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browniefox · 4 years ago

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The Spectral Turnabout 3/?

Miles gets the truth of his ‘hallucinations’ revealed to him.

oOo

“Please, Edgeworth, let me help you.” Phoenix asked once more, a little quieter this time, a little more sure of the answer he was going to get. He was already knee-deep into the case. The dl-6 incident was dusted off. Phoenix’s single-minded focus had already locked onto this case, onto this murder, onto Miles’ innocence.

The spirit that followed Miles’ had set her head on the table before him, less than an inch from touching the man’s hand, eyes flicking between Miles and Phoenix. She was sitting completely still, and Phoenix imagined if she was a living creature she’d be holding her breath.

“... yes.” Miles said, almost more of a whisper than anything. Phoenix felt the weight of the case settle on him, officially under his responsibility. The spirit tipped her head back and howled with joy, jumping and hopping around in her excitement. She slipped through the wall dividing Miles and Phoenix and ran right into Phoenix, bowling him over with her force.

“Yes yes yes! Thank you thank you! I promise you won’t regret this, I promise! He’s innocent, I was with him all night, he’s innocent and I know it so don’t you worry, you’re doing the right thing!” The spirit cheered, giving Phoenix’s face a lick that definitely felt like being licked by a dog, and he had to wonder if normal people would see the slobber on his face or not.

“Hey, yes, I am, and that’s great, but I need to talk to Edgeworth a bit more!” Phoenix did his best to gently nudge the spirit off, but she was big and heavy. Maya was over in a moment, grabbing the spirit from the back and lifting her off. The spirit made a sad noise, the wings on her head fluttering around.

“You have to get him acquitted, okay? He’s innocent!” The spirit continued to insist.

“We will!” Maya promised. This made the spirit’s wings - both the set on her head and the set on her back - flutter about even more in joy and excitement, pushing away from Maya and flying through the wall again to rest her head exactly where it had been before, nice and close to Miles.

Miles.

Who was still on the other side of the glass.

Who must’ve just seen Phoenix fall backwards for no reason, talk to nobody, and then Maya perform some impressive mime of trying to lift something heavy that didn’t exist.

Who was speechless staring at Phoenix and Maya, not blinking, maybe not breathing.

“Ah, uh, you, your response,” Phoenix desperately fished for a way to explain what had just happened.

“We’re practicing! For a show!” Maya said quickly, coming in clutch.

“Did you hear, Miles? They believe me! They’re going to save you, you’ll be okay!” The spirit said.

And then, Miles eyes darted down to the spirit, and a purple spectral energy began to come off of him.

“Edgeworth?” Phoenix said slowly, cautiously, getting back to his feet and close to the glass again. Miles’ chest was moving quicker and quicker, moving up and down in great big movement that almost looked painful. The spirit touched her nose to Miles’ hand, such a small but very deliberate gesture.

“You’re a spectral?” Maya asked, clearly as surprised as Phoenix.

Miles’ shoulders shook, a chuckle escaping from his mouth, and then he was full-on laughing. The spirit made a pained noise and began to wrap herself around the man, just like Phoenix had seen her do during court; a position that now had a different meaning knowing that Miles was aware of it, let the spirit do so. The spectral energy rolled off of him in disjointed and randomly spiking waves`

“Edgeworth…?” Maya shuffled awkwardly. Miles' laughter petered out quickly, and it sounded more like coughing, like sobbing, but he wasn’t shedding any tears. One hand was raised up and just barely not touching the spirit who was trying so hard to comfort him.

“Say it again,” Miles asked, no, he begged, “Ask me again.”

“Miles,” Phoenix let out a slow breath, “Are you a spectral?” Another dry chuckle forced its way out of Miles’ chest in a way that looked like it was against his will.

“Y… yes, yes, I think I am. At least, that’s what Pess told me.” Miles said. He rubbed his face, making an effort to get himself under control again, and with the action his spectral energy crept back inside of him, hidden once more like it had never been there. It was a subtle difference, considering with the spirit draped over him, her own spectral color a match for his, it was almost impossible to tell them apart.

“Mr. Edgeworth… are you okay?” Maya asked, brow furrowed in concern.

“There’s… I have so many questions, but now isn’t the time, is it? I finally have answers literally right in front of me, and I can’t even reach out and grab them.” Yet another humorless laugh shook him, “When this is over, however it ends… tell me about this then. For now, take this. It’s a request for you to be my attorney.”

Phoenix took it, not knowing what to say. He looked down at it, turning it over in his hands. Miles had come into the room with it in his hands, despite his insistence that he wouldn’t let Phoenix take his case. The thought made something swell in Phoenix’s chest, but the emotion was dampened by the entire exchange that had just happened.

“Miles-” Phoenix started.

And then the world shook, and anything he might’ve said was lost.

oOo

“Spectral.” Miles repeated the word to himself. He’d committed the word to memory years and years ago, from the night that Pess had told him, but he’d never said it out loud since. Now, he rolled it over his tongue, acknowledging the way it sounded when said out loud. It was a word, a real word, with a definition and everything. A noun, a term to describe somebody like him that could see spirits and ghosts.

“I did tell you.” Pess reminded him.

He was lying on the bed in his cell, Pess’s head set on his chest. The meeting with Phoenix had been… quite something. There was the feeling of failure at having been unable to keep the man away from the DL-6 incident, then being shaken completely to his core by the sharp upheaval of his reality with the fact that he wasn’t, in fact, insane or hallucinating all these years, and then the great and final note of an earthquake more literally shaking Miles. He wasn’t aware of what he’d done in the moment, but when he came back to himself Phoenix and Maya were gone and the guard - who until then had stood quietly by the door, for all the world unaware of Miles’ and Phoenix’s meeting - was kneeling over him with concern on his face and had then taken Miles back to his cell.

“Yes, you did.” Miles relented. The words were still a whisper, so deliberately quiet, and he wanted nothing more than to pet Pess and bury his face into her fur, but he wasn’t home. He only let himself acknowledge Pess when they were truly alone. Except… except she was real, she wasn’t a figment of his imagination.

That didn’t change the fact that hardly anybody could see her, and they would think he was crazy if they found him talking to air.

“When you get out of here, maybe they can tell you more about being a spectral.” Pess said, nuzzling Miles as she spoke.

“When I get out.” Miles wasn’t sure how much he believed that would be a thing. The evidence was against him. Then again, if Phoenix had demonstrated anything in his first three cases, wasn’t it that he could and would work against impossible odds?

It was a shame, he thought, that you couldn’t really put a spirit on the witness stand. Pess, as always, had been with him the whole time, and she would vouch for him before a judge given the chance.

He wasn’t crazy.

Something in him hadn’t snapped irreparably that day in the elevator.

Miles stopped as a thought occurred to him. If he wasn’t crazy, if his memory was indeed reliable… he always dreamed of that day, of the man attacking him dad, of throwing the gun and the sound of it going off.

If he wasn’t crazy, then that had really happened. And if it had really happened, then what if that bullet had been the one to hit his dad?

Miles gave in to digging a hand into Pess’s fur and she snuggled closer.

“Everything is going to be okay, Miles.” She said.

Miles wished he could believe that.

oOo

When it’s over, when it’s all over, Miles was left with a business card.

He must’ve gotten it at some point when Phoenix had practically dragged him out of the courtroom, a big goofy grin on his face, Maya cheering behind them. Pess was literally howling with joy, flying circles around the group, which grew in number with Gumshoe, who had been waiting just outside for them. Miles wasn’t entirely sure he could name the emotion he was feeling at the time, but he knew it felt good, it felt fan-fucking-tastic to see the man who’d shaped him into the demon prosecutor killed his father convicted for the act.

That was a few days ago, however.

Now, Miles was standing outside of an office, holding a business card in his hand, looking from the address printed on it to the number on the door, over and over again and making sure he had it right.

Not that there was much question whether he was in the right place or not. The words ‘Wright & Co Law Offices’ were printed in clear white letters on the door.

Miles took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Pess shifted on her feet next to him, and Miles’ head did a weird flinching thing as he was conflicted on whether to look at her or let the years and years of practice doing specifically not that guide him. In the end, he didn’t look, but he did brush his fingers against the top of her head. He raised his other hand and knocked on the door.

The door was answered by Phoenix himself. Instead of finding the man in the blue suit and pink tie he seemed to wear to every court session (Miles wondered if Phoenix even owned a second suit), Phoenix was dressed in a plain black tee shirt and baggy white pants with an indigo sash tied around his waist. There was the thinnest sheen of sweat on his brow, and he wasn’t wearing any shoes. It definitely wasn’t the attire one expected to find from someone at a law office, and Miles wasn’t sure what to say to that at first. Luckily, he didn’t have to as Phoenix spoke first.

“Oh, Edgeworth! I didn’t expect you to drop by. You should’ve called ahead.” He said, blinking away his own surprise and then smiling simply. “Well, come on in. What can I help you with?”

Miles had never been inside of Phoenix’s office, but he was fairly sure it didn’t usually look like this. The main desk, chairs, and coffee table had been shoved to the edges of the room. Maya was standing in the center of the open area, wearing an outfit nearly identical to Phoenix’s with the exception of a purple sash instead of the blue. She had her finger pointed in the shape of a gun, her spectral energy condensed at the tip of it, and she fired it at Phoenix.

Phoenix put a hand in front of him, his own indigo energy shaping into a shield. The little bullet harmless hit the shield with a little ‘pop’ sound. Maya grinned.

“Your reflexes are getting better.” She said approvingly. In response, Phoenix fired off his own little ball of a spectral energy, which Maya dodged with ease. Phoenix shook his head, but he was smiling, and turned back to Miles.

“Sorry, you wanted to talk about something.”

“Yes,” Miles let himself look down at Pess this time, who gave him an encouraging nod, “I wanted you to tell me about being a s-spectral.” He silently cursed himself. For all the times he’d whispered the word out loud to himself, saying it to another person felt strange.

“Oh!” Phoenix binked, and his spectral energy spiked.

“Really? You came at the perfect time!” Maya ran over, hands clapped together in excitement. “Nick and I are practicing right now!”

“Practicing?” Miles thought back to what he’d seen, of how Maya and Phoenix had done something with their spectral energy. He’d had no idea it was so moldable.

“Yeah! You don’t become a spectral master by just sitting around.” Maya curved her fingers like claws, and the spectral energy pooled around it into a form like two bear paws. Phoenix rolled his eyes. “You can join us if you want.”

“I-I don’t-”

“We should!” Pess looked up at him, tail wagging hopefully, “They’ll know a whole lot more about this than I do.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not hard.” Phoenix promised.

It’d be so much easier to turn around now. To just walk back out the door, and stay the way he’d been most of his life.

But the easy way didn’t necessarily mean it was the better way.

“Okay.”

#pnat #paranatural #ace attorney #miles edgeworth #phoenix wright #maya fey #au #the spectral turnabout

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savysavannah · 4 years ago

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Practice Challenge one: Part One

Beginnings:

“Fuck!” I yelled and slammed my hands against the steering wheel. This wasn’t the first time I’d had a total mental breakdown in the dim lighting of the courthouse parking lot, and it sure wasn’t gonna be the last. This case was rigged from the get-go, Mr. Dean esquire was always there against me, swaying the jury with his charismatic personality and his masculine gender. Not to mention it was a jury which he decided to leave fully as white men, his fellow groupies against my defendant, a woman of color who defended herself against her abuser who came at her with a gun.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Opening them I saw Dean sashaying to his car. I considered putting my own in reverse and waiting until he just walked by, then bye bye Dean. Deciding that it wouldn’t be worth the cost of defending myself I waited until after he’d passed to pull out and start to drive to Illean Private University. I was an attorney coach for a Mock Trial team and of course, had to encourage these kiddos that law was the best career and it would really be fulfilling to help people. Driving past the Greek life houses I couldn’t help but smile thinking of happier times. Chugging shitty beer, dressed like a total slut and not giving one single fuck.

After an hour or two of bullshitting some kids and reminding them to object when someone playing a witness says “well I heard the defendant say he was mad at the victim so he must have killed her.” I drove on my way home.

“Incoming call from Uncle Dipshit'' said my car, continuing the never ending day that is my life.

“What?”

“Hey little Savy-Hannah, I’m in a bit of a bind and need some help.”

“What was it? Cocaine? Meth? Or did you finally snap and get caught with heroin.”

“Come on, Savannah, why would you just assume that, can’t I call my one and only niece because I wanna talk to her?”

“At 11pm? Friday night? Bullshit.”

“.......fine Sav-”

“Fuck you, I’m not doing probono work for you anymore. Get your shit together or get the fuck out of our lives.”

Taking a turn away from my apartment I started to head for Lux, my old usual club. I hadn’t gone in awhile but right now I needed to get absolutely shitfaced. 8 shots and 2 waters later I was grinding up against some strangers to Kesha’s “Die Young”, a classic. Suddenly I heard an all too familiar voice, “Savannah!”

My brother. Specifically, my oldest brother, Dan. He danced his way over to me of course being in this scene and grabbed my wrist. “Wha-u wan dan?” I slurred and kept jumping to the song.

“I was worried about you, Ricky called and said you were acting weird.”

“Weird!" I laughed throwing my head back "Because I wouldn’t clean up his shit for once!” I screamed over the music before he pulled me out of the club by the wrist. As soon as the cool air hit my cheeks I leaned my head back and looked up at the sky.

“I wish I was a star." I mumbled seeing the shimmering lights above us before suddenly leaning forward and hurling all over the cement. Probably a usual occurrence for Lux but I still felt bad. Dan rolled down the windows of my car as he drove me home, I stuck my head out of it for the breeze to feel the air in my lungs.

“How’d you find me?” I mumbled, still not fully back to myself.

“We all have eachothers phone locations, remember? You insisted on it like a year ago after you interned on that kidnapping case.” He sighed as we drove up the familiar road home.

“You’re really a mess you know that?” He asked. It's not like he was much better….well, he was but it's not like I'm our brother Danny. At least I made something of myself. Didn't get handed my career and a wife on a silver platter. Or like Daniel who was still so far back into the closet that we really aren't sure if he'll ever come out, even though our family would be more than accepting of him.

I was tempted to defend myself but stopped, “I know, I just need a win."

The next morning Dan was sleeping on my couch and I was on the living room floor. “You couldn’t have carried me to bed?” I mumbled through a yawn.

“You’re the dumbass who got white girl wasted and said you were too tired to walk to your room.”

“What time is it?” I mumbled and went to find my phone despite the world swaying as I crawled to my purse.

He lifted his arm up to look at his watch, “Like 8:00am chill out.” He groaned.

“HOLY FUCK 8?” I flinched at the loudness of my own voice. I was normally up at six, two hours slept in, what’s today it’s a wednesday. ‘What was I supposed to do today? No clients in court today, so that’s good. Okay so I suppose I have to? Paperwork?’

I sighed, “You’re fucking lucky I didn’t have court today.” Stumbling up I ran to my room to change out of yesterday's clothes, splash some water on my face and get on the move.

"Lucky? I'm the one who got your ass home at all!" He yelled back from the living room as I slipped into a different skirt. Shirt could stay the same, just a plain white shell no one would notice. But skirt absolutely not. I grabbed a pair of earrings and a bag of makeup wipes and rushed past Dan.

"Fine sorry love ya. Family dinner on saturday right?" I hurried as I slung a purse over my shoulder.

"You got it." He replied.

"Uh, stay awhile have breakfast if you want. I've got bagels and eggs. Just lock up when you leave." I remembered finally to be polite as he stretched getting up from the sofa.

The office was busy and loud as usual. I tried to smile and act like I wasn't hungover as holy hell while I walked to my desk.

There was someone new taking a desk near me too. Lanky guy probably straight out of law school too. I sized him up for a moment before nearly catching his eye but going back to my work.

It wasn't till lunch that I had to actually deal with another human when I ran into Mr. Asshole-dean.

"Ms. Mars?" He said as he tapped my shoulder in line at the starbucks near the courthouse.

I turned but knew his voice right away, "Mr. Dean?" I replied wondering why he was bothering me. He seemed to catch my cold tone.

"What, rough night? Does suck the night you lose the case but don't worry. You'll get better at losing, can't win em all."

I would like to get an extra extra hot- you know what make it just a cup of fucking lava to poor on this jackass. I smiled, "Thanks! I'm sure it didn't take you long to get used to it." I gave a passive aggressive smile and looked down to my watch.

"Listen, Mars, I know we're opposing counsel but I don't mean any harm by it. I think we could be great friends if you'd give it a shot. I mean I'm sure we both hate our jo-"

"Hi I'd like a venti mocha!" I ordered cutting him off the scurried back to my car.

I had a few hours before I actually had a meeting. It was just to speak with a judge over a custody case between a homophobic mother and two "really good friends" one of who was the father of the child in question. There was a chance it could turn into a serious case, the mom was wealthy and if she got too displeased she could probably turn it into a civil suit on the grounds of the father being gay. But it wasn't likely she'd take the time. She was only really fighting for custody to use their kid as a weapon in the divorce.

I drove home with my coffee deciding I wanted to Pad Thai leftovers I had as comfort/hangover/please-god-dont-make-me-live-another-day food.

Daniel was sitting on my couch when I walked in. "Can you not just walk into my house? Dan may have forgotten to lock it but that's no reason for you to just waltz in here!" I yelled as I dropped my purse and walked up to him.

"Is that my mail?" I huffed and snatched my letters from him. It was just junk mail but he still had no right to be so intrusive.

He looked up at me with a slight glare, "I know what you did and I'm gonna get you back for it." And as quickly as he came he scurried out.

Ringing up Dan I tapped my foot on the ground, "You forgot to lock the door!" I yelled into the phone.

"Oh shit my bad. You okay?" He asked.

"Yes, but Daniel was just here. All pissed over something." I grumbled and walked to the fridge to get out my leftovers.

"Any idea of what?" He asked.

"No clue." I answered.

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

“No, don’t call anyone. Listen, they record everything but our conversations for confidentiality, if you call someone it’s possible that they might somehow be involved and we don’t want prosecution to get that- understand?” I hated explaining the basics to my clients, but those dumbassses would sign their own sentences if they didn’t know any better.

I walked up to the courthouse, in one hand I had my phone, the other a black coffee from the starbucks across the street, my work back slung over my shoulder and threatened to slide lower onto my arm. As I turned the corner I was suddenly burning with hot coffee against my chest and a stranger staring down at me as I had run right into him,

“FUCK!” I yelled as I stepped back. My heel slipped in a crack on the sidewalk, the top of it snapping it too causing me to fall back, my head hitting the hard concrete.

When I opened my eyes again he was standing over me. It was the new guy who sat across from me. "Don't worry I called an ambulance." He assured. I was going to sit up but as I pieced the situation together I realized I was no longer wearing a shirt. Instead I had his blazer placed over my top. I assume because of the burning coffee which would have been sitting on my torso had he not.

He rode in the ambulance to the hospital. We sat in awkward silence as I tried to figure out his angle. Was he afraid I'd sue. I was the one who bumped into him. Did he wanna ask me questions about our workplace. It'd been a month or so since he'd arrived though so that wouldn't make sense.

He sat next to me at the hospital and was still there when the doctor told me it was a light concussion and a small burn. He sighed, finally not seeming like a stiff board for a moment. Maybe he was scared I'd sue. I turned to him in the hospital bed when we had a moment alone.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

He blushed and looked down mumbling a bit as he said "I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I wouldn't be able to work anyways till I knew." My eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Why? I'm the one that bumped into you?" I asked.

He was about to respond when the brigade of brothers came in. He seemed startled at all the sudden male energy in the room. "Ah, these are my brothers Dan, Danny, and Daniel. Daniel is a family name." I added the common addition when introducing them to anyone.

He stood up and shook Dan's hand firmly "Nicholas Lamia." He said. I realized then that I also didn't know his name. Danny started to get suspicious as he looked at him with antagonizing eyes.

"How do you know our sister?" He asked. Nicholas flushed again and tried to find words for a moment.

"We work together. He's the one who called the ambulance." Daniel set a balloon down next to me that he'd gotten at the gift shop.

We hadn't really spoken since his home break in. I still don't know what that was about. But he's been suspicious since. Once they released me Nicholas went on his way and the Mars siblings stood on the sidewalk and considered where to go.

"Should we get sushi? It's been a moment since we hung out without mom and dad." Dan suggested leading the conversation.

"Hmm, works for me. Samantha's out of town for work." Danny chimed in.

I sighed thinking about all the work I still had to do. But it had been a minute since we hung out for fun, and cucumber rolls wouldn't be too bad right about now. "Sure I'm in." I replied.

"You?" Danny asked Daniel.

He mumbled for a moment with the same guilty look, "no, I don't th-"

Suddenly Danny got him in a headlock, "come on even Savy agreed and she'd rather eat shit than waste time." He joked. I rolled my eyes and we all piled into Dan's car.

The waitress led us up to a small booth towards the back. At first I was going to sit next to Daniel but the blaring TV would send me down a spiral. There was a government program on and as soon as that shit for an heir came on I'd be fuming about how we're leaving the lives of multiple disadvantaged people to a boy who did body shots off a Delta Nu on a thursday night. I wasn’t exactly sure if that story was true, but it wouldn’t surprise me based off of what I’d seen from more credible sources than Lucy in the room down that hall at the sorority house who was gushing about how she wished it could be her. Prince Eaton went to the University of Labrador with us and she was hopeful that he would do it but sadly, no.

Dan saw my eyes lingering on the TV and switched sides of the booth with me. We were just about finished and considering desert when I began to notice the glances and smirks. I wiped with a napkin thinking maybe I had some rice on my face, but they continued nonetheless. It wasn’t like creepy guys smirking either, it was everyone. The air felt different and Daniel looked like he was going to be sick. “What?” I asked as he opened his mouth.

It looked like he was about to say something but couldn’t find the words. Dan opened to speak too, “Savannah, we didn’t think you’d ge-”

“Oh my gosh congratulations on being selected! Would you like a desert? Everything is on the house of course!” The waitress smiled.

I looked up at her as if she were speaking German. “Congratulations on what?” I asked.

“On being selected! They were just announced, are you so excited? Could I also get a photo by any chance! The next queen of Illea could be sitting at my booth!” She cheered.

The world slowed as my mind raced selected? Like The selection selected? I didn’t apply? I didn’t want to apply? How did I even get entered? What did Daniel want to tell me? Did Daniel do this? Was this his revenge for what?

I snapped out of it as Dan called my name. “I’m sorry. I have to step out for a moment.” I said and grabbed my purse running out of the restaurant, feeling everyone watching me. I walked to the side of the building and pressed my back against the cold brick panting. I crumbled inwards as my brothers ran over to me. I took a deep breath in,

“I don’t”

another breath

“understand.”

Suddenly a man with a long lens camera appeared. How did that happen so fast? How did he know what she looked like? Stupid your Savannah Mars it’s not like you’re a nobody your grandpa runs the largest candy company in the world.

“Can you back off?” I heard Dan ask him.

He kept ignoring Dan entirely, that is till Dan pushed his camera out of focus. “What the fuck man? Chill.” The creep said and went to shove Dan. Level headed Dan of course responded by punching him in the face.

We all piled into his car and drove to my house. I sat in the car ride silent and waited for someone to speak. No one did but Daniel still looked like he was going to throw up. We all sat on the sofa in continued silence. Only Dan spoke to offer everyone water.

No one said yes to it but a cup appeared in front of each of us anyways, always the responsible older brother.

I inhaled then finally said, “I’m not mad. I just want to know why?” and looked at Daniel. It was clear by now that he was the culprit.

He sat there in silence, his lip whimpering like he wanted to cry. Like he wanted to cry? If anyone’s going to cry it should be me. Suddenly I lunged at him to get in a hit. Only Danny’s arm stopped mine from smashing into his face.

“Why?” I yelled.

“I thought you made a gay dating profile for me.” He whimpered.

“What?” I asked, even more confused than before.

Dan spoke up, “Danny made a gay dating profile for him to try and give him a little push. When he got mad he said it was you who did it.”

“I just saw the letter sitting there and it seemed like the perfect way to get back at you for meddling in my love life. I was just gonna taunt you with submitting it, then Dan told me it was Danny but he said you wouldn’t get in and you’d just never know.” Daniel explained.

“Well, statistically speaking you shouldn’t have.” He defended. My anger shifted to the brother holding me back. If Danny had teased Daniel about his sexuality none of this would have happened. But I couldn’t do anything with him still holding my wrist.

I stood from the sofa and the brothers stood as well. “I’m going to go get changed.” The second they relaxed I turned and charged at Danny. “You fucking bitch!” I yelled and started to pull at his hair. He didn’t fight back but Daniel panicked and Dan rushed over. I was yanked off of him before I could make any real damage but he did look hurt enough.

“How could you! Just minding your own fucking business could have avoided this whole thing! And Daniel!” I yelled and turned. “Don’t fucking get vengeance especially not without communicating!”

The phone started to ring. It was probably about the selection. I huffed over ready to say, “Hi, yes this is Savannah Mars. No, I would not like to participate, please pull someone else.” But as I picked up the phone I realized something. Daniel would have had to forge my signature. In order to apply for me he had to sign a contract. If I say I want out I would have to prove I didn’t agree to begin with. That would mean proving the false signature. Which is by the way, illegal.

I sighed, held the phone to my ear. “Yes this is she. I’m so excited to be selected and am more than happy to discuss a time for you to send your people over.”

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emperorsfoot · 5 years ago

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The long and uncomfortably awaited royal wedding!

Hordak and Entrapta’s marriage.

...

He was still losing weight.

Over the last few days, Hec-Tor had lost a little over one kilogram of body mass. Enough weight that his wedding gown had to be taken in. His arms under his armor were thinner and he had to add padding to the inside to keep the exterior plating from rubbing uncomfortably with the extra space.

The gown was predominantly green, a pale lime green, with accents in white and gray. The colors of the House of Kur. They had to cinch it around the ribs and waist to adjust for the weight loss. The shift in fabric off setting the placement of the thigh-slits on the legs. The whole gown had to be altered. The tailors just barley managing to finish in time for the ceremony.

Hec-Tor slipped it on, feeling the soft fabric slide against his skin like it was meant to be there. Fitting like a glove over his shoulders and around his mid-section. Like he had been poured into it, rather than it being pulled over him. The slits on the thighs went up higher than Hec-Tor originally specified, showing more skin, and when he moved, the straps of his garters showed. The oversight was so much that it had to be deliberate. No Imperial tailor would make the mistake. The alteration had to be commanded by someone in a position to command. And it hadn’t been Hec-Tor, which meant Brother had ordered it.

Studying his reflection in the mirror, Hec-Tor had just finished selecting a pair of earrings when Horde Prime walked in. Unannounced and without invitation.

“Coming to check on me.” Hec-Tor growled at his brother. “Making sure I didn’t climb out a window with a rope made from bedsheets.”

The windows of the Imperial palace did not open.

“You didn’t run the first time.” Prime reminded him. “You did your duty then, you’ll do it now.”

Hec-Tor gave his reflection one final examination. Dangling earrings matching the decorative plugs in his neck ports, both in gold. Chains of gold strung between more plugs in the ports on his sides. Gown falling over his hips in a sensual drape, the slits provocatively showing his garters when he moved. He turned around to face his brother. “I will serve the Empire.”

“You are a good servant.” Prime nodded. He reached out a hand, lifting Hec-Tor’s chin. Tilting the younger man’s face one way, then the other. Examining the sharp angle of his cheek bones, the shape of his eyes, the set of his brows. The makeup accenting and complementing his best features, and downplaying or outright concealing his less appealing ones. He looked rather attractive by their family’s standards. “You look like Par-is.”

Hec-Tor pulled out of his brother’s hand. “Are we allowed to say her name again?”

“No.” Prime deadpanned. Then cleared his throat. Backing up and averting his eyes, almost as if he didn’t want to look at Hec-Tor anymore. “If you’re done preening, I want to get this absurd ceremony over with.”

“You want your weapons.” Hec-Tor asserted. That’s all this was. A business transaction. Prime would give Entrapta all the resources she needed and in return she would furnish his vast space-faring military with weapons. Hec-Tor was just the notary stamp on the contract. “I want to get back to my regular schedule.”

He was sure his desk must be over-full of all the work that’d been piling up while he was forced to divert his time and attentions to this farce. All the items of business that Horde Prime delegated to him. Hec-Tor was sure his brother was not seeing to them himself. And since Hec-Tor did not have the opportunity to deal with them, things just were not getting done.

“You will adjust your schedule to your new environment.” Horde Prime announced cryptically. “You can still perform your usual duties from your new home.”

“New home?” Hec-Tor echoed.

Prime’s lip curled. “I have been told that Entrapta of Dryl can be… easily distracted. You will keep her on task and our arms manufacture on schedule.” A pause. “In addition to the responsibilities you already fulfill.”

“You’re banishing me to the other side of the universe!” This was the reason. This was why Entrapta seemed so sure that he and Imp would be living with her in the Crypto Castle. She had already worked it out with Prime ahead of time. Brother just decided to wait until the day of the wedding to tell him.

“Don’t be so melodramatic, brother.” Prime scoffed. “Banishment implies that you would never be allowed back. I’m simply deploying you as a strategic asset to protect our interests. You will oversee Dryl’s manufacture of arms for the Empire, and while you’re there, you will also sire a daughter with Entrapta. She will inherit the arms manufacture and when your daughter is old enough, you can come home for her wedding to Zed.”

“You’ve got everything all figured out.” Hec-Tor scoffed.

“I do.” Prime nodded. “And you would do well to perform your role without complaint.”

“Do I have any other options?”

“No. You don’t.”

Forcing his head high, Hec-Tor tried to step past his brother. “Then I have a wedding to get to.”

But Prime stopped him. One hand grabbing his shoulder, wrinkling the fabric draped over his armor. “You’re forgetting something.”

Hec-Tor turned back to glare at the other man. “What?”

“That.” Prime pointed to the silver band on the third finger of his left hand. Keldor’s ring. The only item of jewelry he was wearing that wasn’t gold. Silver against the gray-blue if his hands. “Take it off.”

Twisting the ring on his finger, Hec-Tor hesitated. “I-“

Prime held out his hand. “Give it to me.”

When he did not immediately comply, Prime grabbed his wrist and pulled the band from his finger.

Hec-Tor hissed when the metal scraped roughly against his skin, ungently pulling it over the knuckle. But the pain didn’t matter so much. That ring –and Imp- were the last things he had left of Keldor. “Give it back!”

“You are about to get a new ring, brother.” Prime reminded him. “You no longer need this one.”

“Please?” The younger man tried. “I won’t wear it. Just- let me keep it.”

Prime only glared back at him, unmoved.

“I’ll perform my duties diligently, like I always do.” Hec-Tor tried to bargain. “I’ll make sure Entrapta delivers on her end of the bargain, and I’ll run your Empire for you.”

Prime pocketed the ring. “Yes, brother, you will.”

…

Most cultures the universe over made vows of marriage and signed contracts of partnership on one version or another of an alter. Usually erected in a place of worship, and overseen by a practitioner of that culture’s faith or mythical dogma.

The Empire was wide and diverse, and the capital city on Horde World did boast many houses of gods and places of worship. Almost as many as there were races in the universe.

But the Empire itself had no official religion. The Kur family did not believe in gods or demons, or practice any kind of spirituality or religion.

The wedding was held in the throne room.

Horde Prime sat atop his throne on the dais, looking down on a Justice of the Peace and an Imperial Attorney, the two that would be performing the ceremony in place of a priestess or similar religious figurehead.

Entrapta was dressed in a dark suit in a shade of eggplant purple, a striking contrast to Hec-Tor’s pale lime green. A white cravat tied around her throat, a bright violet gem pinning it in place. The tails of her coat flaring out in a bustle. Her trousers baggy around her legs, a very similar cut to the overalls she seemed to favor –except these were clean. She still wore her welding mask and her work gloves.

The Attorney held a datapad in her hands, reading the contract to the couple, making sure each one understood the terms that they were agreeing to. Then she pressed her thumb to a sensor on the pad, letting it read her print, signing the contract as legal and official. Then she passed it to the Justice.

Holding the datapad, the Justice gave the couple a moment to speak what passed for vows in Imperial weddings. The promises the couple would make to each other that were not influenced by the contract.

Entrapta went first. “I-“ Lowering her welding mask over her face, she hesitated. “I- I promise to be a good friend, as best I can. To try and understand you when I am confused, and learn what I don’t know, and… and to try and be the best partner I can be.”

As she said, Entrapta was not the most romantic person in the world. That was probably the most meaningful and emotionally true vow she could make.

Hec-Tor drew in a breath and offered the same vows he gave to Keldor. The words of marriage he’d been trained in since his boyhood. “I vow to shield your back and keep your council. And I will ask no service of you that will bring you dishonor.”

Catra stepped forward and passed Entrapta the ring meant for him. A gold band to match the rest of his gold jewelry. Plain and unadorned. A simple and practical band to be worn daily. She took it from Catra with her hair, not taking a single step closer to Hec-Tor or attempting to close the distance between them. She used the prehensile strands of her hair to slide the ring onto his finger.

A member of the Imperial wedding party, some loyal noble Prime had picked for the occatin, passed Hec-Tor the ring he was meant to give Entrapta. Also gold, to match the one she gave him. But of a slimmer design. A thinner band that wouldn’t be quite so bulky on her smaller hands. He did not get the chance to putit on her finger for her, however. Entrapta plucked it from his hands with her hair and brought it back to herself, slithering the ring under her glove where she presumably put it on the correct finger herself.

The Justice nodded and held out the datapad for each of them to sign in turn. Hec-Tor pressed his thumb to the sensor, letting it read his print and put his name on it. There was another pause for Entrapta. She had to remove one of her gloves, doing it slowly, one finger at a time. The removed her thumb from the pad the moment the sensor registered her print and added her name, slipping the glove back on her hand as if she were more afraid of her bare hand being exposed than she was of the marriage.

The Justice adder her own thumbprint next to where the Attorney had placed hers. Sealing it and making it official.

“You are married.” She announced. “You may kiss.”

Hec-Tor and Entrapta turned to each other. There was enough space between them than if their cultures believed in a ‘holy spirit’ it could fit comfortably between them.

“I- I guess we should…” Entrapta muttered.

“You will have to lift your mask.” Hec-Tor informed her.

She raised a tendril of hair and slid the welding mask up slowly. Revealing a face that was beet-red with a blush. Embarrassment and nerves. She chewed her bottom lip.

Hec-Tor took a step closer to her, to close the distance.

Entrapta looked away, but she did not lower the mask back down. She played with her hands. “I’m not very good at- -at kissing.”

Hec-Tor took a second step. They were close enough now. “I have had quite a bit of practice.”

She did not lift herself up on her hair to accommodate for their height difference.

So, Hec-Tor bent down. And placed a chase kiss to Entrapta’s cheek.

…

The reception was held out in the gardens. The bushes washed clean of dust from the storms, or just outright replaced if they were sandblasted to severely to be worth saving. The rows and beds were strung with lights. Green for the Empire, violet for Dryl. Music played in the central hub where all the garden paths conversed and the artificial pond had been drained and covered so that a dancefloor could be laid down in its place.

Hec-Tor and Entrapta were required to dance one dance together. The first dance. An entire song in which they were the only couple on the floor. Finally, when that song ended and a new one began, other couples joined them and they were able to slip off the dancefloor mostly unnoticed.

For a moment, the two just stood there. Off to the side. Unsure if they should remain together as a newly wed couple or separate and give themselves some time to mentally adjust to their new circumstance. At the very least, they would need to mentally adjust before… the night.

Then a screech distracted both of them and Imp came flying at Hec-Tor. Almost crashing into the man’s face. Imp clawed at the fabric of his father’s gown, climbing over his shoulder to cling koala-style to his back.

“Imp! What is-?” His question was answered before he even finished asking it.

Two of the maid staff the exclusively cared for the Imperial children, Imp and Zed, came running up. “Apologized, Your Highness, but he got away from us.”

Crawling up onto his father’s shoulder, Imp hissed at the two maids and made a rude gesture with his hands, telling them exactly where they could go. Seriously, where did he learn such unbecoming Signs? Hec-Tor decided that was a question for later and instead focused his attention on the maids. “What is the meaning of this?”

“We were trying to fix the young Prince’s appearance when he scratched at us and flew away.” They explained.

Hec-Tor turned his head, trying to glare at his child.

Imp fluttered around to be in front of his father as he explained, hands waving rabidly with his explanations that he didn’t like wearing makeup. It made his face feel funny. It was stupid. He was a Prince, he should have to get dressed-up and painted like a doll. And then some less than polite recommendations of where his keepers could shove all their cosmetic products. Yup. Imp was definitely, definitely Keldor’s child.

Hec-Tor sighed, examining his son. Imp had removed the shrug from his gown, and ripped at the hem to make it shorter. His shoulders were bare and his knees were exposed. Half the makeup was already rubbed off his face and what little was still on him was smeared so badly that he looked like an abstract painting.

Entrapta, whom stood next to Hec-Tor for this explanation and did not yet understand a single motion of Sign untied the cravat from her neck. “Oh, well we can fix Imp’s appearance right now!” She announced. Then, using her hair, wiped the remaining makeup off of him, leaving his face it’s natural uniform blue complexion. The same shade of blue as Keldor’s skin. “There. That’s better.”

She then tied the –now filthy- cravat back around her neck as if it didn’t even matter.

Imp chirped with appreciation. He liked this crazy off-worlder Dad had married. She was exactly his kind of crazy. Imp fluttered over to perch in her hair, raising his hands to Sign at his father. ‘Mine.’

Well, at least someone was happy about this marriage.

“That means he likes me, right?” Entrapta asked, unsure. As if she’s never met another sentient being before in her life and didn’t understand even the most obvious of gestures.

Hec-Tor massaged his forehead, smudging his own makeup just a little bit. He was beginning to feel an oncoming headache and needed to sit down.

“I shall deal with my son.” He dismissed the maids.

Entrapta lifted her mask, trying to tilt her head without dislodging Imp from his perch. “I guess this means you like me, huh.” She said. “You’re not afraid I’m trying to replace your other parent or anything?”

She asked this more as if it were something she read was a common occurrence and not something she was actually afraid of for herself.

Imp squawked a negative.

“Imp has no memories of Keldor.” Hec-Tor informed her. “He vanished before Imp’s gestation in the vitrine was complete.”

“Oh.” She didn’t know what to say to that.

A server passed by with a tray of adorably decorated mini-cupcakes. Entrapta stopped them and selected three for herself. Then grabbed a fourth for Imp. She lifted it up on a tendril of hair for him. Then paused, suddenly unsure. She looked up at Hec-Tor.

“Oh, is he allowed to have refined flour and sugar?”

Hec-Tor glared at the cupcake. “I will not be available to put him to bed tonight with the sugar makes him… difficult.” He informed her.

The reminder making them both feel awkward. They had a previous commitment later tonight that would prevent either of them from attending to any other responsibilities. Hec-Tor could not tuck his son in for the night and Entrapta could not… do whatever Entrapta usually did in the evenings before bed. They had to consummate their marriage. Consummate it in a ceremony that would have to be witnessed by the same Attorney and Justice that performed their wedding.

They avoided eye-contact. Entrapta lowered the cupcake, placing it and the three she selected for herself on the rim of a nearby herb bed. She suddenly lost her appetite. Hec-Tor clasped his hands behind his back, his posture going military stiff, trying to take comfort in familiar motions.

Hec-Tor nodded to the servant still holding the tray of cakes. “Some fresh fruit for my son instead.” He commanded. “Tartpears.”

The servant paused, suddenly looked uncomfortable. They stuttered when they had to inform the Prince, “There- there are no tartpears, Your Highness.”

“What?” Hec-Tor raised a baled brow at them.

“Be-because of the blight in Antares.” They explained. “They had to burn out all the crops to kill the disease. Even the seemingly healthy ones. We won’t get tartpear in the capital for at least another season.”

They waited for the Prince’s reaction with a tense silence, his bottom lip quivering.

Hec-Tor rubbed his forehead again. This time the headache was not threatening. It was beginning. The blight in Antares was one of the issues to pass his desk literally the day before this farce began. One of the issues he could have dealt with in the timely manner. One that did not involve burning down and destroying an entire season’s worth of the Empire’s food.

“Something native then.” He growled at the servant. “Cactus-grape.”

They all but ran away to fulfill the Prince’s request and get young Prince Imp some fresh fruit to eat in place of the cupcakes that contained refined flower and sugars.

A silence descended over them again.

“It’s just one night.” Entrapta said, repeating the same thing she said at breakfast when they had their first formal introductions.

“Brother will probably want to witness.” Hec-Tor informed her. “He watched me the first time.”

“’Me’? Not ‘us’?” She asked. Sex usually involved two people not just the one.

Hec-Tor closed his eyes, remembering how Brother leered down at him. He was looking at him, only him, not Keldor. Hec-Tor was sure of it. He grit his teeth, steeling himself against the memory and the knowledge that he was going to go through a repeat of the episode in the very near and foreseeable future. “As you said, it is only one night.”

#entrapdak #entrapdak wedding #royal wedding #entrapta #hordak #imp #horde prime #marriage #spop

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bald-tales · 6 years ago

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Witness Protection at the Bears Den - part 8 and 9

Dan was now studying a case file marked: 359. The client, one Bret Williamson, witness for the District Attorney in the successful prosecution of Carl Gandifino, a high ranking mobster in a world-wide Drug syndicate. Bret had been a drop-out from college and sought his riches by working for Carlo. He poised as a college student in order to infiltrate the college campuses, peddling his drugs. After being picked up by the police, they told him his only chance to escape a lengthy jail term was to tell them everything. Of course he knew his life was in danger – however he was promised money and complete re-location. Dan was sitting at his desk at work, a company called; New Beginnings. He was having such a great day because it looked like he was going to head up the company’s’ witness protection program. His former boss, Jerrod O’Leary, had terminated his employment, effective immediately! Both he and his Barber mate, Ken had seen to it that the new Jerrod, now known as Jerry Hawk, write a resignation letter the night before. After Jerry’s transformation into punk biker, by Ken’s talented hands, he had no desire to return to his former life. Now the company heads were unimpressed the ‘kid’ had left so quickly and mysteriously. They asked Dan to organise an investigation so as not to compromise there security. Dan couldn’t believe how easy it was to get rid of his boss, and with him now heading the investigation into Jerrod’s resignation, it was going to be even simpler to delete all information on Jerrod O’Leary. Dan already had an idea to link the recent security breach where a customer’s new identity had been discovered, and latter – Kidnapped –to Jerrod. Dan picked up the photo of Bret. A good-looking kid, well not a kid -he was 28, but he could pass for a 17 year-old. His hair was blonde and tied into a ponytail. He was clean shaven and seemed to be rather scrawny, like he needed a good feed. He probably was a user himself, Dan thought. Well he’d soon meet him in the flesh, the NCF (National Crime Force) were dropping him off in a hour or so. Dan wasn’t going to waste anytime with ensuring Bret’s safety. He had arranged to take him straight to Ken’s Barbershop straight away – Ken was preparing for them! It was important that Bret’s new identity begin as soon as possible. MEANWHILE AT KEN”S BARBERSHOP Ken had closed his shop for the afternoon in order to prepare for his new client, Dan was bringing round. He had been given no specific information about this guy – Dan thought it safer if Ken knew as little about him as possible. “How yer getting on with the new hired help?” asked Ken when he saw his partner, Bart, enter the back door of the shop. Ken was referring to Jerry, the new improved Biker version of Jerrod, Dan’s ex-boss. They’d put him to work in their bar next door, ‘The Bears Den’, seeing he was staying with them in their upstairs apartment. He was popular with the customers alright, and at the end of a long hard day – he certainly was very eager to let Ken and Bart take turns fucking him – he just seemed to be so eager to satisfy. Ken realised that his programming techniques were better than he could have imagined. First with Luke who became Lucas, and now Jerrod. This could indeed become a very lucrative business given time, he thought to himself. Already he had some patrons asking about Lucas and whether he was for sale. Ken hadn’t thought about that originally, he was just having plain fun turning these Jocks into big macho Bears. “Well his not the hardest worker behind the bar – he spends more time chatting up the customers or touching up his Mohawk”, Bart replied. “So what have you got planned for the new arrival?” “Well I’ll know what to do when I see what he looks like, but according to Dan he thinks I should just keep doing what I’m doing already. Normally his company uses plastic surgeons to alter the witness appearance, but he thinks there are still risks in that. Once they have the new identity their finding it hard and often slip up, contacting friends or family from their previous lives. Dan said over the last 6 months they’ve lost 2 clients to hit men.” “Wow!” Bart exclaimed,” So their safer in your hands of course.” “Let’s hope so, “answered Ken. He hadn’t really thought about the dangers involved, but he knew this part of town was the last place anyone would come looking for a white middle class jock. Suddenly, a knock at the front door startled both of them. “That’ll be the new client Bart, would you like to show him in,” asked Ken. After the pleasantries were exchanged, Bret, Dan and Ken sat down on the waiting area chairs while Bart returned to the bar to check on Luke. Ken noticed that even though Bret was thin he certainly was a looker. He certainly looked a lot younger than his 28 years. Dan hadn’t told his client what they had in store for him – only that his Barber friend was a genius a creating whole new looks. Bret seemed pretty relaxed , obviously unaware of the changes he would undergo. “Okay then Bret, into the chair and let’s see what I can do”, said Ken with a distinct cheerfulness in his voice, “I don’t want anything freaky, like shaving my head,” returned Bret, nodding at Dan’s and Ken’s hairless scalps. Ken responded, “Trust me Bret, we have to make sure nobody finds you, and when I’m finished with you even your own mother wont recognise you.” For the first time since entering the shop, Bret looked worried. As Ken fastened the cape around Bret’s neck, he asked Dan to take a seat and enjoy the show. Soon the sound of vibrating clippers filled the room. As Ken drew them towards Bret’s hairline, Dan could feel his cock growing. Then the hungry teeth of the clippers made direct contact with Bret’s hairline – stripping the guy of his longish bangs. “Hey!” Bret shouted, “What gives, I told you I didn’t want the same look as you Bozo’s have.” Annoyed at this interruption and the Bozo reference, Ken switched off the clippers. Bret continued his ranting, “I’ve got very use to my long blonde locks and I’m only going to let you trim the ends or maybe dye it.” Bret didn’t see what Ken was doing behind him, but Ken touched a switch and two wrist clamps appeared from under the chair arms and locked in place around Bret’s wrists. “Fuck man! What gives, you can’t do this to me….” And before Bret could react any further, Ken was strapping Bret’s feet to the chair, while he tossed another leather strap to Dan. “Would you mind old friend?” “Be a pleasure,” replied Dan “You fat fuck, you can’t do this – I’ll call my lawy……….ahhhh!” cried Bret as Dan slapped him hard across the face. “Now’s the time to start resembling some of your family, Bret.” Said Ken sounding almost sinister. “Listen you weasel. You’re lucky to have Ken. Without his help, you would fall back into the hands of the mob. No lawyer is going to help you now, we’re all you got if you want to stay alive,” spat Dan as he grabbed Bret by the shirt collar. “Yeah,” said Ken as he took something from a drawer. “We’re your new family now.” And before Bret could say anything Ken shoved a rubber ball gag into his mouth – so big there was no need to fasten it. This gave Ken the freedom to work on the kid’s head. Fear had replaced the arrogance. Bret knew these guy’s meant business – he hadn’t really thought the changes he would undergo would be too drastic. Just a haircut, a new name and a different city. Part 9 Dan was surprised how different their new boy was looking already. Ken had been working solidly for the past hour whilst Bret, still strapped to the Barber’s Chair, just stared at the mirror in front of him – eyes red from all the tears he’d shed. He couldn’t believe what was happening to him and he was powerless to stop these maniacs! His hair was almost history, just a light covering of stubble and because he was blonde, his head seemed shaved clean. The Barber working on him, had already applied some thick green goop to his face, he didn’t know what it was but it certainly tingled after a short time. The biggest thing that had frightened Brett was when he was hooked up to some IV bag on a stand. The Barber had inserted a needle in his forearm, and the bag had already emptied it’s contents and they replaced it with a new bag. Nothing made sense to Brett; why were these guys doing to him? Were they going to turn him into a fag like them? Shit! That’s shaving cream his using as the warmth of the lather brought him out of his tangled thoughts. Ken had started removing Bret’s remaining hair. The straight razor, with some resistance at first, began to remove the remaining stubble. As more and more pink skin showed through the thick lather, the razor found less and less drag. Ken continued to run the razor over and over Bret’s head, ensuring no stubble remained. When satisfied with the smoothness, which he checked by running his tongue over the denuded scalp, he took a jar from the counter and applied this heavy white cream to the top of Bret’s newly shaved head, rubbing it in. He was careful to only apply it only where he didn’t want any hair to grow again. Bret could feel a slight tightening of his scalp then it started to sting. “I think an mpb will make you look years older, especially with that baby-face”, smiled Ken in the mirror at Bret. He noticed tears welling up in Bret’s eyes, along with a muffled whimper. Dan couldn’t believe how different the college dropout looked with his long blonde hair gone. Because of the colour of his hair, his shaved head didn’t have a hint of shadow anywhere. “I think a low dip in the back is the best style for you Bret,” Ken said as he continued to apply the depilatory cream to the back of Bret’s head. Bret was horrified to hear he’d never have his long, flowing hair anymore. Why were these fuckers doing this to him? This wasn’t in the deal he’d made with the Feds. If only he’d known, it would have been easier to face his former Bosses’ goons. “So this stuff really stops any hair growth?” Dan asked Ken? “A recent invention on my part,” replied Ken, “I’m hoping to market it.” “Maybe you can line me up with some of that stuff,” Dan smiled running a hand over the three day stubble that was on his head. “Sure thing but you have to be shaved smooth first as it only works by acting on the hair root, the less hair in the way, the better exposed the root ball. In fact, why don’t we do you now? It’ll give us some time for Bret’s initial changes to take place.” Replied Ken, motioning Dan to the neighbouring Barbers Chair. “Now your sure you want this?” asked Ken as he started up his lather machine. “Positive, you know I get lazy with shaving my head.” “Okay, one cue ball for life coming up,” and with that Ken began to lather up the stubble on Dan’s head. Bret couldn’t believe any of what he was seeing. He was starting to feel strange – was it the drugs they were putting into him? Ken started to shave his friend’s scalp for the last time. He took long, deliberate strokes with the straight razor, finally saying, “your gonna miss this aren’t you Dan?” “Yeah! It feels great, but this way I always have a smooth head, with not even a hint of shadow. So now I’ll always wake up with no stubble.” Smiled Dan. After Ken had re-lathered Dan’s head, he carefully shaved against the grain, and as each stroke removed more and more white foam, smooth, clean skin glowed under the bright shop lights. After Ken wiped the scalp dry, he then took the thick paste and spread it all over Dan’s bald pate. “While we’re waiting for the cream to set, why don’t I tighten up that goat and tache of yours,” said Ken not waiting for a reply as he started to lather Dan’s face. Dan was enjoying himself and trusted Ken with all his grooming. It was Ken who had designed his present look. Ken finished the tightening up of Dan’s goatee, trimming his moustache and blending the edges. Next he went back to the hair removal paste on Dan’s scalp; taking a damp towel, he carefully wiped away all the paste. “Now your scalp will feel a little raw for a while- I’ll apply some aloe lotion now and that should help.” Ken said. When he’d finished rubbing the aloe on Dan’s head he held a mirror up so Dan could see the sides and back. “Smooth as!” smiled Dan as he took a hand and felt the new permanent smoothness of his head. “Well, we’d better get back to our client” stated Ken, “I’m sure his been ‘basting’ long enough.” Bret had been watching all this still secured to his chair with leather restraints and ball gag still in his mouth. He didn’t want to be here, he certainly didn’t want to look like these guy’s, but already they were turning him into a ‘ baldy’ like them. Ken and Dan stood beside Bret looking at their captive client. Dan spoke first, “I can’t believe it Ken…I mean it’s only been a short time, and look at his face. That’s a pretty decent beard growth already.” “It’s working better than expected, but then I did increase the stimulants in the Hair Growth formulae. When combined with the growth steroids we’re pumping into him, it’s working overtime,” Ken replied. “And speaking of the steroids we need to replace that bag.” Dan went to retrieve another IV bag, containing a mixture of potent steroids, hormones and chemicals all designed to alter Bret’s body shape as quickly as possible. The quicker the whole transformation process happened, the less chance of anyone finding Bret or indeed the Barbershop and Bar. Dan was well aware they hadn’t caught the culprit at work who’d been leaking information about certain clients. He needed to still be cautious, even here in this part of town. Dan had every reason to be worried – at that very moment in the ‘Bears Den’, Bart had a guy he’d never seen before, enter the still quiet bar.

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laurabelle2930 · 7 years ago

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At Last... An Olicity fic inspired by @mel-loves-all

Okay so my dear and amazing friend @mel-loves-all has been making these amazing mood boards. I was so inspired by this Mood Board that I asked if I could write this fic. She agreed so here it is! The song “At Last” is by Etta James. The mistakes are all mine and once again the idea came from Mel!

Link to the Mood Board is posted above and below:

https://mel-loves-all.tumblr.com/post/175888837918/olicity-modern-au-moodboard-oliver-queen-owner

Read it here or on AO3

“At Last”

Two Months...

That’s how long Oliver Queen had been troubled, beguiled, inspired and, tortured by the woman at the end his bar… Oliver felt Tommy’s hand fall over his slumped shoulder before a soft, “Ollie are you ever going to give Clive back his weekend shifts?” left his signature smirk.

“It’s complicated,” Oliver managed to croak before his forehead fell to his forearm and, everything around him began to slowly blur….

Two Months Ago…

Every story has a beginning and, this tale was no exception. Oliver’s problem began about five years ago when he and his best friend Tommy Merlyn decided to thwart their parents expectations and, go into business together. Tommy’s father was Malcolm Merlyn and Oliver’s was Robert Queen. Both men were CEO’s of global companies and, both men wanted their sons on their respective thrones.

Oliver and Tommy both graduated with honors from Yale business school even though they both found the business world unbearable. They both wanted to make their father’s proud but, neither of them wanted the life that was laid out before them. It was a random act of fate that created the life they now thrived in.

The idea for the club was formed when Oliver met his father at an abandoned factory before they went for a late lunch. The building then was a condemned pile of steel and drywall but, all Oliver could see was the potential for more. Robert’s plan was to encourage Oliver’s creative thinking skills. Robert hoped that Oliver would find the buildings business potential. Robert never thought his son would see Verdant; Starling City’s most popular jazz club in nearly twenty years.

The details for how both Robert and Malcolm were convinced to loan them the seed money was long and tedious but, needless to say the money was granted and, both men were determined to succeed.

Now after five years Verdant was thriving. Oliver and Tommy had been smart enough to book established acts while also encouraging unknown talent. Weekends we're for the big names like the “Lyla Michaels Experience”. On the weekdays they held open mic nights for the local artists who were hoping to spread their wings by singing/performing for a live audience. The club itself was a two story building with wide open spaces and, windows to spare. In order to give the club a more intimate feel they’d filled the empty spaces of the first floor with oversized leather couches and comfortable oversized chairs to match. The cement floors were covered with dark hardwood panels and the walls were painted with hues of black, gray and green. The front doors had stained glass panels that glittered in the sunlight and, even glowed in the moonlight. The entire back wall was filled with floor to ceiling windows that let the world in both during the night and the day.

Up against those windows was the stage. The dance floor of course was in front of the stage with small tables positioned at the edges for ease of access. The second floor held Oliver and Tommy’s offices, the employee break room and, another 40 tables for the patrons who’d rather listen than dance.

They had a small but, responsible staff that was made up of friends and family. Sara Lance bartender and server extraordinaire was the younger sister of Laurel Lance who had once been in a relationship with Tommy. The romantic relationship between Laurel and Tommy ended but, the friendship between Laurel, Tommy and even Sara remained. Sara and Tommy had over the years become the best of friends. They’re bond was even strong enough that they eventually became sometime roommates whenever either of them was newly single. Clive their weekend bartender was an old classmate and Oliver’s college roommate. Oliver’s younger sister Thea was a server, her husband of a year Roy was another bartender. Even Laurel the attorney by day picked up a serving shift for extra cash about twice a week. Oliver and Tommy served as both bartenders and servers when needed but, the club while large always felt small and, intimate.

The night everything changed began with Oliver in a panic. No scratch that Oliver was just plain pissed off. His stormy blue eyes fell to his watch as the phone rang for the third time. He mumbled as the small hand inched toward the small, italic five. The front door’s were beginning to swing back and forth steadily as the night crowd began to move through the dimly lit room.

His soft mumbled, “Of all the nights for my bartender to be sick,” went unnoticed while the room around him slowly began to fill.

The phone rang for the fifth time. Oliver’s patience was nearly gone when to his dismay a very sick sounding voice gargled out a weak, “Ollie please don’t be mad…”

His heart sank to his stomach as a whispered, “Please don’t tell me you and, Clive are both sick?” fell from his frowning lips.

The voice on the other end of the phone coughed out a weak, “Yes and, before you ask no.”

Oliver’s frown grew. He knew what that no meant and, yet he still groaned, “Oh come on Tommy! Sara can’t still be angry about that? It was one drunk guy and, we both had him thrown out!”

His sick friend and, business partner let out a weak sounding laugh as he replied, “She is and, you’re not the one she’s currently living with!

Oliver’s brow crinkled when he realized what he’d have to do. “You realize I haven’t had to bar-tend in almost three years don’t you?

Oliver’s question must have fallen on deaf ears because the only reply he received was a soft, “You got this…” before the line went silent.

Oliver hung up in defeat as the once silent room began to almost glow with the sounds of laughter and, excitement at what the night before them could hold. The only person who wasn’t excited was him.

With resignation Oliver began to set up the bar. He checked to make sure the booze was out and each bottle was full. He had a selection of white wines chilling and, a selection of reds placed along the back of the bar rail. The kegs were full, the bar snacks were out, and each station had a full array of bar napkins and sipping straws.

He glanced at his watch, it was now 5:15. The rush wouldn't begin until after 6. Oliver than glanced towards the stage. Lyla and her husband John were already getting set up for their first set. Lyla was in her signature dark green, strapless dress. Her short brown hair was gelled back, her makeup was minimal and as always she looked stunning. John wore his signature black vest with a white button up shirt underneath. His ebony skin glowed beneath the green and white spotlights that would change color as they went through each set.

As he watched them he marveled at the depth of love and respect that seemed to flow through every movement they made. When he first booked Lyla she was a one woman show. She packed the house but, Oliver always felt that she seemed lonely. About two years after they opened Oliver hired John to play the piano for the weekday open mic performers. They only met because Lyla stopped by to check out her local competition. The moment their eyes locked Oliver swore their hearts began to beat as one. Lyla waved when she caught him staring. Oliver smiled and waved back. She then went back to what she’d been doing and, Oliver did the same.

Around 5:45 people began to arrive in droves. Oliver had Thea and Sara serving the upstairs patrons with Roy posted as their upstairs bartender. Oliver handled the main bar and the droves of thirsty customers. Thankfully, Laurel offered to come in and handle the downstairs tables which Oliver gladly accepted. Even though he was busy Oliver caught the first few lines of Lyla’s opening song before he was lost in the crush of incoming drink orders that seemed to swirl around him like an impending Typhoon. Oliver remained lost in the violent storm until he heard her first words...

“So what's better? A vodka cranberry or a Cosmo?”

Oliver's glance shot upwards from the sea of tickets and towards the sound of heaven. His heart slammed along his chest like thunder roars through the skies when he saw who owned the voice that silenced the storm all around him. She wasn't breathtaking, she was beyond that. She was love at first sight and, Oliver was stupefied by his reaction. He couldn't believe that she'd literally stolen his heart with a few simple words. He was drawn in by how her bright, pink hair fell along the angles of her oval shaped face in short ringlets. Her lips matched her hair, her blue eyes swam with warmth and amusement as they continued to stare at the other in an oddly comfortable silence. Oliver gulped as his own blue eyes traveled along the lines of her slender yet toned figure. Her black leather pants made her pink, leather halter top pop as she slowly placed her pink nails along the edge of the bar rail.

She smiled as she cocked her head and his heart dropped down to his aching toes. Her blue eyes glittered in amusement as she breathed, “Since you've gone silent I'll take the Cosmo,”. Oliver gaped but, nothing more occurred. He seemed to be frozen while the woman before him was beginning to walk away. He saw her fingers slipping along the edge of the bar. His heart suddenly was lodged in his throat. She moved them down off the rail and towards her purse. She then fished out a ten and a five dollar bill. She placed them on the bar, her tempting fingers were within reach and, all he could do was gulp as she whispered, “That should take care of it.”

By the time Oliver could manage a simple, “Okay,” she was already seated at the end of the bar. Oliver made her drink and then flagged down Laurel so she'd deliver it.

Laurel gave him an odd look which he shrugged away before returning his attentions to the other patrons around them. The night wore on like an endless wave as they very carefully traded hidden looks. He'd glance at how she swayed along the bar stool. She in turn seemed to smile secretly everytime she rebuffed any man or woman who was brave enough to even say hello. Yes Oliver watched her throughout the endless night. He watched as she ensnared her many victims only to leave them longing for the simple caress of her passing glance.

As the night came to close and, the club was beginning to empty Oliver felt something burning along his skin. He ignored the prickling sensation until his skin nearly erupted into flames. When he finally dared to seek out the source of his oddly enjoyable pain all he could find was a pair of sparkling blue eyes...

Current day…

“And that's how's it been every weekend for the past two months. This damn woman floats into my life like a flame and by the end of Sunday night she's gone,” Oliver lamented while once again “The Lyla Michaels Experience” began to take the stage.

“So you’ve taken Clive’s shifts so you can what feel her gaze fall upon you throughout the evening?” Tommy quired in utter amusement.

Oliver’s eyes rose to the ceiling in exasperation. “So what if I do. I’m addicted to how she makes me feel and I’ve yet to even share a single word with her…” he breathed in relief.

Tommy's mouth fell open with the obvious solution until Oliver swore he could see the tops of his expanding lungs. “Don't say it…” Oliver begged. “She's turned down everyone…’

“You're kidding?” Tommy quipped as Oliver's pink leather wearing siren song began moving through the front doors.

Oliver felt the familiar fire of her glance beginning to travel along his arched spine. His heart fluttered as her voice broke through the growing crowd. “Cosmo as usual,” she stated before she slipped her payment towards his waiting hand. He nodded and began to gather his necessary supplies. Tommy watched as the nameless woman took her usual seat and chuckled when she shot down two men in five seconds.

“Does she always look like that and, does she always pay in cash?”

Oliver mumbled a gruff, “Yes…” then once again flagged down Laurel.

Laurel appeared with her knowing smirk yet remained mum as she took the chilled glass to a pair of waiting lips.

“Does she always stare at you like that?”

Oliver was about to shout back “Yes, why do you think I’m taking these damn shifts” but, was stopped when the ache along his spine began to burn through his veins. He risked a glance…

His heart thudded madly when he saw her lips curve into a very soft smile. “She's gonna rip me to shreds…” Oliver lamented once he realized he couldn’t avoid her any longer.

“Yeah,” Tommy agreed before he softly added, “or she's going to let Clive bar-tend again on the weekends.” Oliver glanced at friend begging for mercy. Tommy simply pushed him forward with a smirk and a stern, “Falling in love wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world would it?”

“I'm going to regret this….” Oliver breathed before he took his first step towards fate.

Lyla's voice moved like silk through the air between them. He began to measure his steps as John's fingers began to dance along the ivories. His pink haired temptress kept her eyes locked on his own as he slowly began to move toward her. She bit at her lower lip as the room began to grow quiet.

Oliver's stomach rolled when the chorus of his life for the past two months began to fill the room with spontaneous energy. Oliver glanced at the few couples dancing slowly as Lyla gently began to sing…

“At last, my love has come along. My lonely days are over and life is like a song…”

“Etta James is always a brave choice for any singer don't you agree?”

Oliver gulped as he placed his timid hand along the bar. She batted her bright, blue eyes while she slowly cocked her head. “Are you always this timid or are you trying to lure me into a false sense of security?” she asked once a minute of silence had passed.

Oliver mumbled, “Yes to the first and no to the second.”

“So you can speak,” she teased as Lyla began the second verse.

Oliver's eyes fell to the floor. Hers remained locked on his downfallen face while he murmured, “And you can apparently carry on more than a two sentence conversation.”

He felt her gaze washing over him. His skin burned as she slipped her index finger along the rim of her cocktail glass. The silence between them grew into a heated exchange once Oliver dared to meet her gaze. The air around them crackled as Lyla’s voice began to reach the climax of the song. Oliver's heart raced, his skin blazed with unseen flames as she searched his soul with her eyes. He felt exposed, naked and, afraid as she slipped through his heart and began to travel through his soul.

The crowd began to clap as Oliver's breathing began to increase. He nearly begged for her next words but remained frozen as her lips slipped into an delighted yet playful smile. “I can carry out a conversation if the person I’m talking to is the right one…” she offered before she slid her used bar napkin forward.

“What game are you playing?” Oliver breathed as the cold pads of her fingers gently moved across his own.

She smirked coyly, “Let's see if you can figure it out,”

Then like lightning had split the ground between them she left leaving him sputtering for the words to make her stop in her wake. Oliver quickly unfolded the paper. His fingers slipped over the condensation filled paper as his eyes scanned over her delicate print.

There was one word… and it was the only word he needed to be motivated to run…

Oliver swept through the crowds of happy people around him. He heard Tommy and Sara teasing Laurel about her latest disaster of a date. He saw Thea and Roy holding hands in the back corner as they watched the patrons before them. He felt a thousand eyes falling all around him as he came barreling through the front doors and, out onto the damp street.

Oliver scanned the crowds of future guests and, even a few who’d chosen to leave for the night. His feet skimmed over the surface of the rain covered streets until once again his skin began to prickle before the burn of anticipation moved through his suddenly very steady heart.

Oliver’s heart once again quickened as he hollered out the sole thing that had made him run… He hollered out a breathless, “Felicity!” once he caught the sight of her pink curls bouncing along the nape of her delicate neck.

Felicity froze, which caused Oliver to once again run. He ran as the weather once again turned to rain. He ran and didn't stop until his forearm was securely around her waist. Felicity turned until they were face to face. Her dazzling blue eyes made the world around him fall away as she said, “So tell me bartender boy why did I choose you after I rejected so many others?”

Oliver slid his fingers along the curve of her delicate cheekbone until he had his thumb pressed along her quivering bottom lip. He grinned almost proudly. Felicity’s tongue darted out along the pad of his thumb making his heart quicken and still all at once.

“Are you always this confident?” Oliver pressed once he felt Felicity’s arms beginning to encircle his waist.

She pressed a chaste kiss to his thumb pad as she whispered, “Does it always take you two months to make a move?”

Oliver’s forehead fell to the crown of Felicity’s head, “If I’d known you’d accept my advances I might have given my bartender his shifts back…” he breathed as his eyes slid shut.

Felicity’s fingers squeezed along his sides. Oliver heard Lyla’s voice floating through the open doors of Verdant. The rain around them started to quicken, the once pleasant drizzle was becoming an all out downpour as Felicity’s lips began to move along his skin. “If you’re not the bartender who are you then?” she asked for once in genuine wonder.

Oliver bit back a chuckle as they began to sway beneath the falling rain. “I’m the guy who met a girl who’s heartbeat matched my own…”

Felicity moved her nose along his, “Nice line,” she smirked.

“Well it only took me two months to say,” Oliver chuckled swiftly.

“True,” Felicity mused before adding, “but, that doesn’t tell me who you are?” Her assertions came as she moved her hands up the sides of his now drenched black shirt.

Oliver placed a timid kiss to her cheek then breathed, “I’m the owner of the club and my name is…”

“Oliver Queen,” Felicity supplied as they each lifted their eyes towards the stormy skies.

“You knew this entire time didn’t you?” Oliver asked almost breathlessly.

She nodded her forehead along his own as she breathed, “I’ve been coming to the club for years. I’d seen you but up until about two months ago you’d never seen me…”

Oliver’s stomach once again flipped, “Well you’ve clearly made up for lost time,” he moaned as their bodies began to sway to the beat of the falling rain.

“I thought the confidence would spark your interest,” she laughed as her lips slid along his jaw.

“You’re not going to make this easy are you?” Oliver breathed as something inside his stomach began to flutter with the unknown feeling of contentment.

Felicity wrinkled her nose as she leaned forward. Oliver closed the distance between them slowly as she answered with a soft sounding, “You’re the one that made it complicated…”

Oliver’s lips began to cover hers while he murmured, “How did I do that?”

She kissed him softly and, Oliver’s heart nearly plummeted to the ground. He felt her laughter through his skin as she whispered along his upper lip, “You made it complicated when you took two months to say a damn word…”

Oliver was about to refute her claim but, before he could form another word the heaven’s above them opened leaving them drenched and, smiling while Felicity continued to kiss him as they simply danced in the rain.

Tagging:

@michealajulius @blondeeoneexox @relativelyobsessedfangirl @thebookjumper @emmaamelia95 @hope-for-olicity @coal000 @missyriver @supersillyanddorky06 @mel-loves-all @love2luvyyou @memcjo @smoakingarrow19 @independent-fics @green-arrows-of-karamel @blondiegrl00 @it-was-a-red-heeler @diggo26 @charlinert @oliverfel4 @swordandarrow @scu11y22 @vaelisamaza @ireland1733 @redpensandgreenarrows @emmilynestill @rivaroma23 @miriam1779 @jaspertown @marytagus @onceuponarrow @lalawo1 @pleasantfanandstudent @alemap74 @kathrynelizabeth89 @sweetzcupcake @jedichick04 @nalla-madness @quiveringbunny @mrsbubblelee @olicitylovemaking @almondblossomme @befitandchase @pimsiepim @andjustforthismoment @anonymiss118 @thelockpickingvictorian @yet-i-remain-quiet @lexi9515 @marniforolicity @myhauntedblacksoul @myuntetheredsoul @felicity-said-just-in-case @i-m-a-fan-world @danski15 @emilyp05 @missafairy @cainc3 @captainolicitysbedroom @yespleasehawkeyee @tdgal1 @wherethereissmoak

#olicity #olicity fic #felicity and oliver #oliver and felicity #moodboard #mel-#inspired #jazz club au #soulmates #love at first sight #fluff #happy ending #eye contact

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fpcsolution · 5 years ago

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thisdaynews · 5 years ago

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Beto’s Long History of Failing Upward

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/betos-long-history-of-failing-upward/

Beto’s Long History of Failing Upward

AMES, Iowa—The presidential run of Beto O’Rourke is a profoundly personality-driven exercise, his charisma and Kennedy-esque demeanor the topic of one profile after another, so it’s surprising to listen to his speeches on the stump in which he doesn’t talk a whole lot about himself. In Iowa recently, over several days in a rainy, foggy, uncertain stretch of spring, O’Rourke delivered a series of speeches and held question-and-answer sessions in which he spoke at length about unity, civility and inclusivity, and only rarely touched on his personal story. There was one notable exception: When he did offer up bits of his biography, he leaned most heavily on his run last year against Ted Cruz for a spot in the United States Senate.

He recounted for the crowds tales of the places he went and the people he met during his barnstorming, freewheeling, attention-getting campaign, coming back to two numbers: 254, the number of counties in gargantuan Texas, all of which he visited … and the percentage-point margin by which he was defeated.

Story Continued Below

“We lost by 2.6 percent,” he said in a basement music venue here at Iowa State University.

“We lost that Senate race in Texas by 2.6 percent,” he said in a downtown greasy spoon in Storm Lake.

“We came within 2.6 percentage points of defeating Ted Cruz,” he said in a community college cafeteria in Fort Dodge.

“So close,” the local party leader said in introducing O’Rourke one morning at a brewpub in Carroll. “So close.”

The part of his past that he talked about the most, by far, was a race that he lost.

O’Rourke, 46, campaigns with the wanderlust of the wannabe punk rocker he once was and the vigor of the regular runner, hiker and cyclist he still is. His hair is somehow simultaneously boyish and salt-and-pepper-streaked. He drives himself around in rented Dodge minivans, dressed almost always in plain brown shoes, Banana Republic chinos and blue oxford shirts with no tie and the sleeves rolled up just so. He often dons locally appropriate dad hats, from a maroon Iowa State cap at Iowa State to an orange Clemson cap at Clemson and so on. He holds microphones with his right hand kind of like a singer, and he extends his left arm into the air kind of like a preacher, and he punctuates his points with grins that flash perfectly imperfect teeth.

After Iowa, I dropped in on O’Rourke on the trail in South Carolina and Virginia, listening to him rat-a-tat-tat through his airy, often alliterative talking points about “common cause” and “common ground” and “common good” and “conscientious capitalism” and “our aspirations” and “our ambitions” instead of the “pettiness” and the “partisanship” of politics today, along with planks of a nascent platform like a new voting rights act, citizenship for Dreamers, “world-class public education” and “guaranteed, high-quality, universal health care.” And almost always, when he did talk about himself, it would be back to the time he fell just short. “We lost by 2.6 percent,” he said to a small, low-key gathering in rural Denmark, South Carolina.

Celebrating defeat is unusual for a politician, and doing so makes O’Rourke notably different from the rest of the unwieldy field of Democrats running for president. In contrast to the 20 or so other 2020 candidates—all of them in various ways overachievers who tout the litanies of their successes—O’Rourke instead presents his loss to Cruz as a prominent selling point. More than his ownership of a small business. More than his six years on the city council in his native El Paso. More than his next six years as a back-bench House member in Congress. His near-miss against a prominent Republican in a red state was such a high-quality failure, so epically heroic, he seems to suggest, that it should be considered something of a victory.And he’s not wrong to do it. His failed Senate bid, after all, is singularly what made him famous, what got him an interview with Oprah, what put him on the cover ofVanity Fair—and what’s put him in the top handful of aspirants angling for a shot to topple President Donald Trump.

But while it might be his most spotlit miss, it’s not an aberration.

There’s a reason his biography doesn’t feature much in the campaign. For O’Rourke, the phenomenon on display in that race—failure without negative effects, and with perhaps even some kind of personal boost—is a feature of his life and career. That biography is marked as much by meandering, missteps and moments of melancholic searching as by résumé-boosting victories and honors. A graduate of an eastern prep school and an Ivy League rower and English major, the only son of a gregarious attorney and glad-handing pol and the proprietor of an upscale furniture store, the beneficiary of his family’s expansive social, business and political contacts, O’Rourke has ambled past a pair of arrests, designed websites for El Paso’s who’s who, launched short-lived publishing projects, self-term-limited his largely unremarkable tenure on Capitol Hill, shunned the advice of pollsters and consultants and penned overwrought, solipsistic Medium missives, enjoying the latitude afforded by the cushion of an upper-middle-class upbringing that is only amplified by his marriage to the daughter of one of the region’s richest men.

“With a charmed life like his, you can never really lose,” an ad commissioned by the conservative Club for Growth sneered last month. “That’s why Beto’s running for president—because he can.”

“A life of privilege,” David McIntosh, the president of the Club for Growth, told me.

It’s not just Republicans who think this. “He’s a rich, straight, white dude who, you know, married into what should politely be called ‘fuck you money,’” Sonia Van Meter, an Austin-based Democratic consultant and self-described “raging feminist,” told me. “His biggest success is by definition a failure,” she added. “He’s absolutely failed up.”

Even by the experience-light standards of the most recent occupants of the White House—a first-term senator followed by a real estate scion and reality TV star—the notion of O’Rourke’s uneven résumé blazing a path to the presidency is new and remarkable. For the moment, he is trailing and slipping in the polls, but it’s early, and he is still attracting besotted fans. The support O’Rourke built that even allowed this run in the first place did not depend on traditional concepts of meritocracy and diligent preparation. To look deeper into his past, to talk to his friends from his teens and his 20s, to read distant clips from money-losing media ventures, and to talk to voters, too, is to see a different kind of claim to excellence. In the end, O’Rourke’s best recommendation that he can win might be that he knows how to fail big—and then aim even higher.

O’Rourke’s ascent in some sensestarted more than 20 years back. In the summer of 1998, he made the choice to quit New York. He had graduated in 1995 from Columbia University, then spent most of the next three years playing, listening to and talking about music, reading theEconomistand theNew Yorker, drinking Budweiser, riding in cramped subway cars. He had worked for short periods as a nanny, a copy editor, a hired-hand mover of art and antiques, and in a series of odd jobs around the city that let him split cheap rent in a sparsely furnished Brooklyn loft where he liked to jump on a rooftop trampoline. Now, though, he wanted out, and so he bought a used pickup and drove home, steering toward more open road. He was, he has said, “young” and “happy” and “carefree.”

This decision to leave New York, his longtime friend Lisa Degliantoni told me recently, was and remains O’Rourke’s biggest, most consequential accomplishment—not just a learning experience or a tail-between-his-legs withdrawal, she believes, but an accomplishment. In her mind, it unleashed O’Rourke, allowing him to be “transformational”—first for his city, then for his state, and now potentially for his country.

Trading the bright lights and the bustle for the relative ease and isolation of the desert by the Mexican border, Degliantoni said, was risky, “because as soon as you’re there, you’re off all the radars.” That risk was mitigated significantly, however, by what he was heading home to, according to interviews with nearly two dozen people who have known him or worked with O’Rourke. Riding shotgun in the cab of that pickup was Mike Stevens, another one of his best friends, and when they logged the last of those 2,200 or so miles, Stevens told me, waiting for O’Rourke in El Paso was far from certain success but also “a pretty large safety net.”

He used it. Upon his return, he worked at first in the warehouse of his mother’s store. That fall, he was arrested after driving drunk in his Volvo at 3 a.m. and sideswiping a truck at “a high rate of speed” on Interstate 10. He went to “DWI school,” finishing the next spring.

It was his second arrest. Three years before, he had been apprehended by the police at the University of Texas El Paso after tripping an alarm trying to sneak under a fence at the campus physical plant while “horsing around” with friends. Prosecutors didn’t pursue the charge. (“No consequences,” said McIntosh from the Club for Growth.)

The next year, in 1999, O’Rourke started the Stanton Street Technology Group, an offshoot of which was StantonStreet.com. The website covered the arts and food and local politics and endeavored to be “the most comprehensive, interactive, and entertaining home page in the Southwest.” In the summer of 2000, it was registering 32,000 monthly “impressions,” according to O’Rourke at the time, a figure whose impact is hard to gauge given the early era of the internet and the size of El Paso—but the site also was bleeding money, taking from the coffers of the web design business. Even so, in January 2002, he launched a weekly print version. Bob Moore, the former editor of theEl Paso Times, told me he used to rib O’Rourke that one of his few advertisers was his mother—“his only advertiser,” he said, “for the longest time.” It lasted 15 issues.

The newspaper was, said Degliantoni, who worked on it with him, O’Rourke’s “love letter to his hometown” but also “probably in hindsight not the best move.” Even O’Rourke joked about it recently in his remarks in Storm Lake. “In a brilliant stroke of genius, just as print newspapers were in decline,” he told the standing room only, shoulder to shoulder, coffee shop throng, “I started a print newspaper.”

The result? “We bankrupted the operation,” O’Rourke said to what sounded like good-natured, forgiving titters.

No matter.

He had run the website and started the paper “to be as engaged as I possibly could,” he later explained. “The logical conclusion,” he continued, “was to run for office.”

He ran for City Council in 2005 and won, and won again in 2007, backed by El Paso’s business elite, and then he ran for Congress in 2012, challenging in the primary Silvestre “Silver” Reyes, an eight-term incumbent who would have the endorsements of a pair of presidents (Bill Clinton and Barack Obama) and never before had had even a close call in a reelection. It was, political analysts in the area agreed at the time, a bid that smacked of audacity and risk. “It’s close to impossible to get a sitting member of Congress out of office because of the privilege and power,” O’Rourke said early on in his campaign.

But O’Rourke, of course, had a share of both as well, hailing from “an old El Paso political family,” as a local columnist pointed out, calling O’Rourke “just as ‘household’ around here as the stately congressman himself.” A company owned by his father-in-law, the real estate tycoon Bill Sanders—he’s worth at least an estimated half a billion dollars—gave $18,750 to a PAC that supported O’Rourke’s campaign. Reyes threw around the words “family wealth” and charged that O’Rourke was “a show pony” and “part of the 1 percent.”

In the end, though, painting Reyes as an aging Washington insider, and employing block-by-block door knocking, O’Rourke won with 50.5 percent of the vote.

Friends and admirers say O’Rourke is nothing if not a hard worker, wearing out shoes and racking up miles. “I think he’s the hardest-working man in U.S. politics,” said Steve Kling, a Democrat who lost last year running for the Texas state Senate. They describe him as an exceptional listener.

In his three terms in Washington, O’Rourke compiled a moderate to centrist voting record, which in this left-leaning primary could become problematic. He was known in D.C. as sufficiently affable but also something of a loner, say Capitol Hill staffers, a floating, unthreatening member who had undercut his clout by pledging to stay no more than four terms.

When he began his race against Cruz, it’s easy to forget, O’Rourke was close to unknown—even in Texas. Cruz, on the other hand, was one of the most prominent Republicans in the nation, and no Democrat had won a statewide campaign since 1994. Texas Senator and Majority Whip John Cornyn dubbed it “a suicide mission.”

But what, strategists and operatives say now, did O’Rourke really have to lose? He had engineered his own congressional exit, anyway, 2018 was shaping up to be a favorable year for Democrats, and Cruz was a legendarily unpopular foil against whom he could rally support. And the worst-case scenario? Something O’Rourke had done before. Just go home. Go back to El Paso. Failure, in fact, was an option.

“Beto,” Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson toldTexas Monthlyin March 2017, “lives life with a cushy net beneath him.”

“It wasn’t that big of a risk,” Texas-based GOP strategist Brendan Steinhauser told me.

The biggest risk he took in the Senate bid, in the estimation of politicos in Texas and beyond, was to listen to people who lived in all 254 of the counties in Texas more than he did to people who could have armed with him with more targeted data. He tended to rely on feelings more than numbers. It was a root of his populist allure—and also perhaps the reason he didn’t win.

In his concession speech, he positioned himself at the center of a stage decked out with floodlights and speakers and drums, a scene evocative of a rock concert more than a convening of the dejected supporters of a failed candidate and campaign.

“I’m so fucking proud of you guys!” he hollered, eliciting squeals from his fans.

They chanted his name.

“Beto! Beto! Beto!”

After O’Rourke’s recent event in Sioux City, Iowa, I talked to two people who had traveled from different states to see him specifically because of that night. Because they had been inspired by how he spoke about losing. Chris Untiet, 35, had come from California. He works for Habitat for Humanity, and he told me he had watched the speech on the screen of his phone while on a trip to build houses in Vietnam. “I was really moved to tears,” he told me. The other was Claire Campbell. She’s 17. She saw the speech sitting in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and will vote for the first time in next year’s presidential election. And she hopes she can pick O’Rourke. “I literally love him,” she told me. In the question-and-answer session, she raised her hand and asked him to her prom.

“So, he had to lose the Senate,”Kim Olson, a Democrat and staunch O’Rourke ally who last year lost her bid to be Texas Commissioner of Agriculture, was telling me as I hurtled ahead on a ribbon of road slicing through flat fields, from one Iowa campaign stop to the next. “He had to get the nationwide name recognition. He had to do the hard work. And let me tell you: It’s fricking hard work running as a statewide candidate—as it’s going to be countrywide … grind, every day, all day—and here he is, after losing in a hard-fought race, he said, ‘I’m still going to serve, I’m still going to go, and I’m going to run for president.’ So, yeah, you could say his greatest accomplishment was to lose by, you know, 300,000 votes to a guy who almost won a primary for the president. But that wasn’t his greatest accomplishment. It wasn’t the loss—it’showhe did it—that was his greatest accomplishment. It was going to everywhere, all the time, speaking to people, getting out there, not being afraid of anybody or anything and doing that hard grind that it takes. That’s why it makes him an incredible candidate for president, I think.”

Olson, affable and voluble, in essence attempted to redefine the idea of failure. O’Rourke hadn’t failed. Because he had tried and worked so hard. Because the experience had opened other doors.

At many of the dozen or so O’Rourke events I attended of late, most of the people I talked to knew not a whole lot about him—hardly anything, really, about what he had done, or not done, before the race against Cruz. Maybe they had seen what he said about the kneeling National Football League players in a clip that lit up the internet. Maybe they had seen the Oprah interview. Maybe they had seen the Annie Leibovitz shot on the cover ofVanity Fair. The conversations were a reminder that most people not in Washington or even Texas have basically just met him.

“Is he a lawyer?” 70-year-old Ruth Lux from little Lidderdale, Iowa, asked me after O’Rourke’s pit stop in nearby Carroll.

“No,” I said.

“What did he do before he got into politics?” she asked.

I provided a speedy rundown to the Cruz race.

“I think the fact that he came so close to unseating Cruz, that’s pretty important,” Lux said. “A lot of people are relating to what he’s saying, you know.”

I asked her if she was bothered by O’Rourke’s lack of experience compared with other candidates in the Democratic field. She wasn’t. “I don’t know that Obama had much more,” she said. “Did he really have much more experience than this guy? Really probably not.”

The man who introduced O’Rourke at Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge responded similarly. “I heard the same thing in 2008 when I was supporting Obama,” David Drissel, a professor of social sciences, told me. O’Rourke, he pointed out, has not only more congressional experience than Obama but “more congressional experience than the past four presidents combined.” I did the quick math. Trump. Obama. The second Bush. Clinton. True enough.

Obviously, the bar for the requisite experience for the Oval Office has been recalibrated over the past decade or more of presidential campaigns, and doesn’t necessarily run through Congress at all. But voters haven’t entirely abandoned their desire for a candidate to win—and then actuallydo something. For all the shrugging over his résumé, people at O’Rourke’s town halls clearly, too, were pressing for specifics. I listened to multiple people ask him explicitly to put meat on the bones of his ideas.

Their questions to him often boiled down to one word: How?

Then, when I asked them if they had heard from him what they had wanted to hear, their answers often boiled down to one word as well: No.

Jason Levick, 27, who had driven from Omaha to see O’Rourke, wanted to know how he would cut down on wealth and income inequality.

“A little bit rambling and not really to the point or concrete,” Levick told me.

Brendan Grady, 26, asked O’Rourke in Denison how he would address the “lack of social cohesion.”

“Didn’t really address it,” Grady told me.

Mike Poe, 64, asked O’Rourke in Marshalltown how he would manage to enact meaningful gun control.

“Vague,” Poe told me.

I heard the same thing in South Carolina. In Denmark, at O’Rourke’s town hall in a threadbare auditorium on the campus of tiny Voorhees College, Sailesh S. Radha from Columbia stood up and expressed his frustration that so many presidents can’t seem to make good on their promises after they get elected. How would O’Rourke, Radha wondered, turn his words into actions? Into accomplishments?

After the event, when I asked him what he thought of the answer, Radha shook his head and made a face. “I need to hear more from him,” he said.

And yet, and in spite of a stageof the campaign that’s started to feel more like an ebb than a flow, if I had to divide every crowd into two groups—the squinty, not-quite-satisfied versus those inspired by O’Rourke’s table-hopping battle cries and open to the viability of his candidacy—there was no shortage of dewy-eyed believers.

Many people were struck by his energy and his charisma and his gauzy optimism. They heard echoes of iconic Democrats from the past and saw, they said, a possible path forward—a potential winner—somebody who might be the one to take on Trump. “I’m thinking back to the first encounter with President Obama here at Morningside College,” retiree Mike Goodwin told me after the event in Sioux City.

Lux, meanwhile, the woman in Carroll who thought maybe O’Rourke was a lawyer, waited in line after the event and shook his hand and told Robert Francis O’Rourke he reminded her of … Robert Francis Kennedy. O’Rourke told her thank you. He told her RFK is one of his heroes.

“The charisma,” Lux said when I asked her about the comparison. “The compassion for people at the bottom. Actually, even the physical appearance—the hair, the rolled-up shirt sleeves.”

She told me she had entered 2007 enthused to vote for Hillary Clinton in the caucuses and then for president. But she ended up going for Obama.

“You know, always, it comes down to: How do you present yourself? How charismatic are you?” Lux said. And she said something I heard from many others as well. She was less interested in policy proposals than she was in the possibility of victory. Especially now. “I am more interested,” she said, “in who can unseat Trump.”

It’s one of the few things, it seems, all Democratic voters seem to agree on. “I think that what caucus-goers are looking for is to defeat Donald Trump,” said Norm Sturzenbach, O’Rourke’s state director in Iowa. “That’s ultimately what’s driving it.”

Steinhauser, the GOP strategist from Texas, agreed. “I wouldn’t want to run a campaign against O’Rourke,” he said. He pointed to what he was able to do in … almost beating Cruz. “Look back at what just happened here. It’s pretty incredible. Who else out there on the list really excited people in that way and is the young-looking guy? He reminds a lot of people of Obama or John F. Kennedy or those kinds of candidates.”

Even with his thin résumé? His hazy policies? Steinhauser cut me off.

“Nobody cares,” he said.

“Donald Trump’s policy positions did not matter,” he added, although it should be noted that his visceral pitches in areas like immigration mattered a lot. “I think Democrats want to beat Donald Trump. I think that they’re smart enough to know they need somebody who can win, whatever that means.”

Whether the failed-upward O’Rourke can be that “somebody,” of course, very much remains to be seen. The Iowa caucuses are nearly nine months away, and there’s a long year and a half to go between now and November 2020.

But one recent morning at a seafood restaurant in Ladson, South Carolina, all the booths jammed full, people standing in the back and all the way toward the door, an O’Rourke aide handed the microphone to 69-year-old Stephen Johnson from Mount Pleasant for the last question of the event.

“Congressman O’Rourke,” Johnson said. “I really like you a lot. But there’s one thing I want to know. If you get the Democratic nomination, will you beat Trump?”

O’Rourke answered the question almost before Johnson could finish getting it out of his mouth.

“Yes,” he said.

The people roared.

#Failing #Foreign #Politics #Upward

0 notes

savetopnow · 7 years ago

Text

2018-04-03 15 NEWS now

NEWS

Associated Press

Asians stocks fall on US-China trade tensions, yen rises

Oklahoma teachers walk out for 2nd day in red-state revolt

US raises prospect of Trump-Putin meeting at the White House

DiVincenzo makes it rain; Nova tops Michigan 79-62 for title

Trump administration seeks to close immigration 'loopholes'

BBC News

Superintendent: Why teachers carry guns in Fayetteville

Winnie Mandela on her and Nelson's struggle

Who was Winnie Mandela?

Oklahoma teacher strike: 'I have 29 textbooks for 87 pupils'

The paired legacy of King and Kennedy

Chicago Tribune

Synthetic pot leaves 2 dead, dozens hospitalized in Illinois; 3 arrested in Chicago

Lawyers call for independent probe into ex-Chicago police Detective Reynaldo Guevara

Teen girl pleads guilty to fatally stabbing 15-year-old girl on South Side in 2016

Injured woman extricated from car after Des Plaines crash — but driver nowhere to be found

U.S. Steel to pay nearly $900,000 to settle lawsuit over chromium spill into Lake Michigan

LA Times

Kings move back to third place in Pacific Division with 3-1 win over Avalanche

Blues’ Scottie Upshall is out indefinitely

Naomi Osaka moves on, Sloane Stephens withdraws

Trump administration, seeking to speed deportations, plans to impose quotas on immigration judges

Boy speaks out after sewer pipe rescue: 'I was just praying to God to help me and to not die'

NPR News

Bench Player Carries Villanova To Second Title In Three Years Over Michigan

After Violence Erupts In Kashmir, Disputed Region Shutters Storefronts In Strike

The Scarcity Trap: Why We Keep Digging When We're Stuck In A Hole

After Alleged Abuse Of One Aide By Another, Rep. Elizabeth Esty Won't Run Again

'Affluenza' Driver Out On Probation After Nearly 2 Years In Jail

New York Times

Juggernaut Villanova Crushes Michigan for N.C.A.A. Championship

Trump Tweets Transform Immigrant Caravans Into Political Cause Célèbre

Op-Ed Contributor: India Loves Data but Fails to Protect It

Europe Edition: Israel, Winnie Mandela, Seduction: Your Tuesday Briefing

Jeweler to the Stars Flees as India Seethes Over Bank Fraud

ProPublica

ProPublica and NPR Win Investigative Reporters and Editors Award

A Betrayal

Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan Builds Power From the Ground Up — And Sometimes From the Basement

How Overbuilt Levees Along the Upper Mississippi River Push Floods Onto Others

Inside a Secretive Lobbying Effort to Deregulate Federal Levees

Reddit News

John McAfee reveals he charges $105,000 per promotional cryptocurrency tweet

Saudi crown prince says Israelis, Palestinians both have 'right to have their own land'

New police beating video clearly shows chokehold, aftermath

Sheriff faces no charges for leaving loaded handgun in middle school locker room.

Jury convicts off-duty Boston officer of racially-motivated assault

Reuters

Asian stocks slip on trade woes, tech sector pain

Migrant caravan heading to U.S. border puts Mexico in tough spot with Trump

EPA to relax fuel efficiency standards for autos

Trump declares DACA 'dead,' urges Congress to act on border

Trump attorney seeks to force porn star's lawsuit into arbitration

Reveal News

Nation’s largest janitorial company faces new allegations of rape

A group of janitors started a movement to stop sexual abuse

The Hate Report: How white supremacists recruit online

New documents about Jehovah’s Witnesses’ sex abuse begin to leak out

California is preparing to defend its waters from Trump order

The Altantic

West Virginia's Teachers Are Not Satisfied

This Average Joe Is the Most Quoted Man in News

The Unsinkable Benjamin Netanyahu?

Eric Garcetti Isn't Expecting Much From Washington

The Particular Horror of Church Shootings

The Guardian

How babies learn – and why robots can’t compete

From Don't Look Now to The Godfather – why the 1970s is my favourite film decade

Grindr shared information about users' HIV status with third parties

Millions flee bloodshed as Congo's army steps up fight with rebels in east

NCAA final: Villanova beat Michigan for second championship in three years

The Independent

Teachers in Oklahoma and Kentucky strike over pay increases and school budgets

Former Trump campaign worker who claims she was discriminated against sues over nondisclosure agreement

Welfare payments that are 'lifelines' for people being 'hacked away', MPs warn

Spending on children and young people's services cut by nearly £1bn in six years, figures reveal

Sale of ivory to be banned in the UK as part of government plan to help protect elephants

The Intercept

Israel Kills Palestinians and Western Liberals Shrug. Their Humanitarianism Is a Sham.

Donald Trump and the GOP Are Expanding a Controversial Obama-Era Public Housing Program

CFPB Head Mick Mulvaney Will Push for Legislative Changes to Hamper the Agency He Runs

Donald Trump’s Embrace of Abstinence-Only Sex Ed Is an Absurd Twist on a Failed Policy

A Guaranteed Jobs-for-All Program Is Gaining Traction Among 2020 Democratic Hopefuls

The Quartz

The world’s largest democracy is out to stifle its already docile press

The biggest obstacle to deploying solar energy in Africa is skepticism in high places

This might be the fastest delivery drone in the world

Why Indian banks don’t like lending to students

North Korea just apologized for something

Wall Street Journal

South Korea Lacks Shelters, Equipment Needed in a Nuclear Attack

Trump Used Putin Call to Float Idea of White House Visit

Syrians Begin Leaving Last Rebel-Held Town Near Capital

Activist Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Dies at 81

Migrant 'Caravan' in Mexico Raises Trump's Ire

#news

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kaoruyogi · 8 years ago

Text

Trial by Fire (Ch. 17)

Now with art by the amazing @merwild!!!

Rating: E for Explicit/NSFW Content!

Check it out on AO3.

Masterpost

Newly posted to the Ferelden Central Branch Court Office, known to those in the industry as Skyhold, Deputy District Attorney Halise Lavellan, her 98% conviction rate, and her investigator, Sera, join with the most successful group in the entire District Attorney’s Office, affectionately nicknamed “The Inquisition.” Transferred to join the Skyhold Gang Taskforce, she meets back up with an old flame, and her new colleague, Cullen Rutherford. In light of his 97.8% conviction rate, the other DDAs and defense attorneys working out of Skyhold call him “The Lion.” When a major gang homicide lands on their desks, Cullen and Halise, or “Torch” to anyone familiar with her prosecution style, must do everything in their power to lock up a notorious shotcaller, and stay alive while doing it. The old flame also threatens to reignite and consume both of them…and they just might let it.

(Halise’s name is pronounced “Hah-Lee-Say”)

Warning: Depiction of torture below.

Chapter 17:

“No. This is ridiculous.” Cullen looked himself up and down in the mirror on the wall above the sinks in the men’s room of the office. Thank the Maker everyone had already gone home. The idea of stepping out of the restroom, let alone the office, with anyone around to see him dressed so…unlike himself was deeply embarrassing.

He eyed himself disdainfully. Halise had outfitted him to a precise set of specifications—obnoxious ones. He wore an oversized—“slouchy,” she’d called it—black beanie she’d crocheted years before, paired with matching thick-rimmed fake glasses. Under an open red, white, and gray flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a black and yellow tee shirt with the logo for the long defunct Andrastian hair metal band, Stryper, sat uncomfortably over his chest. At least he got to wear his own jeans and shoes.

“Oh, come on. I bet you look great! Well, acceptable,” Halise pleaded through the door. “Passable?” How unconvincing she was.

“Stuff it, General Uptight, I’m with Halise. You have to look like the type of prat who listens to Mumford & Sons and Bon Iver and that other shite.” Sera’s voice was muffled. She’d obviously pressed her face against the door.

“I do listen to Mumford & Sons,” he spat back, his eyes refusing to release him from the torment of his own reflection. The impish elf’s signature scoff and chortle were all the reply he needed to know what she thought of that.

“If you’re not coming out, I’m gonna come in there and drag you out,” Halise warned. “We’re going to be late if we have to wait much longer for you to come to terms with your douchier side.”

A heavy sigh pushed its way out of Cullen’s chest as he squared his shoulders. If he was going out there like that, he would damn sure own it. He turned and opened the bathroom door. Sera narrowly avoided tumbling through when it swung inward, but she caught herself before hitting the floor. Pity, that. Another raucous chortle rose up from her when she looked him up and down as he passed her by, but his eyes were locked on Halise.

He was almost instantly transported back to the day they first met. She wore the very same blue beanie over her loose red curls, accented by similar glasses to the ones he wore. They reminded him of the oversized sunglasses that had blocked his view of her stunning eyes. A loose sky blue shirt with a picture of Audrey Hepburn from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” billowed around her, the wide, scooped neck giving him the slightest peak at her pale cleavage. Skinny jeans and black and white Converse rounded out her trousseau. No bare feet. He actually felt a strange kind of longing to see her duo-chromatic toes. They’d been a constant presence in their tumultuous history. But they were caged away from his view behind cloth, rubber, and shoelaces. In an odd way, it made him feel as though her personality had been hidden away from view alongside them.

That was, until he looked back up to see her lips pressed together and nostrils flared, her shoulders rising and falling heavily as she tried desperately to suppress the grin working away at the corners of her mouth. There she was. Her bright eyes passed over him, a nod of approval bobbing her head as she chewed on the inside of her lip. “I hate to say you look good because I know you’ll never wear this stuff again and I quite frankly hope you don’t, but you look very good,” she purred.

Her tone and the look in her eye shot heat through his body like a lightning bolt. Despite feeling foolish in his state of dress, had Sera not been there and had they not had a meeting to go to, he might have taken her right there. He would have swept her off of her feet, ripped those jeans off, and rutted her into the Maker forsaken wall. Another heavy sigh rattled out of him. This was not the time to be thinking about such things. They did have a meeting to go to, and Sera was there. His hand crept up the back of his neck, feeling a flush rise up his cheeks at the inappropriateness of his thoughts. “T-Thank you, I suppose,” he replied.

Halise arched an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth curling under it as though they were both being pulled up by the same string. Cullen smiled back a bit self-consciously, causing her to cock her head at him. The moment between them was shattered by Sera’s brash voice. “Yeah, yeah, everyone looks good, now can we please go?” She passed by him, very intentionally bumping into him with her yellow plaid covered shoulder before casting a wide smile back at him and sticking her tongue out. He chuckled, following her and Halise, and unabashedly watching his girlfriend’s backside as they left the building.

He drove them to the Three Trout Bar, watching his rearview mirror to an almost obsessive degree. They would not be ambushed or attacked again. He knew Sera was still armed, but he’d also stowed a 9 mm handgun in his glove compartment that he planned to slip into his waistband before they went inside. He had a concealed carry permit—easier to get after being a Templar—but he’d never felt he needed it until then. For years he’d really just worried that he might use the gun in a fit of anxiety or one of his withdrawal-induced hallucinations. But in that moment, there were very real dangers that they may have been walking right into.

Halise braided her hair over her shoulder on the ride to the bar. She said it would make her less recognizable, but Cullen thought the outfit and fake glasses would have done that well enough. Still, the long braid cascading down her arm did have a certain charm about it, though she was right, it was very unlike her. She was wild and unbound. Even when her hair was gathered into a ponytail, her curls flowed about freely, their riotous brilliance undeterred by the single tiny binding. The string of knots forming the braid locked all that away from the world. Another piece of her obscured.

When they arrived at the Three Trout, Cullen sought out a parking spot in full view of the entire interior. He rounded the block several times before a woman moved her gargantuan minivan out of the parking space directly in front of the bar. Once parked, he leaned over Halise a bit, opening the glove compartment and stuffing the black handgun into his waistband behind his back. She cast him a worried glance while Sera barked something about being glad she wasn’t going to be the only one armed. He did his best to reassure her with his eyes and a soft touch on her forearm, though it clearly did little to accomplish his goal. They exited the vehicle in near silence, entering the bar as warily as they could without attracting attention.

From the moment they walked in, all he wanted to do was walk right back out. The obvious sense of pseudo-individualism and entitlement was overwhelming. It made itself plain in the aggressively mismatched bar stools, the haphazardly repurposed Maker-knew-what the owner intended to pass off as tables and chairs, and the sloppily written chalkboard drink menu behind the bar. As a group, he, Halise, and Sera made their way to the bar—dirty, unfinished wood, of course—with Sera elbowing some oaf with a man bun out of their way just enough to order from the selection of pompously named drinks. Who’s impractical mind thought of the names for them, anyway? “Get Hissing Wasted,” “Blades of Hess-Ale-Rian,” “The Ferelden Frostback.” Insipid and feckless.

“These drink names are fucking stupid,” Halise whispered as she turned away from the bar to face him. Mind reader.

Cullen smiled down at her, gratified to be on the receiving end of the little turn of her lips. Her eyes left his, scanning the room behind him while he watched his SUV out window. Every time someone walked by, which was all too frequently in this neighborhood filled with phony environmentalists who refused to drive, he held his breath. His body was ready to spring into action at any moment, taking down anyone who meant to do them harm by whatever means necessary.

“Do you think that’s him?” Halise murmured to Sera, who pivoted then to look at whoever the redhead was referring to.

“Fantastic fucking mustache, that!” the blonde elf quietly exclaimed. “He’s lookin’ at you. And at me. And at Cullen. And at the door. Bet you’re right. I’ll go see.”

Cullen turned—his hand in his back pocket, close to the gun—to watch Sera approach a sturdy looking gentleman in his mid-thirties with what was indeed a rather impressive horseshoe mustache. She leaned over with her hand on the waistband of her jeans, speaking quietly to the man before flicking a finger at Halise and Cullen to join them.

Trepidation welled up in his gut with every step toward the mustachioed man. Mercifully, the seat that faced the door was left unoccupied, allowing Cullen to slip in and watch his car whilst maintaining his ability to see their mysterious informant. Halise sat beside him, across from the man, with Sera on her other side.

“Ms. Lavellan, I presume?” the man asked. His accent sounded somewhat Orlesian but had a slight unidentifiable tinge to it.

Halise nodded. “Stroud?”

He nodded in return. “So this must be Mr. Rutherford and Sera…I’m sorry I couldn’t find your last name anyw—”

“Just Sera,” she clipped. Her blue eyes bored into the man next to her.

“Alright,” he said, his tone placating and passive. “I must apologize for the rather…clandestine nature of this meeting, and for my vagueness on our call, Ms. Lavellan. I’m afraid I’ve been targeted in an internal investigation by the FBI Wardens. An investigation which could only have sprung from false accusations made by one Warden in particular.”

Cullen’s eyes shot to his still undisturbed SUV, then to Halise, then back to Stroud. “If you’re under investigation,” she began, “why should we trust whatever it is you have to tell us?”

“I understand your hesitation, but this one Warden to whom I am referring…Well, to put it plainly, I believe he has ties to the Magisterium, and that he targeted me when he found out I was looking into him.” Stroud sighed through his nose, sparing a glance toward Cullen, who just leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. Was the man name dropping the notorious Tevinter cartel to cast off suspicion, or was he telling the truth?

He watched Halise’s methodical gaze slice right through Stroud, feeling a little overly satisfied at the way it so clearly unnerved him. “Okay, say I believe you, and there’s a Magister plant in the Wardens who’s trying to frame you for Mythal-knows-what, what does that have to do with the Corypheus case?” Her fingers laced together under her chin, her intelligent eyes never leaving the Warden.

Cullen was proud of her. He felt it so powerfully in that moment, it was undeniable. He knew she was exhausted, that fear likely sat very close to the forefront of her mind, but there she was, staring down a man she knew would be armed and suspected might harm her. Her face was the picture of perceptive serenity, body language unafraid and imposing. She was unstoppable.

“This Warden is pretending to run Archdemon as a confidential informant.”

It was as if all the air vanished from the bar in that instant. Every sound was silence, every breath a struggle in a vacuum. “There is a Warden…” Halise paused in her disbelief, “who knows who Archdemon is. And he’s pretending to run him as a CI?” Stroud nodded somberly. “And he didn’t bother to stop his C-fucking-I from blowing me to the Void?!” She leaned halfway across the table, and might have sprung the whole length if Sera’s arm hadn’t shot out to stop her momentum.

“You can see, Ms. Lavellan, why I had to speak to you about this in person, and why it couldn’t be at your office.” It wasn’t a question.

Cullen heard the long, shaky breath shudder out of Halise, and saw the thick swallow roll down her throat. He knew firsthand that composure and rational thought could be difficult things to regain when shocked and incensed. But he watched her expression shift, watched her lips come together once more, watched her eyes regain their focused determination.

“Is it safe to assume you have proof of all these accusations?” Stroud nodded again. “Then why haven’t you given it to your boss?”

“The Warden in charge of our office, Assistant Director Clarel, insists she’s following protocol in the investigation against me by not accepting any ‘retaliatory’ accusations or evidence. But I suspect the Magister, Warden Livius Erimond, has something over on her. I’ve checked our policy manual, and there’s nothing in it about retaliatory evidence. I’ve also tried to go over her head, but I either hear nothing for weeks or get a voicemail left on my machine after hours about following the chain of command. I’m getting nowhere.”

“And what about taking your evidence to the Ferelden Attorney General’s Office?” Cullen finally chimed in. There had to be some reason he was seeking out their help.

“Honestly,” Stroud started as he placed a large folder on the table, “I thought, given what happened, you might want to talk to Erimond first. See if he’s willing to give up Archdemon for your case against Corypheus once he sees this mountain of evidence. Maybe he’ll drop his allegations and I can get back to work in the field.” His hand sat atop the file, and he slid it back toward himself by the smallest margin, nearly making the three of them jump to grab it. “If you prefer, however, I can take it to the AG’s Office. But if I do that, I can’t guarantee Archdemon’s identity won’t remain sealed as a CI, or that you’ll have any access to him once the AGs get their hands on him.”

“Trap,” Sera almost shouted, drawing stern glares from Halise and Cullen. “Something stinks. This sounds like a trap. How do we know you’re not playing us, and we meet this Eri-mouth or whatever, and he kills us? Up close and personal-like.”

Everyone turned to Stroud once more. “You should come to our headquarters at Adamant when he’s there—”

“Stupid name for a headquarters,” Sera interrupted.

“Confront him in his office while there are a hundred other Wardens around, myself included,” he concluded, unperturbed.

Halise turned to Cullen, and they shared another communicative look. Her viridescent eyes asked if he thought it was a good idea. Without a word, he told her the he worried it might be dangerous, but she should go with her gut. A tiny tilt of her head said there would be other Wardens there, and they might not get another opportunity to discover Archdemon’s identity. A slow blink and nod was Cullen’s answer.

Halise’s nimble fingers lifted the file from the table and found space for it in her too-large gray leather tote bag. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll come by next week, after we’ve dealt with the Mayor’s diplomatic event this weekend.” Maker’s breath. Cullen had almost forgotten about that. “I’ll call you to arrange a time.”

Without another word or gesture exchanged, Cullen, Halise, and Sera stood and left the table. Cullen experimentally pressed the button on his key to unlock his car, doing his best not to flinch when the headlights gave their chipper blink. Nothing happened. Nothing and no one exploded. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. They were safe. At least for the rest of the day.

*****

Halise sat alone on her sectional the night of the meeting, her exhausted eyes wandering over the contents of the file Stroud had given her—photocopies, phone records, and photographs. She’d practically begged Cullen to come home with her, but he rebuffed her. He had other urgent business to deal with before he went home. What urgent business could someone possibly have at almost eight o’clock on a weeknight? Sera, Dorian, and Iron Bull were likewise occupied, as was everyone else in her office, it seemed. Were they all out having fun without her?

No. The odds were just that everyone was genuinely busy. They all had lives to lead outside the office, after all.

It was probably for the best, though. She only managed to focus on the evidence for about half an hour before sleep weighed her eyelids down to an untenable degree. As she ambled off to bed, she prayed to the Creators and whoever else might be listening not to have a nightmare like the one she’d had the night before.

But no one was listening.

Screams rang out through the empty cell blocks of Denerim Central Jail. Halise ran barefoot through every floor, searching every locked cell and alcove for the source of the blood curdling screaming. The echoing emptiness of the cells bounced the screams into her ears a thousand times over, each one dissipating just in time for the next to begin, making it that much harder to follow them to their point of origin.

Finally, amidst the wails and roars, she managed to find a single unlocked door. She flung it open with a rusty squeak and darted inside only to find herself in an observation room. A single stool, a light switch, and a nearly wall-sized piece of thick glass were the room’s only occupants, their eerie silence almost as deafening as the bawls and bellows emanating from the other side of the glass. Halise’s eyes followed her ears, turning to see what she already knew would be there.

A thick pool of blood, both coagulated and fresh, spread across the floor of the interrogation room. Strong, bare feet and the metallic legs of a chair bore a stark contrast to the smooth, almost placid blood. Halise’s eyes traced up bare legs, noting the soft blonde hair that wisped over their surfaces. Next, she saw the man’s torso and arms, smattered in a myriad of scars, both healed and open, some gushing blood to feed the ever expanding pool below. His face—Cullen’s face—was bruised and broken. The scar she’d always seen as such an attractive feature sat open again, jagged and bloody, exposing his wounded gums and teeth below. His autumnal eyes were blackened, nearly swollen shut by the severity of his injuries. Blood matted down his golden blonde curls, leaving a grotesque texture she could almost smell and feel through the thick glass.

Around Cullen’s writhing, screaming, tortured body strode his captors. His torturers. His tormentors. Corypheus and Archdemon, their bodies hideously deformed and larger than life, swirled around Cullen. Haunting crystalline formations jutted out of their bodies at ghastly angles, rending their sallow flesh in tattered pieces. Corypheus’s body looked as if it had been stretched skyward, his midsection terrifyingly slim and bony. Archdemon’s sharpened smile gleamed beneath skin that had gone almost scaly, his frayed, ratty hoodie stretched and hanging from his arms like wings.

With claws and instruments they cut and tore at Cullen’s body, wresting horrifying, nauseating cries from him with every touch. Tears poured from Halise’s eyes, blurring her vision of the atrocities being committed against the man she’d loved for most of her adult life. Instinctively, she flicked the light switch upward, lighting up the space in a way she knew would let those in the interrogation room see her. All eyes watched her, wry smiles twisting the faces of those evil men. Their grins grew when Halise slammed the side of her fist into the glass and screamed. They continued their victimization and tyranny even as she lifted the steel stool and smashed it into the window. It bounced off, leaving nary a scratch in its wake. She kicked at the clear surface until she felt the bones in her feet break and splinter, though there was no pain for her. No pain for her, but pain immeasurable for the man she loved.

Halise ran with a limping gait to the door of the observation room only to find that it, too, had been locked. She was trapped. Forced to watch as pure evil and malice stole the joy she’d only found again so recently. In a final act of what may have been malevolence or mercy, Corypheus hauled Cullen’s chin up, exposing his neck, and slit his throat from ear to ear, splashing hot blood across the glass. The ichor obscured his death from her view, but she could hear his choked gurgling and final rattled breath even through her own deafening screams.

Her eyes flew open with a sharp gasp. The inky darkness of her bedroom and the thick, sweat-dampened blankets on her bed enveloped her. Tears streaked down her cheeks while choked sobs pulsed through her chest. Suffocating, she kicked the blankets away from her body, exposing her sweat-slicked skin to the cool, climate-controlled air. She rolled onto her side, curling into herself as guilt-grated whimpers eked out of her dry lips.

She thought about calling Cullen—confirming to her mind that he was alive and well halfway across town—but she couldn’t do that to him two nights in a row. Instead, she wrapped her arms around her shins, huddled her chin against her knees, and wallowed in the misery of her visions until dawn brightened the sky on the other side of her curtains.

Her morning routine was an exercise in weary determination. She would get through the day, no matter how sleep-deprived or shaken she was. She would get through her Fen-damned day.

The obviousness of her exhaustion was made plain once more on her arrival at the office. Everyone she passed remarked about how “tired” or “awful” she looked, which by no means helped her self-esteem. Still, they were right. She felt awful, and had very little doubt that she looked it.

Cullen wore his worry in the furrow of his brow, the downcast corners of his lips, and the consternation of his tone. “Maker’s breath, Halise, are you alright?” he asked, letting his hand rest on her shoulder.

“I’m…Um…I’m just tired. I’m fine,” she muttered, walking past him to get to her desk. His gentle touch slipped from her shoulder down her arm, and she caught his fingers with hers for a moment before letting go.

He followed after her, his three or four footsteps audibly hesitant. When Halise took a seat at her desk and tapped her voicemail button, her messages played over the speakerphone as she scrubbed her hands down her face. Thank Mythal I don’t have court today, she thought. A couple of people on her witness list left her messages agreeing to testify against Corypheus. Apparently, standing up to the dick-biscuit after he tried to blow her up had garnered her some street cred.

Cullen hadn’t moved. He looked down at her, helpless apprehensiveness obvious in his eyes. Halise sighed, feeling worse as she returned his gaze. “I had the stupid nightmare again,” she finally murmured in answer to the question he hadn’t needed to ask. Her tone betrayed the shame she felt in her admission. He’d been dealing with nightmares for so long, and she couldn’t even manage for two nights. What a weak person she was.

He rounded her desk, kneeling beside her and pulling her into his arms so quickly her vision blurred. “Why didn’t you call me?” his muffled voice said into her neck.

“I didn’t want to bother you with it two nights in a row,” she answered, the sting of imminent tears making her feel even weaker. She hated crying at work.

“You could never bother me, my love.” His arms tightened, his powerful fingers holding fast onto her biceps. “I want you to call me when you have a nightmare. I want you to lean on me. I’m here to support you, both as your second chair and as your boyfriend. You have to trust that I mean that in every way.”

Halise let her hand come to rest on the back of his neck. “I do,” she replied softly, a few small tears slipping free of her resolve. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you. But will you stay with me tonight?”

“Of course I will. I’m sorry I didn’t last night,” he said, pulling back just enough to see her face. He swiped a thumb across her cheek to wipe away the moisture there while he continued. “I had to buy a tux for the Mayor’s event. It’s been quite some time since I last wore one.”

A tired grin swept up her lips and squinted her eyes. “Why didn’t you have me come with you? I’m sure I could have helped.”

“I—uh—asked Dorian and some of the other men from the office to join me,” he answered, looking a bit sheepish. “I wanted it to be a surprise. Plus, as it turns out, almost everyone needed something to wear. We saw Sera with Leliana, Cassandra, and Josephine while we were at the mall.”

A single grunt of a laugh pushed its way out of Halise’s nose. “So you guys really were all having fun without me.”

Cullen scoffed, “Hardly. I hate shopping, especially for clothes. Dorian and Solas, much to my surprise, seemed to have the greatest fondness for the exercise. Bull, Varric, Cole, and I sort of sat back and let them do the choosing. I went with one of Dorian’s choices.”

“I am very curious to see what he picked out for you. Though I’m sure it’s ‘of the highest quality’ and ‘painfully handsome,’” she smirked, mimicking Dorian’s voice and cadence.

“It’s as if you were there,” Cullen chuckled. He brushed a light kiss over her lips, but when her eyes closed, they chose to remain that way even after he moved away. “Are you sure you don’t need to go home? I know Cassandra would understand if you did.”

Before she could answer, a whisper of a knock tapped at their office door. Through sheer force of will, Halise managed to open her eyes enough to see Cole and Solas standing in their doorway. Cole’s face was almost expressionless, though his eyes looked just a bit concerned. Solas, on the other hand, let his brows knit together and a little frown curve his lips. Cole had a pillow in his hand. Where had he gotten that?

“I brought you this,” the ethereal young man said, holding up the very comfortable looking pillow. “We keep it for children to hold. It helps them feel better when they talk. But you should use it to take a nap. You’re very tired, and it will help you feel better.” He was disarmingly sweet and hopeful for someone who had to deal with those who, in Halise’s opinion, were the worst of the worst—the dregs of society. He was also a little blunt.

“I’d like to offer you my office for a couple of hours,” Solas added. “I can work at your desk, and you can sleep in the quiet seclusion for a time, if that is agreeable to you.” Always so proper. Somehow even more so than Cullen, if such a thing was possible.

Halise smiled wanly but warmly at the men in the doorway. Cullen gave her one little nod of approval, and another as a gesture for her to go. Reluctantly, she stood, crossed the room, and accepted the pillow from Cole. He smiled at her, a sight she so rarely saw from him. She murmured a quiet thank you to Solas and reminded all three of the men that they should come get her if anyone needed her. She had every intention of being back in an hour and a half. One good REM cycle was all she needed.

When she awoke three hours later, however, she cursed herself quietly. She felt better, to be sure, but knowing she’d missed hours of work dropped a pang of guilt onto her like a cinderblock. She stood from Solas’s too-comfortable chair—no wonder he was in his office all day—and wobbled back toward her office.

She stopped just outside her door when she heard Solas’s voice. “—that you and Ms. Lavellan have grown very close. I can see you care for her a great deal.” What an odd time for him to bring that up. Have they been sitting in total silence for the past three hours? she wondered.

The sound of Cullen clearing his throat almost made Halise laugh. She could practically see his hand at the back of his neck. “I do,” he finally replied.

“That is good to hear. Though, an admonishment, if I may—take care that your relationship does not affect the work either of you do. You are both true assets to Skyhold, and I would hate to see that negatively impacted should anything go awry.” He sounded so sincere, but there was a definite tinge of warning in his tone.

Halise didn’t know how to feel about him saying that. Part of her was flattered that he felt so strongly about their work, while another part was irritated that he would insert himself into their affairs in such a way. Cullen’s voice interrupted her thoughts before they could spiral any further. “Rest assured, Solas, nothing will go awry.” He sounded so certain, and that certainty grounded her as she stepped through the door into their office.

“Solas,” she grinned sincerely, “thank you so much for letting me use your office. I had an awesome nap, and I think I’m ready to get back at it. I really, really appreciate it.”

The elf smiled smoothly back at her, closing his laptop and rising from her desk. “I am very glad to hear it,” he said, darting his eyes to Cullen for just a split second. He took the pillow from her hand as he passed her, leaving their office as quietly as he’d come in.

Halise turned on her heel to face Cullen, putting her hands on his desk and leaning forward to kiss him. When their lips parted, he smirked at her, quirking up his scar—the scar that made him more attractive not because of its alluring appearance, but because of how strong he must have been to endure the pain of receiving it. “What was that for?”

“I just agree with you,” she said. “‘Nothing will go awry.’”

Mild embarrassment flushed his cheeks as she watched him. Silently, she prayed to the same entities that hadn’t listened in the night. She prayed that they would listen, and she prayed that she and Cullen were right.

Please let us be right.

*****

#cullen #cullen rutherford #commander cullen #cullen x inquisitor #cullen x lavellan #cullavellan #lavellan #halise #halise lavellan #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #da:i #fanfic #fic #modern au #trial by fire

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cvioleta · 8 years ago

Text

Everything She Wants, Part 3

It was 1:35 a.m. and for the third night in a row, Dr. Harleen Quinzel could not sleep.

Ever since her first session with the Joker had ended with a revelation about his past, she was positively electrified. She had rushed back to her office and started searching the Internet for country club fires. It didn’t take long until she found exactly what she was looking for. Oakhaven, a 115 year old club in the Hamptons, so exclusive that no one had ever successfully obtained its member list, had burned to the ground in 1989. The news stories talked about how the loss of life had been stunning because the emergency exits had been jammed, trapped dozens of patrons inside as the flames raged. The cause of the fire was deemed electrical in nature and any rumblings of arson were quickly hushed up by the club’s attorneys.

It was him. He told me the truth. He burned down a building and killed 38 people…at age eight.

She scanned through Google for images taken at Oakhaven in the 1980’s. Any one of the young boys could have been the Joker. She wanted that membership list so bad she was ready to break in herself…maybe she could get a subpoena?

Harleen looked at the clock. It was past two, and she had to be in her office by nine. She snapped her laptop shut, turned off her light and willed herself to fall asleep despite the racing thoughts in her mind. She remembered as she was drifting off that she hadn’t even bothered to check her e-mail to see how things were going for Ben in Dubai. It could wait until the morning.

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

She woke up with a start, breathing hard and light headed. A flash of her dream came to her…people running from the flames, some on fire, and the Joker’s crazed laughter through it all. “You wanted to see inside my head, Harleen,” he’d said. “This is what it looks like. Are you enjoying the show?” The clock showed 5:15, earlier than she had to get up but there was no going back to sleep now with those images in her head.

Might as well get up and go for a run…clear my head. Harleen pulled on a t-shirt and athletic pants, put her hair in a ponytail and slipped on her sneakers. She could do an easy couple of miles and arrive at work fired up and ready to take on the day. If she could even concentrate on anything other than searching for the Joker’s past. She almost felt sorry for her other patients, because it was obvious this one was going to take up most of her attention. OK, she needed music – where was her phone? She retrieved it from the bedroom and remembered that she should have checked her email last night. There was a message from Ben but she was more excited to see a message from Dr. Arkham.

Subject: Outstanding

Dr. Quinzel,

I read your report on the Joker and I have to say that I have never been more impressed with your work. No one else has ever gotten a word out of him about his past, and with one session, you managed to obtain invaluable information that you were furthermore able to confirm as likely to be accurate.

Excellent work. I look forward to your next report.

Dr. Arkham

Harleen squealed out loud. Arkham was a dour old soul, and not easily impressed. Take that Jeremy, she thought, thinking back to her first day on the job when Jeremy had coined her Psych Ward Barbie and expressed doubt that she really had a medical license. Shame he wasn’t around to have to see her succeed where he had failed! She danced out her apartment door, trying to get her earbuds in place, but stopped short when she saw something white on the ground by her feet. She bent to pick it up, thinking it was a receipt that had fallen out of her pocket, but stopped short.

It was a playing card. A grinning joker with a clown hat smiling at her from atop the doormat.

He knew where she lived.

Suddenly, a run didn’t sound like such a good idea. Harleen backed into her apartment, slamming and locking the door behind her. She paced mindlessly for a half hour, trying to decide how to handle this development. Then, she paced another 15 minutes trying to decide what to wear to work. You must not show any fear, she told herself. Still, she felt nervous and violated at the thought that one of the Joker’s goons had been to her home. She dressed more sedately than usual, in a knee length navy shirtdress and a lower pair of heels. Harleen left her hair in a ponytail and wore very little makeup. You’re safer if you look plain, look less attractive, maybe then he’ll leave you alone…

But she wasn’t thinking of the Joker at that moment. She was thinking of another threat, the one that had cast his shadow over her entire life from the time she was 14.

Harleen Quinzel had lost her father when she was ten years old. He went to work one morning and Harleen went to school, but just a few hours later her mom was at the school to pick her up. Something was definitely going on; the teachers were all whispering about it but no one had made any official announcement. Then she saw her mother. Later on she found out about the accident, but she knew her father was dead the second she saw her mother’s face…hopeless, destroyed, nothing left. And for the next few years, they had clung to each other, both having lost the man they loved most. Harleen concentrated on school, knowing that she had to make her Daddy proud of her, even if he wasn’t here any longer to see it. Her mom went back to work and for a while everything was as good as it could be. Until her mom met Kevin.

Harleen pushed those thoughts out of her head. She needed to focus today, not get caught up in her own personal PTSD. And she’d start by confronting the man in her present who didn’t understand boundaries. He would understand them when she was done with him…that was for damn sure. She looked at herself in the mirror.

Fuck that! I am not a defenseless child and I’ll dress however I please.

She quickly changed into a cream silk blouse, purple skirt and purple heels. The ponytail stayed, but she pulled a few strands out and curled them to frame her face. She spent a few minutes at the mirror giving herself a smoky, but still work-appropriate, eye and added a peachy lipstick that didn’t clash with the purple of the skirt. Satisfied with her reflection, she walked out the door leaving the mousy clothes in a heap on her bedroom floor.

#joker x harley #harley x joker #joker and harley #harley quinn

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