Freeman have good chemistry.

The thing is, Miller’s Girl is not a romance film; it’s an erotic thriller. Jenna Ortega and Martin Freeman may be attractive on their own but when put together, you're supposed to forget that. You’re supposed to dread what might transpire because your pheromones aren't more powerful than your brain. You recognize how creepy a scenario this is. Depending on the scene Mr. Miller or Cairo might be the villain and before you call foul, let me explain. You might think that the teacher is the adult, that he’s completely in the wrong until we learn some things about Cairo that prove she’s a high-school femme fatale - if that wasn’t already clear from the fact that she’s looking to wreck a marriage and destroy a career out of boredom.

Although Miller's Girl kept me invested, there are several aspects of it that I have to call out as being either disappointing or problematic. I once again find myself quoting Promising Young Woman:

“It’s every man’s worst nightmare, getting accused of something like that.” “Can you guess what every woman’s worst nightmare is?”

I’m not going to say that you can’t make a story about some innocent man who gets entangled in a nefarious sex thing by a young woman but your story better be airtight if that’s the subject you’re tackling. Miller’s Girl has plenty of leaks. Even if it was a steel trap for most of its 93-minute running time, the conclusion is unconvincing, unsatisfactory and unrealistic. It’s not conventional - which is something - but that’s not the same as great.

Something about Miller’s Girl appealed to me when I saw it. I know I’m in the minority. I would have a hard time defending myself to anyone who asked me why but it's not like I’m the only person on earth calling it watchable (we'll say that it gets a mild recommendation but a recommendation nonetheless) and I bet I won’t be the only one. (July 13, 2024)

[julie-and-the-himbo-ghosts]

When I watched jatp for the first time (and a few others after that lol) I didn’t notice that Julie didn’t sing as much with Luke during Edge of Great until someone made a post about it and now I’m watching it while listening to the soundtrack on yt even tho I should totally be working and like woah this actually has a lot of depth while they’re really just singing???

Let me explain.

So Flynn tells Julie to tone down all the heart eyes while they’re playing before Edge of Great right and we can see she is obviously trying to do that (probably bc of the whole “I just had a whole daydream of dancing with my ghost crush to a love song I just came up with while supposed to be dancing with my dance partner” thing, but that’s a whole nother post) bc she’s rocking out with the crowd more than usual and Luke less than usually, etc. But like. The amount of emotion and interaction they do while just performing and all about this one thing Flynn said is amazing

So after after she rocks out with Reggie a little bit (and even has a little moment with Alex), you can see Luke kinda move towards her like he wants to do their mic sharing thingy right after the line “this moment is ours to own” but she turns away from him and vibes with the crowd more and you can literally see him stop moving forward, go back to his mic all sad bc why did Julie rock out with Reggie and then Alex but then ignore him?? And he sends Alex a little ? look before going back to normal singing, but he still looks a little sad and he shoots julie a bit of a confused sad look too before getting back into the song

(Sorry for the bad quality this is all on my phone and yt oof)

And then when he gets his solo bit and Julie goes to vibe with Reggie again he gives her The Look that I’m sure has been giffed many times

And they lock eyes and it’s kinda hard to see and a bit obscured by her hair, but you can see Julie giving him a similar look

And THEN while they’re staring at each other dead in the eyes, Luke does a little headshake thing which is him saying “hey hey come sing with me pls? 🥺” in like the most obvious way he knows and Julie’s face goes from sad pining to like kinda strained, trying-not-to-express-my m-true-emotions smile and she turns back to the crowd fairly quickly and she has this rather forced looking smile (it goes back to normal pretty quickly once she vibes with the crowd more but still)

And a little bit after this, at the “I believe, I believe that we’re just one dream / away from who we’re meant to be” part, Reggie comes over to sing in the mic with Luke but Luke just doesn’t move over (which is pretty ooc for him as we know) and Reggie gives him this look like “hey did you wanna sing together?” and he responds with the sad face and Reggie (I love him your honour) goes back to his mic like he understands that Luke doesn’t wanna do some mic sharing atm and maybe even why even tho this is so weird for Luke to do

Not to make a lot of of nothing but that’s pretty telling about Luke bc we always see him go over to Reggie or Julie or he beckons them over to him during every single performance afaik, so him rejecting mic sharing with Reggie while trying (and failing) to mic share with Julie several times throughout the song goes to show that hes not just sad bc he wants to share the mic with anyone then, he wanted to share it with Julie specifically, and her avoiding him made him hurt and not in the mood to do one of his favourite things (the same thing actually) with his best friend, which kinda implies that he thinks of Julie as more than just a friend (“we say we’re friends / we play pretend” parallels anyone?) And all of that gives me so many juke feels for such a small moment wow

And then it’s that thing where Reggie and Alex stop playing and it’s just Julie’s voice and Luke’s guitar (yknow that guitar bit that’s not included in the studio soundtrack) and when he walks up to Julie on the piano he has his real sad/maybe a bit confused/and maybe cautious in a way (?) smile while he plays the chords

But then Julie leans in kinda and gives him one of her smiles so he does too and he starts smiling this like puppy dog “okay we’re good now” hopeful smile

And so he leans in a little bit more to sing in her mic I think (boy does not stop trying ill give him that) bc he sings for the next line, so obviously he needs a mic right? But Julie stands up really quickly, a big “not in my microphone, Lucas,” and he walks back to his mic while he’s singing the lines “something big, something crazy / our best days are yet unknown” with Reggie and Alex, which is something I’ve never seen (or noticed, at least) him do bc he is always in front of a mic istg. He might have another sad 🥺 face again but I’m not really sure bc we get one small not very great shot where he kinda looks sad and like he’s pouring his sadness into his singing before the cameras moves to Julie and when we see him again he’s back in the vibe of the song

And then the bit when Alex and Reggie poof out. I think Luke was supposed to poof out then too and Julie was supposed to finish solo but he stayed so he could finally get his mic singing with Julie. One bc once Reggie and Alex stop playing and poof out, he stops playing too and lets his guitar hang by the strap while he walks over to Julie’s bench instead of poofing out. And when he sits down, right before singing and right after starting to sing, he has this hopeful, cautious (but in a soft way yknow?) expression. And then the other reason is that when you watch the video several times and at .75x and .5x speeds, you can see Julie startle just a little bit when he starts singing, as if she wasn’t expecting him to be there. But then she starts smiling, kinda like she wanted to sing with him and do their Thing the whole time, but she wouldn’t let herself so she could try and prove a point to Flynn, but then finally realized that she liked singing with Luke. And when she smiles, Luke smiles, and we get the soft end of Edge of Great duet, arguably one of the most iconic juke moments

Finally, all throughout the performance for the whole “she wanted to do the Thing with Luke but wouldn’t let herself to try and fail to prove a point to Flynn” thing: throughout the performance you can see her go all around the stage, like near the crowd, next to Reggie, close(ish) to Alex, on top of her piano, but she practically avoids Luke’s side of the stage completely, never going near him or even getting up close to the crowd past the middle.

Oh hecc this turned out WAY longer than I meant it to be but yeah. All of this is just like a “holy shit this is some amazing writing” moment for me, we stan Kenny Ortega and Nora Sullivan on this blog y’all

[artificialqueens]

Are You in Love With a Notion? (Diamond Chaney) - Ortega

summary: Ellie wakes up in the Lake District with a hangover, an engagement ring, and her best friend in her bed. It’s not quite Vegas, but it’s still a cataclysmic mess.

a/n: this one goes out to the anon that came to my inbox with the concept “diamond chaney but they impulsively get married one night and have to deal with the consequences later”. it was too good to just headcanon for so it’s now a fully-fledged fic. it’s complete and utter silly nonsense and it’s by no means the most groundbreaking writing in the world, but it is FUN! hope u all enjoy and pls enjoy my continued campaign for u all to board the diamond chaney clown bus xo

(do people still use snapchat? fuck knows, but i needed it for plot purposes. if u like u can pretend this is set in 2016.)

***

Ellie wakes up feeling like a bat has shat in her head.

It feels as if her pulse is contained entirely within her cranium given the way it’s throbbing, and every time she blinks it’s as if each of her eyelashes weigh twenty kilogrammes. She momentarily wonders where she is before the heavy cream drapes and the shiny glass-topped bedside table come into focus and she remembers she’s in the hotel room. A’whora had wanted to splash out for her birthday (“you only turn a quarter of a century old once, ladies!”) and no expense was spared since she’d got that promotion a few months back. She’d covered the difference for any of the girls who wouldn’t have been able to afford to go away and Ellie was thankful for her friend’s kindhearted and generous nature. After all, she’s not the kind of girl who would say no to a treat, and she’ll return the favour as soon as her salon takes off.

(And it will take off. She didn’t study business for nothing.)

But the room right now, even with its four-poster bed and the cosy sheets and the four soft pillows, is providing absolutely no respite from the fact that Ellie is hanging out of her arse. Throwing her arm over her eyes as she squeezes them shut, she gives a small, self-indulgent sob of anguish and suffering.

And as she rolls from her side onto her back, she becomes aware of the fact that she’s not alone in the bed.

The dread and fear that grips her heart reminds her of when she went on school camp in Primary 7 and had to jump into one of those freezing cold plunge pools.

She keeps her arm over her eyes for a few more seconds to allow herself to work up the mental stability she needs to face whoever’s at her side. Maybe it’s a dream. Maybe this has all been in her mind and in a moment she’s going to wake up hangover-free with her bed blissfully empty.

Ellie brings her arm down from her eyelids and, without knowing what possesses her (aside from the copious amounts of alcohol that remain in her bloodstream), bites down gently on her arm in lieu of pinching herself.

She can confirm she is still very much awake.

It’s not that a one-night-stand is beyond her; she would even go as far as to say that at one point both she and A’whora were infamous for it back at uni, and she’s admittedly glad that “Dirty Diamond” just isn’t as catchy as “A’whora” and therefore that particular nickname hasn’t stuck with her into adult life like it has for her friend. No, what she’s surprised at herself for is the fact she’s brought someone back at her big age. She hasn’t had a random hookup for a while now, and the fact she can’t remember it is even worse.

She presses the hand that’s under the duvet against her thigh and her heart almost gives out with relief at the fact she can feel clothes. She can’t have gone too far, then. This is okay. This is salvageable. As she runs her fingers over the hem of whatever the fuck she’s wearing, realisation slowly dawns on her that it’s her pink playsuit from the night before.

Ellie genuinely can’t tell if the situation is better because she’s not naked, or worse because she’s still in her clothes from last night.

Her pulse skyrockets again, however, as an arm gently thuds over her waist through the duvet and the person, whoever the hell they even are, snuggles into her side contentedly. Only…it all feels too weirdly familiar for Ellie’s liking. The body beside her, the closeness, even the rise and fall of the breathing is all that of someone she feels like she knows.

Lifting her arm off her eyes and to her forehead, opening them, and finally ripping the plaster off to see who’s by her side, Ellie doesn’t know whether to be relieved or slightly horrified.

A purple velvet jumpsuit with a belt to tie her in at the waist that’s coming undone. Black and purple painted nails. Endless waves of thick lilac hair that are fanned out in tendrils across the white pillowslip. An entire face of perfectly painted makeup that’s still clinging on from the night before.

It’s Lawrence. She’s waking up beside her best friend. This is fine. This is totally normal. They’ve shared a bed countless times before back at uni, and it’s not something Ellie’s ever been adverse to- quite the opposite in fact, she thinks, as her stomach does a flip.

Something still feels off, though.

And then, as Ellie brings her hand down from her forehead and something bumps against it, it hits her- physically and metaphorically- all at once.

The ring Lawrence always wears; her pride and joy, her grandmother’s ring. The one that looks like the heart of the ocean on her finger, a huge blue diamond surrounded by eight small platinum ones. The ring Lawrence guards with her life and would only take off if it was physically tasered off her. The ring that could single-handedly obliterate Lawrence’s entire student debt and probably Ellie’s too if she was feeling generous enough.

The ring- that ring- is currently sitting on the fourth finger of Ellie’s left hand. As if it’s an engagement ring.

“Lawrence,” Ellie says without thinking. Her voice is croaky and too-loud in the silence of the room, but Lawrence still takes a while to stir beside her. She pulls Ellie close with the arm that’s round her, nuzzles her face into her arm. Usually the feeling wouldn’t be an unwelcome one, but just now Ellie’s got bigger problems. She hisses again. “Lawrence, wake up.”

“I’m not shagging you, Ruth Davidson, you wee Tory,” Lawrence’s sleep-coated voice comes from beside her, and Ellie finally draws back, reaches behind her and takes the pillow out from under her head to thump her with.

“For fuck’s sake! Lawrence, wake up! We’re in the shit here!”

As Lawrence finally blinks slowly, Ellie watches her go through the seven stages of grief far more rapidly than she’s just done. She feels like an idiot for the way her heart dips in disappointment when Lawrence shuffles back from her and draws her arm away self-consciously. She mumbles, grumpy and tired. “Ellie, I’m not alive.”

“Yes you are, drama queen.”

“No I’m fucking not. I feel how Prince Philip looks,” she groans in despair, obviously as hungover as Ellie is. She screws her face up and rubs her eyes, in turn smearing her makeup over her cheekbones. “Why am I even here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we shagged,” Ellie says dryly, before holding the back of her hand up to Lawrence’s face. “Main question is, why the hell do I have this?”

Lawrence’s eyes grow wide in recognition before she groans and thumps her head back against the pillow. “How did you even…? Aw, I don’t know, Ellie, I’m too hungover to be mad about it. Just gies it back before you breathe and lose it or some shite.”

“But why is it…you know. Why is it here?” Ellie asks insistently, pressing her hand against her friend’s face in a deliberately annoying way. Lawrence grabs her wrist and forces it away from her face to get a proper look, and Ellie can see the cogs turn in her head before her face blanches at the implication.

Appearing to try and collect herself, Lawrence frowns, batting Ellie’s arm away. “You were probably getting hit on by some reprobate forty year old man in a suit so I’ll have let you pretend to be married to me. You should be honoured, really, it’s the closest you’ll get to perfection.”

“Piss off,” Ellie rolls her eyes as Lawrence gives a sleepy chuckle. She fiddles with the ring on her finger. It’s a little too small, and taking it off is proving difficult. Combined with the underlying stress of something still not being right, though, and it’s not enough to make Ellie’s dread dissipate.

“Can you remember any of last night?” she asks Lawrence, who’s scrabbling around on the bedside table for her phone.

“Nothing. You?”

“Neither,” Ellie rubs her temples with her fingers as if trying to massage the hangover out of her brain. No such luck.

“A’whora will be worse than us, then, won’t she? Because the last thing I remember is her and Tayce necking the prosecco at pres- oh, shit,” Lawrence has successfully retrieved her phone, and as she cuts herself off she’s frowning at it as if it’s committed a crime against her. “She’s calling just now, actually.”

Ellie already knows A’whora will be perfectly fresh and put together even before Lawrence swipes her phone across the screen to accept the facetime call, and so seeing her looking exactly that plus her girlfriend beside her looking the exact same just makes Ellie want to die even more.

A’whora’s smile is smug on her face as she smirks at them through the phone. “How are you two lovebirds doing this morning?”

Her words are like cold water down Ellie’s spine, and from the way Lawrence’s expression has changed too it seems she’s not the only one. She’s wondering what A’whora’s trying to imply with her joke and really, really hoping it’s just an innocent barb with no meaning behind it. Ellie can’t speak, but Lawrence gets there before her anyway. “What?”

“The married couple! The newlyweds! The babas!” Tayce jumps in, way too energetic and excited and making Ellie feel more hungover just looking at her.

Her words, though, aren’t helping her growing need to spew all over the hotel room floor. “What are you talking about?”

A’whora’s jaw drops open, and she barely conceals a laugh. “Oh my God. What do you remember?”

Ellie doesn’t want to give either of them the satisfaction of admitting that the answer’s nothing, but Lawrence is talking before she can get a chance. “Neither of us can remember anything. All I know is that I woke up in bed with this slut and she’s tried to steal my gran’s ring off me to…fuck knows, pretend she’s married to me. She wishes.”

“Lawrence,” Tayce starts, barely audible from giggling. “You two are married. You got married last night.”

What the fuck.

How can they be married? It’s not possible. Ellie tries to think but she can’t conjure up any clear thoughts. She feels the same smack of dread and fear that she felt when she went on that motorcycle rollercoaster at Flamingo Land two summers ago. Lawrence had been by her side then, too, her hand over Ellie’s white-knuckled one and reeling off ridiculous jokes to try and calm her down. She hates rollercoasters, and this one doesn’t seem like it’s going to be over anytime soon.

Lawrence doesn’t seem fazed. “You’re on the wind-up. Els, don’t give them the satisfaction, they’re taking the piss.”

“We’re not!” Tayce gasps, affronted, and A’whora is protesting adamantly too. “There was a wedding party in the bar last night and the pair of you kept moaning about how single you were and how you’d never find love.”

Lawrence narrows her eyes at her through the camera, offended. Ellie is inclined to feel the same.

“And the pair of you eventually decided you were just going to marry each other. Bimini mentioned they’re an ordained minister, so then you both insisted they married the pair of you in the hotel bar.”

“Get so far to fuck,” Lawrence snorts derisively, but it’s still not helping Ellie’s rising, terrified heart rate. “We’re meanty believe this, aye? Why in the fuck would I ever agree to marrying this wee cow, as if I would lower myself!?”

Ouch. Ellie scowls, screws her face up as she tears her eyes away from the screen and looks at Lawrence pointedly. “Thanks babes, love you too.”

“But you know what I mean!” Lawrence sort-of-not-really apologises. “Right, then, I’ll bite. If we got married, how did we get to the registry office? What registry office is open at eleven at night on a Saturday?”

A’whora shrugs all blasé. “There’s one in the hotel, we just went there. Caught it just before it closed, I think.”

Ellie narrows her eyes. She wants to believe it’s a joke, so she attempts to pick a hole in the story. “If we were that drunk, though, they wouldn’t have married us? Surely? I mean it’s not Vegas, A’whora, it’s the fucking Lake District.”

“Oh no, baby, the registrar said they get couples turning up drunk all the time! And obviously myself, A’whora and Bimini were much more sober than you, so we were the responsible adults. Or bridesmaids, I guess. We were that classy level of prosecco tipsy, you pair were on the vodka lemonades by eight last night,” Tayce explains.

As the story unfolds, Ellie feels more and more nauseous. She wants to crawl up into a ball like a dead woodlouse. Surely not. Surely not.

“Wedding dresses,” Lawrence says argumentatively. “We didn’t have wedding dresses. It would’ve been so obvious we were taking the piss.”

“Oh, neither of you would stop going on about how the colour scheme was pink and purple! Matching pink and purple playsuits! Which I see you’re still wearing, you absolute hounds,” Tayce wrinkles her nose in distaste.

Everything seems to be adding up to a ridiculously clear and yet blurry degree, and Ellie can’t in any way cope with the magnitude of the situation. She throws her arms over her face and curls up into the foetal position with a groan of self-pity. Through the duvet, she feels Lawrence whack her.

“Ellie, shut up! It’s so obviously a joke,” she insists, and Ellie can hear the roll of her eyes. A’whora and Tayce are cackling down the phone like two little Wizard of Oz witches and Ellie’s never identified more with Dorothy in her life.

“Well, believe us or don’t believe us, still doesn’t change the fact you got hitched,” A’whora says lightly. “I mean, you’ll have the marriage certificate to prove it. You had it last night, it’ll be in your room somewhere.”

Ellie pops her head out from under the duvet in horror. Her voice comes out as a horrified squeak. “Marriage certificate?”

A’whora shrugs. “Yeah! If you don’t believe us then maybe you’ll believe a piece of paper.”

“The marriage certificate that doesn’t exist. Aye, nae bother,” Lawrence says, still clearly disdainful of the story. “You coming to breakfast or what?”

“Oh, babe! Been there, done that! We got up at seven, showered, dressed, makeup, breakfast, and we’ve been out for a walk. Get on our level,” Tayce flicks her hair. Ellie fleetingly loathes her.

Lawrence rubs her forehead with her free hand, clearly headachey. “Well I’m starving, so I’m not hanging around to be wound up by the fuckin’ lesbian Prank Patrol any longer. Time’s check out?”

“You’ve got til half twelve. I got us a late one, figured we’d all need it.”

As Lawrence promises to see the other two later and hangs up, Ellie can’t speak. She’s still in shock at the potential truth from last night; that they actually got married. To each other. Over the years, Ellie’s invented made-up scenarios in her head that involve various things: telling Lawrence how she feels, kissing Lawrence, Lawrence asking her on a date. None of them have involved marriage. She’s never even thought to think that far ahead, but now it’s a reality it doesn’t seem like the Disney-princess dream she’s always expected it to be.

It actually feels sort of like a nightmare.

A thud from a pillow brings her back to reality. “Ellie!”

Ellie looks at her friend, who’s managed to crawl off the bed and is standing beside it, looking expectantly at her. Ellie blinks in bewilderment, rubs her eyes before she speaks. “What?”

“I’m gonna go shower and get changed and then we can go down to breakfast? I’ll come back and knock in about fifteen minutes?”

Ellie can’t believe she’s so calm. Sitting up in bed and feeling her head sting again, she looks pointedly at Lawrence. “You’re not in any way bothered about the story the girls just told us? The fact we might have got married?”

Lawrence snorts. “Oh, Ellie, please. You’re so gullible I swear to God someone could tell you Davina McCall’s the new Pope and you’d just nod and accept it.”

“But the marriage certificate, though? The ring? Which, by the way, won’t come off,” Ellie tugs on it again, trying not to panic when it doesn’t budge.

“There won’t be a marriage certificate! You said it, it’s the UK, it’s not Vegas. There’s a reason shotgun weddings aren’t a thing here. You honestly think we could just rock up to a registry office and get married?”

Ellie falls silent. She should feel reassured, but she doesn’t.

“I’m away to scrub the first ten layers of alcohol sweat out of my pores, awrite? You better be ready by the time I’m back.”

Lawrence leaves and Ellie is left on her own with her thoughts, which all seem to ricochet off her brain and pummel it to a husk, making her hangover worse. She still searches lazily for the fabled marriage certificate in between showering and getting ready, looking fruitlessly under discarded clothes on the floor and under furniture. Lawrence is right- she knows Lawrence is right- but there’s still a part of Ellie’s mind that’s niggling away with a what if on a loop.

By the time Lawrence knocks on her door again, Ellie is back not knowing what to think. She finds herself frantically babbling to her on the way down to the hotel restaurant in the lift, but her friend won’t entertain it.

“You’re too easy to prank. How can you believe them, it’s obviously a bam up!”

“Well, it could’ve happened! They brought it up before we even said we couldn’t remember anything, right? I mean, why else would you give me your ring? You barely trust me to hold your phone for two seconds to take a picture,” Ellie runs a hand through her hair, which she didn’t wash and is still in its big curls from the night before.

“Aye! Because you dropped it in the road when we went out for Jazz’s birthday!”

“That was two years ago! And I paid for the screen repairs!” Ellie cries in indignation, but the memory still makes her blush. She grows quiet again before her mind takes her back to the apparent events of last night. “The story makes sense.”

“The story does not make sense!” Lawrence sighs, agitated. “What proof do we have? You’re wearing my ring and our pals have told us the plot of a Hangover film? Honestly, hen, if we got married last night I’ll buy you an Uber back to Dundee.”

As they reach the dining room, the pair of them stop dead in the entranceway. Because there in the middle, almost as if it’s framed, is a table for two surrounded by inflatable red heart-shaped balloons, covered in red sparkly confetti, with champagne flutes and roses and polished silverware.

“What time’s my Uber booked for, then?” Ellie deadpans sarcastically. She doesn’t know why she’s making a joke. She isn’t in a joking mood. She’s nothing short of horrified.

“Calm down. That won’t be for us. A’whora said there was a wedding party last night, remember? It’ll be for them,” Lawrence reassures her, but Ellie doesn’t miss the distinct lack of self-assuredness to her voice that had been there before.

A waiter approaches them and asks for their name. Lawrence speaks (because Ellie can’t quite manage), and in return the waiter fixes them with a bright smile.

“Ladies, on behalf of us all at the Old England, we would like to wish you many congratulations and happiness on this most special occasion. Please, follow me,” he reels off before walking in the direction of the over-the-top, Valentine’s Day-style photoshoot set-up that is apparently where they’re having breakfast.

Ellie is going to be sick.

“You’ve got to be fucking joking,” Lawrence whispers all in one breath, before sleepwalking towards their table and sitting down with a tight smile of thanks to the eager waiter. As Ellie sits in the chair opposite, she notices the affectionate smiles from couples at other tables and feels her face flush with hot embarrassment. The waiter disappears with a promise to be back for their order soon, and the pair of them are left sitting in stunned silence.

“Lawrence,” Ellie says first. Her gaze is stuck on the table, shocked and stunned.

“Don’t,” Lawrence replies. When Ellie finally looks at her she’s sitting with her eyes squeezed shut, her face a picture of strained concentration.

“What are you doing? You look constipated.”

“I’m trying to wake up from this abject fucking nightmare,” Lawrence says through gritted teeth.

Even though Lawrence is right- it is a nightmare, it’s a bad, terrible dream- it doesn’t stop the way her words feel ever-so-slightly like a blow to the crush Ellie’s harboured for an embarrassingly long length of time. She can’t think about that, though. There are bigger issues at stake here. Like the fact they’re married.

“Do you believe me now? Why the hell would the hotel do all this if we didn’t get married in their registry office the night before?”

“It’ll be…” Lawrence begins, trying to explain it away then putting her head in her hands when she realises she’s at a loss. “Fuck, I don’t know. We need A’whora or Tayce down here to talk it through with us. Or Bimini. If it’s A’whora and Tayce’s prank then they might not be in on it.”

“They had to go back to London early for a shoot, remember? They’ll have already left,” Ellie reminds Lawrence, and her face falls in dismay.

The waiter returns holding a bottle of champagne and Ellie watches Lawrence turn over her flute with a little aggressive thud and doesn’t say when until the bubbles climb to the very top of the glass. They both order pastries, Ellie’s appetite completely gone and Lawrence’s appearing to be the same.

Ellie narrows her eyes at Lawrence as she watches her glug the bubbles down. “How the hell can you be drinking at a time like this? Are you not hungover?”

“I am hungover, yes. But I need to be drunk to deal with this situation. So I’m hoping this’ll at least take the edge off a bit,” she says dryly. Ellie rolls her eyes.

“Being drunk got us into this situation, it’s not gonna get us out of it,” she sighs helplessly, realising too late that she sounds too much like her Mum. Lawrence responds appropriately; shaking her head at her moodily and staring off into the distance as she keeps sipping from her glass.

Ellie cups her cheeks, thanks the waiter weakly as he puts down a tray of pastries in front of the two of them. She tries to go over the events of last night in her head but draws a blank every time. According to A’whora and Tayce they’ll have been at the bar, decided to get married…Bimini had married them, somehow and somewhere, and they’d gone to the registrar…then they’d presumably got even more drunk and had a dance, and then…

How had Lawrence ended up in her room? Unless they’d…no. They’d both still had their clothes on from the night before.

But that wouldn’t have stopped them making out.

“Oh, God,” Ellie groans, unable to hold in the regret and the constant pain of her headache. Lawrence shoots her a funny look. Ellie’s loath to explain herself. The idea that the first kiss she’s shared with Lawrence has been messy, drunk, and one she can’t even remember is one that makes her feel stupid amounts of disappointed, but she’s not exactly going to share that with her friend.

“Loz, what if we did something last night?”

“What, aside from get married?” Lawrence talks through a mouthful of croissant. Then, as realisation dawns, her chewing stops. “Oh.”

There’s an awkward silence as they both stare at each other.

“Nah,” Lawrence finally shrugs as she resumes eating. “Because we both still had our clothes from last night on when we woke up?”

“Yeah, but we still could’ve kissed,” Ellie pulls a face, the words feeling too awkward and childish as they come out of her mouth. Lawrence seems to hesitate for a second before smirking across the table at her.

“Aye right. As if I’d ever let you near enough to me for that to happen.”

“Rich from the girl who was wrapped around me when I woke up,” Ellie quirks an eyebrow at her, and it’s Lawrence’s turn to fall silent.

Breakfast doesn’t last long. Between their hangovers and the fact that they’re both trying to make sense of the whole crazy situation neither of them can eat much, and they’re dragging themselves back to their rooms before too long. They continue to discuss everything, purely because there’s not much else they can talk about when the prospect of them being married is hanging over their heads like the world’s heaviest cloud. This time, though, it’s Lawrence who’s doing most of the nervous talking.

“I’m sure it’s easily explained away. They probably just got our table confused with the wedding party’s from yesterday. That’ll be what it is. Just some big coincidence. There’s a reasonable explanation to it all. Have you got that fuckin’ ring off your finger yet?!”

“I’m working on it,” Ellie grumbles. The best she’s managed is getting it halfway to her first knuckle before realising it was cutting the blood circulation off even more and she could get it no higher, so she’d immediately pushed it back down again.

She hears herself huff with annoyance. All she wants to do is sleep but they have to somehow deal with this first, and it’s more inconvenient than she’d ever hoped her first marriage (her only marriage) would be. Thinking for a second, she gives a little gasp as she has an idea. “Why don’t we just go down to the registry office and ask?”

Lawrence stops walking, fixes Ellie with a look as if she’s sprouted another head. “Have you lost the bloody place?! You want to go up to the registrar and go, ‘sorry to bother you, but can you please tell us if we’re married or not?’ We’d get sectioned!”

Ellie thinks that, even though it sounds as if it’s the easiest course of action, Lawrence is probably right.

“Besides,” Lawrence continues. “If there’s the possibility that we did rock up three sheets to the wind last night, I don’t particularly wanty show my face there again.”

“Right,” Ellie agrees. She bites her lip as she reaches the door to her room and puts her key card in. Lawrence waits beside her, a mutual understanding that she’s coming in to continue the conversation.

Ellie supposes she’s her wife now, so it makes sense.

“Who could we phone to confirm it, then? The government?”

Lawrence pinches the bridge of her nose in exasperation. “Ellie, you did not just ask me if we could phone the gov-”

“Oh my fucking God.”

Ellie cuts Lawrence off without thinking, and upon seeing the inside of the room Lawrence is rendered speechless too. There’s more balloons, ones without weights that cover the ceiling over the bed. The bed itself and the floor surrounding it is covered in rose petals, and on top of the pristinely made duvet there’s a box of chocolates and two bathrobes origami-d into swans.

Lawrence is the first to march into the room. She snatches up a small note that’s sitting on top of the chocolate box, unfolds it and reads aloud. “Congratulations to the happy couple, we wish you both a long and happy marriage. From all the staff at the Old England hotel. Fuck me, this canny be real.”

Ellie lets the door swing shut, walks over to the bed and sits on its edge precariously. An idea occurs to her as she retrieves her phone from her pocket. “Here. Check your phone. Messages, photos. There might be clues.”

She doesn’t look up to see if Lawrence is nodding or not, but she assumes she’s following her suggestion. Ellie is busy with her camera roll (where there’s nothing, and the last photo is a terrible, blurry, unflattering selfie of her and Tayce) when Lawrence gives a hum of recognition.

“I got a snapchat from you at one in the morning.”

Ellie cranes her neck. “What does it say?”

Lawrence, oddly, is keeping the phone out of her view. She’s quiet before she brings the phone back into Ellie’s line of vision, and the picture, whatever it was, is gone. “Just a drunk selfie. Nothing that could give us any clues.”

The pair of them are quiet as Lawrence taps against her phone screen. Ellie reflects. They’ve been in the shit like this together before: when they were eighteen and both their phones died before Lawrence’s Mum could pick them up from T in the Park and they got yelled at the whole way home when she’d eventually found them both, when they’d been stopped by the police because Lawrence had carried a traffic cone through the City Centre and tried to put it on top of the existing one on the Duke of Wellington statue. But this is a whole different level of shit.

Through it all, though, Lawrence has always been there with a joke and a laugh and reassurance for Ellie that things are never as bad as they seem. She always has this panicky way of staying positive, delivering comforting words through a voice that’s shaky with her own anxiety. Ellie always helps her in return when she needs it, has done for years: she’s usually good at staying calm, she’s chatty and can talk Lawrence through anything, and she’ll always reach out to take her hand or be there with a hug and a reminder that as long as Lawrence has got her, she’s never on her own. They’ve always seemed to take turns being each others’ anchors, and their friendship is a weird sort of pendulum of support. Today, however, they’re both blindly stumbling through their own process of coming to terms with this situation, and Ellie supposes neither or them are being much of a help to each other. She wishes she could be more helpful, because she cares about her friend so much.

Too much for it to be explained away as a friendship.  

“What are you looking up?” Ellie asks as Lawrence lies back on the bed with a thud, eyes still glued to her phone. Craning her neck, Ellie can see she’s typed how to get divorced into Google.

“Why are there no ordained divorce lawyers?” Lawrence mutters under her breath. “We can get married in a hotel bar but we can’t get divorced in a hotel room? What kind of fucking bullshit is this?”

Ellie lies back too. It’s not lost on her how close together their heads are. “Why are you trying to get us divorced? We might not even be married. I still think we should phone up the government.”

“Nicola Sturgeon’s got bigger fish to fry, babes, there’s an election in May.”

“Not the government, obviously,” Ellie rolls her eyes, scrolls her own phone absent-mindedly. She’d look something up to try and help but she’s at a loss. “Like…the offices! The records of marriage and stuff. They’ll have a department for this sort of thing, won’t they?”

“Will we even be on the system if our marriage is less than twenty-four hours old?” Lawrence wonders out loud. “And if we got married here, would we be registered in England, then? Aw fuck, so many questions and not a single answer.”

Ellie frowns to herself as she thinks. “What if we do have to get divorced? Will we need a lawyer? I don’t have that kind of money, Lawrie, and neither do you.”

Lawrence hums in worried agreement, and Ellie presses her lips together. It’s weird dealing with all of this when there’s a crush at play. In amongst frantically trying to figure everything out and clarify it all, a tiny part of Ellie wonders…would it really be so bad to be married to Lawrence? There’s not really an excuse for them not to date now. It’s really the perfect way of ruining the friendship she’s been so worried about ruining for the past few years; it’s not awkward to say she has feelings for her literal wife, she supposes. But every time those thoughts rest in her brain for a few seconds, Ellie forces herself to chase them away- because really, hen, are you insane? The sheer scale of the situation isn’t lost on her, she knows they have to figure it out somehow and mop this mess up. But pretending would be nice, and safe, and far, far away from this alcohol-soaked bubble of horror she appears to have woken up in.

It’s out before she knows it, though. “What if we just stayed married? If we are. If we just stayed married until we could afford to get divorced?”

“Jesus Christ, Ellie,” Lawrence drops her phone onto the bed, covering her eyes with her hands in resigned exhaustion.

“No, think about it! There must be loads of benefits to getting married,” Ellie explains, feeling as if she has to justify the ridiculous thought now. “You get, um. I think you get extra money from the government?”

“The tories have never given out extra money. To anyone,” Lawrence glares at her.

(Ellie knows it’s not what she should be taking from this, but it occurs to her that the way Lawrence has done her eyeliner today makes her eyes look really pretty.)

“Oh! Here, it says you get tax breaks if you get married. It would be good to not have to pay council tax for a bit,” Ellie says, looking up from her phone where she’s just googled what are the benefits of getting married UK.

Lawrence pauses beside her. When she speaks, she sounds contemplative. “Well, you’d be taking my last name, because am I fuck taking yours.”

Ellie gives a choked noise of indignation. “Fuck off, I’ve got the best last name out of the two of us! Diamond?”

“It’s the last name of a porn star! I’m not living my daily life like that!”

“So you want me to go by Ellie Chaney? A name that rhymes? Like a character from Balamory?”

“You already dress like a fuckin’ character from a kids’ TV show, it wouldn’t be that far-fetched,” Lawrence starts giggling, and Ellie can only fix her with an unimpressed pout. “Nah, this wouldn’t work, Els. We’re already arguing and it’s only been one day. We couldn’t stay married. Besides, I’ve got fucking standards, you know? I could so do better than you.”

It’s silly, Ellie knows, but the last comment from Lawrence stings more than it should. It’s got nothing to do with the concept of the two of them actually being married, but more the fact that Lawrence has basically just rubbished any hopes that Ellie’s ever had of maybe-someday-oneday them breaking out of their little bubble of friendship and trying to be anything more. She’s always done it; that’s Lawrence’s way, to shit on Ellie, to gently bully her, but Ellie has always known there’s no malice behind it. Except today it all hits differently, it hits a sore spot that she’s too tired of trying to keep hidden.

“Sorry that being married to me is such a disgusting prospect,” Ellie snaps without realising, turning over on the bed and standing up so she doesn’t have to see Lawrence’s reaction to the comment she already regrets.

“When did I say that?” Lawrence fires back, and Ellie can tell she’s confused by her reaction.

“We need to find this fucking marriage certificate,” Ellie ignores her, opening the drawers of the bedside table even though she sort of knows it’s a futile endeavour since she’s already searched.

Lawrence pushes, though, never one to back down from a confrontation.  “Why are you suddenly raging at me, what am I meant to have done?”

“You don’t have to act like you got landed with the booby prize on a game show, Lawrence, I’m still your friend. There’s worse people to be stuck with,” Ellie continues as she crosses the room to look in the drawers of the dressing table, hating the way she sounds like a petulant child but being unable to help the way her words just seem to be coming out.

There’s a silence that hangs in the air like fog, and then Lawrence’s voice comes again. It’s softer, a comforting note to it that makes Ellie’s heart lift cruelly. “Ellie.”

Ellie opens the wardrobe doors, realising too late what a ridiculous place to look it is but committing to the idea anyway. She’s still way too hungover to cope with any of this, and the prospect of an argument with Lawrence, especially over this, isn’t one she’s able to face. Accepting she’s not going to find the certificate, she sighs and walks back over to the bed. As she sits on its edge and keeps her back to her friend she fiddles with the ring on her finger, and it finally, mercifully, slides off.

Lawrence’s voice is stripped of all its aggression and incredulity from before as she speaks again. This time she’s quiet and sincere. “Ellie. What’s this really about?”

Before Ellie can consider the gravity of the question or indeed contemplate how to word an answer, Lawrence’s phone vibrates against the bedcovers. Neither of them speak as she reaches up to grab it, but when A’whora’s name flashes up on screen again they share a look of weary exhaustion, neither of them wanting to face their friend’s smug expression.

A’whora’s smiling cheekily as Lawrence answers the call. “How’re the young lovers doing after their breakfast, then?”

Lawrence’s nostrils flare. “I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer.”

“So all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, then. Just calling to see if you liked the wedding presents.”

Ellie feels like a crumbling sandcastle as she rolls onto her side next to Lawrence and looks at A’whora through the screen. “What?”

“The decorations at breakfast! The ones in your room! Just thought they’d really add to the atmosphere,” she smirks, unable to keep from laughing.

More confused than ever, Ellie frowns in bewilderment. “But that was from…the hotel did that?”

“No, I did that. I just phoned down and got them to set it up. They still had a bunch of wedding shit left over from that pair that got married last night. It wasn’t cheap, but it was worth it to give the pair of you the romantic equivalent of everyone singing happy birthday to you at a restaurant,” A’whora explains, still giggly.

Ellie and Lawrence are silent as they stare at their friend through the phone. A’whora seems perturbed, then narrows her eyes at them before she speaks again.

“You two didn’t actually…believe you got married, did you? I thought you knew it was a bullshit prank.”

Before she can register Lawrence’s reaction, Ellie’s mouth drops open in shock. She grabs the phone from Lawrence’s hands and yells at A’whora as if she’s in front of her and not in her own room down the corridor. “A’whora! I am going to fucking kill you!”

A’whora’s laugh comes through the phone like a crackly screech, and Ellie doesn’t miss the unimpressed look from Lawrence at having been unable to style out the fact they’d both been duped. Ellie can’t even let that bother her, though, because she’s too busy tripping over herself to retell to A’whora their rollercoaster of a thought process from this morning.

Lawrence shakes her head beside her, loath to admit she’d been fooled too. “I didn’t believe it for a second. She’s talking out her arse.”

Ellie cries out, affronted. “You were telling me I had to take your last name not even five minutes ago!”

A’whora has to wipe tears from her eyes by the time the pair of them have told her the whole story. “Oh my God, guys. This has been the best birthday present of the weekend. I actually think I’m gonna wee myself. Fuck!”

“I can’t believe you told us we got married and we just…believed you!”

“Well, no, you did get married,” A’whora says.

With this revelation, it crosses Ellie’s mind to lock herself in the hotel sauna until she’s cooked through. “What in the name of God-”

As she continues to speak though, A’whora clarifies. “Or at least, you said you both wanted to marry each other. That conversation did take place. Bimini started joking they were an ordained minister. They showed you their provisional drivers’ license and told you it was a minister’s license. You were both so drunk you believed it.”

“Christ in a wheelie bin,” Lawrence groans.

“But you’re not actually married married. It was just pretend. And hey! We had fun. You should do it for real some day,” A’whora cackles.

If she was in the room with her, Ellie would slap her.

They finish the call with the promise to be packed and ready to meet to check out at half twelve, and when Lawrence locks her phone the pair of them laugh softly about the idiots they’d both been. Ellie is glad A’whora phoned. The conversation that had been taking place prior had been about to go down a route she hadn’t wanted it to, and she’s glad there’s no reason for it to be brought up again. She can go back to keeping her crush on her friend a secret, never to be unearthed.

“I should probably go and start getting packed, then,” Lawrence says decisively, getting up from the bed and making to leave. Ellie remembers what she put on the bedside table, and reaches out to pick it up as she tells Lawrence to wait.

As Lawrence turns around, Ellie holds out her grandmother’s ring, feeling a little awkward as she does so. “Here. Since we’re not married anymore. It came off in the end.”

Lawrence looks a little sheepish as she accepts it with a soft thanks. She gives it a little smile, then shoots the same one at Ellie. “Thank fuck for that.”

There isn’t any malice to her words. If Ellie was being hopeful she’d maybe even say there was regret.

Lawrence leaves and she can’t shake the little niggling feeling of sadness that embeds itself under a synapse in her brain.

***

The cold air that comes with the beginning of Autumn is welcome to Ellie as she sits and waits on Tayce to bring the car round. She’s not quite fully recovered from her hangover, but packing, checking out and getting a can of Monster from a vending machine in the lobby has done wonders for her mood. There’s also the fact that she doesn’t have a potential marriage to consider, so that’s good. That’s a relief.

A crunch of gravel behind her makes her turn around, and seeing Lawrence wrapped up in her black hoodie makes Ellie feel mixed emotions. She feels silly for getting so caught up in the whole idea of them having been married, the way she’d panicked and immediately thought it was all real, taking A’whora and Tayce’s comments at face value. She’s embarrassed at how she’d taken it all so seriously, and most of all she’s embarrassed that Lawrence was there for every reaction.

“Hey,” she greets her, already feeling a blush grow on her face. “You recovered?”

“Just about, yeah,” Lawrence laughs softly. She gestures to the mango loco that’s in Ellie’s hand. “Can see you’re clearly feeling loads better.”

Ellie matches her laugh, raises the can up in a solo cheers. As she drops her arm again, she sighs a little.

“Listen, Lawrence, sorry about…this morning. Immediately panicking and getting so worked up and intense with it all. I was just hangy and emotional and I had the fear…you know what it’s like.”

“It’s no problem. Don’t worry,” Lawrence brushes her off. Her expression is troubled though, as if there’s something else she wants to say. The unspoken words are loud and stifling, and then Lawrence finally meets her gaze with a nervous one of her own. “Well, marriage didn’t really work for us. But…d’you think drinks would be better?”

Ellie’s heart is going to give out. She can’t cope with the events of the day at all. She can already feel her pulse speeding up with hope so she frowns at Lawrence slightly, clarifying like a child tugging the string of a balloon to bring it back to earth. “Drinks?”

“Yeah, like,” Lawrence shrugs, looks to the ground bashfully. “For a date. If you want.”

All at once it’s as if her blood has just suddenly exploded in her veins. It feels like Ellie is on some sort of other-worldly come-up as she blinks at her friend, her friend she’s had a crush on since fuck-even-knows-when, and is stunned into silence.

“The snapchat you sent me last night,” Lawrence continues, scrolling her phone and holding the screen out for Ellie to see. “I’ve felt like that too for a while now.”

Ellie is cringing as she reads the white text against the black screen- a screenshot of her message sent to Lawrence at one in the morning, which reads “so glad whe’re marrrued for rwal vc ive reallt luked you for ages and i quitr fancg u a lot acfually x"

“How did you even manage to read what that says,” Ellie screws her face up, failing to address the bigger picture.

Lawrence smiles, a little hint of a twinkle to her eyes that makes Ellie’s heart thump. “I knew what you meant.”

There’s a small pause where Ellie blushes and looks to the ground, handing Lawrence her phone back. Lawrence uses the silence to keep talking.

“I know I like to rip the piss sometimes, and I know I can take it too far. But today all of that was about…verbalising everything I thought you were feeling about me. Trying to reassure you that I wasn’t interested in you because I thought that’s what you wanted. Once I started I just…didn’t stop, I guess. Damage control, you know? I’m sorry, Ellie,” she reels off quietly. She’s not hiding behind any jokes and she’s not making fun of Ellie and she’s not making fun of herself. It’s honest and simple and raw and everything Ellie’s wanted.

She scuffs some gravel with her shoe. “You feel the same, then?”

Lawrence presses her lips together. Ellie can tell she’s nervous. “Yeah. I do.”

“I do? Is that some kind of sick joke?!” Ellie laughs, and as Lawrence joins in she suddenly hesitates. “Wait. This isn’t a joke, is it?”

“Well, I’ve had enough fucking pranks for one day and I’m pretty sure you have too.”

The pair of them share a laugh, and as Tayce’s car appears from round at the hotel car park, Ellie fixes Lawrence with a smile.

“Drinks sound good.”

Tayce and A’whora appear from the car and pop the boot open, and Lawrence and Ellie try and fail to bite back the smiles they’re shooting each other as they carry their suitcases over, a mutual agreement that they’ll talk more about their plans when they don’t have their nosy and shit-stirring friend and her equally nosy and shit-stirring girlfriend with them on their way to drop them off at the train station.

It’s not quite a shotgun wedding, and it’s not quite a marriage in Vegas. But a date and a drink with the friend she’s hidden her feelings from for too many years is a good place to start.

[sunnydazc]

~950 words, something fluffy with very brief moments of angst. Sun forgets her birthday and Anathema and Ortega simply refuse to stand for that. Might have a part two if I ever get the inspiration for it.

***

“Hey, Sun, when’s your birthday?” 

“Huh?” It takes you a moment to process the question, caught up in your thoughts and how good this coffee is. You picked it up from a recently opened café on the way over and let’s just say you have a new favorite coffee place.

Ortega laughs from his place at the sink, taking a moment from washing leftover dishes to look at you, amusement riddling his expression at your apparent surprise. You’ve become more and more unguarded these days, it’s hard when they make you feel so at ease. It’s still no excuse, you’re going to get caught, says that little voice in the back of your head. Whether it’s paranoia or common sense is still to be determined.

“Oh that’s a good question! I can’t believe I’ve never asked that,” Anathema perks up from her seat across from you, leaning a little closer with a friendly smile. A gesture that would’ve had you retreating back into your usual guarded self if it was anyone but her, anyone but Ortega. Instead you smile back, mask already half rolled up. 

It’s an innocent enough question really, so you’re not quite sure why it is you’re coming up blank. Surely you’d prepared an answer to a question like this..? Right? Just like your name, just like your age, just like your hometown, just like- Yeah, you’re Sidestep, of course you have a good answer at the ready.

“Today.” ...Or not.

A few moments go by where neither of them say anything, but Ortega’s hands have stopped scrubbing once again and Themmy’s smile has morphed into something else entirely. Just the sound of the water running and you with your thoughts. Your thoughts being something akin to stupid, stupid, stupid.

“TODAY?!” They ring out in unison and you fight the urge to wince behind a long slow drink from your cup... That is empty. Right. Okay. Don’t panic, this is salvageable.

“Yeah? I didn’t think it was that important..?” Evidently that was the wrong answer because the two of them look downright offended that you could possibly think that.

“Of course it’s important! Birthdays are supposed to be fun! Plus you get free cake and presents, and maybe some alcohol.”

“Alcohol? Oh please, knowing Sun she’d rather get coffee,” Ortega interjects with a smug grin and a knowing look aimed right at your now empty cup. You open your mouth to retaliate, but find yourself coming up short. He’s not wrong, not that you’ll admit it. 

“Well then it’s settled! We’re throwing you a birthday party,” Themmy says as she quickly stands up, nearly knocking her chair over in the process. Your cup falls on its side as she plants her hands on the table for emphasis, eyes practically gleaming with excitement and her thoughts buzzing with a similar energy. It’s a little overwhelming, but you can tell she’s trying her best to not go overboard. For your sake, you pick up from her surface level thoughts. 

“What? Right now? You can’t be serious,” you manage to say, a nervous hiccup of a laugh slipping out and working its way into your body language, hands fidgeting with your cup, righting it before cleaning up a couple drops of coffee that dribbled out. Just something to keep them occupied.

“Well, maybe not right now, but why not? It’ll be fun!” The dishes are all put away by now, all except for a couple mugs, one of them familiar. Probably for the brew he’s just started. It smells good.. is the other mug supposed to be for you..? Looks like it. 

“I don’t know..” 

“Tell you what,” she starts, a gentle smile in place of her earlier grin. “What if it’s just the three of us? Maybe even Sunstream and Sentinal?” You’re glad she intentionally doesn’t mention Steel. It’s not that you hate him, but.. You know he doesn’t trust you, even despite all you’ve done, all you’ve proved. You’d be lying if you said it didn’t hurt.. But that’s neither here nor there. 

What’s here is the two of them looking at you like a friend. Themmy with her bubbly thoughts, already planning, banking off of you saying yes. She wants to see you smile, she wants you to feel appreciated. ..deserves it.. You happen to catch and you’re proud that you keep from turning misty eyed. And then there’s Ortega with his charming smile and coffee made just the way you like it and damn it. You’re going to say yes, aren’t you? 

You sigh, but your heart’s not in it and you’re sure they can tell from the way they’re grinning at each other. Idiots.. “Okay, okay.. You guys can throw me a birthday party. But no surprises or I’m leaving.” 

“Deal!” They reply, again in near unison. Almost scary how well they know each other. Will you ever get to that point with them? Do you want to? Could you? As you take a sip from the mug (still piping hot but you don’t mind) Ortega placed in front of you, and watch the two of them talk animatedly to each other about how they should go about this, you think, perhaps you already have. 

So you laugh and for once, it’s genuine. And it’s not that you never do, laugh that is, but it’s certainly not a common occurrence. Then the two of them are looking at you, stunned for just a beat, before they’re laughing with you and well.. maybe.. maybe this wasn’t as stupid as you thought.

[impossible-rat-babies]

 not quite people enough

pre-heartbreak | chargestep (m!ortega/nb!sidestep) | angst | 2843 words, most below the cut

[read on a03]

--

“Nanosurge at an end! The Rangers successful once again!”

TV screeching through the hospital waiting room, a few of the residents eyes focused on the rolling images and videos of the catastrophe cascading across the screen. Pollux pauses long enough to witness the few scenes of Rangers, all of them suitably heroic in the face of the dangers.

“With the danger now gone, efforts are being turned towards...”

He sighs and pulls his hoodie around his head tighter, sticking to the side of the hospital wall as he continues on. Keeping his eyes on his feet and ordinarily it’d be easy to keep people at bay, have their eyes slide off him like he’s just another face in the crowd, the memory of an indistinct face. A soft nudge, pushing eyes elsewhere takes care of anything else.

But not today, not when brushing up against any mind is like touching skin rubbed raw and bloodied, an open wound for days now. Now it’s relying on a hoodie pulled tight, surgical mask and sunglasses to make him look like any other sick person. Add a cough for good measure and sometimes its the simple things that keep people away.

He pulls his shields in tighter, a migraine already festering at the base of his skull. It’s been a week and there hasn’t been a day without a migraine where it’s too painful to breathe, the simple act of crawling out of bed like climbing a mountain, light bright enough to make him vomit. He spends hours poised over his toilet with bile dripping from his lips and blood running from his nose; iron and bile tasting the same in his burned raw throat.

There hasn't been a day without a nosebleed since the Nanosurge ended. 

He couldn’t very well keep his distance even if he wanted to. Even though the hospital is crawling with people and an elevator is far too small even when he’s alone, steadily climbing up towards the third floor. Out of all the victims jammed into the hospital there’s one person worth seeing, or one who would give him hell if he didn’t come and see him.

Heard news Ortega had taken the modded skin well, the rest left to heal with time. It would heal, he would heal. Better than any alternative and Pollux takes a deep breath when he finds the room number, door sliding open smoothly.

There are flowers. Of course there are flowers. 

Why wouldn’t there be flowers all over the place? They’re nearly everywhere, a cascade of color all over the room. Simple vases of daisies with little cards still sticking out of them, others large bouquets in a whole riot of colors. Imported exotic flowers from the classiest flower shops in the rich hills above Los Diablos; they come with little gold cards, handwritten notes in golden ink. Expensive, ironic and moronic he thinks.

Pollux shuts the door silently, poking his way around the vases, glancing at cards and picking at loose petals. One of the richest is from the Mayor and what sort of woman would she be if she didn’t spare any expense? 

Ortega is the Marshal, the biggest and the best in charge of keeping her city safe. Easy to click his tongue at the show they make, the veneer of civility and good faith. Pollux knows how often the Rangers butt heads with her office, passive aggressive undertones in meetings, thin patience in any other capacity. He glances over the others and they’re from all manner wealthy elite, the kinds Ortega meets at all the fancy Ranger events Pollux refuses to attend with him. More people grateful for their lives, as if they were at risk to start with.

He finds what he’s looking for on the beside table, a simple ceramic vase with simple flowers and there’s no card--Tia Elena doesn’t need one. A smile behind his mask and he finds a cup, filling it up to refill the vase. He sets the cup aside and pushes his hood off his head, gaze falling to Ortega.

He’s still asleep, head tilted off to the side in a mountain of pillows. Scabbed over nicks and bruises paint his cheeks and forehead, one funny little scrap on his chin, the rest dotted with purple, yellow and green bruises. The hospital gown looks atrocious, hiding away the dressings that cover fresh skin, skin to replace what was eaten away. Pollux has seen his share of wounds, seen what broken bones and cracked skulls look like, the blood a body can spill. He’s seen what the inside of someone’s guts look like, held them in his hands and tried to keep them where they belong, tried to stop the bleeding.

Seeing skin and muscle being eaten alive, bodies devoured into nothing but the vitriolic stench of rotting flesh strong enough to hurt his teeth and burn the inside of his nose was a whole different hell. Hell was watching people eaten alive, a single moment when Ortega reached out and there was no hesitation as they ate though his skinsuit, through to the skin below, eating his flesh alive. 

He hears the screams when his ears ring, in the heart monitor beeps beside him. Back to that day, back to screaming because he wasn’t going to lose Ortega, screaming 

no no no no no NO 

and they listened. Like holding a nest of hornets in bare hands, but he held them. Held them until his jaw cramped, every inch of him shaking from the effort, nose running rivers of blood to soak his teeth, tears of blood chasing down his face. Looking down and Ortega’s hands are wrapped in white dressings, cocooned tight. Easy to slip his hand into his, but he just balls his hand up tight, bruised knuckles against the sheets.

A deep breath in and Pollux looks, Ortega’s eyes squinting open.

“Hey...” Pollux mumbles behind his surgical mask, adjusting his sunglasses. He keeps his sunglasses on even if the blinds are shut--he doesn’t need to lose his guts in Ortega’s hospital room.

“Pollux?” Ortega’s voice is like gravel, a rumble in his chest. Pollux blinks and slides the tray table closer, the cup from earlier still filled with water. He finds the bed adjustment, scooting Ortega up.

“You got it?”

Hands unsteady but Ortega still takes it with a nod, sipping on the water. He winces, Pollux watching his hands slowly flex in the bandages, turning his hand over to look.

“Don’t push it or you’ll rip your new skin.” 

Pollux chides softly, biting his lip, not used to this. He’s not a stranger to hospitals, two years earlier it was much the same. The flowers, half a dozen surgeries to put Ortega’s abdomen back together, sitting in a room not unlike this one, watching him readjust to his body once more. There’s an itch in his feet, the creeping sensation of something amiss, nagging in the back of his skull.

“Why are you here?” Cutting to the chase and Pollux rolls his eyes.

“I’m here to see you, jackass.” He huffs. There’s no real itch and he’s only has piss poor bedside manner. Been too long since the last time he sat here, shouldn’t have this much practice at standing beside a hospital bed. He’s always been the one in the bed instead, the air cold on the open back of a hospital gown. Paper, not cloth.

“Hardly har,” Ortega half smiles, but it slips away quicker then it should. “But why are you here, Pollux? You look like shit.” He mumbles.

“Thanks for the flattery, asshole.”

“Pot calling the kettle black.” Ortega pointedly looks at him and he shrugs. The motion pulls on some bruise across his back and he bites his lip instead of wincing.

“Difference is you’re in the hospital and I’m not.” Pollux fires back.

“You should be. Heard about what happened to you.”

“They can’t do shit about it feeling like my head is going to explode. And I don’t need your sympathy, I’m fine...” Pollux sighs, rubbing his forehead and Ortega certainly isn’t believing that lie, but it’s hardly the point of it. They still have the energy to argue with each other and that's the real miracle of this whole situation; it would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

“At least let them look you over. Again.” Ortega sighs and Pollux grumbles.

“Let it go, Ortega for fucks sake.” 

Pollux huffs, yanking his sunglasses off and he rubs the corner of his eyes. Eyes that shed bloody tears and he swears he’s going to find gross in them for ages. He looks up and Ortega is giving him that Look--the look whenever he’s struck a nerve and it didn’t used to turn his guts to mush, make his heart do funny little things, get ideas about apologizing for what he said and all that garbage.

Pollux frowns.

“Don’t look at me like that.” He glares.

“Pollux.” He says it soft, but he’s still chiding, pressuring, and Pollux runs a hand across razor short hair.

“I’m not doing this with you right now.”

“What are we doing?”

“Bickering, arguing, fighting, pestering each other. Whatever the fuck we do, ass.”

“Is that what we’re doing?”

“Fuck it if I know.” 

Pollux heaves a giant sigh, walking around to find the plastic chair. He drags it over to the bed, plopping down in it and god he could use a freaking cigarette. He settles for silently drumming his fingers against his bouncing leg, head leaning against the side of the bed, pointedly not looking at Ortega. He still feels his eyes on him however, examining the mess he’s made of himself. He’s never not a mess, but he’s sure he missed a few spots buzzing his hair and the bags around his eyes are even sharper.

“I’m not sure if you look worse or if you feel worse.” Ortega keeps looking him up and down like it will prove some point and Pollux snorts, glancing up at him out of the corner of his eye. 

“Wanna take a wild fucking guess there, Marshal?” Pollux sighs, lips quirking. “Fucking, I dunno...”

How does he even describe it when he doesn't even rightly know how? There was fear...anger and fear and both are potent. The panic, the frenzy and then just agony, like muscles tearing from bones, pain like needles under the skin, metal an acid on his tongue, filling his head. 

Devour, devour, devour, eat, eat, eat, 

no, stop, stop, stop--STOP!!

Repeating the words over and over again until they lost their meaning, lost all but the feeling behind them, the command of a hive of minds in his own. His head still feels like bursting, the migraine brewing at the base of his skull creeping into his temples, pounding at the crown of his head. He closes his eyes, breathing in and back out.

“The sad hurt look is a good one on you. Could give the press a run for their money.” Ortega points out and Pollux opens his eyes to a half assed grin.

“You mean the eyes full of bursted blood vessels is a good look?”

“You know what I mean, Pebbles.”

His voice is actually soft that time around and Pollux doesn’t have the energy to fight. Not when he’s still here--still alive; not when he braved the great outdoors to reach the hospital. He’s breathing and living well enough to make jokes. 

Damn his ability to make fun even laying half dead in a hospital bed. Smug bastard.

“I know.” 

Pollux tip toes his fingers across the bed, pausing before they make their slow journey across the top of Ortega’s hand, taking their rest before the slope of his forearm. Tenderly turning his hand and they’re palm to palm, finger tip to finger tip splayed out. Grey eyes drift back to the flowers and Ortega coaxes his fingers to slip and lock in his, fitting far too well. 

They fit far too well into the cracks of each other and it always opens a pit in Pollux’s stomach.

Ortega is still here, still breathing, but each second feels like he’s lost him. A glance away and in a flash he’ll disappear. He shuts his eyes at night and it’s too real behind his eyelids. Every night it’s watching it happen all over again like a skipping dvd, waking up with bloodied sheets and too many tears to count, wondering why the fuck he’s crying over him.

“Tired?” Ortega asks and Pollux shakes his head, eyes falling to the ground.

“Thinking...”

“Now that’s dangerous, Pollux.”

Heart skipping a beat and he swallows against the lump forming in his throat. picking at the seam of his pants. He didn’t have a chance to see if Ortega got out safe, if they pulled him out--flesh dripping from his body--and he was still breathing. He collapsed to the ground in a bloodied heap and it wouldn’t be the first time he saw him like that, but goddamn it he couldn’t hold his body together that time, blood soaking through his gloves. Could have died on the way to the hospital, his world ending without knowing it, saving everyone but the one who matters the most.

“Can’t I think in peace?” He teases, forcing a smile and Ortega gives him a look of surrender, softly squeezing their hands still intertwined.

Pollux swallows hard again and he closes his eyes. Is that was Ortega is now? His world? He means enough for his gut to clench hard as he turns to stare death once more in the face and he wants to call him a fool, curse and yell at him each time because one of these times death is going to stare back at him and grin. It’s less waiting on bated breath, but knowing he’s gambling on a bad hand with only a few chips left.

He’s always been a bloody cheat with death, but watching others gamble when he knows how the cards will fall sparks terror he can’t compute. Attachment he can’t compute, understanding how human it is and he’s gasping for air in an ice bath.

“Pollux?” 

He yanks his head up, his name still lingering on Ortega’s lips. Pollux tears his hand away like he’s touched a stove, hiding his hands within his sweatshirt, burying them deep. His heart in his throat and look everywhere but at him, don’t look, don’t look, don’t look. Cheeks burning and his gut twists and twists. 

Can’t have someone mean this much, can’t have this feeling he doesn’t understand. 

Pull back, pull back, pull back, instinct kicking in. Anger burns his face, teeth grinding. Stupid, idiot, ridiculous adrenaline junky playing at hero and look at where it’s always gotten him? Stuck in a hospital or patching wounds in his apartment, cursing him up and down. Or it’s pulling a car off of him and fuck Ortega’s lips were on his and it tasted like blood, but it was all too real and he whispered to him, holding him tight like his life is going to end if he let go and it was so, so close and...is that why he kissed him? Is that why they keep kissing? A relationship built on far too many close calls and it’s a slippery slope, but fuck he’s already on a collision course and he’s not people enough for that. Won’t survive the fall, the break that comes.

“I gotta go...” Pollux forces out from behind his teeth, chair startling him as he roughly stands, quick around the bed, past the flowers in their blurs of colors, the door three strides away.

“Pollux, what’s wrong?”

Ortega’s voice catches him with his hand on the knob, trembling. Eyes burning and he bites his lip enough to be painful and a little more. He can’t cry, not now, not here. He likes his breakdowns in private, not where Ortega can see him--not where anyone can see him.

“Pollux please don’t leave.”

“Why?”

The question that’s been boiling on his tongue, tucked back in his throat because he doesn’t want the answer, doesn’t want to know how this goes.

Doesn’t look back, eyes on the door, starring straight ahead. Can’t look back, can’t face him. He’ll get ideas then--ones he can’t be having at all, no thank you. Silence stretches between them, aching just like how he is now, the exhaustion descending back over him along with regret. Bile boils in his gut and he manages to swallow against the lump in his throat, twisting the knob.

“Pollux, please.” Ortega repeats and he manages his best smile, the only one he can manage when he’s five seconds away from losing his nerve. Letting the tears fall and Ortega would hold him so, so close and he’s not people enough for that.

“I’ll see you later.”

The door clicks shut behind him and its only silence now, only that dearest and oldest friend of his to follow him home.

[ashglory-writes]

another heart’s asylum - chapter 1/10

Who’s ready for a good old-fashioned bodyswapping adventure???  A huge shoutout to Rana​ for looking this over for me, thank you so much!!

[Read it on AO3] - | Next Chapter

~ 2.8k words, rated T, f/f Chargestep (Serena/Julia), contains spoilers for Retribution!

What would you do if you woke up in your girlfriend's body? Hopefully the same thing you would do if you woke up in your enemy's. Otherwise, you might have a problem on your hands.

As it so happens, Julia Ortega has a problem. So does Serena Basri.

There's a vise strangling Serena's spine when she wakes. The pain reaches down to the bone.

This is agony she hasn't felt since Heartbreak – or rather, its aftermath. Nothing has ever hurt as much as that year she spent in 'recovery' after the Farm doctors removed her pain-gate.

To this day she doesn't know if it was punishment for her first escape, or if it had just been so damaged by the fall that its removal was a necessity. All that matters is that they hadn't given it back; that even if it was not meant as punishment at first, that is what its absence had amounted to in the end.

Sleep's haze lifts from her mind, already racing. Wrongness prickles at her thoughts. There's something off about everything here: situation, location, her own self.

Observations swarm like flies around a carcass: the too-soft and too-warm mattress; her arms, longer than they should be; the glint of metal out of the corner of her eye; the shape of her body, soft where it shouldn't be and dramatic in its curves and angles; but worst, and most damning of all, is the silence.

It's not the smothering blanket of telepathic dampeners, nor is it the round-cornered smog that comes from anti-telepathy drugs. She's experienced both forms often enough to be certain. This is just pure, knife-like absence.

It's not unlike being in her puppet's body, especially that first time she slipped into Eden's unpolished, granite-grit shell. But Eden's body is broken in like a new pair of shoes now, worn soft and comfortable, flexible, almost as if it were her own.

It's disconcerting that she's ended up in someone's body without knowing how. But Serena can sort out the how and the why of it all later, in her own body. Away from this pain.

So she closes her eyes, and prepares to loose her soul from this shell...

And nothing happens.

She opens her eyes, staring down at a pair of hands that aren't hers but are intimately familiar nonetheless. Revelation seeps through her mind like groundwater through earth as she registers the blots of silver and chrome peeking through the synthskin of her palms.

These are modded hands.

These are Julia's hands.

Serena's first instinct is to deny the absurdity. She can't be in Julia's body. It's just shouldn't happen.

She knows she has dreams. Some that seem impossible to disentangle from memory, that feel so real she has immediately check herself for injuries the instant she wakes. This is no dream.

Still, these are undeniably Julia's hands. When she cranes her head to look around, she begins to recognize the angles of Julia's bedroom, the stupid bedside lamp, the sleek carpet, the heavy curtains pulled shut over arching windows. Serena is in Julia's body, in her apartment– her life? Involuntary sparks dance up and down her fingers as her distress grows.

There's no trace of Julia's mind lurking in the corners. When Serena possesses people she quashes their thoughts under her own consciousness, but they don't just vanish. They're still there, thin and clinging to the inner walls of the skull, waiting for her permission to inhabit themselves again. The only time that she has ever been inside a truly silent mind is when she makes the jump into Eden's body, and even then she can still feel the indentations left in the brain from a lifetime of someone else's thoughts.

Search as she might, nothing feels odd about Julia's head. The same, however, can't be said about Julia's body.

Give the mind enough time and it can grow used to anything, even pain. That doesn't mean that it's vanished. Only that Serena has had time to adjust, and knows to brace for the flood of fire that spills out from her spine when she forces herself off the bed.

She doesn't have time for pain to hold her back. She's had to push past adjacent hurts before, and with even less on the line than what is at stake now. Because a sudden, terrifying, thought has just come to mind: if she is here, her mind in Julia's body, then where is Julia?

The simplest assumption is also the worst case scenario. She is in Julia's body. So if Julia is in hers...

Serena had been too tired last night, to do much more than peel herself out of Nihil's armor and collapse. Everything is out in the open in her hideout: her tools for working on the prototype regenerator; the nanovores; her notes, her plans, her schemes-

And worst of all, Serena herself. Her body.

Every emotion she's capable of feeling vanishes all at once, replaced by only dread. If Julia really is in her body, she has no more secrets to keep, no layer of deniability to hide behind. That thought terrifies her more than any other.

Plans overwrite plans in Serena's head. Everything at this point is only conjecture, but if there is any chance at all that it's true then she cannot leave it be. There will be a fallout, and she needs to be prepared to do damage control. And oh, she’s had so much practice at damage control, no time to rest between one crisis and the next.

So, step one: get in contact with Julia. Find out how much of the truth she knows, though Serena can't imagine that Julia won't have pieced together the entirety of it. Julia is ignorant, perhaps willfully, but she isn't stupid. Even she will have to accept the truth when she's forced to stare the ugly truth in the face.

The question, then, is: how does she do that?

Julia's brick of a mobile phone is easy enough to find, left charging by the bedside table. Serena hefts the thing in her hands, considering. Julia seems so confident that her apartment is untapped, unbugged. Secure. But a phone like this, carefully insulated against any flareups, has to be built to specification. And she knows that Julia uses it for Ranger business.

There's a high possibility that this phone is monitored. And if she calls Julia, who must be equally – if not more – bewildered at their circumstances, there's too high a chance that one of them will let something slip. Say something they shouldn't. Holding her tongue has never been one of Julia's strengths.

Serena growls to herself. Calling or texting is out of the question, and it's by very deliberate design that she hasn't left Julia another way to contact her.

That leaves one option. And that means Serena needs to get dressed.

As she staggers her way to the doors of Julia's closet, it's second nature by now to avert her eyes from the full-body mirror mounted to the wall next to the closet door. Still, skin flashes in the corner of her vision: deep tan, interrupted by pale streaks of scars.

No orange.

No orange, and it takes actual effort to shake herself out of the realization that this really isn't her body. That this is a human body, rugged and real. For the briefest instant she almost fools herself into believing that this could be her.

Then reality catches up to her, in the form of light winking off of silver rivets along Julia's body. Serena has to turn away from the mirror, something that tastes half like guilt sticking to the back of her tongue. Enough gawking at Julia's body, wishing that it really was hers.

Serena throws on the first set of clothes she gets her hands on, not bothering to make sure they go well together. It's Julia's closet; any old blouse and pair of pants should look nice enough. Habit has her shrugging on a jacket as well, unnerved by her shirt's short sleeves. All of this still feels too light, too exposed, but she's Julia now. And Julia Ortega isn't afraid of anything.

Mercifully, there's no one else in the apartment that's up and about save the doorman. It's early enough in the morning that she greets who she thinks is Julia with a yawn and a simple wave, content to leave it at that. Serena returns the greeting with a smile, hating how easily her mind conjures up Julia's guileless grins, how at home they feel on her face.

Public transportation is an unfortunate necessity that Serena doesn't like dealing with, even on her best days. This is... definitely not one of those. No matter if she's in Julia's body or not. Luckily, Julia's car keys sit heavily in her pocket, and somewhere in the years she's been gone, Julia swapped out her ostentatious sports car for something a little more subdued.

It's still a nice car, Serena thinks, sleek and shiny, because Julia doesn't settle for "serviceable" when she can have "great" – but what does that say about her? The way Julia sees her?

Serena's hands tighten around the steering wheel, her own upset electricity biting into her palms. With a grimace, Serena pushes that thought away. It's just one more to add to the avalanche of things she can't acknowledge if she's to preserve this tentative happiness between her and Julia.

Though once the dust of the current disaster settles, says a spiteful part of her that she just can't ever seem to silence, there may not be much of anything left to preserve.

A car like Julia's stands out in the suburbs. There's nothing to be done about that. All that Serena can do is drive out as far as she dares, and hope that there's nobody willing to brave the city's precarious, landslide-prone fringes this morning. Luck seems to be on her side today: the few people around seem to all have business elsewhere, and no one strays anywhere off-road. Still, she misses her telepathy deeply, unable to satisfy her paranoia by scanning the area for any too-curious minds.

The long drive over has wrung her out. The grating ache in her spine had proved impossible to ignore. She knows she makes jokes about Julia's age, but she hadn't expected this exhaustion. She refuses to let the emotion curling like wispy smoke through her gut be guilt.

So, deciding firmly to not be guilty, Serena climbs down into the labyrinthine tunnels that sprawl out beneath the outskirts of Los Diablos. She has business here.

Everything looks as she remembers, though there's precious little to be disturbed. On the one hand, it's a good sign that nobody has traced her back to this entrance. But on the other, it means nothing; there are dozens of pathways all leading to her hideout, her sanctuary. Julia could have left through any one of them and she would be none the wiser.

Serena picks up the pace. Her footsteps echo through narrow corridors. While she likes to wander, normally, she cuts through the passageways as fast as she can now. The twists and corners are as familiar as breathing, but Serena doesn't make for the main entrance. The path she ends up on is slightly more circuitous than she would prefer, but she can't rely on the main doors being accessible. A side entrance, just one of many potential escape paths, is what she needs.

At last she reaches her destination: a broken down chamber attached to the water plant. It may have been a garage at some point, perhaps, but what matters is that the walls have decayed enough that there's space for her to slip into the main building, even accounting for Julia's excess of height.

The lights are off, though grimy sunlight streams in through the high open windows of the power plant. It's no worse than the tunnels, and just enough to barely see by, though everything within is cast in dim shadow. Serena hesitates when she fully squeezes through the gap.

With the benefit of, quite literally, a new perspective, her lair reminds her of Heartbreak. Musty, broken things scattered about everywhere, and a bitter foreboding that hangs in the heavy air, perceptible even without telepathy. Is this what she's been surrounding herself with?

No. Stop. Focus. So many thoughts she needs to pack away, to ignore for now – or, preferably, forever.

So Serena takes a breath, and calls out into the solemn quiet, "Julia?"

No answer. But her ears catch on a breath of a sound, the barest hint of soft cloth shuffling against cloth. Then breath after ragged breath. She immediately snaps her head in the direction of the noise, scanning the gloom for its source.

There, by her workstation: the silhouette of a lump of a person rather than an actual person, curled in a fetal position, arms wrapped around the head. Serena begins approaching gingerly.

"Julia, can you hear me?" she tries again. It must be disconcerting to hear your own voice speaking to you, and Julia has even less frame of reference for this sort of thing than Serena herself does. She doesn't know how much of Julia's instincts or her own remain, coiled tight and waiting like the tension in a spring, so she moves slowly, so as not to jostle the hornet's nest. Caution is her ally here.

It's not until she's right up next to her own- Julia's- her body that she recognizes what's happening. She has to forgive herself a little, for taking so long; she's never seen this from the outside before. The Farm had always taken care to separate the telepaths from each other when one of them was showing weakness. Breaking down.

For once, Serena's thankful for the blank silence in Julia's head. The same void that she had cursed many times over the years now wraps her in a blanket of immunity. Otherwise...

Serena's never really stopped to take stock of just how much her powers have grown, especially in the wake of Heartbreak. A telepath's instinct tells her that if she weren't in Julia's body right now, her mind would be pulped like an orange just from proximity. No wonder everyone had been avoiding her hideout; self-preservation works even when you don't know what it is you're running from.

But Serena knows what she's facing. And she knows she's not fleeing.

Seeing herself laid low like this leaves an unpleasant taste in her mouth. It's not any easier than when she had to have Eden stitch her up after a fight gone wrong. Somehow, it feels worse, actually.

Is it because it's Julia shivering on the ground, and not you?

Serena's gotten adept at ignoring her own thoughts. She can't afford to have Julia collapse in on herself, in Serena's body, under the sudden deluge of new powers beyond her ability to control. The ship has long since sailed on pretending that she only wants Julia to calm down to avoid any irreparable damage to her own body.

So she kneels down by Julia's hunched form, pushing past the way her spine protests the motion. Gingerly, tentatively, she rests a hand on Julia's shoulder. Only a thin nanomesh suit separates skin from skin. She holds steady through the full-body shudder that shakes through Julia's entire body.

"Listen to my voice," Serena begins, keeping her tone soft. She doesn't think that conscious thought is close enough to the surface for Julia to be able to understand her words. But from past experience, she knows that her overloaded brain will latch onto the comforting thought-void static, the warm murmur of soft nonsense.

"It will feel like an ocean, at first. Like you're drowning in it..."

Step by step, she talks Julia back from the brink. In the absence of telepathy, she can only rely on how Julia trembles beneath her palm. The shaking that was almost violent dies down as she speaks, slows. Julia's ragged breaths evens out.

And at last, she stops shaking. Serena lets her words trail off, though she keeps her hand where it is. Solid, tangible, real.

Julia cracks an eye open. Then the other. Something akin to vertigo sweeps through Serena when she stares into her own green eyes. There's a consciousness behind them that's not her own, and a part of her wants to recoil at the primal, visceral revulsion that the thought conjures.

She watches Julia lick her lips. Her voice comes out as half a whisper, hollowed out. "...Serena?"

Swallowing against the tension, Serena nods. "It's me, Julia."

Julia stares at her blankly in the face for a moment. Then she looks down to her arms, the way the sleeve of skinsuit is pulled up just enough to-

Serena grits her teeth, eyes flickering away when she catches a glimpse of orange streaks. Her eyes come to rest on her armor, lying dismantled by the workstation. Nihil's distinctive helmet lies on a bench, blueprints and maps and all other manner of clues scattered on the tables like fallen leaves.

Her stomach clenches. And then so does her heart, when she sees Julia follow her gaze, and how the puzzle pieces itself together in Julia's head.

Damage control, Serena reminds herself. She's good at that, if nothing else.

But nothing prepares her for the sheer depth of fury in Julia's eyes, nor the despair in her voice, when Julia asks, "Serena, what the hell is this?"

[erintoknow]

don’t think that way

fallen hero fanfic, sidestep era with Ariadne, Ortega, and Anathema. content warning for discussion of physical abuse - inspired by a discussion question from @cheion-writes in the discord a little while back

~2.9k words

------

“Sidestep! What are you doing here? There’s no emergency going on.”

“I just… I want to be ready?”

Anathema gives you a skeptical look, a smile tugging at their face. “Uh-huh.” 

It’s been sitting at over a hundred degrees for the better part a week now, and even the super villains are staying indoors in front of their A/C units. That has nothing to do with why you’re planning to hang out at the Ranger’s HQ all day, of course. The presence of working air conditioning… is completely incidental.

You tug at the elastic of your face mask, willing the cool air to filter in faster. “Is that… is that okay?”

Anathema shrugs, “Steel just left to do a patrol, if that’s what you’re asking.” She moves to pat you on the shoulder, then hesitates seeing you already stepping back out of reach. “Sorry, I forgot.”

Thank god for masks. “Y-you’re fine.” You give her a thumbs up. “Don’t worry about it.”

Anathema gets you past the front desk; “She’s with me, Sarah!” and the two of you weave your way through the hallways of the building until you end up at Anathema’s office. Anathema motions for to grab a seat while she pulls up to her own desk. “Sorry, I was coming in to catch up on paperwork today. Not very exciting, I know, but it has to get done.”

You tilt your head, “You have to do paperwork?”

“Yeah… incident reports, give our accounts of how things went down, that kind of thing.” Anathema shrugs, leafing through a pile a folders and loose paper on the desk. “I don’t think most of it ever gets seen again? Not unless there’s a dispute, like someone rich gets a bee up their bonnet about property damage.” She looks up and waggles her fingers at you. “These babies are rated as lethal weapons you know.”

You laugh at that, “Well, I don’t want to distract you…” You scratch at your face. “Am I allowed to just, uh, look around? Maybe there’s a break room or something I can just… chill at?” This isn’t your first time inside the Ranger Headquarters, but there’s always been some pressing emergency to justify being here. You’ve never just… hung out before. It’s weird. Makes you feel weird. Why did you choose to come here again?

Anathema gives you a grin, “Probably not, but I won’t tell if you wont. If you go down this hall, take a right, there’s a break room with snacks and coffee at the end. I’ll catch up to you when I can.”

You tilt your head forward to approximate a smile. “Thanks Ana.”

“Themmy.”

“H-huh?” You rub the back of neck, anxiety creeping up over you. Did you misstep somewhere?

“If we’re doing nicknames I’d rather go by Themmy.”

“Oh. Oh, sure. Sorry, Themmy.”

Anathema smiles again before turning to back to her desk. “Don’t sweat it Sidestep.”

You take the shift in her focus as permission to head out. Finding the break room doesn’t take long, despite your temptation to linger and snoop around. You want to stay on the Rangers’ good side after all. 

Speaking of good side… the first thing you see on entering the break room is an old off-white refrigerator humming in the corner. Themmy did say there were snacks… Suddenly your stomach is very insistent on reminding you that you haven’t eat yet today. “Alright fine, you dumb thing,” you mutter to yourself as you go rooting through the room. Just something small to tide you over, that won’t be missed. There, a box of snack bars, not in the fridge but the cabinet beside it. One little bar won’t matter to them right? They’re all rich anyway.

You roll up your mask just enough to be able to take a bite and try to swallow down your guilt. Turn your focus to the rest of the room. From the window you can look down and see the street below, busy with very important looking people all on their way from one place or another. For a moment you’re tempted to reach down and read some of them, but the desire passes. They aren’t a threat, you have to remind yourself, there’s nothing you need there.

One entire wall is taken up by a huge piece of framed cork board. Notices of varying age and relevancy are posted, notes to other Rangers. You’ve met most of them at least once now. It still doesn’t feel real, having them treat you as… well, not an equal exactly, but human certainly. They have no idea what you really are. There’s a kind of rush to it, flirting with disaster like this.

You frown, shift focus to avoid the guilt. Take another bite of the snack bar. Not as sweet as you’d like, but beggars are never choosers. One corner of the board has a collection of pinned photos. No masks, no uniforms or costumes. No one you recognize. Smiling faces, children, older adults, the parents? A little girl is in the middle of blowing out candles on a cake. 

You grip your arm with your free hand as you finish the snack bar. You want to touch the picture, look at it closer, but it– it feels like there’s a wall between you. This isn’t a world you have any business being a part of. Something you’ve never had. Will never have.

“She’s cute, isn’t she?”

You jump, nearly drop the bar in your hand. How the heck did someone sneak up on you? Turn and– oh. It’s Charge. You step back and watch her as the woman saunters into the room with all the confidence of someone that knows exactly where she belongs.

“That’s my niece. Well, one of them? The family’s kind of huge, honestly.” She rubs the back of her neck and smiles at you.

Your heart’s still pounding from the surprise. You need to give some sort of response. Look normal. “Y-your relative, Charge?” Idiot, she just said it was her niece.

Charge keeps smiling though. “Yeah, I’m glad I was able to make it to the party this year.” The smile turns awkward as she shifts to look at the floor for a second before going back to you. “It can be hard to make time for family in this job, you know?”

“I– I guess.” Something about being around Charge makes you nervous, and sometimes the best thing for nerves is to take the offensive. “You kind of sound like an old woman, saying that.”

That gets a groan out of her, “Hey! I’ll have you know I’m 26.”

“That’s old.” You turn your head to look at her. For a moment you’d swear her eyes dart down to look at you mouth. That’s absurd though. Still, you tug your mask back down. 

“Whatever.” She frowns, and shakes her head. Clearing out thoughts? Who knows. Every time you try to read her mind you get crackles of static and nonsense. Yet another thing about Charge that unsettles you. “Anathema mentioned you were here so I just thought I’d check up on things.”

You tilt your head. “You’re chaperoning me.”

She winces, holds out her hands as if to say ‘you’ve got me.’ “It’s not like I don’t trust you Sidestep, I do. But–”

“It’s fine.” You say, cutting her off and turn back to the bulletin board. “Are all these pictures of your family?”

That gets a laugh from her. “No. There are other members of the Rangers believe or not.” She hesitates for a moment before adding, “I do probably have the most pictures though.

“Don’t you uh, have an office?”

“Oh, I’ve got pictures there too.”

You feel weird, standing here, in a way you can’t quite grasp. Like there’s some obvious secret in plain sight but you can’t even see it, touch it. Only the effects of its gravity. You try to focus on the board instead. “What’s this about?” You point at one picture, it’s just someone’s arm wrapped in a cast.

Charge rubs the back of her neck once she sees what you’re pointing at. “Oh that’s one me actually. First time I broke a bone.”

“You put up a picture of you breaking a bone?”

Charge doesn’t look at you. “It’s a good reminder.”

“Huh? Reminder of what?”

Charge walks past you to take a seat at the table under the window. “Okay, well, there was this tree–”

“Hey Ortega, found our guest, huh?” Anathema gives you a small wave, which you carefully return. Maybe you should have warned Charge Anathema was coming?

Nah.

“Taking a break already, Themmy?”

Anathema touches a hand to her chest as she moves for the coffee machine. “Me? Take a break? You wound me.” She leans on the counter as the machine warms up. “Did I interrupt anything?”

You shake your head. “Charge was just starting to tell me about the first time they broke a bone…?”

Anathema looks thoughtful, then grins. “Ah, that story. Let me save you some time then. Our brave child marshal climbed to the top of a tree taller then her house and then jumped to the ground just to prove she could do it.”

You glance at Charge, surprised? Concerned? Why? She’s clearly still alive. “Wow.”

Charge leans back in her seat. “Don’t tell me not to do something, Sidestep, that’s just daring me to prove it wrong.” She laughs. “Man, I was so dumb. I’m lucky it was just the one arm I broke, I certainly deserved worse for pulling a dumb stunt like that. I got grounded for months afterwards.”

“Grounded?”

“Uh, yeah.” Charge rubs the back of her neck again. “No friends over either. Just stuck indoors with…” She makes a face. “Whatever, doesn’t matter.”

You glance at Anathema. Did you make Charge uncomfortable? There’s that weird tension in the air again. You aren’t just imagining it, right? A… normal person could ease things by sharing their own, similar story, but– You’re not playing a role here, you don’t have anything like that prepared.

Anathema claps her hands together. “Don’t mind her, Charge loves telling this story. She’s just mad I stole the thunder this time.”

Charge shoots a look at Anathema. “Maybe I should fill Sidestep in on Princess Starshine.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Anathema groans. “Damn, I regret ever telling you that story, I’m never going to live it down.”

Charge smirks at you, “Someone pulled a fast one on their parents for Halloween one year.”

“Charge. Please.” You look between the two of them, only relaxing when they both burst out laughing.

You chew your lip while the two of them chatter with each other. Maybe you could… adapt something? When the conversation lulls you take the chance to cut in. “Uh, that reminds me of when…” You trail off, thinking. How do you frame this?

Charge perks up, and leans forwards in her seat. “Oh, a Sidestep story? This is rare.”

“Don’t tease her Ortega.”

“Okay so,” you begin, speaking slowly as you pick your words. “We always had to… be in bed by curfew, right?”

“Yeah?” Charge nods for you to continue. Good, so that sounds like a normal person thing. You’ve got this then.

“Well, I would always sneak out once no one was watching so I could hang out in the, uh, the library. Until–”

“You snuck out at night so you could read books?” Charge asks, incredulous.

“Your parents kept a library?” Anathema looks at you, curious.

You flinch. Just finish the story, you can do this. “Y-yeah, well. I liked the history books.”

“Knew you were a nerd.” Charge whispers.

It’s not much of a death glare when your face is covered. “Shut up.”

You take a breath. “Anyway, I got caught eventually, and…” You put a hand over your mouth, laughing nervously. “Man, I think at least half the beating was just because I did such a shitty job of lying about it.” You add a mocking tone to your voice, “Yes sir, I just got lost looking for the bathroom and tripped into this pile of books on Ancient Greece. Pfffft.” You pull your arms tight against you as you look at the floor. You laugh to yourself again. The air in the room has turned sour but you keep talking, helpless to stop yourself. “I had bruises for months after that. But like you said,” you gesture in Charge’s direction, “it was pretty dumb of me, I deserved way worse than what I got.” As you finish talking it feels like your words are dissolving into empty air.

When neither Charge or Anathema say anything you tense up. You did what you’re supposed to in this kind of interaction, right? Did you give yourself away? You have to make yourself look up, reach out to get a sense of what Anathema at least is thinking. “Um…”

Anathema and Charge exchange glances. Charge looks stricken. 

You dig your nails into your arm. “What? What’s wrong?”

Charge speaks first, hand half extended towards you. “Are you… okay?”

“I– I– I’m fine?” You voice breaks, panic rising up. “Why are you asking?”

“Sidestep…” Anathema’s voice is more careful than Charge. “Do you still… live with this person?”

“W-what? No it’s– it’s not what you think–” You just wanted to join in, not this: the way they’re looking at you… They’ll know, they’ll figure it out. They’ll figure it out and it’ll be over for you. Shit. Shit. Shit. You step backwards towards the hallway. “I– I should, I should go. Sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry.” 

Charge stands up at of her chair, “Sidestep, wait–”

You don’t wait to hear the rest of the sentence. You take off down the hallway. Follow the path back out, don’t even acknowledge the receptionist. You need to go.

———

By the time you stop running you’ve managed to put several blocks between you and the Rangers, hiding a story up in the fire escape for a boutique shop. You slam a fist against the metal railing. Damn it! You ruined your chances with the Rangers. You’ll have to avoid them from now on. Maybe you should just skip town entirely? Being a vigilante already effectively cost you Chelsea, if you can’t even manage not to fuck that up maybe you should just give up altogether. The spotlight isn’t where something like you belongs anyway.

“Sidestep!” The name gets you attention and you look down into the alleyway, ready for a fight. If a drug dealer thinks they’re going to get back at you today, they’re going to regret it.

It’s not a drug dealer though; it’s Charge. Great. That’s just great. How…? Did she track you down herself? And so quickly? The thought makes your heart seize. “What do you want, Charge?”

“I just…” Charge shields her eyes against the sun as she looks up at you. “I just want to talk. Is that okay? Can we talk?”

Dig your hands into the metal of the railing, feeling the heat of the black paint against your hands, dulled by the skinsuit. “I said I was sorry.”

Charge gestures something, you’re not sure how to read it. “What are you sorry for?”

You take a breath to respond but no words come to mind. 

“Do you mind coming down so we don’t have to yell?”

You pull at the railing, run through the scenarios in your head. Swallowing down fear you let go of the railing and climb down the ladder. When Charge approaches you shy back against the wall of the building. “Well? Talk.”

Charge doesn’t respond right away. There’s a pained look in her eyes as she looks at you and you have to look away, focus on something else like the gum ground into the cement. “Are you okay?” She asks.

“Of course I am.”

“You’re not acting like it.”

“I’m fine.” You insist. “Sorry for ruining things. It was… unprofessional. It won’t happen again.”

Charge is still looking at you like she wants to touch you. “That’s not– fine.” She sighs. “I’m glad you’re okay. But… if you ever want to, you know… talk about it, Anathema and I would both be willing to listen.”

You let the silence hang there, silently wishing she’d leave. That your powers would work on her so you could make her leave. Or better, forget this ever happened.

“I…” Charge winces, like she’s just swallowed something painful. “I know what it’s like, okay?”

You stare at her, taken aback. She’s not anything like you, she’s human after all. What is she talking about? But in the moment, even in uniform, Charge doesn’t look anything like the smug superstar hamming it up for the news. Ortega looks… weirdly vulnerable.

“Don’t– don’t think of yourself that way, okay?” The tension in her body creates a few errant sparks from her emitters, running up her arms. If they hurt, she doesn’t show it. “You don’t… deserve to be hit, okay?” She’s obviously restraining herself, but she has her arm outstretched to you.

You stare at her hand. At her face. You feel… you don’t know what you feel. You don’t know what you feel a lot lately. You want to blame the hormones. They’ve been swinging your emotional state all over the place as you trial and error your way to a ‘correct’ dose. That’s… that’s all this is, nothing else. Just medication messing you up. In fact. This is great. Maybe now you won’t have to field any more questions about your past.

“Okay.” You say. You take Ortega’s hand and there’s a small jolt of static electricity, not enough to hurt. She grips your hand back and smiles at you.

[vickypoochoices]

[Day Six.]

Tagging: @zigortega4life @emerald-bijou @littlegreenmoo @krsnlove

[Chris.] [James.]

Author's Note: Merry Christmas guys! I hope you all have a lovely day. Somehow I've managed to keep this short and sweet, and actually finish it before the big day. It really is a Christmas miracle!

DAY SEVEN.

The hands on the clock taunted her, just seconds had passed since the last futile glance. Where the hell was he? He’d said he had some errands to run and family to catch up with, the promise that they could have Christmas day all to themselves had eased the bristling. Things didn’t quite add up though. She failed to believe that the same guy who meticulously planned two successful Christmas countdown surprises back to back, also left errands until the last minute on Christmas Eve. And he knew full well that she was long overdue a gossip with his Mum, fuelling her frustration even more.

The clank of keys in the door startled her, the biggest pizza box greeting her in place of her boyfriend. Is this his way of apologising? Christ, he really does know me too well.

She bounded over, all her senses in overdrive and the ability to think was just replaced with a overwhelming desire for pizza. Nothing else mattered more in that moment, as her fingers slipped underneath the box and peeled the lid upwards, her mouth instantly watering as the freshly baked scent of pizza wafted up.

“Okay. We’re doing this then?”

“We’re doing what Zig? You brought pizza, let’s eat pizza.”

She didn’t catch his muffled response, acutely aware of the jingle as he twirled his keyring around his finger four times exactly.

She sucked her bottom lip in, a rush of colour splashing her cheeks at the disturbing sound of saliva slurping. When was the last time she ate? Her eyes briefly flicked over the contents, accessing which delightful topping Zig had picked tonight. It was something so simple, yet something that was always certain to divide them. Zig struggled to accept that sometimes his level of spicy was enough to shed your skin. Nothing was too hot for him. Where as she prefered to keep things classic, pepperoni had been her faithful companion for as long as she could remember.

“You got them to make a heart out of sweet corn? That’s cute.”

The torture continued as she scoured over every inch of the pizza, unsure as to the reason why she hadn’t scoffed the whole thing already. There was something compelling, a gut instinct insistent that she resisted just a little longer.

Is that an arrow, or just an odd shaped slice of pepperoni? Who in their right mind had time to carve a piece of freaking meat?!

She threw together a stern, questioning glance in Zig’s general direction, finding him distracted in the fridge, studying the chilled drinks in the bottom left hand corner intensely.

A grease stained corner of paper gained her attention from it’s position half way between the sweet corn heart and the pepperoni arrow.

Day Four – Yesterday i asked you to make a wish, tonight I’m serving you a chocolate dish. The thing is, forgetting tonight was all a ruse, because really I needed your dad to say I do xx.

A quick succession of confused blinking followed, the thump of her heart beat suddenly absent as her eyes flicked up towards the arrow of meat, pointing towards the inside of the box, Zig’s tell tale chicken scratch writing had been waiting for her the whole time. Day Seven – Will you marry me? Or is that too cheesy? Xx.

A single cough sliced through the silence, her skin errupting in goosebumps. She wasn’t sure if it was the fright, or the image of Zig, now in front of the tree, bent down on one knee with a ring outstretched.

“He said yes, in case it wasn’t clear.”

She choked out a foreign sound, a bizarre mixture of a strangled sob and a miserably ecstatic laugh.

“And if he didn’t give his permission? What would you have done instead? I’m guessing this was always going to be the dramatic end game.”

“Meh. I figured I’d win him round eventually. Probably with half the amount of gifts and notes it took to convince you.”

The reassuring reappearance of her flagging heart beat forced her into movement, discarding the pizza box and stepping closer to Zig.

“Anywayyy, I’ve planned this down to the last second and none of that cropped up once.” With her head bowed in a silent gesture of mock apology, she couldn’t help but grin as Zig took hold of her left hand, squeezing just on the right side of comfortable.

“I wasn’t lying when I told you I hadn’t even gotten started on telling you every day how much I love you. I don’t want this just to be an annual thing. I hope I make you feel loved daily, but the best way I can think to do that is to prove to you just how much you mean to me. I’m crazy about you. I want to be the reason you smile. I want to spend every day waking up next to you for the rest of my life. I want to make your wish come true.”

“My wish?”

“I want you to be my wife as much as I know you want to be Mrs Ortega. Or at least I really hope that’s what you wished for otherwise this is going to be awkward in the morning.”

Her eyelashes batted innocently, an angelic smile spreading slowly, her voice dipped low.

“My first wish was for Ryan Gosling to find me and fall deeply in love with me, but marrying you was a close second.”

“So that’s a yes?”

My idiot.

“Zig, of course it’s a yes! Now hand the ring over and kiss me you loser!”

“Again, that definitely never cropped up in my version of events, but I’ll take the yes and run with it!”

The ring slid down her finger with ease, her mouth hanging open as she took a moment to take in the beautiful purple stones set on an otherwise simple silver band. Pulling Zig to his feet, she all but threw herself at him, pulling him against her chest, their lips smacking together hungrily.

Their foreheads rested together, Zig’s finger rubbing over the ring several times as they stood in a blissful silence for a moment.

“That’s it now though right? No more crazy Christmas surprises next year? Or any other year for that matter?”

A tell tale smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, as he ushered her down the hallway towards the bedroom, ignoring the many yelps of frustration that followed.

She’d said it before, and she’d say it again. She was going to kill Zig!

[giggle-me-this]

Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind…


December 31st arrived, and Nate had officially gone seven days without narcotics. 


It hadn’t been like, a purposeful thing, really. He’d gone through highs and lows since—god, how long had it been since that night with Xi? Time seemed to warp in weird ways when Nate had been through, if he was being really, truly honest, mostly highs. 


But that day in the elevator with Isaac had fucked him up, too. Now every time Nate even looked at the drugs in his heavily depleted stash, he had an actual second thought about taking them. It hadn’t exactly deterred him so far, but the voice alone was something new (“you use it as an excuse to snort a load more fucking shit into your system”). He wasn’t sure if he liked it at all.


It was hardly a foolproof system, either. That day with Sol he’d been fucked up, and that was a whole fucking mess he’d rather not think about. He’d gotten shitfaced with Tyler the day before Christmas Eve, which was as enlightening as it was really depressing. And then Christmas Eve, he’d thought he’d suffer through his hangover the hard way—he couldn’t very well show up at the hospital that evening high as a kite, could he?—and then by the time he’d gotten back to the flat and started watching movies with Xi he just…hadn’t wanted to? For the first time in weeks (in years, maybe, if it was a matter of comparing holiday-to-holiday) Nate had just felt…at peace. Almost content. Okay. And that wildly out-of-character disinclination carried over, for some reason, to Boxing Day—a day that Nate honestly hadn’t been able to get through sober in six years. And then December 27th arrived and he thought, why not? I’ve gone this many hours, why not tack on a few more?


Until somehow Nate blinked and it was New Years Eve. He’d just gotten through the worst part of withdrawal—several hellish days of nausea and intense cravings and mood swings—and was now down to the almost mild-by-comparison echoes of anxiety and agitation. Nate didn’t want to soil the fresh and really very nice memory of their quiet Christmas together just days after it happened, so while it might have been rather festive to do something celebratory with Xiomara, he wasn’t gonna bug her with his tiresome addict shit. Besides, what was that superstition about ringing in the new year the way you planned to spend the rest of the following year? If Nate’s experiences with Xi these past few months was any indication, she’d want to start off the next year with some goddamn peace and quiet, and definitely no drama.


Nate thought about meeting up with Harriet, too—he actually checked in with her via text to see what she was doing—but again, the best way to start a new year for both of them was probably with a little bit of fucking independence. 


Which, like, okay, sure. It wasn’t ideal but Nate was a fucking adult, and given recent events he seemed set to be on his own kind of a lot, now. And he needed to be able to be okay with that—he needed to prove to himself, at least, that he could function without constant fucking supervision and not nosedive immediately into the shitty dumpster-fire black abyss of rock bottom. 


So he was going to go out tonight on his own, and he wasn’t going to do drugs. Yes. Great. Wonderful.


He was absolutely going to drink though; just because he was trying to make better decisions didn’t mean he was fucking deranged. 


Night rolled around and Nate somehow found himself wandering around SOHO. Being in self-enforced exile from the magical parts of town (or maybe actual exile, Nate honestly hadn’t even tried venturing there yet) meant that he had much more time to learn all about the ins and out of No-Maj London. Something about the atmosphere of SOHO drew Nate in like a gravitational field; it reminded him a lot of Manhattan, in a lot of ways. He could easily blend in here just as he’d done there, noticed for wonderfully superficial and surface-level reasons and invisible in regards to his last name, his legacy, and the weight of all his fucking mistakes. He flitted easily in and out of bars, drinking scotch and champagne, flirting just enough for a half-hour of entertainment and then drifting somewhere new just as easily. It was carefree and intuitive. Nate felt good. 


So good that by the time midnight rolled around, Nate was actually taken a bit by surprise. He accepted a glass of champagne that was offered to him just before the start of the countdown, content to wait out the big moment in his own company. That one was actually a choice this year and not a necessity of circumstance—a tradition, actually, almost, at this point. Maybe it was just all of the prime-time teen dramas that Nate had binge-watched over the years, but kissing someone at midnight on New Years just felt like too much pressure and commitment. Plus it seemed kinda tacky. 


So Nate just smirked as the countdown began, arms crossed over his chest, eyeing over the intoxicated, expectant energy of the crowded room. His eyes passed over a certain head of hair, a particular skin tone that wow, really kinda resembled—but no, it couldn’t be. His heart did a double-thump in his chest. Nate was imagining it, surely. Wishful thinking. His fucking shrew of a subconscious, bitchily reminding Nate that if you could be kissing anyone in the world right now, who would it be? 


A mind in the throes of withdrawal could play some awful tricks on a person.


Just to reassure himself of his own delusions, Nate’s gaze flickered back to the stranger in the crowd. Except this time that stranger was looking directly back and him and Nate nearly fucking choked because either 1) his champagne had at some point been spiked and Nate had graduated to full-blown hallucinations or 2) that was really Isaac fucking Ortega, somehow at this same fucking bar on this same fucking night, getting pretty fucking heated with some other guy not one hundred feet from where Nate was standing. 


And fucking looking at him. Like that.


Nate swallowed, and blinked a few times, and shook his head. But when he looked back it was the same; Isaac was looking at him, certainly had recognized him, and was—what, waiting? Expectant? Of what? 


There were a lot of things Nate wanted to do within that one second. Nod, wave. Shove his way through all these fucking people in Isaac’s direction; in the opposite direction. Flip him a rude hand gesture. Smirk. 


Kiss him, was the one overwhelming and impossible thought. 


Celebratory cheers and commotion erupted all around Nate. Midnight. Happy fucking New Year. 


Nate was about to do something forcibly casual—a peace offering, maybe?—tip his glass from afar; see? We can exist in the same universe without it imploding in on itself. But then this fucking guy that Isaac was standing next to was suddenly kissing him, intensely, and a wave of heat flooded through Nate’s body. He was going to look away before he actually, like, winced, or something equally mortifying, but then he couldn’t—he actually physically couldn’t—because Isaac fucking Ortega was holding Nate’s gaze in an iron grip; he was watching Nate purposefully as his mouth and his hands did all of fucking that, and the look in his unwavering eyes was entirely, infuriatingly knowing. Isaac knew exactly what the fuck he was doing, and exactly how the fuck Nate would be feeling about it. It was obvious. And he was enjoying it. 


Nate’s mouth fell open just a little, and his expression did a lot of things at once, simultaneously darkening in an angry how-fucking-dare-you-you-absolute-egotistical-prick and brightening in an unfortunate, begrudgingly keen-as-fuck-why-is-that-not-me-when-you-clearly-want-it-to-be way. Didn’t he? Nate could never, ever read Isaac and this whole display was about a hundred times more confusing than anything he’d ever done or said to Nate before. Was this still just another fucking game?


Well if it was a game it was one that two could play at. Impulsively, Nate downed his entire glass of champagne and then grabbed the first person that walked by and attempted conversation with him—a striking redhead who was all legs and curves, who had fortunately been making eyes at Nate across the bar about a half hour ago. Nate kissed her hard and vindictive and her fingers tugged aggressively in his hair and at the buttons on the front of his shirt, her tongue in his mouth like venom while her reddish-pink lipstick smeared all over his mouth. 


Nate poured all of his spite and needy, overwhelming, misplaced desire into this one frenzied kiss with a total stranger, and when he pulled away from her he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked back at Isaac, daring. Your move, dickhead. 


A challenge that was quickly accepted; Isaac’s cocky smirk sent another dart of heat straight through Nate. His eyes widened just a little as he watched. It was a good move, admittedly. Just another game of Wizard’s Chess. 


Fuck. Fuck you. I can’t fucking stand you. Every minute we’ve ever been together has been—


You arrogant fucking prick, I want to grab you and shove you up against a wall and—


Every second that this went on was increasingly agonizing. Blissful, excruciating agony. Nate wanted so fucking much and he couldn’t do a goddamn thing about it. He really wanted to just put a firm end to this self-imposed hateful endless suffering, but he just couldn’t. He couldn’t look away. Not yet. 


Until Isaac’s attention—his whole body, actually—was finally, definitively, pulled away. Nate blinked into the empty space that Isaac had left behind and in the span of about one minute, he tumbled hard and fast into feeling absolutely, exceedingly awful. 


He moved to make some sort of hasty retreat, but the redhead Nate had definitely forgotten about grabbed him by the forearm and whispered into his ear with whiskey and coke and grenadine on her breath, “Where you off to, Daddy?” 


Nate cringed at that and dismissively pushed her off. Ugh, Jesus Christ, fuck that. He needed to get out of here, now, like right this very second. He shoved his way to an exit and gulped in cold air. His hands were shaking. The nausea was back, hard. His breathing was picking up and Nate was starting to panic but his brain was moving too fast to consider why. 


All he knew was that he needed drugs. He needed them. Now, right fucking now. Fuck sobriety. Fuck everything. He tore through his pockets even though he knew very well there was nothing there. 


It was fine, he’d just go back to the flat. He’d go back to his and Xi’s flat and up to his room and Nate would just take, like, whatever was there. A bunch of fucking pills. And then this horrible feeling in his stomach and in his chest and in his brain would be gone. The heat was rushing through his body again but not in a good way, this time. 


“I’m not going to be an excuse for you to keep fucking up your life.” 


It was about ten years too fucking late for that.
The heat inside him rose up and Nate vomited, hunched over, leaning his hand against the side of the bar’s exterior wall. 


Then he apparated back to the flat and took a very, very cold shower. He brushed his teeth. 


“Happy New Year, Xi,” Nate called softly into her room, his voice hoarse, before he tumbled into his bed with his hair still wet and fell almost immediately into a restless sleep.


Happy fucking New Year, indeed.

[magnoliarps]

exposing gleeunionhq

Hi! Hi! Before you read any of this I just want to confirm that I’m not a rpt blog or anything and I personally don’t enjoy spreading negativity into the rpc because at the end of the day we’re all on here on our computers playing characters in rps and we should just have fun instead of tearing each other apart which is why I’m not tagging anyone from that rp or revealing names, I just included the rp name so people know they should be wary before applying and it’s why I’m not including members names in the post because I don’t think they deserve to be blacklisted for being a part of the rp (even if they were the ones who caused some of this)

I’d also like to say I don’t have screenshots to prove each and every single thing I bring up and you’ll just have to take my word for it (because it’d be pretty absurd to make this up) but some screenshots have been included since I did screenshot some things before I left the groupchat (and i didn’t think to screenshot everything at the time)

Alright, SO I’m not one to want to “expose” rps. Like what you do is your prerogative but there have been some things come to light in recent weeks that I just can’t ignore and when it involves OOC things I feel like it needs to be discussed? But GLEEUNIONHQ is a glee rp (i know i’m a glee rper sue me) and the glee rpc is kind of known for being shitty so I didn’t even think anyone would care.

So, a little preface is that I ran a decently successful rp back in 2019 and it was @ohiohq​. If you were in it and had a bad experience in it, I’m sorry and don’t worry I had an awful experience too and it’s why I decided to close it down because it just wasn’t what I wanted. There was so much going on OOC and IC that it just didn’t seem relevant enough or worth it to keep it open. Now multiple members from this rp (that I thought I was friends with) started up a new rp that had the similar vibe as ohiohq; a glee family secrets rp and that’s no biggie because there were hundreds of them before ohiohq and there’s gonna be hundreds more, but their URL is stolen, from me.

Once again, this was no biggie because it was a short lived rp (that they were in) that I deleted but that was just one minor red flag. Then it was the fact that right off the bat you could pick up 8 characters which is fine if you can handle that many characters but it got to the point that it was just this little group picking up ships for each other, and this group is also notorious for using aliases so there’s a good chance there’s someone in that rp playing like 16 characters (but that’s just speculation) which is totally okay but don’t say you want more members or keep it as a public rp when you’re clearly content with just having yourself and select few members be the main focus of the rp instead of actually wanting to be a welcoming, open rp.

Now onto an anecdote from a former member (like i said i won’t reveal any names or such), I was informed by a mutual friend that this member wouldn’t be comfortable sharing their personal story or screenshots just because it was this bad of an experience but since it semi-included me I felt the need to share it. Basically, this member and I were both playing characters in the same family. Since this was a secrets RP my character’s secret was that she had been kicked out of private school for having sex with a teacher. Now a run down of the secret; the character was 18+ and the storyline was that she wasn’t aware of his profession because it happened over summer but I wanted a reason for her to be kicked out without it being like “she bullied someone” or “burned down a building”. Now with this, a couple more characters came in (both played by the same person) and they both involved [ TW: child pedophilia & rape ] a character being raped as a child and another involving a character sleeping with his mother’s friends since he was a teenager (the character in question now being an adult). Now I personally don’t have issues with these secrets, it wouldn’t be my own personal choice for a character but if that’s the way you want to take your character in, then that’s your choice.

However, this former member had an issue with these secrets (and ultimately chose to leave due to this) because it wasn’t something they were comfortable with. From the best of my knowledge, on their view, they explained their issue with it and they thought the admin was essentially brushing them off. What that member had shared with the admin ended up being shared in another group chat, now I took it upon myself to message that member after because I felt like I was being semi-targeted with my secret as well (since it fit that characteristic) and offered to change the secret. They had informed me they would just rather leave and I respected that decision of course. Now at the time, I was upset because it felt like someone had left because of me and because I felt like something could have been done? Like I said, if that’s a part of your characters then you do you but if people are visually upset and possibly triggered by it, you should at least offer it and these members just got upset because this person wasn’t comfortable with their secrets.

Something else that happened that I thought was weird was they wanted to have under 18 FC’s just because someone wanted to play Jenna Ortega and Olivia Rodrigo? But if you’re going to have mature themes, you shouldn’t allow under 18 FC’s and they tried to justify it if they didn’t “do anything dark with the character” even though I could list five alt FC’s for Jenna & Olivia that are 18+.

Now onto MY personal experience; more or so another member’s but it’s what ultimately led me to leave. This person and I had communicated fairly frequently and even shared our own concerns about the rp and she just eventually went inactive on her accounts because she wasn’t feeling the rp anymore which is totally normal? Or at least most people would consider it normal. Now she had another “friend” who she had plots with. For the sake of not confusing anyone the former member will be referred to as A and the current member will be referred to as B. So, A played two characters which were B’s character’s sister and B’s character’s girlfriend. After A’s characters got reopened, B went ahead and said her character went through a breakup (totally normal), and when A asked for her character back they continued the ex plot but A just still wasn’t feeling the rp and left for good. Now B took it upon herself to take things to the groupchat without naming names but you could clearly tell who she was talking about, it wasn’t secretive at all.

Now I understand being upset about losing a plot, it’s frustrating but to take it to an OOC chat? Say “I dare her to try and talk to me OOC” just made me so uncomfortable and frankly made me feel gross. Especially when A had paid to have gifs made for B since the FC she was using wasn’t a popular FC so to see someone talk about a “friend” that way was just so weird and upsetting and I didn’t want to be a part of that negativity so I left. Here’s the three paragraphs I sent: (you don’t have to read it all but it shows I clearly put thought and care into my message because I did think of everyone has a friend)

Now, this is what I got in response from the main admin:

Obviously this made me so upset because here I made sure not to offend anybody or make someone feel like something was their fault, and I got one sentence in response. But the biggest kicker is, she sent the same message to A word for word:

So, clearly a lot has happened in this rp that has gone unnoticed and I just hope this shines a light on the people in this rp and encouraged them to fix this behavior because it just seems ridiculous to me? But if you’ve had a personal experience with this rp or members feel free to message me and share your experience because with all of this I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff I haven’t seen!

And may I say, please do not direct hate to the main or admins of this rp. Just because they did some shitty things to some members doesn’t mean I think they need to be canceled or bullied for their actions. I just want them to be held accountable as adults and know that this isn’t appropriate behavior. <3

[sky-scribbles]

10-12 for all three Sidesteps? :)

Aah, thanks so much for asking! And welcome to the fandom (pit)! :D

10.  Are they a leader or a follower?

Wren: they prefer to follow. Leadership is exhausting for them - so many lives and responsibilities to juggle. As Sidestep, they were 100% comfortable with being considered Ortega’s sidekick - why would they want to submit to the ordeal of being known when they had a much more qualified best friend (and sort-of boyfriend) right there?

That said… when they put the work in, they're a very skilled leader indeed. There’s a reason a lot of the underdogs of Los Diablos see Myriad as a rallying point. Of course, Wren would say that they’re just a theatre nerd and Myriad is a part they play. They’re not them in that armour, they’re in-character. But Myriad’s leadership skills didn’t come from nowhere…

Miles: leader. He doesn’t mind stepping back for close friends, but otherwise, he’d much rather be in the spotlight, getting people’s attention. He just loves the feeling that people are responding to his presence. And because he cares so much about the people he leads, he’s a very effective mob boss. He’d die for his crew in a second - but he’d much rather share a joke and a drink with them.

Iris: leader. After what happened with the Farm and Heartbreak, she will never be controlled again, so she takes control first. Of course, ‘leader’ implies that she trusts other people to work with her which… very, very rarely happens.

11. Are they more self-serving or more focused on others’ needs?

Wren: … well, their empathy score is 91%. Their opinion of themselves is much too low for them to pay attention to their own needs. (They’re going to get better, I promise.) 

Miles: he’s weird, frankly. His reasons for becoming Nexus are utterly selfish  - he’s terrorising a city so he can protect himself and feel real again. But when it comes to individuals, the friends he knows and loves, he stops caring about himself completely. He’ll take the most insane risks to protect them and make them happy.

Iris: she’s even weirder. For the most part she’s self-serving, because she puts up too many walls to have anyone who’s close enough for her to care about their needs. 

But… Iris is convinced that as a [redacted], she has to earn the respect and affection that everyone else gets as a matter of course. So if anyone gives her respect she doesn’t think she’s earned, she’ll fall over herself trying to pay them back. It’s not just because she hates being indebted to someone - though that’s part of it. It’s because the idea that someone would put in that effort, for her… it just touches her to the core. Breaks all her walls. And once Iris sees you that way, she’ll do anything for you. 

12. Do they prefer to solve things diplomatically or through violence?

Wren: diplomatically where they can - they’re better at reading people than at fighting anyway, and they really don’t like hurting anyone if there’s a choice. But they know there are some things - like the Farm - that will never yield to words. When faced with things like that, Wren will start a revolution first and talk later.

Miles: he’s pretty charismatic, so he’ll talk down his enemies when possible, if just to prove that he can. He’s a bit more punch-happy than Wren, but it’s rarely his first response to a situation.

Iris: again, she’s weird. Iris goes for whatever option is most likely to put her in control of a situation. Sometimes, that’s beating someone senseless so that they can’t threaten her - sometimes, it’s talking to them, getting a full read on the situation, scaring them or persuading them until they’re useful to her. 

Tysm again for asking! These kids are such utter disasters..

[theoldestsoultrilogy]

First and foremost, it saddens and sickens me to hear that yet another Hollywood child star has died. The world woke up to the shocking news this morning that, according to about 20 billion articles online which all contain a freakishly consistent uniformity,

“Cameron Boyce, best known for his roles in a number of Disney Channel films and television shows, has tragically passed away at the age of 20. According to Boyce’s family, the young actor, dancer and singer passed in his sleep after suffering a seizure, the result of an ongoing medical condition.”

This young, absolutely adorable, freckle-faced boy at the beginning of his life is now gone. For good. How are we to make sense of this utterly tragic news? But, what if I told you, like with most if not all child star deaths, all is not what it seems.

What if you knew there was more to the story? A lot more.

It took me less than 20 minutes of digging to connect Cameron Boyce to shady charities involved in child slavery, pedophiles and predators, and dicey elites like Richard Branson. All while the evil overlords at Google seem to have begun dramatically ratcheting up their control of the flow of information. These draconian measures seem to have increased in the past week, which was not a good one for squeaky clean, allegedly family friendly Disney.

https://twitter.com/Tiff_FitzHenry/status/1145017021794529281

Disney megastar Bella Thorne revealed that she was being molested from the time she was 6-14, AND EVERYONE AROUND HER KNEW, AND NO ONE DID ANYTHING.

I want you to think about that for a moment. Let it sink in. Who could or would allow the sexual abuse of a 6 year old to go on? Why might they do this?

Once you begin to allow yourself to mull these horrific questions, and mull them we must, you’ll start to find the timing of Cameron Boyce’s sudden death particularly odd. Are other Disney child stars, with stories like Bella’s to tell, becoming emboldened? Had Cameron experienced similar things? Did those closest to him turn a blind eye? How plausible is it that a person who’s been famous for 11 years dies suddenly of a supposed health condition that’s serious enough to take the life of a perfectly healthy-seeming 20 year old and yet this mystery condition has never been mentioned before? Not anywhere that I can find at least.

Today I just want to present you with 10 relevant facts you likely may not know about Cameron Boyce his career and the people who surrounded him, but as always I want you to draw your own conclusions, think for yourself, and feel free to share your thoughts with me on Twitter.

Start here: Cameron’s IMDB. It is extensive and includes not only a long list of Disney shows and films such as Jessie, Shake It Up, Good Luck Charlie, and the recent Descendants, but also Grown-Ups and Grown-Ups 2, a new TV series called Paradise City (a spin-off of the very obscure and not successful 2017 film American Satan) cause, obviously.

As well as films such as Mirror and Eagle Eye which Cameron starred in alongside fellow former Disney kid Shia LeBeouf

and Cory Booker’s reluctant “girlfriend” Rosario Dawson, whom an inside source has shared with me has no say in the situation whatsoever. A virtual slave.

https://twitter.com/Tiff_FitzHenry/status/1144082428551712768

Alright, here we go.

1. SOCIAL MEDIA DEATH HOAX IN 2017

When you start to understand more deeply that the information that reaches you is being shaped and molded in order to shape and mold YOU, and that celebrity influence is owned and controlled for the very same reason, you’ll begin to look at things like “leaked nudes” and even “death hoax’s and rumors” a little differently. You’ll start to consider that perhaps these are tools used to influence the influencers, to modify behavior when they’re off message, or stray from their instructed course. Here Cameron Boyce and his Descendants co-star Dove Cameron joking about the ‘death hoax.’

But can you imagine anything more traumatizing than seeing headlines tearing across the internet announcing your own death to the world? Consider the possibility that things like fear, humiliation, and loss of control are used to keep celebrities in line. Consider the possibility that this was a veiled threat.

Case in point, the front page headline on Snapchat the very next day after the recent bombshell Bella Thorne interview [posted above] went viral.

The humiliating ‘story’ was snagged from a random Instagram post back in 2016, but it just happened to be front page news the day that articles in major outlets were carrying the story of the revelations from her recent interview.

For the record, Bella herself retweeted the video of her interview from my original tweet. Kinda makes you think, right?

2. MEET KENNY ORTEGA

Friends, if you haven’t heard the name Kenny Ortega, I guarantee that you soon will. He is an A-list Hollywood Choreographer and Director whose #MeToo moment is rumored to be decades overdue. He is the Director of Cameron Boyce’s most recent Disney project, the Descendants (parts 1, 2 and 3) where he played the fictional son of Cruella De Vil.

With a long list of impressive credits including everything from Disney’s Newsies, and the mega-hit High School Musical franchise to Dirty Dancing, and Pretty in Pink, as well as a distinguished run directing iconic music videos and live tours for the likes of Gloria Estefan and Michael Jackson, Kenny Ortega is the Hollywood equivalent of a mafia ‘made man.’ As if to prove it, which the cult loves to publicly do, Netflix (cough cough the C.I.A.) just entered into a very lucrative multi-year overall deal with Ortega, announced April 9th 2019.

So, how does one become a ‘made-man’ in Hollywood?

There are several ways, all of which involve selling your soul.

One way is to appear as the key witness in the $40 million dollar wrongful death lawsuit brought by Michael Jackson’s mother and three children, and lobby on behalf of concert promoter AEG.

‘He wasn’t being very responsible!’ This Is It producer Kenny Ortega testifies Michael Jackson and Conrad Murray were to blame for untimely death

What’s the big deal anyway? Ortega’s longtime ‘friend’ and admitted ‘greatest inspiration’ is already dead, Dr. Murray is in prison and everyone who profited the most off MJ rode off into the proverbial sunset. Zero accountability. Suffice it to say, Kenny Ortega is on Paris Jackson’s very telling shit list, right next to Oprah and David Geffen.

3. CRAZY DAYS AND NIGHTS 

Another way to get on the inside of the Hollywood Prison Pyramid is to be a compromised and or compromise-able person (depending on what level you’re at.)

You see, Hollywood might look like it’s about movies and TV shows and acting and stuff, but it’s really just about something called “controlled influence.” It’s about owning and controlling all those who are ‘given’ the platform to influence YOU. In order to get that platform you have to be ‘willing to do anything.’ Even as a screenwriter with several hot projects, I was instructed to say these very words. Words which I was told, in no uncertain terms by my high powered agent, that the head executives at places like ABC (Disney) were waiting to hear me say. Yeah, let that sink in.

And, think about it, isn’t it easier to own people who routinely do things that could put them in jail if anyone ever found out? This is why sick degenerate behavior is rampant amongst the influential. They’re not only enabled to get away with it (see Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Louis C.K., James Gunn, Brett Ratner, Les Moonves, etc.,) criminal behavior is encouraged! Yes, Hollywood and Washington are a cesspool by design! Neat, right? 🙄

It’s my opinion that the death is referring to Cameron, the ‘director’ is Kenny Ortega, and the franchise is High School Musical or the Descendants, where underage actors and actresses were and are being ‘turned out’ — all as a part of this cesspool system. When it comes to the children, it’s the parents who sell their soul on their behalf.

There’s a long list of Creepy Kenny Ortega stuff to dig up, the latest clip wigging people out is his handsy way with Cameron Boyce’s Descendants co-star Dove Cameron.

Moving on.

4. THE KENNY ORTEGA JEFF BEZOS CONNECTION

As if you needed one more reason to claw and hiss at Kenny Ortega should you ever encounter him, he’s been involved with C.I.A. Amazon Jeff Bezo’s now ex-wife’s ‘anti-bullying’ organization, Bystander Revolution, which she founded in 2014 for whatever dumbass reason.

No seriously I bet this foundation is really changing the world you guys (she said SUPER sarcastically)

5. ORTEGA, EISNER, SANDLER OH MY!

You can learn a lot by who says what, and when. The very first ‘public figures to address Boyce’s death on social media this morning was Kenny Ortega, followed by Disney CEO Michael Eisner, and quickly thereafter by Adam Sandler. Sandler wrote, starred in and produced Grown-Ups and Grown-Ups 2; Cameron Boyce appears in both.

To the keen observer, this little tweet parade felt extremely coordinated, intentional and quite frankly pre-planned.

View this post on Instagram

My Love, Light and Prayers go out to Cameron and his Family. Cameron brought Love, Laughter and Compassion with him everyday I was in his presence. His talent, immeasurable. His kindness and generosity, overflowing. It has been an indescribable honor and pleasure to know and work with him. I will see you again in all things loving and beautiful my friend. I will search the stars for your light. Rest In Peace Cam. You will always be My Forever Boy! 💔

A post shared by Kenny Ortega (@kennyortegablog) on Jul 6, 2019 at 7:42pm PDT

“My forever boy.” Yeah, that’s not creepy at all.  Ortega later clarified that this was a Peter Pan reference, which makes it even worse if you understand the pedophile troupes in Peter Pan.

https://twitter.com/RobertIger/status/1147858501021995008

https://twitter.com/AdamSandler/status/1147859788794961921

Nice picture Adam, real subtle. Don’t worry, you’re ‘signal’ has been sent and received.

Adam is being such a good cabal puppet these days ya’ll.

Here you see he’s being rewarded:

Netflix reveals 30M accounts viewed Adam Sandler-led ‘Murder Mystery’

At a time when box office is limping along like the terminally wounded wildebeest it is, allegedly this film would have CRUSHED opening weekend, had it been released at the box office of course, which it wasn’t. I guess we’ll just have to take Netflix’s word for it since they (somehow) get to keep all their data to themselves for whatever as yet explained or justified reason! 👍

Now that I think about it, there’s someone else who does that too. They’re really powerful and super secretive, who is that again? Oh that’s right, it’s the C.I.A.! (Netflix is the C.I.A.)

I’m sure the fact that Murder Mystery was filmed at cabal kingpin George Clooney’s favorite lake in Italy where weird high brow art/child trafficking things go down, and written by an actual fucking Vanderbilt has nothing to do with anything.

I’m sure all that’s random. It’s not like there’s this handful of psychopathic elite bloodline families feasting on the blood of children who’ve held humanity hostage for generations or whatever.

Alright, onward internet friends. As you may have noticed, there are thousands of images of Cameron Boyce online. You have to really search to find this one where he’s got two fingers framing his left eye and covering his mouth, as if he’s been silenced by some group (hint: see above paragraph).

Well done, Adam. Good thinking choosing this picture to post alongside your tribute. This might even get you an Emmy nomination. You see, Adam isn’t bloodline, so he has to do stuff like this to keep his cult membership in good standings.

Note another very recent sudden celebrity death. This is Mac Miller’s final Instagram photo, which posted just hours before his death by ‘accidental overdose.’

Well would you look at that, 2 fingers framing his left eye, and his mouth covered. Almost as if it’s a sign to others not to speak out or they’ll whack you

Here’s the final Instagram picture Cameron “allegedly” posted of himself, also just hours before his death. There’s that left eyes again. Hmmmm.

6. CREEPY JOE BIDEN

Cameron introduced former Vice President Joe Biden at his Biden Courage Awards back in March. Today, Biden tweeted his condolences.

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1147991178689810437

I think we can all agree that children and Joe Biden don’t mix.

6. HE RECENTLY FIRED HIS AGENT OVER SEX ASSAULT CHARGES

After Stranger Things child star Finn Wolfhard fired APA agent Tyler Grasham over sexual abuse allegations which came to light, Cameron, who was also represented by Grasham, fired him the same week.

However, in predictable Pedowood fashion, the LA prosecutor won’t prosecute the felony rape charges from multiple accusers. Now it looks like he’s escaped criminal charges altogether, and Hollywood is even looking at rehiring him in a talent agent capacity.

At this point, there’s no disputing that Hollywood protects pedophiles. The question you should be asking yourself is, why?

7. RECENTLY DISCUSSED THE DARK DAYS

“For about a year of my life, if I didn’t have to leave my house, I wouldn’t,” he said in a recent interview of his darkest period. “It was a bad way of dealing with fame, but it’s a scary feeling to know that everybody is looking at you all the time.” Cameron has learned to cope with it, though, and is adamant that he’ll use his platform of over 7 million Instagram followers for good. He’s started working with a charity called The Thirst Project, and is spreading the word about the group’s push to bring clean water to millions around the world who desperately need it.”

8. THE THIRST PROJECT / WE CHARITY

It appears that Cameron Boyce was involved with two separate but equally suspicious charities (side note: charities are just slush funds for rich people).

The Thirst Project’s list of partners includes the notoriously dicey Clinton Charities among multiple Hollywood studios. By its own admission they appear to be all about water but in reality focus most heavily on tailoring curriculum to influence political activism in school children in the United States (which is what the very powerful are most focused on right now).

Similarly, WE Charity, formerly known as Free The Children, is “an international development charity and youth empowerment movement founded in 1995 by human rights advocates Marc and Craig Kielburger. The organization implements development programs in Asia, Africa and Latin America, focusing on education, water, health, food and economic opportunity. It also runs domestic programming for young people in Canada, the U.S. and U.K., promoting service learning and active citizenship.”

So, the same thing.

This link is a must read eye-opening article about the 2 brothers who started We Charities – The Cult of Kielburger

We Charity – connected to child slavery  

We Charity is connected to Unilever, Microsoft

We Charity – connected to Richard Branson. The brothers co-authored a book with Holly Branson, daughter of Richard Branson. Richard and Holly also produced the docu-series Shameless Idealist with the We Charity founders.

I am certain there is much more to be unearthed down the rabbit hole of these two charitable foundations/elite slush funds. For Cameron’s part there’s a good chance he was either unaware of the corruption or if he was aware, involvement was not his choice but a decision that was made for him.

Side note, Necker Island (Branson’s) is about thirty five miles from Epstein’s island.

You know Jeffrey Epstein who was arrested Saturday and being arraigned as we speak for running an international child sex trafficking operation to entice, entrap and ensnare elites particularly in Hollywood, DC and the UK, in order for even more powerful people to control their influence. His indictment was unsealed at 9am this morning.

Is it all connected?

9. HOLLYWOOD GAY MAFIA

Michael Ovitz, once President of Disney and founder of Hollywood mega agency CAA, who was run out of town, famously said that Hollywood is run by a cabal led by  Dreamworks co-founder David Geffen which Ovitz described as the “gay mafia.”

Here’s a little deep dive on Geffen/Oprah

In addition to Geffen, the list he rattled off of this “gay mafia” included The New York Times Hollywood correspondent Bernie Weinraub, Disney Chairman (and former employer) Michael Eisner; Bryan Lourd, Kevin Huvane, and Richard Lovett, partners at CAA, Universal Studios president Ronald Meyer (Ovitz’s former partner at CAA); and Barry Diller.

In regard to Cameron, I can’t help but think twice about the very first episode of Disney show Jessie, his break out role. For a good portion of the episode, he’s in his underwear.

It is no secret that young boys are systemically abused in Hollywood, but how deep does all this really go?

10. DEBBY RYAN

Cameron’s Jessie co-star Debby Ryan started her career on Barney and Friends

Alongside future Disney starlets Selina Gomez

And Demi Lovato

If you remember, the actor who played Barney was arrested for selling child pornography of children as young as 10.

After that, Debby Ryan had a stint on the Disney show Suite Life on Deck for which Disney hired Brian Peck to work as dialogue coach with the kids, after he’d been to jail for child molestation and was a registered sex offender.

Yes, you heard that right.

Disney hired a convicted child sex predator and registered sex offender to work on their children’s show. Did I mention he was hired specifically to work with children?

Brian Peck remains a registered sex offender to this day and was still being employed by Hollywood as recently as 2016.

Ryan was also featured on The Jonas Brother’s, Wizards of Waverly Place and Hannah Montana before getting her big break and a starring role in her own Disney Channel show, Jessie.

We’ve all watched the personal issues Gomez, Lovato and Debby Ryan have had over the years. It’s time we understand what we’re looking at, a system I call The Prison Pyramid.

Conclusion

I hope you’ll dig further into all these data points and start to connect all the dots that need connecting. Cameron Boyce’s death strikes at the heart of why I’m building a new Hollywood. 

Love and Light to all.

In Unconditional Love,

Tiffany

    Cameron Boyce, Pedowood, and The Disney Death Machine First and foremost, it saddens and sickens me to hear that yet another Hollywood child star has died.

[chaniters]

ORIGIN

Wrote a small fic. from Herald’s point of View. I’m trying to get into his mind as a character.

Warning, spoilers.

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

ORIGIN

2032. July 4th.

Everyone celebrates a day like this. 

Meanwhile, you drink alone. They tried to convince you to take part this year as well. It's been 9 years they say. You still can’t. 

There is a magazine that's a few months old over the counter. You peek... and of course, it's you "Herald defeats Medusa and Tanathos." The cover is the picture of you standing over Thanatos's fallen armor. Of course, they had to photoshop Medusa lying down there as well. As if it were that easy.

They believe you can do everything these days. As the years' pass, your strength has increased, as has your resilience and your flight speed. Powers grow stronger as you get older. But you don't care about power. 

You order another round of whiskey. There are memories you need to drown. Specially on a day a like this.

You drink. But you still remember.

You remember your father and your mother. Arguing. Screaming. Crying. Tearing each other apart. While you and your brother watched TV, pretending not to listen. Watching the Rangers, getting their man.

Sidestep and Charge, the formidable duo. Fighting against evil. Your brother Mark liked Charge. You were a die-hard fan of Sidestep. And playing together, pretending to be your heroes, helped you survive. As your family was torn apart.

You remember when your mom took you both to San Benito's, your favorite pizza place. She wore so much makeup, trying to hide the black eye your father gave her. You remember being afraid to ask her about it. 

She took you there to escape from him. To protect you two before he hit you again. 

And then the extraordinary happened... the Candyman appeared... put the building next to you on fire.  Elyise and Sidestep fought him... Your mom and your brother ran. But you got separated in the crowd. And then the Candyman took you. 

He said he would kill you. And Sidestep came alone, with his hands held up. Saying he would surrender. To save you. 

You. 

His life for yours, that was the deal. Just like on TV.

But he had planned it ahead. Steel attacked the Candyman. And Sidestep swept in and took you away. 

You were terrified. But he tapped your shoulder and looked at you.

And you knew. You knew everything would be fine as long as your hero was there. The terror was gone He saved you. And then, after it was over, you run up to him. And the two of you took a picture together. And a video.

  Mark and you watched that video every night.

You remember when your mom started doing drugs after the beatings became more common. You remember when she was arrested for possession.

  You remember when your father came in so drunk that he broke Marks' arm. And beat you so hard you passed out. And then you lived with grandma. Until she passed too.

You remember watching out for each other, just you and your brother, on the streets. You remember when you made the pact. That if one survived and the other didn't, you would become the greatest hero that ever lived. And Mark swore the same. And then you injected the drugs.

And they worked. You started floating. Your brother became incredibly fast. You played around with your powers all night. And then went to sleep knowing you'd be superheroes the next day. But only you woke up. Your brother was dead. His body aged rapidly during the night. His face... the expression of pain.

You couldn't cry. You just couldn't. You promised him you would be the greatest hero. That you would do it for the two of you. You didn't cry.

You did everything you could. Joined the Rangers. Became one of the youngest heroes. Tried to prove yourself, at every opportunity.

For Mark. You owed him.

And then Sidestep came back. You felt your world turning upside down.

And then Retribution. You remember the fight. How he hated you. He broke your bones. Tortured you. Wanted to kill you... You don't know how you made it out alive. But you recovered. You had to. You couldn't let this stop you.

You couldn't let this happen again. You asked Sidestep to help you. You begged him. You literally swept him off his feet and tried to find out why he quit. It made you feel afraid. You couldn't quit. No matter the odds. You needed to become stronger.

He agreed to train you. You began talking. Became friends. There was something else... But you couldn't speak it out loud. 

He asked you why had you become a superhero. You had never told anyone before. But you told him. And he was at a loss for words. He left the dinner that night.

Then next time you met him, he promised he'd help you fulfill your promise to Mark. 

He trained you. He trained you hard. He was a relentless teacher. He trained your mind, your body, your powers. Helped you learn how to resist mental attacks. How to be faster, stronger. How to block any attack. How to read your opponent.

The attack on the tech towers... You fought Retribution to a standstill. "Not good enough!" he told you

The bombs planted at the mall. You managed to throw them at the lake. "Too slow!" he judged it.

Sabotage on the armament factories. Retribution gave you a cut on your check there. You were lucky it wasn't your neck. "You came through the wrong entrance!" he admonished you.

You felt something building up as training went. His concern when you were injured became more visceral. More personal Finally, during a long session, you kissed. And he panicked. He had to leave. You didn't understand it of course. How could you know?

Then the next attack came... buildings torn down, as he deployed a nanite weapon. You defeated him. You took several wounds, but you stopped him. He had to flee. "I... I think you are ready" Sidestep told you at last.   You were done with playing this game with him. You approached him and kissed him. And he kissed you back. And his facade fell. He broke down. Falling on his knees. And he confessed. He told you he wasn't human. He was a re-gene. A government weapon. He told you he had done terrible things. You told him he was still a hero. He slapped you. He told you he was no one's hero. He told you, that you should kill him before he ruined everything again.

But you didn't. You pinned him down on the floor. And kissed him. He struggled... and then he gave in. You helped him take off his nanomesh shirt... The tattoos underneath. He was embarrassed. He told you he hated his body. You told him had never seen anything so beautiful. He told you to stop. But you kept telling him. You told him to read your mind. He could see it was true. He broke in tears. Told you he was a piece of shit, and that he should have died a long time ago. You held him until he stopped shivering. And then he calmed down. And he opened up. You started speaking about life... and the universe. You let passion take over the wheel. And then you spent the night, on that rooftop. It was more than sex.  He entered your mind. You could feel him. You could feel yourself. It was almost a religious experience.

You stayed together, sharing your minds for long hours. Until you saw it. The horrors of the farm. The hatred he had been hiding deep inside. The Mask. Retribution, hiding inside his mind, in plain sight.

You raised your mind’s shields, the way he thought you to, cutting the link. He smiled bitterly. "I knew you couldn't stand it once you saw it... I'm sorry" "You should have killed me," he said.

You fought. half-naked, his tattoos glowing under the night's sky. You didn't want to, but he attacked you. He left you no choice. You were ready. He couldn't beat you. But he had a taser hidden among his things. He knocked you down. As you passed out he asked you "Please... stay away from this. I can't stop. Not for you. Not for anyone. Please, just sit this one out Daniel." And he escaped.

And then his plan unfolded. The attack on the Missile Silo. A mind-controlled army on his side. During independence day.  The rangers and you fought your way through. He sealed the gate in the control room, but your flight was faster, thanks to his training. You were the only ranger to make it inside.  You begged for him to stop. He refused. He started the countdown. You fought. You threw him over the controls. He smashed you into the computers. You broke his arm. He sent nanites to make the ceiling crash on you.  You slammed him into a wall. He attacked your mind with all his strength and fury. Your shields held. He had trained you well. 

 His armor began breaking down. Circuits burning, and sparks coming out after every strike. In the end, he fell down, beaten. He has sustained so many injuries.  But you couldn't stop the countdown. The missile targeted a deserted area in Nevada. A look of triumph in his eyes.

 You opened the gates. Ortega was beside himself when he saw it.  Sidestep whispered a few words in your ear.  "I think... you've... kept your promise... Daniel.” He was smiling. He was dying, but you would never forget the look of happiness “I thought you everything I know... please... take this"  And he gave you the memory rod. "Please give it to... Mia Ochoa. She'll know what to do... And.. tell them.. who I was." 

“Please stop, we need to take you to a hospital,” you asked. 

“That’s... not an option,” he said.

And then you felt him in your mind one last time. You kissed him, sharing his final thoughts. 

 And he died. For real this time. And part of you died with him.  The scandal came later when the government conspiracy was debunked.  You became a national hero. The greatest in the West Coast. In all America.  You have much to be proud of. And you are, most of the time.

 But on the fourth of July, you only want to forget. You don't want memories on a day like this.

 "HEY! ARE YOU HERALD!?" A man approaches you. "I SAW YOU ON TV! YOUR BATTLE AGAINST RETRIBUTION WAS THE BEST! YOU BEAT HIM GOOD! YOu..." He is interrupted by the first connecting with his face.  You stand up to leave. Did you break his jaw? Perhaps.  You can't help it.

 Especially no on a day like this.

____________________________

My fanfics: https://chaniters.tumblr.com/post/181692759294/my-fanfiction-for-fallen-hero

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fan fiction using characters and the setting of the Fallen Hero: Rebirth and upcoming Fallen Hero: Retribution games written by Malin Riden. I do not claim ownership of any characters from the Fallen Hero wold. These stories are a work of my imagination, and I do not ascribe them to the official story canon. These works are intended for entertainment outside the official storyline owned by the author. I am not profiting financially from the creation of these stories, and thank the author for her wonderful game/s, without which these works would not exist.

[killeret-and-the-void]

Former Sidestep, Riley Arcade

Now, super villain: Collateral Damage.

Appearance: His suit is ambiguous by design, easily lost in shadow and relying heavily on reflecting his opponents back at themselves. The visor itself acts as a one-way mirror, shaped like a triangle resting on one of its points. On the sides of the helmet toward the back there are two other shaped protrusions that make him resemble a chastised or otherwise scared animal or dog with their ears pinned back and down - this is for two reasons. One, the ‘frightened animal’ look in of itself could give him the edge of others underestimating him, and two, when paired with the mirror, his opponent will see themselves as the animal with their ears pinned so sadly back. It’s a form of soundless mocking. The are other shapes and elongations on other places of the armor as well, such as from the elbows, all to make him look more alien than human. Being human never did him any good in the past, so why make this new second skin of his anything but extraordinary? As for extra features, he requested the extra resistance to damage, and the telepathy boosters, because sometimes the best offense is a bit of defense... or at least that’s what he tells himself. Also there’s no cape (have we learned nothing from The Incredibles?).

The Name: Playing the role of a hero, he was eventually marked as dead, and easily forgotten; a victim. And for what? An organization where only one person took him seriously? He knew he was just collateral damage for the Rangers. And now he’s putting a positive connotation to the phrase because others get to feel the same way he has now for years.

Despite the name, however, he doesn’t go out of his way to put civilians in danger. He won’t go out of his way to ensure their safety, though, either. As such, his assault on the museum’s opening gala resulted in many injuries, but no casualties.

Goals: Ultimately, he wants to make a name for himself. He wants revenge against the people he feels betrayed him and made him feel unimportant. He wants to be loud, but strategic. But most importantly he wants to expel the truth of what playing the hero did to him; leaving him with irreparable scars and a tanked self esteem all for what feel like nothing.

But what about Riley himself? (Well he’s hiding under a read more. He’s safer there.)

Riley’s a bitter, bitter individual. Years of slowly working on his plan to recreate himself as the newest fearsome villain on the scene, all the while keeping completely to himself and being a nameless face in the crowd, truly did nothing to help his growing isolationism. It made him curt, socially unaware, and lonely. 

But it did help him hone in his telepathy, finding it to be his biggest ally in such a dilapidated state. It became so much easier to step out of his own hated body and adapt to the strengths and weaknesses of others, no matter their state or occupation. And along with his skills of the mind, he kept up with the latest tech and imagined what he could do and the life he could live if he just had unlimited resources.

With his mind frequently stuck in the past, he relives his trauma nearly every night and it exhausts him. But it also gives him a hell of a push to better himself. To be the person that ‘Sidestep’ couldn’t.

To be ambitious, to be meaningful, to have an achievable goal that wasn’t ‘Let’s see what civilian needs protection today’. Someone who wasn’t caught in the shadow cast by people who wouldn’t think twice about him.

But even all the most well thought out plans can have a roadblock, and Riley’s roadblock had a name: Ricardo Ortega.

Ortega, the hero, the perfect one, the former.... well, boyfriend probably wouldn’t be the word, but something close. The one he wanted to direct the brunt of his anger against but found that he couldn’t. Especially when he accidentally waltzed back into Riley’s life. With his annoyingly caring attitude.

As Collateral Damage, he treats ‘Charge’ like any other hero: an obstacle. But without the suit, Riley just becomes a conflicted mess, trapped between the parts of his past that weren’t horrible, and the knowledge that if Ortega knew what he’d become, he’d probably be disgusted. And he wants to think that it’d be a good thing, to see him as just another former friend and betrayer, but if that were the case, then why would the thought fill him with dread as it does?

So he’s stuck in a middle ground of simultaneously keeping him at an arm’s length, while also craving their old banter and the way they used to look at each other. He’d just as soon get into a yelling match with him as well as hug him mere minutes later.

And when one relationship is that complicated, it’s a no-brainer that all others must stay simple, or perhaps one might, quite frankly, implode. And that’s where Riley’s pawns come in.

Jane is the definition of Jane Doe, seen by Riley as merely a chess piece on a big board of moving pieces. Her purpose was never to be an extension of himself, and therefore any relation she has is primarily just for Riley’s eventual gain. A curious close, but strictly-business connection with Dr. Mortum, flirting with Ortega purely as a means for easy access to the gala, etc.

That being said, Jane is far from expendable, and Riley takes great caution with her safety. To keep an essential part of his plan, of course, but also (unadmittedly) because he loves the freedom of being anyone else. It’s a rush to be this attractive, charismatic woman and the play the part of someone much more assured of herself.

Unfortunately, with this new self esteemed granted by playing the part of Jane, he stumbled onto caring about another associate, who proved herself worthy of earning the title of his first henchman.

Rosie was an obvious first choice. Working together with her against the Psychopathor proved her worth, and her kindness towards Jane only bolstered her competence in Riley’s eyes. He would go as far as to say she was his first friend he’d had since his life turned to Hell - even if she’s totally unaware of his existence or the fact that they’ve met in more ways than one. But despite this, he has a strict plan to keep her, like many others, at an arm’s length away.

Of course, all plans have a habit of going to shit, but it won’t stop him from trying.

Any other interactions he’s had are more regrettable. Seeing Steel again opened up old wounds and a feeling of worthlessness, as he blames a lot of his lacking self-worth on the fact that the current marshal never even once pretended to trust him or believe in him; Herald is loved for the most obnoxious and enraging reasons (Riley loved pulling him down out of the clouds, where he seems to like to keep his head); and Lady Argent has proved to be a major thorn in his side - a fascinating and exciting one to goad, but a thorn nonetheless.

And that leaves him all with what, exactly?

The thrill of being Collateral Damage, a villain with a score to settle against the Rangers. It makes him a telepath who uses his powers to embezzle the rich and steal from their flashy, sad excuses for a ‘charity’ in which they merely show off their wealth. It makes him, himself, wealthy, and willing to use these resources to pay his growing villain circle handsomely and tinker with new advanced tech. 

It made him determined to never be a victim ever again. Not like Sidestep was.

The journey to get to that point had its hardships, however, as evidenced in the scars across his back and down his left arm, courtesy of a foolhardy one-man scuffle against a re-gene, and the dark bags under his eyes from sleepless nights.

But underneath all of that, and no many how many personas he creates, he’s still Riley. Androgynous, with a preference for lazy, baggy clothes, and a perfect unassuming face to blend into a sea of people. His earliest feeble attempt to separate himself from Sidestep and the trauma at the Farm (the half-assed dying of his hair from his natural blond to black) remained a constant, still never quite following through with dying his eyebrows, leaving them a couple shades lighter. He still has feelings for an old flame, no matter how much of a conflict of interest it is. And maybe he has a long way to go before he can balance his own identity with that of his puppet, and his public villain face....

But as far as he’s concerned? The sky isn’t even the limit anymore.

Bonus:

I figured this ‘profile’ of sorts would be naked without the Stats™. A snapshot of where he’s at at the end of Rebirth. 

(Why are those so big, Tumblr? Why?)

But fun fact, his blue vs. orange stats were more or less swapped before he made his debut as a villain. I’d like to think he was way more careless and destructive as he felt he had nothing to lose! But now he could lose everything he’s worked for so he’s toned down. At least a little.