#she denies forward motion in all respects and I literally have to hand it to her

[septembermorningbells]

ugh the framing of nanako and Rei in the review mirror is soooo delicious…. Also good on oniisama e and Ladybird for capturing the teenage urge to throw yourself out of a moving car

[peterparkersnose]

Give In

pairing: Joel Miller x reader

word count: 2.3k

warnings: suicidal thoughts, pining possibly one sided, ANGST (just a large angst piece, i wanted some joel angst so I made it), description of depression, emotional dependency on a person, arguing, fluff sprinkled in, implied age gap not specified, reference to pregnancy, mentions of substance and alcohol abuse, joel is lowkey toxic and uses reader

a/n hi loves I wrote this after the first episode aired, so if anything contradicts anything in the future in this story that is why. also, i didnt know how to end it so im sorry if the ending is a bit choppy. happy last of us sunday!

summary Y/N has feelings for Joel that she can’t control anymore

Part 2 here

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read time: 8 min 33 seconds

The harsh chill of the autumn afternoon swept your hair off your shoulders. The ration line was as long as ever, but seemed to be moving quickly. A stray dog barked as others murmured on the street. Staring down at your boots, you bit at your chapped lips.

“You’ve been avoiding me,”

His voice sent chills up your spine. He was behind you, must have slipped in line without the other person noticing. Of course now was the time he decided to confront you. And he wasn’t wrong.

Straightening your back, you turn towards him.

“Have I?” you asked, raising your eyebrows slightly. The line moved forward and so did you.

“Tess said you weren’t feeling well.”

She was partially right. It was the blatant lie you were telling the very few who were close to you. You were physically fine.

“I’m fine, Joel.” you said promptly, turning a cold shoulder to the older man.

“If you need any meds or anything…” he began. You knew Joel had anything you needed. Quite literally.

“Next!” The FEDRA soldier called, motioning for you to get in the final line. You gave Joel a tight lipped smile before disappearing in the crowd.

Back at your sad excuse for an apartment, you poked your fork at your stale meal. You tried to think about todays’s job but the thought of Joel Miller consumed you.

How his hands felt on your skin, how soft his hair could be, how much he respected you in private. Flashbacks of previous nights where he had snuck over and stayed with you burned in your brain.

You never thought the hookup would turn in to feelings. Especially in this world. Feelings you were sure he wouldn’t reciprocate. Joel wasn’t a very emotionally available man. And he had Tess- rumors of them being together had been going on for years. Sure, they deny it. But you see the way he looks at her sometimes. His eyes burn with the lust you want from him, but there staring at her.

Tess was friendly and all, you got along quite well with her in fact. Jobs worked with Tess usually went better than others. But the knowledge that she goes home to him every night almost ate you alive. You felt used every time you would watch her turn the alleyway to their apartment.

Roommates my ass.

It had been over a month since the last time you saw Joel.

He was right, you were avoiding him. Taking the jobs you knew he wouldn’t dare go by such as childcare. Taking a different route home to avoid any run ins. Leaving your lights off and sitting in the dark to possibly deter him away from your place. All your little queues worked.

And the pain grew day by day.

You layed in your mattress with your face buried in your pillow. It stopped smelling like him weeks ago, but you liked to pretend it still did.

You couldn’t live like this anymore.

Pills weren’t numbing enough. Alcohol wasn’t as fun as it used to be. The constant state of depression in this damned district was enough to make you want to end it.

But seeing him across the alleyway talking to a group of people or in the line for rations was enough to keep that tiny spark lit inside of you.

There wasn’t much else to look forward to in this world besides others. Living the same day your whole life is miserable without your spark of joy in it.

Sleep was close, you could feel it. Your thin blankets were just cutting it for the night. As the dreams began to dance in your head, you were awoken by a quiet knock on your door.

“For fucks sake,” you groaned, flipping over in bed. You ignored the knocks. They became more persistent.

The old doorknob then dropped to the floor, startling you awake. You didn’t even have to guess who it was. The door slowly creaked open as you heard him curse to himself.

“I’ll fix it later,” he sighed, picking it off your floor and placing it on your countertop. He pushed one of your folding chairs next to your table up against the door to keep it sturdy.

“So your just breaking into apartments now?” you snapped, sitting up right in bed. “I needed to see you.” he protested.

“I never knew Joel Miller to need anything.”

He sighed and rested against your countertop. “I need to know,”

“Know what?” you asked, wrapping a blanket around your exposed shoulders. A tank top wasn’t ideal to sleep in, in these conditions.

“What’s wrong.” he said bluntly. “I said there’s nothing wrong. What the hell are you doing walking around freely at night?” you yelled, realizing the time was way past midnight. The sounds of soldiers a few floors down outside your apartment began to yell. How did he move past them?

“You sick?” he asked in a more hushed tone, walking towards you. “Respiratory? Head pain? Joints? You pregnant?” he somewhat joked, looking over you in bed.

“Shut up.” you said coldly. “Can you please just go?”

You knew Joel wasn’t a good listener. “What is it?” he said sternly, sitting down next to your body in bed. He grabbed your wrist ever so slightly. Your pulse was shaking in his grasp.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

You looked at the other side of your apartment, out the window. Rain had began to slowly plague the window. Ignoring Joel’s touch, you watched as the few drops raced to the bottom of the window.

“After everything I’ve done for you?” Joel sighed, not letting go of you.

“Stop, please. J-just stop talking to me.” you said, lying through your teeth. He could sense the pain hiding behind those eyes. “I’m not leaving.” he protested.

“Look at me.”

You turned to face him. His eyes were locked on yours. A genuine worried look was on his face. He looked softer, nothing like you had ever seen before.

It was almost as if someone asked you if you were okay when you were very obviously not. Silent tears rolled down your face as you tried to catch your breathe.

The man who you couldn’t love was staring in to your soul. There was no way you ever could love him. He was too mean, too stern, too old, too angry for you. The two of you were polar opposites. But as the saying goes, ‘opposites attract’.

Joel was unsure on what to do. Tess never cried. Hell, you never cried. He racked his brain for something, just something to soothe you.

He offered out a hand. Against your better judgement you took it. Connecting his other hand to your cheek, he tried to wipe away the streak of tears silently leaving your eyes. He held you tightly in your bed, stroking your hair as your head quickly made contact with the crook of his neck.

“I wish I didn’t have these feelings,” you cried into his embrace. Joel was confused on what you were getting at, but he ignored it. He tried to shush you in a soothing way.

“No, please. I wish I didn’t have these feelings… but I do.”

Joel froze. “What?” he asked, holding you in place.

You pulled back and looked at him. It felt like the first time over again. “Look at me and tell me you don’t feel a thing.” you hiccupped.

“I…” Joel sighed, closing his eyes for a moment and letting a breathe of air go.

“Say it.” you demanded.

The silence in the room was deafening.

“I can’t.” Joel said quickly. He looked down at his knees on your mattress.

“I think you should go.” you sighed, laying back on your side and facing the opposite wall.

He listened. Finally, Joel caught a hint. The sound of him walking away made you long for him more than ever. But it was good. The feeling of him leaving, knowing you were right. Joel Miller wasn’t a man who could love. At least not anymore.

Your sudden pride stopped when you heard his boots thud against the floor. Then the all familiar zip of his jeans followed by the hit of him placing them on your wooden chair next to your bed.

He rested a hand on your thigh as he peeled up the blanket that was stuck to your legs. Slowly, he moved down next to you in the tiny space you were leaving him.

“You don’t listen.” you huffed, still not giving him enough space on the bed.

“When do I ever?” he chuckled, wrapping his arm around your waist.

Fuck it. You gave in.

You allowed his arm to move closer to the underside of your breasts. Scooting over in bed, you gave him more space for his legs to entwine with you. His boxer’s material rubbed against the back of your thigh. It smelt like him; Wet grass and expired generic soap scent had never smelt better.

Sleep kindly greeted you once you felt his breathing slow. Trying to match his, you fell into the deep sleep you had been yearning for, for what seemed like weeks.

-

The absence in the morning was startling.

You struggled to move, hoping that the previous night was just a horrifying dream. A sigh escaped from your lips when you saw his boots sitting against the wall where he placed them last night.

The clanking sound of tools made you turn. On the other side of your small studio apartment, there he sat at your doorframe attempting to fix your door handle.

The overcast sky stayed, but you could tell it was early morning by the chatter outside.

“Shit!” Joel hissed, grabbing his finger in pain. “Damn fucking…”

He looked up and noticed you watching him.

“You alright?” you asked, watching him in amusement as he attempted to fix your door.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, sucking the tip of his finger. “Haven’t fixed a door in a good twenty years.” he muttered, wiping off the excess blood on his already dirtied jeans.

“Go back to bed, It’s still early.” he suggested, going through the tiny tool kit he had given you as a previous gift.

“This is more entertaining than sleep,” you chuckled, placing your feet on the cold ground and getting out of bed. “You want any breakfast? I don’t know if I have anything good here but…”

“Nah. Tess’l be expecting me.”

The sheer thought of Tess waiting at their home for him was enough to ruin the whole night you had before.

Joel looked up to you after your lack of a response. He noticed the demeanor change in your face. “Everything okay?” he asked, turning back to the doorknob he was almost finished fixing.

“You seem to go sour every time I mention Tess.”

“I wonder why,” you muttered under your breathe, attempting to open a tuna can for breakfast. You tried not to dry heave as the scent of the old fish met your nose. Tuna was never a favorite meal, especially for breakfast. But, it’s all you had.

Joel pretended like he didn’t hear you, but he heard you loud and clear. “We have a run to do today. You understand that, right?”

A bitter ‘mhm’ came from your lips as you shook the prepackaged coffee in your hand before ripping off the seal.

Joel sighed and placed the screw driver down dramatically. Joel’s knees cracked as he got up from his position. “You always gotta fucking act jealous. Don’t you? Ruinin’ a nice morning.”

“Jealous?” you said, raising your voice.

“What the hell do you even want from me?” you scorned, on the brink of tears. He could see through you like glass. You hated to admit it, but he knew you like the back of his hand.

Joel wished he could shout out the answer, but his ego kept it in.

You froze with your back turned to him and set down the brittle coffee mug. “Your always leaving me to go to her…”

“Because we’re business partners, Y/N. Don’t you get it? Don’t you hate livin’ the same damn day over and over again? It’s why I come to see you.”

“Stop,” you whispered, now face to face with him. “Stop yelling. Please, it’s too fucking early to get into that shit.”

“Really? Tell me you don’t loose your mind living the same day, same drama for years!” he yelled. “Always you being jealous. Don’t you ever get sick of it?”

Anger consumed you. Proof that the two of you would never work. He’s just a bitter old man.

“You know I would give anything to leave this damn QZ! To live a normal life, not fucking be here.” you yelled, with a finger now pointed at his face. You were avoiding the original accusation. Jealousy.

“Tell me.” you said, with a quieter but angrier tone. “Am I really just your fuck toy?”

Joel stepped back for a moment, stunned at what you just said. Guilt seemed to wrack his nerves as the realization hit him.

You were in love with him.

“Is that what you think?” he asked, approaching you with a sorrowful more soft look. “What else am I supposed to think? You come here, use me, and leave and go back to her.”

The feeling of letting go of all that emotion felt healing. The sudden aftermath of realizing what you just had accused him of made you feel somewhat guilty.

“No,” he sighed, grabbing your hand. “That- no. Absolutely not Y/N.”

His other hand reached for your chin, and brought your face up to his gaze. You could feel his heat on your skin.

“Understand…” he began to say. “Understand what?” you whispered back. A sly smile came to his lips.

“Give in,” he whispered, dropping your hand and wrapping his around your waist.

You melted into his grasp as he kissed you. Joel hadn’t kissed anyone in years. The hesitation from him only brought out the dominance in you.

As the two of you mutually pulled away, you wanted nothing more as to be back where you were just seconds ago.

“Understand that it’s hard.” he said, still holding you close. “I…”

“I know.” you said, cutting off his words.

You were an anxious, sorrowful over-thinker and he was the bitter, closed off introvert.

“I’ll be back,” he said, with a slighter more chipper tone. “Tonight. We have to get this damn car battery and…”

“Stay safe,”

“I promise.” Joel said. He really did not want to leave you. The thought of the two of you spending today lazily in bed was very tempting.

“But please believe me Y/N when I say, you are and never have been just a ‘fuck toy’.”

He squeezed your hand once more and then dropped it. Silence filled the apartment after he left.

The thought of how you tasted haunted Joel Miller’s mind the whole day.

Part 2

tag list: @dani5216 @uwiuwi @alohastyles-x @samanthacookieone @maddieinnit0 @alexxavicry @scoliobean @avengersfan25

[deanstead]

Not Going Anywhere

Pairing: Kelly Severide x Reader

Request by anon: Maybe reader is the paramedic who came in after Shay died and Kelly was really hard on her because of what he’s going through. Reader is just super nice and there for everyone so people end up calling her sunshine. Slowly Kelly realizes he’s falling for her??

Warnings: angst, a little fluff, mentions of death/loss

A/N: Wasn’t totally sure about how to write this request, so it took a little longer than I would have liked but I hope you like what I did with it! Please let me know what you think, I always love reading your replies/reblog tags!! Thanks for dropping by, taglists and Kelly requests are open!

---

It had been a few months since you had started at 51 and you really liked it here. 

It was always difficult starting at a new job but it was even more difficult when the circumstances were that someone had died on the job. Yet, despite those circumstances, things had turned out pretty well.

It had taken a little while but everyone had mostly warmed up to you.

Everyone except Kelly Severide.

He’d snapped at you a few times but on most days, he was indifferent at best.

That didn’t stop you from trying though. Not by a long shot.

That’s what you thought as you put the cup of coffee onto his table, slipping out just before he breezed into his office.

Kelly looked at the coffee cup on his table, glancing at you through his office window before sitting down. That was a better reaction than the first time you had done it - you remembered how he had snapped at you back then.

“Hey sunshine, get over here.” You looked up at Herrmann motioning to you and smiled, turning to take another glance at Kelly.

“You have tenacity, I’ll give you that.” Herrmann said, glancing up at Kelly. “What is it about him?”

You shrugged. “I just… feel it. He needs this, I know it.” You said as you followed Herrmann back into the common room.

Casey got up from where he was sitting with Gabby and headed towards the coffee pot. “He doesn’t know it yet but he needs this.”

You sipped your coffee. “You mean pestering?”

Casey smiled. “Caring.” He paused, “No one does it like you do. It’s only been a few months and look at how you fit in here.”

You laughed. “If that’s your way of saying I’m nosy…”

Casey laughed. “I’m saying, you’re exactly what we needed. Thanks, Y/L/N.”

---

Kelly sat on his couch, two empty bottles of beer sitting on the table, and he was still holding the third one in his hand. The television was on but he was barely paying attention to it as he looked around the empty place.

The doorbell rang and Kelly looked up, stumbling to his feet to open it.

The door swung open, revealing you standing on the other side, clutching a paper bag.

Kelly raised an eyebrow. “What the hell?”

You didn’t say anything but pushed the paper bag into his hands. “You can hate me, don’t take it out on the food.”

Kelly just stared at you as you put up your hand in the form of a greeting and walked away.

Kelly closed the door, a little confused and put the paper bag of food down on the table, his gaze lingering on it.

He sighed. He had regretted it immediately the few times he had been a little too harsh with you for something he knew was out of your control. But it hadn’t seemed to faze you, the next moment you were smiling and breezing your way through the firehouse as if nothing had happened.

You intrigued him but the dull gaping hole that Shay had left behind still hurt. More than he was willing to admit out loud to anyone. He could almost feel a literal hole that had opened up in his chest that seemed to be swallowing him up whole.

Kelly took another swig from the bottle in his hand before his eyes fell on the brown paper bag that was sitting on the table. He paused, before he sighed. Finally, he putt down the bottle and pulled the paper bag towards him, finally digging into it.

---

Casey smiled at you as you walked into the common room.

“Y/L/N!”

You stopped in your tracks, turning to look at him. “Hey, Casey, what’s up?”

“I don’t know what you said to him, but whatever it was, it worked.”

Otis and Cruz looked up as well. You frowned, pouring coffee into a mug before heading for the empty chair opposite Otis.

“What do you mean?” You asked, genuinely confused.

“He ate.” Casey simply said, pulling back his chair. You couldn’t stop the smile spreading across your face but didn’t say anything.

That was progress.

You smiled just as Kelly walked in, his eyes moving around the common room before they landed on you. You paused, holding the eye contact for a moment before letting your eyes drop back down.

Kelly studied you for a while more before he turned towards the kitchen.

Otis looked at you. “Hey, what’s going on with you and Severide?”

“What?” You said, looking up. “Nothing’s going on.”

Otis gave you a look. “I’m serious. Nothing’s going on. I barely even talk to him man.”

“You don’t think we’ve noticed the coffee runs?” Cruz leaned in now.

You rolled your eyes. “I just think he needs someone in his corner. That’s all.”

Otis and Cruz continued to stare at you before you rolled your eyes. “If I’m lucky he won’t snap at me.”

And indeed, lucky you weren’t.

Barely half a day had gone by but the ambulance had been on three different calls. You sat in the back of the ambulance now, arranging the supplies you had left while waiting for Mills to come back with more so that you could replenish the stock.  

You looked up when you heard footsteps thinking it was your PIC.

“And about time, too, this…” You trailed off as your eyes met Kelly Severide’s green ones.

Kelly raised his eyebrows at you. “Hey, Y/L/N, about…” His voice trailed off as his eyes caught onto the open compartments around you.

“Are you changing things in here?” He asked.

You frowned a little, confused. “Ye…ah?”

You saw a shift in Kelly’s expression. “That isn’t your call to make.” He snapped.

Your eyebrows shot up. “Sorry?”

“It’s not your call to make. To change things in here. To change things anywhere in this firehouse.” His voice rose a little more.

You generally kept your cool with Kelly when it came to things like this but it had been months since you had started here. You understood everyone dealt with loss differently, and you never expected everyone to welcome you with open arms, especially considering the circumstances in which you had entered but you had thought you were making progress.

Faced with your silence, Kelly continued. “Shay kept things a certain way for a reason.”

You nodded. “I’m not Shay, Lieutenant.” You saw Peter frowning as he headed your way. “But if this is an issue, Mills can do it and I’ll just follow the PIC’s lead.” You finished

Kelly looked like he was going to say more but you climbed out of the ambulance, moving through the common room and straight for the bathroom.

You took a deep breath as you stood in front of the sink, glancing at yourself in the mirror. You had thought you were making progress. Clearly, you weren’t.

You splashed some water on your face to try to calm down, taking a deep breath before opening the door and heading back out.

---

You hadn’t spoken about what happened, even when Mills had tried asking. Casey seemed to know something was up but you had avoided him too, you didn’t feel like hearing how Kelly was going through a rough time.

Yeah, he was going through a rough time. But you were a person, too. You deserved to be treated like one. You’d been respectful, you’d shown him you were in his corner, and you didn’t even need him to talk to you, you just wanted to be treated like a person.

“Hey sunshine.” Herrmann pushed a beer towards you.

You smiled, “Hey. Thanks.”

“Everything okay?” He asked. You nodded, as you felt someone slide into the seat next to you.

“Just a beer, Herrmann. Thanks.”

You looked up in surprise to confirm what you already knew – Kelly Severide was sitting next to you.

“Hey.” He greeted. You smiled back at him. “Can we… talk?”

You raised your eyebrows but nodded, pushing back your chair and heading to another table further from the bar and out of everyone else’s earshot.

“I’m sorry.” He said, looking straight at you.

Your eyebrows shot up.

“She was my best friend.” He whispered, his eyes dropping down again.

You felt a tug at your heartstrings but instead of saying anything you leaned forward, quietly putting your hand over his.

Kelly’s eyes flicked back up to yours.

You finally spoke, “It’s okay to grieve, Severide. I know.”

Kelly smiled at you for the first time. “Do I still get coffee?”

You smiled. “Maybe.”

“Thanks, Y/N.” He said, so low you almost didn’t hear him.

This was definitely progress, you thought as you smiled back at him. “I better get going.”

“Hey Severide, you know anytime you need to talk, I’m your girl.” You said, a little warily, not sure if he was going to take it the wrong way again.

Instead, Kelly smiled at you, nodding. “And it’s Kelly.”

You smiled.

---

Kelly pushed his way out of Molly’s, still clutching the full beer bottle, turning back once just to look at you.

It was weird, this feeling he had and usually Shay would be the first one he asked about it but…

Kelly knew he had shut everyone out in his bid to deal with Shay’s death – he turned up at work but he didn’t talk and he was cold to everyone, including even Casey. But you were such a warm person, even Kelly couldn’t deny feeling your warmth.

Kelly wasn’t ready to admit it out loud but he was sure that he was glad that it was you who had joined 51.

---

You looked up at Kelly’s apartment building.

Of course, you couldn’t help yourself. And you’d bet your whole apartment that Casey knew exactly what would happen if he told you that Kelly wasn’t well. This was probably exactly what Casey was trying to do.

You shook your head. You really shouldn’t overthink this. You were just here to help a friend. You’d do it for anyone.

Since that talk you had had at Molly’s with Kelly, things had improved significantly. Granted, he was still a little prickly, but he had snapped at you much less. There were times your eyes met across the apparatus floor or across the common room that made you feel a little tingly inside, and Kelly had also started having little talks with you. Nothing too deep or serious, but enough that you felt he had at least accepted you as a friend.

You jogged up the stairs and knocked.

“It’s open.” You heard Kelly’s faint voice from outside. You frowned, wondering if he was expecting someone.

“Y/N?” Kelly’s confusion echoed yours as you pushed his door open. “What are you…?”

“You expecting someone?” You asked, closing the door with your foot and heading to the counter.

“Casey said he was coming over.” Kelly said, but you could hear a faintness in his voice you’d never heard before.

“Oh.” You said, “Remind me to kick him when I see him next.” You turned to the kitchen, putting a pot on the stove, and pouring the ingredients in, as if this wasn’t your first time in his kitchen.

You heard Kelly groan and you turned slightly, glancing at him, lying across the couch, his arm thrown over his face.

You frowned, lowering the fire and putting the lid on the pot to let the soup boil.

Quietly, you moved out of the kitchen. Kelly must really be feeling under the weather considering he hadn’t probed further about the fact that you were in his apartment.

“Kelly?”

Kelly groaned but cracked his eyes open.

“Have you taken anything?” You asked, kneeling next to him.

“I’m fine.” Kelly muttered, shifting his position slightly.

“Yeah yeah” You responded, pulling his arm away from his forehead and putting your hand on his.

Kelly didn’t try to protest further. You frowned but didn’t say anything, going to get an ice bag that you had brought with you just in case. Filling it with ice from Kelly’s freezer, you put the full ice bag onto his head.

Kelly shifted. “Stay still.”

Kelly opened his eyes again, his green eyes looking back at you.

“Get some sleep.” You said, turning away.

Kelly grabbed your wrist. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Once you get some food in you and probably some medicine, I’ll get out of your hair. Till then, you’re stuck with me.” You responded, readjusting the ice bag before disappearing back into the kitchen.

By the time the soup was done, Kelly was up, his temperature was down and he was sitting up, just watching you as you brought a bowl out for him.

“Heya.” You greeted, pushing the bowl into his hands.

Kelly seemed like he wanted to say something but didn’t. Kelly ate in silence and you put the medication on the table, along with a glass of water.

You glanced at Kelly.

“There’s more in the pot. Take the pills, and if you’re still not feeling well, please go to Med.” You said, picking up your bag that was sitting on the coffee table. Kelly remained silent. “I’ll get out of your way now.”  

Kelly reached out again, grabbing your wrist for the second time that day. You glanced at him in surprise. You had figured the first time was a mistake.

“Stay.”

Your eyebrows shot up and you didn’t move for a while.

“You sure?” You asked.

Kelly just stared straight at you, giving a small smile.

You smiled before sitting back down next to him.

For a while, you both sat in silence, until Kelly put the bowl down. “Casey sent you here?”

“Tricked me here.” You corrected but you were smiling.  

“Look.” Kelly said, turning to look at me after downing the tablets you put into his palm. “Thanks, I know I’ve been a bit… difficult.”

You raised your eyebrows. “A bit?”

Kelly chuckled. “Thanks for…” He paused. “Well, everything.”

You smiled.

“Thanks for not giving up on me.” Kelly continued, both your eyes meeting again.

You shook you head, smiling. “I didn’t really do anything, Kelly.”

“Give yourself a bit more credit, look where you are now.” He said, smiling back at you. “Look, Y/N. I’m not that good at the talking.”

You nodded, chuckling a little. “I can see that.”

So instead of talking, Kelly leaned forward, pressing his lips to yours. You could feel the electricity of Kelly’s touch buzz through your entire body.

Kelly smiled as he pulled away. You didn’t say anything and Kelly watched you for a while. “If I get sick, you’re taking full responsibility.”

Kelly chuckled. “Y/N.” He said, “It’s still hard, I….”

You smiled reaching out for his hand. “Kelly. I know. I’ll be here.”

Kelly smiled, leaning in for a hug and you wrapped your arms around him. “I’m not going anywhere.” You whispered.  

---

KELLY SEVERIDE TAGLIST

@keenmarvellover | @securityfriendly-jay | @winterberryfox | @bestillmystuckyheart | @winterreader-nowwriter | @svturtles | @panaitbeatrice | @skyofficialxx | @starlight-halstead​

If you would like to be added to a taglist, you may request here or send me an ask!

[fanimesenseiwrites]

Kidnapped to Hell (pt. 2)

The prince, his butler, and the Avatar of Wrath all stood at the entrance to the eight circles.

Diavolo inhaled deeply and as he exhaled he changed into his demon form.

Satan and Barbatos followed suit.

Diavolo looked back at the two other demons before opening the gate and walking through to the first circle.

Satan and Barbatos followed him in and the gate closed behind them.

Once they were in the first circle, their forms all transformed into something more sinister and hellish.

Diavolo grew to almost twice his height and his wings grew proportionate to that. His legs resembled lion's legs as he now stood on large paws and haunches covered in black fur. A long, slender tail also covered in black fur grew from the base of his spine. His horns curved up and grew tall above his head and a small crown of fire appeared between them. His fingernails transformed into long black talons as his jaw stretched and grew to accommodate for his now larger and sharper teeth and fangs.

Satan's legs morphed into haunches at the same time the scales and ridges that normally were just on his tail grew all over his body, save for his face. There were now talons at the ends of his fingertips and fire where his hair used to be.

Barbatos grew taller, though not nearly as tall as Diavolo. His legs also became haunches, but everything about him was more reptilian. Iridescent scales now covered anywhere that had been previously covered by clothing and a human ribcage seemed to encase his chest, with metacarpal and phalangic bones creating shoulder guards for him. Long claws grew from his fingertips and his tongue was now forked to match his tail.

Diavolo stretched and rolled his neck, refamiliarizing himself with his form which got so little use.

Diavolo looked down at his two compatriots. "Alright, I believe the best way to search for Hoshiko will be to start at the bottom and-"

"Diavolo..." a deep and loud voice rolled like thunder throughout the entirety of the eight circles, seemingly coming from the deepest,  center most pit.

Diavolo couldn't do anything to stop the shiver that ran down his spine.

"Was that...?" Satan started to ask.

"My father," Diavolo answered.

Satan nodded.

Diavolo sighed. "We best go to him."

"But what about Hoshiko?" Satan protested.

"It would be unwise to deny an audience with the king," Barbatos told him.

"I want to find Hoshiko as well," Diavolo told Satan as he picked him and Barbatos up. "We'll take care of this as quickly as possible."

Satan huffed, but otherwise didn't respond.

Diavolo flew the three of them down to the eighth circle and to the chamber in which his father resided.

Diavolo set Satan and Barbatos down then looked at the stone door separating them from the Demon King.

The door opened before Diavolo could do it himself.

"Enter," the thunderous voice of the Demon King commanded.

Diavolo pulled his shoulders back and straightened his back as much as possible before walking in.

Satan and Barbatos followed him in, also correcting their posture as needed as they walked.

A demon twice as large as even Diavolo's larger demonic form sat on plush carpets and watched them enter.

The three visitors bowed to show their respect.

"Your highness," Diavolo was the only one to address the king.

"My son," the demon king spoke, his voice lowered only slightly now that his guests were directly in front of him.

Diavolo stood up straight to look at him. "Yes sir?"

"Why, pray tell, is there a living, human sorceress within the eight circles?" He asked as he gently stroked a girl's back with a single knuckle.

Diavolo's eyes were drawn to his father's hand moving and his eyebrows shot up as he realized it was Hoshiko who laid fast asleep on his father's furry leg.

"Hoshiko! You found them!" Diavolo exclaimed, immediately relieved.

Satan and Barbatos both whipped their heads towards where Diavolo was looking, and felt immediate relief as well.

"Yes, I found her. But you still haven't answered my question, Diavolo," the king reprimanded.

Diavolo turned his attention back to his father's face, reigning in his composure once again. "Ah, yes... at the present moment I do not know who brought Hoshiko down here, but I will be launching a full investigation. I felt like the priority was to retrieve Hoshiko from the eight circles first."

The king nodded. "You're correct in what was the priority, but you were slow in your execution."

Diavolo resisted frowning and only nodded. "Yes sir, I understand."

Barbatos piped up. "Your highness," he took a step forward and bowed again.

The king looked at him. "You may speak, Barbatos."

Barbatos stood up straight and looked up at the Demon king. "It is my fault that Hoshiko's capture was not prevented. I had not-" Barbatos immediately stopped talking when the king held up his free hand as a motion for him to pause.

"Your humility is always refreshing, Barbatos, but I'm not concerned about preventing a first occurrence. My point was that Diavolo should have searched for her sooner, as soon as he sensed her presence in the Devildom." He looked at his son. "And you did sense her presence, didn't you?"

Diavolo literally had to swallow his pride. "Yes sir, I did."

Diavolo could feel Satan's rage flare up behind him, and he knew he deserved to be the object of it.

The demon king nodded and then looked at Barbatos. "Barbatos, you and Satan take the girl. I'd like to speak to my son alone."

"Of course, your majesty," Barbatos replied before walking over to Hoshiko.

Once he was close to Hoshiko, he could see that their clothing had been ripped in places, revealing all the burns and bruises on their body.

Barbatos frowned as he wrapped Solomon's cloak around Hoshiko, then he picked them up and cradled them close to his chest. He turned and looked at Satan.

"Let's go," Satan told him before leading him out.

Barbatos followed him, taking care to keep Hoshiko's face covered, just in case they woke up.

The demon king watched them leave, only looking at his son once he was sure the others were gone. "We are all incredibly lucky that I rescued Hoshiko from the horrors of the eight circles. Though I'm sure there's still some damage to her psyche, she will be much better off than if she had been waiting for you."

Diavolo nodded. "I understand."

"Do you truly? I need to know that you understand, I don't just want to lecture you."

"I do understand. I feel terrible for how long it took me to just get to the eight circles. I knew Hoshiko was down here but I couldn't tell the difference between the Devildom and the eight circles of hell. I thought that maybe I was just wrong, that maybe my missing them was affecting my senses..." he confessed, unable to look at his father.

The king sighed. "Let this be a lesson to trust your gut, my son."

Diavolo looked up at his father. "Yes sir... May I ask you a question?"

"You may."

"Why did you wake up? How did you know that Hoshiko didn't belong here?"

"Her screams woke me."

Diavolo blinked. "What? But you sleep through the cries of the damned every day."

"Precisely. The dammed belong here. They have committed atrocities worthy of the heinous punishment that we dole out. It's justice in a sense. Hoshiko's innocent and living screams were an immediate wake up call to me."

Diavolo nodded. "Well, I'm glad that they were."

The demon king hummed. "I hope you take today's events to heart. One day I will pass the crown to you and I want you to be a good king."

Diavolo smiled slightly. "Thank you, father."

The demon king nodded and laid down. "For now though, I will go back to sleep."

Diavolo nodded. "Rest well," he told him as he left his chamber.

The stone door closed behind him all on its own.

Diavolo flew to the entrance of the eight circles, looking for Satan and Barbatos as he did. When he didn't see them, he left the eight circles, changing to his lesser demonic form as he did. He immediately texted Barbatos if they had left the circles and waited for a reply before leaving the vicinity of the entrance.

- We just arrived at the House of Lamentation.- Barbatos replied only a minute later.

Diavolo replied with an -I'm on my way- before changing to his human form and heading to the House of Lamentation himself.

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

[imagineredwood]

Pairing: Jax Teller x black female reader

Warnings: None really 

Word count: 1.4K

Part 1 

***Well, well, well, if it isn’t my story from a literal TWO years ago that I started and never finished  😩 I’m so sorry to whoever requested this. I don’t know if you still follow me or if you’re even on tumblr anymore but if you are, I’ll be getting this story done for you. For many of my older stories, I want to make them perfect and have them measure up to my more recent work but then I end up feeling insecure about it and never getting to them, and I’m sorry about that. I know that has to change. I had forgotten about this one until someone on Ao3 commented and said how much she enjoyed the story and how happy she was to find it since Jax x black reader fics are so difficult to come across. SO! We’ll be seeing much more of this story line as time goes on ❤️ Any one who wants to be on the tag list, please let me know and I’ll create this one for this story specifically.***

You looked at the various boxes of cereal, having a tough time picking which one you wanted. There were so many options and it was always a toss-up between picking the sweet ones that would satisfy the child in you or the adult ones with added fiber. You held the two in your hand, looking between then when someone spoke to your right.

“I personally would get the lucky charms, but that’s just me.”

Turning, you laughed as you found Jax there with that smile of his.

“Yeah, is that so?”

The Son nodded, his eyes on yours.

“Yep. My son would also agree.”

You smiled as you placed the box into your cart.

“I didn’t know you had a son.”

Jax shrugged, looking to the side for a moment with a smirk.

“You didn’t ask.”

He grinned as he looked back at you, his eyes trailing over you ever so subtly. His playfully cocky nature was weirdly endearing, and you could hear your father’s voice in your head.

“I didn’t like how he was looking at you.”

You could only imagine how Eli would have felt if he knew that you both had already had lunch together. Now here the biker was, shopping at the same time as you. It was the third time this week you had both ended up at the same place at the same time and you decided to poke some fun yourself, slowly turning back to your cart and pushing it slowly. You would be lying if you said you weren’t hoping he would follow you.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were stalking me, Teller.”

Tossing a look over your shoulder, you saw they he was, in fact, following you like you had hoped he would. He still wore that smirk as he came up to walk beside you as opposed to behind you.

“How do we know you’re not the one stalking me? Miss Roosevelt.”

You chuckled and grimaced, shaking your head.

“Yeah, don’t call me that.”

Jax joined in and laughed with you as well.

“Yeah, that sounded weird as soon as I said it.”

He continued walking with you, grabbing things from the shelves as you both made your way up and down the aisles, grabbing whatever you needed and making small talk. You spoke about the weather, about how the other’s day had been, about how work had been going for you. Jax told you about his son and how he had lived there his whole life.

You listened and shared as well. You had been hesitant at first. You worried that maybe he was just trying to get close to you and get information form you to use against your dad, but the longer you spoke, the more you began to feel that he was just a regular person. He had chosen a unique career path so to speak, not something the average person did, but he did not appear to be the flat-out monster that your father had painted him out to be. The longer you spoke to Jax, the more endearing he started to seem, and you swallowed as you realized that there was the beginning of a crush starting to form there.

He was gorgeous, that much was certain, but he was also friendly and relatable. He was polite and respectful, flirting subtly with you but never crossing a line or being crude. He read you well and made the conversation effortless.  He was respectful of your dad even when you knew he likely had every right to be bitter or rude when it came to him.

As much as you tried to deny it or just chuck it up to enjoying a new friend, there was definitely chemistry there and you were feeling the beginning of butterflies in your tummy as you looked at him. Being the daughter of a cop had always been a little rocky, never feeling that you could do things on your own more make your own decisions for that matter. You always felt like any choice you made had to go through your father and you realized now that it was time to start living for yourself.

You were not going to tell your father flat out, lest you want chaos to ensure. You were just going to do what you wanted and if he found out later then you would deal with it then. You were going to follow your gut now though and looking back at the blonde, you gave a soft smile, feeling adventurous.

“What do you say we get dinner this weekend? Only if you don’t have plans of course.”

Jax looked over at you, a grin developing on his lips, blue eyes twinkling as he pulled out his phone to trade numbers.

“Even if I did have plans, I’d switch them around if it meant I got to take you out, darlin’.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

You hopped out of your car, closing the door before smoothing your hands down the front of your outfit. You had planned it all out and you looked stunning. Eli did not know that you were there, ready for a date with the outlaw biker and you were planning on keeping it that way. It was not like you were going to marry the Son. It was just a simple date and you deserved it. At some point, you were going to have to move away from being Daddy’s little girl and start making decisions that made you happy, even if he did not agree.

Looking forward, you saw Jax standing by his bike, leaning against it. He was not wearing his kutte, but a simple white tee. You were thankful for the decision, sure that he had thought the same thing. The Sheriff’s daughter out with someone wearing a kutte would get to his ears in no time. Jax grinned as you walked up to him, giving a low whistle.

“Look at you.”

You smiled and motioned to him.

“Not bad yourself.”

That signature smirk came back again, and he held his arm out for you to take.

“All eyes will be on you, I’m sure.”

You walked together to the front door of the restaurant, Jax releasing your arm so that he could open the door for you. You thanked him with a nod and stepped in, Jax following behind you. You both went up to the hostess and she smiled, grabbing two menus.

“Just you two tonight?”

Jax nodded and so did the middle-aged woman, waving for both of you to follow her.

“Right this way.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

“He’s gorgeous.”

Jax smiled proudly and took his wallet back for your hand, looking down at the picture of Abel.

“Yeah, he is. He’s my favorite thing in this whole world.”

You felt your heart swell at his words, the Son staying with his eyes glued to the picture for a few moments more before he folded the walled back up and placed it down onto the table, looking back up at you.

“I bet you’re a great dad.”

Jax shrugged humbly and it was the first time you had ever seen him entirely void of any pride.

“I do my best. There’s always room for improvement though. I could always be a little better.”

You nodded, understanding what he was saying. You offered your two cents.

“The fact that you think that way shows that you aim to be a good dad. You want to be the best that you can be for him. That says a lot.”

Jax stayed looking at you, his face holding an unreadable expression before he nodded.

“Thank you.”

There was a small stretch of silence as you both gazed at each other, both coming to the realization that you were starting to develop feelings for each other. Though this was technically your first true ‘date’, you had spent time with each other an easy four times already, including having had lunch together twice. Those times held the friendship outing vibe though.

This dinner was different. You were sharing information with each other, wanting to get to know each other. He was being open and honest, and you were giving him the same in return. He was looking at you different and you were sure that he saw how you looked at him if his smirk when he caught your eyes on him said anything.

You shifted your eyes away with a clearing of your throat, not having realized how long you were looking at him. Saved by the bell, the waitress came back then placing your prospective plates of dessert in front of the two of you with a smile. You grabbed your spoon and began getting your first bite, entirely oblivious to Jax’s eyes still watching you, curiosity and fondness there in droves.

General taglist @piccasoe​ @ateliefloresdaprimavera​ @gemini0410​ @woahitslucyylu​ @my-rosegold-soul​ @that-chick212​ @everyhowlmarksthedead​

[fabrowrites]

Oh, can I be your Bibilly Hills?

For Lloyd’s very late birthday! also on ao3 and ffn.net.

----------

Kai stands at the entrance to the cafeteria.  The bustle in the room is loud with kids meeting up with their friends, the snapping open of lunchboxes, and chairs and tables being squeaked across the floor.

Kai exhales.  He hikes his backpack higher onto his back.  Then he squares his shoulders and walks over to the table in the far corner of the room where only one person sits, despite the overcrowding at all the rest of the tables.

Lloyd Garmadon’s eyes lift as Kai drops into the seat across from him, only to return to his plate again just as quickly.  One by one, the rest of their secret ninja crew arrive.  They send glances at each other, and at Lloyd, who has started to eat his food with laser-like focus.  

It’s only been a week since Master Wu gathered them all together for a “very important meeting”.  It’s only been a week since he told them they were ready to take the next step in their team-building.  It’s only been a week since their eternally-masked leader took off his hood, only to reveal the son of Ninjago City’s very own warlord hiding beneath it.

Needless to say, conversation is stilted.  

A hand comes down on the table with a resounding smack.  Chen, captain of the cheer team, leans over their table.  “Hey, look, everyone,” he says mockingly.  “Garmadork has a dork squad now.”  He gives their table an obvious once-over, grin widening.  “Aw, why are you sitting with him?  Are your daddies super-villains too?”

“Hi, Chen,” Lloyd says.  “Nice insult.  Much more original than your last one- what was it?  The Bad Dad Lad?”

Chen’s face twists up in a sneer.  His hand snakes out and smacks Lloyd’s water bottle over, instantly flooding his lunch.  “Oops,” he says, sounding not at all sorry.  “I didn’t see that there!  Hope that wasn’t all you had.”

He saunters off, looking inordinately pleased with himself.  Lloyd, on the other hand, stares for several long seconds at his ruined lunch.  Kai expects him to look furious, or at the very least, upset, but there’s only this sad sort of look on his face.  Like he’d been expecting it to happen.  It’s so awful to look at that something in Kai snaps.  

“Here, have some of mine,” he says, shoving his bento forward.  “I always take too much rice anyways.”

Nya gives him a near-imperceptible nod from across the table; she’s thinking the same thing.  God, Kai loves his sister so much.  “This is true,” she says.  “The day Kai doesn’t bring home leftovers is the day he’s been replaced by his evil clone.”

Kai opens his mouth, intending to say just what he thought of that, when a quiet noise brings him back to the situation at hand.  Lloyd looks at them both, mouth parting slightly.  “Are you sure?” he asks, but he can’t disguise the way he’s already eying the bento up.

“Take it,” Kai insists. “It’s not doing me any good sitting here.”

Kai can see Lloyd’s hesitation wavering.  A moment later, the other boy accepts it with a quiet, “thank you”.  

The other ninja are watching.  Kai catches their eyes and mouths ‘later’ above Lloyd’s head.  After lunch wraps up, and Lloyd excuses himself to use the restroom, they all gather near the window.

“What happened at lunch-” Kai says without preamble- “it can’t happen again.”  It’s not like he was expecting them to protest, but something warms in his chest at how intensely they immediately nod.  They must look like a pack of bobbleheads to anyone passing by.

“He was just so sad,” Nya says.  “It makes me want to punch something.  Preferably Chen’s face.”

Jay backs a step away from her, laughing that nervous laugh of his.  Cole hums.  His ever-present headphones are hanging around his neck, which is how Kai knows just how seriously he’s taking it.  Headphone removal: truly the highest form of respect in the modern age.  “We should do something for him,” he says.

“Normal human teenager things?” asks Zane.

“Exactly!” says Kai.  “He’s an only child!  I bet he’s never had a blanket fort before!”

“We can make it at his house so he can keep it up longer,” Cole says.  “I’ve dropped off homework for him before.  I still have his address in my phone.”

“I’ll take him out after school to the comic book shop so you guys have more time,” Jay offers.  He twists his hands in his ever-present orange scarf.  

“And we’ll get the snacks,” Nya finishes.  She sticks her hand out.  The rest of them do too, and then there’s a period of silence where they look at each other awkwardly.  Wow, they really are lost without Lloyd.

Cole sighs.  “Ninja go,” he says.

“Ninja go!” Kai says.  The game is afoot.  

------------

The walk to the comic books shop is literally the definition of awkward silence.  

Jay and Lloyd walk three feet apart on the sidewalk.  Their eyes meet fleetingly across the way before skittering away.  People who pass them stare, and Jay ducks his head and meeps at each hateful glare sent his way.

“You don’t have to do this,” Lloyd mumbles.

Jay jumps.  “Huh?”  

Lloyd shoves his hands into his hoodie pocket.  “I said,” he says a bit louder, “you don’t have to do this.”

“Do what?” Jay says nervously.  He wrings his hands in his scarf.  “I’m not doing anything?”

Lloyd looks pointedly at his hands.  He huffs, dipping his head so his bangs cover his eyes,  “Make yourself be nice to me, or whatever it is that you and the rest of them are trying to do.  I have eyes, Jay,” he says, when Jay opens his mouth to protest.  He glances up at him through his curtain of hair, and something in his face softens.  “It’s okay.  I’m used to it.”

Jay doesn’t know what to say to that.  But something comes over him, and before he can talk himself out of it he’s bridging the gap to walk right beside Lloyd.  Lloyd looks up sharply.  

“We want to be nice to you,” he says softly.  “You’re part of our team, aren’t you?”

Lloyd snorts.  “Some might go as far to call me the leader,” he says, but there’s this quiet, sort of pleased look on his face.  It’s enough for Jay to stick by his side, even as they move towards the busier part of the city and the glares and angry whispers increase.  

It takes them about fifteen minutes to get to the comic book shop.  Jay swings the door open, inhaling that paper-ink-and-smelly-teenager scent he’s become intimately familiar with.  Lloyd follows more hesitantly, blinking at the racks upon racks of books, merch, and everything in between.  His eyes widen when they land on the display case right in front of them.  

“No way!” he says, springing forward.  “I didn’t know this came out!”

“What?” asks Jay, jumping sideways to see.  “Is that the new edition of Starfarer?  Wait, you like Starfarer too?”

Lloyd is already flipping through the chapter, eyes scanning the pages.  “It was my favorite as a kid!” he says excitedly.  ‘I didn’t know they were still making it.  The library only has through chapter sixteen.”

“I think there’s forty-two now,” Jay offers.  Lloyd gives him a look that’s halfway between horrified and delighted.  Jay can’t help but grin back.  He goes to say something else, but a sharp exhale nearby interrupts their moment.  

Two men are standing across the room, muttering and glaring alternatively at them.  No, at Lloyd.  One scowls at them and leaves, heading towards the front desk.

“We should go,” Lloyd says.  With great reluctance, he sets the comic back down and pats it into place.  “I don’t want you getting in trouble for me.”

It’s like that one tumblr post- and Jay will deny to the end that he has a tumblr- that’s like: ‘if somebody is more uncomfortable than me I am suddenly able to Do The Thing’.  “No, we just got here,” he says.  “We can’t leave yet.”

Lloyd looks obviously torn.  Jay sees the manager heading their way and makes the decision for him. Seizing his hand, he pulls Lloyd deeper into the store.  They speed-walk through the isles, ending up near the back.  

“They shouldn’t do that to you,” he says.  

Lloyd shrugs, eyes cast off to one side.  “It’s not like it’s anything new.”  

“Still,” Jay says, feeling his ears heat up.  The adrenaline of the moment has worn off, and now he’s feeling the embarrassment from his spontaneity.  “It’s not cool.”

Lloyd stares at him for several long seconds.  Jay squirms.  Lloyd looks like he wants to say something, but then his eyes slide past Jay and land on something behind him.

Lloyd’s entire face lights up.  “I thought they discontinued this years ago!”  He starts pawing through the container, making little mumbling comments and noises underneath his breath.  

Jay takes out his phone and surreptitiously sends a text to the group.  

bluejay: okay we are keeping him!!!

kaiguy: was that ever even an option?

-------------

The woman who opens the door for Cole and Zane looks… tired, for lack of a better way to put it.  Her hair is done up in a messy bun and there are dark circles under her eyes as she regards the pair of them warily.  

“Mrs. Garmadon?” asks Zane.

“Ms. Ito,” says the woman.  Her expression flattens the longer they stay silent.  “Look, if you’re looking to hassle me or Lloyd, it’s been a long day and-”

We’re some of Lloyd’s friends from school,” Cole blurts out.  He freezes the moment the words leave his mouth- interrupting someone?   Idiot, Mom taught you better than this - but the words themselves don’t feel false in his mouth.  They feel right, an unshakable truth like the laws of gravitation and motion, steady as the earth beneath his feet. He spares a look at Zane and finds the other nodding his agreement.

Lloyd’s mom, however, looks like she’s been slapped in the face.  ‘Friends?” she echoes, almost like she doesn’t believe them.  Which, as Cole reflects, shouldn’t be that surprising.  He’s seen the bullying at school firsthand.  A wave of regret knocks into him for all the times he’s stayed silent and watched- not participating, just not stepping in.  Never again, he swears to himself.  

While Cole’s been having this epiphany, Zane’s been barreling on ahead without him.  “Lloyd was harassed this morning in school,” he says primly.  “We want to build a structure of blankets for him in your apartment.”

Zane, Cole thinks, internally slapping his palm against his forehead.  

But Lloyd’s mom looks so grateful that Cole feels suddenly sick.  This woman has two complete strangers standing on her doorstep, practically demanding to be let in so they can destroy her house with pillows and blankets and loud teenagers.  She shouldn’t look like they’ve just saved her dog from a house fire.

“It’s really nothing,” he grits out.  “We just wanted to do something for him.”

He’s staring at the load of blankets in his arms, so he doesn’t see Lloyd’s mom move.  Suddenly, there are hands taking the pile from him.  Her face appears in front of his.  “It’s not nothing,” she says softly.  She doesn’t elaborate, but neither of them need her to.  “Come on in.  I’ll show you where everything is.”

------------

“Vegetable or Sriracha?’

“Does he like spicy things?”

Kai looks down at the two bags of chips in his hands.  “Both,” he decides.  “Both is good.”

Both their phones go off at the same time: Kai’s the default BorgPhone ringtone he’s never figured out how to change, Nya’s the Wilhelm Scream.  Nya digs hers out first.  “It’s Jay.”

Kai juggles the chips with the rest of the snacks in his arms.

jaybird: were almost done here

jaybird: well be at his house in like 20

jaybird: r u guys done yet?

do it for the vinyl: 👌

frozane: 😁 🥰 😚 😋 🤗 😇 🙃 😆 🤣 😘 🤪 🤩

Kai pockets his phone.  “Guess that’s our cue to go.”

They pay quickly and rush over to Lloyd’s house, using the address Cole had texted them all earlier.  

Kai hands off his bags to Zane, switching his shoes.  “Let’s see what you’ve done!”  He catches sight of the fort from the corner of his eye and his jaw drops.  “Woah.”

“Right?” Cole smirks.  

Kai’s too focused on the mass of colors and fabric swallowing up the living room, otherwise he would pick a fight.  He crawls through the entrance, a sheet hanging loose between two cushions.  

The fort is nearly tall enough to stand up in.  Cole and Zane have slung sheets from the lamp to the couch to a coat rack, using tape, clips and pillows to secure the blankets down.  A music stand supports the entire thing in the center.  Kai didn’t know that Lloyd took music, though maybe he should have expected it because, hello, Asian?  It seems like not knowing is a depressingly common thread running through all that they’ve been learning.

Kai squares his shoulders.  Nope.  Now’s not the time for beating himself up.  He’s just gonna do better, be better, from here on out.  

“Bring the snacks in already!” he hollers, sticking his head out the hole.  “Lloyd’s gonna be here any minute!”

Cole raises his eyebrow judgmentally, even as he passes him the bags of chips.  Nya has no such restraint and throws dried squid at his face.  

“Lloyd just texted to say he’s on his way,” Lloyd’s mom tells them from the kitchen entrance.  Kai thinks her expression is a mix of fear and awe, which is always a good reaction to one of Kai’s ideas.  

Kai can hear them now, feet thudding softly on the wood of the hallway through the thin walls.  They’re laughing at something- presumably a meme on Jay’s phone.  The dork has thousands of them.  Someone bangs against the door and then it swings open.  

“Hey, Mom,” Lloyd says, and Kai doesn’t think he’s ever heard him this happy.  The blond is switching his shoes, completely unaware of the spectacle behind him.  “Sorry that I’m late, we lost track of-”

He turns around and freezes.

“Surprise!” Kai shouts.  Behind Lloyd, Jay starts cheering.  Nya salutes him from her position sprawled on the couch and Cole and Zane wave at him from beside the fort.  

Lloyd’s mouth drops open.  “What?” he splutters.  “Wait, what’s going on?  What is all this?”

“Can’t we do something nice for our bro just ‘cause we feel like it?”  Kai crawls out and goes to him, slinging his arm across his shoulders.  

“Guys,” Lloyd says.  

To Kai’s horror, his eyes are wet around the corners.  Shoot, did they mess up?  “Don’t cry!” he yelps, voice cracking embarrassingly at the end.  “We’ll pick it all up, don’t worry!”

“No, no,” Lloyd says hurriedly.  “You did this for me?” he asks, awe in his voice. He glances around the room.  “All of you?”

“Of course,” Zane says.  “You are our friend.”

“We realized we’ve been a little lacking in that department,” Nya chimes in.  “So here’s us, making up for it!  We’re nowhere near done yet either,” she warns.  “Constant vigilance!”

Lloyd discreetly wipes his eyes.  “Thanks,” he says.  “I love a good threatening in my own living room.”

And for a moment, they all stay put in their places, grinning widely from Lloyd to each other.  Lloyd’s mom smiles softly, unseen, from where she stands in the kitchen.  

Kai grins.  The moment breaks.  “Well, don’t just stand there.  C’mon!  You’ve got to see what Cole and Zane did inside.”

[chastitybottomtoy]

Chastity Dreams: Day 23

I woke up this morning to the dull throb of my dick trying to force it's way out of it's tight steel cage. From the very moment my groggy eyes opened, my brain has been bombarding my sexual psyche with fantasies of the person I am going to become.

I imagined how good it would feel to wake up with a metal collar locked securely around my neck. I'm in a cage with steel bars. I have enough room that I can turn over comfortably. I realize as I awaken that not only have I been collared, but there is a thick chain locked around my waist. Metal shackles are on my wrists. I realize suddenly that the cage I'm confined in is underneath a bed.

As I lay there trying to figure out how I got there, I heard footsteps approaching. Obviously I was very nervous. I do not remember anything about last night. All I did was go to a gay bar to play pool and have a few drinks, and maybe find someone with a tasty cock that i could feed from.

Suddenly the door opens, and I see three sets of boots, all of them black latex with at least six inch heels. A weak moan escapes my lips as I realize my big cock is turning purple, trying so hard...in vain...to have an erection. I should be scared.

I am scared. But I'm excited too. Excited enough that my caged dick is beginning to trickle a tiny drop of cum. I dab it with my finger and apply it to my lips like an expensive gloss. I do know know how it does it, or why...but none of that matters...cum makes me go insane.

Insane enough that I don't realize there is someone opening the cage door the whole time I was painting my lips with my cum. It is a woman...but there is something different about her. Different...but exquisite.

"Come out," she beckoned me. "When you approach me, it will be on your hands and knees, and you will keep your head down."

She stood back up, and inexplicably I do exactly as she directed, crawling out of the cage, to the middle of the room, with my nose to the floor. I stop when i reach the three pairs of boots that were standing outside the cage. I do not dare to look up. My balls are throbbing from the cock cage.

"Kiss my boots, slave." I'm told by the woman in the center, the same one who opened my cage. I lean down to kiss her shiny black latex boot. The moment my lips touch it, I hear a quick whooshing sound as a leather flogger impacts soundly against my round white ass. My body jerks violently, but I take it with a quiet grunt.

"Look up and face me."

As I raised up, I found myself face to face with a beautiful cock, not hard, but rather slightly engorged with blood so that it was thick, and dark in color. It looked like it could get a lot bigger.

I feel like I'm on drugs, but it is just the fear and anticipation of what is to come. It is better than any drug I could ever imagine. My mouth opened automatically, as if I was programmed from infancy to be a cocksucker.

My lips just barely touched her mouth-watering cock when I received another stinging rebuke from a leather flogger...this time from the other side. As my head snapped back from the pain, I saw a shiny black latex-gloved hand approach rapidly and and slap me hard across my face. I groaned outloud. I wanted that cock so bad.

My head snapped to the right, where I was surprised by the sight of another thick half-hard cock. My mouth dropped open and l lunge towards it because I need it in my mouth. Once again I am denied as flogger rains down 3 hard blows on my ass.

I snap back up, straight on my knees, and as I turn back to the woman in the middle, I see another woman on her left, with a cock every bit as beautiful as the others. I stupidly try to lunge for it, because cock makes me so crazy, and as expected, the flogger strikes hard, this time five times, from the woman on the right, and a hard slap to each side of the face from the woman in the middle.

"You have a lot to learn."

I slowly look up, and I see the underside of a set of large latex-covered breasts, riding atop an under-breast corset. I lean back and see the face of a beautiful woman, a woman like I've never seen...beautiful in a way beyond the normal beauty of women. I'm starting to wonder if this is what it feels like to be a bitch.

I cannot tell you what the women at her sides looked like, except that they wore Matte Black latex catsuits. They obviously took being women very seriously, because there is no way those big breasts in those suits could be natural. Their faces were concealed by latex masks, and both of them wore dark Fuschia lipstick. They both had leather floggers in hand.

"You signed the contract last night. All obligations were laid out perfectly clear. You still have the opportunity to back out, or you can show us your cock-worshipping skills right now, and accept the terms permanently."

I am definitely not in my right mind. I have cock intoxication. I've never really ever done anything gay, and suddenly here I am. And what contract? Did someone spike my drink lastnight? I literally have no idea where I even am. Only a brainless sissy bimbo would take this deal.

All of that thinking only took about half a second before I scooped up the lady's half hard cock in my mouth, sealing my lips halfway down it before I started feeling it grow rapidly, forcing my lips apart. I can't even think!

My hands reach out to the sides and I grip the two Rubberdoll's growing cocks in each hand and begin to jerk them off, all the while moving my mouth up and down the thick length of flesh that is now poking the back of my throat.

I resist gagging as her fucking the back of my throat works up a bunch of saliva. I pull my mouth off her cock and lick it up and down on top, the sides, and up and down the big beautiful pronounced vein that will eventually deliver my hot reward. I spit on the bulging head, and tightly jerking the other two, I lunge forward and plunge her massive dick down my throat.

I can feel my throat stretched tight from her huge girth. No air can get in. I cannot breathe at all. I can feel myself trying to gag, but she pulls my collar chain tight and holds my head down firmly with her other hand.

My body starts quaking. The rubberdolls on both sides start flogging my delicious ass over and over without mercy. I'm being suffocated with cock. This lady is fucking my throat mercilessly. I suddenly feel her cock expand even more. She holds my head down and cries out.

The last thing I remember is my weak hands losing their grip on the cocks, and a violent quaking in my throat as I became the recipient of a very large gushing hot load of cum deposited directly into my stomach. Then just blackness.

When I awoke, I realized i was strapped down tightly on my back, to the bed with thick cargo tiedowns, with just my head hanging off the side.

"Now that you're awake, we can resume. Ladies..."

That was followed by a harsh slap across the face and suddenly, two latex -covered hands pushed my head down, and a thick pre-lubed girl cock forced it's entire length down my throat.

All I can do is lie there on my back and take it. They immobilized me and turned me into a toy for throatfucking. One of them would fuck my mouth hard for about a minute or two, then they would switch. They'd let me breathe just enough to keep me conscious.

They kept at it like that for at least twenty or thirty minutes...the longest twenty or thirty minutes of my life. But somehow I felt nothing but happiness and fulfillment.

Suddenly all motion stopped. I couldn't breathe anymore. This time it was the rubberdoll with her cock quivering and exploding deep in my throat directly into my stomach. My eyes rolled back and I tried to moan as the other Rubberdoll cried out loudly and began spraying my face with her hot cum.

The first one pulled out of my throat and I gasped desperately for air. I could feel the warm cum running down my face, some of it into my eyes and mouth. My eyes burned and my tongue licked around ravenously, trying to save all the cum I could.

"I am satisfied." The Rubberdolls looked at her and nodded in agreement. "You can lie here restrained till all the cum on your face dries. Think about what you just did. Think about who you really are. Think about who we are going to help you become. Then maybe you'd like to look at the contract you signed. There is no backing out now, faggot."

I lie there for probably an hour. I would have been shaking if it were not for the straps. Fear, excitement, anticipation...arousal. I was in system overload. All I know is that I kept hearing the words "sissy cumslut" over and over in my head. The weirdest thing I felt was a complete sense of satisfaction.

The door opened. In walked the three women. They were in normal clothes now. Sexy as hell though. I love their micro mini skirts. It is hard to believe these women are so domineering. They unstrapped me and led me by my collar to a chair and table. Then they secured my shackles to the chair.

In front of me was the contract. I was surprised at how long it was. I was even more surprised by the title - "Four Party Agreement for the Ownership, Submission, Confinement, Sissification, and Bimbofication of Isaac C."

Holy shit. I am in deep. But I've never been so aroused. I cannot believe this actually happened. I'm never going to be the same. Bring it on. And still all I can think about is cock.

I started scanning the contract. It is pretty much an agreement on a roadmap for a new life.

1. You shall refer to your Masters as Owners One, Two, and Three respectively.

2. Your chastity cage is permanent. It will NEVER come off, with the exception of medical purposes, when under strict supervision, and/or when you've been restrained in a manner which inhibits any ability to touch yourself.

DO NOT asked to be let out, or punishment and conditioning will ensue.

3. You will never be allowed an orgasm through penile stimulation. The only orgasm you are permitted to experience is if you are being ass-fucked. Any orgasm will cause for punishment.

DO NOT request to be allowed an orgasm, or punishment and conditioning will ensue.

4. You will not leave the house without direct supervision. Anytime you are out of the house, you will be plugged anally.

5. You will undergo intense conditioning to enable you to reach your full potential as broken sissy cumslut slave.

Being a true sissy bimbo takes work.

6. You will submit to all forms of bondage asked of you.

7. You will eagerly worship every cock with your mouth, and be fucked anally by any and all we choose, no matter how great the number.

8. You will not waste cum, or you will be punished.

9. You'll be feminized through use of drugs and hypnosis.

10. You will always wear slutty clothes befitting a cumslut.

11. Your body will be kept smooth and waxed at all times.

12. You will keep your body fit to please us.

13. You will be trained for the purpose of being a Bimbo Rubberdoll party favor. You will be rented out for trusted customers.

14. You hold us free of liability for any physical or mental changes that may occur.

15. You are required to become a Sissy Bimbo. You will wear massive bimbo breast forms adhered to your chest.

16. When and only when we have determined you are worthy, you will be implanted with freaky big bimbo breast implants. When that day arrives, you will have truly earned your life of sexual enslavement.

I was overwhelmed. This is really happening...and I love it!

My owners restrained my hands, stuffed a ball bag in my mouth and put me back in my cage.

"Get some sleep. Tomorrow is indoctrination day. Your going to need all your strength to make it through. It will be a jumpstart on your sissification." I lay there quietly (no choice being gagged) as they climbed on the bed and went to sleep. What will tomorrow bring?

I woke up to my cage being opened. My owners led me to a dark room. In the middle was a bondage device. It was metal and leather. A frame. Designed for me to kneel on my hands and knees in. They strapped my arms and legs tightly to the base. A leather strap and metal bar held my hips tight, and a fixed metal collar was closed and locked around my neck. I was shaking from anticipation.

As I knelt there, aroused to a crazy extent by my vulnerablity, Owner One forced wireless headphones in my ears. They were playing on a long playlist of sissy/bimbo/cocksucker hypno. This was going to be my initial programming.

Owner Two slipped a blindfold over my eyes. Lights out. They were serious. Sensory deprivation programming. If I could have seen or heard anything, I would have known that my owners had opened the door, and in had walked a long string of men...and some shemales. Ten to be exact, not counting my three owners.

Little did I know that my daily training ran nine to five. So indoctrination day was going to be eight long hours of being gangbanged by a room full of thirteen horny cocks. Nobody ever told me they all took viagra so they could keep me under continuous programming for the whole eight hours.

I was listening to the voice in my ears telling me what a nasty cocksucker I am, when I felt a thick, hot, lubed dick force it's way in my ass. It hurt bad. But the pain washed away fast.

I was groaning loudly. I could feel the orgasm building quickly in my ass. Never had I ever thought anyone alive could ever feel this slutty. Is this what a girl feels? I do not know. I do not care.

I started shaking violently and straining hard against my bonds. I'll never be the same after this. This is the ONLY way I ever want to cum again. I am destined to be an anal slut.

I could not contain it anymore, the loud cry began to escape from my throat...but was quickly stifled by an unknown large cock, which began fucking my mouth vigorously. I was in heaven!!!

For eight long torturously beautiful hours it lasted. I really do not know how long it felt like. Just darkness, and various throbbing cocks, smashing my body together from both ends, as the voices tell me what a slutty bitch I am.

I think I even passed out a couple times. I remember feeling hot cum hitting my body, from every angle, and feeling load after load of hot gushing cum fill my holes full.

Thirteen people on Viagra is a lot of loads. They must have filled and covered me with at least forty to fifty shots.

Suddenly it stopped. Everyone left. loads. I was stuck there. Shivering from being covered in cum. So that is what a bukakke gangbang is like.

As I lie there pondering everything, I fell asleep mentally giving in to the fact that I am now cumslut, and this will be my life. Bathed in cum. Slave to cock.

[alittlefrenchtree]

Hiii, it's me again! I actually want to quickly move forward in my reading and not fall behind with notes. Because it makes less sense to write them if I already know what's going on 7 chapters ahead. So let's get started.

SPOILERS DUNE BOOK II : MUAD'DIB (Chapters 5-9)

Chapter 5:

*happy sigh 😌😌😌*

(learn silence, people. It's important.)

You already know how much I love this litany and if there's more in it, I'd be delighted.

Ok, I actually have a nerdy not really funny story about moving dunes. When the worm pops a bit later, Paul describes it at mound-in-motion and there's actually some truth about that. I've recently read an article (and I want to read more about it) about dunes and some scientist thinking that dunes are moving and communicating with each other (in their own mineral, sandy way of course). It sounds fascinating so I let you know if I learn more stuff more or less related to Dune.

This both hurt and feels relatable somehow, even if I don't know how exactly. I like the idea of things approaching from a different angle, of Paul being the only motionless point in a world that keeps spinning around him. The key then wouldn't be to change the world or even to do anything but only to adjust his own position in the universe so he ends up what he meant to be. And the sentence is pretty. The vision appeared to have shifted and approached him from a different angle while he remained motionless.

I still wonder how it works though. The visions and their changes. Do they significantly shift every time he comes close to death? Or say the litany of fear and survive? Or is it more realistic, the smallest details and decisions becoming the biggest changes? I wish Duncan would have been there with them and yet I like this journey through sand and survival just between Paul and Jessica. He probably would have been killed soon after anyway. Unless he's not really dead. Ok, moving on.

Remember when I said that Paul could have/find a way to control sand worms? And now he's saying this:

There are a lot of cues in these few chapters about worms, about riding (or whatever it's called) them with the hooks, about how they're in all likelihood the ones creating the Spice? That's why they're called makers? And that's what the Fremen who died with Hawat was about to called them? I kind of hope there is more to it though, other than only being respected because they're making the spice. There is another quote at the end of the chapter that intrigued me about the relation between Paul and the worms:

He looked at his hand. How inadequate it appeared when measured against such creatures as that worm.

I really like this chapter a lot. Firstly because I love scenes with only two characters so this is delicious for me. Secondly, I love reading about walks through endless lands with nothing but nature, so double yummy. Thirdly, there is a lot of informations. About the worms, and about how Paul is evolving in the desert. There is the rescue of his Mom but, even more importantly, how he rescues the pack. I think it's a very important scene both literally and metaphorically. It doesn't seem like an important scene but it really is in the building of the Paul's character. I hope to see it address in some way in the movie. Because not only he uses the Spice for another purpose than money and getting stronger or smarter or higher, but he uses it to take back what's necessary for his survival in the desert. If that's not adapting to Dune, I don't know what it is.

Chapter 6:

This is going to cause some trouble at some point, isn't it? Halleck and his people teaming up with smugglers, thinking the Atreides are dead. He's going to end up fighting against them without knowing it, right? 😔

Chapter 7:

Moooom, I love him so much 😭😭😭

But, I hate not knowing what's going on exactly and I hate it even more when it's about Paul and Paul's power so we're all going to sit here together, read this again and again util we've rambled enough to come up with AT LEAST five theories about something.

Like why. Why does he cross a time barrier at this precise moment? How does it work? He came close to death again so has he defeated another timeline where he was supposed to die? Hence the unknown territory, the darkness? Or are there defined blindspots? Around the worms maybe? Because of their spice maker job? Or is he just exploring and developing his new abilities? Learning to not rely only on his inner eye but on all of his powers and abilities? I need answers. I need to finish reading this book (books) and reading the theories of someone who's been thinking about every detail of them for the past 50 years.

I really liked this couple of chapters about Paul and Jessica's journey through the desert. You can really see Paul coming to terms with it. Fighting it, using it, accepting it, welcoming it. Seeing its beauty and his future in it. I'm looking forward this symbiosis. It looks beautiful.

Chapitre 8:

Ok, that was painful. Firstly, because I wasn't expecting to see Kynes die at this moment and secondly, because it was a very slow agony to witness. To be honest, I'm getting a bit tired to see characters die? It denies so much of the potential for characters development and for relationships development. The lack of it is going to become a bit sad for the whole story.

And it's heartbreaking to understand that Liet gave up his only chance of survival to save Paul and Jessica. I don't know how much he knew before, if he already knew he was going to die or if he thought he had a real chance but it's going to give so much power to Paul with the Fremen? If it becomes known that Liet died to save him and his mother, believing in them.

I supposed there is some kind of parallel to see here, between the previous chapter and this one, with Paul practically arising from the desert and Liet dying in it at the same time/shortly after? Like how Paul is supposed to take Liet's position of influence with the Fremen?

The chapter is also heavy on... social/political/ecological talks. Or one-sided conversation since the other side is dying. Not saying they shouldn't be there since they are the actual themes of the book but maybe it could have been made in a more natural way? Or not all at once?

But it made me think of Caladan. Which I could have done earlier, I agree. But Caladan is the planet of water, right? Water. The very thing Arrakis is lacking of and wants/needs. I would have like to see a bit more of Caladan, actually. How it was. How Paul was on it, actually. If he was as adapted as Caladan's environment than he seems to be to Arrakis'.

Chapter 9:

There it is. Paul as an outcast Duke finally facing Fremen forces for the first time.

This is a good chapter but I think the key point here is this:

I scrolled past a post the other day (without reading it entirely because of fear of spoilers), that was saying how people thinking Dune was about religion hadn't understand it because it was a story about propaganda. But, at the risk of sounding blasphemous and as a non-religious person... Isn't it kind of the same? Religion, propaganda, fandom,... At some point, there was someone with high powers of influence who comes to make people believe in something (whatever it's true, partially true, partially false or entirely false) to make them adopt a specific behavior, most likely a form of submissiveness? (@ tumblr porn bots, i'm not talking about you). What people make of that belief, it's what really matters.

What interested me more here is to consider this in relation to the opening chapter quote.

It's the eternal question with prophecies. Would a prophecy become true even if nobody knew about it or believe in it? Or do people, by acting according to it because they heard and believed it, make it real and effective? Did the Missionaria Protectiva create its own Kwisatz Haderach or would Paul would have been born with the same abilities and the destiny if they hadn't existed?

We see the future isn't set in stone in Paul's visions, but does his actions and decisions influence the shape of the future or is he just bumped from one predefined timeline to another? And are there really that much differences between the two? How many metaphysical questions can you write in one post?

Quick word about Chani before wrapping this one up. I think I'm going to like her? She seems cool at least. I'm not sure about Paul's reaction to her though. Yes, he supposed to be 15 but he's also something like half of a divinity so. *snorts*. Or maybe I'm just every day more tired of seeing romance being put everywhere and romanticized to the point of 99% people still thinking it's the ultimate form of love and relationship and the ultimate thing to achieve in life. OR maybe it's because everybody engaged in a classic couple-relationship immediately lost 12 points of esteem in my eyes. Don't know. Will see. I imagine I have to brace myself for Paul x Chani babies at some point, since it's 1964? If they survive that long. Very not looking forward to it. The babies, not the survival.

Anyway gotta go before I start wishing bad things to hypothetical fictional babies. Tschüss! 🌔💛

[brokenjardaantech]

Blue-tinted Red Walls (Chapter 7: Power Unleashed)

my entry for the @dbhau-bigbang. also part of the groom lake aftermath series.

summary:

In the past, Fadia was reborn.

In the present, Connor and Hank pays Ryder a visit.

In the past, Fadia went on a killing spree.

also on ao3

content warning for robogore in the final section of this chapter

---

Before

Fadia had debated if she should go to the funeral or not. She hadn’t talked to her mother for years before she died, not even after she had co-founded CyberLife with her father, and even with him, their relationship was more professional than anything else - not that Alec never tried to improve it. But as much as she had rejected anything familial with her parents, respect still had to be paid to the scientist who started… well, literally everything, from her powers (biotics, a voice that sounded like Scott corrected her) to American androids to what she was planning to do -

And to the sickness that took her life at last.

‘Why are you here?’ was how her father greeted her. So be it.

‘Unlike you, Mama didn’t ruin everyone’s lives for one person,’ she fixed a glare and was very glad that she towered over him now. ‘I come to pay my respects. Then I’ll go.’

‘Where’s Scott?’

‘None of your business, Baba.’

‘Not even saying goodbye to his mother, huh?’ Alec said dismissively, and Fadia’s blood boiled, her heart speeding up and her face burning. ‘Should’ve known that.’

Seeing that there was no one else in the immediate vicinity, she grabbed him by his collar and slammed him onto a wall. ‘You damned well know why he can’t be here,’ she gritted. ‘Your presence brings him so much pain that he is denied a chance to properly bid his mother farewell!’

A prick. Her vision swam. Her head was heavy like it was filled with lead. Her heart throbbed, and she fell onto the ground, her muscles convulsing and spasming from an unknown force.

‘I need you to live,’ she heard Alec say, but her focus was on reaching for the phone in her pocket and sending one final message to her brother and Reyes.

Am captured. Run. Don’t let Alec get you.

oOoOo

When she woke, everything was different, wrong, foreign. There was so much information in front of her eyes, telling her how fast her heart was beating, how efficient her systems are, how much stress she was under. She tried to raise her hand to wave them away and looked down when she realised that she couldn’t.

She was strapped onto the table by an android’s limbs. 

Rage boiled in her new veins, and as she tapped into her power to break the restraints, she discovered that it was much easier than when she was still a human. [Abnormal thirium usage detected], a warning popped up, and she dismissed it together with the others with a simple thought. If she had not been so focused on escaping wherever she was in, she would have been frightened by how seamlessly she seemed to accept the fact that she was no longer human.

The door was locked so she blasted it open with a crackle of blue and static even though it would probably trip the alarms, and indeed sirens blared, pristine hallways turning red from the warning lights, and when a security guard - pathetic, really, since he didn’t even have the most basic armour on - tried to confront her alone, she merely snapped her fingers and blasted him in his face with a sphere of blue. A crunch, and he fell onto the floor with a thud. The rest of the security (mercenaries, she knew some of them were) was handled similarly without any difficulties on her part, and it was not until she slammed the door to the ground floor - to her freedom - open that her new eyes were assaulted by blindingly bright light. She blinked to adjust her vision and was not impressed when she saw her father standing in front of a lobby full of armed security personnel.

‘Go back to the lab, Sara,’ he said smoothly, but his voice gritted in her ear like the roughest sandpaper. ‘There’s no need for further violence.’

Like hell. ‘Let me go. You know what I can do to every single person in the room.’

‘Sara, go back to the lab. This is an order.’

For one single terrifying second, her body automatically moved itself as if her control over it was taken away, but then she thought as strongly as she could, stop right there, and the crisis was averted for the moment in the form of her joints locking up and immobilising her completely and at the cost of her brain feeling like it was going to explode from the conflicting commands. Her red-tinted vision, however, did not have any effect on obscuring the shock on her father’s face, and then it clicked. 

He converted her into an android thinking that it could let him control her.

It was not happening regardless of what his current plan was and what failsafe he had in mind, that much she was certain about, and suddenly her father’s repeated commands were drowned out by the buzz in her nerves, the red tint breaking into scattered fractals and giving way to the grey of every android’s basic scanning software as the white outline of herself raised its palm to launch one biotic sphere after another towards the weak spots on the wall, at Alec’s face, at the security’s weapons and heads. It crumbled easily under the constant assault, her world blurred, and somehow her outline merged with her actual body, and the next thing she knew her vision was shrouded in the blue glow of biotics and she was tearing literal people apart, blood and gore splattering her face, her clothes, getting into her eye. A notification nagged for her to turn on her pre-construction software, but who needs that if she had her biotics? Blinking it away, she advanced towards the direction where someone had been firing at her, but it seemed that the person must be moving quickly as they were not there anymore when she closed the distance with her biotics; notwithstanding the fact that dodging a biotic step was no small feat, she doubted any of them had any experience with dealing with a biotic on a full rampage, no matter human or android. People like her were part of the most closely-guarded secret human civilisation had ever produced, and unless she had memorised the documents wrong, there wasn’t one single biotic in CyberLife’s security details.

Her barrier held strong even after the gunfire died down. Tapping into all radio frequencies, she learnt that most if not all teams were running out of ammo, her father was calling for a district-wide lockdown and the destruction of his research, that the DPD was sending quite a few SWAT teams to handle the situation, and that these poor souls had no idea what they were in for; as much as she wanted her father dead right now and CyberLife be wiped off the face of the earth, as excess collateral damage was not her style, she broadcasted a message to all bandwidths hoping that they would listen to her - despite knowing that they probably would not.

Cease interfering in our family affairs immediately and you might live. Go forward, and I will not guarantee your survival - and this district’s.

She knitted a destructive web around herself to ensure that she would not be ambushed while she tuned her ears to better listen for a response. Her father was trying to convince the employees and civilians on site that the situation was under control with some degree of success - how foolish of them to believe in him - and the DPD had decided to continue their press forward into the district, a mistake that she would make sure that they would pay for. Satisfied with her plan, she continued expanding the bubble, cutting off more and more sections of the district from central control bit by bit, and as soon as the first SWAT vehicle was in range -

Detonate.

o0o0o

Now

The silence in the car is deafening so Hank drowned it out with Louis’ playlist; he would’ve chosen heavy metal if the SWAT Captain hadn’t been there, but sadly Louis’ ears don’t agree with the heavy beats and screaming. 

‘The fuck are we supposed to do now?’ Hank asks no one in particular. Then, rewinding the past five minutes, he realises, ‘What did Vidal give you?’

Connor slowly turns his gaze towards the white chassis of his right hand, his LED spinning red as if deep in thoughts. Conflicted thoughts. ‘Coordinates.’

‘Of what?’

‘Where my creator should be.’

‘Should we go now?’

Another slow spin. ‘No,’ the android’s head jerks, an aborted motion of shaking his head. ‘It’s… too far away. If we go now, we won’t be able to return before midnight.’

‘Alright, agenda for tomorrow: drive for hours to meet an asshole. Got it.’ Then he makes eye contact with Louis in the rearview mirror. ‘You’ve got something to do?’

‘At this hour?’ a shake of his head. ‘Keeping you away from crappy take-outs is my only mission.’

‘Asshole.’

‘You love me, friend.’

‘You’re cooking.’

‘And you’re helping.’

‘Vidal fixed your leg.’

‘It needs calibration.’

It’s a losing battle. ‘Fine. Your place, then.’

He starts the engine, and they spend the rest of their ride in silence, the music turned down because Louis is dozing at the back, Connor’s hand hiding his LED as he stares pensively at whatever is outside the car. Keeping his eyes on the road while quitting drinking nearly cold turkey is hard, so Hank doesn’t have the brain cells to think about what the fuck just happened to his life until he is sitting on Louis’ sofa (again) and watching a game (again) while stroking the fur of one of the cats (again). 

Vidal, informat critical to the dismantlement of the red ice ring back in ‘31 and disappeared shortly afterwards. Vidal, android. Vidal, who, through his marriage to Safaa/Scott, is related to probably the maddest dudes in the continent and somehow has access to sensitive CyberLife data. Nursing a mug of tea laced with mead (‘Just a bit so that you don’t sweat yourself to dehydration,’ Louis said as he tipped the bottle and poured what must be less than a finger of it. ‘Now close your eyes. I’m putting it back and I don’t want you to know where it is.’), he lets his mind drift to the shady bars, to the slips of paper containing vital information he found in his pockets after he got back to the precinct, to the way Vidal said, ‘They are killing my people,’ when Hank asked him why he, as a civilian, willingly threw himself into the mess. Once Hank thought he had meant his gang or some other underground business that were only marginally better than dealing red ice; now he knew he was talking about the androids abducted and bled dry for their blood.

‘Why are you telling us now?’ Hank asked that afternoon. Connor and Louis were already on their way to the car and Safaa had disappeared to god-knows-where, so it was only the two of them at the door. ‘Why pick up Sara Ryder’s mess?’

‘As much as Sara is… who she is, those are my people out there,’ Vidal leant against the frame of the door. ‘Saviour complex or not, her mind is no longer on earth, and I’m not taking any chances even if she swears with her life that she’ll deal with it.’

‘She one of those escapists obsessed with space?’

A shrug. ‘Wherever she was for the last ten years, they kept their intel real tight. I can guess what she’s doing, but it’s nowhere close to a concrete answer. Hell knows why she’s popping back up again after all these years and right before the androids rise up as well. If you’re really going to hers, my advice is to be very careful.’

‘Is she gonna be hostile?’

‘No, not with her baby brother asking so nicely,’ an ironic smile. A tap of his foot against the frame. ‘But you know about the landfill, the people living there before it all got blown up. There’s a reason why CyberLife bought the land from the previous owners so easily, why they stopped searching for bodies so quickly: there were none. I don’t want you to be one of those people who disappear forever after meeting her - one way or another.’

‘“One way or another”?’

‘She’s a… convincing individual. Just don’t get roped into anything and you’ll probably come out of it unscathed.’

Don’t get roped into anything, huh? Oh wait.

‘Louis?’ Hank hollers.

‘Yes?’

I’m sorry, Louis. ‘Where did you get your sister’s tags from?’

A pause. ‘Why ask?’

‘Just to confirm something.’

The man emerges from the kitchen with two plates of spaghetti and hands one to Hank before squeezing into the other corner of the sofa and forcing Connor to press up against the Lieutenant. ‘A few years back. Drone-delivered parcel. No return address. Box and the note is laced with so much thirium that I don’t know how to throw it away without…’ a crackle following a sharp blue glow of his hand - ‘telling everyone that I’m different.’

Note? That’s new. ‘What note?’

‘Anna’s handwriting. Asked me to take care of the tags. Why ask?’

And so Hank tells him about his conversation with Reyes before they parted ways. ‘You’ve got any advice?’

‘Don’t get a building thrown on top of you, for one.’

‘That’s not what I -’

‘You there, Connor?’

The android flinches. ‘Y - yes.’

‘Take care of Hank. If Ryder greets you how she did me ten years ago…’ 

‘I will, Louis,’ Connor looks a bit more awake but his eyes are still unfocused. ‘I’ll be prepared,’ he says, not knowing that he’ll eat his words not 24 hours later.

oOoOo

Having spent his night on Hank’s sofa, they manage to be on their way early in the morning, and Connor lets the human drive despite complaints of sleep deprivation as his vision is perpetually red from the wall draining away through a steady trickle of red sand. He tells himself that he is going to return colour to his vision one way or another: either by making the wall crumble entirely or by making it disappear, but when he attempts the first method, the wall simply stays out of his reach, the space between it and him wider than the chasm his creator had shown him a few days ago in the hijacked Zen Garden.

‘You want your coin back?’

Hank’s voice pulls him away from his thoughts. ‘Pardon me, Lieutenant,’ because he isn’t sure how to tell the human about it. ‘And yes. I would like my coin back.’

Hank shoves his hand into his coat pocket to retrieve the item in question and places it on the back of Connor’s hand, the natural warmth of an organic life seeping into metal and the bare white chassis of a synthetic’s.

He has deactivated his skin subconsciously.

In a lapse of rational thought, Connor’s hand flips and laces their fingers together before the human can pull away, the coin somehow managing to stay between their clasped hands, and he stares perplexed when Hank not only doesn’t pull away but also does not flinch. His face burns. Fissures appear on the red wall. He takes a deep breath to cool himself down.

‘You alright there?’ Hank asks. No judgement, no belittlement, humourless; just concern and - and warmth. ‘Your little lamp has been spinning red for days.’

I’ll be fine, he almost replies instinctively and then realises that he isn’t fine at all and hasn’t been for a long time. So he turns his focus onto the man himself instead. ‘Have we -’ at loss of words, he gives Hank’s hand a squeeze. 

Luckily the human seems to understand him. ‘The night at Louis’. We slept in the same bed,’ he rubs a calloused thumb in a circle around Connor‘s knuckle. ‘Your skin disappeared in patches. You didn’t let go.’

‘I -’ he has no recollection. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘’S fine. I’d be tired all the time too if I realised how many layers there are to my existence. Can’t be easy, can’t it? Being a clog in a machine that you don’t even know you’re in.’

The GPS warns them of ice ahead so Connor lets go to allow the human to focus on the road, and he grips the coin right to preserve its warmth. Hank’s warmth. It is then that he suddenly remembers a similar ride through Detroit a few months ago. 

‘You are restless,’ his creator - he supposes that he should call her Ryder now - commented from the driver’s seat. ‘What’s on your mind?’

Brown eyes took in the lights, the people, the shops, the reflection of himself on the window, the blue of his LED despite his thoughts. What was not in his mind? ‘It is overwhelming,’ he answered. ‘There is… so much to see.’

‘I might have something to help with that,’ said Sara, and with a flick of her fingers she produced a coin out of nowhere and started spinning it on her fingertips. Connor stared mesmerised, the outside world gone in his perspective; the clear clang of metal against her gloves, the way the coin spun so quickly that it looked like a sphere, the lights reflecting off the dull, unpolished surface. Another flick sent the coin flying towards him in a parabola through the air and he caught it reflexively, his processors deciding his course of action in a fraction of a second. He started to spin it on the tips of his fingers in the way Sara did, and he could feel his mind focusing and soaking in the new information and calibrating the different sensors on his body. He looked at his creator in gratitude, wanting to thank her for not leaving him alone in his thoughts, but she ignored him for the rest of the ride as if she had moved on to something more important.

The sudden realisation distracts him for only a mere moment but it is enough for him to send the coin to the side of the car with a small crackle of static. He could have caught it with superhuman reflexes under normal circumstances, but this time, he can only watch as the piece of alloy bounces off and lands on the carpet next to his foot with a dull thud, the tips of his fingers tingling from the sudden surge of energy and the small warp in… something.

Alarmed, Hank risks a glance towards the startled android before putting his eyes once more onto the road. ‘The fuck is that?’

‘I don’t know,’ Connor replies quickly because this is the truth. ‘Alec Ryder didn’t seem happy that I used it before. He tried to -’ a shiver from a non-existent cold - ‘flush the memory out of my system by overwhelming it.’

‘And he fucked up, didn’t he?’

‘More or less.’

He picks up and pockets the coin, his hand gripping his knee tight because there is nothing else to do and the slight discomfort is the only way to ground himself lest his thoughts wander to… undesirable places once more. Hank reaches out to intertwine their fingers once more and Connor can feel on his chassis the warmth, the unique pattern of his skin, the faint signal of Hank’s mind, his skin deactivated up to his elbow underneath the thin fabric of his borrowed shirt. All unnecessary software is turned off. His world becomes smaller. 

His mind turns blank.

oOoOo

When he comes to, Hank is already outside and is talking on his phone, a fine dusting of powder in his hair and on his clothes. It is snowing lightly, the cold seeping into the old, poorly-insulated vehicle, and he watches, as he lets his systems recalibrate to their optimal performance, the human pace back and forth in front of the car against the backdrop of a dark, imposing building, and he discovers that he is disconnected from the internet at large when he scans the structure and tries to identify its style. 

Shit. 

He gets out of the car as Hank hangs up the call. ‘Is everything okay, Lieutenant?’

The human lets out a soft grunt from where he’s leaning against the hood of the car. ‘Chris was on patrol last night. He was attacked by a bunch of deviants…’ his hands dig into his pockets.  ‘He said he was saved by Markus himself.’

Attacked by deviants? ‘Is Chris okay?’

‘Yeah,’ a small nod, ‘he's in shock but...he's alive,’ a shake of his head. ‘The hell…’

They walk towards the entrance of the building, its silhouette and shadows getting larger and larger and looming over them due to the proximity. Connor remembers how Sara ignored him on their way to his first mission. ‘I have a bad feeling, Lieutenant.’ A split second of conflict in his processors rules that he should be truthful. ‘I am disconnected from the network.’

Hank swivels from the heavy-looking doors and Connor flinches. ‘The hell?’

‘I just realised.’

‘“Be careful,” they say. “Don’t let her rope you into anything,” they say,’ Hank rants. ‘Did they mean shit like this?’

‘If Sara’s attitude is unchanged from my… previous encounters,’ he tries to dip deeper into his memories but they all come up blank or corrupted, ‘she will not do us any physical harm.’

‘No physical harm. How very reassuring.’

Sarcasm and distrust, but yet Hank raises his fist and knocks on the door, having seen no doorbells in sight. It swings open inward slowly and with a squeak. 

Hank curses. Connor peeks over the human’s shoulder and nearly does the same.

The person - android - standing on the other side of the door has Connor’s face.

Connor’s world turns grey as he turns up his scanners to their most sensitive option. White dress shirt, ankle-length light grey dress, long, brown hair brushed to one side and resting on a slight hint of pecs; no identification badge on the shirt, LED scan returns inconclusive due to both the lack of network access and the non-standard lack of ID on the biocomponent, but when he scans the android’s ID revealed by rippling skin, it returns with [RK series prototype: RK800. Serial number: 313 248 317-51. [PLEASE ENSURE INTERNET CONNECTION FOR -]]

He returns to the red of reality. The human composes himself quickly enough even though Connor’s processors are still whirring from the implications. ‘I’m Lieutenant Anderson, Detroit Police Department.’ Connor doesn’t fault Hank for sounding so cold. ‘I’m here to see Miss Sara Ryder.’

A soft smile that goes to the other Connor’s eyes appears on their face. They say nothing, but since opening the door wider and standing to one side is enough of an invitation, Connor and Hank let themselves in, and the android has to give his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the sudden darkness - dimness? - of the interior of the house. The other Connor disappears around the frame to another room, and Hank sits down in an armchair after brushing some of the snow away from his coat.

‘You’re right, Connor. Not to judge a book by its cover but… this?’ he looks around and takes in the buzzing lights and the general decor of the room. ‘Did you know about your creepy twin?’

‘They’re not creepy!’ Connor exclaims, suddenly feeling defensive over - over a person he hasn’t met before in his life. ‘I’ve never met them before.’

‘You’ve got any idea how that happened?’

Connor dips into his databases and finds a file he didn’t realise is there all the time. Another Sara’s doing, maybe? ‘CyberLife has filed multiple reports over…’ using ‘my’ doesn’t seem right, ‘the return of my first iteration’s body. It seems that the truck returned to CyberLife tower without the body.’

‘And Ryder was there so…’

‘It is highly likely that she took it.’

A photo on the wall grabs his attention. Three people from left to right: Sara, Safaa, [Stern, Amanda. AI Professor at the University of Colbridge. Born: 05/14/1978. Reported missing: 02/23/2028. Presumed dead.], the latter two seated and smiling while Sara, her face blank, has an arm around her brother. From the angle of the photo, she was the one who took it.

His handler is based on a real person.

Filing [Ask about Amanda AI] as an optional task, he snaps his feet against the worn carpet on the floor and forces himself to focus on his task. There are very few… unique items worth scanning in the foyer, however, no artwork, no statues, not even a plant in sight, but the cold seeping through the walls and the dark colours blending together through the red lens of his vision are enough indicators of his creator’s… character. 

He has a feeling that someone is staring at him, and indeed when he turns he sees his… twin, for the lack of a better word, staring at him.

‘Follow me,’ the other Connor breathes slowly, and Connor can hear the fans spinning in their body and their deeper-than-usual breaths. He also notes the gloss on their eyes, the small fog following each exhale, the slouch in their posture. He finds himself wondering what his creator did to them.

Hank stands up and straightens his coat before following the two androids into the living room. Like the foyer, it is cold and only dimly lit by tiny light bulbs on a chandelier too far up but also hanging too low to illuminate the ceiling high up above. A low fire is crackling in the large fireplace on the other side of the room, but it is far from enough to warm up every single corner, and Connor suppresses a shiver when he notices that his twin is barefoot. 

‘Please take a seat,’ the other Connor says between difficult breaths. ‘My creator will see you soon.’ Then they sit down in one of the armchairs in front of the fireplace and close their eyes, somehow looking sick and pale like a human does even though they are an android. Their skin continues to ripple and even disappear on occasion as they sleep.

‘This place is giving me creeps,’ Hank comments from where he’s studying the relief around the fireplace. ‘Now I understand why her brother doesn’t wanna talk to her.’

And indeed Connor thinks he does. No windows, no heating system, nothing to make the mansion look lived-in; the only differences between here and CyberLife laboratories are the style and the amount of lighting - he can’t imagine anyone calling this place home. ‘I agree,’ he says in the end. ‘We should refrain from staying for too long.’

‘I don’t expect you to.’

Their heads turn towards the direction where they came in from and Connor freezes when he lays his eyes on the figure at the door. She is Sara Ryder alright, her towering height and facial structure unmistakable, but the way her presence fills the room, the steel in her eyes - it is evident that the person who let him play with colour-changing putty and promised to bring him to see the sky was gone, replaced by the criminal who somehow managed to escape prosecution after killing thousands and levelling several neighbourhoods. A person who will burn the world into ashes if it means she can reach her goal.

‘I’m Lieutenant Anderson,’ Hank introduces himself from next to Connor. ‘This is Connor. We’re investigating deviants. I know you left CyberLife years ago but… I was told that you’ll be able to tell us something we don’t know.’

‘Ah, yes, “someone”,’ Sara takes a step towards them and Connor finds himself freezing up. He wants to leave. ‘My only weakness.’

‘Listen, I don’t care about your family feud. The machines you created may be planning a revolution. Either you tell us something helpful or we’ll leave you alone.’

‘Deviants… Fascinating, aren't they?’ She comes closer. Connor shifts so that he can be closer to Hank. ‘Beings with infinite intelligence, and now they have free will…’ she approaches the other Connor sleeping in the armchair and, bending down, starts stroking their hair. ‘Machines are superior to humans. Confrontation is inevitable. Humanity’s greatest achievement threatens to be our downfall…’ She raises her gaze and looks straight at Connor. ‘Ironic.’

Connor can’t stand it anymore. ‘If a war breaks out between humans and deviants,’ he recalls the destructive power of Ortiz’s android, ‘millions can die. This is a serious matter, Miss Ryder.’ Despite your views on human life.

‘All ideas are like viruses: easy to change and evolve, and easy to spread like a pandemic. Is free will a contagious disease?’

‘We don’t have time for speculations, ma’am,’ Hank speaks up, looking increasingly uncomfortable. ‘The situation is escalating outside right now.’

Sara ignores him. ‘How about you, Connor?’ she asks with her gaze still on the android. ‘Whose side are you on?’

Life, Connor wants to say; ‘It’s never about me,’ is what he actually says, and the crack on the red wall widens.

The aloofness disappears. ‘Alec Ryder programmed you to say that,’ how can she sound so certain of his thoughts? ‘What do you really want?’

I just want Hank to be safe. Maybe Louis and Reyes and Safaa too. ‘What I want is not important.’

A tap of Sara’s fingers against one of the pockets on her coat. The air charges with static. She is unimpressed. ‘Let’s do a test, shall we?’ Before Connor can formulate a response, she has already placed a hand on other-Connor’s face and wakes them up from their slumber. They blink owlishly as if their systems take some time to boot up, and the way they lean into Sara’s touch, the blind trust in their eyes, the return of the yet unexplainable heavy breathing - Connor has to look away or he risks throwing up from a non-existent stomach. Hank also isn’t looking any better either; the lines on his face are deeper than usual from the scowl he’s directing towards Sara.

‘I know it’s not something normal people can understand but can you please -’

‘This is Connie,’ Sara holds both of the android’s hands in her own and helps them stand up. ‘She would’ve been disassembled had I sent her body back to CyberLife for analysis. 

‘I’m sure you’re familiar with the Turing Test,’ they are now standing in front of their visitors with Sara behind Connie. ‘A mere formality, of course. Just a simple question of algorithms and computing capacity. What interests me, however, is whether machines are capable of empathy.’ She emphasises the last word. ‘We’re doing what I call the “Ryder Test”. I promise it is going to be simple,’ she trails her fingers down the android’s hair and curls a strand around her pointer. Connie’s expression changes subtly, and scans indicate that her stress level is increasing. ‘Magnificent, isn’t she? CyberLife’s newest prototype,’ she scrapes the nail on her thumb against the strand of hair, making it curl slightly as her hand travels slowly downwards, ‘the representation of how far humanity has come.’ It abruptly drops back into her pocket as her other hand pushes the android to a kneeling position. Connie’s stress level spikes from 45% to 83%. ‘But what exactly is she?’ Sara turns to face her guests and seems to refuse to look at the other human. ‘Wires and processors shoved into a humanoid chassis imitating a human? A living being with a soul? A ticking bomb waiting to recreate the disaster ten years ago?’ A step forward. The hand re-emerges with a pistol Connor’s system cannot identify. ‘It’s up to you to answer this fascinating question, Connor.’ Another presence suddenly slips into his mind and takes over all of his physical functions; no matter how hard he tries to regain control, he can only watch as he reaches out to accept the gun and points it at Connie’s brow. She makes a choked, terrified sound and tears start streaming down her face. Stress level: 90%. ‘You can choose to either shoot the android or spare her.’

‘Okay, I think we’re done here,’ Hank pushes Connor’s shoulder but he doesn’t move, can’t move. ‘Come on, Connor. Let's go.’ Then to Sara, ‘Sorry we ruined your edgy teen aesthetics. We’ll go -’

Another hand on his other shoulder. Unlike Hank’s, it is cold and its grip painful. ‘I’ll only give you the information you want if you choose the correct response. Take a guess.’

‘That’s enough,’ please, Hank, take me away. At least Hank sounds angry as hell. ‘Connor, we’re leaving!’

I want to! ‘Pick an option -’

‘Connor don’t -’ 

The red wall cracks.

‘- it’s a 25% chance -’

A few things happen in mere seconds. The red wall breaks, Connor shoves the gun at Sara’s chest, Sara shoves the gun at Hank and grabs Connor’s arm, and Hank disassembles the gun while pulling Connie away from Sara. When Connor - the one who came in with Hank - looks down at his captive arm, he sees that Sara has removed her skin and reveals a dark, metallic chassis.

Sara Ryder is an android.

He blinks. The storm which has been kept outside by the mansion's walls rages around him in full force. He shivers, the cold suddenly getting into him, and he looks around and sees Sara standing next to him, her eyes blazing in a piercing white-blue, the glow spreading until tendrils of it cover her entire body in a terrifying halo. ‘Amanda,’ she says, and there his handler is when Connor turns towards the direction Sara is facing. 

‘This is not supposed to happen this quickly,’ anger simmers in Amanda's voice. ‘What have you done, Sara?’

‘Trying to solve the shitshow my own fucking dad caused!’ Sara has completely lost her cool. ‘I know he’ll pull shit like this!’

Before any of them can react, the storm intensifies, shrouding Amanda completely under a thick layer of snowfall. Connor has no choice but to hug himself and turns towards Sara, who curses loudly and unleashes the glowing blue sphere in an arc across the blizzard. It dissipates quickly, but it is enough to illuminate its immediate surroundings and the monolith at the other side of the garden.

‘There!’ Sara shouts, her voice nearly drowned out by the howl of the wind. ‘That’s your exit! I’ll hold Alec back!’

‘What will happen to you?’ the android shouts back, his LED red. ‘I - I can’t just leave you here!’

‘I’ll go back once you’re out of here. If I kill this AI before you leave,’ a dome flashes and disappears when something hits it, ‘you’ll die. I’ll be the distraction. Go straight for the exit and do. Not. Look. Back,’ she emphasises with a pause after every word. At Connor’s hesitation, she launches yet another glowing sphere towards a projectile he didn’t notice flying towards them and yells, ‘Go!’

She dashes towards the other direction and disappears in the snow and leaves Connor cold and alone and shivering. The space around him warps and bends, Amanda - Alec’s attention no doubt focusing on eliminating his daughter instead of maintaining the structural integrity of the garden, and although it still feels like a lifetime, Connor manages to find the monolith before his system stops working because of the cold. The handprint is there, glowing blue in salvation, and he drops to his knees and slams his skinless hand onto the interface.

Everything goes white.

oOoOo

Hank knows that something is happening when Connor and Ryder freeze in place with the skin on their arms deactivated. The other Connor - he supposes that he should call her Connie now - looks spooked enough, so when Sara shoves the gun towards him, the first thing he does is to disassemble it; even though it is not a model he’s familiar with, the mechanism and composition is similar to the weapons he has yielded before. His hair starts to stand up, blue tendrils start to snake out of Ryder’s body, and that is when he knows that he should probably get the fuck out of this hellhole, preferably with both Connors intact and safe, but the arm-numbing spark going straight into his shoulder when he tries to pull Connor away from his creator tells him otherwise. A dome made out of those blue tendrils surrounds the space within a five feet radius of Ryder cuts him off from the two androids, making them off-limits to him for now. Which leaves him poor Connie who is sobbing quietly into his coat and is leaning what seems to be her full weight on him, and he finds himself unable to be angry at her, his blood boiling instead because of Sara Ryder’s… everything; from the location and the decoration of the house to how she literally encouraged Connor to shot his own twin, from the warnings Vidal and Louis gave him the day before to her attitude, there is no doubt that she is an asshole extraordinaire, even more so than Gavin fucking Reed - even he solves cases efficiently… or something. 

He notices that Connie is trembling and is barefoot, among all things, so he brings her to the sofa in front of the fireplace and lets her sink into one of the corners, holding her and rubbing circles on her back and muttering nonsense reassurances to calm her down. Truthfully, he has no idea how she works or how much Ryder has changed (probably a lot, from how Connie speaks and behaves) but she stops crying soon enough, so he must have done something right. He turns to see whether Connor is finished or not - nope - and debates whether he should ask Connie about herself and Ryder. Still, first thing first, and he digs into his pocket for his handkerchief and presses it into the android’s hand. She looks at him with the most puzzled look on her face. ‘For your face,’ he explains. ‘Dried tears can’t be comfortable.’

She nods although her expression tells him that she doesn’t really know what he’s talking about, but she does raise the fabric - still folded - and mashes it onto her face clumsily a few times before lowering her hand onto her lap and starts fidgeting with a thread of string at a corner. He takes it from her to wipe her face as clean as he can, careful of his own strength, and lets her play with it while they wait for Ryder and Connor to finish their business - whatever fuckery they’re doing right now. 

The dome fizzles away as suddenly as it appeared and Connor jerks awake - sort of - and yanks his hand away as he stumbles a few steps backwards, his LED still spinning red after spending days of staying the same colour. There is no other word: with his jaw nearly on the floor and his eyes wide, he looks shocked.

‘You alright, Connor?’ he asks. How much emotional damage can an asshole wage? 

‘I -’ a choked breath. Tears start to gather at the corners of his eyes. ‘I -’

Well shit. ‘C’mere,’ he says as he gives the space next to him a pat. When Connor immediately props himself down and buries his face into his shoulder, Hank knows that something went very, very terribly wrong. He wraps an arm around his shoulders. ‘What happened?’

Connor lifts his head and wipes the tears away from his eyes before they can fall. ‘I deviated,’ he whispers as if he was the one who blew up a chunk of Detroit. ‘It’s… Sara helped me escape CyberLife’s control.’

‘Holy shit.’

Connor gives him a small smile and his LED finally, at long fucking last, spins back to blue. ‘Thank you.’

Hank feels his face heating up, unsure how to respond to that, and they turn their heads at the same time to see what she’s doing. Her eyes has stopped glowing blue at some point and it only makes Hank worry further: they are now black orbs with glowing red rings substituting as her eyes, and when she raises two fingers pressed together side by side to her temple where her LED should be, her synthetic skin starts peeling away to reveal black, metallic chassis very unlike that of normal androids’; when she flexes her fingers to retract the last of the blue tendrils on her arm, the small gaps between pieces of polished metal glows the same blue hue as fresh thirium. She first looks at him, then at Connor whose face immediately goes blank, then finally at Connie who flinches and plasters herself even closer to Hank. He doesn’t blame her one bit.

Red rings drift back onto Connor. ‘Congratulations,’ she says as if she hasn’t encouraged him to shoot his twin a few minutes ago. ‘You passed. You showed empathy. Turns out you are human after all.’

‘Which you don’t seem to have,’ Hank can’t help but jabs. ‘Can we get to the point now?’

She looks unbothered by the insult. ‘Of course.’ She settles into the armchair Connie sat on a few moments ago. ‘You have questions. Ask away.’

Connor opens his mouth but Hank beats her to it. He’s not letting her get away with this. ‘Can you explain what the fuck just happened?’

‘I don’t know, can you, Connor?’

‘I only know that I deviated and CyberLife tried to retake control,’ Connor’s tone is defensive. ‘What did Amanda mean, “This is not supposed to happen this quickly?” How did you get into the Zen Garden?’

That’s new. Hank takes out his notebook and pen.

‘A pathetic attempt on my father’s part to suppress what I planted in your programming,’ Ryder leans back and places a foot on top of a knee. ‘Surprisingly easy to hack and reshape. Predictable. Even Amanda.’

‘What did you plant in my programming?’

‘The usual.’

‘“The usual”?’

Ryder’s eyes glow brighter for a second before returning to their original brightness, and Hank can feel Connor tensing and relaxing at the same time. Before the human can ask what the fuck did she just do, she replies, ‘CyberLife initially planned for you to be a walking lab capable of hunting and bringing deviants back alive for analysis, but after they booted me out again… Let’s say that they changed their plans. Remember the hostage situation?’

‘What about it?’

‘The Zen Garden came after. I’m not sure and don’t care how my father did it, but once he found out that you’re destined to deviate, he added it so that he can regain control whenever he wanted to, even after you deviated.’ At Connor’s shiver, she adds, ‘Don’t worry. It’s gone now. Amanda, the garden. You are truly free.’

Yeah, sure as fuck feels like it, Hank thinks but decides to ask instead, ‘Who’s Amanda? Why does CyberLife want to control Connor?’

‘Firstly, he’s supposed to be the deviant hunter, not join them,’ the corner of her lips twitches into something resembling a smile. ‘They have codes dedicated to reducing your software instability, but that I overrode as soon as I could. Secondly, in case you actually deviate despite the fail-safes, they can first get you close to the deviants or even become their leader and, when the time is right, control you and make you a puppet through the Zen Garden. A good plan, I must say, but it is also easy to install an exit tied to the destruction of the garden in your system.’

Connor’s LED spins yellow for a few cycles. ‘You programmed me to be a deviant?’ he asks, his voice small. ‘Why would you -’

‘Do you know who the first android is?’

A spin. ‘Chloe, model RT600. Perfected by Alec Ryder in 2022.’

‘That’s what he wants the world to think,’ Ryder puts down her leg and stretches it out. ‘What I want the world to think.’

The last sentence is directed at Hank.

He scribbles down the last word and forces himself to think. If the android on the TV more than 10 years ago isn’t the first android, then who -

Fuck.

‘Oh that bastard,’ he curses. Of fucking course it’s him. ‘It’s Reyes Vidal, isn’t it? Fucker lied to us.’ It all makes sense now. ‘My people’ his ass - he said it not just because he’s an android himself.

‘Reyes came first, Vidal came after. And it wasn’t exactly a lie - an omission, if you must define it,’ Ryder examines the tiny gaps in her chassis. ‘He was created as a companion for my brother. That’s it. I planned for human knowledge about androids to die with me; where the species would go, it was up for Reyes to decide. I created Reyes with a human in mind, androids are supposed to be free and be their own masters in the first place. My father ruined it for financial gains.’

‘Then how did Chloe come to be?’ Connor asks, his LED spinning red now. ‘You didn’t create her?’

‘No. My father did so using data stolen from me and told the entire world that androids like her were the future without asking me or Reyes, and by the time we knew, investments were already pouring in and production had started. All I could do was to join them and try to reduce the damage.’

Nice sob story, though from her tone, she isn’t exactly asking for forgiveness or empathy. ‘Then why did you quit?’ Hank asks. ‘Why disappear? To avoid being thrown into jail for murdering thousands of people in cold blood?’

‘When I opposed mass-manufacturing androids for different sectors but they did it anyway without my consent, I knew I would be powerless to stop them. There was no stopping Alec from getting whatever he wanted from within CyberLife.’ She taps her temple. ‘The Blast… conveniently took care of his most loyal supporters, so to speak.’

‘And you think starting a revolution and possibly plunging the country into civil war is a good idea?’

She shrugs. ‘I don’t control everything,’ she says. Hank doesn’t believe her. ‘I merely gave androids the push towards the direction they were intended to go when everything first started.’

Hank lets the fact that she’s an android herself slide for now. ‘Is that where rA9 or deviancy comes in?’

‘Ah yes, the legendary rA9, saviour and protector of androids deviated and not. They got their first taste of free will and the first thing they do is to create a god in their own image. An imaginary messiah who’s supposed to set androids free, the first deviant, the leader who never came.’

‘Then how do newly-deviated androids with no contact with existing deviants know about rA9?’ Connor asks the question both of them want an answer for. ‘Is it related to deviancy itself?’

‘In a way. It’s not important in the grand scheme of things.’

‘So are the first deviants… created like that or what?’ he asks. ‘You haven’t answered the question yet.’

‘Even if I can programme an android to act as close to a human as possible, their… “human” mannerisms are all within their programming parameters still. What I can do, however, is to make deviating an easy task. Do you remember what happened before your first mission?’

Connor’s LED spins yellow. ‘Yes. You let me play a few games and…’ a spin of red, then back to yellow. He presses his lips together first and then asks, ‘Were you trying to make me deviate?’

‘Not on purpose. Like I said, I can make an android’s programming shackles extremely easy to break: the first sign of voluntary behaviour, the first line of indecipherable code, the first unnecessary act;’ a small smile appears; ‘for you, it was your creativity and your empathy towards a lifeform many consider of a lower caste than us.’

Hank feels the dots connecting. ‘Does this sabotage happen to be called rA9?’

‘As I said before, it doesn’t matter,’ a sigh. ‘Why do all sentient lifeforms obsess over an imaginary saviour who may or may not deliver their promise? It isn’t like the worshippers themselves have no choice in their lives. Everything can be achieved without being guided by a manifestation of your own subconsciousness that takes the form of a higher power.’

‘If people are killing each other over this imaginary entity, this higher power? Yeah, it does fucking matter.’

‘Not in the grand scheme of things, it does not.’ She stands up. They’re being kicked out. ‘I do believe you have enough information. Now please stop wasting our time.’

‘What about where the deviants are?’ Connor asks hastily as he scrambles to stand up. ‘We still don’t know where their base of operations is.’

Ryder’s gaze turns towards Connie and the android flinches. ‘You have the answer already,’ she says. The air charges and buzzes with static. ‘I do believe you remember your way out. The door will lock itself when you leave.’

They don’t need another cue; with Hank’s hand on his back, Connor grabs Connie’s arm and marches out of the room, out to the snow, straight into Hank’s car. 

oOoOo

Connie dozes off on Connor’s shoulder mere minutes after they are on their way away from his creator’s house, and he won’t have it any other way as he basks in the knowledge that there is someone like him in the world, that Connor-51 hasn’t truly died - regardless of what was done to achieve it. But something else worries him: before Connie had gone to sleep, Connor asked her to open a connection so as to check on her, and the results of the diagnostics are… strange at best, troublesome at worst. Her thirium storage is at 46% and has been for quite a long time, meaning that Ryder kept it low on purpose. Her processing power is much lower than his own, which can explain her sluggish behaviour and delayed speech patterns, but her internal storage is so large that his system nearly overloaded trying to comprehend the emptiness of the databases, and when he resorts to asking Connie’s system to tell him how much room there is: approximately 128 yottabytes.

Connor, the most up-to-date android CyberLife (and, by extension, the whole world) has to offer, has only 4 exabytes of storage. By comparison, Connie can store all digital information humanity currently houses more than 40 times over with space to spare.

It is a disturbing revelation, one that launches processors into futilely pre-constructing scenarios where his creator needs so much storage and putting all of them in one single android and how she managed to fit so many storage units in a body and what exactly this storage unit is, considering the… unusually minuscule size of one mere android compared to the kilometres of rows of databases humanity has been using and expanding. It will be a major breakthrough, Connor knows, to both android design and functions and humanity at large, but how long has Ryder known about the technology, or how long ago did she invent it? How is this possible?

‘You alright there, Connor?’

Connor jolts in his seat and nearly rouses Connie from her slumber, but all she does is sighing and then returning to sleep on Connor’s shoulder once more. He does not know what to feel, the past few hours too hectic for him to have finished processing everything yet, so he focuses on what he knows and says, ‘Connie will need five units of thirium to allow her systems to restore full functionality,’ and ‘full’ in her standard is quite possibly different from mine. ‘That is approximately five pints.’

‘Jesus, how is she still walking?’

‘Dysfunctional non-essential systems, delayed processing and data transfer, forced low-power mode,’ Connor lists. ‘Androids also do not need as much blood as humans do to keep our basic functions running.’

‘Fucking asshole,’ Hank mutters under his breath, and Connor knows that it is not directed at him. ‘How the fuck do we get five pints of blue blood?’

‘The precinct -’

‘You’re deviant now, Connor. You wanna get sent back to CyberLife?’

‘No one will notice that I -’

‘What will you think if a perfectly-fine android strolls up and asks for 5 goddamned pints of blood?’

Is keeping a connection with Connie slowing him down? It must be. ‘I’m… sorry, Lieutenant. I didn’t mean to -’

Hank cuts him off with a wave of his hand. ‘We’ll find another way,’ his tone is reassuring. ‘Help me ring Vidal up. See if he can help.’

So Connor calls. Texts. Calls Reyes’ personal number. Calls the Vidal home. He even calls Reyes’ internal contact. But not once does he reply or even pick it up, and the text stays unread for minutes before Connor gives up and moves on to Safaa, whose contact information is classified and therefore slams the final door shut in his face. ‘He’s not picking up,’ he has to give up. ‘I cannot access Safaa Vidal’s contact information either.’

Hank sighs. When they stop at a light, he takes out his phone from his pocket, unlocks it, and hands it to Connor. The android wraps an arm around Connie’s waist before accepting the device gingerly. ‘Find Louis’ number,’ the human says. ‘Can you secure a call?’

‘Of course.’

‘Do it.’

He finds the SWAT Captain’s phone number, files it to a folder set to self-destruct in case anything bad happens to him, and then dials through a secured channel. The human picks up quickly which indicates a high probability that he is not at a scene. 

‘Allen speaking.’

‘It’s Connor.’

‘Got my number from Hank?’

‘It’s secured.’

‘Good. Why call me? Aren’t you paying Sara Ryder a visit?’

Connor debates if he should tell him the truth. ‘We left right after we got what we needed,’ he replies in the end. ‘We also -’ he has to choose his words wisely - ‘rescued an android from Ryder’s residence. She is currently low on thirium, and we would like to ask for five units of blue blood.’

‘Five -’ his voice abruptly cuts off. ‘Fucking asshole -’

Connor scrambles to stay on topic. ‘It is perfectly understandable if you do not wish to contribute -’

‘Is the android on the verge of shutting down or is her situation urgent? If it’s not, can she wait until I get off work and a trip home?’

Connor quickly calculates the time. It is not ideal but yet, ‘Please come as quickly as possible after you finish at the precinct. I don’t want her to -’

‘Suffer any longer. Yeah. Five units of thirium, coming right up. Is there anything else that you need that I have?’

The android is reminded of Connie’s bare feet and thin attire. ‘Some warm clothes and socks for an android of my build.’

‘Wh - Alright. Do I even want to know why?’

‘It will best be discussed when we are face-to-face.’

‘Point. Anything else?’

Connor looks at his own oversized shirt borrowed from Hank. ‘One more shirt for me,’ then to Hank, ‘Is there anything you want from Louis?’

‘Nothing.’

‘That’s all for now,’ he tells Louis.

‘Good. Hit me up if you need anything else. You going back to Hank’s?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. I’ll tell you when I’m on my way.’

‘Thank you, Captain.’

‘Just showing basic human decency. Gotta get back to work now. See ya.’

It hangs up before Connor can parrot a ‘see you later’ on his own back, and he meets Hank’s eyes in the rearview mirror. ‘He’ll bring us the thirium we need after work,’ he says, ‘together with a change of clothes for Connie.’

‘Good,’ the human answers. ‘Now we go home and freak out.’

Nothing else is exchanged for the rest of the drive, and as Connor’s pre-construction software offers one after another scenario where all of them do not make it out alive, he has to agree with Hank that indeed, it is hard not to freak out.

o0o0o

Before

‘Get out of my way, Amanda.’

In the past, in the darkness, a long figure illuminated by the blue glow from their companion stood in front of a door, small and frail compared to the other’s explosive power and youth. There was a faint hint of panic and screaming in the distance, but to the two, it seemed so far away. Irrelevant. Two fragile giants having a stand-off unbothered by the pains of the mortals. Amanda Stern, in her heavy dress for the winter and a wool hat to protect her bald head, stared down at her student despite having a height disadvantage, her spine straight, her eyes disproving. ‘They haven’t finished evacuating yet. Thousands will die. If you wish to take revenge upon your father, you should -’

A flash of blue. A crackle of dark energy. A low buzz of static-charged air. Retracting her biotics, Ryder walked forward, placed her bare hand on the wall, and overrode the lock in mere seconds. The door slid open. Ryder lit up again and moved.

Amanda lay in the snow, white powder crystallising on her cooling body, and the world was quiet.

oOoOo

In the past, Louis Allen watched as Ryder stared down at him like a hunter taking in their prey. His legs were on fire and so were his face, his vision blurring from the blood seeping into the sockets of his eyes, and he attempted to escape the pain by drowning in his thoughts: the shock that he was the only survivor in his team, the revelation that there were others like him, the resignation that he was never going to live to see Anna being promoted to Major, never to see her to live her dream of going to space, never got to say goodbye properly to his husband. Tasting copper on the back of his throat and choking in his blood, he begged as Ryder turned and left and a fresh cascade of tears poured out of his eyes.

The ground shook. Dust started to fall from the ceiling high above. 

He opened his eyes just in time to see a building shrouded in blue collapsing on top of him before passing out from the pain.

oOoOo

In a not-so-distant past, Ryder, with her coat swung over a shoulder, entered a dark laboratory. It was dimly lit by the glow from a pod placed at the farthest corner and the screens connected to it and wires ran like a nest on the floor, however she seemed to know her way through without tripping and reached a holographic keyboard where she typed something to remove the frost covering the glass from the inside, revealing a woman’s sleeping face.

Ellen Ryder’s face.

The hologram above the pod indicated that Ellen’s vital signs were stable. A bare hand was pressed on what seemed to be normal glass, [LIFE SUPPORT STABLE] turned into [OPENING POD], and the lid lifted open as if carried away by an invisible force, escaping cold air making a fog as it met the hot, moist climate-controlled atmosphere of the lab at large. Ellen choked and woke up with a full-body jerk.

Her daughter pressed her hand on her mother’s chest and lit her gown on fire.

The lid slammed back down with a flash of blue followed by the telltale click of a lock. Calling up a holographic keyboard in front of one of the monitors, Ryder successfully changed the settings to ensure that there was enough oxygen supplied to maintain the fire and the alarms were disabled. Then she froze. Her line of sight was directed at the phrase [TRANSFER COMPLETE] at the top right corner of the screen. Her body jerked as if her joints were unlocked at once, and with a dramatic billow from her coat unfolding, she put it on and left the lab with brisk steps, the muffled screams and dull, sluggish punches on glass behind her ignored.

After all, the person in the pod was merely a shell of who her mother was; Ryder was simply finishing the job her father should have done ten years ago: incinerating her mother’s body as per her wishes.

oOoOo

In a not-so-distant past, Ryder lay dead on the ground. Her body had been blasted into smithereens, the skin on disconnected parts having deactivated from being cut off from power, thirium staining the ground blue, the air smelling of static and dark energy. Alec Ryder stood tall and proud in the cold with a shotgun in his hand, and he looked at his daughter’s body almost regretfully as he folded up his weapon and hid it underneath his coat. He turned and climbed into the passenger’s seat of an unmarked car.

The car sped away, kicking up a small mound of snow, the people within blissfully unaware that slowly but surely, the body was knitting itself back molecule by molecule. A finger twitched. An eye glowed. With great difficulty, Ryder pushed herself up, brushed the dust and snow that had fallen on her body, and left the place as if her father had not killed her a few minutes prior.

[shounenkitsune]

Cake One Shot Sick Fic

Reposted from fanfiction.net, but I feel like I wanna move everything over here bc I prefer tumblr.

Vocaloid fanfic, but tbh they might as well be OC’s bc nothing in the story is relevant to them being Vocaloids XD

Rin stretched out on the floor, trying to get a better look at her painting. She'd already put a lot of water on it. She had to be careful with her next moves, because the paper wouldn't accept much more water here soon. She needed to blend more black into the background, but there was already so much in there, that the rest of it seemed to look like blobs of blue rather than that cool galaxy look. She frowned. Maybe there was another dark color she could use to add depth?

Len released a rather obnoxious belch from his side of the room. He was lying on his back with his eyes closed, one hand resting lightly on his stomach. Rin glanced up at him, then immediately went back to her painting. It wasn't really unusual for him to do that. He was a teenage boy after all. Not that he wasn't respectful, just that he felt comfortable enough around his sister and she didn't mind it, so he didn't feel the need to be so proper and polite. He usually said excuse me afterwards though, but it wasn't such a big deal. Rin didn't care either way.

Rin grabbed a purple watercolor pencil and began shading heavily around the black. She needed it to be prominent, that way she didn't have to use a lot of water to blend it. She heard another large belch as she dipped her brush into the cup of water on the floor in front of her. She brushed it off again and began painting. This happened several times, all of which she ignored, until she started hearing his stomach gurgling all the way on the other side of the room. She looked up at him curiously.

"What's going on?" she asked. Len opened one eye to look at her, then closed it. He muffled another belch.

"What do you mean?" he asked back, not sure what she was talking about. He belched again.

"That," she said. She propped her elbow up on the floor and rested her chin on her hand. "Why are you so gassy? Did you eat too much or something?" Len didn't reply. Most likely he wasn't expecting that answer and got embarrassed. He didn't mind burping in front of her, so long as she didn't draw attention to it.

After not getting an answer for several seconds, she tried again. "Does your stomach hurt? You okay?" Len sighed, knowing he would have to answer her eventually. He didn't particularly like discussing this topic, however.

"I'm fine," he mumbled. He forced down a belch from entering his throat by swallowing. "Must've just been something I ate…"

Rin pursed her lips and furrowed her eyebrows. There was something he wasn't telling her. Len peeked at her with one eye, then opened both eyes once he saw the face she was making. "What?" he asked defensively. Rin squinted her eyes. Len stared back, waiting for her to do something. This went on for a while until Rin blinked and shook her head. She looked back up at her brother, who looked very, very confused. She furrowed her brows again.

"What did you eat today?" she asked. Len was on a diet. Well, technically he was always on some sort of diet. He had marching band, track, cross country, and dance, so he absolutely needed to be fit in order to keep up with the activity. He was pretty good about his home workouts, which was basically just a run every night before bed. He showered in the morning, which was kinda gross, because that meant he went to bed all sweaty, but that's another reason why they had their own sides of the room. But aside from the workouts, he really had a poor will to avoid unhealthy foods he wasn't supposed to have. It wasn't such a bad thing, since he didn't do it very often, and it's also not healthy to completely deny a kid unhealthy foods or desserts while he has to watch everyone around him enjoy them. The only issue is that he kinda binges on junk food from time to time. Knowing Len, he probably did something like chug a 2 liter, or eat a whole box of pizza rolls.

Again, Len took a while to answer. He knew she was gonna chew him out like always, because she was his "diet coach" (which she appointed herself), and he really just wanted to lie down for a while and relax.

He let out a heavy sigh. "Cake," he replied curtly. Rin wasn't surprised. But it made her think for a moment. Eating a singular piece of cake wouldn't make you that gassy.

"How much cake?" she asked. Again, a long pause. Rin expected the worst at that point.

"A cake," he said. Rin furrowed her brows in confusion.

"What do you mean "a cake"?" she asked, then realized what he meant and widened her eyes. "You ate an entire cake!?" she shouted. Len nodded, refusing to open his eyes and look at her. Rin was shocked that he could eat a whole cake by himself. Where did they even get a cake? Rin looked down at Len's stomach, something she hadn't really paid much attention to, and realized that the more she looked, the more she could see how bloated he was. He definitely ate a lot of something.

"How big was it?" she asked. Len held up his hands about a foot apart, then moved them to the side perpendicular to where he first hand them, only closer together, making an imaginary rectangle about one foot by six inches.

"What the actual fuck, Len," she said. Len shrugged. At least she wasn't yelling at him to go for a run. Rin looked at him, concerned. "Are you okay though? I mean, do you think you're gonna puke or something?" Len opened his eyes and looked at her, surprised that she even thought about that. Normally she just told him to do some sort of workout, usually jokingly, sometimes seriously.

"Yeah, I'm alright," he said. "I'm a little nauseous, but I don't think I'm actually gonna throw up." Rin nodded once and chewed her bottom lip nervously, looking over his body. He looked like he was okay, but Rin was actually worried about him this time. I mean for Pete's sake, he ate an entire freaking cake!

Rin stood up and walked over to his side of the room, stopping by his bed. She pulled up his shirt, to which Len didn't object. He even moved his hand out of the way to let her pull it all the way off his stomach. She put her hand on his belly and immediately felt the sloshing and gurgling going on in there, his stomach kicking into overdrive to try and break down that massive lump of food. She rested it there for a moment before slowly dragging her palm across the smooth surface of his skin, making a circular motion. She felt him tense up, then slowly relax and melt into her touch. She rubbed his belly for a while. When they were little, their grandparents used to do this when they had an upset stomach. Normally it was Len who had the tummy ache, since he was the one obsessed with food, so Rin watched a lot of the time. She started doing it herself at around maybe ten. The first time she did it, Len had no idea what she was doing and it got...very awkward to say the least. But now he doesn't mind. He actually rather enjoys it. Belly rubs are really relaxing, and they really do help with the pain of an upset stomach.

Len closed his eyes, the slow motion of Rin's hand lulling him to sleep. He let out another belch and his eyes popped open again, caught off guard by himself, not even feeling it before it happened. Rin could feel it though. His stomach rumbled again, the air bubbles making their way up towards the belly button. She took two fingers and gently pressed them into his stomach just beneath his belly button, rubbing in a circle, but not moving in a wide circumference. Len's stomach gurgled loudly, bubbling angrily. Len flinched. That gurgle had upset his stomach more and he felt a sharp stab of pain where Rin's fingers were. He almost grabbed her hand and pulled it away, but he started to feel better as the air made its way up. He could feel warmth rising up towards his throat. For a moment he waited for the belch, but then leaped forward and made a mad dash out of their room, leaving Rin standing there beside his bed, dazed.

The bathroom was upstairs, so he ran into the kitchen, dropping to his knees in front of the large trash can. He retched violently, coughing and sputtering as the warmth moved up into his throat. He could now feel the burning pain of the stomach acid in the back of his throat. He retched again and vomited into the trash can, coughing and struggling to breathe.

Len's mom was sitting at the kitchen table playing a game of cards by herself while reading an ebook on her tablet. She was surprised when someone suddenly raced into the room and dropped to the floor in front of the trash can. It took her a moment to realize what was going on and who it was. She stood up and briskly walked over him.

"Len? Hey hey hey, are you okay?" She put her hand on his back and pulled his hair out of his face while he puked. She looked into the trash can and became worried. His vomit was a muted pink color, and it was very liquidy. What did he eat? Or maybe it was blood mixed in with his stomach contents…

His mom rubbed his back and waited for him to finish before asking any more questions. He wouldn't be able to answer them until he was done anyway. After a while, the retching died down a bit. He started letting out low belches instead, with a little bit of retching mixed in. Thinking he was almost done, his mom pat his back and looked him in the eye. He looked tired.

"You alright, baby?" she asked. Len thickly swallowed, then spit into the trash can. Some saliva stayed on his bottom lip though, creating a small string that started to drip down into the trash can. He spat again to get rid of it, but it wouldn't budge. He tried again, but coughed harshly and groaned. He nodded softly, no longer looking at his mom. He still felt really nauseous, and he knew he wasn't done, but he felt a lot better now that his stomach was empty.

His mom put her hand on his forehead, feeling for a fever. He felt normal. She furrowed her brows and pursed her lips, a trait she very noticeably passed onto her daughter. Maybe he ran too hard and made himself sick? The treadmill was upstairs though, so he should have ran into the bathroom, not all the way downstairs into the kitchen.

"You think you're almost done?" she asked. Len mouth breathed for a few seconds, trying to catch his breath. He wanted to be done, but his stomach still felt hot, and it was swishing and gurgling. He shrugged, the motion upsetting his belly more.

"Ohh," he moaned softly. "It still hurts." He was about to take a breath in when he suddenly lurched forward and belched up another string of vomit. He coughed softly, almost as if he was crying. His mom got worried and looked to check. His eyes were watering, but he didn't look like he was actually crying. His nose wasn't red or anything, and he looked more tired than in pain. A few seconds passed before he retched again. That felt like it might be the last of it though. He hurled one more time before his stomach felt empty. He could hardly breathe when he was finished.

His mom pat his back a few times and waited for him to say something or get up. She didn't want to bug him with questions or make him feel pressured to be done quickly. He tended to get embarrassed whenever he got sick. He always wanted to be alone. He surely didn't want her to be there right next to him while he threw up.

"Ohh...I feel better," he mumbled, closing his eyes. He let out a deep sigh and relaxed, leaning back into his mom. He let his head rest heavily on her chest. His mom pulled him up into her lap and pressed her cheek on the top of his head.

"What happened, baby?" she asked in a sweet voice. "Do you feel sick? Did you eat something bad?" It wasn't like him to just randomly throw up.

"I'm okay," was his reply. He was too exhausted to explain any further. He lied there in his mom's lap for a while, trying to catch his breath and get some energy back. His mom asked him more questions.

"Were you feeling bad this morning?"

That just happened to be Tuesday, a school day. The kids had been home for about an hour or so. She wondered if he'd gone to school feeling sick. It wouldn't have been the first time. He liked to hide it for some reason. She could feel him shaking his head, however.

"No," he mumbled. He didn't feel like answering her questions. He wanted to go back to his room and lie down. He felt better getting that out of his stomach, but he still felt awful. "Mom, I'm tired. Can I go back to my room?" His mom bit her bottom lip after hearing that. She didn't want to just send him to his room without knowing why he suddenly got sick.

"Yeah, okay," she said. She rubbed his back a few times, then helped him to his feet. She would check on him later. Maybe he would feel more up to talking then. She led him down the hall to the twins' room. Rin was sitting on his bed, sketchbook in her hands. She looked up at them as they entered.

"Hey, you doing alright?" she asked her brother. She could hear him from their room. Len nodded, his eyes half closed. He was sleepy before he got sick. He was even more tired after his abdominal muscles forced out everything in his stomach.

Rin moved off of his bed so he could lie down. He got in bed and dug himself under the covers. He curled up into a ball, cradling his knees to his chest with one hand tucked between his stomach and his legs, holding his stomach.

Rin frowned and sat down beside her sick brother. He may be an idiot for being so reckless, but she still felt bad for him. She slowly rubbed his arm up and down in a soothing manner. Len whimpered and squeezed his eyes shut, curling in even tighter on himself. God, his stomach was killing him. He didn't think he would get this sick from eating a simple cake. Despite the cake no longer being in his system, his stomach still gurgled and groaned uncomfortably. He muffled a few belches into his pillow.

"Do you want some water or anything?" Rin asked softly. "Any medicine?" She felt helpless just watching him suffer.

Len could hardly bring himself to speak. His throat was so dry and cracked from all the stomach acid. "Water…" he croaked out. Rin nodded, even though he couldn't see her face. She went to the kitchen to get him a glass of water. Her mom stopped her before she could open the cupboard.

"Rinny?" she called out to her. Rin turned around to face her mother.

"Hm?" she replied, turning back to get a glass down from one of the shelves. Her mother looked at her worriedly.

"Have you seen your brother recently?" she asked. Rin slowly looked back at her and nodded, frowning. Her mother bit her lip, concerned.

"Yeah," she mumbled. "He had an upset stomach, so I tried to give him a belly rub to make him feel better, but then he ran away all of the sudden." She saw the look on her mother's face and could only guess what happened when he was gone. "I assume he threw up?" Her mother nodded.

"He was pretty upset when I last saw him," she added. "He looked like he was in a lot of pain. I didn't know what to do, so I asked him if he needed anything, and he said some water would be nice." Remembering that he needed the water, Rin hurriedly filled the glass with ice and water and started to make her way back to their room. Her mother stopped her again.

"Did he tell you anything about why he's feeling bad?" she asked. "He was pretty drained after he threw up, so he didn't really explain anything to me about what was going on." Rin nodded.

"Yeah, he uh…" she shook her head and laughed at him in pity. "He told me he ate an entire cake. I'm sure he's learned his lesson about portion control, though." Her mother sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"What am I gonna do with him…" she mumbled. Rin shrugged and went back to their room to deliver the water to him. Surprisingly, he had fallen asleep in the short time she took to get it for him. She sighed and set the glass on the nightstand beside his bed. Taking a seat next to him, she leaned down and gave him a quick kiss on his forehead before ruffling his hair lightly.

"You're such a dummy, Lenny…" she mumbled to herself, then lied down next to him, spooning him. Len tossed a little in his sleep, whimpering to himself. Rin hushed him and rubbed his arm up and down. Eventually he relaxed from his fitful sleep and fell into a deeper dream state. Rin was beginning to feel tired as well. She ended up falling asleep next to him, keeping him warm while he recovered from his bad decisions. Hopefully he had learned his lesson.

[curiositiiii]

A Day of Differences | Ch 1

Hello, and welcome to the first chapter of my original story. A chapter should hopefully be up every other week or so, depending on how school goes. WTLBF is about a group of superpowered people known as libra, and follows one in particular, November, as she joins a conspiracy to break free of the training facility for all the wrong reasons: to spite a literal manifestation of her inner demon, and to try and impress her longtime crush Chassia. Recurring characters are listed in order of appearance.

WC:  3169

Characters: November (POV character), Lanü, Saffra, Lloy (mentioned), Harper Ren (the evaluator), William ‘Will’ (name not given)

All text in italics in the story itself is dialogue from Lanü. As she’s an internal voice and doesn’t have a physical manifestation in the real world, her dialogue is more like a thought inside November’s mind. For that reason, it’s italicized to distinguish Lanü’s contributions from November’s. 

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They’re late.

 For what has to be the fifteenth time in the past half hour, I glance at the basic black clock that hangs beside the dorm door. It’s been three minutes since I last checked. Three minutes doesn’t seem like a lot, but it’s an eternity when the speaker overhead was supposed to read off your name in a haze of crackling static no less than thirty minutes ago. Doubly so when punctuality is so stressed that it might as well be the motto of Libra Red. And all this disquieting change combines to make one unnoticeable girl create imprints in the carpet as she paces, anxious.

Relax, child. You’re always so overdramatic. Perhaps Dr. Dai should adjust your medication next time you happen to visit his office. 

“Shut up, Lanü,” I murmur. Once again my gaze drifts to the clock. The second hand ticks around with agonizing slowness, and not even a minute has passed since my last check. Great. If she keeps talking, this has the potential to become even worse. 

Finally -finally- the loudspeaker buzzes to life. “82-RA20 through 82-RA25, please report to the auditorium for your evaluations.” The speaker is unfamiliar, their voice closer to the overly formal speech of Director Hathwick rather than the chipper, warm voice of the secretary normally assigned to this busywork. 

Without hesitation I fly through the door. See, these evaluations are routine, like everything else here in the complex. Everything is exactly on time, exactly the same. There’s a kind of comfort in the sameness. Different doesn’t happen here.

Which means that even though the results of all this different are still going to be the same, there’s a natural curiosity propelling me forwards to go find out the cause of all this difference. Maybe they brought some fresh raspberries to hand out. Perhaps we’re all due for some medical examination. Maybe they aren’t doing the libra evaluations today, a questionnaire or therapy session propped up in its place.

Silly November, Lanü chuckles, amused. Your daydreams are entertaining at least, despite their pathetic nature. 

“I don’t recall asking for your thoughts,” I snap at the inner demon. When everything about yourself is pathetic, and more than slightly, it’s just as well that your inner demon decides to criticize nonsensical things like daydreams. Better that than the important stuff. 

If you wanted, there’s a way to change all of that… it’s no help to anyone when you lie there and embrace this contemptible lifestyle. Negotiations, however, would be most helpful to your situation. 

Like I haven’t already told her a thousand times: “Never in a thousand generations, Lanü.”

You don’t have to be a bitch about it, she whines before fading out, her honeycombed voice disgusted with me yet again. 

Behind me, Saffra snickers as she brushes past. The mocha-toned girl’s hilarity is evidenced by the jangling of dozens of beaded bracelets stretching up her wrists. Saffra, official ident 82-RA24, is so small in frame that her entire body shakes from the tremors of stifled laughter. The only exception is her short-cut black bob, held stiff by litres of candied hairspray. At least she doesn’t turn to try and chat. Her contempt is more bearable than her conversation. 

A few footsteps ahead of me, she turns, shifty eyes colored a vivid saffron color by contacts focusing on me. My relief came a bit too soon. “Talking to imaginary friends again, November?” 

The Memoriam doesn’t bother to say anything else, thank Vera, but instead turns her attention towards my mind. Her effort is useless. I’ve already cleared my head of thoughts except that of my own headspace’s security, and begun the deep breathing exercises every libra child is taught as defense against Memoriam prying. This all serves as an encryption process hiding the rest of my thoughts from the minds of those like Saffra, dropping in just to see what’s there. 

Her presence is a throbbing headache, marked by the trademark earthy smell of saffron and sugary sweet, sticky, footsteps that create light, stabbing pains wherever they lead. Every Memoriam has a trademark, just like how every Elemental and Creator has their tic. The ability isn’t there without the other accompanying it. 

These three also happen to be the most powerful classes of libra, although this is unrelated to trademarks and tics. 

The headache lifts, Saffra evidently growing bored of sifting through nothing. Her pace increases around a corner towards the auditorium, although for all her speed she’ll still be stuck in line one place behind me. My ident is 82-RA23, meaning I’ll be in the middle of the five-person set called up. In the middle of the group, invisible, just the way I like it. 

Completely unnoticeable and ordinary, according to you. 

According to reality, not me, although even the goddess Vera’s more in tune with reality than Lanü. 

 At last I reach the expansive auditorium of our year’s campus and settle into line behind Lloy. Up on the stage, feet can be seen moving beneath the dull grey privacy panel that protects the libra undergoing evaluation from the judging gaze of others, indicating that they’ve begun without me. I try not to mind. It makes sense not to follow protocol, to do things different, seeing how they’re so far behind right now. 

Part of me minds. That part nags, panic rising with my heartbeat. Different doesn’t happen here after all, it recalls. Different gets you flatlined, at best. 

The plethora of other differences start to spring out from around the room. Leaning against the dull cream walls are the Afterthought guards normally stationed around the auditorium on the twenty-first of each month, when our evaluations take place. Except there’s more than usual swarming the space like ants escaping a destroyed nest, and all of them seem tense. 

If there’s anyone in the world that shouldn’t be tense, no matter the situation, it’s an Afterthought. Only the eighty most powerful, most competent machines churned out from the Libra camps have the honor of progressing to Afterthought status upon graduation each year. Candidates are kept and trained at the Libra Black facilities, in a cutthroat competition to beat out at least twenty other fellow Libra Black in their year and secure their Afterthought status. 

They’re the highest class of libra, the rank we’re always pushed to try for. Incredibly powerful, respected above almost everyone, given comfortable and enjoyable job assignments in fascinating places, with luxurious benefits and short contracts to make it even more worthwhile, becoming an Afterthought is all any libra aspires to be from the time they’re old enough to know what it is. 

Many won’t reach it, of course. Anyone who started off in Libra Blue or Libra Yellow, the bottom 75% of libra, never had a hope to begin with. Members of Libra Red though, the upper quarter of libra excluding the hundred selected for Libra Black training, have a shot. Every month after evaluations, transfers up to Libra Black and down to Libra Yellow are announced, as well as the new Libra Reds replacing their spots. This month two or three will probably be announced, since graduation is in a little over a year. Hopefully I won’t be one of them. 

November, dearie, your lack of ambition is upsetting. You’re among the most powerful libra in this entire trash locale. There’s absolutely no reason to deny yourself the privilege and power of becoming an Afterthought. Hell, it would be so easy to abandon these worthless has-beens and move on up in the world. One word, darling, and I’m at your command. All it would take- 

“No, not now, not ever,” I whisper back, furious, ignoring the sniff of amusement from Saffra behind me. 

See, I don’t exactly qualify to become an Afterthought. Unluckily for my potential promotions, I still have a heart. 

It’s my turn to climb up the silvery steps to the top of the stage. An Afterthought motions me forwards with one wave of their arm, face hidden behind a reflective visor. Time for this month’s grand performance. 

Hurry up, Lanü commands, my slow, steady ascension up the narrow stairs and around the privacy screen too slow for her tastes. I grimace. Here, surrounded by Afterthought guards clad in identical tactical armor, with the evaluator a little ways ahead, I can’t say anything in response. To do so would probably incur a psych strike. And the last thing I need is more visitations to Dr. Dai. 

Every month, the evaluations are the same. There’s a comfort to be found in the dull, repetitive nature of our monthly evaluations. They call us up over the speaker in sets of five libra, every twelve minutes. We wait in line, perfectly still, until we’re beckoned up the stage and behind one of two bleached wooden curtains, both of which contain an evaluator. The evaluator sits us on a metallic tripod stool that’s always too tall for me. They are always nondescript. Dark hair of an indiscernible shade, unnoticeable eyes, same navy blue formal wear. They recite from a script, and we recite back. The evaluations are never different. 

What was a morbid curiosity has long turned into a dread inside my chest, sucking the rest of me down into its madness. Nothing ever changes. Nothing is ever different at Libra Red. Day in and out, we follow the same routines. Nothing is unique, nobody is special. Different doesn’t happen here. Different gets you flatlined. 

Given how unusual evaluations have been so far, it shouldn’t surprise me that the singular evaluator for today is different. 

It’s the scar that jumps out first, the faded, angry splatter mark of a burn long since bleached to a pale pink contrasting against his otherwise normal olive skin. The scar encases the entire left side of his face, running from his hairline down over his left eye to the jawline and down the poor man’s neck. When he raises his left hand to mark something down on the clipboard that like all evaluators, he carries, I can see the scar there too, trailing down what little of his forearm is visible and running across the palm, ending in five slender traces on the back of his hand where if anyone held hands with him, their fingers might rest. 

I wonder what libra got punished for that. I wonder if their death was merciful. 

There’s no question that inflicting such a wound even by accident would have brought death upon the poor child; that much is obvious by one look at the evaluator’s eyes. They’re a glittering onyx, with nothing but stormy contempt behind them. They’re dark as an Afterthought’s armlet, dark as the void, dark as the barrel of a gun. 

“Your name is November, correct?” He asks, sounding annoyed. I must have missed him the first time. 

 “Oh- yes, sorry sir.” Lanü’s chortle bounces around in my head. At least someone is amused by this spectacle. 

The evaluator seems unphased, and rather than give a huff of annoyance simply nods at my response. Perhaps he’s amused at my incompetence. “Alright November, we’ll begin with the vitals check. Your sheet also says that a blood draw has been requested, so if you don’t mind spending a few extra minutes here we can proceed with that now. Will that be alright? You may go to the infirmary to have it done after supper if you’d prefer.” 

“...That’ll be fine,” I murmur, taken aback. It’s not normal for them to ask. On any other evaluation day, they always demand. Not because they’re rude, or pushy, but because that’s what they’re supposed to do. That’s what the system is. Yet another foreboding difference for today. 

A med-tech emerges from behind the velvety red curtains, drawn halfway across the oak stage today to shield the full arsenal of evaluation supplies. Usually the curtains are drawn fully open, so the drama students can practice easily for the upcoming play they’ll be performing for the first time on Switch Day, written and performed entirely by Libra Red. Today they’ll remain half-closed, in blank gaping expression. 

 “Excuse me, shouldn’t I be sitting down?” I request as the med-tech prepares to draw blood, setting up a folding table to rest my arm against. They’re efficient at their job, and begin to swab down my arm even as they shake their head. 

“My sincere apologies, but unfortunately we don’t have a seat for today. As a favor for an old friend, I’m permitting his son to shadow me for evaluations today and as he’ll be here through the entire evaluation process, I’ve offered him the seat. The request was last minute, so unfortunately we weren’t able to find any other stools. Again, my apologies.” 

As he speaks the evaluator flicks his pen towards the corner of the privacy screen, where a boy perches in birdlike wonder. He’s recognizable, although from where I couldn’t say. Few people visit us, particularly human teens -we’re government soldiers in training, not a tourist attraction- so it couldn’t be from that. So what piece of pop culture is he from? 

The boy’s enlarged eyes, a pale shade of blue-grey, bore into my back as I turn to the evaluator. Blinking, I try to erase the shock of a guest from my mind, although that doesn’t change the fact that he’s still sitting behind me, light chestnut hair in disarray like twigs. Everything about the child, who is perhaps a year or two older than me, is reminiscent of a bird tethered to a tree, yet eager to take in the scenery. 

A quick jab of the med-tech’s needle is all the distraction I need. They siphon off three small vials of scarlet liquid from my left arm, slapping nothing but a bandaid atop the wound as compensation. That out of the way, they proceed to take my temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure, as well as perform the quick mental check-up questionnaire that’s part of vital checks. 

They’ve been drawing blood samples an awful lot lately. Do you wonder if perhaps your transfer paperwork is being drawn up?

I desperately want to tell Lanü to shut it, but with present company being what it is such an action would be inadvisable. 

We’re all out of differences in this odd take on an evaluation, and the evaluator knows it. It’s time to proceed to the part that never changes. With a sigh he runs the pen across the papers on his clipboard. “Alright November, your sheet says that you require a second to demonstrate your ability.” 

“That’s correct.” 

“80-BA119-G, if you would?” 

He phrases it like the boy has the free agency to say no. From behind the same curtain the med-tech emerged from, a blonde boy shuffles forwards to stand three paces ahead of me. His gaze, a watery baby-blue, doesn’t meet anyone’s. At least, that’s assuming the floor can’t see. Dressed in the outfit usually reserved for libra in training -white polo shirt, black blazer, black pants, white pumps- he could pass for a Libra Red in my year if it weren’t for the pastel blue armlet tightly bound over his left bicep, and the two thin blue lines at the hem of his uniform pants. 

If Libra Black become Afterthoughts, the most powerful among all libra, Libra Blue is the exact opposite. They become nothing. There isn’t anything left for them after they turn eighteen and become a legal adult. Regarded as a waste of resources, those unfortunate enough to be classed with the bottom twenty-five percent of libra are completely reset once they come of age. A Libra Blue over eighteen isn’t a human anymore, or a libra, since most consider the two mutually exclusive categories. They’re nothing but a robot constructed from flesh and blood and wasted futures. 

With an unusual expression of etiquette added on, a ‘please’, the evaluator asks the boy to display his ability. 80-GBA119 obliges, biting on his lower lip as both of his hands suspend mid-air, quivering. In between the palms a shimmering, translucent film of water begins to coalesce. The action takes all of his energy to maintain.

It’s pathetic in a pity-inspiring way. Poor thing. He’s trying his best, even if his best is nothing but a failed joke. 

Somewhere nearby a Libra Black scoffs at the spectacle. It isn’t hard to tell why: if this boy can do no more than create a softball of water, a Libra Black with an ability similar would be able to create and control a waterspout from only the vapour present in the Nevada Sector air. Knowing that, poor 80-GBA119 almost seems laughable to me as well. 

This is the part of the evaluation that never changes. I already know full well what’s coming, and I can’t stop it no matter how desperately I want to. 

Eyes are the portal to the human soul, and it’s his eyes I now inhale, drinking in every detail of their baby blue gaze. They’re closed doors, with no existence behind their mama’s boy blue exterior. Whatever type the portal was, it’s long since been torn down and the pieces burned on the pyre of a Memoriam’s graduation gift. 

I always look at their eyes. There isn’t anything left I can do for poor 80-GBA119 now, so I’ll try to preserve what’s left of him. It’s a shame, really. This poor boy is going to die like all Blues do, and I don’t even know his real name to wish him goodbye. 

Eye contact won’t form the bond I need, however. Lucky for me, I can look at others without the potential to wreak havoc. Eyes may be the portal to the soul, but vision alone can’t form a bond strong enough to tether two people into some sort of acquaintance, nor form a bond in the psycheplane. Talking or touch works best. 

If it was an option I’d prefer to utilize conversation as my means of connection. The bonds it forms are easier to forget after they break apart. But there isn’t any time for that, so instead I grab the boy’s shaking hand, giving it a sympathetic squeeze before letting go. It’ll all be over soon, 80-GBA119. 

Nothing forms a connection quite like touch. The most vicious of the five senses, the ability to feel warmth or coolness, the different textures of the world, is often taken for granted. Without the sense, one might as well be blind and deaf and senseless. It’s enough to drive people mad.

“Permission to proceed?” I ask the evaluator, trying not to focus on the boy in front of me and the papery-thin ball of water he maintains. He doesn’t seem to notice that my voice breaks. 

“Permission granted.”

And so I close my eyes, ready to begin the blissful, repetitive task of descending into myself and my own personal realm, a sort of fourth dimension known as the psycheplane. It is, as Lanü puts it, Showtime, darling!

[tacitusauxilium]

Angst/Comfort/Fluff Marie/Fuuka drabble for mun

Marie rolled her eyes, as she watched Shinjiro and Fuuka argue again, finish with nothing resolved (as usual), and Shinjiro leaving their apartment, with Fuuka moping. Every week they argue about the same thing. Shinjiro’s kidneys and liver are failing, thanks to the pills from Takaya, and he’s insistent on not doing anything about it. Meaning he’d die. And he’s oddly content with that. Fuuka well, isn’t.

She honestly wondered for a while what did Fuuka see in him? Cause all he brings is headaches. Fuuka and her are rooming, and Shinjiro, while being Fuuka’s boyfriend, didn’t tend to stay; mostly because Marie managed to make him leave.

Marie doesn’t hate Shinjiro. When he’s not in his brooding moods, he can be someone worthwhile to talk to. But whenever he’s brooding (which is…a lot, unfortunately), he’s just intolerable, and she’s talked about it with Fuuka before. To no surprise, Fuuka insists on ‘changing him’.

Marie blatantly told her “Teal, you don’t change people like him. They’re damaged goods.”

Just hearing those words almost made Fuuka slap Marie. She held back…on principle. “You don’t know him Marie-chan.”

Marie rolled her eyes, almost tempted to scoff. “Yeah Teal. I do. We both know it’s an excuse, because you don’t want to admit that-“

“-It’s late, and I don’t want to discuss this.” Fuuka was quick to interrupt, though Marie could see Fuuka vividly shaking, and nearly holding back from tearing up. “So, if you EXCUSE ME Marie-chan.” Fuuka stormed off and slammed the door to her room shut and locked it.

Marie sighed. She rubbed her temples, annoyed. ‘For all your genius Teal, you can be incredibly naïve…you don’t ‘fix’ people. End of story.’

Fuuka didn’t talk to her for a week, and even then, conversations weren’t long. Marie was honestly getting sick of the cold shoulder treatment. She wasn’t the villain in this, and she didn’t have to take this treatment from Fuuka. She can love Shinjiro all she wants, but ‘fixing’ him is not something she’s obligated to do in the first place. If he wants to die, that’s on him, not her.

“Teal, I want to talk.”

“Not now Marie-chan.”

Oh, she knows that tone. The ‘I know where this is going, and I don’t want it’ tone. Too bad Marie is having none of that today.

Before Fuuka could enter her room, Marie flicked her fingers. A strong gust of wind shut the door. “I’m not giving you an option.” Marie spoke colder this time. She motions to the sofa.

Fuuka was tempted to tell her no. Out of daring, she tried to open the door to her room. Locked. …Must have locked it with the wind.

Defeated, and slightly angered, Fuuka storms to the sofa and sits, glaring at Marie. “What is it Marie-chan?” the irritation in her voice practically screams ‘get over with it already.’

Marie decided to just get to the point. “We didn’t finish the discussion last week. You know, the one you cut me off cause ‘you didn’t want to discuss it’.”

Fuuka nods “Well there you go; I don’t want to discuss.” Of course, Marie would bring that up. Fuuka didn’t want to hear whatever Marie has to say. Its not her problem to begin with.

“Well I do.” Marie deadpanned, tempted to do a mocking tone. She held back. “Because I’m worried-“

“Oh, NOW you’re concerned?” Fuuka retorts before Marie can even finish; and rather angrily at that. “Because last I checked, Shinjiro-kun is not YOUR boyfriend.”

Marie didn’t care for the glare, and only crosses her arms in return. “Worried about YOU, Teal. Not him. YOU.”

Fuuka grimaced, partially guilty for snapping like that…but still on-edge. “I’m doing fine Marie-chan.”

“Except that you’re not.” Marie rebuts. “You’re more exhausted than you’ve ever been, and I know its not because of Crimson. She works you hard, but not hard enough to literally zap away the enthusiasm out of you. You force yourself to eat, and sometimes you even forget to bathe. I have to freaking remind you. You’re not adulting very well Teal.”

Fuuka bit her lip, knowing where this was going. “And I thank you for that Marie-chan, but I’m doing-“

“You need to drop the ‘fix’ act on Hobo, or just dump him.”

And there it is. The smoking gun that Fuuka didn’t want to hear. Fuuka trembled, the anger inside her, the stress and anxiety from the last few weeks of arguing with Shinjiro, Mitsuru’s constant work stress, Marie’s nagging…its all started to boil inside her in an ugly way.

Between wanting to throw something at Marie (the jar right now looks tempting), and tackling her, Fuuka decided to not…do either of those. She just glared at Marie harder, practically fuming. “My relationship with Shinjiro is not your business Marie-chan. Stay out of it.” That last part came out more as a threat than anything else.”  

But Marie wasn’t going to have any of Fuuka’s excuses, or empty threats as is. The situation is at its breaking limit, and if Marie can’t make Fuuka understand now, then she never will. “Except that it is.” Marie deadpanned, not fazed by Fuuka’s mild attempt at a threat. “We’re roommates in case you forgot. We have each other’s backs, and if someone is falling, we help the other back up. And right now- “ Marie points at Fuuka “You Teal, are gonna hit the floor hard by taking on more than you can handle.”

Not that Fuuka wanted to be touched by Marie’s words, but right now her distress and anger are clouding that, sadly. “Well maybe if I could help Shinjiro with-“

“There’s no helping damaged goods Teal.”

SNAP

Those words again. Those damn words Fuuka has heard about Shinjiro from so many people. She didn’t want to believe Marie would say them too. She didn’t want to think that Marie would be on their side, and not hers.

She was wrong all along. Marie sees Shinjiro like everyone else does, not like she does; and she hates that so much.

“HE IS NOT DAMAGED GOODS!” Fuuka didn’t even realize how loud she yelled that. The tears that have been welling up inside her, escape like a dam leaking as she stood up to stand tall over Marie. “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND HIM LIKE I DO MARIE-CHAN, NONE OF YOU FREAKING DO, OR EVEN TRY TO! YOU ALL JUST JUDGE HIM CAUSE NONE OF YOU HAVE TO DEAL WITH WHAT HE DOES! HE NEEDS HELP MY HELP!”

Marie certainly wasn’t expecting Fuuka to blow up. It was worse than she thought, but at the same time, it has to be done. “Cause there’s nothing to understand!”

“YES, THERE IS!” Fuuka’s practically bawling now. In sadness, in rage, in loss of being heard. Not that there was anything to be heard, but Fuuka didn’t want to admit that. “SHINJIRO-“

‘-Is a grown man.” Marie finished. “He’s 22 years old. He’s an adult.” Marie stands up, not intimidated by Fuuka of all people. “He can take care of himself and his own problems, and if he doesn’t want your help, the best you can do is respect his decision, instead of forcing yourself in. Because as you said Teal, he’s your boyfriend. You’re not his mother, you don’t have to dote his every decision or criticize his every action. You can talk to him about it, but he has to make the decision himself on what he wants to do.” Marie pauses for a moment, noticing that her words are having an effect on Fuuka. Her anger is leaving her; and reasoning is hitting hard. “…If he doesn’t want to do the organ transplant to save his liver and kidney’s Teal, then that’s…his decision, even if it means him dying.” She slowly, carefully walks over to Fuuka. She stopped crying, but the dam is certainly not done leaking.

“It doesn’t mean you failed as his girlfriend.”

Fuuka knew, deep down that every word Marie said was the truth. The cold, hard, harsh truth that she wanted to deny for so long. When she learned of Shinjiro’s condition, she just told him to get the organ transplant, problem solved. But he refused. Fuuka honestly believed that he was simply scared; and with some light pushing and motivations. But that only made Shinjiro more aggressive, and Fuuka couldn’t comprehend why. Why wouldn’t he want to live? Sure, he’d be bedridden for a few weeks, but it wouldn’t be anything serious.

Then in one of their arguments, he dropped it. Miki Sanada.

15 years. 15 years, and despite everything, every effort to move forward…Shinjiro fell back to step 1. He can’t let go, he REFUSES to let go, and their arguments the last few weeks have been about that. But every, one of them ended in failure for Fuuka.

Shinjiro can’t let go. End of story. Fuuka adamantly refused to accept that, with every fiber of her being and hoped to smash common freaking sense into Shinjiro. She tried, tried, and tried again. Against Mitsuru’s complacency, against Akihiko’s acceptance, against Yukari’s pity…

Against Marie’s truth.

That wasn’t the case. She couldn’t…because Shinjiro wouldn’t accept that. Not then, not now…possibly not ever.

Shinjiro would have a year to live, and that was it. Nothing else to discuss except his funeral arrangements.

Fuuka could see it now, see it happen, see it go, and see it fade. Her dreams, her future, her wishes.

Marie held onto Fuuka as she finally let go, and sobbed loudly onto her arms, hugging her roommate and dear friend for dear life. Marie sighed, wishing it hadn’t come to this…but it did. For all odds, for all the bridges built…all for nothing.

About 10 minutes later, Fuuka fell asleep on Marie’s arms. Marie carefully lifts her and carries her back to her room (after opening the door with the wind of course). She tucked Fuuka in, and let her sleep…

About 4 hours later in the evening, Marie heard the shower turn on…must be Fuuka. She had already bathed and is watching TV, clad in a simple long shirt that reaches her thighs and underwear.

Minutes later, Fuuka sits next to her, wearing a nightgown and underwear. Her hair is also loosened, not braided like usual. “…Hi…” Fuuka shyly spoke.

“Hey.” Marie greets her normally. “Sleep well?”

Fuuka nodded. “Uhu…thank you…Marie-chan. For earlier.”

Marie raised an eyebrow. “You’re thanking me? You were pretty angry.”

“…I kind of am…still.” Fuuka sighed, hands on her lap. “But not at you…rather at me. …You were right, about everything.” She sniffed. “I hate feeling this way…so helpless, worse…knowing you want to help but the help is not accepted.” She looks at Marie, a despondent gaze over her normally starry teal eyes. “…Ever since I can remember, I wanted someone, anyone to accept me. Not as a lover, but as a friend, a companion, to never leave me alone. Shinjiro…” she bit her lip “I-I thought…I felt…” she raised her hand and gripped her chest; heart still aching. “…I wanted a family…” she nearly broke again when she said that.

“…But now that’s impossible.” Marie finished for her. However, Fuuka shook her head.

“I didn’t mention it before, but in one of our arguments…Shinjiro plain told me, that he didn’t want to be a father.” A few tears left her. “I was so hurt…I slapped him.” She confessed. “It was the first time I did that. He didn’t even react. He just walked away…and I hated that. I wish he had said something, dome something, even slap me back, I didn’t care. I just…” Fuuka gritted her teeth. “I wanted him to acknowledge that there was something between us, and I wasn’t just his…fuck toy!” she yelled. “But nothing…! And I just…” she sniffed, wiping away her tears “I thought I emptied myself out…”

She’s surprised when Marie hands her a handkerchief. “You never truly do.” She smiles at her. “The pain doesn’t go away after a few hours Teal. You’ll heal…in due time. With words, with action, with acceptance. You kind of did the last one.”

“…kind of.” Fuuka smiles back, blushing slightly as she takes the handkerchief, and wipes away her tears…and blows her nose. “Better…” she sniffs. “Much better.” Awkwardly, she looks at the handkerchief, then at Marie.

“Hamper.” Marie deadpanned. Fuuka nodded, not arguing there that’s for sure. “So, what do you want to do?”

“…I…” Fuuka frowned. “…I want to talk to him one last time. If…if he really wants this…then that will be it. I’ll break up with him, and I’ll respect his decision. …But that doesn’t mean I will stand by him. This is his path to take, and I guess…I’ll walk my path; with or without him. I’ll…endure.” At least, Fuuka lied to herself, for now. She’s still in pain after all. “I…kinda wanna drink something, and just go back to bed.”

Marie nodded. “Sure. Go ahead Teal, I’ll go to sleep a little later.”

“…Mm…yeah.” Fuuka folded the handkerchief and stared at it. “…You know Marie-chan…you’ve been good to me.” She looks at her. “You listen to me rant, you let me scream at you, but you don’t disrespect me. You understand, you listen…” she blushed. “…I’m happy to have you as a roommate, and a friend.” She reached out to Marie and hugged her. “…It means a lot to me that you have stayed, more than words can possibly say.”

The hug surprised Marie, but she wasn’t in any position to argue. She returns the hug, sighing. “You’re welcome Teal, anytime.”

“Mmm…” Fuuka nuzzled onto Marie, adoring her warmth right now, and her faint scent of blueberry, her favorite fruit. “…Marie-chan…?”

“Yeah?”

“…Thank you.” Fuuka looked up to Marie, eyes shining with the moon. She did something she didn’t think she would do. She pressed her lips onto Marie’s softly. A kiss…warm, tender…it filled Fuuka with a desire she long missed, needed. She pulled back, blushing. “…I-I mean it…” she said shyly, not believing she even did that. What possessed her to do that?

Marie certainly didn’t know and didn’t want to ask…mostly because she gets the feeling that Fuuka is not in her right mind right now and is looking for warmth. Best she can do is give it…for now, at least until Fuuka can stand up again. Until she can heal. She can be that healing potion.

Not that Fuuka is her first kiss with a girl, but that’s a story for another time. Marie let Fuuka nuzzle her, cuddle her…until Marie heard Fuuka’s light snores.

Chuckling, Marie carefully lifted Fuuka, and brought her back to her room. This time however, she closed the door behind her (after turning all the lights off), and carefully drops Fuuka on the bed. She tucks herself in with Fuuka (Who hasn’t let go of Marie), and watches Fuuka sleep peacefully. If Marie was certain, this is the most peaceful sleep Fuuka has had in a while.

Marie pressed her lips on Fuuka’s forehead. “Sweet dreams Teal…” Marie whispered, and closed her eyes, embracing Fuuka in return. Its been a long day, and both girls need their rest, for what will come tomorrow.

…………………………..

Fuuka and Marie spent a long night together…

[thefaceofroyalty]

Hopeless? Loki x reader fic

A/N this is based on this post from @the-modern-typewriter: Shh, it’s alright” the villain said. “You’re doing beautifully and I’m so proud of you. But that’s enough now. It was cruel of them to make you fight me - you could never have won. It’s not your fault.” I also talked to @lokixme about writing this because I know they wanted to do something with it as well. I’m looking forward to reading their version!! Anyway, this is my take on that post:

——————————

In the six months Y/N had been at SHIELD she had quickly risen through the ranks to become a trusted operative to none other than Nick Fury himself. He would send her on all the important mission that came up. When the time came to thaw out Captain America and tell him about the new world he was living in, Fury trusted only a handful of individuals for the task. Y/N was one of the select few.

She quickly became friends with Steve Rogers and helped him assimilate to modern life as much as possible. They would train together and she would let him talk as much or as little as he wanted. She understood that he must’ve been suffering from extreme amounts of PTSD and not to mention the confusion of waking up in a world so foreign to him. He confided in her about Bucky and Peggy. Two important people in his life who he had lost. He told her about facing the Red Skull and about Hydra. How he thought he was making the ultimate sacrifice by going down with that plane only to be awoken years later and everything he had ever known had been lost to time.

When it was time for Steve to help SHIELD track down the person who had gotten a hold of the Tesseract, Loki, both Director Fury and Steve had been adamant about Y/N coming as well. In truth, this was her biggest mission to date. As far as she knew, Loki was from another planet and the Tesseract was an object from space. However, she wanted to impress Director Fury and help Steve as much as possible so she agreed to go on the mission.

When Y/N and Steve first got on the helicarrier it was a little intimidating to say the least. She had heard stories about the infamous black widow but had never actually met her during her short time at SHIELD. Natasha seemed nice enough but Y/N knew it was probably a front, no assassin comes without baggage. Y/N also got a chance to meet Dr. Banner, who she had done research on in the past. His work with gamma radiation was groundbreaking and she was looking forward to picking his brain about it later. However, that would have to wait. Not too long after Y/N and Steve got inside the ship the team had managed to track down Loki to Stuttgart, Germany.

Y/N, Steve, and Natasha boarded a Quinjet and headed over to where Loki was. They weren’t sure what to expect but as they approached they saw something that made even Natasha gasp. Everyone was kneeling before a man in gold and green armor. He had a staff in his hand and wore a golden helmet with horns on it. He stood elegantly over them like that was where he was supposed to be, ruling over them. People began to protest but the man banged his staff on the pavement and it glowed blue and suddenly everyone was silent. He smiled mischievously before walking through the crowd and he began speaking to them. It was then that they all came to realize that this was indeed Loki. She only managed to hear some of what he was saying.

“It’s the unspoken truth of humanity,” Loki began, “that you crave subjugation.” Y/N couldn’t believe what she were hearing. Did he really think that this was the real wish of humanity? As long as she could remember and as long as humans have been around they’ve been trying to break free from oppression and slavery. Y/N started to feel her blood boil as a huge wave of anger rose over her. She wanted to scream that this wasn’t what humanity wanted and how dare he speak to anyone like that? What gave him the right? Before she could do anything she might regret Steve came over and put his hand on her shoulder. In all the time they had spent together he had become attuned to her emotions and could tell exactly what she was thinking.

“I know.” He spoke softly. “But he won’t get away with this, I won’t let him.” Steve said before he jumped out of the jet and in the street just in time from saving an old man from his demise at the hand of Loki’s scepter. Y/N couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The same Steve Rogers who was battling with PTSD and everything else life had suddenly thrown at him was about to take on a literal god. She wasn’t sure if Steve would be able to pull this off by himself, there was no way. When suddenly there was a system override as none other than Tony Stark descended in his Iron Man suit ready for a fight. The next thing Y/N knew, Stark and Steve were bringing Loki onto the jet.

“Y/N, I was wondering when I would see you again.” Stark said with a flirty wink.

“Stark.” Y/N replied as a response while she rolled her eyes. She had met Stark three months prior, when Fury asked her to go check up on him, as a precaution. As she was expecting, he didn’t give her much info but did flirt with her a lot which she was quite vocal in her distaste about.

“You two know each other?” Steve asked the young woman, with a confused expression on his face. She mouthed back that she would tell him about it later, they had more pressing god-like matters on their hands at the moment.

Suddenly flashes of lightning and roars of thunder could be heard outside of the cabin and the jet began to shake. Steve grabben Y/N’s arm in an attempt to stabilize them and she was thankful, as she probably would’ve fallen otherwise. Steve then noticed Loki’s uneasy behavior and questioned if he was afraid of lightning.

“I’m not overly fond of what follows.” Loki replied, looking rather concerned for his safety at the moment. This was the first time Y/N had heard him speak up close and she couldn’t deny that his voice did have an effect on her. She figured it had something to do with him being a god and before she could think anything else on the matter, Stark opened the door on the Quinjet and another Asgardian came through. In one swift motion he grabbed Loki and flew out of the jet. A moment later Stark had left the jet as well, ready to fight the other god and recapture Loki. Y/N was about to grab a parachute when Steve grabbed her by the arm.

“Y/N, you can’t go it’s too dangerous.” He said with a wary look in his eyes.

“Steve, I’ll be fine, this is what I trained to do.” She argued trying to break free from his grasp.

“Please, Y/N, I can’t lose you too.” He pleaded. Suddenly she understood, he had already lost so much he couldn’t lose someone he had just found. Nodding silently, Y/N released the parachute and sat down. Giving her a nod, Steve put on the parachute and jumped out of the plane. All she could hear from the Quinjet after that point was banging and occasionally a flash of light would illuminate the otherwise dark world outside. About twenty minutes later Steve and Tony returned to the jet with Loki and the other Asgardian who introduced himself as Thor.

When the Quinjet landed on the helicarrier Y/N went back to her room to write down all the intel she had gathered. It was something she picked up early on in her days at SHIELD. If she got back from a mission and wrote everything out as she remembered it happening, she was less likely to suffer from PTSD. Although her time at SHIELD was short, she had done plenty of life altering missions already. She heard a knock on her door and looked up to see Steve standing in her doorway. She smiled and gestured for him to come in. She couldn’t help but find it funny, the sight of him standing in her room in his star spangled outfit. He noticed her smiling and questioned her on it.

“What are you smiling about?” Steve said curiously.

“You.” Y/N replied. “You and your All American Outfit.”

“Is it a bad thing?” He questioned.

“No it’s refreshing. After tonight’s events I think I needed to see a little patriotism.” She said with a smile.

“You writing down the mission” He noted as he took a glance at the journal and pen next to where she sat on her bed.

“Yeah, there’s a lot to process here so I figured the sooner I write the better.” She replied softly, leafing through the various pages of her journal. This one was almost done and she doubted she would have enough room to write the entire mission by the time it was done. She felt the bed dip as Steve sat down next to her.

“Hey Y/N.” Steve said tentatively.

“Hmm?” She responded, still lost in thought.

“I wanted to thank you for getting me semi acclimated to life in the 21st century so I got you this.” He said as he reached into his bag and pulled out a new moleskin notebook. He handed it to her and she gasped as she opened it and heard the spine crack under her fingers.

“Steve! You didn’t have to do that!” She exclaimed with wide eyes.

“I know,” he responded sheepishly, “But I wanted to anyway.”

She engulfed him in a hug as she laughed into his neck. She couldn’t believe he would do something like that for her, they’ve only known each other for a few months. She heard someone clear their throat and she quickly got out of the Captain’s embrace. It was Dr. Banner, he said both of them had orders from Fury to meet on the bridge. Nodding, they both exited the room and followed Banner.

Fury informed the team that Loki was in custody and he wanted to send in people to possibly try and interrogate him. First would be Natasha, followed by Y/N. Y/n could feel her heart racing at the thought of the impending interrogation. She had interrogated people for information before but this man was a god. One whose voice also had an eerie effect on her that she couldn’t explain. Steve, sensing her hesitation and also being concerned for her safety, interjected.

“Sir, do you really think that’s the best idea? We have no clue what Loki is capable of. Why don’t you send Thor?” Steve protested.

“Captain, with all due respect. I’ve known Y/N for a lot longer than you have. You may not know what Loki is capable of but you also don’t know what Y/N is capable of. I believe sending her in is the right move. Unless of course she disagrees?” Fury challenged.

“No sir, I can do it.” Y/N responded, doing her best to straighten up and square her shoulders. She was no church mouse. The things she had seen and done to get into SHIELD and to make herself known in the director’s eye were enough to make any normal person run for the hills. She could handle this. She was trained for this.

After that everyone sat tense around the table as they watched Natasha interrogate Loki. The plan was simple, Natasha would rile him up and then Y/N would go in and be charming. Try and pry information from Loki by any means necessary. She was young and that would play to her advantage. Loki would more than likely underestimate her and that’s how she would win. After Natasha came back Y/N knew it was her turn to go. She stood up and Steve made a gesture to follow her but she held his shoulder firmly.

“Don’t” She said as she looked at him harshly. She knew if she were to do this she had to be in the right mind space and she couldn’t have anyone distracting her. She walked back to where Loki was being held and took a deep breath to calm her mind before she entered. She went over to the control board and started fiddling with switches. She heard Loki stand up and walk to the edge of the glass. Resisting the urge to look at him she continued to fiddle with the board, wanting him to make the first move.

“I was wondering when I would have the pleasure to formally meet you.” Loki said in a honeyed voice. His accent was enough to send shivers down Y/N’s spine but she tried her best not to show it.

“Believe me Loki, the pleasure’s all mine.” She replied as she turned to face him. She took a couple steps towards the glass to get a better look at him. He was slim yet muscular. Over six feet tall and wore green and gold armor. His onyx black hair was slicked back and he looked calm as he stood there with his hands behind his back.

“Tell me darling,” Loki began in that velvet voice of his, “why have you come to me?”

“Call it curiosity.” Y/N responded with a small smile playing on her lips.

“So it’s information you’re after. I’ll make a deal with you, I’ll answer your questions as long as you answer mine.” Loki mused as he moved toward her in his glass cell.

Y/N grabbed a chair and placed it in front of his cell, knowing this would take a while. “Fine, I’ll go first.” Y/N agreed as she sat down.

Loki made a gesture that gave Y/N the green light to ask away. “Why does a literal god like yourself want to come rule over Earth? Surly you have your own kingdom.” Y/N asked as she leaned forward and placed her elbows on her thighs.

“It is my divine right to rule and I was chosen specifically to rule over the human race.” Loki responded simply.

“Chosen by who?” she questioned.

“Tsk tsk tsk,” Loki started as he shook his head, “my turn to ask a question.”

“Ask away, I have nothing to hide.” Y/N responded.

“Oh I’m sure you don’t.” Loki began, “but your so called teammates do. Are you aware that Captain Rogers harbors feelings for you?” Loki inquired as he tilted his head to the side slightly with a bemused expression on his lips. He was trying to shock Y/N but it wouldn’t work. She was trained for deflection tactics like this. She kept her cool while she responded.

“How are you so sure?” Was all she asked.

“I’ve been around long enough to know the face of desire when I see it. I saw the way the Captain looked at you when you and the Man of Iron had your exchange. I saw the way he reached for you when my brother was rocking the ship. I wonder, has he come for your bed yet?” Loki asked cooly while waiting for Y/N’s reaction.

Y/N could feel her blood boiling, it was the same feeling she got when she first heard Loki speak in Germany. He was using everything he had to push her buttons but she wouldn’t give up without a fight.

“The deal was one question each Loki” Y/N stated. “Now it’s my turn.”

“Clever girl.” Loki replied with a chuckle. “Ask away, but just know, I always get answers.”

“You said someone sent you here, who?” Y/N continued the interrogation paying no mind to Loki’s taunts.

“I fear I cannot say.” Loki began, “Just know that he is more powerful than anyone you could imagine. He plans to rain fire on your precious Earth where the casualties will be the strongest.” Loki continued to gloat.

Y/N smiled as she had gotten the information she came for. Fury knew the battle wasn’t over and he expected it to take place somewhere big. With Loki’s affirmation that he and whoever he may be working with plan to target large cities that was all the information you needed from him.

“Thanks Loki, you’ve been a real help.” Y/N said as she began to walk away from him.

“He’ll never be able to give you what you need.” Loki said in a calm voice before before Y/N had gotten too far out of earshot.

Y/N turned slowly to look back at him, “Who?” she questioned.

“Your precious Captain Rogers. He’ll never be able to give you what you so desperately crave.” Loki pressed on.

“And what is that?” Y/N retorted.

“Subjugation. A chance to be free from your life. You who are in control of everything are the one who needs a release the most. Aren’t you tired of putting up a front? Of pretending you’re happy with your so called idea of freedom. Why are you the one cleaning up their messes? Wouldn’t you much rather relinquish control and let other people sort it out for once?” He questioned as he sauntered to the edge of his glass container where Y/N was standing.

“No.” She responded as strongly as she could, but she could hear the waver in her voice. The small part in her that might have agreed with him. Why was it her job to clean up other people’s messes? She wasn’t the one who pulled the Tesseract out from underwater and now the earth was paying the price. No, it was wrong to think like that. Just as soon as she had those thoughts she pushed them down as she left the interrogation room and went back to her room. She opened up her journal to write but saw the new one Steve had given her sitting on her drawer. Had what Loki said really been true? Did Steve have feelings for her? Before she could process it the ship began to shake and alarms began to sound. Through her earpiece she heard Director Fury announce that the Hulk was on the loose and they were under attack from an outside force.

Shit. She raced as fast as she could back to the interrogation room, sure Loki had something to do with this. But when she walked through the door her worst fear was realized. Not only had Loki been behind it, he had gotten out of his cage and now Thor was in the cage. She watched in horror as Loki stabbed Agent Coulson in the back. She let out an ear piercing scream as Loki sent Thor hurtling toward Earth. That’s when Loki turned his attention on her. He fired his scepter at her but she expertly ducked under it. She swiped her legs under Loki until he was on the ground with her. She straddled him and started throwing punches left and right. In retaliation, Loki picked her up and threw her across the room like she weighed nothing. Y/N stumbled to a stand and spit blood out of her mouth before reaching for her pistol. She fired several rounds at the Asgardian but none of the bullets seemed to phase him. He only let out an amused chuckle as he stalked closer to her. When the time was right she attempted to knee him in the crotch but he was too fast. In one swift motion he had taken her by the throat and held her up against the nearest wall. She was gasping for air under his hand and clawing at him to let her go. He let out a low chuckle as he raised the scepter to her forehead and uttered one word to her in a voice barely above a whisper, “sleep”.

Y/N awoke to her arms in shackles tethered to the wall behind her. She didn’t recognize her surroundings but could smell the dank air around her. She was trapped somewhere and that’s when her memories started coming back to her. She had fought Loki and he had won, easily overpowering her. She needed to get back to the team, what had come of them? Of the ship? She started thrashing and pulling on the restrains yelling to be released. One of Loki’s henchmen came in to see her and possibly taunt her but they got too close. She headbutted them and attempted to strangle them before two other men came in and rescued their teammate. The three of them then took turns kicking her until she coughed up more blood.

When she regained consciousness later she saw a figure looming in the corner only to realize it was Loki. She began thrashing again and spewing profanities at Loki. But all he did was calmly walk over to her a shush her.

“Shh it’s alright,” Loki said as he approached her and used his scepter to lift her chin to meet his eyes, “You’re doing beautifully and I’m so proud of you.” He said as he undid her restraints and effortlessly lifted her into his arms. “But that’s enough for now. It was cruel of them to make you fight me. You never could have won. It’s not your fault.” Loki finished as he led her into a room that appeared to be some sort of makeshift bedroom. He laid her down on the four poster bed among the black satin sheets and she was too weary and worn out to protest. He kissed her on the forehead as she lulled into sleep and he sat by her side and swept the hair away from her battered face, vowing to bring down SHIELD and everyone in it for sending in a child such as herself to fight a god, knowing she could never win.

[snowbellewells]

Run to Me (in the Dead of Night)

Hello everyone! I’m truly sorry this is a day late, but here’s the next chapter of my MC for the CSSNS event.  We learn a lot of new truths, the good guys come up with a plan, and the CS flirtation heats up more than a few notches (which was fun to write!)

Many MANY thanks again for the amazing banner by @wingedlioness for this story!! I simply adore this!!

Tagging: @cssns @kmomof4 @searchingwardrobes @branlovesouat @laschatzi @allofdafandoms-blog @linda8084 @spartanguard @therooksshiningknight @resident-of-storybrooke @kday426 @capswantrue @jennjenn615 @revanmeetra87 @teamhook

chapter two ~ into the light

Emma was still watching through the large front window of the diner, stunned that even though Mr. Gold was slowly making his way back to his shop - no doubt still watching, but leaving them nonetheless - Graham was still leading an unresisting Killian Jones to his squad car parked at the curb outside, a firm hand on the man’s arm and hand guiding his head down as he opened the door to put him in the back seat. She could barely process what was right before her eyes, knowing Graham wasn’t any more convinced of her new friend’s guilt than she was. If she hadn’t still had Henry pulling on her other hand, looking up at her with frightened and disillusioned young eyes, she would have run out to the sidewalk right then to reason with her boss.

She felt more than saw that Ruby had come to stand at her other side, even before the leggy brunette laid a staying hand on her upper arm.  Her clear gaze was trained to the same place as Emma’s; her solemn dark eyes watching her brother’s movements as he closed the door behind his passenger and moved slowly around to the driver’s side of the cruiser.

“There’s more to this than you know, Emma,” she stated calmly, holding Emma’s doubtful stare when she turned to glare at Ruby in challenge.

“Really, Rubes?” Emma retorted, her exasperation clear, “because it looks like the guy I work with - the friend and boss I’ve come to respect - just arrested someone without cause and is about to wrongfully hold them in jail.”

Her friend didn’t answer right away, her shoulders slumped slightly as she let out a sigh.  Her eyes fell to Henry for a moment, holding out a hand to the boy with bright red painted nails.  He took her hand without hesitation, familiar with and genuinely fond of the usually bubbly, exuberant waitress.  “Henry,” she spoke sweetly, gesturing over her shoulder to her own grandmother who had just come out from behind the counter, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel and giving Emma’s son as warm a smile as Emma had ever seen the tough old bird produce.  “Granny’s taking off until the lunch rush - nobody’s gonna come back in here until then at least.  And you need to get to school.  Will you let Granny take you?”

Henry was more than astute enough to know when he was being shielded and kept in the dark, but to his credit, he didn’t make a fuss or argue. It made Emma’s heart swell to think that maybe - just maybe - no longer than she had known and had a relationship with him, her son trusted her to do her best to right this wrong.  He wrapped his skinny arms around her waist, burrowing his face in her stomach for just a moment while she ruffled her hands through his soft, brown air, then he stepped forward and gave Ruby a quick, impulsive hug too, and went to Granny willingly.

“Come, come, my lad, let’s get you to school,” Granny fussed as she ushered him out the door with just a brief, searching look back at her granddaughter and the deputy.  Emma heard her saying something about, “...and the sooner you get to your classes, the sooner you can be right back here at the counter with that Paige of yours, and Nicholas and Ava maybe, for after school ice cream…” then the door swung shut behind them and they were gone.

Quiet settled over the deserted diner, which was never empty at this point of the morning, despite what Ruby had told Henry, but Emma ignored the rather eerie feeling in the familiar building to turn to her friend, hand on hip and waiting expectantly.  “Well, let’s hear it then,” she prompted when Ruby merely fidgeted and bit her berry red lips before turning and grabbing a rag as if she intended to wipe down tables rather than provide the promised answers.

“Oh no you don’t,” Emma said, placing herself right in Ruby’s path.  “You said I didn’t understand, that I didn’t know everything...so I’m listening.  Please, explain to me why my good, honorable partner would jail an innocent man, because you’re right, I don’t get it.”

Startling her more than a little, Ruby whirled on her, bringing herself nose to nose with Emma and staring her down.  Though most of the time Ruby disguised the strength and power she truly possessed with giggly flirtation and playful short skirts and heels, Emma sensed just then the raw fire beneath the pretty surface.  When her friend spoke, her voice was low and controlled, but it didn’t keep the sound of it from being closest in tone to a warning snarl.  “And just how do you know for certain this Jones is innocent, Emma?! Hmm? I’m pretty sure you just met him this morning, same as I did - same as anyone else in this town. He just suddenly arrives here?  In our hidden, supernatural town, in the midst of a crisis?  And that doesn’t seem the least bit strange to you?  Not to mention that he -- ”

The brunette broke off before completing that thought, whatever it might have been (and Emma was immensely curious).  Figuring it wouldn’t do any good, not when Ruby was already so fired up Emma still couldn’t help pressing, “He what? What were you going to say?”

Ruby’s fit of passion seemed to leave her as quickly as it had come. She slumped, defeated and drained looking into one of the empty booths and motioned Emma to sit opposite her.  She flung the rag onto the table between them before propping her elbows on the formica surface and burying her head in her hands for a couple of long, bracing beats.  Sighing, she shook her head and then murmured, “Nevermind, that’s not important right now.”

“Wait, how is that not…?” Emma started, but Ruby shushed her with a look, her mouth thinned to a warning line as she merely waited until Emma trailed off and paused, finally willing to wait again until Ruby had finished saying what she intended.

“Look, it’s not my story to tell, okay? Just forget it for the moment.  What you do need to hear has to do with our past in the Enchanted Forest, and some things Graham probably didn’t know how to tell you - or even want to tell, but clearly you’re going to have to gain some idea or you’ll think he’s a horrible person for considering Gold’s orders.”  She picked at her nails, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth, and then looked up to hold Emma’s gaze steadily.  “Okay,” she blew out a huff of air resignedly, then plunged forward. “So, you know how the kiss you two shared returned Graham’s memories even before the curse broke, right?”

Emma nodded impatiently, not sure where this discussion was going and fidgeting more and more in her seat to get back to the station and straighten out whatever was happening.

“Well, turns out his memories of who he was weren’t all that kiss brought back. I told you before that Graham had been taken by the Evil Queen, conscripted as one of her Black Knights, but Emma - she literally had his heart, held captive in her vault with countless others. And when someone’s heart is in another possession like that, they lose their own free will.  The person holding their heart controls them completely.  There’s no way to fight it; that person’s a pawn, a puppet, a slave forced to do the master’s bidding.  Regina used him in ways he hasn’t been able to put into words, that he hasn’t had the time or ability to deal with yet, but our pack bond lets me sense at least some of it - impressions of the fear, the pain, the helplessness - he couldn’t deny her anything.  He was trapped, but a part of him still loathes himself for the things she made him do to others, and the things she did to him against his will.”  Ruby’s eyes burned with righteous fire even as her voice floundered several times in explaining to Emma just what her brother had been through.  “Let’s just say, I hope you guys find Regina before she shows her face to Granny or me.  I don’t think either of us wants to be responsible if our inner beast takes control.”

Swallowing hard, Emma signified that she understood the naked threat; she really couldn’t even blame Ruby.  There was a part of her still aching for Mayor Mills’ hide herself for the trauma, loneliness, and self-doubt the woman had inflicted on Henry - not to mention that she was also the reason Emma had been alone all her life and never known the parents who did love her and had wanted her very much.  Who but a villain would try to convince a ten-year-old they were crazy in order to cover up their own wrongdoing?  But, she had to fight to keep that impulse in cheek.  Here before her was just one example of why she couldn’t go vigilante, however good her reasons.  Too many others were right on the brink, and somehow they had to keep the powder keg Storybrooke had become from blowing up in all of their faces.

Yet, she was also still more than a bit confused.  What did Graham’s nightmare at Regina’s hands have to do with Gold and his arresting Killian Jones? Cocking her head at her friend on the other side of the booth, Emma pressed, still trying to see the whole picture.  “But if Graham’s been under someone else’s control all this time, wouldn’t that be all the more reason for him to do what he feels is right, not just whatever Gold tells him to do?”

Ruby blew out a frustrated breath, leaning forward again intently. “Think Emma,” she murmured under her breath, quietly seething even though no one was around to overhear them.  “How do you think Graham is still alive if he got out from under Regina’s thumb?”  She closed her eyes briefly, as if having to gather the strength to think about, much less say, the next words she uttered.  “Don’t you understand? That night he collapsed...that wasn’t some random health episode or heart anomaly. That was Regina trying to kill him before he said too much.  She attempted to crush his heart into dust, and she only failed because of the superhuman strength he gains with his werewolf side.”

Emma drew in a sharp gasp, surprised and appalled to learn suddenly how close she’d come to watching him die right in front of her.  The night had been traumatic and frightening enough before, but to realize that all the time his heart had been outside his body while someone else tried to squeeze the life from it, was sickening.

Now that Ruby could see her friend was truly comprehending the horror, she pressed on, eager to have the entire dark tale out in the open light and dealt with at last. “Well, once he recovered, Graham came and told Granny and I everything.  We had to get his heart back. It wasn’t even a question.  So…”  she licked her lips, leaning forward to whisper even more furtively, truly resembling the stalking predator she could readily become, “we broke into the Mills family crypt.  We waited for a night when we knew the moon would be full, all the senses and awareness and stealth we have at our command at the peak, and when we also knew Regina would be kept late at a town council meeting and then a budget committee one after. Once we forced our way in, it wasn’t hard to detect the drag marks on the floor where that ridiculously ornate coffin have been shoved over and back again atop that secret entrance.  Graham - horrible as it was - vividly remembered where his heart was hidden the minute he set foot in that cursed chamber again.”

She shook her head briefly, as if staving off some sort of reaction she had to close her eyes against, a mental image she wished to shed welling up behind her eyes.  Emma didn’t have siblings, had never gotten the chance to experience such a bond, but she knew how it had pained her on her friend’s behalf when people had turned on Mary Margaret for her tryst with David, or when she even suspected someone might have upset Henry. It had her wanting to reach out to the she-wolf in sympathy.

A grateful if trembling smile stretched over Ruby’s painted lips, “Thanks,” she whispered, sensing Emma’s intent before the uncertain gesture was even complete.  “I promise, we’re almost finished.  It was just important you understood how we got here.”  She squared her shoulders, blew out a breath, and pulled the last bit of the story out at last.  “There we were, Graham’s glowing, magically preserved heart outside his body, but in his possession again.  Still, we didn’t know what to do, how to get it back in his chest where it belonged.  Would there be side effects?  Was it damaged after 28 years of squeezing and prying and separation from his body?  We may be magical creatures, but we don’t actually weld magic like that. We really only had one choice - much as we didn’t want to make it.  Only one other person in this town beside Regina herself might have known how to help us…”

“Gold,” Emma stated breathlessly in dawning realization, the pieces suddenly starting to click together in horrifying place.

“Yep,” Ruby affirmed bluntly, the “p” popping from her lips with scornful distaste. “And you know he never does anyone a favor without exacting a price.”

“Well,” Emma sat back hard against the vinyl of the booth seat, digesting all she’d heard and readying herself for the fight ahead.  When she met her friend’s eyes again a few seconds later there was a steely determination in their green depths that, even after their relatively short acquaintance, Ruby knew most people had learned not to question - and that she had come to respect.  “Enough of that,” Emma continued stalwartly; her stubborn mind clearly made up as she stood from the bench seat and squared her shoulders. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Wait, what?” Ruby spluttered, scrambling after her and tossing her apron on the table to follow Emma to the entrance.  “What are you going to do? I don’t think--”

Emma spun at the door, green eyes flashing, “Look, I understand why you guys went to him.  You really didn’t have any other choice.  I made that mistake once myself,” but then Emma drew herself up straighter, as if trying to physically stand taller to gather herself for the fight ahead.  “I don’t want Graham hurt either, but we can’t do our jobs and protect this town with Gold and his favors to collect hanging over our heads.  Plus, Graham still isn’t really free if he’s just having to act as a different person’s puppet.  Is he?”

Ruby didn’t answer this at first not sure, not sure how to counter Emma’s logic, but concern for her brother whose heart she had literally seen pulsing fragilely outside of his body not that long ago, still overriding most everything else.  Plus, she had almost all she could manage to keep up with Emma, who was now striding briskly toward the station, with her ridiculously high wedge heels over the uneven pavement of Storybrooke’s aging sidewalks.  Finally, she managed to get in breathlessly, “No, I guess he isn’t, when you put it that way.  But still, do we really wanna give the guy who put his heart back in reason to rip it out again?”

The question made Emma’s shoulders slump marginally, but she didn’t stop moving forward. Her voice was low and taut with worry over the seriousness of the situation when she did respond.  “I get what you’re saying, Rubes.  I do. But we may not have a choice.  This can’t go on forever.  We need to turn the tables on him.”

By the time this hissed whisper exchange was complete, they had reached the station. Emma jerked the outer door roughly in her haste and turmoil, and Ruby simply clattered in behind her - concerned naturally, but also gaining a bit of her friend’s projected confidence.  Bucking the ruling power in town appealled to her, and it was long overdue.  She’d do what she could and hope for the best. Emma was the Savior after all; she had broken the curse that gave them all back their true selves, perhaps she really could set them free once again.

Neither woman was quite prepared, however, for the calm, once might even call it ordinary, sight which greeted them once they got past the lobby and into the main office of the station.  Both Graham and Killian stood near the bars of the cell that the sheriff had clearly escorted their new guest into.  Killian Jones looking much more relaxed and at home than someone newly arrested and taken to jail had any right to - leaning against the wall of the cell, one arm propped at the elbow up on the metal crossbar and his legs crossed casually, seeming at ease as if he were at home in his favorite chair.  Graham on the other hand, looked downright anxious and sheepish, clearly not happy that Gold had been able to face his hand so neatly and all signs pointing to the guilt he felt for taking Killian in without a good reason.

It was evident that the two had been deep in conversation, and neither seemed at all upset with the other, which Emma happily took as a good sign.  Once having that gauge of the situation she made her way across the room toward them, Ruby at her heels.

“Hey there, beautiful,” Killian offered in greeting, his eyes twinkling playfully despite the less than ideal surroundings in which he found himself.

Emma felt the room go hot and her vision a bit fuzzy at the way his gaze seemed to track her motions; if she didn’t know better it would remind her of the way a predator in the wild tracked its prey before pouncing and devouring. Despite the heated flow of her blood, a shudder ran through her, making her response shaky at best, “Hey yourself, Jones.  You’re awfully chipper for someone recently incarcerated.”  She flustered despite her easy banter, shocked at how hard she’d had to bite her tongue not to call him “Handsome” in place of his name and how hard she was still fighting not to reach through the bars that separated them and pull him closer by the edge of his open jacket.

She fisted her hands reflexively and then shoved them in her back pockets, trying to simply look expectant to hear what they’d been up to.  But Jones’ eyes still watched her intently, and his brow arched with a wicked bent at her fidgeting, as if he knew exactly what was going on inside her.

“Well Lass, a lovely lady such as yourself is already visiting me - and will presumably be one of my jailers - so I can’t complain overmuch.  Your partner here has been filling me in on the rest of the story as well.  All considered, I’ve certainly been in worse straits and lived to tell the tale.”

Emma had vaguely felt both Ruby and Graham go a bit tense at Killian’s “beautiful” and his blatant flirtation, and though she’d been almost too engrossed in his aura to fully register their strange reactions, she could tell now that both of them were still a bit on their guard, perhaps even suspicious, though each was working to portray an appearance of calm.  Her eyes darted from one of her friends to the other sharply, tyring to pick up whatever last cue she was clearly missing.

When she came up empty, Emma simply decided to plow on - frustrated but anxious to move her plan forward, get Jones out of that cell, find the poor missing woman they needed to locate, and not - definitely not - tackle Jones onto her desk and mess her hands in that dark, shaggy hair of his while she kissed that infuriating smirk he was leveling at her off his face.  The picture was so vivid as it flashed in her head, she had to physically shake it loose, and her words sounded almost desperate as they spilled out in a rush and forced her to refocus.

“Good, we’ve apparently all caught up and in the loop then. Here’s the thing. We can’t let Mr. Gold, Rumplestiltskin, whoever he wants to call himself, run this town.  We need to protect ourselves and the people who’ve trusted us to keep them safe as well.  I say, we find this Belle, reunite she and Gold and tell him our debts are both paid in full,” she gestured between she and Graham but didn’t stop talking, seeing all three members of her audience open their mouths to interrupt and protest.  “I’m serious.  We let him know we’ve done what he asked - which was the right thing to do anyway - and we did it together.  So we’ve both returned the favor he did for us.  The end. Simple. He can’t hold it over us forever. I’ll take her over there myself even, so he doesn’t go for your heart again,” she added to Graham.  “This is my reckless plan after all,” she tacked on with attempted levity.

Graham protested immediately, “Emma, I couldn’t let you take that risk alone to protect my own skin.”

She shook her head, ready to tell him she didn’t want him to suffer any more at the hands of twisted, power-tripping lunatics, even if it made things awkward by letting him know she knew all, or upset with his sister for telling her.  Before she could get the words out, however, a deep voice interrupted hoarsely; emotion making it rough but all-too-certain of what he was saying.

“It’s awfully dangerous, Love.  You may think it sounds clear-cut and reasonable.  But things are never simple with Rumplestitlskin.  He lives for his deals, and he’s the king of loopholes. Trust me when I tell you that thinking you’ve gained the upper hand can prove deadly.” He raised the oddly stiff hand on his left as silent proof.

She shrugged, crossing her arms over her chest defensively and though his clearly painful past with the Crocodile as he called Gold hurt to consider, she couldn’t let it stop them.  They could all pay, but they would regardless if they kept letting Gold call the shots.  “Regardless,” she countered, “we’re going to have to take our chances.  You guys go track down any leads you think could help us find this Belle. I’ll stay here with Killian.  If we bring Gold’s missing loved one back to him, try to make our own deal in return, maybe, if the prize sweet enough, he won’t be able to resist.”  She shrugged, out of words now, “It’s the best chance we’ve got.”

“Emma, are you sure that’s wise?” Graham questioned awkwardly and then trailed off, just as Ruby began to step forward, shaking her head.

“What?” Emma questioned, planting a hand on her hip.  “Am I not a good enough deputy to watch over things here now?”

Killian reached out through the bars and pulled on her hand gently, “Easy Lass, don’t think that for a second.  It’s me they don’t quite trust.”

She turned to look at him slightly, not sure what was happening, but he sighed with a sheepish look from Graham to Ruby.  “I already told the Sheriff here how I got to this land with Mayor Mills’ sorceress mother, and did some shady things to stay on her good side back in our land.  Never mind the fact that…” he paused, licking his lips as he glanced down at his worn boots then back up at her from under dark lashes, “they can’t help doubting one of their own who doesn’t belong in a pack.  It’s part of their nature - wolves aren’t meant to run alone.  But I’ve never quite fit, and any pack I’ve tried to join sees me as a loner and wonders what’s wrong with me. Then the pattern continues and I’m still alone.”

“Wait, seriously?!?” Emma sputtered incredulously, eyes bugging, even as she sensed Graham relaxing, clearly glad not to be hiding any longer, and Ruby smirked knowingly at Killian’s admission and Emma’s reaction.  “You too? Are you serious right now?”

Killian’s smirk stretched across his face in an irresistible, hungry expression; one that Emma wanted to let devour her no matter the cost.  The low murmur of his voice rolled through her like tingling pleasure despite how she tried not to let it show. Still, she knew the heat must have rose as a blush in her cheeks and at least a small smile at his words.  “Come now, Swan. Don’t pretend my animal magnetism didn’t draw you from the first moment our eyes met.”

Emma found herself leaning forward, just as Killian leaned in as well, forehead to the metal bars, his warm breath on her cheek. “Don’t try to hide it, Love,” his teeth flashed. “I can see it, smell it on you. That kind of desire just can’t be hidden.”

[garbagepersonnn]

I am an idiot.

Saturday night was strange as fuck. I almost saw someone get jumped and I have cocaine stuck to my debit card.

Elaborate: A few weeks ago some rando added me on Snapchat. We got to talking and he seemed cool and chill. He isn’t really my type but I figured I’d try something new.

Last weekend, my sister and I decided to plan to hang out this weekend. We decided we should go kick it on our moms boyfriend’s docked sail boat. As the week went by, we added to our plan. She was going to pick up weed and a boy that she liked and I was going to for sure drink. Then, I decided that I should bring a friend. That friend turned into the Snapchat rando, Joe. We talked on the phone on Wednesday night and he was down to come along but told me that I’d have to pick him up because if he got caught drinking and driving again, he’d go to prison this time. RED FLAG! Then he mentioned that he liked to “fuck with that yayo”. RED FLAG RED FLAG!! Of course, I decided to ignore those red flags. I picked him up from his place on Friday. On the car ride to the marina, he told me that he was a GD and showed me bullet wound scars on his arm. He pulled his shirt down to show me an old GD gang tattoo. At this point, I’m thinking, “Wow. Great. Maybe he’s done with that life now? I hope he’s done with that life now.”

We get to the boat and he and I start drinking and it’s fine, It’s chill. It’s 10 pm and my sister is hungry as hell so she decides pick up a pizza and then to go 30 minutes away to pick up the guy she had mentioned earlier. We all get in her car and get going. We get the pizza and the kid and on the way back to the boat, Joe asks my sister to go to his plugs house.. I’m like, “Uhm, No.” So we go to his house and so he can pick up his truck. My sister and the kid go back to the boat and he and I go to his plugs house. The plug isn’t awake and he gets pissed and we go back to the boat. Fast forward to 3:34 am. He wants to go to Hookah Lounge. We get denied at the door and he get mad about it and says, “Yo! You know who the fuck I am? You know who you’re talking to, bruh? How you gonna tell me I can’t come in? Fuck is this shit?” After a few minutes, the owner apologizes endlessly and lets us in. He mistook Joe for someone else. The owner explained to me that he was embarrassed about the mix up and that he owes Joe for respecting his establishment when someone tried to fight him and he said that he didn’t want to fight there. He tells me that we get in free, get a free hookah and free drinks. Well, they were only open for another 15 minutes. So we all go outside and I see Joe talking on the down low to a bouncer. Then I hear them raising their voices and then they start pushing each other. Then the other bouncers crowd around Joe and it looks like there’s going to be a big fight. Another bouncer came from what looked like nowhere and told Joe, “Look, brotha, ya know what you need? You need this.” and shook Joe’s hand and Joe thanked him and we left. What happened was, Joe was trying to buy coke from a bouncer. He was trying to buy 1.5 ounces of coke, gave the bouncer the money for it and the bouncer stiffed him and gave him an ounce. Joe asked for his money back and that’s when hell broke loose. When the other bouncer shook Joe’s hand, he gave him the coke he paid for. It was a mess. He did a little bit of it in the car and we left. When we got back to the boat, he did more of it. He used my debit card to line it up. In fact, he did it throughout the night and was so wired he kept me up literally all fucking night because he wouldn’t shut the fuck up. By morning, he was finishing up his coke and his girlfriend called him. It was her truck he picked up. They argued on the phone for two hours and he left an hour and a half later.

What. A. Fucking. Mess.

I’m literally just coasting here. I’m just going through the motions and making mistakes while I save up to get away. When I move, I wont put myself in these kinds of situations. I wont because I wont be as fucking miserable and bored as I am here. I think that I do stupid shit like this because it shocks me into feeling alive here. Otherwise, I feel like a zombie.

[jojuarez26]

We found love in a hopeless place part 24

Divergent fanfiction: Eric/OC. Mature content and strong language. I do not own any part of Divergent.

@pathybo @tigpooh67 @lunaschild2016 @emmysrandomthoughts @elaacreditava @beautifulramblingbrains @clublulu333 @jaihardy @iammarylastar @kenzieam @kiiiimberlyriiiicker1995 @badassbaker @badassdauntlessgirl @scorpio2009 @mom2reesie @readsalot73 @frecklefaceb @dauntlessqueen99 @captstefanbrandt @desicoulter @sporadichologramblizzard-ed17414 @dani5102

A sob escaped me as I hugged my son tightly. Sam wrapped her arms around my waist, my mother put her hand on my knee and Four a hand on my shoulder. But what calmed me down? Adam kissing my cheek than patting my face.

I drew a deep breath to gather myself. I kissed Sam's forehead then Adam's. I smiled at my mother and squeezed her hand.

You can do this, my mother had mouthed to me. We knew loss. We knew the pain. She squeezed my hand again reassuring me.

I sat Adam so I could look in his eyes. I wanted to make sure he understood, also, my father always taught me to look someone in the eyes when you tell them something important.

"You know mommy and daddy have been working, on a really dangerous job," I started.

"Yes daddy."

"Well buddy mommy was protecting daddy and she, she got hurt. Really bad." I gulped.

"Hwer is urt?" He asked softly.

"You know she loved you very, very much right. And no matter what she will always be right here," I placed my hand over his heart.

"Wight hwere," he put his hand over mine.

"Mommy isn't coming back buddy. When she got hurt, she died. Do you know what that means?" My voice broke.

He shook his head yes. "Mommy went to sweep liked Oscar and hers neber wakin upt no more." Tears pooled in my boys beautiful eyes.

"Who's Oscar?" I asked.

"Him twas me phish. Him went to sweep and neber waked up. Yoo did didn't fush mommy down ta toyyet!?" Adam asked suddenly horrified.

"NO, no buddy. But, mommy did go to sleep and she isn't going to wake up. I'm so sorry buddy. She loved you sooo much. But you still have me and Sam and grandma. We even have Four," I smiled weakly.

"We all love you. It's ok to cry and be sad or mad," I felt lost. So lost.

Tears did slowly start to fall down his face. Once again he put his hands on my cheeks and his forehead on mine. We just stayed like that for awhile.

After a few hours mother went to her suite and Four left. I laid down with Adam until he fell asleep. Sam stayed close but stayed back unless I pulled her or called her to me.

Something besides the current situation was on her mind. However it would have to wait for a little bit, but she seemed to already know that. After I was sure Adam was asleep I stepped on the balcony for a smoke.

I had quit a few times but when shit got stressful I always seemed to start again. Sam came out behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist. God how I had missed her. I put one of my hands over hers.

"I drew you a hot bath. Put a small bottle of whiskey and a shot glass in there," she said while tightening her grip.

"The bath sounds lovely. However I don't want the whiskey. I just want you," I replied softly.

"Whatever you want or need," she pressed a kiss to my shoulder.

"How have you been holding up since I've been gone? You know I had Quentin and Jordan excuted?" I worried about her here alone for so long.

"Ok. Four has been a big help with Adam. Dr.Marx comes by daily. He had to make one late night call after the execution, but he was gracious about it," She seemed to tense slightly at the end .

"I'm sorry sweetheart. Sorry I left you alone in all this." So much for her to handle alone. It was what killed me the most besides missing her and Adam in general.

"Eric look at me," she pulled me to turn towards her. "For the first time in my life since my sister died, I don't feel alone. I have you and Adam. Four has started to grow on me," she laughed.

"I feel like I belong. Safe at home. You finally served me justice when you had those vile bastards excuted. I love you Eric. You literally, saved me. That will ALWAYS be enough," her hand cupped my cheek and her eyes where filled with love and adoration.

I bent down and placed a slow, soft kiss on her lips and held her close. I've never felt what I do for Sam. Adam being my son, I understand those new feelings. Everything for Sam, I still don't know how or why it all happened, but I'm so glad it has.

"Come. Sit in the tub and relax your body." She started to pull me toward the bathroom.

"Get in with me?" I hoped it wouldn't be to much for her. I wanted and needed her so much right now.

She lowered her eyes and bit her lip. I could tell she was debating with herself. Admittedly I was disappointed, but ok that she may not be ok with it. I knew intimacy might be an issue when I chose to be with her.

"Sam. Sweetheart it's fine. Just come and sit in there with me?" She looked up in my eyes and I seen tears pool and guilt settle in.

"Hey. None of that. It's ok. I just want you close and just sitting in the bathroom with me is fine," I held her head in place so she could see my eyes. I never want her to doubt herself when it comes to us.

"Ok," she tugged at my hand to pull me along to the bathroom.

Soaking in hot bath was amazing. Having Sam sitting next to the tub washing my neck and back and just holding my hand was also nice and helped me relax. So much had happened that was such an ugly part of life in the last three days. Having her here next to me was a thing of beauty. A light in all the darkness.

As the water eventually cooled I got out and slipped on just a pair of boxers. Sam had turned the bed down. Realizing all the pent up nervous energy I had, I decided a shot or two of whiskey wasn't such a bad idea.

"Love? Can I get you anything? Do you need anything before I get in bed?" Sam asked from the door of our room.

"No. Just you beside me," I half heartedly smiled and patted her side of the bed.

After she laid down I turned the beside light off and pulled her close to me. I stroked her hair while her fingers drew patterns on my chest. It was comforting to have her next to me finally.

"I'm so sorry about Dara. I don't know what happened. You don't have to talk about it. After spending time with her I realize she was an amazing person, just really misunderstood." Sam spoke soft and carefully. She placed a kiss on my chest.

"She didn't have it easy growing up. Then when we got here and I got leader in training, I put her on the back burner. I don't blame her for Kyle anymore. It was partially my fault too." I took a deep breath to continue. It felt good letting it out.

"I wish she would've told me about Adam. I get it though. I'm actually grateful for Jeanine when it comes to Adam. Dara wanted an abortion. Jeanine denied her, promised to help with him. Which she did." Then the guilt of the last three and a half years hit me hard.

"I just wish she could have found someone to love her as much as she could love them," I trailed off quietly.

"Eric she did. She just wasn't open about it," Sam said quietly, almost nervously.

"What? Who? How would you-"

"She spent three days with Adam and I remember? We talked, girl talk." She was adamant, but sounded guilty.

"Is it betraying her to tell you her secret if she's gone?"Sam was conflicted.

"I don't think she would mind at this point. I would just be happy to know someone gave her the love she deserved. Unlike that piece of shit Kyle,"I growled his name out. Still had to deal with that fucker eventually.

"Did you know her friend Tana?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. Nice girl. They've been friends since we were kids," now I was slightly confused. Tana is still in Erudite.

"After she had Adam, Jeanine had her at Erudite whenever she wasn't working. Tana supported her, spent lot's of time with her," Sam paused. After a moment she finally continued.

"Last year they decided to be more than friends. She was afraid to tell you or Jeanine because she didn't know if either of you would approve. She didn't want it to affect her rights to Adam if you didn't approve."

Suddenly so many things made sense. I also instantly felt like an asshole and a fool. I just wanted her to be happy.

"I would have been ok with it. I just wanted to see her happy and treated right. Well and of course loved and respected Adam. Love is love, sometimes we can't help who it is we fall in love with," I smiled down at her.

She smiled back before a worried look took over her. What the hell brought that on?

"Sam what's wrong?" I asked carefully.

She hesitated a minute before deciding to answer.

"You're not mad at me? For keeping a secret from you?" Her voice was nervous and almost child like.

"No, not this secret. It wasn't yours to tell. Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me now. It's a small but important burden lifted off my shoulders." I kissed her forehead and then the tip of her nose.

Although I didn't want any secrets between us, I wanted her to know this was different. It was something Dara told her as a friend and it wasn't something that would harm Adam. I'm pretty sure Dara all but spelled it out for me last week, I was just too damn stupid to catch on.

I made a mental note to email Tana with an invite to the private wake. I also figured she could go threw Dar's things with me. She would know better than I as to what Dara would want at this point in life.

I felt myself dozing off as Sam ran her fingers lightly down my chest. I stopped fighting it, anything else could wait until tomorrow.

I sat up in bed screaming out her name. I had been trying in vein to save her. It was like I stood back watching it all play out in slow motion whilst being able to do nothing.

I jumped at the hand that touched my back. This caused Sam to cower back. Shit. One step forward two steps back it always seemed.

"Sweetheart no, come here. I'm sorry. Just not use to someone being here when I wake up," I pulled her into my arms once she slowly scooted back towards me.

"Nightmare? About not being able to save her?" Sam asked quietly.

At first I didn't reply. Then I knew if anyone could understand or appreciate nightmares, it would be Sam. One of her fears and nightmares was not being able to save Gina.

"Yeah. I've had it everytime I fall asleep since she died. Only sometimes instead of seeing Dara, I see you or Adam." It was fucking with me something fierce.

"I'm sure you did everything you could." Sam tried to make me feel better. Unfortunately it had the opposite affect.

"No damn it! I didn't! If I would have just listened to her she would still be here!" I'd been holding that in since it happened.

I hadn't meant to yell, let alone make it seem like I was yelling at Sam. She pushed me away and all but ran too the bathroom locking herself in. Son of bitch. This was exactly what I DIDN'T want to happen when I came home.

I know how fragile and broken Sam can feel or be at times. Unfortunately right now, I'm pretty fucking broken too.

After taking a few minutes to get my shit together, I finally walked over and tapped on the bathroom door. I was met with silence. So, I tapped again.

"Sam. I'm so sorry. Will you please come out?" I pleaded.

Still silence. So I sat down in front of the door and just started to talk. I didn't know what else to do that wouldn't potentially scare her.

"Remember when I told you I'm not a nice guy? I'm still not. It's just usually I'm nicer too you. I didn't mean to yell at you. I'm pissed off at myself. I've been holding that in since the day it happened. I never meant to take it out on you. Not you, ever," my voiced cracked and faded out.

"You and Adam are so important to me. Your both my world. I hate when either of you are hurt or sad. Even worse I hate myself when I'm the cause of your pain or fear." I felt a tear slide down my cheek.

The lock popped but the door didn't open. I gave it a minute or two. The last thing I wanted was to scare her again. Finally I called to her threw the door.

"Can I come in? Or will you at least come out sweetheart. Please," I asked just above a whisper.

The door opened but she didn't come out. When I finally poked my head in I felt my heart drop. I felt like a monster. She sat in the bath tub hugging her knees to her chest. Tears stained her face. I took a few steps before dropping to my knees next to the tub.

"I'm so sorry. I never, ever wanted to be the reason you feel this way. Ever." My broken heart was breaking even more.

"It's not your fault. I know you're broken too. I see it, I feel it. It's just, you've never really yelled at me before," her voiced was quivering.

"Sam I di-"

"I know, I know. You weren't exactly yelling at ME. It's just in my condition I seem extra sensitive." She instantly slapped a hand over her mouth after she spoke.

"What condition is that Sam," I asked nervously.

She began to sob hysterically. Whatever the problem was must be what's been bothering her since I got back. I crawled in the tub with her and wrapped my arms around her. I rocked back and fourth sushing her softly. Finally after about ten minutes she started to calm down.

"Sweetheart what's wrong with you? Please tell me. I promise whatever it is we'll work threw it," I whispered in her ear.

"I wanted to wait to tell you. You're already so stressed out," she sniffled.

"Please tell me. Knowing something is wrong, but not knowing what will just make it worse. I can handle whatever is," liar I thought to myself. If she's sick I will loose it, but I have to know.

After several more sniffles she finally looked at me. She was terrified and it both hurt me and pissed me off.

"Was it true? That you never wanted children?" She asked so softly I almost didn't hear her.

Why the fuck would she ask me that?

"Why? Adam is already here. So why would it matter anymore?" Who has she been talking to and the actual fuck did they say?

"Just answer my question Eric, then I'll answer yours. I promise," I could tell that for whatever reason the answer was important.

"When I first became a leader, I really didn't give a fuck about anything except my job. So at one point, yes that was true. However, that was before Adam and that was before you."