#that i refuse to talk openly about which of my parents is native and what state i live in and what nation i belong to let alone my clan

[oatmilkandvellichor]

i am so bone fucking tired of bullshit fucking “uwu be violent towards me i’m horny” supposed compliments. i’m tired of it. i get it. i’m Intersex so i’m manly and gruff looking no matter what i do. i get it. i’m butch as all shit which just makes me seem even more mannish. i get it. all you can parse out when you look at me is Wrong White and it makes me look even angrier and more aggressive and primal in your eyes. i get it. i get it i get it i get it. i’m savagely animalistic and brutish. you cannot fathom me expressing attraction in any way that isn’t aggro and forceful. i get it. i’m supposed to stay stone cold and unaffected in the face of everything. i get it. i get it i get it i get it. idk why i ever expected anything to change. i see how the world treats my [closely related indigenous woman who is notably Less White than i am] - and she’s Very Much Not Mannish at all. her long hair, her thinness, her makeup and her nice dresses. and i still grew up to the echoing sounds of “your [relative] looks mean. she seems scary. why is she always angry? her husband married a woman just like his jackass father didn’t he.” no matter what she did. idk why i expected it to change for me. even being further down the family tree, even being Whiter than her, i swear people sniff this shit out like dogs. even when they can’t put their finger on it. it’s like they’re hunting for it everywhere and even when they still consciously view you as Just Like Them that subconscious has an axe to grind with the perceivable difference that you represent. idk why i expected the violence and harshness projected onto my soft and feminine family member to be easier on my testosterone fueled brutish fat butch self. i’ve always Known that people can see me. because they point it out to my face all the damn time. “are you asian are you asian are you asian are you asian” no. no. no. no. i’m not. i’m not. i’m not. i’m not. “what are you what are you what are you what are you” i’m white. i’m white. i’m white. i’m white. “are you sure? are you really sure? are you positive? are you lying?” fuck me fuck me fuck me fuck me. do i rip the bandaid off and tell you? spend the rest of this conversation snapping at you when you won’t drop the subject of my family trauma? spend the rest of the time i know you fielding inappropriate questions and weird tokenizing as if my white skinned self could ever be the independent spokes person on sensitive Native issues. do i just keep lying till you give up and make sure you never hear a word otherwise from anyone ever so i don’t have to field this shit with another fucking person? “why are you always angry” i’m not. i’m not. i’m not. my face is just masculine. my skin has been prematurely aged by a lifetime of addiction and untreated health issues. my eyes are just slightly different than yours. i’m just fucking autistic. “oh my god you’re so hot you could punch me and i’d thank you please step on me” no. no no no no no. i don’t do that. i’ve never done that. i am capable of basic human decency and base level self control. this isn’t a coordinated S/M scene. i’m sitting in a coffee shop getting frustrated by judeo-aramaic word roots and mumbling to myself about rashi’s commentary and the overt queerness of r’ meir. i open the car door for my femme every single time we get in the car. i call them sweetheart and love and princess 18 million times a day. i text them a million times whenever i’m not home to tell them that they’re the light of my life and my soul is incomplete because they’re not with me. i hold them and lull them to sleep every night after the nightmares come. long after after they’ve rocked me to sleep because i’m a notorious insomniac. i wear a frilly apron with apples printed on it go wash the dishes after they make dinner every night. i wrestle them into their clothes every morning, and they wrestle me out of mine every night when i’m far too tired to move anymore. i say i love you as often as i breathe. i give them 18 forehead kisses every single time i am close enough to reach.

and yes i can get aggro. god i know i can. i used to fight all the time. i would slash and scream and kick and thrash at anyone and anything all the time. sometimes it still comes back to rear it’s ugly head, when things get hard. when i get so worn down i don’t know which way is up. and my femme is there with their hands firm on my shoulders, breathing with me until i collapse into a ball of tears. and i used to yell and scream and run and snap and push and push and push at the people i loved most. because the world told me i love ugly and violent for so long that i believed it was true. and all i wanted to do was push people away so i didn’t hurt them. i have spent my entire life feeling violent and predatory and out of control. feeling like i’m a caged wild animal moments away from ruining someone’s life. because i’ve spend my entire life being told it was true. being told that i had all the makings of an awful, violent person who did nothing but hurt. being told i was lying when i tried to talk about the people who hurt me. because i was too hard to be hurt so i had to be lying. because no one would do those things to someone as disgusting and belligerent as the manly girl with the angry native face.

stop pushing a violent and predatory role on me. stop describing me like every abusive piece of shit i’ve been trapped by, and then getting upset when i don’t appreciate your compliment so much i want to fuck you on the spot. “i (a non metaphorical very real person who is talking to you very casually right now) want you (a non metaphorical very real person i am casually talking to right now) to be so caught up by how cute and adorable i am in this incredibly mundane scenario that you beat the shit out of me right here and now till i’m dizzy, and immediately fuck me like you’re a deranged mindless animal with no self control or higher purpose!” die. i want you to die. drop dead right now. choke on your own vomit and die. right now in front of me. so i know that you’ll never make another person feel as disgusting as i feel right now ever again. you are not complimenting me. you aren’t complimenting anyone with that shit. you’re making me nauseous.

i see/hear that shit and i get so fucking terrified of myself that i avoid having sex with my femme for weeks. because what if that’s all i’m really capable of? because what if that’s what’s actually happening? what if all of this talked through, well communicated, thoroughly consenting play that we engage in is actually just me being a violent animal only capable of destroying everything good?

this is exactly how my femme and i ended up together. because they could see me. they could see the parts of me that full euro white queers could pick out. they saw it. and they saw the way that they talked to me because of it. and they understood, because they get that shit even worse. they saw me and they knew that i couldn’t turnt that shit on someone else. they saw me and they saw how it broke me and they reached out with their own broken feeling and we put ourselves back together again. together. they saw how my exchanges turned me stone. and i saw how their exchanges wore them soft. even with how different our experiences have been, some of y’all are so sincerely god awful and disgusting that we had so much to build on anyways. there’s obviously more to it. of course there is. but the ever present experience of growing up Very Different than the dominant group around you, it permeates so much. and so much of how we love eachother, the way we dance around eachother every day, is inevitably built on the way our souls have been worn down by years of shit and how they fit together because of it. how we can fill in what’s been eroded.

but every single time someone twirls their hair and describes me as i describe childhood abusers to therapists, balks when i don’t want to take them on the floor because of it… every time - i feel old fractures re-split. i really need y’all to understand the weight that this bullshit carries. i really need y’all go understand how deeply shitty it is. how much you’re playing in to a larger and even shittier pattern of how the world treats us. how much damage you can do in a single interaction. how insignificant you truly are in the lives of Black, brown, Indigenous, ethnic, intersex, and perceived-masculine queer folks. and how wildly inappropriate you are when you assume that much importance in our lives and in the world in general. sit with the insignificance. get comfortable. shut the fuck up for once. grow up and get over yourself.

i will absolutely be deleting this later i’m just feeling a lot right now and i need to put this into the universe. it’s been A Week and i got an inappropriate message earlier. because of course i did. of course. i’m angry and refluxy and my tachycardia is a bitch. i don’t even know anymore this is probably staying in my drafts.

[d3-iseefire]

Little Swan Lost Chapter 36

“Well?” The king’s sharp voice broke the silence and Bilba jumped. She hadn’t realized that she’d frozen, her mental faculties completely abandoning her.

It shouldn’t have surprised her, she thought bitterly. This was how it always went, wasn’t it? She was so certain she could handle things, so confident of any confrontation and then it happened and she just…. fell apart.

She’d almost had it, once. A month ago, now, though it felt like an eternity. Back when she’d so boldly marched into her grandfather’s office to demand an explanation about why he’d dragged her away from her performance.

Time spent away from her family had blurred the pain of her past, softened the sharp edges and pushed the worst of it deep inside where her mind could more easily pretend it never happened. The woman who’d marched into her grandfather’s office had been a product of those years, so close to the person she might have been had her parents never died.

So confident, and all of it had been stripped away in an instant.

Every time she tried to stand up, step out, be someone else, there was always something, someone waiting to knock her back again.

“Are you mute, girl?” Thrain pushed to his feet and slapped a hand on his desk in irritation.

Bilba dug one of her fingernails into the joint of her thumb. “I’m not sure what you’re asking, Your Majesty,” she managed to get out, her voice soft. She could almost feel the bars closing about her again. She liked to think she’d escaped them, but they were always there, not gone, just pushed a little out, ready and waiting to close back in again when she least expected it.

Thrain’s eyes narrowed. “Have you been frigid toward my son?” he demanded. “Have you refused your duty?”

Heat flooded Bilba’s face, partly from humiliation and partly from irritation that Thrain simply assumed the fault was entirely hers. Thorin was the one openly running about with his ex-fiancée and yet she was somehow the problem?

A calculating look entered Thrain’s eyes and a shiver ran down Bilba’s spine. The expression was reminiscent of her grandfather, never in public of course, but in private when it was just the two of them and there was no need for the mask.

“You are capable of conception, are you not?” Thrain asked curtly. “I have heard of your…antics in Shire. Either you are more careful than your character would credit, or your grandfather has sent me a defective princess.” His voice, if possible, grew colder and a strange, almost manic look entered his eyes. “Is that it, then? The reason your grandfather was so adamant about this marriage? Did he seek to undermine my throne by ensuring I would have no heir?”

Bilba’s breathing grew short as the scathing words pierced her like blades. She desperately wanted to point out that she’d only been married to Thorin a month, that he was the one causing problems not her and, the most obvious fact of all, that Thrain had no less than four male heirs at his disposal which meant his throne was anything but in jeopardy.

She wanted to say all that, but the words froze in her throat, because all she could see was her grandfather. His face, his voice, and the actions he’d taken to ensure she never crossed him. There had been no one to help her back then, and no one to help her now.

At least in Shire, horrible as it had been, she’d known where she stood. She’d known that no matter what, her grandfather would at least stop short of killing her. He needed her, for his audience and, later, for this farce of a marriage he’d forced her into.

She had no such assurances of safety here. Misstep, forget her place, falsely believe she’d escaped as she’d so stupidly let herself think in Shire for those few short years…and the consequences could be a thousand times worse than anything her grandfather had ever done.

She clasped her hands in front of her, careful not to clench them into fists, and lowered her eyes to the surface of the desk. “I know of nothing in my personal, or family, history that would suggest an issue with…conception.”

She stumbled over the last word, and felt her face grow hot again as humiliation flooded her. This was the last thing she wanted to be discussing with someone, let alone Thrain.

At the same time, her mind couldn’t help but catch on the word conception. Conception meant a baby, Thorin’s baby. A baby who would have a father that openly loved another woman. A baby with her grandfather and Thrain as family. With relatives like Beatrice and her aunts on one side, and the Durins who couldn’t stand her on the other.

With her as the mother.

“Could you be any more stupid?”

“Trust Bilba to screw up the simplest things.”

“Take some pride in your appearance. You dress like a commoner.”

“That dress is far too short. You dress like a tramp.”

“No one will want you if you don’t shape up, Bilba. Why can’t you be more like Beatrice? She at least makes an effort.”

Her aunts had been wrong on that last one at least, Bofur had wanted her.

Or, at least…he had.

The words wormed their way into the base of her brain, spoken in a tone that sounded suspiciously like that of her Aunt Lobelia. Bofur had wanted her, before he really got to know her…

Would he have gotten tired of her? Had he gotten tired of her, and simply been too kind to say so?

Was he relieved she was gone?

Thrain had gone completely still, staring at her as if seeing her for the first time. “Were you not checked before being chosen?” His voice was deceptively calm, and Bilba felt a chill run down her spine. Her grandfather would get like that, outwardly calm when he was inwardly seething.

“I’ve had medical exams before.” One very recently, in fact. Thrain seemed unaware of the injuries Thorin had sustained rescuing her, a fact for which she was extremely grateful. She didn’t want to know how he’d react to such news.

“Is this it then?” Thrain asked. “Why your grandfather was so adamant I marry one of his granddaughters to my heir?”

Bilba gaped in confusion. “Your Majesty?”

Thrain made a slicing motion with his arm and then slammed the desk a second time. “Gerontious!” He roared, face nearly purpling with sudden rage. Bilba tensed as he rounded his desk and advanced on her, pushing a finger in her face. “This is his plan, isn’t it? He seeks to undermine me, prevent my line from continuing!”

Bilba crossed her arms and tried not to look like she was leaning away from him. A low sense of panic began to beat in the back of her mind. This wasn’t her grandfather; she didn’t know how to navigate his rages. The right words to say to placate him.

She didn’t know the ways in which he would take out his anger on her.

Thrain spun away from her suddenly, and she flinched at the sudden movement. An almost otherworldly sense of detachment began to fall over her, allowing her to observe the scene almost as if she were somewhere else.

She really wanted to be somewhere else.

Thrain dropped into his chair and slapped a button on his desk. A voice that sounded vaguely familiar answered, and Thrain began speaking in rapid, clipped Khuzdul, the native language of Erebor.

The other voice answered in the same language and the two began to engage in what sounded like an argument, words flying back and forth so fast that Bilba doubted she’d have understood even if she’d been fluent in the language.

Thrain slapped the button again, cutting the other person off mid-word and settled back in his seat, the wood cracking loudly in the silent room. “Go to Oin,” he said flatly, that strange calm once more draping over him like a shroud. “He will establish your suitability.”

Behind her, the door opened with a rush of air and Bilba turned to see two guards she didn’t recognize step inside the room.

Thrain must have summoned them somehow for he waved a hand at her as if shooing an insect. “They will escort you in case you attempt to circumvent my command.” His eyes darkened and he barked an order that had Soren appearing from somewhere in the corridor as if he’d sprouted from the floor itself.

“Escort her to Oin,” he ordered. He glowered at her. “Nori will meet you there to witness and ensure my orders are followed.”

A mix of both hot and cold washed over Bilba at the mention of the palace Spymaster. Images of a small, dark room and a deep, hollow voice stirred in her mind and she had to bite back a whimper.

She barely noticed one of the guards taking her by the arm to lead her out of the room. The guards always took her by the arm to lead her places she didn’t want to go. It barely registered that it was even happening to her, like she’d stepped out of her own body and was watching things happen to someone else.

It wasn’t until they were halfway down the hall that her head began to pound, and her stomach clenched with nausea. Her heartrate spiked, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. She pulled away, or perhaps staggered away from the guard holding her and collapsed against the wall, mouth open as she gasped for breath. She sank to a crouch, arms wrapped around herself. She couldn’t seem to stop shaking, and black spots swam in her vision.

She didn’t want to be here. They were going to hurt her. They were going to lock her in the tower again. She’d have to go see the Spymaster. She hated the guards, hated them. They were supposed to protect her, but they never did. Not once. No one ever did. It was just her, always just –

Hands grabbed her shoulders, and Bilba jerked. She’d put her head down on her knees, arms wrapped around her legs, and her head snapped up so fast that she cracked it into the wall behind her. Pain bloomed through the base of her skull, and tears rushed to her eyes as her emotions proved entirely unable to handle it.

Ori, she recognized through her blurring vision, it was Ori in front of her. The other woman was talking, but Bilba couldn’t hear her through the roaring in her head. Ori gave her a light shake and Bilba focused on the movement of the other woman’s lips.

Look at me, Bilba. Come on, look at me. All right, now breathe, okay? Just breathe. In, and out, in and out. That’s it, you can do it. Just focus on me and breathe.

Slowly, the roaring in her ears lessened until she could make out the actual words Ori was saying. Her breathing began to even, and her heartrate started to settle.

She became aware of the fact she was in a hall she didn’t recognize, one that was completely clear of any other people except her, Ori, and Cerys standing several feet further down the hall. Even the guards and Soren were gone, though how Ori had managed that she couldn’t begin to imagine.

“Are you okay?” Ori asked. “What in Durin’s beard did Thrain do to you?”

Bilba didn’t answer. She struggled to her feet, using the wall as a brace. “It’s nothing,” she whispered in a shaky voice. “It’s fine.”

She didn’t want Thrain thinking she was complaining about him. Her grandfather used to accuse her of that, regardless of if she’d done it or not. He’d scream at her and insist she was lying until she broke down and admitted to things she hadn’t done just to get him to stop.

“Sure it’s fine,” Ori grumbled as she wrapped an arm around Bilba’s waist. “That’s why you’re having a panic attack in the hallway.”

“I have to go see Oin,” Bilba mumbled, eyes fixed on her feet. She did her best to not think about why she had to go see Oin, or who else would be there when she arrived. Instead she tried to focus on the faint hope that maybe, just maybe, she would end up being unable to conceive.

If she couldn’t, then the marriage could be annulled, and she could go to Gondor. Her grandfather would never allow it, but she could get there, she was sure, before he ever knew. Thorin would let her. He wouldn’t care where she went, so long as she went. Arwen would let her come, and then maybe she could finally feel safe…assuming her grandfather didn’t come after her and…and…

Her mind derailed as she realized they’d been moving while she’d tried to delude herself, and now they were standing outside the doors she recognized from that last time she’d been there, just after nearly getting Thorin killed.

Funny, how when she’d gotten up that morning, she’d thought the worst she’d have to deal with was breakfast with Ori, and the soreness in her side. Ori’s fingers were accidentally pressing into the bruised area, sending dull bursts of pain cascading through her, but Bilba didn’t comment on it.

The door slid open and they walked in, Ori alongside her and Cerys just behind her. The first person Bilba saw was Nori, standing in the center of the room and, without thinking about it, she unwound her arms to wrap one of them around Ori.

Bilba was surprised by her own reaction. Ori was Nori’s sister, and the wife of the Captain of the Guard. She was the last person Bilba should ever want to turn to. Ori had all the power she could want through her husband and brother, but Bilba seriously doubted she’d use any of it to help her.

All these people, Thorin and Kyra and Ori, had all grown up together. They’d been through the exile, the retaking of the kingdom, through experiences and memories that had bonded them together in an unbreakable way that would never, ever include her.

Perhaps Ori was supporting her right then, but if it ever came down to a choice between an interloping princess and someone Ori had known her entire life, Bilba knew she would lose every time.

“Why are you here?” Ori asked in surprise, eyes narrowing at her brother. “Do you know what Thrain did to upset Bilba?”

“You know how the king can be,” Nori said mildly. He inclined his head toward Bilba. “Your Highness, if you’d head right through that door,” he nodded toward the room where she’d had her original exam. “Dr. Belarius is already waiting.”

“Belarius?” Ori asked in surprise. “Why did you call her in?”

“Her?” The tiniest burst of relief raced through Bilba. She’d rather not do any of this at all but, if she had to, she’d prefer it be a woman.

She hesitated and pulled free from Ori and stepped forward. She started to move toward the door, but stopped again, unsure as Nori stayed where he was.

She wasn’t entirely sure what to make of him. Shire’s Spymaster would have already made some remark or another, innocent on the surface but with some barb so cleverly hidden it was impossible for anyone to say if he’d really intended it.

Nori gave her a surprisingly reassuring smile. “Go ahead, Your Highness. I’ll wait out here.”

Bilba didn’t know how to respond to that. Sure, it looked as if he was doing her a kindness, but she’d lived far too long in the shadow of her grandfather to take anything at face value. The Thrain had ordered him to witness her being tested, did he plan to blackmail her with the fact he hadn’t?

Yavanna, but she’d forgotten how it was to be around royalty and their retainers. It wasn’t just watching everything she said and did, but everything everyone else said and did as well. It was like a chess game where she constantly had to be five steps ahead, and every misstep was punished.

It was exhausting. She wanted to go back to bed. It was the only time she could truly escape from it all, off into a dream where royalty and her grandfather didn’t exist, and she was back with Rosie and Bofur again.

Nori didn’t appear inclined to give her any indication of his motivation so, with a sigh, she turned and walked through the doors into the small room beyond.

The faster she could get through this the sooner it could be over with and behind her.

And maybe, just maybe, she could start packing to go to Gondor.

Or just…go back to sleep.

For just a little while.

***

Ori smiled brightly as Bilba vanished.

The second the doors slid close the smile dropped off her face, and she whirled to face her brother. “Start talking.”

Follow on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1743620/chapters/3723188

[crowgale]

Resident Evil 2 AU

Claire Redfield x Elza Walker

Generally the characters are the same, but with a kick of real so they aren't blank slates. Elza herself is a street-smart, confident young woman with a troubled past.

Born Elizibeth Walker in Anchorage, Alaska to parents separated before she was born, her father was an fortuitous yet endearing construction worker who took custody of her until he went missing during the construction of an Umbrella Research Facility in the Rockies during her early teens and was then sent to Connecticut to live with her mother, who was an abusive drug addict.

In her teens she developed a keen interest in motorcycles while overstudying in a library to avoid her mother and further strengthed it with part-time jobs in various mechanics. Eventually she lost hope in her father being found and her increasingly hostile mother drove her to runaway from home, using connections she developed through gangs and mechanics to move to Florida and join an amatuer racing contest in Daytona under the alias 'Elza' (Her father's nickname for her)... where she broke the track record 4 times (The first was the previous fastest lap time, she then broke her own fastest laps 3 times).

By her 18th birthday she had left her criminal ties behind and became a minor celebrity on the fast track to becoming a professional bike racer. She had sponsers ready to pay her into any university she wanted, emancipation from her mother and enough money saved up from work and victories to let her live as an independant young woman.

Elizabeth was gone. She was Elza now, and she had found her path to happiness.

~

By 1996 Claire had enrolled in the University of Houstan, Texas. Chris hoped she would enrol in Kansas City so she'd be closer to him but she wasn't going to be his little sister forever. She had grown up quick after their parents died... they both did.

Elza and Claire first met the week before classes started, Claire having just moved into the dorms a day before; Elza arriving like a perfect storm the next day on an customised kawasaki sports bike and a trailer full of her belongings.

Claire recognised her of course, her debut into the racing world made national headlines. So like a dork Claire was shy and tried to avoid Elza as she rode in on her Harley Davidson, after running an errand off campus.

Elza however, heard the sound of a Harley and wanted to know who owned it. She took one look at Claire in her red leather shorts, that 'Made in Heaven' jacket tied around her waist and that tight black bodysuit she had no business looking so sexy in, decided 'Yeah, I'm chilling with you!" and was having none of it.

There was, what a native of Northern Ireland like myself would call, a fresher's fair that night and like a hawk Elza seeked out the introverted Claire and started asking about her bike.

By the end of the night, Claire's shyness vanished upon realising that the seemingly untouchable queen of bikers, whose body was covered in tattoos and whose hair was as wild and untamed as the wind, was actually a massive dork. Elza however found someone who had quickly seen her and not the racing queen. The dealbreaker came when Elza asked what made her get a bike to begin with.

"Well... my brother owned a Suzuki before but... I guess I saw the film 'Akira' and that's what made me do it"

"Oh my god bitch me too!!!"

The two would then become firm friends. Elza being the misadventurous one who managed to talk Claire into actually leaving the library and give herself a break from studying; Claire being the one to get them out of trouble and keep Elza grounded. The two became a power-couple without realising, defending the other from rude people who mocked Elza for daring to be a woman racer or harassed Claire for her looks or for trying to latch onto a celebrity. It went without saying no one could harass these women if they wanted their hearing and face intact.

Things would eventually become more personal between the two. The week after New Years, Elza received news that her mother had died from a drug overdose. Although she didn't need to, Claire bought a side-car for her bike and rode her to New London for the funeral.

The service itself was tense. Elza being uncharacteristically silent and the lack of relatives worried Claire as the service ended. She never saw Elza's eyes look so cold as she gave her eulogy, which she soon realised was a stock eulogy the minister gave to those who didn't write one.

A while after she was buried in the a man approached Elza in the cemetary, introduced himself as her mother's dealer and decided that since she was a famous racer her mother's debt would pass on to Elza and that she would pay him else there would be cpnsequences; it goes without saying she refused to pay off the debt and apathetically asked him to leave.

Claire was on him like a wolf the moment he slapped her and was ready to kill him when he started to threaten her with a knife.

She very nearly did.

They left New London that evening amidst a police BOLO for a woman with auburn hair seen kicking the living shit out of a man in a graveyard. They made it to Kent Island before a blizzard rolled in and they had to say at an inn along the Chesepeake Bay.

That night Claire meant to apologise for her actions, stating she saw her get hit and just... reacted. But Elza pulled her into a tight hug and finally released her pent up emotions. She told Claire about her fathers disappearance, about the years of torment at her mothers hands, that this wasn't the first time something like this happened, that she doesn't understand why she's crying if she hated her mother so much and how much it hurt to remember all those terrrible things and have someone make her feel like that scared little girl again.

Claire, feeling her best friend shake in her arms, doesn't know what to say. She's silent for a time as Elza holds onto her like a lifeline, as if letting go would make her fall off the Earth itself. She finally tells Elza that she isn't that little girl anymore.

"You are Elza Walker! Yhe Woman who can never be slowed! You're unreachable! Unstoppable! And no one will ever hurt you again!... I... don't want to see you hurt again"

Elza didn't speak for a while after that... but eventually she did and what she said broke Claire.

"I've wished for someone like you my whole life Claire"

~

Life returned to normal soon after that. One tournament race was enough to bring Elza Walker roaring back to life and with a vengeance. She was faster, she was braver, her smile after each weekly victory able to light up the world... or at least Claire's, who now made it a point to go to every race, or at least watch it on TV if the race was in a city too far out of reach.

Elza knew Claire was watching her... she figured that's why she was doing better now.

~

Spring came and went, the summer exams now already a fading memory to the pair, but foreshadowed by Claire losing her part-time job and being unable to find another one. With no means to pay for her student fees it looked like she would be forced to drop-out.

But Elza wouldn't have any of it.

"I know how you can pay off your fees. A guy in my pit crew retired a month ago and I've been short two hands ever since. It's hard work but the pays good and if I make pro next month it'll be even better"; she said idly at a bar one evening.

"You... you want me in your pit crew?"; Claire asked incredulously.

"No, I want you as my personal pitbabe so I can drool at you in a tight spandex jumpsuit looking all cute with dirt on your face"; Elza said with a lop-sided smile.

"Ha!"

"Hm... seriously Claire, I want you there with me. I can't imagine anyone better to look after me on the track"; Elza said confidently.

"...You do take way too many risks"; Claire mused, before Elza held her cheek in her hands.

"You told me once that I am the woman who can never be slowed... well Redfield, I'd slow down for you!"

~

Elza's manager might have called her decision to hire Claire personally driven and entirely unprofessional. However, Claire proved herself highly compotent within a week of employment, being able to keep up with the repairs, adjustments and tyre changes her job demanded.

It was also found that Elza actually listened to Claire whenever she was pushing her luck, which turned out to be a blessing in the final race of the season in San Francesco. Her main rival who was tied for 1st with Elza didn't want to lose to a woman, and in the final 3 laps had begun making poor judgement calls to try and keep up with her. Risky overtakes, tight cornering and high speed was equally met, and soon Elza found herself in a dogfight she refused to lose.

If Claire hadn't screamed at her to brake before the last corner, she would have been thrown off her bike with her rival after an attemped inside lane overtake resulted in them losing control of the bike and wiping out.

Elza won of course, making it into the professional league. It was a dream come true. At no point after she took off her helmet and locked teary eyes with Claire could she make any expression that wasn't a bashful smile or tears of joy. It also seemed like she couldn't stop looking at Claire during the victory reception or later that night on the train ride home... where she had too much to drink, leaving Claire having to help Elza meander into the sleeping car after the 8th Buttery Nipple.

She helped her move herself onto the bed, but Elza didn't let go of her hand. Instead she brought her hand to her lips and kissed her knuckles and held it to her cheek as she openly wept.

[glitterytidalwavedragon]

Putting it Out There (A Biracial Child)

I’ve always wanted to address this, I just never knew where or how to. But, as I write, I see the influences come into play more and more (More so when I am writing my B.B fanfic and the Tourist), so I thought, now is a good time as any and this is the only account and platform I feel safe (maybe because I don’t have 200+ friends or followers here who know me outside of social media). I also feel as if this prospective of life isn’t given much attention or heard. 

I, as some may know cause I had commented as such, am a biracial child. My father is a Caribbean Hispanic male and my mother of German and Italian descent. 

This does not mean I have the best of both worlds. In fact, most of the times I feel alienated. 

Born in the early 90′s, the song “Livin’ La Vida Loca” by Ricky Martin was every where. My mother would tell me that song was about me, now I was 5-6ish. I thought she referred to me liking cats, and trying to go out to perform a crap version of ‘Singing in the Rain’ along with the love for magic. 

No, it wasn’t so innocent. It was straight up because of my skin tone. I looked like the girl the song was describing. I had no idea. Nor did I realize a silent war was raging in my family. 

Growing up was...hard to say the least. It is even harder when you have racism on both sides pointing fingers at each other. On my mother’s side, my aunt and uncle wouldn’t allow me to visit unless it was a holiday to which there was pressure from the family. Out of spite, they would invite my much older siblings father over to cause a fight (The man did not celebrate christmas). Meanwhile my other aunt would tell me over and over again I was Italian. In the end, during these events I would end up alone and not know why. 

Now lets turn to the other side of the family, my father’s. My first words had been Spanish. Yet, I lived with English speaking relatives... guess who stopped speaking Spanish for a long while. When visiting my family on his side, none of of my relatives would address me, only if they had to because my father was not around. These people knew how to speak English, very well even though they had moved from their native island. They just refused to speak to me. This sucked cause where it was 3 people on my mother’s side, it was 16 aunt’s and uncles on my fathers not counting the dozens of cousins I had. So, as the other family events, I ended up alone not knowing why. 

The answer was rather simple but much to complicated for my child self. Both sides of my family was and still is completely racist. My white mother was near exiled for being with a man many would consider black (he considers himself Spanish and oddly doesn’t get the fascination on why his skin matters or makes me worry about him when he is stopped by cops...). I was the ‘mixed’ baby, a simple of her family’s shame. 

My father’s side could not care what color my mother was, only that she was not Spanish. For those who don’t know, Spanish can be an array of color, its cool. But, she was no Spanish, did not speak Spanish and therefore my father was exiled by everyone but his own mother for many years (which is why we ended up in family events, my mama wanted to see her youngest grandchild by her baby boy). This meant being put at the back table, being openly mocked, and never told of big family events like babies or weddings. 

This only lead to more fighting at home and in the end even my own siblings, alienated me. It was a pretty lonely experience. 

This carried on to school and friendships. Elementary was not fun, but I felt the effects more in Jr. and High school. In elementary I was grouped with the other Spanish kids, because starting in late summer I had my Spanish tan on and therefore, I was not white to other white kids. But I did not speak Spanish. At one point I spoke gibberish to just to be able to hang with the Spanish kids at recess. It worked and I still don’t know how. 

In Jr. ahhhh... at one point my family was making good money, which originally, it once took the income of five adults to keep us afloat, now it just took 2. My father and my grandpa (who I will talk about later). We moved to a ‘nicer’ neighborhood. In the early 2000′s that mean, a white neighborhood. Boy, did I stick out. 

Now you might think “But you grew up in NYC, said you were from Brooklyn” well, here is a fun fact. Nothing is more segregated than NYC schools. The north did not do busing like the south did, so white schools stayed mostly white while schools in low income areas stayed mostly black or other minority races. I was a very tan child going into a white neighbor hood to a white school. Lets top it off that I played video games and Yu-Gi-Oh, HA! 

I received hell. I had legit parents sneer at me, and girls asking me if I had sex because I was Spanish. A 12 year old, got hit on by 15 year olds because they thought my race made me easy. I was 12, all I wanted was to collect cards and play Pokemon on my stupid advance, I had no time for boys unless they were anime. But... someone (more than likely their parents) had set these ideas in their head on how Spanish people, more so girls, acted. 

Then I realized, I really liked all things Gothic. A Spanish Goth.... it pains me to think about it. Everything from poser, to faker, and ‘trying to act white’ was laid on me. I could not wait for Jr. High to end. And when it did, a whole 180 happen. 

I was no longer Spanish. I did not know why, just everyone referred to me as ‘the ONLY white girl’ in the school and that is not a joke. My school, was dubbed the worse in all of Brooklyn and shut down, which I believe it was dubbed that because of the 1% white population... I was the 1 after my second year when the other white kid (who was a boy people asked was my boyfriend) graduated. Now, in high school it wasn’t the kids who gave me hell. It was the teachers. 

In fact, high school led me to meet others who were also feeling alienated. One of which I am very close to, a black man who is Jewish (adopted by a white couple) and gay. He did not where he belonged either. In the mid-00′s to be a black gay man living near the ghetto was dangerous. I can’t count how many times he had to hide who he was so he wouldn’t get shot. Nor could I count how many times my other friend coped with being a biracial black man who loved anime and being goth so much he was bullied for it when we weren’t together (who I ended up dating throughout high school). 

Suddenly being labelled white get me an acceptance I was not expecting. I ended up being popular against my best efforts and people who I did not know knew me. At 15 I did not get what had changed, because no one had told me yet. No, I figured it out at 16, when I was placed in senior English because of my grades. My English teacher told me, I was white, in the worse why I could ever imagine. 

My English teacher, a beautiful black woman who celebrated her African roots, gave an assignment one day. I was one out of five in a class of thirty who did it, because I did it in her class the day before. I played sports, so did half the other kids, I did not have time after school. This did not sit well with her, she was mad, which was an understatement. So, she turned to the class and said

“This is why our people end up in Jail or having babies to early. Because like black people don’t take education seriously.” Then called be out by name and continued “is why she will end up being successful, because white people know the importance of an education.” 

First off, she was very racist towards EVERYONE, second I at 16, who was always called Spanish in school was now labelled white in front of everyone by an adult. I was both confused and terrified as my boyfriend who knew my family cared JACK SHIT about education looked ready to kill her. Luckily, he just walked out of class and waited for me as I was too studded to move. 

I later asked him if he thought I was white, he admitted he did until he saw my father and called me biracial. For the first time in 16 years, I had been called biracial. Went home, did not tell anyone what happened, asked my mother if I was biracial and she said yes. To shorten this up, this was what life felt like, 

At home, I had no race. Neither side welcomed me. 

In school, I was told I was Spanish and had to fake my way in the Spanish group.

Jr High, I am now trying to distance myself from everyone as being Spanish makes me a target. 

High School, I thought being Spanish would be a good thing. Now everyone is telling me I am white. 

I had not idea who or what I was. 

All I ever wanted was to be me. I wanted to understand why my family never got close to me, and I wanted friends who were friends because I was me. 

It was like I was being ripped to pieces. I could be what others wanted or be no one at all. I had no idea what to do. If people at the new school found out I was Spanish, would I become a target again? I was allowed to freely play games, watch anime, and be my gothic self if I were white. But that also meant I could not hang out with my friends who lived in the Ghetto, shouldn’t like rap, R&B, and reggaetón or use the slang I grew up always using. 

To be a Spanish person trying to be white

or 

A white person trying to be black/another minority of color. 

I had watched as the former got my friend (boyfriend at the time) kicked out of classrooms as he was compared to those involved in columbine shooting from teachers since he was different. Also the hell he received from other boys for cosplaying and playing anime based card games. At one point it was so rough he thought about dropping out and I begged him to stay along with his mother. I was so afraid of going through that again.

So I kept my mouth shut. 

I took on the military standard of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. My father never came to the school because he worked so much so no one knew. Everyday, I just took what my English teacher said to be without any force back. When Obama was voted in, she told me I had no right to celebrate, that my people had JFK and that Obama was for all the minorities to celebrate. I fell into a dark hole of hating myself. My home life was awful and now school I had to pretend to be something I wasn’t comfortable with. I started ditching classes, got into more fights than I would care to admit, did some really shady stuff and began hurting myself. 

The only joy I got was when I busted my ass grades wise and got out of school six months early. I did not have to go to school anymore and I could lock myself away to be no one but myself. It was lonely but I found company in books and my art. Through art I was allowed to be me and no one could take that away. 

When I returned for Graduation I June, did I get the final laugh on that English bitch. My mother and father showed up, she asked if my father was a cab driver helping my mother as she had gone blind. I told her, rather happily, that was my father. She went from joy to sheer disgusts faster than you can blink. For years she kept talking about who ‘mix babies’ never got any where as their fathers were never around. Yet, despite me hardly showing up, I gradated top of my class, never had a baby nor was I ‘loose’ (In fact I feared sex as a teenager), and my mixed couple parents as she lovingly called it, were together. 

She walked away from me and never said a word since. 

But now school was over, college was starting. I still hadn’t figured out who I was. Was I white/Italian or Spanish. In college I learnt no one was going to tell me who I was anymore, nor did they care. At home, it was still a battle of the races. Finally, one of my cousins spoke up and declared I wasn’t Spanish as I knew nothing of the language. At home, my aunt and uncle decided I was Spanish and called me a ‘Spick’ as a joke. I did not take it as one and therefore I was called ‘uptight’. 

My siblings also informed me, if I wanted free college to put down Spanish on everything unless it was the census. Then I should be white. Sometimes I still run into people who think I am one over the other. I had people come up to be speaking Spanish to be highly offended when I tell them I don’t speak the Language well. (I tried learning but it is hard when motivation is not there). 

In recent years, I had someone at work tell me how they met a Spanish person, shockingly where my father works, and then described in detail my father and then tell me they thought he was illegal since he looked the type. All because they thought I was white... proud to say that person got fired for being racist.I did also inform them that was my father to their response was “you’re one of them”. 

It never ends. 

No, the reason why I haven’t been driven insane is because of my late grandpa. My grandpa was a man I adopted to be my grandfather. My biological grandfathers on both sides died long before I was born and the man I adopted was close to the family and acted like a father to my parents. He was a good man and the reason I had a childhood. 

He once went through the same, Italian/Jewish, you wouldn’t think there would be a problem but when he was growing up that equaled Catholic/Jewish, to which he too was either pinned in the middle or rejected by both sides, this is the 1930′s-1940s. He gave me the best piece of advance ever. 

To be myself. 

That if I were myself, then it did not matter. The moment I stopped being who I am, that passing or faking would never tell me who my real friends were. That if he, could love me for who I was, a weird girl who liked boy things and drawing strange looking characters, then anyone else could. Being a stranger to myself would never bring happiness. So, after years of not listening to that, I finally decided to listen to my Grandpa. 

I know who I am, I know the history of my families. They might not like that I am not what they want me to be, but they don’t have to live with me. I have to live with who I am. My friends are my friends because they know who I am, not who they think I should be. 

So for all my biracial brothers, sisters and them’s, be yourself. Don’t try to force yourself into a mold, it isn’t worth it. None of it is worth it. 

Look yourself in the mirror and say your name. Say it loud and let everyone know they can not define who you are, and so what if they say you don’t belong, guess what? You do if you want. You belong because YOU say so, because that blood runs in your veins as well as theirs. So you get to make that choice! 

Make that choice of being you! Define yourself to YOUR standards. 

Don’t let anyone take that away. I know I won’t.

So here I see myself! A strange fox who changes coats with the seasons, that loves anime and video games, who plays Yu-Gi-Oh and listens to opera and Metal while can twerk and get low to Daddy Yankee! Who eats sushi and makes a mean chicken cutlet but can also make the best empanda with beans and rice with the rest of them!

And no one can take that from me.

[flych1]

Kehlani singer on her new album

Kehlani, singer on her new album

Photo: Pari Dukovic

Kehlani

In early March, Kehlani was due to meet his label. She was preparing to release her second album - her first since she had a baby and a return to her roots R-B. She was scheduled to perform the first part of Justin Bieber's Changes tour, as well as a number of dream solo dates. Atlantic executives told him they believed in the album, which was scheduled for release on April 24, its 25th anniversary, but the coronavirus pandemic made it impossible to develop a promotion plan. We'd have to postpone it. "I was casting actors and actresses. I was doing all kinds of things," she says of all the pre-production she had completed at the time of the mid-March meeting. We're talking about a video call from Zoom; Kehlani sits alone in a sunny room in his Los Angeles home. (Later, she will be joined by her dog, a pint of ice cream and a tequila-based drink with a slice of orange coming out). It just so happens that today is the original release date. They said, "We don't think you should take it out,"" she said. "And then I went to my room and made the 'Toxic' video on my laptop." She posted it on YouTube at the end of March. "People messed with it," she adds. When Kehlani's label accepted her request to release the album this month, it was stipulated that she had to do it all herself. "If all we do is make music and press the button, then you can do it," she says. "And I was like, 'Okay, challenge accepted fucking.'" So now Kehlani and her photographer, with whom she's in quarantine, are planning and editing music videos, photoshoots, and album coverage. (She also lives with her daughter, two younger siblings, a close friend and her assistant). His garage has been converted into a two-level studio, one side for music, the other for visuals. Kehlani has been a professional musician since the age of 13. A series of mixtapes - full of overshares about having a heart built and broken - and a random but successful debut album have already made her a leading figure in the industry. His music is R-B in its purest form: songs about how love defeats you, about floating on the pure adrenaline of a crush, about the desire of someone you can't trust in your heart. It's no coincidence that when white artists like Bieber and Charlie Puth want to look into an R-B sound, they call on Kehlani to help them. The new album, It Was Good Until It Wasn't, is part of a revival of the genre in the midst of its fiercest debates. It is also a transition disc, a bridge between adolescence and adulthood. Throughout her career, Kehlani has been considered the daughter of the R-B: sexy but boyish. In her old music, she played with both sides of the binary. On the new record, it got too big. She did so immediately after giving birth to her daughter Adeya, who is now one year old. (She is currently co-parenting with her ex, Adeya's father, Javaughn Young-White, younger brother of Jaboukie from the Daily Show). "People would always be like, Kehlani is adorable or, like, Kehlani is cool hella. But then I had a baby and it made me look more feminine," she says. "So I guess I thought, OK, I'm going to start shaking my ass and talk about it." (She wanted Bieber to do a song for her album, but he refused. "Because he's a super-married guy now, it didn't really fit," she said. Kehlani's self-managed music video for "Toxic", filmed with the only camera on her MacBook, shows the nervous figure of the singer slipping and squirming, rubbing her arms and hips. "Don Julio has ridiculed me for you," she tells her former lover that she won't reach out to him, even if her body urges her to do it out of instinct. Kehlani insists this is not his last relationship, which ended publicly and painfully, with Compton rapper YG earlier this year. It's the kind of personal drama that made headlines and made Kehlani's blog famous. She writes songs that address all of this openly. Her fans grow up with her career because she is transparent, sometimes to excess. Or, as she says, I do in public, and it makes people feel like I'm not a stranger. I'm a person with a human ass. I'm screwing up in front of the whole world." The conversation about the state of the R-B was revived last November, when Lizzo, often considered a pop artist, won album of the year at the Soul Train Awards, beating soul singer Ari Lennox. ("It's clear that I'm not cool enough," Lennox tweeted after his loss. Last February, rapper Young M.A. went further, saying that "we barely have R-B". Indeed, in recent years, the superstars of the genre - like SWV, Boyz II Men, Ginuwine, Toni Braxton - and their musical descendants have mostly failed to stop the charts as they did two decades ago; many contemporary black musicians evade the label, preferring to be called "alternative R-B", while others experiment more with genres that were once declared out of bounds by the guardians. Kehlani, on the other hand, is part of a coterie of artists who maintain the relevant R-B today, alongside newcomers like Summer Walker, Bryson Tiller and Lennox. She has a song for every step of a relationship: going under it, going over it, watching the door ahead, a personal promise to stop texting her. His music seems new - not as a consistent copy of a Brandy song - but the influence is palpable. She finds the current debate about gender - what the R-B is, what it was and where it has gone - boring. It may no longer sound like it did in the 90s, but rappers (think, more recently, Drake) have expanded it beyond the desperate desire (or desperate loves) of the last century. "I think people don't know enough about music to make these kinds of accusations [that the R-B no longer exists]. The R-B is simple lyrics and a great song. Lots of harmonies and batteries and melodic production," she says, as if it were easy. "I'll never be able to make 90s R-B music. I'm never going to be able to make R-B music from the early 2000s, because that's not when I was making music. It wasn't when I experienced things that shaped my words and my sound." Kehlani was born in Oakland and raised by her aunt. His mother struggled with drug addiction, and his father died when he was 24 years old and she was very young. A stint on America's Got Talent put her in touch with Nick Cannon, who paid for her to spend time in the studio to make her first mixtape in 2014. On Cloud 19, you can hear the beginnings of a great talent: his voice is more acute and younger, but it is overflowing with emotion. On the deck of Cloud 19's "As I Am" film, she sings and succeeds in the chorus of a Mary J. Blige classic. A week after the release of her second mixtape in 2015, she signed with Atlantic Records. Kehlani turned to pop with his debut album of 2017, SweetSexySavage, an album full of rushed and half-finished ideas. It was carried out amid a personal mental health crisis, sparked by rumors that she cheated on her ex-boyfriend, NBA player Kyrie Irving, in 2016. The relentless online bullying led her to attempt suicide. (Kyrie Irving later admitted that she had never been unfaithful.) "I started an album as a person and experienced the most traumatic event of my life," she says. Her label held on until the deadline, letting her make an album from songs she barely recognized. "I had no connection with the music," she says. "I was embarrassed about everything." The new record is a reset, closer to the Grammy-nominated mixtapes that made it famous. It Was Good Until It Wasn't Gives you the Pure B-R rush, the R-B "waiting for you to call me", the R-B "the only thing that interests me is you": the hits of Brandy and Monica in the 90s, the classics of Alicia Keys of the early 2000s who fall in love. She is also less affected by the nostalgia of adolescence than by the immediacy of adult desires. His first mixtapes were about childhood and adolescence; It Was Good Until It Wasn't at peace with the way most conflicts or heartaches unfold. The title comes from a conversation with a friend about her recent breakup. That's the life of this, you know? she said. The is good and then it's not good anymore. Although she has been in the industry since she was a teenager, Kehlani has never had any decisive success for her career, and it is unlikely that the new album will deliver one. "F-MU" is hot and dancing, and the collaboration with Canadian R-B star Tory Lanez, "Can I," is a sexy earworm - although neither song seems particularly suited to virality. His greatest successes are gossip blogs that overshadow his music. His three-month relationship with YG ended just after they released a song together proclaiming their love. (Their duet came out on the eve of Valentine's Day 2020; three days later, she released a breakup song after images of him cheating her surfaced). Minutes before one of our calls, Kehlani posted a series of tweets about a feud with another Oakland native, rapper Kamaiyah, who slammed her on Instagram Live about a previously unreleased mixtape and accused her of being a colorist, among other things. "She gave the green light to my family and me and told everyone in Oakland to kill us for a song," Kehlani says. (Kamaiyah later replied, telling Kehlani, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't threaten you," but added that "a green light means going like a fight, not shooting"). A moment after our discussion, she answered a phone call from a friend and nervously asked if her tweets - which had let the rapper know there was no bad blood - were correct, if she had handled the situation properly. Kehlani and Kamaiyah had long argued over a joint mixtape, which was to be released before the release of their two albums. Her production was difficult, and even the basic decisions - how many songs she should have, what it should be called, what the visual aesthetic should be - met, according to Kehlani, with Kamaiyah's resistance. In the end, she had had enough of back and forth, and the mixtape didn't seem as essential to her as the release of her album. When she came back to our call, her mood was appalled. I tried to contact her to do good business and she said, "If the project doesn't come out, you can't have it [one piece]," she says. "Even though I wrote it." Once again, she was swept away in a drama she couldn't control, tweeting clarifications about a quarrel she didn't care about, instead of celebrating the upcoming release of her album. But why challenge a misinterpretation if she is tired of getting carried away by the drama? How can I put this to rest and out of my body? Because I don't want to wear them," Kehlani says. "Even if you never want to piss me off again, how can I make sure you know it's love on this side?" she tweeted Kamaiyah to let the rapper know she wished him the best. She is satisfied with the way she has defused an unexpected quarrel. A few years ago, it would not have been as weighted. It took a lot of to get to this point, she says. The death of two friends in three months has put a lot of things in perspective. Philadelphia rapper Chynna overdosed in April at age 25; Minnesota rapper Lexii Alijai, whom Kehlani considered "a little sister," overdosed on New Year's Day at just 21 years of age. Lexii Alijai was scheduled to perform the first part of the post-Bieber tour as the headliner. "I couldn't believe it because Alijai was so young," she says. "It was a click, it was amazing, it was sad and it was heartbreaking. I'm always trying to find the best way to help them continue their legacy." Being 25 was also more than a quarter of a life. It was a horizon she never thought she would see. "I've always had a strange feeling about being 25 or older," she says. "It's a shock because I'm now older than my father was." that's part of what made It Was Good Until It Wasn't feel like the album she finally grew up on. "I wanted to be 25 on this one," she says.

Instagram

from flych https://ift.tt/3fOJi2U via https://ift.tt/2SkgjJX

[stillthewordgirl]

LOT/CC fic: Through the Looking Glass

Of all the things Leonard Snart has done since being pulled from the timestream three years after the Oculus explosion, meeting his Earth-X double is probably the weirdest. Of course, in the life of a Legend, things can always get weirder.

This one started as something completely different: a Halloween story, a light-hearted Legends team-building visit to a haunted house, with guest visits by Leo Snart, Ray Terrill and others. And then Leo and Leonard, who had...issues...to work out, completely took it over and turned it into something I didn't plan. (Snarts are strong minded, OK?) I ran with it.

Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta! Can also be read here at AO3 or here at FF.net.

“I can’t believe this is what you people do for fun.”

Sara, grinning, glances over at Leo, who’s standing with Ray Terrill a few feet away, staring at their destination. He catches her gaze, lifting an eyebrow at her, then goes back to his perusal of the site.

“Well, only this time of year,” his husband tells him, amusement in his own eyes. “And it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.” He laughs at Leo’s expression. “You can pass if you want. But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen one; I’m going to go in.”

“Hmm.” The man from Earth-X shakes his head. “Well.”

“You wanted to visit for the Halloween season,” Terrill reminds him.

“I was expecting more along the lines of candy and kids in costumes, not...” Leo waves a hand. “...this.”

Leonard, who’s standing next to Sara and eyeing his doppelganger with a wary expression, transfers his own gaze back to their surroundings. They’re standing outside in the warm fall night, right inside a main gate that led into what he vaguely remembers used to be a business plaza with multiple shops big and small. It’s something different, now.

“Frightmares!” the massive sign over one of the bigger former department stores screams in bright green and lurid purple letters. “One of the top 10 haunts in North America! Five houses!”

Frankly, he’s a little dubious too. But Sara had wanted to come here during their stop in Central City, and he’d wanted to spend some time off the ship with her...and here he was.

Leo sighs, and Leonard glances back at him. He can’t help the uneasiness the other man invokes in him. The whole thing is just...weird.

It hadn’t been planned, this meeting. With the Legends taking a break due to a lapse in the supernatural activity Constantine could locate (the warlock isn’t sure why, but he’s currently trying to find out), they’d headed back to 2019 to try to give Lisa and others the news of Leonard’s return.

While his sister hadn’t been in town (Ramon had promised to try to find out where she is), the opportunity to let himself into STAR Labs and stun Barry Allen with the back-from-the-not-so-dead routine had been too much to pass up. However, the reaction hadn’t quite been what he’d expected.

Barry had glanced up from where he’d been looking at something with Ramon and Snow, focusing on Leonard immediately. But he hadn’t reacted with stunned disbelief or shocked surprise, but rather with a thoroughly non-surprised grin.

“Hey!” he’d called. “That didn’t take long.” Then he’d frowned a little, looking at Sara. “Where’d Ray go? And Sara? What are you doing here? Not that you’re not welcome, of course.”

Leonard had halted, staring at him, nonplussed. Sara had put two and two together pretty quickly and laughed, stepping up and putting a hand on Leonard’s arm.

“Barry,” she said gently. “This isn’t Leo.”

Then the reaction was all he could have hoped—well, maybe not hoped, but Leonard’s with Sara, and Barry’s a married man now anyway. The younger man had stared, then, realization crossing his face. He looked at Sara again, who nodded, then back at Leonard, who’d lifted an eyebrow and given him his best “surprise!” smirk.

Barry’s jaw dropped. “Snart?”

Ramon squeaked. That was really the best word for it.

“The reports of my death...etcetera, etcetera,” Leonard had drawled, folding his arms. “Hear I missed a lot. Mazel tov.”

“Thanks,” Barry had said automatically. But then he’d frowned again, focusing behind them. “Uh. Sara? Did you tell him about...”

“Well, well, well. This is...interesting.”

Leonard had whirled at the eerily familiar voice, coming face to face with...his own face. Mostly.

And that had been how he met Leo Snart of Earth-X, visiting Earth-1 for a few days to meet his husband’s parents and take some supplies back to his own Earth.

It’s still weird. It will probably never stop being weird.

Although they’re heading to Star City soon to see Sara’s father and friends (something Leonard is fervently trying not to think about too much), they’d planned to stay a day or two in Central first. Leonard would be just as content to give that up now, but Sara is holding him to it. And when she’d asked Barry if the Frightmares haunt was going on, Terrill had perked up and asked if he—and Leo—could come along.

He hadn’t asked Leonard. And Sara had happily agreed.

And here he was.

Leonard stifles a sigh of his own. He thinks Ray Terrill hears him, though, because the man glances over, giving him a half-smile.

He likes Terrill, actually. (And it’s always going to be “Terrill” to him—he can’t bring himself to call the man “Ray.”)  It’s not that the man’s attractive—although he is; apparently that’s one thing in which he and his doppelganger have similar tastes—but he seems to get how unsettling this is for Leonard. More so than Leo does, actually. His double just keeps studying him with the air of someone who just can’t figure out how things could have gone so wrong on this Earth.

It’s unnerving. And irritating. Really irritating. Especially given how Leonard knows a few things happened while he was...gone.

“Well,” Terrill says then, turning back to Sara. “I want to go check out the ticket options. And have a look at the concessions. Fair food is something you just don’t get on Earth-X.”

Sara makes a thoughtful noise and nods. “I wonder if they have the really good soft pretzels,” she muses. “Mmm…with plastic cheese. Gideon refuses to make that for me.”

“Let’s go find out. I’d give a lot for…”

Leonard thinks about following them, but they’re already halfway across the lot, toward the cluster of concessions in the middle of the haunts. And he figures Leo might follow them himself. He’s native to the other Earth, after all, and this is a new place with many new things.

He doesn’t.

The two Snarts regard each other. And neither looks particularly happy.

As they walk away, Ray Terrill looks back at the two men, his husband and his husband’s double from this world. It’s eerie, really, how they mirror each other, in ways they probably don’t even fully recognize. And how that lets him read the man he doesn’t even know.

Leonard Snart is uneasy and irritated, but he’s also unhappy. Disturbed. Not with the woman he’d come here with, not at all—if Ray’s any judge, Leonard’s pretty much besotted with Sara, as much as he’ll let himself show it to a relative stranger. But he’s very unsettled by Leo’s presence—maybe even his existence. Not surprising, really. He probably feels like the other man is both a threat of sorts and an example of what he could have been, had his path been somewhat different.

But given that Ray’s rather besotted with Leo himself…well.  He may not be the best judge.

Still, it’s hard to see that amount of…pain, yes, he’ll call it that…on a face he loves so much. And as much as he loves Leo, he knows his husband may sometimes—well, take his tendency toward playing counselor a bit too far.

“You really think this is a good idea?” he asks Sara quietly as they walk.

The captain of the Waverider smiles a little. “If we’re going to continue to work together from time to time—both you and Leo and the Legends—Len’s going to have to work out his feelings about this. And better now than in a battle scenario.” She glances at him. “And Leo’s...”

Terrill smiles too. “All about the feelings. I know.” He sighs. “But, despite how casual he is about all this, I know Leo. And his feelings. This is making him more unsettled than he’s letting on, too.”

Sara makes a thoughtful noise. “Well, then,” she says after a moment, as they walk toward one of the haunts. “It’s a good thing we’re giving them a chance to talk it out.”

Leo is wearing short sleeves on the warm fall day, apparently unfazed by the scars tracing his forearms. Leonard can’t help glancing at them, then hurriedly looking away. He’s wearing his usual layers—four of them, all told—and it’s disconcerting how the other man is, in a way, baring his own body for him. It makes him uncomfortable in a way he’s not quite up to articulating.

A few of the scars match the ones he has. Most don’t. The man from Earth-X has fought battles Leonard didn’t had to, after all. That knowledge makes him a little uncomfortable too. If anything, it seems like Leo should be more guarded and less open than his counterpart. Instead…well, that’s just not the case.

Of course, Leonard’s fought battles Leo didn’t have to, too.

Leo also doesn’t seem bothered by the notion of simply studying his other self openly. They’ve traded histories just enough that Leonard knows that Leo has had quite a different life from his. He’d fled Lewis with his mother when he was quite young and grown up with his mother in the Resistance. She’d died during a Nazi attack on a base where she has serving as a nurse, but only a handful of years ago.

He has no younger sister.

And no matter how much Leonard wants to avoid talking to him any more than necessary, Leo apparently has no qualms about that, either.

“And so how are things going?” the other man says, leaning against a fence and folding his arms. Then he clarifies with a tilt of his head, as if aware that Leonard will dodge if given the merest opportunity. “With Sara.”

Leonard eyes him. “Fine,” he says shortly, folding his own arms.

And it is fine. It’s great, really. But that doesn’t mean he wants to talk about it. Not even—or especially—with this man wearing his own face. It’d been bad enough that the man from Earth-X had been there, listening with great interest, when Team Flash had made the connection than Leonard and Sara weren’t just together—they were together together, as Ramon put it.

All Leo had done was lift an eyebrow. But there’d been, to Leonard’s eye, an undue amount of skepticism in his expression.

“Fine?” Leo echoes now. “Really? Because as I understand it, from your Mick and others, you weren’t…you’re not too much connected to your feelings. And trust me, to make a relationship work, you need to…”

Oh, now, this is just too much. Leonard wants to snap, but instead he just rolls his eyes, turning away.

“No one asked you,” he mutters, looking around to see if he can spy Sara. But it’s darker, and there are increasingly more people around. He can’t see her or Terrill at all. Where did they say they were going?

Leo huffs a little. “I want to help,” he says, a touch of asperity in his voice. “Not only do I like and respect Sara and Mick and the other Legends, you…”

“You don’t know me.” Now Leonard does snap. He glares at the other man. “You have no idea about my…feelings.” He spits the word out despite himself. “For Sara, or otherwise.”

Leo glares back. Leonard almost feels pleased about that. It’s the most negative expression he’s seen on the Earth-X man since they’d met. He folds his arms and delivers his most insouciant smirk…but it doesn’t precisely get the response he wants.

“Well,” Leo drawls, and the tone’s so familiar it’s eerie, “I’m sorry. For Sara. She deserves better. Someone who’s not made of ice, or pretends he is.” He shrugs as Leonard’s eyes narrow. “And given that no one on your ship seemed to have a clear idea of any of your feelings before you ‘died’…” He actually does air quotes and somehow that’s even more annoying. “…I can’t really believe that things will have changed quite so easily.”

“Excuse me?” He’d known Leo had spent time on the ship (the puppet—and what had become of it—still were the subject of uneasy joking there) to “help” the team, but he’d had the impression that not much had come of that. Certainly not enough that the other man could make such a supposition about Leonard’s feelings or the lack thereof.

But it seems that he has. “Mick. Your Mick,” Leo continues. “He wouldn’t talk much about you. Someone who was supposedly his best friend. And Sara. I could tell there was something…off…in her interactions with me, but she never once said anything about you. Seems like her feelings might be complicated, too, if there’d really been something between…between you two before. Although she certainly seems to have rushed into it now.”

Rushed into it. After all they… “You don’t know that team as well as you think you do,” is all Leonard can manage before his phone chimes.

It’s Sara.

“Hey, where RU?” the text reads. “Thought U were behind us.”

Well, that explains why they’re not back. “Still outside,” he texts, ignoring Leo pointedly. “Where?”

After a moment, another chime. “Courtyard, mall plaza interior,” she sends back. “Gotta go thru a house to get here, tho.”

Of course. “Be there soon,” he replies, then tucks his phone away, scanning the area to get his bearings a little more. If he’s got to pick one of these things to go through, especially by himself, better to consider the matter rather than picking one at random. Let’s see… haunted swamp with swamp…things, a castle-looking one that seems to have classic movie monsters such as vampires and werewolves, the always-in-poor-taste abandoned asylum, zombie apocalypse, portal...

“Was that Sara?”

He’d ignore the other man, but he doesn’t want to deal with more badgering. “Yes. They’re in the courtyard in the building. Gotta go through one of the houses to get there.”

Leo sighs. “Of course. Well…”

But Leonard’s ignoring him again, striding toward the nearest ticket booth. He hears Leo sigh again, but he’s pretty sure the man is following him. More’s the pity.

He has to wait a few minutes, but eventually he steps up in front of a tired-looking attendant, who greets him absently before looking up—just as Leo joins him.

The attendant blinks. “Whoa,” he breathes, looking back and forth between the two men. “Are you, like, identical twins or something?”

Leo and Leonard glance at each other, then back at the clerk. “No,” Leo tells him with an absolutely deadpan expression. (It’s almost enough to make Leonard smile. Almost.)

“Oh. Um. What can I get for you tonight?”

Leonard opens his mouth to request one ticket, but Leo interrupts him. “Anything but the asylum one,” the man says flatly. “Just…no.”

The attendant blinks again. “Well, the tickets are good for any house,” he says finally. “Although you can buy a pass that will let you into all of them, either once or unlimited. Or…”

“One ticket,” Leonard interrupts. “For now. Thanks.”

The attendant takes that to mean one ticket each, so Leonard rolls his eyes and pays for both. He sort of wishes he’d had the foresight to lift someone’s wallet, just so that he could pay for Mr. Straight-Laced’s ticket with obviously stolen money. Mr. Not-Straight-But-Straight-Laced. Whatever.

From the look on Leo’s face, that’s occurred to him, but he takes the ticket anyway. “Which…”

The portal-into-another-world house (“Alien Hellscape!”) has the shortest line, so Leonard heads for that one. He slouches against the wall, ignoring the chattering group of teenage girls ahead of him, and tries not to sigh visibly as Leo joins him.

It only takes a moment or two before his Earth-X double speaks. “Did you pay for that ticket with stolen money?”

Leonard smirks at him. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Leo stares. Then he shakes his head disapprovingly. Leonard decides he’d really like to wipe that particularly self-righteous look off his face.

“I can’t believe you,” Leo says quietly. “You’re a thief. And...” He lowers his voice again. “...from what I’ve heard, a killer. You went right down Lewis’ path, despite everything.” He looks up and meets Leonard’s eyes. “Our mother would be devastated.”

As a low blow, it’s not nearly as effective as he seems to think it will be. Leonard hides the pang it does cause and shrugs, moving with the line.

“I sort of doubt that, because she high-tailed it out of town when my sister was still tiny, leaving both of us with Lewis,” he drawls. “She sorta lost any right to pass judgment, I’d say.”

Leo frowns at him. “What? I can’t believe that,” he says, tone thick with disgust. “How dare you...”

“I can’t care if you believe it or not.” At least they’re at the ticket-taker now. Leonard hands him the slip of paper with a nod, peers into the darkened space beyond the doorway, sighs, and starts in, into a first room set up as a damaged science laboratory.

Stuff like this isn’t all that big a deal to him. He’s observant enough to pinpoint all the “scares” coming, and he’s seen enough real-life shit that fake blood and made-up monsters don’t faze him. He’d double-checked the haunt rules, and the actors aren’t allowed to touch their “victims” here—not that he thinks Sara would inflict it on him if that was the case.

Fortunately, the gaggle of girls ahead of them, and the trying-to-act tough boys with them, are giving the actors enough of a noisy reaction that they’ll hopefully not try to get more out of the eerily similar men sauntering through the maze after them.

Especially since Leo feels like this is a valid time to continue their “conversation.”

“My mother was a strong woman,” he tells Leonard, falling into step next to him. “She left Lewis not long after he openly joined the Reich. I was 5. She took me with her. There was never any question to that.”

An...alien?...pokes its head through a crack in the plywood wall and hisses at them. Leonard lifts both eyebrows at it and keeps going. “You sure about that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

The girls ahead of them shriek, and the boys swear, as a figure in a hazmat suit lunges out at them, shepherding them into another room. While the figure ignores them, Leo and Leonard hurry to catch up, slipping into the darkened space too just as a curtain falls closed behind them. Leonard glances about, then sighs as he catches sight of the light-ringed “portal” ahead of them. It doesn’t look dissimilar to a setup at STAR Labs.

Another figure, this one hooded instead of hazmat-suited—which doesn’t really seem to go with the theme, but whatever—has appeared now, doing some sort of theatrics over by the circle of lights, to the great glee of the younger people. No one’s listening to the older pair.

“Mmm. Well, it’s fabulous you got to grow up a momma’s boy, Nazis notwithstanding, but we both had to make our own hard choices.” Leonard gives him a flat look. “I chose to keep myself and my baby sister alive in the only way I could figure out at the time.”

Leo’s chin goes up. “You seriously couldn’t figure out a better way than becoming...

“...a helluva thief? Yup.” Leonard glances at him. "I did what I had to. Not ashamed of it. Not many other opportunities out there for someone who had a felony record as young as it’s possible to have one.”

Leo gazes back, as in the background, the hooded figure finishes its pageantry, the portal changes to glowing a harsh orange-red, and the light flares to “ooohs” and “aaahs.” “You could have gone to the authorities.”

“The cops? About Lewis? Many of them the same ones who called him ‘buddy’ and thought he got a raw deal when he got kicked off the force?” Leonard lifts an eyebrow at him. “Leaving Lisa behind with him? Because that would have worked out so well.”

Leo starts arguing again, but the group is being shepherded through the portal now, and Leonard turns way, tired of it. The hooded figure, which is really rather small, tries to bar their way, but Leonard just wants to get through this damned thing. He sidesteps and goes through...into pitch blackness.

The teens are giggling nervously. Leonard takes a few steps to give Leo clearance room, and frowns, glancing around. His eyes haven’t adjusted at all. His night sight’s usually pretty good, so...

And then there’s a flare of light, so bright that his vision goes pure white. Leonard throws an arm up reflexively even though it’s too late, and hears the teens start screaming and Leo curse behind him.

“You OK?” he calls back as his eyes start to recover. He may not like Leo, but he doesn’t want to have to tell Terrill that something’s happened to him.

“Yeah.” Leonard can feel the other man move to his shoulder. “What the hell...”

And that’s rather what it looks like, actually, as his pixelated vision started to resolve. Someone’s vision of hell. A blasted landscape of bare, jagged gray rock and sand, flames flickering here and there, molten rock oozing sullenly out of gaps in the ground. Nothing else, save for some jagged outcroppings of rock, as far as the eye can see. And the air smells faintly of brimstone.

Leonard can hear Leo’s intake of breath. “Is your Earth capable of this kind of special effects or...”

“We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.” Leonard hesitates only a moment before reaching into his jacket and pulling out his newest weapon, a prototype miniature cold gun he’d been inspired to create after working with Gideon to rebuild his larger gun. It’s not as powerful, but it can be hidden far more easily, and he’d tucked it away before this trip to Central City, just in case.

Leo looks at it, then at him, and it makes Leonard smirk a little to see the disapproval that he’d brought a weapon into a public place warring with what frankly seems to be a thread of envy. But then he shakes his head and lets it go, glancing around.

“The kids!” he says sharply then. “Where’d they go?”

Leonard whips around too. The pack of teens isn’t in view, a realization that makes his heart sink. But...

Holding up a hand, he listens. Aside from a faint noise of crackling flame and wind, it’s quiet here, and... “There.”

Sure enough, not far away, the stone gives way to sand and there are footprints, all close together, as if, perhaps, the group was being herded. The two men start in that direction, carefully, Leonard holding his gun out and ready, Leo turning frequently to watch their backs.

“What could do this?” he muses. “One of the mythic creatures the Legends have been hunting? A demon?”

Leonard makes a thoughtful noise, his irritation with his double more or less faded for now in the presence of all this other weirdness. “Could be. More likely, I think, a meta with powers something like Ramon’s. There was something weird with that portal, but I figured it was just...normal weird,” he mutters. “For a place like this.”

“Point.”

Leonard can hear the sobs and noises before they find the group, rounding a stone outcrop to find the eight teenagers huddled on the ground. One of the girls jumps to her feet, looking like she wants to fight, but she puts her hands down as she sees them, eyes going big and round.

“You were behind us,” she stammers. “Before. Weren’t you? Do you have any idea where we are?”

One of the boys cuts in then, voice anxious. “This isn’t just part of the haunt...right? This is...this is just too weird. And that guy...the one who sent us here...”

“The one in the black hood?” Leo asks, glancing at Leonard. “Was he here?”

Another girl nods, pulling her legs up against her chest where she sits on the ground, back against the rock.

“He said...he said to pool all our cash and our phones and any, any other valuables,” she says, voice shaking, “and when he comes back, if it’s enough, he’ll take us home.” She looks down at a fairly meager pile of smartphones, costume jewelry, wadded-up bills, and change. “We don’t have a lot. I’m scared...my mom...”

“Hey.” Leonard hates to appear soft in front of his counterpart, but...she reminds him of Lisa. He goes to a knee, watching her, gentling his voice. “We’ll get you home. OK? What’d he sound like? Older? Younger?”

She blinks thoughtfully. “Just...you know, actually, just like a kid. Our age or younger. But trying to sound older.” Then she looks back and forth between them. “Wow. Are you twins?”

Leonard ignores the question, but the rest is perceptive for someone who’s scared out of her mind, and the others murmur in agreement with the assessment. He gets back to his feet as Leo addresses the group.

“Stay here,” he instructs them. “Stay together. We’re going to find him, make sure he takes us all back no matter what.”

They clearly don’t want to be left behind, but neither do they want to see more of what this blasted landscape holds, so they let the two men turn away without much protest—although Leo turns back nearly immediately.

“Any of you see another bright flash of light?” he asks. “Like when he brought us here?”

The answer, as expected, is no. Leonard scans the area thoughtfully, walking away silently until they’re out of sight, then glances at Leo, who’s eyeing him with an odd expression.

“The person in the black hoodie--what I thought was just a bad costume,” he says in a low tone. “They tried to bar us. Didn’t want us here too.”

Leo hums thoughtfully but frowns. “We’re more likely to have valuables...”

“But we’re also more likely to be able to fight back.” Leonard nods to himself. “This is another kid, I’m guessing...a meta trying to take advantage of their powers to make some cash. They found this place while experimenting with those powers; Halloween’s a good time to use it. If it was something more sinister than that, they’d have...harmed...one of those kids to make their point—and, hell, they’d have gone for higher stakes. I’ll bet they even know some of those kids.”

He scans the area again, pinpointing a sheltered spot that looks like a likely spot for someone hiding and waiting in this hellhole, then takes a few steps.

Leo doesn’t follow him. Leonard glances back, sighs, and turns, readying his best glare again.

“Look, I know we can’t stand each other, but I could use the backup,” he says tersely, motioning toward the rock formation. “Just in case I’m wrong about the perp.”

Leo considers him, still with that odd expression.

“I can’t figure you out,” the other man admits. “You’re a crook and a liar who’s hurt a lot of people, but you were kind to those kids. And you didn’t even bother finishing a basic education, but you’re obviously highly intelligent.” He shakes his head. “You make no sense.”

Leonard stares at him.

Leo stares back.

Finally, Leonard huffs out a sigh. “Now, you want to do this?” he mutters, folding his arms. “Can’t it wait until we figure out how to get back?”

Leo takes one step forward...then smirks at him. God, that’s annoying. (“Pot, meet kettle,” Sara whispers in his ear.)

“Talk,” he drawls, “and I’ll walk.”

Leonard glares at him a moment longer. “Jackass,” he growls. “About what?”

Leo takes another step forward and stops, considering. “About...why you went along with Lewis. On a criminal path.”

Leonard snorts. “You realize I was 10 when he first took me on a job, right? I was supposed to say no?”

“You could...”

“Not without risking both myself and Lisa to Lewis’ temper.”

“Your mom...”

“Had already checked out, for all she didn’t leave for another month or two.”

“I can’t believe he’d...”

Leonard stops and spins to stare at his doppelganger. He abruptly strips back the sleeves on his left arm, holding up his scarred forearm to the horrified Leo. “This beauty was from Lewis. Broken beer bottle. I took the blow so he wouldn’t use it on Lisa. She was 5. I was 13.” He yanks the sleeves back down, roughly. “Nearly bled out. Didn’t. That’s one of the worst, but I got a lot more where that came from. Tell me again how I should have said no.”

It seems like it might have finally registered with Leo that he’s off base on some things here. He stares at Leonard’s now-covered arm a moment longer, then takes a deep breath and takes a few steps forward to join his double. Leonard scowls at him, but then turns and starts toward the likely hiding spot he’s identified.

After a minute or two, though, Leo speaks again, his voice low. “And there was no one to help you?”

For the first time, he doesn’t sound skeptical. He sounds almost...analytical. And Leonard can deal with that a lot better than he can cope with sympathy. He shrugs.

“Not that I could trust.” It's hard to judge distance in this place. The rocks are a lot farther than they look.

“How…” But Leo subsides.

And because of that, Leonard gives him a little more. “I was in juvie by the time I was 14,” he mutters, eyes on their path. “After that, any choices I did have got a lot smaller. Schools didn’t want me, between the juvie and the fact I was Lewis Snart’s son. And then I kept missing class to take care of Lisa, and they took that as further evidence that I was worthless. Lazy. Didn’t care.”

That gets a disgusted noise from Leo, but for once, it doesn’t seem to be aimed at Leonard himself. Leonard can see the other man watching him, but he doesn’t say anything, and Leonard decides to reward him by giving him a little more.

“So, yeah. I decided if I was going to be a crook, I’d be the best damned crook I could be,” he drawls. “And I was good at it. Far, far better than Lewis.” He knows a smirk is touching his lips, doesn’t care if Leo sees it. He’s not going to be ashamed at what he’d accomplished, what he’d risen from. “And believe it or not, I might not have been a ‘hero,’ but I had a code, and I kept my people to it, too.”

“What about Mick?”

Leonard glances at him. “What about Mick? I met this Earth’s in juvie, you know, when I was 14 and he was 16. He was in the same boat in some ways. Though he was even less motivated to be on the side of the angels than I was.” He hesitates, then, knowing that Leo’s Mick had been quite firmly with those angels—and no matter how much he’s irritated by his double’s attitude, he finds himself loathe to dispel any of Leo’s fondness for either Mick.

Without me to keep him in line, Mick can be a scary guy, his memory whispers.

He ignores it. People change.

Leo gives him an odd look, but Leonard continues. “So, I dunno,” he says with a shrug. “Maybe there was some choice, some way out, in there someplace, but I sure as hell didn’t see it at the time.” He looks at the Earth-X man. “I won’t say I didn’t make a lot of mistakes, did some things I regret. But you weren’t here, living it, so spare me the judgment.”

Leo frowns to himself, but by then, they’ve reached the rock formation. The two men share a glance, then Leonard takes a step to one side, tilting his head, and Leo nods, tilting his head toward the other.

I’ll go this way and you go that way and distract him until I can get the cold gun on him, the first gesture says.

Gotcha, is the wordless reply.

Maybe they do have something in common besides appearance, after all.

As it turns out, the meta is question has earbuds in, of all the damn-stupid things. He’s sitting on the rocks, nodding his head in time to some sort of music, and he nearly jumps out of his skin when Leo steps in front of him, waving in a friendly fashion. Before he can do anything more than jump and gape, though, Leonard steps out, aiming the cold gun at him and giving him a disapproving and mock-disappointed look.

“Hey, kid,” he drawls. “Think you forgot about something.”

The teenager blinks at them, and Leo, rolling his eyes, steps forward and grabs the cords of his earbuds, giving them a yank. They fall out, and Leonard repeats the words patiently.

“Time to put us all back where we came from,” he clarifies. “If you don’t want this to go very badly, anyway.”

“But how…”

Leo steps smoothly in to play good cop, then. “Well, now, my friend here doesn’t really want to hurt you, you know. But we do need to go home. Which this…” He waves a hand. “…is not.”

The kid, a pasty-pale redhead with a ton of freckles, stares at him before stammering out a response.

“It’s just...I need, money, man. And…” He suddenly seems to register just what, precisely, he’s looking at, and his eyes flicker back and forth between them. “Whoa. Are you guys twins?”

Leonard ignores that. Again. “You scared the crap out of those other kids,” he says, letting his voice grow harsher. “For what? A few bucks and couple secondhand smartphones?”

To his slight surprise, then, the meta rallies, his chin going up and his eyes growing a little harder.

“Those kids have made my life a living hell in high school,” he snaps back, before flagging a little. “Well, some of them have. Not all of them. But they were in a group and…” He shakes his head and looks around himself, then waves a hand.

“This place looks scary, but it’s really pretty harmless,” he says almost apologetically. “I found it when I was experimenting and as long as you keep your eyes open, you’re fine. And I’da put ‘em back no matter what. But I needed some money, for…”

His voice trails off. Leonard sighs. A glance at Leo tells him that the other man is, perhaps, starting to fall for this sob story. But he’s not so gullible. (He tells himself.)

“For what?” he asks, keeping his voice harsh. “Drugs?”

“No!” Now the kid looks really upset. “It’s just…my car won’t pass inspection. Not unless I get a few things fixed. And I need it to get to work. I help out my mom…my sister…”

Crap.

The two men exchange a glance again. And somehow, there’s another meeting of minds.

“Kid,” Leonard says, gently his voice now, and tucking the cold gun away. “You ever heard of a guy named Cisco Ramon…?”

They let the kid, whose name is Aaron, pull his hood back up before he takes the other kids back, right to the spot in the haunt that he’d taken them from, and right to the minute. They all swear they won’t talk about it, and while Leonard doesn’t really believe them, he’s also fairly sure no one will really believe them if they do.

Aaron, who’d enlisted the help of the haunt-employee friend who’d been in the hazmat suit earlier, ushers Leonard and Leo through one of the nearly “chicken doors” and out into the corridors beyond. One call to STAR Labs later, the Flash himself shows up, giving the two men a somewhat beleaguered glance before taking off with the repentant young meta, who, if he turns over a new leaf and gets some training with his powers, will now have the support of Team Flash behind him.

It’s sort of fun, Leonard decides, to make promises on Barry’s behalf. Especially knowing the younger man will feel honor-bound to fulfill them. It’s also kind of fun to see the realization on his former nemesis’ face that Leo and Leonard, working together, could be a force to be reckoned with.

And isn’t that a thought?

After that, they both use the corridors to head slowly toward the center of the complex, where Sara and Terrill are, presumably, still waiting for them with absolutely no idea what’s gone down. But before they can step out into the bustling courtyard, Leo slows to a stop, moving aside, and Leonard lifts an eyebrow at him, but does the same.

The man from Earth-X takes a deep breath, then slowly lets it out before nodding and looking at his double from this Earth.

“I’m sorry,” he says simply. “You’re right. I didn’t realize how different things were here, for you, and how they affected you.” He spreads his hands out before him and sighs. “I’d never have thought that you might have had the harder road, considering where I’m from.”

Leonard tilts his head and considers, briefly, being a bit more of a jerk about it…and he finds, after all, that he doesn’t have it in him.

“And I’m not saying that I did,” he says instead. “They were just...different roads. Different challenges. And, well,” he drawls, showing his hands in his pockets, “I’ve never had to be a soldier, either. And at least no one’s ever tried to lock me up or kill me for…particular proclivities.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “And they would have, you know. Being with Sara doesn’t change that.”

Leo gives him a smirk in return. “Never said it would.” He folds his arms. “And I still think you’re going to have to…deal with some of your issues…if you want it to work out with Sara. Because…before you ‘died,’ if you had feelings for her, did she even know?”

“She knew. I sort of…” Leonard stops himself, a bit disbelieving that he’s fallen into the conversation. “I’m not talking about this.”

Leo lifts an eyebrow now. “Talk,” he drawls. “It will help.” He lifts a finger as Leonard glares at him. “And if you do, I won’t bring it up in front of Sara. Probably.”

Leonard continues his glare a moment longer, then sighs. “Fine,” he mutters, moving just out into the courtyard and leaning against the wall. “I made an overture of sorts to Sara. Back…before. But it wasn’t…wasn’t a great time for it, and she just…she challenged me. To steal a kiss.”

Leo makes a sympathetic noise, but Leonard ignores him. “And then I ‘died’…” He makes his own air quotes as sarcastic as possible. “….before…well. She kissed me at the Oculus before it blew up. OK?” Now he glances at the other man, who suddenly looks both a bit stunned and bit…ugh. Pitying. “And that was it. Until a few months ago.”

Leo stares at him. “But why wouldn’t she tell me? About that? Back when I was trying to help the team grieve. When I’m…”

“Maybe because it’s none of your business?” Leonard folds his arms, eyeing him. “And because it might be pretty damned awkward, considering that you’re not only not interested, you’re absolutely stinkin’ in love with your guy?”

Leo shuts his mouth. “Ah,” he says after a moment. “You have a point.”

“Uh huh.” Leonard shakes his head. “C’mon. Been a long night already. I wanna see Sara, and I’m sure you wanna see Terrill.”

He takes a step forward, but Leo doesn’t follow. When Leonard looks back, though, Leo’s watching him. And he no longer looks judgmental. In fact, he’s almost smiling.

“We good?” he murmurs.

Leonard sighs. But he offers the edge of a smile back. “Long as you don’t try to hug me.”

A moment later, though, he sighs. “No. The puppy eyes won’t work.”

His double doesn’t say anything. But it’s just…disturbing, Leonard thinks. “Ugh. My face should never have that expression.”

Another pause. “All right. Fine. One hug,” he allows.

A few minutes later: “Let go, Leo.”

Another few minutes: “Sara? Help?”

[takadasaiko]

Breathe Again Beneath the Flames: Chapter Twelve

FFN II AO3

Summary: Solomon finds some trouble while Tom and Ressler go looking for Liz.

Chapter Twelve

Donald Ressler stood frozen in place, glock aimed at the man that had broken into his home. Tom Keen's grin was looking a little more strained with each passing moment that Ressler wasn't lowering his weapon and finally he cleared his throat. "Listen, man, I'm really trying to limit the number of holes people are putting in me lately, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't shoot me."

"Is that supposed to be funny?" the ginger agent managed to croak out, shock drying his throat. He finally lowered his weapon, but only so he wouldn't shoot his partner's husband. He felt the simmering anger double into rage at the thought of Liz and her broken, grief-filled expression before she had left. That hadn't been faked. That couldn't have been faked, no matter how good she was. That had been a woman mourning the loss of the man she loved, but there that same man stood in Ressler's apartment, ordering pizza and drinking his beer like they were buddies. He was quickly bypassing rage and he needed answers right then or he was going to really kill the arrogant bastard. "You better give a damn good explanation as to why Liz thinks you're dead, pal."

He watched the dark haired man's amusement fade entirely, replaced by something that might have been guilt. "You might want to grab the stuff from the hall," he said, motioning beyond him to where the takeout and travel bag were halfway visible. "It's not a short story."

Ressler nodded, finally holstering his weapon and moving to grab his things and close the door. He watched Tom circled back around to the couch and he took a heavy seat on it, popping the cap off the beer and reaching for a slice of pizza. It looked like it was from Ressler's usual place and he wondered if he should check his bill. He took a seat across from Tom. "Okay. Let's hear it."

The other man took a long drink from the beer he had thieved from Ressler's fridge and when he set it down he started in. Ressler thought he had heard just about everything in his line of work, but as he listened to Tom talk about a body double that was good enough to fool Harold Cooper, an experimental drug - developed by the same Halcyon scientist that had cracked quantum computing - that had brought him back and kept him alive after they had all watched him flatline after the brutal stabbing, and the months and months in recovery that - if Ressler trusted his own instincts, which he did - didn't look like they were quite done yet. He saw the dark circles under Tom's eyes, the exhausted expression, and the way his hands shook ever so slightly as he reached for the drink again. He looked great for a dead man, but there was no doubt the last year and handful of months had left a lasting mark.

"I didn't know Liz was awake until a couple of months ago," he said, meeting Ressler's gaze. "Nez came to DC to make sure she knew I'm alive, but-"

"She was already gone," Ressler murmured. "Yeah, she just ghosted. No real warning, no goodbyes. We found found out through Reddington and got the impression the only reason she told him was to make sure he didn't follow. We all assumed she had Agnes with her…"

Tom shook his head. "Scottie got custody. In hindsight, probably to keep me distracted."

Ressler winced a little. "You two have some really screwed up parents."

"You're telling me."

"But," Ressler said slowly, drawing his attention, "can't knock the results. I mean… we all went to your funeral. We gave you a wake once Liz was awake…."

Tom smirked. "You say nice things about me, Ressler?"

The other man glared in response, refusing to be swayed from the serious conversation, even if it might have been easier to poke fun rather talk about what had happened to Liz. "She took it hard, so I guess we were really surprised when she left." He paused for a moment. "If you're here to find out where she went, I don't know."

"I do. She's in Alaska. Middle of nowhere."

Ressler reached for a slice of pizza. "Then what are you here for?"

Tom's gaze shifted away from Ressler's and he ran his hand along the top of his dark hair, causing it to stand on end and looking a little uncomfortable. "Help," he said at last, his dark blue eyes flickering to meet a lighter shade. "I need your help."

"Okay, but why me?" Ressler pressed. "You've got Halcyon-"

"Scottie and Howard lied to me about Liz being awake, by omission if nothing else."

"What about your team? Nez and Dumont?"

"I need eyes and ears there to make sure Agnes is safe."

That made sense. He wasn't sure how comfortable he was with Tom leaving his and Liz's kid with a criminal like Nez Rowan, but that wasn't his call to make. It wasn't like she hadn't been with Reddington while Liz was unconscious. "What about Reddington then? I mean, you know he's gotta be itching to find Liz."

"No," Tom all but growled, immediately halting that line of questioning. "That's not an option."

"Okay, then even someone else out of the Task Force. Cooper or Samar or-"

"Listen, man, if you don't want to help just say so."

Ressler pushed a long breath out of his nose. "I just need a reason, Tom. You can't just showed up in my home after being dead for nearly a year and a half and expect me not to need answers."

Tom flashed him a grin. "Don't trust me?"

"No, not particularly."

The grin didn't fade. "Smart man." He tilted his head thoughtfully and the disingenuous expression eased a little. "I know who attacked Liz and me. Whose men put her in a coma and who just about murdered me."

Ressler leaned forward, elbows against his bent knees and Tom had his full attention. "You know who Damascus is?"

The covert operative blinked. "Damascus?"

"That's what Liz called him. It's the… the knife that he used on you. It was a Damascus knife."

He watched Tom's expression darken and he thought he saw a subtle grimace at that. "Right."

"Who is he?"

That pulled the other man's attention back around and his gaze was intense. "A cop."

Ressler straightened at that. "A cop tried to kill you? Why?"

"Because he was after something that Reddington had. That's all I know."

The ginger nodded, leaning back in the chair again, but not not quite relaxing. "So you want my help with a dirty cop?"

"I want your help getting to Liz so that we can all go after a dirty cop. I figured if anyone would be willing it'd be you… with your dad and all."

Ressler shook his head, a mirthless laugh escaping him. "Hell, man."

"Is that a yes or a no?"

His lips thinned out, not quite quirking up. This was something Liz needed to know. Not just that Tom was alive, but a direction that they could go to find healing from everything that happened. Finally he loosed a long breath, meeting Tom's gaze. "Well, I've got a couple of days off. Let's go find Liz."

They said that patience was a virtue, and while Solomon had never claimed to be overly virtuous, it did appear that it had paid off for him this time. He'd played his part of the Nash Syndicate and their supply lines that had been tossed into the air were coming back around. He'd spoken once with the supplier out of Iraq, but it had taken nearly three months to get to Garvey. It wasn't his only in, but it had been his best bet, and the one that he was most pleased had worked out.

He stood with Li Zhao on the docks, the ever present art of waiting something he was coming to master. The sun was high overhead and everyone but her people had been cleared out, and even they were a skeleton crew. It wasn't surprising that Garvey didn't want curious eyes on him.

"He does not like to meet in person," Zhao said in her native language.

"So you've said."

She paused, tilting her head thoughtfully before motioning to the car that was making its way towards them. The driver pulled up, but made no move to get out.

Solomon glanced at her once before starting forward and he heard the locks come undone as he approached the passenger door. He reached out for the handle, but the back door opened and a man unfolded from it, waving at him to step back.

He did so, standing remarkably still as the other man's hands roamed up and down to check for weapons and pulled his gun from its holster. Solomon offered him a wink that made him take a step back before he reached back out to the door.

The man that had frisked him didn't follow, but as Solomon slipped in he did, thankfully, find Ian Garvey in the driver's seat. "It's good to finally meet you. I'm-"

"I know who Zhao says that you are," Garvey cut him off. "The man that corrected our supply lines. I also know who you've been, Mr Solomon."

Solomon let his gaze sweep over the heavyset man for a moment. His hands hadn't left the steering wheel and he could see that the vehicle was still in gear. He'd walked right into a set up.

"Let's go for a drive, shall we?"

"Why not," the newly captured man managed, keeping his voice smooth and even even as the locks shifted back into place.

She was furious, that much he knew. It would have been a difficult thing to miss with the way she was shouting at him, all of her cool demeanour put away for the red hot rage that he'd rarely seen her put on display quite so openly. Howard Hargrave stood where he was, amused, and that only seemed to fuel the flames. "You think this is funny?" his wife asked dangerously. "You knew, didn't you? You knew he was going and you let him. What? To get back at me for bringing Agnes, because you thought it was a power play? This is his life, Howard, and-"

"Breathe." Scottie looked ready to hit him and Howard had to shake off the uncomfortable realization that he had never quite gotten over her magnetic draw, even now. He held his hands up, palms outward, and waited until he was relatively sure she wouldn't try to break his nose if he stepped closer. "No, I didn't know he was going, but it shouldn't be a surprise to either of us. My guess is that Agnes tipped him off." He shot her a knowing look and watched her expression seal off. "We can play the blame game all day long, but that won't protect him. He knows Liz is awake and there wouldn't have been any stopping him anyway. All we can do now is provide him the back up that he'll need."

He watched Scottie stop her pacing, but this time her expression fell and he knew that she saw it too. They were both damn good at setting the game the way they wanted to play it, but sometimes they were dealt a bad hand. That didn't immediately mean a loss, just a set back, and they had to think quick, and as much as he hated it, it meant that they had to make sure they were moving with a united front. He didn't trust her and she didn't trust him, but they had to find a way forward for their son's sake.

Scottie sank into a chair, massaging the bridge of her nose. "Nez and Dumont would have been his only contacts able to help him and they're still at the base."

"Likely to keep an eye on his daughter."

Dark eyes flickered to look at him. "Do you think he thinks we'd hurt her?"

"I don't know what he thinks, Scottie. He probably doesn't know what he thinks. All he knows for sure is that we've been lying to him."

She set her jaw. "They want to help him in any way that they can. To get them to help us we need to enable them to do that."

There she was with that clever, quick mind that he knew so well. "I agree."

"Opening up full Halcyon resources requires us to at least take it to the Grey Matters level and that will open it up to any security leaks that we may have."

"I had Dumont do a full security overhaul right before you came back in."

"I've noticed. A second wouldn't be out of the question."

"Hmm," he agreed, nodding with the sound.

"Howard." Her voice drew his full attention. "We have to approach this together."

He saw the look he was giving him and he held it for a long moment, letting her words batter around in his mind for a moment and running through possible responses. He didn't have a chance to voice any of them, though, as he saw Scottie's gaze flicker behind him and he turned to find Nez standing there.

"I'm aware that you probably have a few things to say about the thing with Tom-"

"We were just discussing that," Scottie cut in. "We understand that-"

"I'm sorry, but this can't wait."

Howard straightened. "What's happened?"

"Solomon set off his distress signal."

Tom filled Ressler in on Garvey as the other man unpacked and re-packed his bag for the flight that had already been scheduled. They would fly from D.C. to Seattle, Seattle to Juneau, and from there, as long as they hadn't been followed, they'd make arrangements to get down to the little town in the middle of nowhere that Liz had hidden herself away in. It was a simple enough plan, and Tom was happily surprised that their resident Boy Scout didn't fight him on it once he laid everything out. He did, however, side-eye him on the falsified documents that Tom handed over to the TSA agent along with a charming smile and a compliment about her hair. She didn't look awake enough for the five AM flight to react as she scanned his ticket and sent him through.

"Not sure what you expected," Tom said as he slipped his feet back into his boots and threaded his belt through the loops on his jeans, finally clear of the security. "I mean, I'm guessing that a death certificate might raise a few red flags in an airport."

"You've got a few of those going now, don't you?" Ressler asked as he stuffed his wallet back into his pocket.

Tom tilted his head a little. "One under my birth name, pretty sure that someone probably added one to the name I was raised under…. they thought I was dead a few years ago after Liz shot me, but there was never any official documents for that."

"Could be because it was a fake name," Ressler said pointedly.

Dark blue eyes flickered down either direction of the terminal. "It's the one I like best."

He heard the other man snort, but if he had planned to push the subject the thought was cut short as his cell phone began to buzz. Tom watched the ginger agent fish it out of his pocket, glare at the caller ID like he might hit the reject button, but then thought better of it. "Sorry," he mumbled, and pulled the phone up to his ear. "Now's not a good time."

Ressler put a few steps between them as they walked towards their gate, but there wasn't anywhere to take a private call in the airport that they were sharing with business men and women trying to catch flights early enough to make it to meetings all over the country. Tom kept his gaze fixed ahead, but his focus was on what he could hear.

"That's not possible. I'm leaving DC this morning." There was a pause and Tom could hear the agitation in the other man's voice as he all but growled out his response to whatever had been said. "I'm not your gopher."

That was interesting. It certainly wasn't Cooper on the other end of the line. Ressler had a nauseating respect for the chain of command. Reddington, maybe? Tom hoped not. The Concierge of Crime may have been in his rebuilding phase when Garvey had attacked, but he would have spent the last year and some months strengthening that. Even being out and about risked one of Reddington's little spies spotting him. The best thing he had going for him right then was that there was no reason to look for a dead man.

"I'm well aware of the arrangement," Ressler bit out. "You've made it abundantly clear. I'll be in touch when I get back." He ended the call and shoved his phone back in his pocket.

Tom quirked an eyebrow. "Was that Reddington still giving you hell?"

There was a beat of confusion before Ressler nodded. "Yeah."

Interesting. Not Reddington, then. not that a whole lot of other scenarios made sense. "Everything okay?" he ventured carefully.

"Listen, Keen, let's keep our focus where it needs to be," he snapped.

Tom raised a hand, signalling his concession and Ressler's expression eased a little, his shoulders dropping a little. "He can just be a real bastard sometimes."

Their flight was called over the overhead and Tom readjusted his bag on his shoulder. He wasn't sure what Ressler had gotten himself into, but the man was right. They needed to focus. First they needed to find Liz and everything else was secondary. It would come though. It had to.

It had been over an hour since Garvey had said a word. The further they went out of the city, the lower his chances of surviving this were dropping, and Solomon wasn't ready to die yet. He'd set his beacon off at the first opportunity, begrudgingly thankful that Scottie and Nez had double-teamed him to push the option on him. This should have gone off without a hitch. He did well to fly under the radar at all times, and precious few people really could recognize him on sight. There was something else going on. Something he hadn't pieced together yet.

Dark eyes glanced at the driver. "Tell me, exactly what is it that you think you know about me?"

Garvey loosed a low, throaty chuckle. "Your reputation precedes you, Mr Solomon."

"It really doesn't. Not where I don't want it to."

"You were a CIA asset for some years running in Africa until they disavowed you. From there you were a free agent, shifted allegiances to the so-called Cabal, and then eventually to Scottie Hargrave when she ran her husband out of Halcyon Aegis."

The landscape sped by. "And now I'm working for Li Zhao. I fail to see the problem."

"The problem is that Scottie Hargrave has been publicly reinstated as the co-head of Halcyon and I have to wonder what an intelligence firm is doing sending in an operative into the Nash Syndicate to find me."

"I don't do this work for the kicks, I do it for the cash. Working for Scottie Hargrave isn't nearly as lucrative as it once was now that Howard holds half of the purse strings."

"I don't believe you."

The car they were in pulled around, stopping off the beaten path. There was nothing around them save the car that had driven with them. It pulled up behind them and Solomon saw a burly redhead step out, ready for a fight. The others that flanked him were visibly armed. "Get out," Garvey instructed.

"And if I don't?"

"Then I have to get the car detailed to remove what's left of you," he said, waving his gun at the younger man.

Solomon snorted, a lazy smile tilting his lips as he did what he was told. He'd been watching terrain on the drive in. They had wound their way up a hill, the drop now on the opposites side of the car. Garvey was getting out, his gun in his hand, and the red headed giant and his thugs came around. "And who might you be?"

He recognized him now that he saw him face on. He'd been in the files linked to Keen's supposed death. Bobby Navarro. He was tightly bound to the Syndicate, and while the cops had interviewed him after the attack, nothing had stuck. Shocking, considering he had a US Marshall on his side.

The man on Navarro's left rushed Solomon first, coming around and telegraphing his movements. Solomon only had to make minor adjustment to his stance to avoid the swing, ducking down and around, using his bob and momentum to swing up and he slammed the heel of his hand into the man's jaw, ripping his head to the side and sending him reeling.

The second was on him in an instant, but Solomon squatted down, half avoiding a blow and half going for the knife hidden away under his pants leg. He swung out, the blade skidding across the surprised man's throat and leaving a line of red in its wake as he kicked out, slamming him hard into the car.

He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned, ready to take on whoever it was that was fool enough to come at him next, but the shot rang out. Solomon felt the telltale sign of a bullet burning through flesh. It didn't hurt, not at first, but then slowly the pain started to catch up with the shock. He staggered, the knife slipping from his fingers and he reached out to catch himself on the side of the sedan, his other hand going to the source of the slowly realized pain.

Garvey leveled his gun. "I think it's time we had a talk, Matias."

Notes: Well I had a less that pleasant reaction to the finale. I had such mixed emotions about seeing Tom again. If they were going to make us relive his death all over again, I feel like the least they could have done was given us a goodbye kiss between them. I really think it boils down to just never being okay with them killing him, and wow... I had to do some scrambling on this story. It was both a blessing and curse to be writing as far ahead as I've been writing because I had to really readjust for Liz's reaction to finding out Red's secret. I had just finished writing the big Keen2 reunion chapter when the finale aired and had to do some serious thinking about how I was going to adjust the story and how the Keens were approaching this. I think I've got it all evened out now, though, so that's the good news.

Even better news: Tessler. XD I've had so much fun working with these two nerds again and being able to make AU gif sets for them over on Tumblr. I hope you guys are enjoying to the ride as much as I'm enjoying writing it. Much more to come!

Next Time: Tom and Ressler make it to Alaska and search for Liz and an injured Solomon uncovers a terrifying truth about Ian Garvey's loyalties.

[gay-jesus-probably]

so i’ve already done a well recieved text post on some actual facts about takashi shirogane and the entire thing is mostly joking but also completely my headcanons forever

but i figured in honour of season three just kidding i’ve been up all night reading voltron fanfiction havent gotten around to watching S3 yet so here some shiro headcanons that are actually my legit take on his life pre-kerberos

he’s only a partial american citizen. as a teenager, he was a japanese citizen with a school visa to attend the garrison, and after graduating he very easily recieved a work visa, but eventually for conveniences sake reluctantly went for partial citizenship once things started getting serious. he’s not happy about it. he’s in america for the space, he’s not a fan of the country as a whole.

and on the same note, due to being an american and japanese citizen, during the early stages of the kerberos mission set up (like years before launch) the publicity team initially tried to label him as an american astronaut. the second he found out, shiro very firmly demanded that everything related to him be marked with japans flag, not americas, thank you very much.

and again on that note, due to being the sole pilot of the furthest space mission ever, and doing it as a japanese astronaut, shiro met the prime minister of japan once. if there wasnt pictures of him with the prime minister, shiro probably would have convinced himself it wasnt real.

his first language was japanese, obviously. he learned how to read at about three, due to his parents reading to him literally every night, and also him being a genius. he didn’t give the faintest hint of a fuck about other languages, until he realised he wanted to join the galaxy garrison, at which point he went oh shit it’s only in english there, and started studying english like a madman. and spanish, because america’s got two official languages and you never know. and french and russian, because canada and russia are the other major players in space, and you can never be too careful.

mind you he learned these all in a purely academic setting as a teenager, so while he was fluent in all of them by the time he was old enough for the garrison, he was unpleasantly surprised to find that everyone used too much slang and contractions, and he was speaking in a very stilted and mechanical way with a hell of an accent. it took him about a year to get his english to a natural level, and he put up with harrasment for years until he managed to completely scrub out his accent. as a result, the majority of his friends at the garrison were other ESL students from overseas. he still kept every single one of his electronics set to japanese, and when tired, distracted or stressed, if someone tries to talk to him he is much more likely to respond in japanese without noticing. any time he’s returning from a trip home to visit his family, for the first week he starts every other sentence in rapid japanese, stops halfway through, thinks it over, and repeats himself in slower english. its rough to switch over.

he started going by shiro because in his first year, luck of the draw meant he was the only non-american in his astrophysics class, and the instructor was one who believed in groupwork and lots of it, so within a month everyone was acquaintances. there was mass confusion about if shiro’s name was shirogane or takashi, and attempts to explain made it worse. the matter was not helped by this being first year, and shiro not having the best grasp on conversational english. eventually he gave up and just told them all to call him shiro, because just shirogane sounded weird when everyone else went by their first names, and people kept pronouncing takashi weird so he gave up and took a nickname. it grew on him and he stuck with it.

while the garrison had the most international students out of any school in america, it was still very much a predominantly american school with 60% of the students being american. another 20% were canadian, british or australian. white native english speakers were a vast majority, and shiro had to deal with some racists. the racists he honestly didnt mind too much, because he could just physically drag them to an instructor he knew was sympathetic, explain what happened, and boom problem solved. what he absoloutely fucking hated were the weeaboos. he hated them. hated them so much. as a very attractive japanese teenager, he was getting weird fetishizing love letters at least once a month. and the amount of times he got invited to join the anime club. explaining to them that no he actually couldnt stand anime was too much of a chore to be worth it. eventually he worked out how to be juuuust enough of an asshole that they went away, but he wasnt in trouble for it. it was a very frustrating part of his life.

he grew up on hokkaido, specifically in sapporo because hunk and lance are both from tropical islands, keith is from desert texas, and pidge probably lived in the south her whole life because her father was a Big Deal with the galaxy garrison, which is the evolved form of NASA, and NASA operated entirely in the south. my canadian heart cannot handle an entire team thats used to just different shades of fucking hot, i need one of them to be from freeze your balls off up north, and its gotta be shiro.

although ironically, while shiro was more than happy to join the unofficial tradition of students from cold areas laughing at students from warm areas whenever the temperatures dropped, shiro was spending most of the year in florida, where the garrison is, and going back to sapporo during the summer for breaks, as the winter and spring break werent long enough to make the flights worth it. his tolerance for the cold dropped dramatically. his first year after graduating, he went back to sapporo in december for the first time, and was very displeased to realise that he was not prepared for the cold anymore. not prepared at all. oh god. holy shit.

after his application into the garrison was approved, things were a bit awkward for shiro because this meant unenrolling from the high school he’d been attending, and waiting to start class in the new semester at the galaxy garrison. he got the acceptance in spring. classes in japan start in april. classes in america start in september. it was like being on break, but it lasted half a year. it was surreal for shiro. i mean sure, there was preparing to go to america alone, but passport and visa prep only takes up so much time, and luggage/packing isnt a problem until the week leading up to leaving. he spent a lot of time lying around the house during that half year. you can only study alone for so long before you need to do something else. the sudden switch from the highly pressured japanese school enviroment to ~nothing to do~ was very jarring, but ended up functioning as a sort of gap year. as a genius kid, he was under a lot of pressure. being able to take a step back and breathe did him a world of good.

shiro is extremely foul mouthed, but has a reputation for almost never swearing. this is because he never completely gets the hang of english swearing, and decides to just not bother with working out how to properly say things that will land him in shit anyways. but he swears. almost constantly. just, in japanese. its hilariously common for other students to think “oh, there goes shiro, thinking outloud to himself” while shiro is actually violently swearing under his breath about forgetting his notes in his dorm. in his last year, he accidentally traumatized a first year from tokyo, when he was attempting to find a book he needed for his thesis from the library, and the computer he was using refused to cooperate. this led to him furiously cursing out the poor computer. in earshot of the first year, whose offended gasp was legendary. shiro immediately bribed her into secrecy. noone must know.

shiro realised he was pansexual during his half year hangtime between high school and garrison. while not exactly locked in the closet, he didn’t really think the information needed to be shared with anyone, and he was too busy with classes to really want to date anyone. he was only trying to hide his orientation from the weeaboos, mentioned earlier, who would have gotten even worse with the creepy fetishizing and never left him alone. he’s never really dated, and his experience is fooling around with other cadets, and the occasional one night stand when he was older with civilians his age in the nearby town. upon being considered for the kerberos mission, he immediately started very carefully making sure nobody found out about his sexuality. the first public broadcast from the kerberos ship was live to the world, and ended with shiro cheerfully declaring himself the first openly pansexual man in space. mission control had not been warned of this. the only parties warned in advance were sam and matt holt, and they both strongly approved of the idea.

after the kerberos team was declared dead from pilot error, it eventually came out that the garrison had no idea what caused the mission failure, and that the ship just suddenly lost communication and vanished, and that the pilot had been a convenient scapegoat. there was immediate backlash from a great deal of parties. over two dozen different LGBT and/or POC rights groups filed lawsuits against the Garrison, calling rascism and/or homophobia. international relations between america and japan turned frosty. shiro had previously been considered a national tragedy crossed with embarrasement for apparently fucking up such an important mission, but oh the speed at which that turned around. multiple cities, including sapporo and tokyo, comission statues of shiro practically overnight. he immediately swung around to national tragedy crossed with hero.

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

my weekend.

On Friday, I had a job interview with Starbucks. I really want that job. There are a lot of jobs that I don't want very much, but seeing as I am on unemployment, and one of the stipulations of unemployment is that I apply for at least two jobs a week, it's important that I apply to places that I might actually like working, else I get stuck somewhere I don't want to work. And I wanted this job specifically more than the few others that are available to me. I would not say that the interview went badly. But I didn't feel like I really made the greatest of all impressions of myself either. The problem is that I simply don't have very much customer service. I have tried very hard to get out of working in the backs of places, but so far, either I get stuck in a setting where I work away from other people, or, I end up finding a seclusive job that pays me so well I can't refuse. And it is true that I am a quiet person. But it's not true that I am not capable of being outgoing. I have gone over the interview so many times in my head now, what I did wrong, what I could have said but didn't think to mention, what I did right, that my memory now is playing tricks on me and I no longer know how well or not well I did or did not do.

After that interview, I had planned on visiting my mother up in Kellogg Idaho. Her and my brother were supposed to be starting a thrift store. They live in the back part of the store. I have gotten rid of over half the stuff in my possession, and it will be awfully convenient to have the opportunity to sell some of it and make a little bit of money. So, I packed the back of my sister's fiance's truck up with my stuff I was going to sell, and we drove for a few hours, stuffed in the back of the truck with several other people and babies. The entire ride was slightly miserable. Everyone in the front wanted their windows rolled down, which blew directly on me. The babies screamed in bloody exhausted murder half the way, and the other half of the way they blasted a pop radio station mixed with the static of several other stations all competing. When we finally got there it was late at night.

My mom and my brother fight all the time. Both of them are kind of hard to be around for very different reasons, and if I am going to be perfectly honest, neither one of them are going to be good at handling the shop. My brother is a phobic person, among having other unfortunate problems. He's a very smart, and at times, highly considerate person, I would say in some ways he's a cut above most people. He reads more than anyone I know and he cares very deeply about doing the right thing. But he's almost unemployable. He thinks he is dirty a lot of the time. He shaves most of his hair on his body off because it grosses him out, and I have known him to take up to ten baths a day. He's also randomly moody about strange things. The strangest things set him off. He is obsessed with movies and music. When he puts in a movie, he expects everyone to sit perfectly still in the house and watch it. If you make too much noise he sees this as the greatest form of disrespect.  If he listens to an album, he expects everyone to listen to it attentively in the same manner. You aren't allowed to say anything. If people don't do this, he gets irrationally angry, and personally offended. He's had a history of violent behavior, but I do believe he's worked through most of that. My parents refuse to seek mental help for him, and instead they have taken turns trying to keep him as a pet. Until he fights with one of them, and then the other parent feels empowered by my other parent's failure, and they take over the situation. I myself was in a similar state when I was his age. I guess my parents are kind of sick. They don't want him to get a job, or be his own person. It's upsetting, but there is a symbiosis to the situation that the rest of us siblings cannot do much about. Still, it makes me sad.

So, about two years ago, my brother and my mom got bedbugs. It became this huge fiasco. They moved all their stuff into storage, and lived very modestly for over a year. But my brother feels that he still has bedbugs and that our parents are in denial about it because they want to forget about it, but my parents are saying he's become phobic and crazy, essentially developing parasitosis. and that with all the work they have done to rid themselves of the bugs, David is simply left with the residual phobia that he was already inclined towards. But he says they are only biting  him, not anyone else. He powders everything with diatomaceous earth. All of his books are covered in the stuff. He puts it all over himself at night and sleeps in it. He covers everything with plastic. I don't even know what to think. On one  hand, my parents really are the kinds of people who would have bedbugs and pretend that they didn't. I've known them my entire life to be selfish and undisciplined in that way. David has troubles dealing with their personality types. On the other hand, David is also prone to perfectionism and phobias. He tends to feel like people and nature are out to either offend or fail him in some way.

So, I come to visit, and this is their issue. I don't even know what to say to either one of them. David doesn't want to contribute with helping the shop because he doesn't want to send bedbugs that are in the stuff they are trying to sell to other people's homes for moral reasons. It's making him stressed out and depressed because there is a ton of stuff every which direction and the whole thing is chaos. My mom is completely inefficient and will spend any time she does have off painting rainbows on a wall when she needs to be setting up shelves and pricing her items. She works perfectly fine in chaos. Nobody is getting anything done. They are starting to have violent fights.

Meanwhile, something very strange has happened. My grandma has acquired a boyfriend. Some people's grandmother's probably do date here and there, but not my grandma Marie. She's a somewhat cold person until you get to know her better. She's a follower of the spiritual teachings of Yogananda, she's a perfectionist, a racist (even though she's half Native American), very conservative, very clean and organized in her way of thinking, she thinks deeply but lacks any sense of relativity or scope in her opinions. I would not call her dumb, but there is a strong arrogance and independence about her that makes most people avoid her. She also doesn't realize it, but she uses shame as a method to make people conform to what she thinks is right. I either did not fully realize how racist she was until I got much older, or she actually got more racist the older she got. Either way, if I had known at an earlier age, I might have felt differently about her, but I didn't really know, and given that I am mostly white, racism didn't really cross my mind or affect me on a personal level till I got older and explored different perspectives. It's difficult for me to grapple with her being so conservative and openly hateful to minorities (even though she is one), and at the same time hold her in regard. I have gotten to know her well enough to truly understand that underneath all of her judgmental rules, she's actually quite afraid and kind of lonely.  It's partly her own fault. But to be fair, she was basically an orphan. Both of her parents didn't want her. She grew up in a strict upbringing without many toys. She got older and married an abusive miner (my deceased grandfather), as a teenager, and she was viciously abused until she finally escaped. It took her a lot of hard years and several other abusive relationships to where she finally became who she was. She's never really lived outside of the small area of the north Idaho. Throughout my life, my parents have not been very reliable or nice to me, and she took me in when I needed help and gave me some sense of order. The conflict is very real.

Anyway, it came as a shock to find out she had a boyfriend. The whole family can barely believe it. I guess they knew each other from a job they both did forty years ago. She decided to get in touch and they started talking and they both feel like they have a lot in common, or else they are so lonely the both of them that they are pretending they do. He's got a nice home from what I hear. He lives in the Seattle area. If things work out, she may even up and move.

I also found out that her and my uncles and aunts on her side of the family almost disowned me because they didn't realize that I was liberal. I guess I must have posted something political that she found offensive on facebook several months ago. This caused her to block me. Basically, I exposed myself to my friends and family as having been sexually assaulted at one point in my life. I wanted some people in my life to know, because it was quite personal to me that we have a sex offender as a president. I imagine for a lot of people, this was too much information. But here's the thing. I already live in a world where nobody knows what they want from other people most of the time, if they want empty comfort or meaningful pain-filled honesty, and there is a stigma for rape victims that causes shame as it is. By being open about who I am to other people, I am breaking that boundary. I don't per say want to be coddled for what has happened to me in the past and I don't really want to essentially label myself as a victim either. I am trying to break that fear people have of what's happened to them. And I have found that me having been raped has been more difficult for my friends and family to accept than it has for me personally. Well, I don't know about that entirely. I have had a lot of problems because of it, and still continue to have problems. But at first nobody believed me. They didn't think I was lying. They just didn't believe me or want to understand. And to a degree, their dismissive avoidance made me feel ashamed of myself, and so I tried to make it out that it had been sort of my fault.

And then there are the people I have told. Basically, most of the people who read what I wrote never asked me about it. I was very honest with this Trump supporter friend of my sister's boyfriend about how having been personally raped makes me feel very differently about both our president's words, rape culture in general, and all those who chose to ignore his abhorrent behavior. This Trump supporter, who I could tell knew he was wrong and felt emotionally conflicted with how calmly I had explained myself and having nothing to retort, drunkenly screamed in my face that I essentially had it coming for being a liberal, and that I am a total hypocrite because I voted for Bill Clinton (I was seven the year he won his second term so that didn't make sense), and the fact remains that Clinton was more of a philanderer than he was an actual predator, unless you believe the stories that he raped that one woman in the 70's, which I don't believe there is sufficient evidence to deny or defend at this point so I am not going to falsely accuse him of that. I never was an avid Bill Clinton supporter. I didn't have a political opinion till I was almost twenty however. And I voted for Hilary because I didn't want to throw my vote away, since even though she wasn't my candidate of choice, I felt that she was more than a little more qualified than Donald Trump and Jill Stein was unprepared for that power and most likely would not have won. Mostly, in this facebook post that I did after Donald was elected, I pointed out the hypocrisy of being a conservative 'protector of family' and of women, and yet the support and blind eye to the misogyny is absurd and contradictory.

And it also came into play that when the family on my mother's side found out that I was open about sexual assault in my personal life, they felt weird about their own. My grandma has been sexually assaulted. My mom has, and one of my older sisters has as well. And my oldest niece, and my brother. Two of my childhood best friends, a friend I had later on in life. One of my friend's parents. Rape is literally in every corner of my life, and has crippled a part of many people's spirits. This has affected me first hand, and in directly through these people. It's almost something casual to our family history, and the women are hush hush, shame shame about it. And even those in my family who were not assaulted have been physically abused. I won't even go into a list there. And yet, none of these women really speak up. It's drifted down through the family tree that we don't get to speak up or fight back. We dare not do anything to suggest any feminist connotation. That's why I had to say something. Nobody else would have. It's one thing when you know you come from a troubled family that's fucked up and repressive, but it's quite another when a good portion of your entire country blows this off, and hides it under the rug. I expect better of people, it doesn't even matter in this case if they are liberal or conservative. I just want to be seen as something beyond a weak woman who asked for it. Or broken. That's why I said something.

Anyway, this really did upset and anger my mom's side of the family. They did not ask me if I was okay for having found that out. They instantly considered rejecting me. I am far from shocked. It really is to be expected. They are all older now, but they still carry a lot of damage from their upbringings. It did hurt my feelings a bit truth be told, but these family members are also racists, and sometimes you just have to stand your ground. I don't need their respect. This is just another part of growing up that's unpleasant but must be done. I am not even going to respond to this with hate. I don't expect anything from them, and they don't owe me anything. I recognize that they have fear and shame for themselves, and it's caused them to resent me for denying that shame and fear that they cloak themselves in. My grandma feels shame at herself for having the complexion and high cheek bones of indigenous people. She probably lost a lot of job opportunities over blonde haired, blue eyed women who men would aim to marry before my they would someone with black hair, darker skin. It was probably particularly difficult to deal with her divorce at a time when women simply didn't divorce men very often, when all of that was considered shameful, let alone being dark skinned with four children to feed. And rather than recognize that these people were wrong, that there was nothing wrong with being dark, she took it in and strove to be considered white and therefore less shameful. It's strange how this kind of thing works.

But later, yesterday morning, we ended up going to visit my grandma. When I was there in person, I could tell that she didn't actually hate me at all. It was mostly a defense mechanism. In person she seemed conflicted at first, but she was also very eager to see me again. She actually really does love me. She's just damaged. And damaged people don't deal with this kind of thing well. I questioned the authoritarian voice of the Republicans that she needs in her life in order to feel validated and safe. She really wanted me to come up and paint with her. She used to be a successful artist, and she's been getting back into the habit recently. I told her I had been watching a lot of Star Trek and had wanted to paint some Star Trek related paintings recently, and she got very excited, being as superstitious as she is she has been wanting to paint pictures of space recently. She saw this as some kind of sign. I then had to go. I told her I loved her and we went on our way.

When I got home, I found some bad news. For some reason that I absolutely do not understand, for the fourth time in a row, my unemployment has been rejected. Idaho does a lot to avoid having to pay out unemployment. They intentionally make it hard for people to do this, and I keep getting kicked off for very minor reasons, one of them being that I don't physically have a car, though I have several means of transportation, public, bicycle, and my sister can give me rides. They still said that I could not apply. I have looked for two jobs a week just as asked and filled out all of the information. I have dutifully filled out all the stuff into the claimant portal as I was supposed to, phone numbers and everything. But last week has simply gone under 'unprocessed'. I have no clue why that is at all. And now they are saying I have to wait another two weeks to get paid. I don't have two weeks. I am running low on money now. I am getting really emotionally frustrated. I got mad and I have been feeling insecure and hopeless. I bawled my eyes out. I intentionally applied at stupid places this week not to get the job, but simply to put my application out there for the sake of being thorough. I figure that if I do get interviewed, then I will be painfully honest with every job I do not want. In the adult world, you are not supposed to be honest. But I do find myself a little confused, since some of the online questions were 'Are your parents proud of you'?', 'What do your coworkers secretly think about you', and "When I look at the world around me, I have little hope for mankind. - True or false"

I especially find it strange that they would go so deep to even attempt to ask me about something so sociological, something that people write acclaimed nonfiction literature trying to piece together, since this is fucking Jack in the Box. This place's supervisors are tweaking out on their shifts. This is the Jack in the Box down the street that never gets orders right, that had to be shut down because their spoiled food was making people sick, the Jack in the Box where one of the managers actually spit in the food of a customer before giving it to them, and posted it on social media and got fired. I also was interviewed at this place a few years ago, and this guy became emotionally abusive towards me, telling me that I wasn't good enough to be hired at the lowest fast food place. When I tried to answer questions, he talked over me and told me I was a liar, and that he could read my thoughts. I needed a job very badly back then, and he was totally abusive in his position of power. Now days, I would have walked out as soon as he started getting inappropriate and personal. But at the time I took it to heart and really felt as awful as he was hoping to make me. I walked out of the building sobbing. He got fired a week later for attempting to force the women in the building to perform sexual favors for him in order to keep their jobs. I ended up working under him for a short period at a factory. He was a total joke, and I out performed him two weeks into the job.

It's just ridiculous. I wonder if there is something so fundamentally unpleasant about me that people feel repelled by me in some way. Because I know I am not an extrovert. But I can be sociable. I am a little stiff at interviews, I know I come off as odd. But there are people who come off worse. There are a lot of totally incompetent individuals that get jobs. Like president of the united states, or manager of jack in the box. I just can't figure it out. I have even figured out how to lie about just about anything. Half my resume' is a lie. For whatever reason, you are supposed to simultaneously tell the truth and lie at the same time. This is what employers want. Even if you are just there to perform a task that any dummy could perform, and nobody cares if you smile. I can't even apparently win these crummy prizes. But somehow, this doesn't work either. I just feel even worse because I did exactly what I was supposed to, I sold my soul to the devil, and I still didn't reap the benefits. What feels more cheap than that? Anymore, I feel a lot better off going into interviews being totally myself. I just feel like I am somehow a failure as it is, but lying and pretending I am hot shit also seems like a dumb call. It's essentially admitting to myself that I am not good enough to be myself and be accepted for what I am, and in so doing lowering my feelings of self worth psychologically, and then still getting rejected just the same. At least if I am going to be rejected I would rather be tried for who I am rather than who I am not. I am aware that most of the reason I am feeling frustrated and sad about this now is because I am getting upset about my online unemployment being denied for no good reason.

There is also a strange logic in being myself. I have always felt very strongly that you can't find your real place in life and at the same time deny who you really are in the world. It's better to be proud of who you are. The world is indifferent and unforgiving and shallow. They will look for and find any excuse to dismiss you if they possibly can. And that might be because they don't like your nose. There are many situations where there is nothing you can do about the way the world perceives you. Why be your own worst enemy in a cold indifferent world as it is? And even if you accomplish the task of making everyone like you in a shallow way, how good is that ever going to feel to you? How will you ever find people who really love and understand you for who you are, or find a position in life that pays the bills that you can enjoy? People who go to work day in and day out being something they are not lead empty lives. I do not blame people for doing what they have to in order to survive by any means, but if their desperation is so real that they must fake it in order to feed their family, than I include that desperation as part of the inner workings of the reality in the situation. I have this gut feeling that if I come off as phony, it will deep down send a message of weakness. And the world is made of wolves, and they will tear you apart for that. If I am going to be dismissed, I would go down being myself than some phony cartoon version of what people are supposed to be. I do know that we all have to eat and pay the bills, but there is more to life than that. If all I ever do for the rest of my life is eat, sleep, pay the bills and zone out online, than for logical reasons, I don't really care what happens to me enough to fake this stuff. Especially for a job that would not even challenge me too much. That is not a life that I think I want to live. For other people it might really be a sustainable happy existence. I don't mean to shame anyone. It's just not for me. I've been doing it more or less for three yeas now because I thought that if I did everything people are 'supposed to do' than I could fix a broken heart and be happy the way the conforming authoritative collective voice says you will be. It really doesn't fix it. While it's true, my heart isn't really broken anymore, I just feel like I have denied it exists to the point where it is starting to disconnect from me and become a black void, and I am genuinely not happy at all with this. And every time I get an unrealistic non-work-related question for a job, and they ask me to kiss ass so they can boot me in the face anyway, I am reminded very clearly of this fact.

To be fair though, Starbucks was very nice, and the questions had some pertinence with the reality of the job. I just didn't come off as warm enough I don't think.