#supes was acting like a real jerk then

[im-not-buying-it-ether]

One sad thought that just keeps getting back into my head is a mix of the events of Superman and Shazam vs Black Adam and the one JLU episode with Captain Marvel

There’s just this idea of Billy meeting Clark Kent before Captain Marvel meets Superman, Clark telling Billy he’s a great kid and the conversation they had about choosing to be good and then Superman fully fighting Marvel because of his paranoia with Lex.

I always imagine that things aligned that Superman didn’t know until after the incident, realizing only after he pushed Marvel to leave the League with his behavior that he destroyed not just a kids trust and belief in heroes but that it was a kid he knows whose morals he encouraged.

I feel like it’s a good idea to flesh out some more in writing, I love all the impacts people learning Marvel is a kid who looked up to them can have on them learning it outside the “I talked to a kid about (insert adult topic here) many times” jokes

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

Chapter 10: Brother Dearest

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV

Summary:  When you decided to work with Butcher and his merry band of supe hunters to take down Homelander, you neve expected to be saddled with a sullen, grumpy, jerk like Soldier Boy when the job was done. The more you're around him the more you hate him, but you can't help but wonder, is he really as big a jerk as you think? Reader is a supe with plant powers. This takes place in an AU about a month after the end of The Boys Season 3, in which Butcher has let Soldier Boy continue to work with him on his team.  (I'm real bad at summaries, please forgive me!) Soldier Boy calls the reader "Petals."

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers (Not in this chapter), Only One Bed (This chapter), Slow Burn, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Soft Ben/ Soldier Boy, Protective Ben/Soldier Boy

Word Count: 9.7K

Warnings: I'm going to label this 18+ because Soldier Boy (he's a warning and everyone knows it), Manipulation, Gaslighting, Swearing, Mentions of Sex, Sexual Innuendo, Sexual Tension, Shouting, Anger, Talks About Weed, Super Manipulative Trash Man Being Introduced, Ben/Soldier Boy might be a little bit OOC.

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

A/N: Back to our regularly scheduled angst...

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It feels like you've only had thirty minutes of sleep when your body jerks upwards out of your bed to the sound of crashing and the shattering of pottery, followed by someone who doesn't sound like Ben shout "What the fuck?"

It had been a few days since you faced the supe with the ability to liquidize his form and after about five showers that included you scrubbing the skin of your body raw with both a luffa and a sugar scrub and gargling with Listerine until it felt like all your taste buds were burned off, you felt that you had rid yourself of the oppressive smell and taste of the supe.

Ben and you seemed to be falling in to a familiar pattern, he walked with you to work before going off to see what Butcher had planned for him and if he could Ben would always show up at the end of your shift to walk you home. Though each time he was less than friendly to Jake, who was still trying his upmost to get Ben to talk to him rather than Ben's usual half-grunts, shrugging shoulders, and death glares.

It wasn't working and you stopped trying to get Ben to be more friendly towards your boss, but it didn't make it any less unusual that Ben kept walking with you to and from work.

When you asked him why he walked with you he said that "You shouldn't be walking alone" which of course prompted the conversation of "I don't need a babysitter" and "I've been walking to the store for two years by myself" and him not listening to anything you said. That last bit was becoming more and more normal for the two of you.

So you rationalized that Ben was trying to be nicer to you because he wanted to try to be sort-of friends and you tried not to think about how it was making you have more feelings for him.

It was difficult not to like Ben when he was acting more friendly. When he actually made an effort to have conversations with you or sat with you quietly while you read or when he was walking with you to and from work and stopping along the way to get you coffee or your favorite tea. It was confusing to you why he was doing that, why someone who was so focused on sex was doing sweet things for you after you told him that you wouldn't sleep with him and was making you have deeper feelings for him.

So like a normal person you threw your frustration into your crocheting. Over the past week you had finished Annie's sweater, made four cat toys for Bean, and were currently working on a long cardigan sweater to send your grandmother who called last week to check in and had told you she needed a new one.

Ben had come with you to the craft store and hated every second of it. Not to mention each time you added a bundle of yarn to the basket you made him hold, he would ask "What the fuck are you going to do with that?" to which you responded "Learn quantum physics." Though Ben had been impressed with the knitting needles, thought that they could be useful enough to use for self defense and had embarrassed you when you turned around and found him trying to mime stabbing someone with them while the other people in the store watched him in horror.

You rolled out of bed and threw open your bedroom door before barreling down the darkly lit hallway and sliding into the living room on your crocheted leaf socks. "What is it?" You shout prepared for attack.

Unfortunately when you slide into the room, you do so with too much enthusiasm and you slip and fall, landing on your back with a loud groan.

That one hurt.

"You alright Petals?" You hear Ben ask from somewhere above you. It's not said in a teasing way, it's said in a growl.

Is he mad at me?

"Yep just testing if gravity is still working. It is, if you were curious." You cough out a laugh as you get up and realize that Ben isn't on the couch, he's standing in the middle of your kitchen holding someone by the lapels of his black oversized army jacket against your refrigerator.

Oh that's why he's mad.

The man is rail-thin, dressed completely in black, with hair so blond you sometimes thought it was white, buzzed over his head, and although you can't see his face you know that he'll have a set of dark blue eyes that sometimes turn black when he's angry and a pair of dark hoops curving over his right eyebrow. Ben is holding him up so high that the man's feet aren't touching the ground.

You hadn't seen your brother Darren in at least a year, not since he dropped by to crash on your couch to tell you that his buddy Roach, yes that is what he called him, was opening a restaurant and asked Darren to be his business partner. He had walked you through the technical lingo and acted enthusiastic about the prospects, told you that it was his dream to open a restaurant, but he was having a problem coming up with his half of the cash. Darren had asked you for a small loan and you'd scrambled to get it together for him.

But after about three months  Darren called to tell you that it fell through and that he was onwards and upwards trying to "make his way in the world" which by now you knew was Darren speak for "could you please send me a little more money to get on my feet." Your grandmother had stopped giving him money ages ago, but you couldn't, he was family, your only brother and you loved him.

"Darren?" You say hesitantly.

"Hey sis!" Darren smiles when you turn on the light in the kitchen, looking too happy for someone being smooshed against a raspberry and blackberry covered refrigerator.

"You know this guy?" Ben glances at you over his shoulder. He's not wearing a shirt again and you're trying very hard not to focus on how good he looks without one. The muscles on his back are flexed from the exertion of holding your brother up against the refrigerator and Ben isn't breaking a sweat.

Lifting a person probably feels like lifting up Bean to him.

"Yeah he's my brother." You take a step forward and hear something crunch beneath your foot. Your gaze drops to the floor and you understand exactly what the loud crashing noise was.

The strawberry plant that usually sits on the small kitchen table that you shoved under the window is on the ground. Shards of painted pottery litter your floor in every direction, the strawberry plant smooshed under a boot print that matches up with Darren's infamous buckled motorcycle boots. The same ones he'd had since high school that he'd tell anyone who listened he won in the same bar fight that he got the thin scar on his chin from, when in reality he got them at a thrift store down the street from your grandmother's house and the scar from when he tripped and hit his chin on the toilet when he was fifteen and trying to learn how to shave.

Must have come in the window from the fire escape.

Most of the window had been blocked by a tangerine and lemon tree that you had encouraged to grow, but now the tree was pushed to the side off kilter and the window was open letting in the warm summer breeze.

You didn't understand why Darren did that when he still had the key that you made him when you moved in.

Ben drops Darren unceremoniously onto the hardwood floor, who lands with a loud "clunk” from his boots, but your brother doesn’t look upset. He rubs his hand over the top of his head as if adjusting his buzzed hair with a sheepish smile while Ben steps back onto one of the pieces of pot on your hardwood floor, but doesn't wince.

Darren notices your gaze on the smooshed strawberry plant and the shattered remains of the pot it was in. "Ooo, sorry sissy." He frowns. "But I'm sure you can fix it can't you? That is what you do." Darren emphasizes it by waving his hand around you apartment at the numerous plants covering your walls.

You crouch down and pick up the remnants of the plant gingerly, cradling it to your chest. "Um, yeah." You force a smile, trying not to think about how important the pot was to you. It was the last thing you had of your grandfather, before he passed. It had been one of your favorite memories, sitting out on the back porch in the middle of a thunderstorm painting flowers and dots and zigzags on the terracotta pot that housed the strawberry plant that you grew on the tray of your high chair the day your powers developed.

Darren knew how much the pot meant to me. He had one too before he used it for air-rifle practice.

You put the plant on your kitchen table, before taking the broom from the hook on the wall. "Why didn't you just use the door?" You tried to say it in an upbeat way, but it fell flat.

"I was excited to see my favorite sister." Darren grins pulling you into a hug.

He smells like he always does, a bit like cigarette smoke, beer, and the stale smell of weed. But when he pulls back and sees that you're still frowning, his own mouth begins to descend into an exaggerated pout. "Did you not want me to come by?"

"Of course I did." You say, but you weren't sure. "I just thought you would call first or use the key that I got you not come through the window."

“Oh stop being so dramatic.” He pats you on the head. “I’m here now so what’s going on? You got a boyfriend-“ He gestures to Ben. “Who is also a supe?”

“Ben is my roommate.” You emphasize the word roommate before Ben can say boyfriend. That was the last thing you wanted him to say in front of Darren. You'd never hear the end of it You begin to sweep up the pieces, trying to fight the urge to cry over the shattered remains. You knew that crying in front of Darren would only make him tease you about being "too sensitive" so you kept it down and figure that you can cry about it later.

"Uh huh." Darren eyes him. "So he's got super strength?"

"Why do you care?" Ben grouches, crossing his arms over his chest, but he doesn't look away from where you're sweeping up the pieces.

Darren shrugs and holds up his hands in mock surrender. "Touchy Touchy. Just making conversation dude. I mean, you're living with my sister." He breezes, but you notice Darren stand up a little straighter when he talks to Ben and you wonder if he was embarrassed by how easily Ben was able to man-handle him.

Ben opens his mouth, but you interrupt whatever he was about to say. "Darren what are you doing here?"

He brightens with the question. "Oh it's so exciting! My friend is starting up a business and-"

"You need money?" You interrupt, trying not to think about how much you could spare from the already measly sum in your bank account to help him. This month hadn't been the best and after rent and utilities you probably could only spare 70 dollars or so, but even that seemed to be pushing it.

"No nothing like that." Darren waves a hand. "I just needed a place to crash because I'm going to go meet him tomorrow."

"Oh-"

"And he wants to meet you."

"Huh?" You look up from the small pile of shards at him. "Why?"

"He said that he wanted to meet the sister who I'm always talking about." Darren shrugs, before pulling a blunt from where it is behind his left ear, and lighting it.

He talks about me to his friends?

"Uh-huh. I think that I've met enough of your friends." You reply continuing to sweep more pieces into the pile.

You were using the word "friends" hesitantly because Darren seemed to go through them so often that you didn't think that it was worth it to learn all their names. And also because one time you had run into one of the "friends" Darren made and he had proceeded to chase you down the block shouting words about your brother that were not worth repeating.

"I think you'll like this one." Darren eyes Ben again. "I showed him your picture and he said that you were classic."

You miss Ben stiffen.

"Please stop trying to set me up. I'm fine." You could feel your cheeks heating because you knew that Ben was watching you.

The last time Darren had tried to set you up you found out half way through the date that your date was his weed dealer, whose idea of a romantic first date was to take you to a gentleman's club and then try to see who would be into having a threesome. Needless to say you were underwhelmed and blocked his number. The only good thing that had come of it was the gummy bear edibles you'd nicked from his pocket when he was flirting with one of the dancers and Annie and you had enjoyed the rest of the evening giggling and eating copious amounts of pizza and snacks.

"I don't know, he's better than the last one. Definitely has more money and he's sophisticated." Darren breathes out a cloud of smoke and you wave your hand to dissipate the smog.

"Charles Manson would be better than the last one, Darren."

"Manson had hundreds of followers and was treated like a god. I think you're being too picky." Darren rolls his eyes at you while he takes a hit from the blunt.

"Only you would see Manson as a role model." You grumble under your breath crouching down to sweep the pieces of the pot into the dust pan. "But if you really want to stay here you can take my bed."

A part of you were expecting Darren to protest, to care that you wouldn't have anywhere to sleep, but he doesn't argue with you.

“Great! Thanks.” He takes a few steps towards the hallway, the cloud of smoke following behind him like a dark omen, before he stops and glances back. “You got anything to drink?”

“No. Fresh out.” You lie without looking up. You didn’t want it to mix with whatever the hell that was in his system, because with Darren it was always something.

“I swear it’s like you don’t even think about me.” Darren flashes a wide grin, but the joke kind of hurts.

As he goes you dump the pieces into a plastic grocery bag, hoping deep down that you could glue it back together, but even you know that it's probably a long shot.

Maybe I can make the bigger pieces into something else? File down the sharp edges?

Ben is still standing in your kitchen, his arms crossed, listening to Darren go down the hallway and into your bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

The door opens again and you hear Darren mutter, “Out stupid cat," sending a fuming Bean hissing down the hallway. He trots into the living room indignantly and you stoop down to calm him down, leaning the broom against the kitchen table as you do.

Ben is quiet, but you can feel the room heat up a few degrees for a second almost as if he's angry. “Does he always talk to you that way?” Ben’s voice is low.

“He’s high.” You continue to pet Bean, not looking up. “He’s not usually so-“ You search for the word.

“Fucking rude?”

You stand up with a sigh. “You sound like Annie.”

“Oh so she doesn’t get along with him either? Shocker.”

“Ben.”

He was bristling slightly, annoyed, teetering on angry. “Fine.” He mutters.

You turn your attention to the trampled strawberry plant, gently dragging your fingers over the petals repairing the damage with a wave of your hand as you do, until it looks better than it had a few moments ago, and place it in a plastic black pot temporarily. You were again, trying not to be too upset about the way that Darren entered your apartment, but it was like him to do something like that, like him to break things that you thought were important without a second thought for how you felt.

Your relationship with your brother was hard and sometimes it felt like you were the only one trying, but you didn't want to give up on him. He was the only family that you had besides your grandmother. When your parents died, Darren pulled away, stayed out late drinking and doing whatever drugs he could get his hand on, and had multiple flings with women in the neighborhood that weren't exactly single. Your grandmother had cut him out completely, but you couldn't.

“Are you okay?” Ben asks.

“Yeah, just kind of tired.” You sigh, closing the window that Darren pried open to get into the apartment. When you turn back you realize just how close Ben is standing to you, so close that you can feel the warmth radiating out from his skin and into the air.

His fingertip lightly presses the scrunch between your eyebrows. "You're lying." Ben says it quietly.

"I wish you wouldn't do that."

"Do what?"

"Tell me when I'm lying. It's infuriating."

"Why?"

"Because it's the 21st century and when someone lies because they don't want to talk about how they really feel, it's common courtesy to just say 'ok' and move on!" You snap, grabbing the bag of smashed pottery. You immediately felt bad. You didn't mean to snap at him, but you were upset about Darren showing up unannounced even though you told him each time he came into town to tell you, but he never did, and about him breaking one of the only things in your apartment that had sentimental value to you.

Ben frowns at you for a minute, and you think that he's going to come up with some kind of retort, but instead he says  "Okay."

"Thank you."

You watch Ben's gaze drift back into your living room. "You can take the couch.”

It surprises you. You were just going to camp out in the bathtub and will the moss to make a pillow beneath your head. "But where will you sleep?"

“I can sleep on the floor.” He shrugs. "Don't need a bed. And I've slept enough anyway-"

“Ben you’re not going to sleep on the floor because my brother decided to show up in the middle of the night. It’s unfair.”

It was. You didn’t want Ben to curl into a ball on the floor and try to find a comfortable position, not after he'd spent the last forty years in a Russian Lab without a bed and probably without a pillow.

He shouldn't have to suffer because my brother never remembers how much I hate surprises.

“Well I’m sure as hell  not going to let you sleep on the floor.” Ben shouts.

"I can sleep in the bathtub. The moss is actually really comfortable-"

"In the fucking bathtub? You're kidding right?"

"No. I've done it before-"

"When?" Ben suddenly looks murderous.

"The last time Darren was here I didn't have a couch and-"

"That fucker made you sleep in the bathtub?"

"I mean he didn't volunteer any other options and Darren can't fit in there so-" You try to reason with him, getting confused as to why Ben was suddenly looking down the hallway like he was going to haul Darren out by the lip and make him apologize.

"I'll be fucking damned if you sleep in a fucking bathtub!"

“What is it with you being chivalrous at the most inopportune times?” You stamp your foot in frustration.

You didn’t want to sleep in the bathtub, but you were willing to if it meant that Ben had a soft place to sleep. The moss wasn't all that bad, it was squishy, and the bathroom was kind of cozy in your apartment because of all the plants you had in there.

“Forgive me, but when I grew up it was considered common courtesy to give things like beds to women. And what kind of man would I be if I let you sleep in a mother fucking bathtub?” He shouts back, using the words you had used earlier to yell at him for pointing out your lie.

“Well if you sleep on the floor then I’m going to sleep in the bathtub."

“Fine.” Ben seethes.

“Fine.”

You stand there with your arms crossed and eyes narrowed refusing to back down. Ben mirrors your stance, before he loses it.

“I think it’s fucking ridiculous that no one is going to sleep on the couch. So why don’t you just shut up and sleep on the couch?"

“Because it’s your bed!”

“I bought it for both of us to use!” He snaps back.

You glare at him, tapping your foot, before you glance at the large couch.

Honestly, when it was in the pull out position it was about the size of a full bed, maybe a little bigger, more than enough room for Ben and for you. The thought seemed almost too crazy to consider… almost. Your mouth dips into a nervous frown, anxiety electrifying in your veins.

“I mean it’s-“ You clear your throat. “It’s big enough for both of us.” You say quietly.

Ben looks at you like you’re crazy, body going taunt. “I thought you said you didn’t want me to fuck you.”

“I don’t want to fuck me Ben, but I don’t hate the idea of sleeping with you. I mean I don’t think you’re going to do anything while I’m asleep."

Ben looks angry all over again. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again! I’m not a fucking rapist.”

“No. Ben I mean-" You were waving your hands in front of you nervously trying to find the words. "I’m not saying you’re a rapist. I’m trying to tell you that I trust you and-“

Ben’s expression slackens. “You trust me?” He interrupts you in a whisper, sounding almost as if he can’t believe it, his face twisted into an emotion that you can't recognize.

“Well yeah.” Your cheeks flame bright red. “I mean we’re kinda friends and I trust my friends. I mean, do you think that I would let you live here if I didn’t trust you?"

Ben clears his throat, but doesn't say anything. "Um-" His eyes flick to the couch then back at you. "I don't want you to do anything you're uncomfortable with." He says gruffly.

"It doesn't make me that uncomfortable." You reply, but you're already trying to figure out the mechanics of how you can sleep on the couch with him, without touching him.

"Uh-huh." Ben raises an eyebrow.

"It's okay. I'm going to get my pillow."

"I'll get it."

"But-" You begin to say, but Ben ignores you and stomps down the hallway.

Why does he want to get it?

He doesn't even bother to knock when he goes into your room and you can hear a quiet scuffle, followed by your brother shouting "What's your problem man?" and Ben's retort of "Just shut the fuck up and go to sleep." 

Ben is still grumbling something under his breath when he comes back into the living room, but he holds out your pillow for you. "Here."

"Thanks. But what did I say about you going into my room?” You hoped that the joke would ease some of the tension that you were holding in your shoulders.

"I think we threw all that out the window the other night. Don't you think Petals?" Ben smirks.

Right, the other night when he broke down my door and let me squeeze his hand.

"Maybe." You hug your pillow against your chest. "Do you-" You cough to clear your throat. "Do you want the inside or the outside?"

His eyes flick to the front door and then to the hallway. "I'll take the outside."

"Okay." You stand there awkwardly for a minute and even though you were the one who suggested this idea in the first place, you suddenly feel anxious.

I can do this. I can lay next to him and avoid touching him. What if I snore? Or drool? Or say embarrassing things? Oh fuck what if I start to have a dream about him with him literally laying right there.

“Petals, if you don’t want to-“

“I want to. I just need to wrap my head around it and I don’t want you to sleep on the floor.” You take in a deep breath and climb onto the couch, pushing yourself as far as you can into the back cushions. You don't look at him when he gets in behind you, leaving about a good three inches of space between your bodies, the two of you back to back.

It's quiet for a few minutes, but then you feel the couch begin to shake lightly and you realize that Ben is laughing.

"What's so funny?" You turn to look over your shoulder at him.

"I was just thinking that it's about time I got you into my bed Petals."

"Shut up." You snort and turn your body enough to hit him on the shoulder, which makes Ben turn over to face you.

His dark hair hangs long over his forehead, his eyes shining, and his signature smirk pulls at the end of his lips. "Make me."

Fuck. You bite the inside of your cheek, fighting the flush that threatens to rise against your cheeks, when you think about kissing him to shut him up. All that did was remind you of the kiss you shared in the hallway the night he first slept in your apartment which then lead to how close he was to you and that only brought back memories of his beard against your neck outside the party. The flush that finally breaks through is coupled with the immediate blooming of the apple tree at the end of the couch. The delicate flowers fluttering open as if they were winking at the two of you.

Shit, maybe he won't notice that.

Ben glances up at the tree above the two of you confused. "Why'd you do that?"

"Do what?" You ask innocently.

"You made the tree make the fucking flowers."

"No, I didn't." You hit your pillow to rid yourself of an imaginary lump.

"Yes, you did. You also did it the other day when you were reading your book." Ben's eyes roam your face as if he's searching for the answer.

Oh right, when I was reading my book and it started to get a little bit steamy and everything in the room started flowering like it had been a long winter… Honestly it kinda has been a long winter, but I'm not going to think about it right now when he's this close to me. I can't believe he noticed that.

"Does it mean something?" He raises an eyebrow.

"Nope."

Ben smirks his eyes drawn to the center of your forehead where you know the scrunch is giving away your lie. "It does, doesn't it?"

"Nope. Goodnight." You turn over and stare at the back cushions of the couch. Hoping that he’ll just drop it.

He doesn’t.

"It means that you're turned on, doesn't it Petals?" Ben's breath is warm against the back of your neck, making goosebumps trail over your arms and you fight to keep control of the blooming.

"No, it doesn't."

"Do I turn you on?" You can hear the smile in his voice.

"No, and it’s not what it means."

"Uh-huh. So when I do something like this-" Ben reaches out to touch the small of your back and trails his warm large hand over the curve of your right hip.

You clench your teeth together to try to stop the power that rushes out of your body with the contact, but it's too late, the Jasmine that creeps along the brick wall behind the tv explodes, the smell of Jasmine wafting over to the couch where Ben and you are laying.

Ben laughs, shaking the couch beneath you.

"Shut up. It's so embarrassing." You moan into the pillow curling further in on yourself and pulling the crocheted blanket over your head, blushing so deeply that you were sure you looked like a giant raspberry.

“It’s not embarrassing Petals.” Ben chuckles, pulling the blanket down from your head. “It’s kinda cute.”

You glare at him over your shoulder. “I will kill you.”

Ben contemplates what he’s going to say next. "So when you're fucking someone-"

"If you finish that sentence you're not going to wake up." You warn, knowing exactly where he's going with this.

Ben only laughs at you. "Come on Petals, I'm curious. Plus you're so adamant about not sleeping with me that I guess I'll never see when you c-."

"Fine!" You shout turning around to face him again, cheeks beet red. He's still staring at you with that ridiculous smirk that makes your legs weak and sends warmth pooling into the pit of your stomach. "When I have an orgasm, I do make everything bloom. Happy?"

"I mean I'd be happier if you'd let me witness it and if you'd let me fuck you." Ben's hand is touching your waist, his thumb teasing the edge of where your t-shirt meets the top of your sleep shorts.

"Ben, we've talked about this." You say it mostly to remind yourself.

"I know." His smirk dips into a frown and he withdraws his hand from your body.

You chew the inside of your cheek thinking about how hard this is and how much you wished it could be different.

"It's okay." You whisper, because he might not have apologized, but you could see the frustration on his face. "Really, it's fine."

Ben doesn't say anything, only continues to look at you with an unreadable expression, so instead you say "I'll see you in the morning" and you turn over to look at the cushions on the back of the couch, hoping that you're able to fall asleep before he does.

Mike's screech of "I Will Always Love You" is not as loud in the living room as it is in your bedroom, but it's still enough to wake you up. The room is lighter in the morning, the gentle pulse of sunlight filters through the leaves of the plants, but sends a warm glow over your body.

Actually, you were already warm, really warm, warmer than usual.

That's weird why am I-

You inhale sharply when you realize why you're so warm. Your body is pinned into the couch cushions, because Ben is practically laying on top of you. Your back is flush against his chest, his strong arms wrapped around your waist, and his face is pressed into your hair.

This isn't good.

Ben mutters something in his sleep and tightens his grip on your waist, pulling you even further against his chest, and shifting his hips in a way that makes you realize that this is a lot worse than you thought. Because you can feel exactly what makes Ben so cocky begin to get excited.

Fuck, this really isn't good.

"Um Ben?" You whisper, but he doesn't wake up, instead he moans something into your hair, and shifts his hips again in a way that makes your heartbeat stutter in your chest.

Fuck. Really not good.

You knew that Ben was attracted to you, knew that he had wanted to fuck you since the moment he first saw you, so you weren't surprised that this was happening, and there was a part of you that enjoyed this. Laying in bed with him, feeling his warmth transferring to you, having his body relaxed around you as he pulled you deeper and deeper into his chest. The warmth was lovely, you didn't do well in the cold and being with Ben meant that you'd never have to worry about that again. It was moments like this that you wished you never let Ben move in, not because you hated him, but because you liked him too much.

"Ben." You say it louder.

"Hmm?" Ben groans. "If no one is dying then don't wake me up Petals." He murmurs, obviously not understanding what the problem is. You wait another minute, lying beneath him and trying to think about a way to get out of this, when Ben realizes what he's doing.

He raises his head from your hair blinking at where you're staring at him over your shoulder with wide eyes.

"Morning." You whisper.

"Morning." Ben returns, but it's barely audible, just a marvelous deep rumble that you can feel vibrating up through where he's laying on top of you.

Ben doesn't move, his eyes are a soft pine, like fresh sprigs in spring sprouting from the highest branches to stretch towards the early sun. You can't move, you feel frozen beneath his gaze, watching the gentle way the light kisses his bold features, the smooth dip of his bow-like mouth, the rough edge of his strong jaw, and the proud bend of his nose.

His arms loosen from around your waist, but he turns you towards him, so you're pressed chest to chest, without looking away from your face. Your hands are pinned between the two of you, resting against his bare chest right over where his heart beats beneath your fingertips.

Ben's green eyes trace your features, dropping to your lips before raising once more to look you in the eye as if he's asking for your permission. You know what he wants, can see it in the way he watches you, and see it in the way that his head tilts towards yours. Your lips tingle in anticipation, your heart beat loud like the thunder in a summer storm that rattles the windows of your grandmother's home. You can't draw a breath because you know if you do it'll be full of him, until all you can do is breathe him in and sink into his body until there's nothing left of you and everything left of Ben.

You're not sure if it's because you're still a little bit sleepy or if it's because Ben is so warm or if it's because all the hard edges of Ben that you've grown accustomed to have smoothed over and all you see is the version that Ben was only around you. The version who sat with you when you had a nightmare and refused to leave, the version who walked you to work every morning, the version who sat with you while you read your book, and the version who seemed to care more than he was willing to admit. But the longer you lay there with him the bigger the urge is to pull him closer.

Your hands smoothly travel up Ben's chest feeling the strength beneath the palms of your hands before you lock them behind his head, tangling loosely in the dark strands of his hair at the nape of his neck.

The apple tree at the end of the couch begins to shed flowers down on both of you and Ben’s eyes flick up to it for just a second before he smiles. It’s the first time you’ve seen him have a smile like that, one that looked so easy, so genuinely happy and you’d be lying if you said that you didn’t think you wanted to make him smile like that all the time.

Ben leans forward to close the distance between the two of you, his lips warm and inviting, his forehead just barely resting against yours, but before your lips touch, your bedroom door opens and slams into the wall with a loud crashing noise that makes you jolt back away from him, breaking the spell.

"Good morning sis!" Darren crows walking in to the room. "Oh sorry, did I interrupt something between you guys?" He wiggles his eyebrows.

"No." Your voice sounds high and squeaky, because he had. You're not sure what would have happened if he hadn't come in, well, you did. Ben was going to kiss you and you wanted him to.

This is getting too complicated.

Ben only frowns at your brother from his position on the couch. The two of you are sitting up now, side by side as if nothing happened, but you can't shake the memory of the warmth of his body soaking into yours as he curved himself around you, almost as if he wished to protect you even when he was asleep.

Is that why he wanted to sleep on the outside?

"Sure." Darren smirks. "Do you have anything to eat around here? Or do you only have all this shitty fruit?" Darren frowns at the raspberry and blackberry vines, the strawberry plant, the apple tree, and the lemon and tangerine trees.

"Oh." You shake off the insult. "There should be some cereal in the cabinet"

"I hope you got the name brand stuff this time."

Maybe I'd be able to afford the name brand stuff if someone stopped coming around and asking me for money.

"If you don't like anything we have, I'd suggest going to the diner across the street." Ben says tightly emphasizing that he lives here now.

"No thanks bro. I'm kinda short on cash these days." Darren replies finding the Lucky Charms cereal and pouring himself the last bowl without a second thought.

"Oh really?" Ben says standing from the couch to glare at your brother. "And what exactly is it that you do Darren?"

Darren leans back against the counter eating his cereal, but you can see the tight way he's gripping the spoon. "I'm an entrepreneur."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"Ben-" You start to say, unsure as to why Ben was giving your brother a hard time.

"It means that I invest in other opportunities." Darren stabs his cereal with the spoon.

"And if you're so short on cash, how do you do that?" Ben presses.

A dark look passes through Darren's eyes. "What exactly are you getting at?"

"Well you've been here for maybe six hours and the only thing that I've seen you do is break in, take your sister's bed, and insult her." Ben takes a step forward into the living room. "So to me, it kinda looks like you just sit on your ass like a fucking pussy and mooch off of your sister, because you're not man enough to get a real job."

"What the fuck is your problem man?" Darren puts down the bowl. "I don't understand where all this hostility is coming from, but I don't have to explain myself to you. My sister and my relationship is none of your business, and I've been here a lot longer and I'm pretty sure that I'll be here longer than you-"

"Not if I have anything to say about it." Ben growls.

"Whoa wait a second-" You stand up from the couch.

"You have no idea who you're talking to." Darren's voice is low, his eyes leveled on Ben. "You shouldn’t start a fight you can't win."

Ben's lips tilt into a smirk. "Trust me, it's not going to be much of a fight."

"Whoa!" This time you plant yourself between the two of them, one hand resting on Darren's chest. You can feel a deep thrumming buzz coming through the material of his band t-shirt and into your hand and for a moment you're surprised, because your brother wasn't a supe.

Then where is it coming from?

You shake it off. "Let's all just take a nice deep breath."

Ben's eyes are still narrowed at Darren, refusing to back down from a fight, which was like him. And as much as you loved your brother you knew that he tended to have a bad temper, and the last thing you wanted was to clean up the mess when Ben pulled out his spine and reenacted Predator in your small kitchen.

"Ben please." You say it quietly, glancing at where he's towering over the two of you.

You can hear the audible click of his teeth when he unclenches his jaw, his eyes no longer the soft pine they were when you were wrapped in his embrace, but now blaze a dark green. You know that he's about to say something, but Ben's phone rings and continues to ring in the silence, until Ben sighs and turns to pick it up, but he doesn't seem happy about it.

You drop your hand from Darren's chest with a sigh, but happy for the interruption. "Why do you have to be like that?" You ask your brother.

"Me? He started it!" Darren fumes. "Boy, you really know how to pick 'em sis."

"What do you mean? We're not together, we're just friends! And wait, this isn't about him and me. He lives here and if you keep dropping by, you're going to have to be okay with seeing Ben."

"Why can't you just move in with Annie? She's better to look at anyway." Darren rolls his eyes and picks up his bowl of soggy cereal.

Maybe to you. You fight the memory of Ben in the towel still wet from his shower that you witnessed the other day and successfully stop the flush that tries to creep into your cheeks. It's followed again by how wonderful it felt to drag your hands up Ben's chest and catch in the dark strands of his hair. The fruitless tomato plant behind Darren's head begins to swell with bright red tomatoes the size of your fist.

I've got to get that under control.

The memory of Ben figuring out exactly why that happened around you flits through your mind bringing an inescapable wave of embarrassment. The day you'd found it out was when Annie and you were watching Vampire Diaries for the first time in your bedroom back home and as soon as Damon Salvatore walked onto the screen the blueberry bush next to your bed suddenly exploded. Not to mention the first time that your high school boyfriend Newton kissed you in his parent's cornfield, the entire crop suddenly came back tenfold in the middle of winter.

"She's moving in with her boyfriend Hughie." You say, trying not to sound disappointed.

When you first moved to the city, you had wanted to move in with her, but she was apart of the Seven, and when she finally decided to move out of Vought Tower, it was because she wanted to move in with Hughie, not because she wanted to move in with you. It stung the day she told you, and you'd be lying if you said that you were not still a little upset about it, because it felt like she had chosen someone else over you.

"Oh right, that's still going on. Don't know what she sees in that wimp."

"He's sweet. You don’t know him. And I don't know why you’re acting jealous, Annie and you have never gotten along-"

"Because she's a bitch! I can't believe you're still friends with her after all this time."

"Hey don't talk about her that way. Annie is my best friend, practically my sister."

"Right." Darren rolls his eyes again and swings the spoon in a wide arch. "She's always been a bitch and now that she's Starlight she's even worse. She's always had that stick up her ass even when we were kids-"

"If you keep talking about her that way, you can leave." You say simply, feeling your temper begin to flare.

You didn't give a fuck if Darren insulted you or made fun of you, you did however, care if he spoke poorly about Annie. Annie was family to you, Annie had been with you a hell of a lot more than Darren had when you parent's died, she hadn't pulled away from you and vanished into thin air when you needed someone to hold you or when you couldn't sleep or when you woke up screaming or when you couldn't stop crying.

That being said, Annie and Darren had never gotten along, not once in all the years that you'd been friends. Whenever Annie came over, Darren left, and vice versa. You weren't sure why they couldn't get along, but you did think it was infinitely better than Annie being secretly in love with your brother. He never had a lasting relationship in his life that was worth remembering. The longest relationship he'd been in was with his buckled combat boots that he never took off.

Darren lets out an annoyed sigh, but you watch remorse and sympathy drip into his gaze. "Fine. But I just want what's best for you. You know that right?" He puts his hand on your shoulder, his eyes softening. "Come on sis, you know that I'm just looking out for you? I love you, you're the only family I have left that actually cares about me."

Your heart breaks with his words, hurt that he feels like your grandmother doesn't care about him and that he felt like you were the only person in the world that he meant something to. Sure he'd messed up more times than you could count and did occasionally disappear whenever you seemed to need him, but he was your brother.

You sigh. "I know Darren. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been so mean before."

"It's okay." He glances over to where Ben has just hung up the phone and is glaring at Darren's hand placement on your shoulder. "I guess I should go get dressed."

"Okay."

"But you're coming with me to meet my friend right?" Darren looks at you with a hopeful expression.

"Um... Well I'd have to tell Jake that I'll be a little late." You say slowly not wanting to disappoint Darren. "And I don't really like leaving him high and dry-"

You didn't like calling out from work, in fact you hadn't missed more than a handful of days in the two years that you'd been working there, because you genuinely liked going to work. Being there was like coming home, surrounded by the healing energy of the plants that thrived under your watchful eye.

"Come on the plants will survive without you for an hour or so." Darren smiles. "Do you want me to beg you sissy? I really want you to come with me. It would make me so happy."

"Well, okay." You concede. "Let me just text Jake."

"Yes! I'll be out in a minute and then you can change okay?"

"Sure."

When Darren struts off down the hallway, Ben joins you in the kitchen, glaring at Darren's back as he disappears into your room.

"Who was on the phone?" You ask him while picking up Darren's bowl and scrape the remaining soggy cereal into the trashcan under the sink.

"Butcher." Ben grunts. "Said that he got a lead on the electric supe, but it's all the way in Boston."

"Boston? But that's so far away. Why would he have an operation there and be picking up cars here? He can't be in two places at once."

"No idea, but Butcher said the lead was solid." Ben shrugs.  "And he said that he's getting everyone ready to go right now and that I need to get over there so we can get on the road."

"Everyone's going?" You ask disappointed. The thought of the entire team being gone for a few days made you feel lonely. They were kinda like your extended family. You also felt a little left out that Butcher hadn't asked you to go.

"Yeah. Butcher said that he would have asked you to come, but he knows you work most of this week anyway and that he thinks that it'll be alright if you stay here." Ben rubs the back of his neck, but seems hesitant. "Are you going to-" He clears his throat. "Are you going to be okay?"

You didn't miss the way his eyes flick down the hallway to where your brother is.

Is he worried about me?

"Why? You don't want to leave me with Darren or something?" You joke with a snort.

"No."

But Ben looks away when he says it in a way that makes you think that he's lying.

"Believe it or not Darren used to babysit me when I was little and I didn't die or get brain damage-"

"Not to your knowledge."

"Why are you so worried about me?"

"I'm not! I just-" Ben crosses his arms over his chest annoyed. "I don't think you should go meet his friend."

"Why not? I've met plenty of his friends. They're all very dude-bro. At least he has a type."

"I have no idea what that means."

You roll your eyes, before you consider something else. "Wait, are you jealous or something?"

"I am not fucking jealous!" Ben sighs. "I just think that maybe you should use your head Petals."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"You going to meet his creepy friend without knowing exactly where you're going or what his friend is going to 'make you do'."

"Make me do? Ben where the fuck do you think my brother is taking me? Do you think he's selling me into the sex trade or something?" You look at him incredulously.

Does he really think so lowly of my brother? He'd never do anything like that. Darren cares about me, he's just guarded and a little rough around the edges.

"You're too fucking trusting Petals!” He explodes.

“What? I am not too trusting.”

“Yes you are!”

“No I’m not. And why are you yelling at me? Why are you mad?” You reply in confusion. “I don’t understand why you’re making such a big deal about this. I've met his friends before."

“I’m not mad I’m just fucking trying to-“ Ben clenches his jaw so tight you can see the muscle pop on the side of his face. “You’re just so damn kind and too damn stupid to see what’s directly in front of your face!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” You plant your hands on your hips staring up at him, not expecting Ben to look so angry, but he does. His arms are folded tightly over his bare chest, his muscles tense, and his eyebrows are pulled together. “Are you really telling me that it’s stupid to trust my brother? He’s my brother! Not some random dude I met on the street-“

“He might as well be! In the fucking five minutes he’s been here he’s been nothing, but be a total dick to you!”

“Oh well excuse me Ben, but I’ve known him for more than the five fucking minutes that you have-“

“Exactly! You should know better!” Ben is getting angrier now and you didn't know where all of this was coming from, especially because of how you'd spent the morning and especially because he was acting differently than he had been the past few days. "You care way to much about other people and you shouldn’t! People like him look for people like you. People who are too stupid to know any better. People who as so trusting and innocent that they take everything at face value."

You stare at him with your mouth open, anger and hurt swirling together to form a cold dagger shoved straight into your heart. You didn't understand why he was doing this or why he was getting so angry.

Oh sweetie, you really thought he cared about you? It's all just an act don't you see? The little voice in your head whispered in your ear.

And it made you furious.

"I am not some innocent little girl Ben. I am a grown woman and I don’t have to listen to your toxic Hemingway Code Hero bullshit." You turn back to the sink prepared to wash out the bowl, but Ben grabs on to your wrist and spins you back to look at him.

"You should listen to me! Because caring about people who don't give a shit about you is going to get you fucking killed or worse!" His grip is tight on your wrist, but not enough to bruise. His skin burns against where his hand wraps around your wrist and you worry how much longer you have until Ben goes Nuclear.

You wrench your wrist from his hand.

"At least I have people who care about me! And yeah, maybe I'm a little trusting, but I'd rather be too trusting than push everyone away before I get a chance to know them." You shout back shoving your finger into his bare chest. "You might think that you're some big strong macho man, but if you actually dropped the fucking macho act and acted like you gave a shit maybe there'd be more people willing to be in your life and willing to care about you! Maybe that's why your entire team  collectively said "fuck you" and stabbed you in the back! Maybe that's why Vogelbaum wanted to start from scratch with your fucked up son because they knew you were too much of a asshole to admit that you need someone and didn't have the common decency to give anyone a chance!"

"I don't need anyone." Ben's gaze turns murderous at the mention of Homelander and his old team.

"I think you do, but I think that you try to bury the real you underneath all this bullshit and-"

"You don't know anything about me Petals." Ben growls, taking a step forward so that he's leaning down over you, the air warming with the heat of his anger, a slight glow emanating from the middle of his chest.

The counter is pressed into your back as he pins you there, so differently than the other day you were in the same position.

"You think just because we’ve talked a few times and because I sleep on this fucking couch every night that you know me?" He laughs cruelly.  "I'd rather have no one than be saddled with someone like you who struts around like a fucking tease with stars in her eyes trying to romanticize every single damn person she runs into. It's no wonder you haven't found a man to fuck you, because you're too busy chasing after a stupid fantasy version of a man who doesn't fucking exist and latching on to assholes like your brother who do nothing but use you!" Ben's eyes have shifted into the darkened pits again, the ones that seem to be ready to drag you beneath the raging waves.

"And I'd rather have no one than someone like you who's too insecure about his own masculinity that he feels the need to project a fucked up toxic "together" version of himself and pretends to care about other people to manipulate them into getting what he wants." You spit back, your eyes shifting bright green.

Every plant in your home begins to tremble, the energy from them flooding through your body, strengthening you, merging together as they prepare to bend to your will.

Ben's expression turns murderous, his lips pulling back in a snarl, prepared to no doubt spit back something that he'd be unable to take back, but Darren walks back into the kitchen wearing a fresh pair of clothes.

He's oblivious to the conversation that Ben and you just had and drops his arm over your shoulder. “What did I miss?”

You feel your eyes shift back to normal, but the anger and frustration still war in your chest, beating against your rib cage, begging to be unleashed. Ben doesn’t respond instead he only glares at you.

“Alrighty then.” Darren snorts when neither of you fill the silence, not sensing the tension in the air. "Don't worry there Benny, I'll take good care of her. I always do." You miss the glare that Darren throws Ben over your head.

But just for a second you think that Darren may have heard more of the conversation between Ben and you than he was willing to admit.

Ben's jaw is tight, eyes still blazing with his own anger and annoyance. "Do whatever the fuck you want. It's not like a give a shit what happens to her." He states before he stomps down the hallway and slams the bathroom door so loud that all the dishes in your kitchen cabinets shudder.

You weren't expecting those words to hurt as much as they did, but it felt like you had taken a two by four to the chest.

"What's his problem?" Darren asks.

"I don't know." You grumble, because you didn't.

The shift of conversation from Ben almost acting concerned about you going with Darren to him insulting you was giving you whiplash. You didn't understand why Ben had said those things to you, why he had yelled at you for being "too trusting." You didn't think that you were too trusting. It wasn't weak to love someone or care for someone else, but you guessed that was how Ben saw it. You wondered if it was because of what Countess did to him or if it came from his trust of his team or if it was ingrained in him from when he was a child.

Does he really think I'm too trusting? I mean he saw how long it took me to trust him? Or how long it took me to warm up to him? Or I guess, sort of warm up to him?

"Are you going to change?" Darren presses, looking down at your soft shirt and sleep shorts with a frown. "You should. Maybe wear something different than those overalls though. Kinda want you to make a good impression you know?"

"Yeah. Um. I guess I'll go now." You murmur walking down the hallway. For a moment you pause outside of the bathroom where you know Ben is, and you're unsure what he's doing because you don't hear the water running, before you go into your bedroom.

You stand there for a minute, taking in a soothing breath, but it does little to calm your racing heart. The anger and frustration you felt began to crash over you and you feel frustrated tears begin to trail down your cheeks.

You weren't sure if it was what Ben had yelled at you or what you had yelled at him, all you knew was that you were hurt and you were happy that Ben was going out of town for a few days, because you didn't think that you could look at him again, not without throwing him out of your apartment on his ass.

A/N: I know, I know, maybe I'm a little addicted to the drama and the angst. And oh my word slow burns are so hard, but I promise that I do have a plan of when the two of them do finally get together and it IS GLORIOUS.

As always thank you so much for reading! If you'd like to be added to the taglist for this series please let me know :)

Taglist:

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@reidtomewinchester

[this-is-lit]

The Vampire And The Scorpion:

Book One of the Blood and Venom Saga Kindle Edition

by K. E. Beale

My name is Ava Monroe, failing student at Kinwich University, and what started as a scheme to make my ex jealous has turned into a nightmare. I have a choice: join a coven of vampires, werewolves, witches and shapeshifters, or suffer a long, bloody death at the hands of the coven’s tyrannical leader. He will stop at nothing to keep his coven a secret from humans. Unless I pass a trial to prove I’m worthy of membership, who knows what warped execution method he’ll use? To top it off, I’m distracted with impure thoughts about another coven member: a tall, brooding vampire with long legs and a backside that makes me tingle in the most inconvenient places. Will I pass my trial? Or will I lose my humanity trying to survive?

The Vampire and the Scorpion is K.E. Beale’s first novel in a planned series. Ava is a lost soul looking to fill the void in her life where Family should be. The novel opens with Ava going through the motions during her last year in college, realizing the found family she sought in the community of students isn’t what she anticipated it to be. On an ill-fated night, she goes home with an odd man from a dance club to make her ex-boyfriend jealous, only to find herself in a world she never imagined existing, embroiled in intrigues centuries old, and with a timer over her head to join or become another face on a missing poster.

As worldbuilding goes, this novel does a good job of adhering to old supe lore while adding in new touches; it succeeds at finding a middle ground with the explanation of lore between readers who have less experience with these worlds and readers who cut their teeth on high fantasy. The novel is slow to start with the prose feeling stilted, perfunctory, and like statements of facts. The characters’ voices aren’t unique enough to be distinguishable without the prose providing names to who’s speaking. Instead of a rich cast, the side characters are flat, depthless, and almost caricatures, à la Jerk Ex, Party Girl, Sympathetic Best Friend, and Mentor. Ava’s inner monologue is void of where you would reasonably find rich emotions, instead, the reader frequently knows what Ava is thinking only when she says it bluntly in dialogue. The first and second acts of the narrative feel rushed to establish camaraderie, emotional beats feel unearned given Ava’s circumstances and timeline, and the violence the Beale warns about seems like a shortcut to establish the brutality of this world without actually building up real menace or terror. The third act is where the narrative really begins, and the hope is the upcoming books in the series carry this momentum. The spice content is minimal, but one of the better-written parts of the story, and hopefully is explored to maximum effect in the upcoming novels.

Readers who are looking for a more robust narrative and experienced prose may not find much engagement in this story, but if you’re looking for a good beach read, this isn’t a bad way to while away a lazy afternoon. One last thing to note is the promise of the exploration of “polyamorous and LGBT+ relationships” is unfulfilled in the first book, so readers who select this title with that in mind should expect these themes will appear in the next titles.

I received an ACR from StoryOrigin

[zalrb]

My roommate invited me to watch Gen V with her, and I just hated it. So I’ve never seen The Boys, but I know that the supes are the bad guys. So I didn’t get Marie’s ambition to be a part of them either.

It’s cold of me, but I do not care about any of the characters. It all seems very Riverdale right now, but at least Riverdale was funny in how bad it was. Gen V is all dark ambient lighting and perfunctory drinking, vaping, and sex. I’m not even opposed to any of those things, but none of that seems natural or organic; it’s like the show is screaming that it’s edgy because we got to see a real penis. Wow. What an accomplishments

My roommate says I’m too critical and she’s probably right, but I have zero hopes for this show.

Yeah, it's exactly what I expected it to be. Because it's a spinoff from The Boys, which shows some pretty weird shit like a Supe who can get really small crawling up his hookup's asshole and then sneezing while still inside him thereby killing him because the Supe returns to normal size when he sneezes so his hookup explodes, I expected edginess for the sake of edginess in Gen V and it was pretty tame. I guess because they're university students so I just kind of shrugged like, OK she's small and hanging off his penis. Sure. I just felt like when there was all of this build up of the graphic weird things Jensen Ackles would have to do in season 3 of The boys and all it was was him having a fetish for older women so you see him jerking off in front of two older women and I was like ... I mean that's it? Chace Crawford has to pretend to fuck an octopus in the next scene, guys.

But in terms of the characters, again, when I answered that ask and said I don't care for current shows with young casts, I was prepared when I did watch the episodes to find the acting subpar to mediocre and for everything to feel contrived and manufactured and cold with some virtue signalling sprinkled in and The Boys did exactly that. Even the way their powers can mirror true-to-life issues that teen dramas would deal with was done n a clunky way to me. Jordan is probably the character I am vaguely invested in mostly when played by the actress because they're the ones with the most conviction and personality outside of their motivations but with Andre I was just like ... I don't know, I just met you and you seem to care a lot about these white people to the detriment of your own well being for ... why? And him sleeping with his best friend's girlfriend is so typical that I was like I would just rather it be all three of you were in a relationship from the get-go. Marie's whole thing just doesn't make sense to me as we've talked about. Emma, the actress tries too hard to be the quirky roommate with deep-seated issues to me so when she's supposed to be just nice and likeable, I was like I get it, but your energy annoys me. We're supposed to see that there's some rage with the girlfriend person I forget her name but again, I haven't been given a reason to care.

There were a couple of lines here and there that made me chuckle because they were actually sardonic but I mostly just got a kick out of seeing the peripheral characters in The Boys have peripheral roles here so I would be like, lol ofc the director dude is here etc.

So I just kind of shrugged at the whole thing.

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

Soldier Boy (Part 1)

Summary: The reader is saved by Soldier Boy while out one night but she knew she had it handled. He takes a liking to her which fits right in with her plans of getting close to him. The only problem is she might end up liking him after all...

Masterlist

Pairing: Superhero!Dean x reader

Word Count: 3,100ish

Warnings: language, frightening situation, angst, fluff

A/N: Enjoy!

____

“I didn’t need your help, jerk,” you said, stomping on Soldier Boy’s foot as you left the alley. He bent down and rubbed his toe as you stormed past.

“Miss, are you alright?” he asked, suddenly right by your side. Damn super-powered asshole.

“It was one guy that wanted to mug me. I had it handled. Now back off,” you said, shoving on him.

“You’re not a particularly kind person,” he mumbled. “Oh! You’re in shock. We should get you someplace warm and wrapped typically in a blanket of some sort.”

“You’re ridiculous Soldier Boy,” you said, rolling your eyes as you walked away.

“My name’s Dean,” he said. You stopped and spun around, raising an eyebrow as he walked over at a normal pace. “I’m Dean Winchester.”

“You’re a supe and you just told me your real name? Are you insane?” you asked. He raised his chin and you shook your head. “You know people are pissed at supes. They’re going after them and no offense but honey, you ain’t got shit on most of those other guys out there.”

“I can do whatever the fuck I want,” he said. “I’m walking you home.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t think you have much of a choice,” he said with a smirk. “Move.”

“I know people. I could fuck up your life so bad,” you said. “You little dumbass.”

“Walk,” he said, grabbing your arm.

“Ouch,” you said, trying to shake him off but no way that was happening. “Can you let go of me?”

“No. You’re slow. Now where do you live,” he asked. 

“Brunswick street,” you mumbled. You sighed and flashed your eyes open quickly, taking a deep breath as you looked around and scenery had changed. “What was that?”

“Like I said. You’re slow,” he said. “Which townhouse?”

“Yellow front door,” you said. He dragged you over there and up the steps, letting go of you roughly as you got your key out. You unlocked it and waited for a shove inside but all he did was hum and turn around. “You’re not coming in?”

“You’re home safely. Why, do you think your home isn’t safe?” he asked, ears perking up.

“No. I just…”

“Just what?”

“Just thought...I know most of the world loves you guys but I know people that’s lives have been ruined by them. My brother was killed by one of you and they didn’t even care. You people don’t care about us. You just care about your power and authority and a supe like you dragging me home to my house...I was pretty sure you wanted something.”

“Oh,” he said. “That’s kinda fucked up of you to assume of me.”

“Am I wrong to assume it?” you asked. “I know you people don’t care about that sort of thing.”

“There you go again,” he said, getting right in your face. “Are you trying to piss me off?”

“Don’t blame me if you’re sensitive,” you said. You flung the door shut, taking a step back when a hand caught it. It pushed open slowly and you took another step back, the whole building shaking when he slammed it shut after himself. “Back off.”

“I’m a superhero. My literal job is to protect you so you can calm the fuck down.”

“Your job is to get high off your power and you? You don’t even have very good ones,” you said. He shot a hand out and pushed you back against the wall. He grabbed your arms and lifted you off the ground, staring you down. “Just take what you want and go, asshole.”

“I don’t understand you,” he grit out. “I saved you. Why do you hate me?”

“Because you’re-”

“Oh,” he said, letting you go, your feet hitting the ground. “You don’t...you don’t like supes in general.”

“A little slow on the uptake,” you said to yourself. “If you’re not gonna pull anything, can you get out of my house?”

“Why?” he asked, voice suddenly lighter. “I’m a good person. I save people. I mess up sometimes but I help more people than I hurt.”

“Are you serious? I literally told you that supes are power hungry assholes and you wonder why I don’t…” you trailed off. He looked upset, like this was brand new news to him. It clicked for you why he was acting so strangely. He genuinely didn’t want a thing from you for him saving you. “Soldier Boy. I think you ought to hang up the cape.”

“I don’t wear a cape,” he said, glancing down at himself. You smirked as he patted his tight shorts and he lifted his head.

“Maybe you are good. Someone’s going to take advantage of that and you and make you just like the other supes. You should go back to being Dean Winchester before you get hurt.”

“Well...no,” he said. “I help people. I helped you tonight. I can’t just focus on myself. That’s selfish. As long as there are supervillains out there, there needs to be superheroes too. I’m not going anywhere.”

“You idiot. Don’t you understand that it’s not that black and white? Most superheroes, they’re villains themselves.”

“Do you think I’m a villain?” he asked.

“I think you’re sweet and someday, yeah, you’ll be just like the rest of them.”

“I’ll just have to prove you wrong then, won’t I,” he said, lifting his chin. You looked around and he put a hand on your forehead, a dull warmth spreading through you. You smiled and felt the beginning of the bruises on your arms disappear, the roughed up skin of your knee healing up from when the mugger had pushed you. You blinked when he dropped his hand away.

“Thank you,” you said.

“Be more careful,” he said.

“I had it handled,” you said as he began to leave.

“You are just fire and spice, aren’t you? Can’t you just say thank you like a normal person and leave it at that,” he said.

“This is coming from the grown man in a skin tight spandex suit...and what’s up with the shorts dude. I mean those bowlegs are hot, don’t get me wrong but you look like you’re fucking twelve.”

“For your information, I’m getting a new suit very soon, with pants,” he said, turning his head up.

“Bet it still shows off that perky ass,” you said with a smirk.

“You…” he said, waving his hand about before he threw it up in the air. “You drive me insane, you know that?”

“Yeah. It’s fun,” you laughed. He stepped in front of you and pecked a lightning fast kiss to your lips. You stared and you returned it before he was stepping back. 

“Be more careful. Please,” he said.

“Alright,” you said. He started to go and paused at the door.

“What’s your name?”

“Y/N Y/L/N.”

“If you’re ever in trouble...just stay out of trouble, would ya?”

“I’ll try,” you said.

“Good. Have a good evening,” he said, walking out the door. You went over to it and caught him down on the sidewalk, throwing his head back.

“Hey supe,” you said, Dean turning around. “I hope you prove me wrong too.”

He smiled and you felt heat in your face.

“See you around, Y/N.”

“You too, Soldier Boy.”

Three Weeks Later

“Dude!” you shouted at the supe that had just landed on the hood of your car. He rolled his eyes and slid off, walking into the restaurant he was headed to. “Asshole!”

You sighed and stared at the dent, wondering how much it was going to cost you. 

“I heard you were in trouble,” said Soldier Boy, jogging right up to your side with a smirk.

“My car...alright. I’m digging the new outfit,” you said, turning your head behind him. “Yup. Ass still perky.”

“Well, I heard you say asshole so I figured you were in need.” He reached over and undid the dent with his hand, offering a smile. “Fender bender?”

“One of your dick friends landed on it when the sidewalk is literally right here,” you said. “But thanks.”

“It’s no problem,” he said. You looked him up and down, his outfit still ridiculous but it looked better in pants and with the darker color. He tugged off his mask and shoved it in his pocket, crossing his arms at you. “So. How you been?”

“Alright. You got a wardrobe upgrade.”

“It tested well or something,” he said with a shrug. “I’m just happy to have pants.”

You laughed, Dean leaned back against your car.

“Do you want to get some food?” he asked.

“Food? Like dinner?”

“Yeah. I’m hungry. You’re hungry. Let’s go eat something,” he said.

“How do you-”

“I can hear your stomach rumbling. I have good hearing,” he said. He smiled and you looked around. “I’m buying.”

“You’re a supe. You get stuff for free all the time,” you said.

“Yeah. But I’m still paying,” he said. “Come on. It beats whatever you were gonna make.”

“Soldier Boy, you’re insufferable, I swear.”

“That’s not a no,” he said. He stood and held out his arm. You rolled your eyes but slipped your arm through it, walking down the sidewalk with him. “I still an asshole today?”

“Night’s young,” you said, Dean chuckling. “So Soldier Boy, what about me is particularly interesting to you? You got a thing for women that put you in your place?”

“Maybe. Maybe I got a thing for badass chicks that don’t care if you’re a supe or not,” he smirked.

“Oh being a supe is a negative for you.”

“Yet here you are,” he said.

“Don’t you get whiplash from being innocent one second and cocky the next?”

“Not really,” he said. “What would you like to eat?”

“I could go for a burrito. Like a massive burrito,” you said.

“I know just the place.”

One Hour Later

“Wait, wait,” you said, opening your mouth midway through your second burrito. You let out a deep burp, Dean laughing in his seat across from you. “That was good, huh?”

“I’ll give it a seven,” he said.

“I’ll take it,” you said, Dean’s smile fading away when he looked behind you.

“Hey! Soldier Boy! What are you doing out so late? Isn’t it past your bedtime?” said a guy, someone else laughing with him. Dean looked down as you saw two supes come over to the table. “She’s pretty.”

“Don’t touch her,” growled Dean when one started to move towards you. 

“Not in a sharing mood,” said the other guy.

“She’s my friend,” said Dean.

“Friend? She’s not even that hot.”

“You’re never gonna get in with the big boys if you’re hanging around some random chick,” said the first guy.

“Can you leave us alone already?” you asked. The one supe next to you didn’t like that and touched your shoulder, your whole body freezing. 

“Oh she likes you. They’re on a date,” he said before he moved his hand away and you took a deep breath. “She’ll totally have sex with you no problem.”

“Guys,” said Dean. 

“Just busting your chops,” they said before they grabbed a table near the back. You poked at your food and frowned.

“Ignore them,” said Dean.

“What did he just do,” you asked quietly.

“Read your thoughts.”

“I don’t...I didn’t…” you said. Your lips pursed together and Dean asked for some containers to bring home the leftovers. You barely waited for him to hand over some money before you were out of your seat and headed for the door.

“Y/N,” said Dean, catching up to you outside. “Those guys are jerks. Forget about them.”

“You’re gonna be like them. You want in with the Seven and I know your reputation. You’re gonna get rid of that innocent guy and turn into something else to get what you want. I’m not gonna get made fun of or have someone invade my head like that,” you said.

“Come with me,” he said, grabbing your hand. You barely had a chance to blink before you were streets away and at the front of a very nice apartment building. “Let’s finish our meal where no one will bother us.”

“You want us to finish our meal somewhere private so that afterwards, you can get sex.”

He rolled his eyes and again you felt a flurry go by before you were upstairs and standing in the foyer of a very large and expensive looking apartment.

“You can’t just do that all the time, you know,” you said. You grabbed your container out of his hand and stormed over to his kitchen counter. “I’m not having sex with you either.”

“Okay,” he said. You started eating again, Dean taking the seat beside you, his eyes on you the whole time. “You do like me though.”

“Did you have...did you have your friends come by on purpose?” 

“Yes,” he said. 

“You’re unbelievable,” you said. You left the little food that remained and headed for the door until Dean caught your arm and you nearly stumbled backwards. “This is your act. It’s how you do it. You play dumb to lure them in. I’m so fucking stupid.”

“I don’t particularly care about people if I’m being honest,” he said. “I like the admiration and the danger but the people, not so much.”

“Good for you.” You shrugged and he pulled you back to his chest. “Soldier Boy I swear-”

“You though...I care about you and that is very strange for me. I haven’t cared about anyone in a very long time.”

“Oh I bet you-”

“I am not good for good reasons. I admit that. I can get sex where I please with who I please. But since I met you, you are all I want. You are strong and capable and nothing about me impresses you. I don’t know why but I love that about you. You infuriate me because I want to prove you wrong. I want to be good to be good and I don’t know if I can do it. I’m one of the nicer ones too. I don’t know how to be what you wanted me to be.”

You grabbed his collar and tugged him down, kissing him with more force than you anticipated. He smiled and rested his hands on your hips as you pulled away.

“I’ll give you a chance. But you have to be good, Dean. If you start slipping towards becoming those dick friends of yours, I’m gone.”

“You’re okay with me not really caring about people?”

“No. But baby steps. You care about one human. You care about me. If you went from none to one, you can care about more.”

“Like I said, not sure if I’m capable.”

“At least one of us has some faith in you. You don’t want me to be another passing hookup. You want more.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Then prove me wrong and keep that sliver of good and let it get bigger. Push out the cocky crap. It you want me, it’s how it has to be.”

“Understood. I will try my best,” he said. 

“Good.” You gave his kiss a cheek and went back to your food. “That’s all you’re getting in the meantime. Now tell me more bad jokes.”

“You liked those?”

“They weren’t too bad,” you said with a smile. “Let’s finish our meal, Soldier Boy.”

“How’s it going?” asked a voice from your kitchen in the early morning. You paused and flipped on the light, nodding at the man standing there. “He under your thumb yet?”

“Getting there,” you said, getting some water from the fridge. “A supe friend of his read my mind tonight. He didn’t dive too deep. We’re good.”

“I told you it was a good idea to keep you in the dark,” he said.

“Are you going to hurt him?” you asked.

“You don’t actually have feelings for him, do you?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the difference?”

“There’s not any,” you said. 

“Good. He hurts people. They all do. Remember that when you’re making out with him.”

“Isn’t me seducing him the point?”

“Yeah. How long do you think you’ll need?”

“A few months.”

“You got one.”

“Two.”

“Fine. It’s plenty of time to get the puppy dog to trust you. He won’t be able to escape. The cell will be secure.”

“He’s not on the main team. He doesn’t know all their secrets.”

“No. But he knows some and I will thoroughly enjoy getting the answers out of him and getting rid of him once I do.”

“He’s kinda protective of me. You should be careful about dropping by unannounced,” you said.

“I’ll stay out of your hair. Two months, you bring him in,” he said.

“Yes boss,” you said as he went for your back door.

“Two months enough time to make him fall in love?”

“Probably. Why?”

“The more it hurts, the easier to break him. I’ll see you around, Y/N.”

“Bye Butcher,” you said as he left. You finished off your glass and went up to bed, swallowing as you sat on the edge of it.

Some small part of you had fallen for him and that was so not in the plan. He was a supe. A stupid supe.

A stupid supe you could very easily see yourself falling in love with yourself if you weren’t careful.

_______

A/N: Read Part 2 here!

[mankai-afterhours]

Alrighty so y’all live in these dorms and as someone who USED to live in a dormitory I NEED to know. Have you ever been caught jacking off? Was it your roommate that caught you? Or perhaps someone from another troupe? We need the deets and remember to be honest 👀 - 🎮

Have my own room so not a problem lol

- Itaru ♤

----------

I usually just do it in the shower, if at all. It feels way too awkward trying to do it anywhere else, between the director and Sakyo checking in on the scripts, not to mention Masumi as my roommate,,

I don't have much guaranteed alone time.

- Tsuzuru Minagi

-----------

Ah !! So that is why Tsuzuru is always tense! He does not get true time to pleasure himself! :0

I wait until Sakuya is at school if the urge overcomes me~ of course I have not been caught ♡

- 💡 CITRON 💡

-----------

Ahaha... I was caught once by Mukkun,, 😬 I thought he was still at school, but they were let out early and he burst into our room while I was jerking it,,

I hid myself real fast and he apologized, whirled around and shut the door. We don't talk about it. It was like,, supes awkward,,

But I've been real careful since then, so no worries 😎

- KAZUNARI ☆

----------

Never been caught~ but I've done it on the roof before! Hehehe~ ^v^

- 🔺️🔺️🔺️

----------

I no longer attempt to relieve myself in my room. Sakoda walked in on me once, and was a little too understanding about it... he offered to guard my door for me next time,,

I don't know what to do with him, honestly. Needless to say I haven't tried to masturbate there since.

If anything, I'll do it in my car.

- Sakyo Furuichi

----------

It feels embarrassing to admit this, but I usually just take care of it in my room, whenever I feel too tense to sleep.

I always wait until I know Taichi's asleep, though. He snores pretty loudly.

- Omi ;-) 🍁

----------

I've nearly been caught by Tasuku a couple times. It doesn't help that being walked in on is a fantasy of mine...

Not that I'd ever act on that, I'd hate to make anyone feel uncomfortable! I'll, uh, stop talking now,, ^^;;

- Tsumugi

----------

Like hell I'd try to do it at the dorms. I wait to use the shower stalls at the gym.

Well, that's what I'd normally do, but since quarantine hit, it's been pretty hard to find somewhere completely private.

- Tasuku

----------

You can always join me in my room, Tasuku~ I can guarantee you privacy. ♡

I've never been caught, simply because I choose not to be. But my door is always open if anyone here cares to join me~ 🤭

- Azuma ✨

----------

HISOKA AND I HAVE NO QUALMS ABOUT SUCH THINGS~ HE AND I ARE IN UNSPOKEN AGREEMENT TO MASTURBATE WHENEVER WE CHOOSE, SO LONG AS WE'RE RESPECTFUL ABOUT IT!

FOR EXAMPLE, HISOKA REQUIRES ME TO KEEP MARSHMALLOWS IN MY MOUTH WHEN I MASTURBATE SO I DON'T DISTURB HIM WITH ANY LEWD NOISES OF PLEASURE~

- Homare Arisugawa ❦

----------

Arisu is always so loud. The marshmallows don't help much.

- H. Mikage

----------

Um... I don't have to answer this one, right,,?

- Izumi Tachibana, moderator of thirst

----------

No, director. It's okay, really. You're fine. Just forget about it,,

- Tsuzuru Minagi

----------

Did something happen between you two that I should know about?

- Sakyo Furuichi

----------

^///^;;;;;

- Izumi Tachibana, regretting what she just said

[callistawolf]

my Arrow 7x06 thoughts

That was... a heck of an episode. I spent 3/4 of it upsettingly confused and the last 1/4 of it utterly enthralled. That sort of encapsulates Arrow as a whole, doesn’t it? Like, your average Arrow season these days is 3/4 “what the hell is this all about” and 1/4 “ohhhh my god i get it now, that was AWESOME.” And while I love the awesome, I sorta wish there was more consistency and less relying on the ending to save the whole pie, ya know? 

Anyhow, here we go: 

Poor Anatoly. He was rotten last season but he doesn’t deserve this.

Listen… jerkoff dragon boy. Oliver is in Slabside. He’s already destroyed.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY RUSSIAN BAE?!?

Stan’s still fangirling on Oiver. Just another day in prison.

Poor Oliver expects to see Felicity and gets…. SIREN. What a downgrade. HIS FACE IS SO DISAPPOINTED. 😂

Their bickering pleases me. He’s just SO NOT HERE FOR HER.

I had a moment where I was all “listen, Oliver, stop being a jerk and just let her help get you out of prison” and then I realized how ridiculous it was cuz Siren deserves his scorn.

That said I WANT HIM OUT OF PRISON. YESTERDAY.

I have priorities, people. I feel I’m pretty clear about them. Him back with Felicity first, the rest can be dealt with later. 

Okay Siren comparing him to the E2 Oliver is just stupid. it’s not his fault Diaz got away, you dime store villain and you know it.

STAY AWAY FROM MY WIFE. I love this song.

Oh good. Flash forwards. 😬🙈

A couple weeks ago. LIKE THREE MAYBE?!? LOL like when the Hozen started up? Coincidence? I THINK NOT. 

Murdered. Hmm.

The Calculator. Hmm.

So not buying this, by the way. It’s a nice story, Dinah, but I’m a bit disappointed you didn’t even TRY to provide any proof of this. 

Also… love the line they’re drawing between this and the current day.

William, how are you believing she’s actually dead? Did he ask Dinah if she SAW THE BODY?! No he did not.

But GOOD ON HIM not stopping now. He’ll find out she’s alive. Eventually. 

THE ENTIRE BRATVA?! 😂that’s… like Curtis having 14 PHDs tho. So yeah no. Nice try. 

Felicity frustrated that Oliver won’t let Laurel represent him… hehe. But, darling, what did you expect?

I don’t like Siren but I still enjoy this teamup. And I enjoy Rene’s incredulous reaction to it. Rene is all of us. YOU TWO ARE FRIENDS NOW?!?

Also: Rene still gets points for helping Felicity. Where’s DIGGLE THO?!

Ahh there’s Dig. And Dinah. AND ANATOLY. and a bomb. YOW.

So it was a trap.

Dig you cannot be upset about Felicity working with Siren given EVERYTHING. Are you kidding me right now?!

And there’s fucknut Curtis worried about his birthday. SMEH. There’s a regrettable villain on the loose and Felicity’s husband is in prison getting lobotomized but LOL YOUR BIRTHDAY IS SUPES IMPORTANT. Asshat. 

Felicity begging Siren is tugging my heartstrings. I FEEL SO BAD FOR MY BABY. FREE HER HUSBAND.

So William knows Zoe pretty well. Easier to move on than hold on. HMM. WHere is Oliver. IS HE DEAD TOO?! LOL

“He’s Oliver’s son.” “That is exactly what worries me.” WHAT HAPPENED. That is literally my first reaction. WHAT HAPPENED A FEW YEARS AGO?!?

Stan is laying this sob story on pretty thick. 😑

Diaz wants to destroy the city. YAWN. THat’s so five seasons ago.

Felicity threatening Anatoly is delightful. But also I’m getting worried for my bae. She’s unraveling. She needs Oliver. 

Felicity… find your sunshine. Too much dark…. is not good. I’m not saying she CAN’T play with the darkness but also that... I don’t want her to do something she’ll regret later. We’ve seen what guilt has done to Oliver. 

NOOO SAVE ANATOLY

FELICITY. You should be more concerned about ANATOLY’S LIFE.

Oh good, Anatoly is fine. Dig… talk to your girl. YOu’ve neglected her too much. SHE NEEDS HELP. LOOK AT HER. THIS IS NOT RIGHT.

Wait. No. You gave up Dig. Don’t rewrite history here.

Okay Dig is pissing me off. Where does he get off judging her? He’s supposed to HELP her, not shame her. 

Siren might not be a real lawyer but she’s making a good case here. At least for me. Then again how can she talk about what it takes to be a hero? YOU A VILLAIN BABY.

But yes, “Oliver Queen deserves to be a free man” I agree with that. I will always agree with that. My priorities are clear here. 

NO LET HIM GO YOU COWARDS

Apologizing to Anatoly is a good start, Felicity.

Also can I just say I LOVE THEM SHARING A SCENE? The me from s2 is THRILLED. Remember when I just wanted Anatoly and Felicity to acknowledge each other??

Uhm this is bad advice Anatoly. Don’t encourage her to kill Diaz. But also... is anyone getting any “flash forward” vibes off this? What did Felicity do in the future? Did she go ruthless?

LOL at Siren going after the judge for not ruling for her.  Pretty villainous.

uh oh… future Felicity is targeting their asses.

That’s a pretty genius way to turn off the security.

Wait… FELICITY was gonna level Star City?! Hahahaha, okay but also... no. If she was, there was a good reason. Otherwise, let’s not just assume the worst DINAH. 

I’m so damn confused. What the hell is going on.

I do like everyone working together in the present though. That’s good to see. For a change. A LITTLE LATE THO. 

GET FREAKING DIAZ DAMMIT.

This is pretty fraught. I’m tense watching this fight.

OOoh New GA showed up anyhow. YAS.

So the Longbow Hunters get away but they HAVE DIAZ YAS.

I LOVE THIS SONG. BEHIND BARS! YAS. GO EMIKO! lol

Curtis shut up. Looking back over these notes, I have NO idea what this was referencing but I’m sure he deserved it. He always does. He should just always shut up. I’m so beyond done with that guy. LEAVE MY SHOW. 

Poor Felicity. She’s not happy. This doesn’t fix anything for her.

I’m afraid she wanted him dead.

LOL I love when Oliver digs at Siren not being a lawyer.

He’d rather eat shit than thank her, that’s clear. LOL

Does Oliver have Felicity in a box? Is she in the “good” box and he’s gonna not enjoy realizing she’s not in that box at all?

Awww… Felicity gave Anatoly a way to get away. That’s so cute. I love her so much.

“these past few years”. So it hasn’t been 22 years since he’s seen her, guys. There ya go.

I gotta know who Blackstar is. Is it Maya? Tell me it’s Maya. 

“I liked you better with pink hair.” Dammit Diaz. But also LOL everyone liked her pink hair. 

FELICITY DON’T DO IT.

Dude. This is juicy af.

I knew Siren would stop her. Are they like switching alignments or something??

They need Diaz to help Oliver… OHHH A TRADE. OH SHIT.

THANK FUCKING CHRIST

HAHAH ohhhh nooooo

OH STAN ARE YOU EVIL SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT

SO WE WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG goddammit

So okay. Wow. Those flashforwards were actually not too bad this time. I feel like we got some good information out of them. Some good clues. And GUYS, the FERN was in her little lair and she used Oliver’s favorite training method as a security protocol and there’s just OLICITY stamped all over this. I love my ship. Their impact. Wow. 

Also, how amazing is it that Felicity is such a FOCUS right now? In the present AND in the future? It’s just... incredible. We are truly watching Felicity and Friends right now and I could not be happier. That said the “friends” are kinda... that’s pushing it. About 70% of these people could be doing a LOT MORE. Especially Diggle. I want my old Dig back. Why is he acting like this?? GAH. Anyhow. So good. Next week: prison hijinks. For the last time, hopefully. 

[seenashwrite]

14.12 Round-Up

I mean... okay.

This one is essentially what I would’ve posted had I live-blogged. No analysis, really, because there’s nothing to analyze. So, let us begin with my first thoughts whist gazing upon the first scene:

It's. Made. Of. Trash. Cans.

Yes, he's teary-eyed, and yes, and stellar Jensen work, and yes, and feels, and yes, and “Sam!”, and yes, and shit, but - and I can't emphasize this enough----

It's. Made. Of. Trash. Cans.

More importantly, like I said last week, he can imagine this scenario just fine, except it's the cosplay dude in there. Under the ocean of your mind is easier on the noggin than walk-in freezer, methinks. Tinier bangs, muffled screaming.

Clawed-up wall is very nice touch.

SERIAL KILLER?!?!  YASSSSSS!!! IS THIS AN ACTUAL CASE?!?!!? Oh and nice underwater visuals... kicking it this week, set design and cinematography!

Why is there no other way, Dean? I can think of three. But none of that matters - Sam and Cas, here's what y'all do, it's called valium. Slip five of those in his whiskey, his system can take it. Then I'd like to introduce you to two of my friends, intubation and a propofol drip. Stick him in a room - preferably Maggie’s, after you kick her out - and presto, time to figure out how to open The Cage and swap Michaels.

I know y'all hate Nick but that guard was working my nerves, so props to ol' Limpy, there. And again with the pretty color and nice shot. More props to the crew, yo.

What is this trip about? Y'all keep talking about what it isn't, so what the shit is it? Is it one last bro bonding for the road? Y'know, for the road on the road? Or are they on their way to dump him into the ocean? Then where's the casket*? The casket which, I feel it necessary to point out---

Is. Made. Out. Of. Trash. Cans.

.

* ETA: I’ve been informed it was in a trailer on the back of Baby, which somehow I compleeeeetely missed. I zoned out a lot in this one, it was so damn repetitive between the heavy-handed comparisons in the subplot to Dean’s situation, and the identical-but-with-different-words convos between Dean and Sam/Dean and Cas that kept happening over and over and over and over and over and....

.

Blah-blah-blah Pharaoh's plague, first born, got it. And I assume he's another prophet since y'all blew that wad in the title and in the "Then" with the Donny stuff. And plus the whispery voices. And it's happening because he's brain-dead, not dead-dead. Watch. I'm right.

[mere moments]

Hey, girl. Yeah, you. You, in the mirror. You're hella good at the pedestrian scripting stuff. Mwah. Let's see if you're right about the rest.

(I'm right. I’m always right. #humbly)

Ahhh, half-time. Good. I need a brownie.

Ooooh Sam with the gritty voice upon entry (I absolutely meant that to sound dirty) and hey it's Gabriel wallpaper!

Welp. A choke, two punches, and a gunshot later, we are off to an exciting second half, I hope.

Oh.... ohhhh.... thank you Cassy baby for that scoop. [clears throat] Hey, girl. It's me. Me-You, again. You and your sexy brain that predicts the easily predictable deserves a second brownie. Double-mwah.

Nicky, you're about to get a case of the ghosties----- and damn, there we go! Oof, awkward. Or hell maybe it is Luci. Testing him. In a way, I hope not, I was hoping he'd be all skeletal and tarred. Minus the dollar store Terminator effect, of course. This is a good scene. It's well acted. Pellegrino just gives 120% with any material he's given, he's a gem.

YES, CAS. Give him the business. PS: I love whoever has the stethoscope on Misha like that, or if he did it I love him - my point is, somebody is close to somebody in the medical profession because we---- ER, UM, I MEAN THEY #secret identity--- don't just hang out with the 'scope like that. Hilarious. *chef's kiss* Perfect for Cas.

No, he won't die, dude. Why do they write Sam as the dumbest smart person sometimes?  It's a vent, not fucking bypass. Vents are for people who can't breathe on their own for whatever reason or because they're in surgery or whatnots, and Donny was making with the conscious. He was wide awake. It's all good, yo. Your bigger worry is D-Dog coming out of it and still being loopy and spazzing out and jerking the tube, jacking his trachea.

I would happily wake up to that mug in my face, btw. Hey, girl, he'd say. Look who's wakey-wakey eggs and bakey. Because he's Dean, and Dean would say something sexy like that because he'll be so swoony when his tired ass eyes met my bloodshot crusty ones. Supes romantic.

Are we really almost done with this episode? I feel like we haven't gotten a lot accomplished. Not Dean-Sam-Cas wise, I mean. There's been plenty of story, and a decently cool story, otherwise. The rest has been repetitive "Don't do it" - "Imma do it" dialogue.

He's not gonna do it.

Know how I know?

*Boop*

Yeah, yeah, I should separate real life and pretend, but to this I say: not all conflict and drama has to be life-or-death for the main players. It's actually kinda ridiculous to try to do it in modern times (at least, not constantly) with how tapped-in fans are with the industry, we know about contract renewals and such. You know the last best drama this show had? Dean waking up with demon eyes. You wanna talk about some cliff-damn-hanger motherfucking drama. The possibilities, all the unknown. Not only is he not dead, he's also *himself* - a different version of himself, a primal version. That, friends, is seldom done and even less frequently done well, and Ackles did it very, very well. Ah, Demon Dean, we hardly knew thee. I've digressed.

This ending scene is basically Jared's AKF drill, and I'm not shitting on it, legit, I'm truly not - my point is to say it's effective because he means it. Padalecki is at his best when they give him something of significance to work with, they should do it more often. And hey lookee there, Dean agreed. ::sigh:: But, I mean... what about... all that hard... all those five minutes you... I just.... what about the box? You know, the kickass piece of craftsmanship that, I would be remiss if I didn't remind us all -----

Is. Made. Out. Of. Trash. Cans.

Okay, that was largely uneventful, given the content. It's weird - the content means I shouldn't feel "meh", but I'm "meh". Opening scene by far the best, and again, set design and cinematography get high-fives throughout. See ya next week - that preview looked encouraging.

[xyliane]

I just realized where we are rn in HxH is about Aug 2001. So now I am wondering if Togashi will have a special event corralating to 9/11 and I'm worried.

let me preface this response by saying I’ve been in research paper spiral for the last four months due to my impending advancement in june, and your question provoked a knee-jerk reaction that led to a 4h-long research spiral by someone whose specialty is absolutely not japanese foreign policy and nationalism.

the tl;dr version here, and then the explanation for it under the cut: I don’t think that’s going to happen. for one, they’re currently on a boat headed to Big Murderous Landmass (unless kurapika and co sink the whale). they’re not in yorknew/nyc. also, japan’s perceptions of 9/11 and the media representations of it are not as pervasive as american or even broader western collective trauma. while togashi is unafraid to address contemporary social politics, I don’t think he’s going to correlate a particular event to 9/11. he’s more concerned with the failings and strengths of humanity, as a whole or in parts, and might reference particular events to get across a greater point, not draw direct parallels.

now, a cut, and then several hundred words on 9/11 as a moment of collective trauma, japanese militarism, and media perceptions. it is 4000% nerdier than this ask expected.

I don’t think togashi is going to include a 9/11 parallel in a large part because of how japanese media, and anime in particular, addresses japanese communal trauma, and how togashi uses moments and evocations of these in his stories (at least, yyh, and hxh, although level e has its own quirks). namely that japan really doesn’t deal with 9/11 like americans do–but they absolutely have other traumas that make their way into anime, manga, and other media.

the thing is that, while 9/11 is absolutely a moment of international trauma (I work in india, and people there are highly conscious of it), the moment that hit the US was very different in other parts of the world. I’m old enough to remember the whole “where were you on 9/11,” itself a sort of marker of solidarity and belonging within the trauma that kind of unites people around a time. the plane crashes were broadcast everywhere in the US, and no one didn’t see it. but we got it live, fed right to the tvs in our classrooms at 8am. and america didn’t get attacked by foreigners before, not like this–problems existed “out there,” not in nyc, for however many times it’s been destroyed on film. (we have our own homegrown terrorists, but that’s a whole other can of worms.) and when it did happen, the country as a whole kicked into a jingoist gear on top of the collective trauma of someone murdering a bunch of americans. freedom fries. they were a thing.

it’s probably important to note here that media doesn’t exist in a vacuum. we’re perpetually influenced by things that happen, whether they’re collective and historical memories, personal experience, or social trends. we get our references and jokes from somewhere, and they sink into our brains and affect what we put out into the world. trauma does this more effectively than most things. trauma elicits a search for meaning, whether it’s a question of “why did it happen” or “why did it happen to me/us?” sometimes we find a meaning in the disaster, and sometimes we don’t. but it marks us and connects us (Halbswach 1992, Updegraff et al 2009). and it affects us for a long, long time.

in japan (and again, I’m not an expert on this), 9/11 is a moment of international trauma that marks japan’s re-entering into the international military sphere, but also economic flux. of the approximately 3000 people killed in the twin towers attack, 316 were non-american, including 26 japanese nationals. japan joined the war coalition almost immediately, and spent billions of USD to support the “war on terror,” while also dealing with things like shohei koda’s beheading in 2004 or the kidnapping and release of 5 journalists and anti-war NGO workers the same year, which arrived back in japan only to be ostracized for “causing trouble” for japan, with accusations that they had “got what [they] deserved” (x, x). the effect on the news media in japan was of increasing conspiracy theories and warmongering, while simultaneously wary of tensions with china, north korea, and taiwan. basically, japan politically and militarily had a lot of pots on the fire, and was feeding yen to the american pot real fast. the japanese SDF pulled out of central asia in 2007, and it’s still a divisive subject from the papers I read, but it’s more about the military than 9/11. 9/11 is not, for example, the topic of a j-drama directly or indirectly. shohei imamura’s short film “japan” in the september 11 (2002) anthology is a parable set during world war ii, although he’s much more famous for his palme d’or wins and a film about hiroshima (black rain, 1989). and uh. apparently pokemon black and white has a reference to ground zero in their map of not!nyc?

japanese media’s collective trauma in anime is often the deep personal connection with the atomic bomb, or terror attacks and natural disasters on japanese soil. which makes sense: humans will generally latch onto things that affect us personally, whether it’s a cute puppy video shown to us or an act of terrorism we watch on television. for the US, we were–and still are–being forced to confront our place in the international community (hero, victim, villain, collaborator, all of it–and americans are not very good at shades of gray) through the “war on terror,” and it comes out in everything from comic book movies like bvs directly evoking 9/11 while cavill!supes ruins buildings to kill zod, to the rise of partisan tv news. but we don’t evoke nuclear war or radioactive waste with the same reaction that japan does–there’s a lot of fear of the bomb in the 1950s and 1960s, like with dr. strangelove and them!, but it’s centered less around the impact of the bomb and its literal or metaphorical nuclear fallout, and more on the fear of the other or an outsider destroying good ol’ american culture. or giving us superpowers. (personally, the closest I think american art and literature ever got to japanese sentiments is with a canticle for leibowitz, which focuses on the cyclical nature of human failure and how the past becomes changed through the present.)

(please read a canticle for leibowitz, it changed my life and only grows more potent with age.)

for japan, the dropping of atomic bombs on nagasaki and hiroshima provides a similar and long-lasting moment of national trauma that’s been preserved in public policy and popular culture. and it’s not just grave of the fireflies or barefoot gen, anime that address the bombings through direct reference. the bomb transforms into concerns about nuclear destruction and environmental fallout, with kaiju like godzilla rising from nuclear waste. osamu tezuka’s work like astro boy is in direct response to the abuse and use of technology and hope for humanity’s future, and naussica of the valley of the wind is a fantasy post-nuclear bomb situation blended with hayao miyazaki’s love of humanity and nature (x, x). I think it’s worth noting that both tezuka and miyazaki personally experienced the 1945 bombings. miyazaki was 4, and one of his earliest memories is fleeing utsunomiya’s bombings. tezuka, at 16 and working in arsenal factories during the fire bombing of osaka, later wrote kami no toride (1977) about his personal experience, which served as both autobiography and condemnation of the vietnam war. 

of more recent stuff evoking trauma, naoki urasawa actually uses 9/11 as a moment in billy bat, as part of getting to questions of humanity and modernity and technology and progress. other anime dealing with terrorism, like GITS:SAC, the “brain scratch” episode of cowboy bebop, and of course urasawa’s 20th century boys, locate terrorism not through 9/11 (and the underlying racism and not-us-ness) but more often with these japanese cults like the ‘aum death cult that carried out the 1995 tokyo subway sarin attacks, and the changing landscape of terrorism in japan. we could point to shinichiro watanabe’s zankyou no terror (or terror in resonance? iunno) as a potential 9/11 parallel, and I think it’s got the 9/11 connections, but watanabe himself places it closer to the 1995 terrorist attacks. he even commented how much “darker” zankyou no terror is than the film he was influenced by (the man who stole the sun (1979)), directly citing the 1995 attacks as one reason the last 30 years have impacted japanese understandings of terrorism. more recently, there’s also been connections to the 3/11 disaster with kimi no na wa, where shinkai explores his perennial theme of personal connection across space and time via a form of natural disaster. outside of anime, there’s also a growing body of literature on 3/11 and music, which is super interesting and well worth a look if you’re interested.

fwiw, I think it’s interesting that both urasawa and watanabe are explicitly interested in western and specifically american culture, but through a japanese lens. and not the sort of “japanese lens” that leads to the americas of g gundam or yugioh, which are The Most American Ever, but a more nuanced representation that explores technology, human connection, and modernity. which is the sort of lens creators should try to do when engaging other cultures, at bare minimum. (/soapbox)

trauma isn’t often addressed directly, but allegorically or displaced: lindsay ellis has a great pair of loose canon episodes on 9/11 and how film evokes collective trauma. while she doesn’t talk about anime or japanese films, she uses bollywood as a way to talk about indirect expressions of nationalist trauma. in the second video, she suggests that, for countries like india working through their own terror attacks with mumbai in 2008 (the 26/11 attacks), it’s easier to use other countries’ or places’ or–I would suggest–fantastical trauma rather than directly address it. so bollywood used 9/11 to understand its own trauma. not everyone does this–and a lot of times, I doubt it’s done purposefully, at least initially. but it’s there implicitly, informing decisions of artists and content creators that sometimes doesn’t get revealed until placed under a critical eye. it’s why editing and getting outside or sensitivity readers is important! for japan, the parallels aren’t to other countries, but fantastical situations in japan with Very Heavy Symbolism ranging from akira’s totally-not-a-bombs to kimi no na wa’s processing of the 3/11 disaster via comet.

as for togashi, he uses world events and figures as ways of exploring his own interests (yu yu hakusho has multiple “wow capitalism suuuuuuuuucks” subplots with yukina’s arc and the dark tournament, plus the very anti-war/anti-hate/anti-capitalism/”humanity sucks but people [kuwabara] can be amazing” sentiments of the chapter black tape; while hxh’s chimera ant arc has both a-bomb parallels and north korea/china references on top of killua’s soapbox about how corrupt and terrible governments can be). the parallel between “humanity sucks” and “people can be so very good” threads throughout togashi’s work. but it also uses a very buddhist understanding of rebirth and reincarnation to get these points across, whether it’s the unconditional vore love of pouf and youpi giving themselves to rejuvenate mereum after he’s nuked or the reincarnations of former humans as ants. but all of it connects to togashi’s personal experiences of things happening to and by japan, whether it’s the invasion of and tension with taiwan, the boom and bust of the economy, or the militaristic push by parts of the government under koizumi and abe. that, layered on top of the trauma that informs a lot of japanese media, makes for a fascinating playground togashi is more than willing to dig into.

I suppose this is all a very, very long-winded way of saying that while it’s possible togashi could include a 9/11 parallel, I don’t think it’ll be tied to some september 2001 date in the hxh universe. if he uses it, it will be 1: through a togashi/japanese lens; 2: unattached to a particular date; 3: layered in dialogue with broader war and terror issues togashi’s interested in exploring.

if you’ve made it to the bottom: holy crap congrats, hello, talk to me about anthropology of media. and if you’re somehow still interested in more, here’s an brief list of sources I used on top of the ones explicitly referenced in the post:

Baffelli, Erica. “Media and religion in Japan: the Aum affair as a turning point.” Working paper, EASA. 2008. (media-anthropology.net)

Broderick, Mick (ed.). Hibakusha Cinema: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Nuclear Image in Japanese Film. Routledge and Kegan Paul International, 2014. (google books)

Deamer, David. Deleuze, Japanese Cinema, and the Atom Bomb: The Spectre of Impossibility. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014. (google books link)

Japan pulls troops from Afghanistan (npr, 2007)

Japan ends ban on military self-defense (time, 2014)

Japan’s 10 years since 9/11 (al-jazeera, 2011)

Krystian Woznicki (September 1991). “Towards a cartography of Japanese anime – Anno Hideaki’s Evangelion Interview with Azuma Hiroki”. BLIMP Filmmagazine. Tokuma Shoten. (archived here)

manga responses to 3/11 (nippon.com, 2012)

Saft, Scott, & Yumiko Ohara. “The media and the pursuit of militarism in Japan: Newspaper editorials in the aftermath of 9/11.” Critical Discourse Studies, 3(01), 2006. 81-101

[johnnythirteenguns]

just seen justice league (this isnt spoiler free at all)

also went to thor: ragnarok for the third time to wash the taste out.

so i went to go see it for miller, momoa, and mera in that order. i was super impressed with mera. i thought they were gonna go the like easy way and give her an Accent like the amazons, but they didnt. even though her cadence was different like idk man i know very little about dc but i picked up a one-shot earlier this year where mera neatly beats the fuck out of the justice league on her own and she’s a semi-jerk who kind of hates surface dwellers and you know what for the thirty seconds we had her onscreen i believed it and she was powerful and felt like a character with backstory and i COMPLETELY didnt hear what aquaman was saying i just heard her side of the conversation

man ben affleck really doesnt wanna be here huh anyway we should recast him at the earliest convenience

also why was batman 90% CGI like fine i get it no one can be a gymnast in a 50 lb rubber suit but like every single one of his moves that required any bending had to have been cgi

speaking of which the cgi isnt like bad in and of itself it’s just typical like it’s the cgi youre used to seeing. it doesnt blend seamlessly into anything and the characters dont blend seamlessly into it. the cornfield looks fake as can fucking be and i dont really know why? what else there was another fucking weird cgi moment. anyway, steppenwolf is ugly as sin and has no emotion and is all one color and is??? generally weird looking

speaking of which. he is not frightening at all. the New Gods isnt something casual dc fans are gonna be familiar with (i am barely familiar with it) and like? apparently, darkseid was supposed to have scenes in this but didnt? anyway go see thor ragnarok which features 1) a horned villain that is legitimately terrifying and powerful, that you fully believe can do the things she does, and who is beautifully designed and 2) features glow-y eyed masses of disposable soldiers that are cool but goofy and dont take themselves too seriously but were still frightening and made for thrilling fights because you believed they could actually pose a threat to the characters they were attacking

the beginning... uh i think like three scenes of the film looked pretty good, but they looked like cutscenes. very GOOD cutscenes, but honestly... if i wanted it to look like this id have played... a video game. like, i want it to look like a real place even if it’s heavily stylized. uh but the first showdown where batman is luring a parademon out looks beautiful if fake as shit. the scene with wondy in the bank (which features a group of girls from an all-girls school... at a bank?) and terrorists wearing cheap pinstripe suits (like, this is fine! it’s nonsensical and stupid but fine it’s a comic book movie) was kind of cool because for once i felt like... maybe diana was a creative person who goes in wit ha strategy? like picking the dude up with the lasso and holding him up was fun i was like oh!!! thats not something a typical movie would do! it was the first time she felt like Wonder Woman to me (ive seen the wondy movie itself, it was... eh). uh and idk what was up with the standing on the scales of justice or whatever idk the hilarity of gal gadot on that statue which sits on top of a bank like. it was funny.

hey question what the uh... fuck was the “what are you” “a believer” line about it made zero sense in context at all

dont quote me on the order of scenes i dont remember fuck all of this movie in order because literally, the pacing was so weird. so... it was very obvious there were parts missing from the movie. not like, cuts made where you could be like oh there was something there or maybe there'll be a deleted scene no like you Knew there was stuff that was necessary that was gone. the football scenes with victor from the trailers were gone!!! i think the movie was trying to set up a really strong friendship with wonder woman and cyborg but it never really went anywhere? and i suspect because it all got cut! and i dont understand why because ray did a really good job and he sold cyborg to me so well i loved his take! 

also... i dont know if theyre saving it for the aquaman movie next year but did Arthur get a bunch of his stuff cut too? because i like jason momoa, and i like his arthur and so im sort of torn because, like, he didnt have much to do. like, he has the bit where he sits on wonder woman’s lasso of thruth and tells them all this stuff but you dont know enough about him for any of it to land? but i really wanted to know more (at some point i did give up on, this was a very passive viewing experience). my friend was saying that like literally why did they try to make arthur so Cool he’s already jason momoa he is by default cool now you can do whatever you want with him we’re all going to love him.

speaking of the lasso scene... was the entire last half of the movie re-writen and re-shot by whedon because like? the lasso scene is a whedon. the bit at the end where wondy goes “children. i work with children” is a whedon (THERE’S NO REASON FOR HER TO SAY THIS? I THINK THIS WHEN SHE HAS TWO TEAM MEMBERS LIKE LAYING ON THE GROUND AFTER NEARLY BEING BLON UP? IT WAS FUCKING WEIRD). i genuinely cant tell if all of barry’s dialogue was written by whedon or if that was ezra improvising but uh... man he’s... he needs to practice if that’s hm. if it’s just whedon i mean fine but he also doesnt have the shitty RDJ quality thats let’s him say those lines with believability.

speaking of which, going to see barry was my priority because apparently im gay for miller rn so like. uh. man he wasnt funny like there were a couple parts where he was cute and the line landed and it was fine but generally he just... wasnt funny? because the movie wasnt funny? like... idk man ezra really acting his heart out and ive said like cool i wanna follow his career and see if he does good stuff and gets even better at his stupid art but maybe he peaked with credence barebone i dont know. the first scene where we meet barry, with the flash pad and the pizza, that was good, that was funny. the bit at the prison was good. he has very soft eyes and thats nice. the panic attack is cute in the clip and the beginning like rhrgrh moment he has is good but then idk the pacing falls apart again

why is his character like this? i just dont think ezra’s... funny enough yet. (tbh i think he takes it too seriously even if he’s trying to be light-hearted man sometimes jokes is just jokes). there’s a bit where theyre digging up superman’s body and it’s JUST HIM AND CYBORG FOR UH? SOME REASON? maybe they explained why they sent the two babies but i didnt hear it and it’s literally just them two. and he tries to fistbump victor but vic is like “no” and tbh barry is annoying? like maybe u think he’s cute and an audience member but he’s uh... you can tell he’s annoying in the story and anyway then the flash says “right, racially charged” ABOUT A FISTBUMP? WHICH? LITERALLY MADE NO SENSE? WAS THIS LINE IMPROVISED? WAS IT WRITTEN? IM GONNA PUT MONEY ON IMPROVISED BECAUSE HE IS EXACTLY THAT KIND OF STUPID BITCH

if they were breaking into the lab why even bother going through the front door? barry drives the thing in (theyre trying to smuggle superman’s body into star labs) disguised a soldier (the literally most unconvincing thing, not to me as an audience member, because it was cute and funny to me,, but that a guy with THAT FACE is military like yeah sure, why did that guard believe him) but then they get to like the normal ass parking inside and the other three are standing there in full costume in full grey DC-brand daylight? are you telling me between 5/6ths of the justice league they couldnt sneak in a fucking pine box when wonder woman can lift a fucking tank on her own? like.

speaking of which uh.... superman is stupidly overpowered. like i said i read an issue of JL where mera hands every one of the justice league members their own gently roasted ass in hand on her fucking own. diana regularly kicks superman in the head. why was she not able to take him down? when theyre fighting steppenwolf for real it’s not until superman shows up that they even have a real fighting chance. they dont fight as team, they dont even fight as people casually unified in a common cause. theyre playing high-stakes legos and cyborg gets pulled away from them like three times?? and it gets fucking annoying? and then supes shows up and literally wipes the floor with him. it is so completely bizarre and stupid.

here’s a problem i still have with wonder woman: why is she so thin? the other amazons (except Hippolyta and maybe one other one) look built as FUCK? LIKE THESE WOMEN COULD EASILY TOSS ME ACROSS THE ROOM. wonder woman has serious fucking arms, where are they

also those amazon bikinis were bad. the whole styling of this movie is bad, but especially the amazons. everything is red and gold, for some reasons? the outfits dont looks heavy like armor, they look heavy like bullshit material. there is no reason for the fucking bikinis. the gold cloak hippolyta wears is??? heavy and looks like? like drapes like window dressing like thats the weight of it. additionally, there is no reason for their hair to be SO STYLED. it’s really like prom night hair it’s like shiny and muss free and always loose and in perfect clearly salon-styled curls. also, why are they so heavily made up? it’s really prominent. wondy herself has the same issue going on, she looks much more heavily made up (why is everyone’s blush so PINK, like it's distracting, is this a side effect of the recoloring process) and her hair isnt loose and doing its thing like in BVS or Wonder Woman it’s like... idk she looks really. Pretty when she’s on the field and it makes no sense.

the amazon fighting style is still ugly and makes no sense ive never seen such a wasteful fighting style it made sense exactly once during Wonder Woman

why is themyscira entirely the ugliest cgi i have ever fucking scene

why does the camera INSIST ON MOVING LIKE THAT. the action is super hard to track, the cgi is ugly as fuck (it really cannot be overstated)... i made it to about... i want to say when theyre on the way to the big fight and then the combined everything gave me a heaache that o had for the rest of the movie

i mentioned earlier that the pacing is weird the transitions are also weird. you get cuts to and from places that never fade into each other, it’s always a hard jump cut but it’s never the right cut to make? like, in thor ragnarok for example, there are a bunch of scene changes that happen via the bifrost, via people going through doors. there are wide shots that jump to wide shots in other places, so youre not suddenly on a close-up. there are a lot of people emerging from something into view, and there are a lof of people being alone in the center of the frame. it’s a very smooth and easy to watch movie. JL is the opposite of this in every way. I SUSPECT. AGAIN. THAT WHILE THIS WOULDNT HAVE BEEN FIXED ENTIRELY. THAT THOSE EXTRA TWENTY MINUTES THAT WERE CUT WERE PROBABLY REALLY IMPORTANT

the lois lane bit where she calms supes down just reminded me of the age of ultron and i quoted “sun’s going down” at my friends who were with me and they shit themselves laughing

ma kent calls lois lane “thirsty” in a Hilarious Teen Humor Gag thanks joss whedon you fucking hack

bruce wayne is fucking useless he could have got barry ANY JOB EVER and like... my god whatever.

also i still dont understand how how voice sounds like that when he’s batmanuh the after after credits scene is setting up, according to my friend, a sinister six movie. deathstroke isnt played by manu bennett so it’s fucking usless thanks for coming to my ted talk

[redrobin-detective]

Could you do Billy Batson headcanons? That bean is to precious for this world

Muahaha, I was actually going to post hcs about Billy and now I have a reason to. Thanks for that, mused on these while writing my prompt here. Totally want to write more of Billy/Jay and just Billy in general which'll follow this model I created of Billy.

- So thinking on the Cap/Billy dynamic, they’re the same person on a technical level but Captain Marvel is supposedly the embodiment of a purely good mortal while Bill is a kindhearted, but still fallible, human. Billy’s a homeless kid so he’s got his own issues aside from normal human junk. My theory is that the “Bad” parts of Billy are kind of tamped down when he becomes the Captain and the “Best” parts are brought to the surface to form the core of Cap’s personality. Billy as a whole is still there, but one side is more emphasized due to the magic at work. So like Billy can say something (“That asshole’s a real jerk, I’m gonna kick him in the nuts”) and it sort of gets filtered into something more wholesome (“That man is being a jerk, I’m going to kick his butt”). Billy finds it kind of embarrassing at first but he gets used to it, if he concentrates, he can push more of himself onto Cap.

- Going off the point above about Billy being filtered, all the curse words Billy says end up coming across as super PG sayings. Holy shit becomes Cap’s signature Holy Moly. So all this time Cap is saying these adorkably cute exclamations, imagine Billy inside cursing his head off (I laughed, I’m big enough to admit that)

- My version of Billy is mostly the version from Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam short film (if you haven’t seen it, watch it! The bean is so cute), which is kinda similar to the comic Superman/Shazam: First Thunder which I also like. Then a handful of N52 Billy (he’s a dick, but like a realistic kid in his situation so I take that into account) and of course, the ever precious YJ version.

- I like homeless Billy and by that I mean I think it’s interesting to have a homeless hero just for diversity but also to add a different perspective to the League. After giving it some thought, I like the idea of Billy being kind of known as a trouble maker for the State. It’s not his fault, as a kid he just defended people who were being hurt and was always blamed cause the orphan is an easy target. Because of his record, he has a hard time being placed in a foster home so he was on the streets a lot. Finally, he gets into the good home with good people and he becomes Captain Marvel soon after. Time passes and there’s a couple of near misses and Billy realizes he’d putting his foster family in danger. So he heads back to the streets into order to keep them safe. he’s been on and off them for years so he survives, plus his foster siblings (the other Marvels) are there helping out whenever possible. He lives in an old, dirty subway in a tent and he scrapes together money through a couple small jobs and from begging or his foster siblings.

- I like the idea of street wise Billy, who acts kind of sarcastic and cautious on the outside but inside is a super softie. He’s not nearly as cranky or skittish as Jason, he’s a lot more optimistic, makes the best of his sad situation and always does what he can to help. He gets angry and lashes out and cries, but he’s still overall pretty happy. He’s kind of a goody two shoes for a desperate kid. He used to sometimes steal money/food but after becoming Cap, he never felt right. In order to make ends meet, he swallowed his pride and does a little begging here and there because he’s got to eat. If he’s truly desperate, will go hang out in the Watchtower and covertly grab some food.

- Batman learns Billy’s identity rather quickly and didn’t know what to do. He stalled for a while over how to handle Billy because he sees Billy is in a foster home and being taken care of and is handling Captain Marvel rather well. He makes a sly effort to keep the Cap away from ugly crime scenes, the League aids just because Cap is so naïve and innocent they don’t want him involved in that. Bruce grows complacent and doesn’t realize until months later that Billy left his foster home. It’s around this time, Bruce takes in jay and sees first hand what the streets do to a kid and enough is enough. He confronts Billy about it, he’s calm and non-judging but he refuses to let things continue. He even offers straight up to adopt him along with Jay. Billy thanks him but refuses. Bruce upgrades him to a better apartment and gives him a monthly stipend (he calls it a ‘salary’ for Cap’s work as a hero to make Billy accept it) for food and whatever he needs. Billy still keeps his jobs because he likes earning his own pay. the League is not informed on Billy’s request.

- Jay figured early on that Cap had gone through a lot of the same experiences he did and, while he suspected that Billy was younger than everyone thought, he was stunned to find out Billy was a few months younger than him. They’d become friends and Billy had confided in him. Jay burst into B’s study that night and demanded Billy be adopted ASAP. Bruce had to explain his offer had been declined. But Billy and Jay become super tight and he’s over at the Manor a lot. Alfred adores the kid because he’s charming and polite and a good influence on Jason. Jay is super protective of the kid, he's older and the kid acts like the world is actually a decent place. Billy’s kindness and optimism really do wonders for Jay when Bruce can’t. Bruce likes that the boys are helping each other recover from their difficult childhoods. But as things get harder for Jason, there’s only so much Billy can do. Jay begins to push him away in his depression/anger and they had a pretty big fight just before Jay left to find his mom. Cap hears about Jay’s death on the Watchtower, he starts crying onto Batman’s shoulder and Bruce lets himself hug and be hugged for the first time since his boy died.

- Eventually the League does find out that the World’s Mightiest Mortal is actually a 13 year old and they are pissed. Mostly at Batman cause they knew that dick was in the know. Supes, GL and Flash want Billy out of heroing yesterday. Wondie, Bats, Aquaman and Martian Manhunter think Billy has earned his place and she be cared for within the League. Billy does choose to stay but is now upset over how everyone hovers now. It is nice to hang around them as Billy, not just Cap. It was worth the headache to see everyone’s faces when he can actually properly curse for the first time in front of them. Clark almost gets out the soap for his mouth. He still insists on his independence but it’s nice that the others invite him over for dinner and sleepovers. It’s nice to feel loved. He does that maybe once every 10 days or so and it rotates between Leaguers. He eventually builds a stronger rapport with the League and becomes a good mediator between the adult League and their kids/sidekicks since he is a kid and understands but also highly respected by the adults.

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

Chapter 11: It's Giving Kidnapping?

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV

Summary:  When you decided to work with Butcher and his merry band of supe hunters to take down Homelander, you neve expected to be saddled with a sullen, grumpy, jerk like Soldier Boy when the job was done. The more you're around him the more you hate him, but you can't help but wonder, is he really as big a jerk as you think? Reader is a supe with plant powers. This takes place in an AU about a month after the end of The Boys Season 3, in which Butcher has let Soldier Boy continue to work with him on his team.  (I'm real bad at summaries, please forgive me!)

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers (Not in this chapter), Slow Burn, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Soft Ben/ Soldier Boy, Protective Ben/Soldier Boy

Word Count: 10.1K

Warnings: I'm going to label this 18+ because Soldier Boy (he's a warning and everyone knows it) and because there is an unwanted sexual advance (not Soldier Boy) (it's more someone making the reader feel uncomfortable and the person talking to the reader, not so much touching, but it's still there and it's wrong), Violence, Swearing, Mentions of sex, Thoughts of Sex, Kidnapping, GASLIGHTING, Threatening, Denial, A whole lot of denial, Sexism, Creepiness, Manipulation, Talks about weed, Super manipulative trash man, And another Super Manipulative Trash Man but this time he's even more creepy, Ben/Soldier Boy might be a little bit OOC.

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

Series Masterlist

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Reader POV

"So where is it that we're going again?" You ask your brother Darren while looking absentmindedly out the passenger side window of his car watching the other people on the bridge.

The sun was shining, bathing the interior of the car in a warm light, the clouds puffy and the sky a beautiful blue that faded into the background behind the iconic New York Skyline as the buildings raised their hands to worship the beautiful day. It was the perfect day for you to grab a paper back and a cup of iced pineapple tea and make your way to Central Park, instead you were stuck in a car with your brother who was taking you God knows were.

"I told you it's a surprise." Darren replies, hitting the gas to cut off someone in the fast lane who honks at him, but Darren only flips them the bird and continues to speed down the bridge.

You had been in the car for over thirty minutes, a car that Darren said was a "loan" from his new BFF, the same person that he was ecstatic about you meeting.

The car was fancier than what you were used to, state of the art with butterscotch colored leather seats so supple and smooth that it felt like you were being hugged by the passenger side chair. The windows were made of thicker glass and you guessed that they must be bulletproof given how sturdy they looked, not to mention they were also darker than average so no one could see into the vehicle, but you could see out. The car was four doors and was made by a European company that you'd never heard of, but you were sure it was expensive. The car probably cost more than the entire inventory of "Please Don't Die" and the building the shop inhabited.

This is weird. You think to yourself, squeezing the leather seat in your hand.

Most of the "friends" your brother introduced you to were as down on their luck as Darren and just as eager to ask for a loan from anyone they could. You'd never met one that could afford a new car let alone a car that looked like it should be owned by the wealthiest man in New York City.

Your frown deepens as you try to figure out where the two of you are going and who it is Darren wants you to meet.

Truthfully, Darren was acting like you didn't hate surprises, you did. Every time your brother dropped by unannounced made you furious. You'd told him over and over again to call first, but no matter what you did each time he showed up without so much as a text.

You sigh audibly. "I just want to be prepared for wherever it is we're going."

"And I told you it's a surprise." His hands tighten on the wheel as if you're annoying him, before he glances over at you with a tight smile. "Come on sissy, it's like you don't even trust me."

The word "trust" makes you frown at him and drags you back to your apartment thirty minutes ago when Ben told you that you were stupid and "too trusting." You didn't understand why Ben got so mad at you going with Darren.

He's my brother, what did Ben think was going to happen? And why was he so angry?

You cross your arms over your chest and lean back into the plush seat.

Who did Ben think he was? He's not my dad! And I am not just some stupid little ditzy girl who needs a big strong man to protect me! I am a grown woman who has survived this long without someone like him butting into all of my business.

The more you sat there in the car, the more your frown deepens, and the more angry you became. You didn't understand why he treated you that way when you hadn't done anything to warrant his temper.

He's just a temperamental petulant child who thinks that he knows everything and that his opinion should be treated with the highest regard!

Usually, you would feel bad about what you had shouted at Ben about his old team and about his son, but not right now. You didn't understand why he was getting so angry and why he cared so much about what you were doing with your brother.

Does Ben really think that Darren would do anything to hurt me?

The whiplash that Ben kept putting you through where he seemed to care and then he didn't was getting old quick…

"Do whatever the fuck you want. It's not like I give a shit about her."

You wince as Ben's words ring in your ears making something stick in your chest. They had hurt more than you thought they would, maybe because you were starting to care about Ben and you thought that he was starting to care about you.

Because what other reason would he walk with you to work, pick you up, and bring you coffee sometimes? And why did he seem to be almost worried when Darren suggested that you meet his friend?

But he doesn't care about you. He's made that much perfectly clear.

You chew the inside of your cheek contemplating the conversation the two of you shared. Maybe I did say some things that were a little harsh, but Ben was being a total dick and he deserved what I said!

A flash of Ben and you tangled in one another this morning comes roaring back bringing a wave of heat flashing through you. Your cheeks flush and the wildflowers growing on the opposite side of the bridge outside of the car all flare bright pink in the sunlight when Darren drives the car past them.

You had been so close to kissing him, so close to letting yourself sink into his warmth and lose yourself in all he was. He was so strong and broad and warm in all the right ways, not to mention he looked really cute this morning with his eyes still a little hazy from sleep and his dark hair falling forward into his face, mused just slightly against the pillow. You could still feel his body laying on top of yours, but the weight wasn't oppressive, it was perfect, like a weighted blanket that made your anxiety fade away. The feeling of his powerful chest beneath the palms of your hands as you dragged them up to tangle his hair ghosts through your body.

Despite Ben's gruff exterior those few soft moments this morning you wished hadn't slipped through your fingertips, you wanted to kiss him, wanted to feel what it was like for him to kiss you softly as if he wished to savor you. The one you'd shared outside your apartment was hungry and frenzied, but you had a feeling deep down in your gut that the kiss Ben and you would have shared on the couch would have been different. The moment felt different too. The way he looked at you, the way he smiled when he noticed the apple tree flowering, and the way he held you close to him with care.

No. I am not going to think about any of that right now. He was a jerk for no reason and even if he wasn't Ben said he didn't care about me. Which is exactly what I've been trying to say since I first met him, he doesn't want to date me, he just wants to fuck me and move on.

When you'd walked out of your bedroom in a fresh outfit, Ben had already gone, and Jake had answered you back saying that it was okay for you to take the day off. Jake rarely said that it was a bad idea, he had said that he would "miss you" but instead of that filling you with warmth it did absolutely nothing. You figured that it was because of the fight Ben and you had. The anger, frustration, hurt, and rage was still currently swirling around your head and whenever it came to a peak you'd get a flash of how good it felt to wake up with Ben on top of you.

"How did you meet your friend?" You ask to keep your mind from wandering back to Ben.

"The usual."

"Usual, meaning?"

"Met him at Richie's poker game, we hit it off." Darren adjusts the radio and flips it to an 80's rock song that you can't remember the name of.

You sigh. "You owe him money don't you?"

"No I don't!" Darren clams up, his hands tightening on the wheel for a moment. "Well, just a little…"

Typical, just typical. Should have brought my damn checkbook.

"I thought you said that you didn't need money?" You pinch the bridge of your nose doing another mental calculation of how much you could give your brother.

"I don't, we worked something out." Darren answers vaguely, turning off of the expressway and onto a side street.

The buildings outside the window begin to be more and more spaced out, becoming more industrial. Each one you pass is fenced in and are quickly changing into giant warehouses and desolate streets. There aren't any other cars on the road with you and you hadn't seen another person in a few minutes.

"Well this looks… murdery." You frown at another empty warehouse with rusting sides and a roof that’s caved in.

Why are we all the way out here?

"It's not murdery, it's just eclectic. Don't be so judgmental." Darren rolls his eyes at you as he makes a left turn in front of a warehouse that is larger than the others, but in much better shape.

It's fenced with barbed wire swirling along the top of the chain links, but there's a man standing at the gate with a leather jacket, sunglasses, and a clip board, the first person you’d seen outside of the car since Darren got off the expressway. He gestures for Darren to roll down the window with the clipboard.

"Hey there Joe." Darren says smoothly, leaning his elbow on the window frame, the picture of ease.

"Darren." Joe states eyes falling on where you're sitting in the passenger seat. "That her?"

"Yeah this is my sister." Darren flashes the usual smile, the one you've seen him use countless times when he needs to schmooze someone or close a "deal."

"Hi." You say awkwardly, smiling at the man identified as Joe.

Something about this feels wrong. Why does he know who I am? I thought I was just meeting Darren's friend?

All Joe does is frown at you. "Doesn't look like a supe."

You turn to look at your brother surprised. Darren knew that it was something you didn't share with everyone, that it was something you only revealed when you had to.

Darren shrugs it off with a laugh. "She is, trust me."

"Hmm." Joe grunts. "And you're late. The boss doesn't like it when people are late."

"Sorry it was her fault. Told her to put on something nice and you know how women are." Darren is completely in his element, gesturing with his hands, and smoothing down any ruffled feathers.

But the whole situation makes you more uncertain.

Who was "the boss?" Is that Darren's friend? And why the fuck did he tell Joe that I was a supe?

You pull on the end of your long sleeved blouse nervously. Darren hadn’t let you leave the house before approving your outfit and finally when you'd walked out of your bedroom wearing a long sleeved green with white polka dot blouse and a pair of dark jeans and your converse he had said that you were "presentable" but then insisted that you leave your hair down.

It made you feel like you were about to go to a job interview. You didn't understand why Darren made you change so many times or why he cared what you wore to meet another one of his skeevy friends. They never seemed to dress up to meet you, so why should you dress up to meet them? Not to mention Darren wasn't wearing anything different than his usual outfit.

He was wearing his black army jacket over a pair of black ripped jeans and a Meatloaf t-shirt. He'd changed out the gauges in his ears for black pointed spikes and the two rings in Darren's right eyebrow were now bright blue. Darren runs his hand over his buzzed hair, giving you a flash of his onyx skull ring on his thumb.

"Yeah I get it, my old lady does the same thing." Joe eyes you appreciatively and winks. "Cleans up nice though."

"Thank you." You reply dryly.

Joe waves Darren through and as he does, you see a gun in a holster hanging against the left side of his chest under his leather jacket.

"Darren what is this? Why was he armed? And why the fuck did you tell him I was a supe?" You shout at your brother as soon as he rolls up the window.

"Oh well, my friend is kind of important and Joe is just some extra security." Darren pulls the car into a parking spot just outside of the building. He says it like you're overreacting, but you didn't think you were. This entire situation was suspicious. "I told him you were a supe because he's just trying to keep my friend safe. He asked an honest question and I didn't want to lie to him."

Bullshit. Darren doesn't give a fuck about lying to other people.

Sometimes you even wondered if Darren gave a fuck about lying to you. That thought was usually brushed away by the reassertion that Darren was your brother and you trusted what he said.

But everything about this situation made you feel odd. You didn’t understand why Darren had to bring you here to meet his friend or why his friend wanted to meet you in the first place or why his friend seemed to need so much security. You'd never had one of Darren's friends ask to meet you before, most of the time you just showed up to meet Darren and they were there scratching something in public that they shouldn't be.

"Come on Darren, you know how much I hate telling people that I'm a supe-"

"Relax. It's already done, let's just move on." He waves a hand, ignoring you.

"Please, tell me what I'm doing here. This is more than me just meeting your friend."

"Hey." He brings his hand down on yours where it rests on the middle console. "I know you're nervous, but I would never do anything to hurt you." Darren's blue eyes are wide with sincerity. "Do you really think I would?"

"Well-" You bite the inside of your cheek.

He's your brother. He wouldn’t hurt you. You say it to reassure yourself, but it doesn’t stick completely.

"Come on." Darren sighs it as if he's genuinely upset that you thought he would. "I'm your brother, I'm your only family and I love you sis. I just want to do what's best for you. And my friend is really nice and he keeps saying that he wants to meet you. Not to mention he's loaded and I know that you struggle with things like that and he said that he'd help you out."

"What?" You sputter in surprise. "Why would he do that? Why would you talk to him about me?

"Because he's a nice guy and I like to brag about how amazing you are to everyone I meet." Darren smiles. "Now come on I don't want to keep Eli waiting and we're already late."

"Eli?"

It was the first time that Darren had used his friend's name and somewhere at the back of your mind it rang a bell.

"My friend. You're gonna love him. Come on I don't want to keep him waiting." Darren repeats as he gets out of the car first, but you stay in it for a second absorbing the entire situation.

You had half a mind to text Butcher or Annie, something about the whole situation made alarm bells go off in your head, and as mean as Ben had been, you wondered if he was right, if this was something you should be worried about.

And weirder still a piece of you wished that Ben was here with you. You didn't know why, but you did.

Instead of calling or texting someone, you discretely unlock your phone and check that the tracking software Annie and you downloaded to keep tabs on one another when you moved into the city was on. No one else knew about it, in fact the app was disguised as a period tracker on your home screen so if someone were to take your phone all they would see is another general app and they'd immediately pass over it. 

You'd never had to use it before in an emergency situation. Annie and you both used it when you went on a date with someone you barely knew as an extra precaution in case the guy turned out to be a freak or a secret cannibal. The horror stories you saw on the internet made you worry about that and the last thing you wanted to do was go on a date with a guy who had a taste for human flesh or wanted to turn you into a skin suit.

You open the passenger side door of the car and step out into the sunshine, tucking your phone into your pocket back pocket while looking up at the building. It glints a dull gray in the morning light, but the general appearance of the building does little to make you feel better about the whole situation. Memories of all the other times you met Darren's friends came flitting back across your mind, all of which occurred at a fast-food restaurant or a random poker game or a bar. Not to mention you'd never had one of his friends specifically ask to meet you before and you'd never met one in the middle of nowhere at a warehouse that was fenced in and patrolled by armed guards.

Darren adjusts the collar of his jacket flipping it down before he looks back at you. "Come on."

"Darren I don't think-"

Darren looks up to the sky with a heavy sigh as if your apprehension is annoying him. "Sis come on." He walks closer to you. "That asshole, Ben, is in your head. Are you really going to trust some random guy you live with or me? Your own flesh and blood?"

"Well-"

"Have I ever put you in a dangerous position before?"

"No."

"Exactly. I care about you so much and I would never do anything to hurt you." He takes your hand, eyes soft in the morning light. "I love you. You're the only family I have left that matters. And I promise if anything in there makes you uncomfortable we can leave. Just say the word."

"Really?"

"Yes." Darren nods once. "Fuck, sissy I'm not taking you here against your will. If you don't want to go in we don’t have to, but you said that you would come with me and you never break your word. Not to mention it would make me happy."

He's my brother. He loves me. He would never hurt me. It's going to be okay.

You let out a soft breath and squeeze his hand. "Okay."

Darren leads you to the thick metal door and opens it for you so you can walk in first and as soon as you do, you stop mid-step. The inside of the warehouse is covered with tables, but they're not empty, each table holds more weed plants than you can fit inside your entire apartment. The room is so green that you have to squint for a moment for your eyes to adjust from all the brightness outside. There are large fluorescent lights hanging above each table trying to give the plants the sunlight they need, but the plants don’t look good.

The plants are wilting, dying, and some have a strange black substance that fans out over the leaves in a vein-like pattern, choking the green that remains. Dead plants in piles are stacked on the edges of the room, already succumbing to whatever the hell was wrong with them.

You'd never seen a plant have something like that before. Even the energy given off by the plants is not the usual one you feel when surrounded by so many, it feels wrong, sickly, almost oppressive. You've never felt something that felt so wrong from any of the plants that you had encountered in the past.

You walk up to one of the tables, examining the black veins that are creeping along the gentle bend of the leaves up from the stalks. "What happened?"

"No idea." Darren shrugs. An unlit cigarette is perched between his lips and he's searching through his jacket pockets for his lighter. The one he'd had for years that looked like a silver dragon. "Eli said that he came back from somewhere and he found them like this."

"Oh."

"Do you think you can fix them?"

"What?" You turn to look at him incredulously. "This is weed. This is illegal why the fuck would I fix this?"

"Come on. Don’t be so high and mighty." Darren groans. "They're plants. You've told me countless times that you hate it when plants suffer. Well all of these are suffering!"

"Not the same thing!"

"You're telling me if Newton's dad's cornfield was suffering you wouldn't wave a hand and work some of that plant lover shit to save it?"

"That cornfield is his family's livelihood this is-"

"It's Eli's livelihood. It's how he makes so much money!"

"Is this why you brought me here?" You shout crossing your arms over your chest. "To fix all of these?"

"No. I wanted you to meet my friend and he's waiting for us so we might as well fucking go." Darren grouses, turning to walk up a rickety staircase that leads to the second level of the warehouse.

But you don’t believe him, because why else would Darren bring you to a place with a plant related problem, not to mention why would Darren get so angry when you refused to.

Did he really think I was going to fix an entire warehouse full of weed plants? The last thing I'm gonna do is help Eli cultivate his crop.

You weren't surprised that Darren's friend wasn't as above board as everyone else. You knew that your brother tended to get involved with people who weren't as law abiding, not to mention your brother's moral compass didn't always point North when it came to other people, but you didn't think that he would involve you in something like this.

Occasionally the moral boundaries you had were pushed when it came to what you did for Butcher, but at least he respected you when you said no.

Darren continues to stomp up the stairs angrily, another reason why you believed that Darren was lying to you.

He knew that if he mentioned any of this I would never come with him.

He throws open the door at the top of the stairs not bothering to knock and you follow behind him, fuming.

The room just inside is not what you were expecting. The entire wall to the left is made entirely of glass giving whomever is inhabiting the room an amazing view of the water beyond, water that you didn't realize was so close when Darren pulled up to the building. There's a giant wooden antique desk at the back at the room with a large maroon leather desk chair sitting behind it and two smaller leather chairs in front of the desk. A few bookshelves line the non-windowed walls, but there's no one else in the room, just Darren and you.

Where's his friend?

Darren sighs and exhales a breath of smoke, before he turns to look at you with an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry sis. I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I know that you've always been more on the straight and narrow than me and I shouldn't have yelled at you."

"What?" You weren't expecting him to sound so sorry, if anything you thought that your brother would have started yelling at you all over again. Why is he apologizing.

"Yeah." He rubs a free hand over the top of his buzzed hair sheepishly. "I shouldn't have gotten so mad about it. Of course you don’t have to do anything you don't want to do."

"Thank you." You sigh. "And I'm sorry. I do hate to see plants suffer, but that out there is different than what I do regularly."

"I know. And I don’t want you to be uncomfortable" Darren grabs your hand with his free hand, before he looks around the room. "Guess Eli is also running a little late huh?" He smiles and it reassures you that you've been forgiven.

"Yeah. Weird that he's not here. Especially when Joe said he was waiting for us and-"

"Oh shit!" Darren interrupts you, lets go of your hand and smacks himself on the forehead. "I completely forgot."

"Forgot what?"

He's frantically patting down his pockets looking for something. "I was supposed to call Richie. I told him I would and I-" He continues to check his pockets, the cigarette still burning between his lips. Darren talks around it. "Can I borrow your phone real quick? I think I left mine in the car."

"But-"

"Please it'll take like, two seconds. I told him that I'd meet up with him later and I want to take you to lunch after this to make up for all that shit." Darren nods his head back towards the door where the tables of weed plants are.

"Oh you don’t have to take me to lunch Darren, I can-"

"No." Darren smiles. "I want to. It’s the least I can do, driving you all the way out here and making you meet Eli."

"Um-" You look around the empty office expecting Eli to materialize out of nowhere. "Sure. But please make it quick. I don’t want to be in here alone with this random dude."

"He's not a random dude, he's my friend. And he's a gentleman, definitely a better person that that dick you have at your apartment." Darren waves a hand before he takes your phone. "You'll be fine. And we can go wherever you want for lunch."

You frown at Darren's comment about Ben as he disappears out the door and leaves you in the large office.

Honestly you did think that Ben could be a dick at times, but there were other times when he was almost sweet, well, sort of at least.

Not before he left today.

You think about what you yelled at him, about him needing people, but just wanting to push them away. That you were sure about. You believed that Ben did need people, but he had so many trust issues about everything that had happened in the past that it made him suspicious and not want to admit it to himself. That and you figured if he believed he was such a "manly man" he thought that it was ridiculous and feminine to admit that he needed someone.

Which again, you thought was stupid because you'd always seen emotional maturity in a man as an attractive trait. You liked when men could be vulnerable around you, you liked when they were honest, and you liked when they had the confidence and security to break around you so you could help them. And you found yourself wanting to help Ben, even though you thought you shouldn't.

He's not a bad guy, he's just got a ton of trust issues, machoistic ideas, and an inability to open up to anyone.

You tap your fingertip against your bicep where they were crossed in front of your chest and make your way to one of the bookshelves to look at the books. Some were antiques, others were versions of classics that you had read when you were a child, but you were sure that each volume was worth more than the apartment building you lived in. Some of the spines were so faded that you could just barely make out the flecked golden lettering and others were in another language that you couldn't understand.

Honestly, you could see yourself sitting in the big maroon chair curled up with one of these books, reading through the book with a large cup of tea while looking out over the water and admiring the iconic New York Skyline across the bay. It was a nice office, but your mind began to drift back to the quiet moments Ben and you shared a few days ago when you curled up on the couch beside him and read through your current obsession while he sat with the paper on the other side. It was nice and you were surprised that the two of you could share such a quiet moment together without ripping each other's heads off.

Maybe I should call and apologize. You think to yourself while you stroke your fingertip down one of the spines. I shouldn’t have said those things about his team or his son. And yes maybe he shouted some things at me too, but maybe he also feels bad and he's just not man enough to tell me that he's sorry. Or maybe he doesn’t give a fuck and he couldn’t care less about me.

The words he snarled at your brother, vibrate through your head again.

"Do whatever the fuck you want. It's not like I give a shit about her…"

You hear someone come through the door and because you expect it to be Darren, you don’t turn to look at him.

"I'm sorry to keep you waiting darling." The voice says in a warm and low rumble, the ends tilting in an accent that you can't place. But your entire body freezes, because you knew that voice.

You slowly turn to look at the man who just entered the room eyes widening.

"Ms. Worthington. It is so nice to see you again. How was the drive?" Elijah Black asks with a pleasant smile, one eyebrow raised at you. "Not too much traffic I hope."

Elijah Black looks almost exactly the same way he did at the fundraiser a few days ago and the use of the fake last name you used only reminds you that he hadn't forgotten meeting you. His greying black hair curls behind his ears in waves that have been slicked back over his head. More of his sun-kissed golden skin is revealed to you, showing tattoos that curl up his muscular arms and disappear into the rolled up sleeves of his navy dress shirt. The top two buttons are unbuttoned revealing more of his muscular chest and the dark ink that swirls up from his pecs and licks up onto his collar bones. He's wearing a gold chain to offset the dark swirls of the tattoos, but he still is built like a body-builder, bigger than Ben across, not taller, but taller than you.

Oh fuck. This is not good.

You reach for your phone in your back pocket, prepared to send an emergency text to Butcher and Annie, the one you should have sent before when you were outside, but talked yourself out of. But then you remember that Darren still has your phone and he's not back yet.

"Mr. Black. Funny seeing you here." You clear the fear from your voice, fighting the shudder of fear when you watch Elijah's eyes trace up your figure, clinging to places that make you wish that you hadn’t worn something so tight.

"Please call me Elijah." He purrs, taking another step forward into the room. The door is closed behind him and Darren is gone. "I was disappointed when you used a fake name the other night. I was hoping to get to know you better." Elijah almost looks a little hurt, before his lips twitch into a smirk. "Of course Soldier Boy also seemed to be opposed to the idea, but he's not here now is he?"

"He's outside actually, just give him a second."

"You’re a terrible liar." Elijah chuckles. "I'd hate to see you try to play poker."

"Well give me a chance and I'm sure I'll surprise you."

Elijah is blocking the only exit. The windows could be an option, but it would mean that you’d have to throw something at it or you'd have to throw him through the window. You were strong, but not strong enough to do something like that. Not to mention you had a feeling that Elijah was a supe. The way he carried himself with a careful confidence seemed dangerous.

"Oh I can’t wait to see just how many surprises you have." His eyes trace up and down your body again in a way that makes your throat tighten and a wave of revulsion prickle over your skin. Even though you're wearing a long sleeved shirt and pants, you feel naked under his gaze.

"Darren said that Soldier Boy and you had a fight." Elijah taps his fingers against the edge of the wooden desk. "I hope he didn't hurt you."

Why did Darren tell Elijah that we had a fight? And where the fuck did my brother go?

"That's none of your business-" You say taking a step back moving around the back of the desk, preparing to run the other way and make a break for the door.

Elijah shrugs.  "I like to know everything about the women I get involved with."

"We're not involved. I don’t know a fucking thing about you." You spit backing away.

This is bad. This is very bad.

There weren't any plants in the room and you didn’t have any seeds with you. The other option would be the plants out in the warehouse, but each time you tried to reach for them, all you could feel was the sickly energy they had, and honestly it was making you feel a little bit nauseous. You’d never encountered that before, usually plants made you feel stronger, but they were all so sick that it was overwhelming your senses. You wondered if Elijah planned that.

"Well let's change that. I'd love for you to get to know me better." Elijah continues to move forward through the room slowly. "It’s a pity that the two of you had a spat, especially because you seem to care so much about him and he seems to care about you, and especially  because what he said must have hurt you, but I suppose it's better for me."

Ben doesn’t care about me, but Elijah doesn’t have to know that. If he knows who Ben really is, then he knows how dangerous he is, and if Elijah thinks that Ben will come to get me, that might be everything I need to make him back off.

"Why is that?" You inch around the table with Elijah following after you.

He's still smiling as if he believes that he's won.

"Because he won't come to save you if he hates you. Darren told me that the things you said to him were quite cruel. And I guess none of your team will be coming either."

Darren heard what we yelled at each other and he just pretended not to. He knew that Ben and I had a fight. He knows that Ben is Soldier Boy. Why would Darren do this? He's my brother-

"Of course my team will come to get me. They're on their way right now. And if I were you I'd let me go now, before this becomes an even bigger problem than it is." The lie isn’t completely out of your mouth before Elijah starts to laugh at you.

"No. They're all in Boston, including Soldier Boy." Elijah's smirk grows like the cat who caught the canary. "A thing about those anonymous tips, none of them seem to be that helpful. But Butcher wanted to catch that electric buffoon so badly I thought I might as well give him a push, not in the right direction unfortunately. I was hoping that Solider Boy and you would catch him the other night. He's been causing some trouble for me. Someone like him is bad for business, especially when I'm expanding into auto-motives."

"Oh no. The drug business isn't working out for you? So sad." You snark eyes flicking to the window for a minute and wondering if you could grab a chair and throw it out before he stopped you.

Elijah looks delighted. "I see you've noticed the problem. A rival of mine broke in and poisoned them, and instead of throwing away that much product and wasting more money I thought of you."

"What about me?"

"Well, your brother mentioned something in a game about his sister being able to 'make plants grow.' Honestly, your brother has a problem keeping his mouth shut about lots of things, but I was intrigued. He didn't see the value of such a gift as I did. And when Darren accumulated such a large sum of debt after the game I offered a deal."

"And what deal is that?" You take another step back, not looking away from Elijah.

"You."

Your entire body goes cold. "He wouldn't do that. My brother wouldn't do that to me. He wouldn’t give me to you as fucking payment!"

Because that was what Elijah was suggesting, he was suggesting that Darren would use you to pay off his gambling debts. Darren had done some shitty things in the past, but this seemed to be too much for him.

He wouldn’t do that to me. I'm his sister not some stranger. Darren is a lot of things, but that is too cold to consider.

"Oh my darling." Elijah sighs and throws you a pitying look. "He did. Do you really think he had to call someone? That he left his phone in the car? He needed your phone so you wouldn't call Butcher." Elijah looks at you as if you're a kicked puppy in need of solace. "But don't worry. I always take care of my toys, especially ones that are as beautiful as you."

"If you touch me I'm going to-" You begin to snarl at him

"You've got spirit." He smiles continuing to move towards you as you back away towards the door. "It always makes it more fun. More of a challenge to break."

"Stay away from me."

"I can't wait for you to beg for me to touch you."

"I mean it." You leap backward to grab the doorhandle, but as you do Elijah lunges across the room, grabbing your right arm to pull you away from the door.

He's still holding on and you bring your foot up between his legs hoping to find something soft, but when you do Elijah only laughs and tightens his grip on your arm and you hear a high-pitched snap that vibrates through your body.

At first you don’t understand what the sound was, but a wave of pain surges up and you realize the high pitched snap was the sound of your right arm breaking. The nausea comes roaring back, but the pain is almost excruciating as you try to pull your now broken arm from his grasp.

"Don't worry." Elijah purrs again. "I'm going to take good care of you."

And it's the last thing you hear as everything goes dark.

Soldier Boy POV

4 Days Later…

Ben leaned back in the faded floral cloth armchair in the corner of the crowded motel room, his head thrown against the back of the chair, as he takes a hit from the blunt in between his thumb and forefinger.  The other people in the room continue to bicker and shout at one another pouring over a map and a laptop on the lone table pressed under the window in the corner of the room and it was ruining his buzz.

It had been four days since Ben had been shoved into the back of a car and taken to Boston, four days of listening to Butcher bitch and moan about why none of them could locate the electric supe, and four days since Ben had last seen you.

He exhales a cloud of smoke remembering the conversation the two of you had before he left. Honestly, he hadn’t meant to make you cry and he had no idea where any of what he shouted at you came from, but he was just so damn frustrated about the way your asshole brother was treating you and how damn trusting you were that he just exploded.

Everything he told you, he thought was obvious and something that you could see for yourself. And yet you stood there, eyes wide with tears, while he shouted those things at you and then you had the audacity to yell back at him.

He'd never met anyone so completely clueless and trusting before and it was infuriating. He hated that you let that asshole use you, hated how submissive you got whenever your brother brought up the fact that he was your only family, and Ben hated how you couldn’t see what was directly in front of your face.

All he'd wanted to do was tell you to be careful, and instead he insulted you. And then he'd had to listen to you cry to yourself quietly in your room like you also hadn't insulted him.

Why the fuck do I give a shit? She's just being damn hormonal and never wants to listen to anyone, but herself.

Ben's frown deepens when he remembers what you shouted back at him. He'd never allowed anyone to speak to him that way, then again no one had ever had the balls to and he respected that. Well, respected it, but wished you would fucking stop.

Worse still was that Ben didn't understand why he couldn't stop thinking about you. He'd never had that happen before, usually all it took to get a woman out of his mind was a quick fuck with whatever walked by, but that hadn't worked when he tried it last night.

He'd changed his location on tinder and gone out with a girl who looked nothing like you, and seemed to be the stupidest person Ben had ever met. This time he had bought her dinner, and Ben could feel himself zoning out while she talked about nothing at all. He thought of you while she talked, thought about how you always seemed to speak with purpose and how when you spoke about things they always seemed interesting and important. Not to mention he liked it when you talked because he wanted to learn more about you. You were so different than the women he'd met over the years and it was refreshing. Ben didn't like that he felt that way. He'd never been one for talking, he thought it was fucking boring, but for some reason talking to you was different.

The only time his date shut up was when Ben took her back to her apartment and yet on the walk home all Ben could think of is if you were okay. He didn't like that he had left you with your brother and he had been debating to tell Butcher to fuck off and follow Darren and you, but he hadn't wanted to after you said all that shit about his son and his old team.

Why the fuck do I give a shit what happens to her? All we do is live together. I'm not fucking her, I'm not-

He wasn't used to worrying about someone else, but he was worried about you and again Ben didn’t like it. He didn't like it so much that he almost walked back around the block to his previous date's apartment to see if she was ready to go for round three, but he didn't. Instead he went back to the motel room and tried to sleep, but he couldn't.

Over the past four days, each time Annie's phone rang or chirped he perked up hoping that it was you on the other line and every time it wasn't he seemed to sink further into the chair.

Ben puffed on the joint, but it wasn't as soothing as it had been in the past. The buzz wasn't taking the edge off the thoughts he had of you and it only pissed him off more.

Ben hadn't ever met anyone like you before. You were different and most of the time he never understood you, but he liked that about you. He liked that you were different than all the other women he had met in the past and he liked that you seemed to surprise him. He also thought that was why he liked talking to you, because he wanted to learn more about you so he could understand more.

Ben had never wanted to do that with anyone before, most of the time he just moved on, but not you. As much as he hated to admit it, it was making him want to spend more time around you, because you were interesting, odd, but interesting.

Especially because you kept refusing to sleep with him. It was a point of pride for him, being able to work whoever he wanted into bed with him, but not you. He had tried time and time again to get you to sleep with him using every trick in the book and yet, nothing.

Ben's mind flashes back to the other night at the party when you told him that you wouldn’t sleep with him was because you thought he "threw women away." It struck a nerve more than he thought it would when you said that to him. In fact, women had said similar things to him in the past, but he'd only laughed in their faces, but when you said it to him, it hit something deep inside that he thought he had locked away a long time ago. And weirder still Ben didn’t like it when you said that he wasn't "one for relationships" as if he couldn’t do it if he really tried.

I can do anything.

Ben downs the scotch in his other hand considering what you said and thinks of Countess. He thought that he'd loved her, he'd been in a relationship with her, an open one, but still it was something.

He remembered when you said that sex meant something to you and Ben had never met someone who felt that way before. Someone who thought that sex was special and should be shared with someone you loved. It was weird for him to consider that and Ben supposed that the only way he was ever going to have sex with you was if you fell in love with him or if he fell in love with you.

Yeah, like that'll fucking happen.

He rolled his eyes at the thought. He didn't think that he'd ever be able to fall in love with someone like you. Not with someone who infuriated him as much as you did and was so different than him in every way. Not when you made him angry and annoyed all the time because you refused to listen, talked back, and yelled at him.

The memory of you in his arms when he woke up four days ago surfaces and Ben swallows. He was going to kiss you, and you were going to let him, he knew it.

When he'd kissed you outside of your apartment the first night he came home with you, he'd only done it to make Mike leave you alone, but he hadn't expected to like it so much. And he'd wanted to kiss you badly when he woke up next to you. He thought you looked cute, your body soft against his, your hair flaring out over the pillow, your eyes wide, and your lips supple and welcoming. He'd wanted to trace his thumb over your lower lip, wanted to taste your lips again, and lose himself in everything you were.

I sound like a fucking pussy.

Ben sighed to himself again and closed his eyes, hoping to drown out his thoughts of you with the conversation Butcher and Annie were having over the laptop. MM was cleaning a gun and glaring at Ben while Kimiko and Frenchie were talking in rapid fire sign language that Ben couldn't understand and he wished you were there to translate or at least there to talk to him.

It's always so boring when she's not here.

Ben froze, thumb and middle finger pressed tightly on the blunt. He'd never done that before, never wanted a woman around to talk to, but that was what he meant. Even with Countess it was different. He wanted her around for a good fuck but they didn't talk about anything important and they certainly didn't sit around on the couch and watch his old films and he never sat with her while she read a book.

Ben's mind went back to the other day when you'd sat with him quietly on the other side of the couch, your gaze so focused on the pages of a book that you hadn't seen him watch you read. He noticed that when you did, you sometimes stopped breathing, like you'd forgotten that you needed to and whatever was in the book was more important than oxygen and that you sometimes formed the words with your lips as you did. Ben didn't know why he thought it was so interesting when you read, but he couldn’t look away. Sometimes during the day he'd have some free time from Butcher and he'd walk past the plant shop to see what you were doing and would see you sitting at the counter reading to yourself. He always thought about going inside, but you looked so peaceful that he didn’t want to interrupt you.

It was better than when he found you talking with that idiot Jake. Ben rolled his eyes to himself at the thought of your boss.

He definitely wants to fuck her. Ben sighs crossing his legs. And she wants him to. She shouldn't. She needs someone that'll actually be able to handle her. That guy's built like a fucking twig, not to mention he's not a supe.

Ben's jaw tightened with the thought of walking in on the two of you fucking in the apartment. You had made a rule about Ben not having any women there, but you'd never said anything about you bringing back someone. You hadn't yet and Ben hoped that you wouldn't bring Jake there anytime soon. His grip on the arm of the chair tightens to the point that he pierces through inside to the stuffing. Ben wasn't sure he'd be able to go into the apartment to listen to the two of you, let alone smell him all over you when you were done.

It was bad enough when you'd come back to the apartment smelling like the plant guy and Ben didn't want to experience what it was like after you'd had sex with him and have to smell him all over you. That also made him a little confused. Ben had fucked plenty of women who had significant others, women who threw themselves at him, and he hadn't cared about sharing. Not to mention Ben didn't get jealous, ever, whenever Countess had messed around with someone else at Herogasm Ben would watch, but with you… The sound of the arm of the chair breaking in his hand is audible when he thinks about someone else touching you, but no one else notices.

What the fuck is wrong with me? Why do I care? She's infuriating! And she's always so damn angry with me all the time that I'm pretty sure she'd never let me kiss her ever again let alone touch-

"Hello?" Annie held her phone up to her ear interrupting Ben's train of thought. "Oh hey Jake what's-"

Ben perked up at the sound of Jake's name with a frown. He hoped again that while he was gone you wouldn't sleep with him.

"I'm worried, I haven't heard anything from her and she didn't come in for her shift this morning." Ben heard Jake say on the other side of the line referring to you.

His muscles tensed slightly. Ben hadn’t wanted to leave you there with your brother, something about the guy made him antsy. Ben had met men like him in the past, men who used things like family and love to manipulate people into caring about him. He knew that  Darren was your brother and you were just so kind and open that you would do whatever he asked without question. 

Darren knew that. He knew exactly what to say to her to get her to give in.

Ben wondered how much you’d let Darren get away with in the past and quietly made a promise to himself that he wouldn't let Darren get anything out of you ever again for as long as Ben was around.

"Do you think she's running late?" Annie asks diplomatically, but Ben doesn’t miss the way her eyebrows scrunch together and the worried look she throws Hughie who is sitting across the table looking up at her.

"Not three hours. I tried to text her and when she texted back the message was weird." Jake presses.

"What do you mean weird?"

"Well, she used a lot of emoji's and she never does that."

Ben watched Annie's smile pull down into a frown. "Huh. Here I'm going to try to call her and I'll call you back okay."

"Sure."

Annie hangs up the phone and scrolls her finger on the screen to find your number.

"Everything alright?" Hughie asks leaning back in his chair.

"I'm not sure." Annie puts the phone up to her ear again.

Ben can hear the ringing on the other side of the line and he finds himself leaning forward, waiting for you to answer.

"Come on. Pick up the phone." Annie whispers while tapping her foot on the ground.

When you don't she opens the text thread of messages the two of you have and texts you. When you moved to the city the two of you had come up with phrases and words that you used to warn each other of danger. Annie insisted on it. Two single women living in a big city meant that the two of you were targets even if you were supes and as capable as the two of you felt handling your own, it was a comfort to have someone else.

Annie: Hey babe! I'm thinking about dying my hair blue again. Thoughts?

She waited patiently staring at the screen. Ben couldn't help but watch her with interest, he didn't know what was going on, only that Annie seemed to be worried. Something that he had never seen her be.

You: Hey girl! I think you should go for it! You always rock it.

Ben hears Annie's sharp intake of breath and rises from his chair understanding that something is wrong.

"Fuck." Annie mutters.

In middle school as an act of rebellion, Annie had tried to dye her hair blue with a box of cheap hair dye the two of you bought at the pharmacy in town while Annie's mother was away. But when it was done, something had obviously gone wrong. The dye must have been old or maybe just too cheap to do any good because it had dyed Annie's hair a vomit colored green. And to make matters worse, Annie had a terrible allergic reaction. It was that day the two of you realized that she was allergic to the chemicals most hair dyes. Her entire head had swelled up and she had to go to the Emergency Room.

Not to mention when Annie's mother showed up she told Annie she "deserved it" for doing that to her hair. The only way the Doctors could help her was to wash her hair out with bleach and then when that didn't work they cut it all off.

Annie had to wear itchy wigs for months after.

The correct response you were supposed to have was:

"Fuck no. Do you want to shave your head again?"

"Butcher-" Annie says raising her eyes from her phone.

"Yeah?" He doesn't look up from the map in front of him, trying to find out where the supe is hiding.

"We have to go back." She touches his shoulder to get his attention.

"Why?" Butcher looks at her annoyed, and he was. He had devoted a lot of man power to finding this supe and a lot of his own personal time. The last thing he was going to do is to come up empty handed.

Annie says your name. "Is in trouble."

"What do you mean?" Ben asks.

"She didn't show up to work today and she never just skips." Annie explains. "And we have code messages we made and she answered wrong." She holds out her phone to show Butcher the text thread.

“Hair dye?” Butcher still doesn’t look convinced.

“She knows I’m allergic. And she didn’t show up to work today.”

“Maybe she slept in-“ Butcher didn't want to drive all the way back to NYC for no reason, not when he believed he was close to catching the electric supe.

“She loves that job. And yes maybe she runs late, but she’d never just vanish or not go into work without calling Jake.” Annie pulls her phone back and begins to swipe through.

“What are you doing?” Ben questions. By now he could feel something unfamiliar tightening in his chest, a weird feeling that he couldn't place.

“We share our locations with one another.” Annie replies typing something on her phone. “I just have to find the app and-“ She looks down at the screen for a moment before raising it so Butcher can see. “See look! Why would she be all the way in Brooklyn?” 

“Maybe that’s where her brother took her.” Ben grunts taking another puff from the joint in his fingers, hoping that it will relieve some of the weird tension he was feeling, but it doesn't.

Annie swivels her head around to glare at Ben so fast he gets whiplash. "Wait a minute. Darren's in town? Why didn't you say anything?"

“Yeah. Fucker spent the night four days ago.”

“And you left her with him alone?"

“He was going to take her to meet his friend-”

“For fucks sake Ben, why didn’t you just slather her in honey and tie her to an ant hill?" Annie shouts waving her hands dramatically at him.

Guess she doesn't like him either.

"Well-"

Annie isn't interested in what he has to say, instead she begins to type something on her phone and raises it one final time to her ear.

"Where the fuck is she?" Annie snarls into the phone and it doesn’t take Ben much time to figure out that she's called Darren.

"Who?" The voice of your brother fills the phone and Ben's hands clench together into fists at his sides.

Ben can tell he's lying from just one word and he feels rage begin to replace the odd feeling, licking up against the walls of his chest like an unquenchable fire.

"You know who you fucking leech." Annie spits.

"I don’t know. I took her back to her place after she met my friend. Think they hit it off." Darren sounds casual and Ben can almost imagine the sick smirk on his face.

"If you’re lying, I’m going to roast you alive like the pig you are."

"Oh baby the way you talk to me."

"Darren I’m serious."

"I don’t understand why you’re getting your panties in a wad Annie. She’s fine. I took her back to the plant shop four days ago after she met my friend, because she wanted to go to work. I haven’t heard from her since."

"Darren-" Annie begins to say, but Ben crosses the room so fast he didn't remember moving and snatches the phone from Annie.

"Listen to me you little shit." Ben growls into the phone. "If she's fucking hurt I am going to show you what it's like to be turned inside out."

"Whoa easy there Benny boy I don’t know who the fuck you think you are but-"

"For your sake I hope you're telling the truth, because if you're not there's going to be no where for you to hide from me and there's not going to be enough left of you to wipe up with a tissue." Ben hits the off button on the phone call and as he does he realizes that everyone in the room is staring at him with wide eyes, but he ignores it.

"Oi what the fuck was that mate?" Butcher says, but Ben ignores him.

"You can either give me the fucking keys to your car or I can take them from what's left of you." Ben snarls. "You get to pick."

Butcher eyes him for a minute, considering. "Come on yank, let's go."

A/N: And we have the reappearance of Elijah Black who is just as creepy as he was the first time. Maybe more? Wanted to throw in a little bit of Ben POV because it's a lot of fun to write and he's just so conflicted about everything, not to mention just as clueless as the reader when it comes to how he really feels.

As always thank you for reading! Reblogs and comments are not required, but are always appreciated. Feedback is always welcome. If you'd like to be added to my taglist for this series please let me know :)

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[raguna-blade]

Revolutionary Girl Utena Episode 16-20

Welp, after last weeks hot bullshit, things have taken a minor upshot. Minor, in that things are still uh... Well.

Episode 16

GODDAMNIT AGAIN? ITS BEEN LIKE TWO EPISODES?

What hell is coming this time. C'mon. I got it. I'm cool. We're ready.

...Anthy late night infomercials....Uh. Curious choice of entertaintment.

Nanami's about to get called out for infomercial shopping sin't she?

Yep.

Juri immediately rolls in and styles on everyone.

Nanami's about to try and pass this. uh...cowbell off as jewelery

and

God. She's trying. She's trying so hard.

And I know anthy is behind this somehow. But damn Nanami. You're...Well...

Ok, so so far the filler hasn't been filler and is she just wearing the duelist suit out and about?

For real though, if the filler thing holds.

Oh she just admits it's a designer cowbell. Ok. Well...Damn. She's got the mad confidence to try and pull this off. Go her then. Fuck all the haters.

But still and for real, it's a cowbell nanami.

Oh hey it's the boy. Mitsuru trying his best.

Utena trying to spit the truth and people pulling bullshit trying to silence the truth.

….What. What the hell is going on here. She got turned into a cow...? There's..There's a song?

And we got the mad silhouettes. Her last meal?

Her last meal? God, i'm not sure I want to try and analyze this episode right now. I'm 100% sure the context won't occur until like the last episode or some shit but.

Is...Is she...Is she turning into a cow...? by wearing the bell...?

SHADOW GIRLS? OFF BRAND SHADOW GIRLS

muck my life are the filler episodes just supposed to be keys dressed up stupidly so we don't look at em closely.

And they're just..They're just going fucking in on this aren't they.

Why the hell did he go to Anthy and Utena. Mitsuru what do you knowwwwwwwwwwwwww

...Is she legit fucking cursed with this (Apparently?) pretty ass bell.

REAL SHADOW GIRSL? Squeak queak mouse girls...Uh..

Uh...Wait, with anthy as mouse thing last episode what is...what is happening.

Nanami slowly becoming  a cow.

Utena: Take the Cowbell off Anth-Nananmi.

Oh my god it is a fucking metaphor. It's...

Oh my god oh my god it is. Utena's spiel here sounds a lot like STOP PRETENDING TO BE A ROSE BRIDE BEING A ROSEBRIDE OR WHATEVER.

Also...Seeing Red and flipping out is a Bull thing, so the Rosebride thing is 100% and she just turned into a fucking cow..

And the imagery with the cutting the cowbell off and nanami turning...normal reads like a black row.

Chasing Status Symbols is BS: JURI FULL OF THE BLING

Anthy 100% DID THIS ON PURPOSE. The Nose Ring.

Ah next episode. Trifling territory once more.

Episode 17

Old Girlfriend(Crush?) Blues?

Juri just out here beastin on people. So Business as usual.

Oh, that's the face of shit about to go down.

And She just fucking dipped. I'm sure it was fine.

People can just LEAVE Ohtori? That's a thing?

Shiori: I did in fact, fuck up real bad. Also I don't got a roommate which is...

oh Hey, it's Dude Anthy and Utena.

Hurting yourself on Purpose...? huh.

Nanami out here questioning people's gimmicks.

….Is..Is the sword thing supposed to be sexual? Oh god. How the fuck did I miss that. Also Nanami, please stop aping your brother it's weird.

Shiori, you LEGIT stole her man. Which she wasn't even into, but god.

Did that Bird Kill itself running into the window? Uh...? uhhhhhhhhh.

Utena. You..you do not know what you're stepping into god.

OH GOD PLEASE JUST STAY AWAY FROM HIM. I AM BEGGING YOU.

Talking about Innocence and purity. UUUUUUUUUUGH.

YES THANK GOD SHOWER OF SADNESS SO MUCH BETTER.

….Oh fuck is Juri about to get got by the Black Rose jerks?

Oh, this is not how she wanted this to go down

FUCK HELLINTERVIEW TIME

Hated Juri. ok.

What's with the butterfly regression. Dear god. These freak outs are just...

Your only choice is to revolutionze, hey, no, that's super not fucking true. That's some edgecase bullshit. Uuuuuugh.

Uh. Uh. What the FUCK is going on with these roses I swear to god.

….Have all of these been in her goddamn locker?

….Whats...what? Wait did she just acknowledge the shadow girls? Assuming I just didn't miss it is it like...Utena getting closer understanding to...Whatever weird bullshit magic field that exists in ohtori?

….Birds huh. Are the black roses supposed to be like...I guess the Jungian Shadow thing? Huh.

EVEN LIGHT MAKES DARKNESS? What the...

Wait, does sword stealing grant the sword's....owner? Their talent? Anthy...?

Also, are we EVER going to get a reaction to the weirdness.

Bird in the oven. And...Juri just waking up

Wait a fucking second. Anthy just offerred up...analysis? Of a person? Conversation partner.

Episode 18

Nanami out here asking the real fucking questions. WHY SO SERIOUS GUYS THIS SHITS OBJECTIVELY HILARIOUS.

Oh god is Mitsuru the next duelist? Is Utena Going to fight an EVEN YOUNGER CHILD?

ROSES ARE VERY SENSITVE TO THE CHANGES OF THE SEASONS. Given the roses seem to be kinda like...people representatives that's..

Also, Anthy, sympathizing with the boy who wants to be the...servant? Boytoy? What.

Also, why is nanami consistently got the fucking reads when she isn't up her own ass?

Mitsuru ACT LIKE A KID, says nanami.

Mitsuru: It's...Just a banana. I don't get it. BUT THE INDIRECT KISS THOUGH.

Mikage Seminar. AGAIN.

Those Three Dudes. Wait.

GOD FUCKING DAMNIT. PLEASE DON”T

AKIO: AS THE STARS AGE THEY LOSE THEIR SHINE.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaajustdon'tstopscreaming.

...wait elevato-no. But we got a black rose. Are...

Wait are the black roses specific people or are they more generalized.

Mitsuru is trying so hard. He's a hardcore kid, but he's trying damnit.

Girl: This is gonna end badly. You're Real Dumb

Proven Right Immediately. She's got the reads.

Mitsuru: ADULT THINGS! BEIN AN ADULT!

Nanami, are you jealous? Of a Kid?

Nanami: you shouldnt be in a rush. You don't gotta be an adult.

OH BOY ELEVATOR TIME.

Mitsuru has such a crush, it's cute and he doesn't know what to do and he's just gotta ride those feels. Puberty is apparently rough for him.

Mitsuru break the world fuck it.

Uh...the framing here is...um. Disquieting in a weird way?

KNIFE AND SWORD and what the fuck is with the rose...?

Shadow Time: The Metaphor is uh...pretty on the nose here.

And Utena is 100% reacting to the shadow girls.

Anywya, time to beat up a child.

Oh he just fucking oes. Just like Nanami in fairness but.

Wait. Heed your master and come forth. Like the phrasing suggests the duelist but...Anthy is the one who calls the sword. Uh..hm.

Defeat the adults ahead of you that's an adult? Huh.

So, I checked it, but the bodies seem to be mirrors of the people who got dueled. So...That's interesting.

Did...Did nanami just catch feels from the kid? Ok. Well. Alright.

Episode 19

Wakaba Prince Dreams. Nice.

Wakaba gonna make someone a nice wife. Huh. Wakaba, don't take that out of his hands.

Onion Prince.

Brown Rose Wakaba? ok.

You...you gonna give that her? It's for her. Wakab, you of all should know better.

...Y'all got some history wakaba? Oh. She crushed on him when little. Baw.

HOW MANY TIMES ARE THEY GONNA REPEAT THAT!?

4 times?

Tatsuya tryin I guess, but hm. I sense a hellavator ride.

PLAYIN AROUND WITH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENT.

POT MEET KETTLE God.

Please. Just...get out. I beg you. Anthy's there but...

Thinly Veiled BUT SECRET HEARTS: IMMEDIATELY VIEW ANTHY.

Wakaba, you've got guts for days, you got this just spit it out.

Utena don't call wakaba out like this.

Also, Her prince is REAL THANK YOU MUCH.

The Utena Tea Sip I need as a reaction gif. Just...

Damn Tats, you dense. Also, dumb. The Indirectness. Kid. Just...Tell her.

...So princes change from person to person? Huh.

THE FAKE OUT. Thank goodness. But Shadow girls. Uh...hm.

Are...are the tires..Princes...? Wha..

her reacting to the shadow girls is weirding me out hard.

Oh god is this gonna be a cute moment? OH THEYRE GETTING CLOSER!

WHOA THE FAKE OUT AGAIN.

TATSUYA YOU STAY OUT OF THERE GODDAMNIT

Hooboy.Hellavatored.

Uh...Uh tats. You...

Wait, is the elevator going up?

Huh. So...The Elevator is praying on darkness? OK.

SAIONJI IS BACK. THATS WAKABA'S PRINCE!

So...That might work poorly. Or maybe it'll be fine?

That's A Dueling Wakab, so no, not great.

Episode 20

Wait, is Saionji just bumming at her house? Dorm room?

Saionji confirmed to be attractive to many so...MK.

...Are they off campus?

She's legit storing this boy in her room.

I...ok. That home exchange was weird.

I can't tell if Saionji is pulling a woe is me thing or if he's legit had a turn of heart.

I mean I guesss he's had to think things through.

JUST PRAYING TO GOD. SUPER RELIGIOUS YEP SUPES TOTES INTO GOD YEAH

...How is he glistening like that.

But Wakaba, like he's still a dick. So...What...how. Do you just got the bad taste?

As Long as I have this secret I'm special! Oh...hoooooooooooboy.

Oh no, saionji sounds jerky still. Oh no. maybe it's fine.

...Is...Is she his sugar momma. And apparently this caused wakaba to just go super mode somehow so that's...interesting.

The lighting here is making this otherwise innocuous exchange weird.

Why are you doing a back bridge in this room? Also...please. Get out of there.

Saionji...? That's..actually kinda sweet. STILL GOT A BAD VIBE GOIN ON HERE.

Saionji asking bout the student council. And...he asked about anthy. Welp. Welllllp.

Welp. Oh no. wakaba. Wakabaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Mikage how the hell did you get there?

Saionji, immediately on the uptake.

HELLAVATOR TIME. Also, damn saionji, you given out the same gift?

I seem to recall Wakaba slapping Anthy, so that's just foreshadowing now.

Oh she looks like she's gonna murder.

Saionji gave mikage the thing so....

SHE JUST GRABBED HIM BY THE THROAT

SHADOW TIME

Marriage uh..ok.

Also, Saionji is, in fact, a fucking dip, but he does at least seem to have a solid grasp on gift giving. Or at least what's owed and such, even if he misses the value of things. So...Ok, credit where it's due.

Wait, that was a shinai right? Is this...is this Utena Vs Saionji from the otherside now? With Utena as the Established duelist with the weird sword?

Yeah that's a face of shock.

Anthy: GET SWORD RIGHT THE FUCK NOW DO IT NOW HOLY SHIT DO IT NOW.

Wakaba CAME IN TO KILL ANTHY FUCK THIS DUEL SHIT.

SHE IS NOT REMOTELY PLAYING AROUND. Nanami? Playing games. Wakaba? NOT FUCKING AROUND IN THE LEAST.

Second Duel(?) Utena has won without the cursed ass holy sword thing. I think. Third. Rather.

Saionji feelin himself.

Poor wakaba. She looks so...done.