#the opposite of what happened to my courier before he got better

[miekasa]

Mie, I’m begging for some Jean college au bf hcs - im literally so down bad for this man and the way you write men is just 🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻

Absolutely, not a problem 😌 I saved this ask as a draft a while ago when you sent it, sorry for just now getting to it. Anyway, I love Jean with my whole heart, best boy, best boyfriend <33

King of forehead kisses, and not even just because of his height in comparison to yours; he just likes it. He likes the feeling of pressing his lips against your skin, and making you feel safe.

Brings you tea or coffee however you like it every day without fail. If he can get it to you in the morning before work/school then he’ll do that, if not he’ll meet you some time in the middle of the day to drop it off. Your own personal courier just for drinks.

He… has a thing for long(er) nails. He loves the feeling of them against his skin, even if you’re not scratching to apply pressure—just you holding his hand them grazing his skin is enough for him.

That being said, he will pay for you to get your nails done. Actually, he’ll pay for… almost anything you want, but the nails benefit him as much as they do you so feel free to ball out.

He never blowdries his hair because he doesn’t... know how to do the back of it. You did it for him once and he hasn’t stopped thinking about it since, but he’s also too embarrassed to ask you to do/style it again.

On the subject of hair, he does do his best to style it and take care of it, but he’s a sucker whenever you play with it. Sometimes he feigns like you’re messing up all his hard work, but he’ll literally crane his head into your touch. He loves it. 

The first time he lays on top of you and you run your hands through his hair... top 10 most euphoric moments of his life. He tries to fight off the sleep threatening to take over him, but it’s futile. Give it 15 minutes at most before he’s knocked out like a baby. 

Dogs love him. Anytime you’re in a park or just taking a walk and there’s a dog around, it’ll come up to him and he looks adorable leaning down to pet it. He loves dogs, too! So he’s always happy to stop and pet them. He’d be a 10/10 dog dad. 

Has your name saved in his phone with two hearts at the end. Do not point it out.

Loves taking pictures together and if you guys are on a date, he’ll ask someone to get a picture for him. He just likes having them to look back on (and to send to his mom, later).

He doesn’t mind painting classes or videos or tutorials, but he hates paint by numbers kits. He claims that they have no sense of color theory and that it takes the originality and fun out of painting. Not to mention the quality of the paints isn’t great to begin with; all of which he takes very seriously.

It’s pretty cute actually, to see him get worked up over the paint kits. He claims that painting and drawing isn’t even something he takes “that seriously,” it’s just a hobby for him (one he’s insanely good at); but in moments like these, you can tell that he’s way more into art and art theory and history than he lets on. 

Huge movie guy, from animated movies to martial arts movies, Jean is usually willingly to give anything a watch at least once. When he’s high, he can go on about his favorite directors and art styles and movie details for hours if you don’t stop him. It’s super cute. Just don’t bring up Moana, because he’ll start crying. 

Arm around the shoulder kind of boyfriend for sure. It’s a casual way of keeping you near him and letting everyone know that you guys are together. Plus it allows for him to easily pull you into him for a quick forehead kiss when needed.

Listen. If you hug his arm, he’s on cloud nine. He tries to be nonchalant about it but he’s about three seconds away from his eyes rolling back in his head it feels that good to him. Bonus if you lean your head on his bicep a little—then he’s a goner.

He takes his bagels very seriously and believes that both you and him deserve nothing but the best quality bagels. He’ll grumble if a bakery gives you guys a less than favorable one and make a note that taking the long route to get to his favorite place is much more worth it.

Always makes you walk on the side furthest from the cars. If he notices you’re not, he’ll just shuffle behind you until he’s shouldering the street and you’re on the inside. 

He grew up on a kind of modern ranch situation; not exactly all the way in the countryside, but not isolate from the city, either. Because of this, he knows how to ride horses, take care of smaller farm animals, tend to plants, and yes he knows how to use a lasso. You wouldn’t know any of that though, because he never ever talks about it. The only way you find out is when he takes you to visit his mom’s house for the first time, and she asks him for a hand around the place. 

(He’s got a cowboy hat, too, but refuses to put it on. He got it when he was, like, nine, okay, leave him alone). 

When he thinks you look tired, he’ll wrap his arms around your shoulders to hug you. It’s usually followed up with a kiss to your head, and a promise that you guys will go home soon and get food on the way. 

He’s a really good cook. He just understands and flavors and pairings really well, so he doesn’t need a recipe to make something that tastes good; he just kind of knows what to add to get the balance he’s looking for. 

Naturally, he’ll cook for you. Especially if he finds out that you haven’t eaten all day/in a long time. He doesn’t care if it’s 11pm and it might seem excessive to make steak and potatoes with a side salad at this hour, he’s gonna do it to make sure you eat, and you are going to sit there and watch. 

He also bakes pretty well, though he isn’t as experimental with his baking as he is with his cooking. He usually sticks to what he knows, and it’s not cupcakes and brownies and cakes; he’s better at croissants, and cheesecakes, and canelés. 

Dating Jean means getting along with his friends. If you guys didn’t know each other before you started dating, be prepared to be ambushed by Connie and Sasha (after Jean stops hiding you away and gives them the green light lmfao). Neither of them waste time with the small talk and formalities; straight into mini golfing and beer pong. They make you feel welcome right away.

Sasha always teases that you’re too good for Jean, and that she might just steal you away for herself some day. Sasha is also Jean’s main confidant, so she really knows just how much he loves you, and yeah, she teases him for being lovesick, but really she’s happy for Jean. And proud of him for facing his feelings like this. 

Connie adores you, and you know he trusts you when he starts going to you for advice/help. Could be anything from schoolwork, to what color he should get his new shoes in. He’s also the one who, surprisingly, you have the sentimental talks with about your relationship with Jean. It’s easy to overlook, but Connie loves Jean, and he’s come to love you too; he just wants you both to be happy, so he’s there to listen when you need it. 

Jean waits outside of your classroom after you’ve had a test or presentation, usually with a drink or a snack, or the promise of taking you out as a treat. Always tells you he’s proud of you, and is there to comfort you if you think you didn’t do too well. 

He does not shut up about whatever major you’re in. It could be the same as his; it could be the complete opposite as his. He thinks it’s so sick that you’re doing it, you make it look cooler, you make it look better, and he’s certain you’re the smartest person in your program. 

He’s pretty serious about his studies, too, so he’s always down to study with you in the library whenever you’re both free. More often than not, he shows up after you, usually with food or extra chargers. He greets you with a kiss on the forehead, and asks you how you are while massaging your shoulders gently. If it’s been a while since you took a break, that’s the first item on the list, after that, he gets to work and stays with you until you’re ready to go, even if he doesn’t have as much work to do. 

He always sits across from you. This goes for when you’re in the library, or out to eat at a restaurant; Jean loves sitting across from you. He gets to see your face the best that way, and he adores looking into your eyes when you talk. 

He’s not... not a morning person. He’s not up at 6am ready to grind, but he wakes up before noon; let’s say 10am is his happy medium. That being said, if you wake up before him, regardless of the time, there’s a 9/10 chance he’ll lay on your back and tell you to hush so you guys can sleep for 10 more minutes. 

If you’re (close) friends with Eren, Mikasa, and Armin, Jean is... happy you’ve got people to rely on, but, “Of all people on the planet, you put your trust in Jaeger?” He acts so bitter (because he is), but deep down inside, he’s glad you have Eren to rely on if you need to. 

(Also, you have to humble him and remind him that he and Eren aren’t all that different. If you like him, why wouldn’t you get along with Eren, bye). 

Turns out though, that it’s not Eren who threatens to beat him up if he breaks your heart. It’s not even Mikasa, although, her threat goes without saying; it’s Armin he’s terrified of.

The last time Armin hated someone, it was this guy in your program, who happened to share a few mutual classes with him, too. Jean never knew the full story, just that he’s pretty sure that kid dropped out the following semester. 

If you have a job on campus, Jean usually doesn’t show up while you’re working (knowing how embarrassed he would be if you did that to him), unless you work the night shift and it’s dead. Connie, however, does show up; usually in some kind of crisis (“Please help me, I don’t know what the fuck APA formatting is and this is due tonight, please, please, please!!”). Your coworkers actually thought Connie was your boyfriend for a minute. That’s when Jean starts showing up more lmfao.

He makes it a point to go on a scheduled, night out, kind of date at least twice a month. He knows life gets busy with school and work and midterms, but he always makes sure you both set side a time to take a well-deserved break and be with each other. 

He’s the romantic type, so these dates are pretty swoon worthy, too. Drive-in movies, nice dinners, classy art exhibits, Jean plans it all. On that note, he really likes planning dates; he just doesn’t like talking about them with his friends beforehand. 

All in all, very romantic, very precious boyfriend. He’s always thinking about you, what you need, and how he can help you out. You’re one of his main priorities, and he just wants to treat you right. 

[desert-dyke]

Pollen

Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Category: M/M Fandom: Fallout New Vegas Relationships:

Craig Boone/Arcade Gannon

Craig Boone & Female Courier

Characters:

Arcade Gannon

Craig Boone

Female Courier

Additional Tags:

Sex Pollen

Anal Sex

Frotting

Blow Jobs

an assortment of fun sexual favors

Strangers to Lovers

bottom boone

Smut

lil fluff at the end

Arcade and Boone are sent to survey Vault 22 only to discover some plant life there has some interesting side effects...

Arcade’s eyes wandered across various equipment in the lab. Not as nice as what he had to work with while with the Followers, but a lot better than other factions could brag. Sloan was talking to one of the scientists. He sort of zoned out by now. She was far from the brightest crayon in the pack and sometimes it was better not to hear her “brilliant” takes. He could tell a deal was being made. An exchange of caps promised. Yeah that always caught Sloan’s attention. “How do you feel about going to Vault 22?” Sloan asked, giving him that smile that suggested she wasn’t really asking. Arcade blinked. He promised to follow her and give her support, but he did not like where this was going. He could have sworn he heard something about someone disappearing, and research needing to be reacquired. It was the former part that unsettled him. “It’s got plants! You like that sort of thing,” Sloan appealed. 

“Why can’t you go?” Arcade asked. Sloan’s sunburnt shoulders rose and fell again. 

“I’ve got other business here.” 

Arcade rolled his eyes. He had noticed the way her eyes seemingly glazed over when Corporal Betsy was talking to her. It was so characteristic of Sloan to ditch him to flirt with whatever pretty lady they encountered. He remembered losing her for nearly two days in Westside, only to find her holed up in the Thorn. Apparently her and Red Lucy got pretty close during that time. 

“I’m not going alone,” he asserted. He could protect himself just fine, but if already someone had disappeared, Arcade did not want to add himself to the body count.

“Take Boone with you,” Sloan suggested. He couldn’t believe his initial reaction then but he actually preferred Sloan to Boone. It wasn’t that he was unfriendly towards the rest of Sloan’s friends. She definitely had interesting tastes when it came to making friends. Cass was a bit rough and rowdy. Raul was a sarcastic pushover. Lily was sweet and doting on Sloan, but he was certain she could and would snap him in half. But Boone? He was just quiet. In all honesty, Arcade didn’t know what to think of Boone. Not knowing his deal made Arcade cautious of him. 

“Why Boone?” He questioned. Sloan shrugged again, but she was a terrible bluff. He could tell by the twitching corners of her mouth. She had her reasons, but she wasn’t going to tell him them.

“I’m tired of him moping around the 38,” she made the excuse. “Take him out. Show him a good time.” Her arm wrapped around Arcade’s shoulder. She was much shorter and had to pull him down to her height in order to do so. Arcade didn’t fight against it. “There’s a nuka cola quantum in it for you…”

“I could buy myself my own,” Arcade said. He rolled his eyes and shrugged his way out of Sloan’s hold. It hurt to bend like that. “Fine.”

Getting Boone to talk was like pulling teeth. On one hand, there was some peace to that. Boone was just about the only one at the Lucky 38 who didn’t try to probe Arcade for some history. He had the inkling that Boone genuinely did not care, whereas every one else only further inspired them to pry. 

The silence began to wear on him after an hour of walking in it. Boone’s sun-shaded eyes darted along the desert expanding before them, on the lookout for any sign of trouble. He accepted that silence in this case meant stealth and cover from any wasteland creature who might do them harm. Yet the sound of wind whistling across an empty desert kept making Arcade look over his shoulder, thinking he heard the sound of voices. 

Boone raised a clenched fist, his arm forming a right angle. Arcade crawled to a stop, unholstering his pistol. Boone had his rifle trained on an enemy hidden from Arcade’s view. He tried to squint his eyes, shading them from the scorching sun, but all he saw were dancing waves of heat. 

Arcade jumped as Boone’s rifle fired. A hand accidentally touched the sniper’s back and was quickly brushed off with a grunt. 

“What was it?” Arcade asked. Silence. Was he annoyed at his touch? Arcade sucked a breath in, but before he could speak, his ears rung with the sound of the rifle discharging. Boone fired twice more before standing. Arcade remained crouched for a moment longer, trying to process what happened. Boone began walking, indifferent to whether Arcade was following or not. He hustled to catch up with Boone. Finally, he saw something in the distance, coming from between the mountains. It looked overwhelmingly green. 

Something crunched beneath Arcade’s tread. He looked down with disgust at the oversized insect he stepped on, it’s insides now covering his shoes. This must have been what Boone had seen and taken out long before it would even know they were there. His finger searched for the trigger of his plasma pistol, resting just in case there were any more nearby. 

“Area’s clear,” Boone said. Whether that was meant to be reassuring was lost on Arcade. He checked the crudely drawn map he had been given, aligned it with surrounding landmarks. A red x marked the spot, in a small alcove of the mountain range, confirming what Arcade already knew. The green was where they needed to go. 

It was even more overwhelming the closer they got. Vegetation was sparse in the mojave and what did was hardy and prickly. Not soft with fanlike waxy leaves, something he’d expect to see in the jungle, not here in the desert.  

“I’m no botanist, but that doesn’t seem entirely natural,” Arcade remarked. He looked towards Boone, still silent. He lead the way, rifle in his hands. The vegetation grew denser the further they wandered into the alcove. It’s source was covered in it, so that Arcade almost didn’t recognize the entrance to vault 22. He was afraid to brush against the plants, unsure of what effects they might have. He had an antivenom on him, which could possibly work if something was poisonous, but wasn’t definite. However, if it triggered an allergic reaction, they would be plum out of luck. 

Boone sauntered ahead without the same caution. Arcade hissed in a breath watching the skin of his arm touch a plant, expecting blistering welts to rise moments later. When nothing happened and Boone continued on ahead without him, Arcade relaxed only slightly and followed him into the vault. 

Despite the lack of soil, the plants had no problem growing on the metal of the vault floors, walls, ceiling, literally anywhere he looked there was growth. Arcade jumped at the sudden metallic boom. Boone was no longer in the entrance with him. He heard another gunshot and deciphered Boone must’ve headed further inside. Arcade hustled, following the sound. Gunshots meant trouble. His feet flew down the stairwell, chasing noise, any sign of life. He halted, almost rushing into a figure rising from a cluster of flora. It was human shaped, but definitely not human. Arcade discharged his pistol into the back of the creature. It shrieked and burned as it crumpled to the ground. Boone turned around, realizing the creature had gotten dangerously close to him before Arcade shot it down. Arcade expected some hint of gratitude but Boone showed none. 

“We’re not alone,” He said, instead. As if that much were not already obvious. The stairwell split into two opposing sides. “I’ll take that way,” Boone said, before heading down the stairs before Arcade could oppose them splitting up. 

He held tight to his pistol as he ventured the other route. Boone’s gunshots echoed the metal walls. He was relieved to see they rejoined on the same floor. Boone took the liberty of surveying one of the rooms. Arcade took to the opposite, which looked to be a lab. Promising, Arcade thought.

He took out another plant-person as it rose from another cluster of flora. He wondered, with some morbidity, if these creatures were indeed once human. Maybe even the scientists working in this vault. 

A light shone on a large blossom, catching Arcade’s attention. He approached with caution, pistol pointed forward in case another creature spawned from it. The blossom opened, releasing a visible cloud of spores. Instinctively, Arcade gasped. It smelled, he was embarrassed to admit, like sex. He pressed the sleeve of his lab coat to his face, trying to avoid breathing any more of it in and promptly left the room in search of Boone. 

“We need to leave,” He told the sniper, when he encountered him loitering in one of the labs. “There’s spores in the air, and who knows what harm they could be if we breath them.” He thought of the corpse they found that looked like a human body entirely encased in flora. No doubt they would soon share a similar fate. Boone did not seem particularly riveted by Arcade’s words. Arcade felt his blood warm. Frustration. He knew he wasn’t exactly the type to give orders, but he wished Boone would at least listen to him. “We need gas masks and then we can try again. I’m sure Sloan would understand,” Arcade added, considering maybe Boone was afraid of disappointing Sloan. 

“There’s spores in here too,” Boone stated, pointing towards a similar looking blossom.

“Yeah, exactly why we need to get out of here,” Arcade reiterated. He never realized how dull Boone was. Abandoning all caution, he reached for Boone’s hand, giving it a tug. Surprisingly, the contact earned no response from the other man.

“Are you feeling feverish?” Boone asked. Arcade paused. He had been feeling a little warmer and

his heart was pounding in his chest. He assumed it was out of ire towards the sniper. He pressed the back of his hand to his forehead. It was warm. “You look flushed,” Boone commented.  

“Yeah, well something really fucked up is going on in this vault, so excuse me for being a little worked up,” Arcade replied. His heart was really pounding, as if he had just ran a lap around Freeside. Sure he was upset at Boone, but even he acknowledged that it was a bit of an exaggerated response to the situation. Unless it was the pollen he inhaled causing him to have an accelerated heart rate.

“Worked up is right,” Boone commented. He scratched his buzzed head under his beret. Arcade noticed how low Boone was looking. He followed his line of vision, noticed a small tent had formed in his pants. He could add this to the list of awkward moments he had gotten a boner. 

“I’m not going to let you die down here just because you want to be difficult,” Arcade redirected the conversation back to what was most urgent. He grabbed the collar of Boone’s shirt and pulled. Boone swatted his hand away, but it got him to start moving. 

Arcade kept his plasma pistol close in case they encountered any more of those spore creatures on the way back out. Every cluster of flora that broke through the metal floor of the vault put Arcade a little bit more at unease. He jumped upon seeing a corpse of one Boone had sniped earlier, laying among all of the plants. 

The further up they went, the warmer Arcade felt. He was coated in a fierce sweat, as if he were fighting a fever, his glasses fogged a bit from the heat radiating from his body. Arcade paused to catch his breath. Boone took note.

“Hey,” The concern in his voice was forreign to Arcade. “What’s up?” That was probably the closest Boone was going to come to saying ‘are you okay?’

“I’m not going to lie, I’m not feeling great,” Arcade confessed. He was having a difficult time placing what was wrong. He did not feel ill. Despite the high body temperature, he knew he didn’t have a fever. He just felt exceptionally wound up, like he had just did a warm up lap and was ready to do more. 

“Something’s not right,” Boone said, in agreement. Arcade looked towards him. Boone was looking flushed as well. He didn’t mean to look, but it was hard to ignore the swell tugging against cargo pants. 

Boone stepped closer, causing Arcade to take a step back. He couldn’t see behind Boone’s sniper shades, but he thought he was pissed, that he was going to hurt him. Instead, Boone clutched Arcade’s sleeve, pinching it tight inside his fist. “I need help, Doc.” 

Arcade’s heart felt like it was going to burst out of his chest. He felt as rough as Boone looked, as if their bodies were going to give out from stress if relief didn’t come soon. “I don’t…” Arcade stuttered. “I-I don’t know what to do.” 

“Bullshit,” Boone growled through clenched teeth. 

Sweat loosened the pomade in Arcade’s hair, so that strands dangled in his face. He brushed them back, all the while leaning on a computer mainframe for support. He did have an idea of how to treat this condition. While it wasn’t an unpleasant idea, it also wasn’t something Arcade impulsively rushed into, like Sloan might. He had secrets to keep, secrets that didn’t belong with such intimate acts. 

But he was also certain not doing so would kill them. Already the stress was taking a toll on Arcade’s body. He knew they wouldn’t make it far from the vault before one or both of them would suffer a stroke or cardiac arrest. 

“Yes. Fine,” Arcade conceded. “Are you sure this is what you want?” Neither of them had any other choice, but Arcade needed consent before performing this sort of procedure. 

Next thing Arcade knew, Boone’s hand was on the collar of his button down, pulling him down to his shorter height and mashing his lips against Arcade’s. His glasses clacked with Boone’s, knocking them askew on his face. Arcade removed his and rested it on the mainframe before returning his lips to Boone’s.

Boone’s breath was hot on his face. He kissed ravenously, like Boone had been wandering the Mojave for days and Arcade was the first drink of water. His hands grasped at Arcade with the same urgency, while constantly shifting place, as if Boone was still trying to figure out what felt right. 

Arcade stifled the question in his mind of whether Boone had ever been with a man before. He was confident Boone hadn’t engaged in sexual activities since the loss of his wife. Being close to someone now must have been weird to him, regardless of anatomy. 

He decided to offer Boone some assistance, and pulled his lab coat off before beginning to unbutton his shirt. It clung to his body, damp with sweat. Boone eyed him for a moment before doing the same with his t-shirt. 

His stocky torso shined with sweat. His skin was battered with scars all at different stages of healing, but his shape was soft and inviting. Round pectoral muscles and a slight pudge of stomach cushioning ropes of muscles beneath. Arcade would be lying if he said he never found Boone attractive previously, he just didn’t think Boone would be interested. Even now, Boone hesitated. He realized Boone was waiting for his direction. 

Arcade took his hands in his own and guided them towards his chest. Boone traced along his torso before eagerly coming in for another kiss. Their chests pressed together, he could feel the heat radiating off of Boone. Arcade was painfully erect and the slightest brush of cloth against his groin made him ache. 

He reached between their bodies to free himself from his pants. Boone mirrored him before turning around and leaning against the mainframe. Arcade was taken aback, watching as Boone waited for him. Two pale mounds that were his now exposed ass facing in his direction. Now it was Arcade’s turn to be cautious. 

Boone looked over his shoulder towards Arcade. “Please.” His voice was low, so that he almost missed it. 

Arcade held his hips between his hands. He lined himself up and then pressed in. He couldn’t help the moan that escaped from him. Boone bit down on his own hand. At first he was worried it was bad for him, then he realized Boone was trying to stifle his own noise. 

“Harder.” 

Arcade obliged. Each thrust came easier than the one before and scratched at his itch. Finally the tension building inside of him felt right instead of something that wanted to kill him. Shamefully, Arcade did not last long, nor did Boone, as the latter climaxed shortly after him. Much to Arcade’s surprise, he was still hard as he pulled out. 

“That’s...new,” He remarked. Boone turned around, his erection mirroring his own. 

Before Arcade could question if these effects were going to be permanent, Boone was on him again. His bare cock brushed against Arcade’s. Even the slightest touch made small fires light inside of him. He watched as Boone lined them up. Boone’s hands were rough with callouses, but warm as he surrounded them both. Arcade placed his slender fingers over Boone’s, squeezing their hold tighter as together they pumped. Boone leaned his head on Arcade’s shoulder. He could hear every raspy breath that shook through Boone, mixed in with a small, whispered ‘fuck.’ Arcade gasped as Boone bit his neck. It must have done something for him, because next thing he knew, he was releasing again, this time onto Boone’s stomach. Boone’s hot fluid dripped onto his fingers. 

Arcade was out of breath. Carefully, he lowered himself onto a patch of the vault’s floor that didn’t look as dirty as the rest. His chest heaves, deprived of air. His heart still thunders, but not with the same urgency as before. His member, though still firm, was beginning to wilt ever so slightly. 

Boone knelt beside him. Arcade now noticed that his beret had fallen off at some point, leaving his buzzed haircut exposed. It sparkled with flecks of sweat that dripped onto his temples. 

“I think...it’s working,” Arcade commented. He leaned his head against the mainframe, feeling like he was going to collapse from exhaustion. 

“We’re not done yet,” Boone said. He crawled closer before he laid on his belly before Arcade, his head in the researcher’s lap. Arcade gasped as he felt Boone’s hot breath against his cock, moments before he took Arcade inside of his mouth. 

At first, Arcade watched as Boone’s head bobbed, afraid to touch him, which was probably silly considering everything that had happened between them recently. He gave in and gently raked his fingers through the bristles of Boone’s cropped hair. Boone’s moan vibrated against his cock, causing Arcade’s breath to catch. This part lasted longer. Or maybe Arcade’s head was clear enough that he could finally concentrate on what was happening, rather than all his previous actions passing by in blurred emotions. Before was so desperate, like relieving pain. This...this was kind of...nice, he had to admit. 

When Arcade inevitably released, he half expected Boone to pull away in disgust. Instead, he accepted the load without complaint. Arcade reached for his canteen and downed half of it, attempting to replenish all the water his body had sweated out. He wiped excess moisture from his lips as he offered the canteen to Boone. Boone accepted. 

“What about you?” Arcade asked. His eyes drifted to the semi-erection that bounced between Boone’s legs as he shifted. Boone finished off the canteen before answering. 

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” 

He sealed the empty canteen and handed it back to Arcade, before shirking his cargo pants back up his thighs. “Yeah.” 

Arcade watched him straighten out his clothes, pushing his shades back up his nose and readjusting his beret atop his head. He didn’t seem to be changing his mind anytime soon. 

“We should leave,” he said. Arcade had to agree, before they encountered more spores. He wasn’t sure how many times his body could go through something like that before it finally quit. 

His vision cleared once his glasses returned to rest before his eyes. Arcade covered himself again while Boone stood watch, holding his rifle. If they had been attacked while lost in their frenzy of desire, they would have been goners. Arcade could count himself lucky that hadn’t been a problem. 

“Hey,” Arcade sought his attention, touching his arm lightly. He half expected Boone to flinch away from his touch, but he didn’t. His shaded eyes turned towards Arcade. Arcade brushed his lips against Boone’s. They tasted salty of sweat and his own cum. Boone’s lips moved gently in response, feeling for the briefest of moments the wetness of a tongue before it ended as abruptly as it began. 

“We can’t tell Sloan,” Boone said, after an elongated moment of silence.

“Absolutely not,” Arcade said, in agreement, before the two headed back towards the surface.

[maevemarethyu]

The Pack (1/?)

(Not my GIF)

(Bucky Barnes x Reader)

The Night Wolves. New York’s most prolific and secretive gang. Always watching yet somehow always out of reach. Always slipping through the Avengers grasp.

Until they got you.

You were a street rat. A grunt working for the most gruesome group of criminals New York had ever seen.

Captain America wasn’t expecting much when they brought you in, he certainly wasn’t expecting you and his best friend to get along so well. You were a courier, nothing more.

Or so they thought.

Warnings: Violence, Cursing, Talks of Murder, Actual Murder, Talks of Abuse, Kidnapping, Depictions of Abuse, Crude Humor, Sexual Humor, Bucky Barnes (because he needs a warning all in himself), Sad Boi Hours.

The fact that all you could do was pretend to work while Flora and Maeve handled the complete uprooting of your business pissed you off to no end.

Every day for the past four days, you woke up, went for a morning run, went to Mr. Miller’s shop (Surprise, Mr. Miller doesn’t exist), meandered there until closing time, walked home, ate dinner, and went back to sleep.

All while the Avengers thought they were invisibly following you. Day one had been Barnes. Day two was Wilson. Day three was Rogers. Today is was the Scarlet Witch; Wanda Maximoff. You’d think that they would have better disguises than a baseball cap and blue zip-up but, it would appear that was their I’m just a civilian look.

You couldn’t even go to your house. Instead you were forced to stay in the dummy apartment you’d set up when you first got the Wolves up and running. It came in handy, obviously, but it still sucked.

The sat phone goes off in the freezer and you rush to answer it.

“Please, for the love of Bucky Barnes’ thighs, tell me you found me a way out of this hell.” You whine and Maeve laughs on the other end.

“Is that what your praying to now? The Winter Soldier’s thighs?”

“Focus Maeve.”

“I’m not the one praying to a pair of limbs.” She teases before taking on a more serious tone. “We have the new location set up but, it’s going to take time to get everyone transferred.”

“I figured. Please tell me you got us set up in the Maldives. I’d love you forever if you did.”

“Ha Ha. You know I burn easily and, for that, you all must suffer. As for the escape. Flora had an idea.”

You groan at the thought. Flora was smart as a whip and was a tactical genius but, her ideas were taxing to say the least.

“She thought it’d be easier for us to avoid those pesky Avengers if we had eyes on the inside. Ya know, just someone to find out how much they really found out about us and, since you’re already such good friends with them, we figured you’d be the perfect candidate.”

“You do realize I’m the one in charge right? You guys want me to infiltrate the Avengers.” You ask with annoyance. Not because wouldn’t work but, because it would. You already had rapport with the Captain.

“Fine.” You pout. “Use the Mr. Miller cell to call mine and ask me to pick up something in Hell’s Kitchen. I’ll wait until its dark and purposefully go into a dangerous area because I care. I’m willing to make this sacrifice.”

You hear a snort on the other line and roll your eyes.

“Is Paul good? Looks like setting up a fake family tree wasn’t a complete waste of time after all.” You ask and faintly hear Flora yell I told you so in the background.

“He’s fine. The Avengers have him holed up in some five-star cabin up in Maine. The lucky bastard.”

Lucky bastard indeed.

“I hope you’re ready for this Alpha. Your life is about to get a lot more complicated.”

 You’d been wandering around Hell’s Kitchen pretending to be lost for almost twenty minutes now. Honestly, who did you have to suck off to get mugged around here? Your feet were starting to ache and there was a knot in your back thanks to the lumpy mattress back at the apartment.

A knife against your back puts you on high alert and you have to hold back a grin because, about damn time.

“Give me your wallet.” The man whispers in your ear and your nose scrunches at the scent of cigarettes and cheap booze.

Tears spring to your eyes and you hold up two shaking hands.

“Please don’t hurt me. I-I’m lost and I just want to go home.” You cry. This wasn’t exactly what your mother had in mind when she made you sign up for drama club in school but, hey, at least you were using your skills.

“Your wallet. Now.” The knife presses deeper into your back and, before you can let out a perfectly believable whimper, pressure is gone. You turn to face your attacker only to see he help in the air by the back of his shirt by none other than Bucky Barnes himself. There was no shy smile on his face tonight, only a fierce scowl as he throws the mugger into a wall and you can’t help but think how good it looks on him.

Thick Thighs and Bucky’s Eyes was about to become your new life motto if he wasn’t careful.

“Are you okay?” He turns to you, eyes canvasing you for any injuries. Mr. Hyde to Dr. Jekyll in the blink of an eye.

“I-I’m okay. Geez I’m so stupid. Mr. Miller said he needed me to pick something up from Lucky’s Pawn Shop and I got all turned a-around. D-Do you think he works for the Wolves.” You whisper the taboo name and add a shiver for good measure.

His eyes dart to the man lying in a crumpled heap and back to you with a frown.

“I don’t think so but, I’d feel better if you took Steve’s offer of staying at the compound. You’re a target now.” He sighs and it’s so nice you’re not sure if you want to jump him or puke.

“I-I think you’re right.” You mutter, looking at the man then back into Bucky’s blue cotton candy eyes; sweet enough to make your teeth rot. “Thank you Sarge. Who know what would have happened if you weren’t around? What were you doing in Hell’s Kitchen so late?”

His eyes dart away from yours as he leads you to his car.

Busted.

“Steve may or may not have had us keep eyes on you for your own protection.”

Sure. Your protection.

Instead of a scoff, you blink up him with owlish eyes. “You mean you’ve been watching over me since I left the tower?”

You don’t think anything you do will ever top the fact that you just made Bucky Barnes blush.

“Not just me. We each took a day to keep tabs on ya.” He mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. He escorts you to an inconspicuous car and opens your door.

What were guys like Bucky called on the internet again?

Right. A Himbo.

Incredibly well intentioned and polite but, not the most observant… Maybe you were being cruel but so was he by just looking that fine all the time.

“Thank you.” Your whisper sounds like a shout in the silent car and, once again, you can see red creeping onto his cheeks whenever a streetlight illuminates the vehicle.

Phase one complete.

“Steve had a room set up for you. Are you hungry?”

The living quarters of the compound were not what you were expecting. It was… homier. High class definitely but, not cold. Every Avenger had their own room but, their kitchen was shared, and the common room was jam packed with bookcases and entertainment systems.

You were in heaven and no longer jealous of your fake father Paul.

“I’m okay, thank you.” You mumble, adding a bit of shyness to your voice to really sell it. “I just want to lie down.”

With you preferably but, we’ll get to that another time.

“Oh, right. This way.”

Bucky leads you down a hall lined with doors; stopping at the one at the very end of the hall and motioning you to go in.

“Holy shit.” You gasp and it’s real because your room is phenomenal. The bed looks big enough to fit an elephant and soft enough to drown in and you couldn’t wait to collapse into it. Floor to ceiling windows give you a view of the city you could never get from your real house. Simply beautiful.

“If you need anything, my room is down to the right and Wanda’s is down to the left. She left for a mission earlier but, is excited to meet you when she gets back.”

You’d heard stories about the Scarlet Witch and her telepathic powers so, you knew to be careful around her. You had enough secrets to drive anyone mad and put you behind bars for several lifetimes.

“The Wanda Maximoff can’t wait to meet me?” You gasp, finally relenting and flopping onto the bed like an ungraceful starfish. “This could very well be the best day of my life. You know, aside from the almost getting mugged part.”

You turn your head towards him just in time to see a chuckle pass through his seashell pink lips. A very good day indeed.

It was a good tactic but, you saw straight through it. The Avengers were still wary of you and believed putting you in proximity of the two members that you were most likely to trust would cause you to slip up; unintentionally let your guard down so they could read you like a book.

You wanted to say something about them thinking you’d be that naïve but, that would only diminish the reputation you had begun to build: a sassy yet timid and troubled girl who had gotten herself mixed in with the wrong crowd. You garnered sympathy and sympathy led to loose lips.

You honestly deserved an Oscar for this shit; Flora definitely owed you a dinner and, once everything got back to normal, you’d wring those street rat’s necks for not doing their job.

“You’ll be safe here. No one’s breaking in to steal your purse.”  He reassures and it melts your heart a bit; he really is a nice guy. A really nice guy with a really nice face and a really nice ass.

“Thank you Sarge.” You sigh sincerely. You may be on opposite sides of the law but, you admired him and the other Avengers for what they do. They protect people from people like you. They’ve seen the worst the universe has to offer and none of them turned away. If you were in Barnes position, the next time someone told you the world was ending, you would have told them to put you back in the freezer.

“If you need anything, just ask the AI; her name is FRIDAY. Goodnight Valerie.” He shuts the door with care, leaving you with nothing but your thoughts and a bugged cellphone. This was already going much more smoothly than you had anticipated and you didn’t know whether to be grateful or suspicious.  You were leaning towards the latter.

You were being paranoid but, who wouldn’t be in your situation?

You sit up on the bed and observe your new home for the foreseeable future. Would the holier than thou Avengers bug an innocent woman’s room? You liked to think they wouldn’t but, you could never be too sure.

You make a mental note to see if you’d be able to pick up some of your clothes from the apartment as you walk into the bathroom and strip off your jeans that smell more like the streets of New York than the citrus scent you washed them with.

Funnily enough, Stark had the same shower as you did at your real home so, you have to pretend to figure out the various knobs just in case. After fiddling for a good five minutes, you set it to just how you like it and hop in with the plan to wash the stress of the past few days down the drain. By now Flora and Maeve should have moved the tier of enforcers to the new location along with a good chunk of your liquid assets to a new offshore account.

A month at the minimum. That’s how long Flora told you this would take and you knew better than to complain about it. This was a very stressful situation for all of you; for everyone involved.

Once you feel thoroughly cleansed, you step out of the shower and wrap yourself in a fluffy towel and exit the bathroom.

A plate on your nightstand catches your attention and the hairs on the back of your neck raise as the smell of delicious lasagna reaches your nose. The note next to the plate says it’s from Sam Wilson and, if you were a normal woman, you’d probably think his effort was thoughtful.

“FRIDAY?” You announce curiously.

“Yes Miss Mason?” She answers and you roll your shoulders. You’d have to get used to having a Stark AI instead of your trusty MARVI.

“Please don’t let anyone into my room when I’m unable to answer the door.”

Tags: @cherryblossomskye @hollarious​

[onslaughtsixdotcom]

Scaling Up Dragon Heist

Around April or May of 2019, I started to run Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, one of the official WotC 5e hardcovers. I’m still not done with it, although that is largely the fault of COVID and my own extensions to the campaign. 

I think Dragon Heist is one of the better 5e modules by WotC. I think it’s got a strong playground for the characters, and Waterdeep has 30+ years of publication history to draw on. The release of the module also heralded in a HUGE amount of third party extension content, including the famous Alexandrian Remix. I hadn’t heard of this before I started running my campaign and having ideas about how to do it, so it didn’t influence me--although I’m sure we came to a lot of similar conclusions and ideas, based on common perceptions of what the actual flaws are of the module.

Still, despite those flaws, I think they help the module rather than hinder it. It gives the DM a shitload of room to improvise and draw in the margins, rather than some other 5e adventures which feel like they can’t be fucked with in the least.

Here’s the kicker: I started my adventure at level 4. We had a pre-existing party that I had run through the classic N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God. (Fun fact: A map that I drew is the 3rd Google Images result for that. Woah.)

The party spent a few real-world weeks traveling across about 7 days of overland travel where I ran some drop in one shots; including Mike Krahulik’s Dusk (a Twilight parody) and a really fun 2 hour diversion where the players saw an ancient blue dragon take off the roof of a church during a wedding. Then they arrived in my city: Dawnharbour.

I don’t run the Forgotten Realms. I find it not to my taste. Most of the names suck. The lore is invariably boring or weird, and not the fun kind of weird. I was going to run Dragon Heist, and I was going to put it in my own city. I gave the players some justification previously for why they would want to go there: The cleric’s sister had been kidnapped by the Cult of the Reptile God and turned into a Yuanti; a snake person. The bard had stolen a golden statue of the Reptile God and wanted to melt it down and plate his violin with it. I told the cleric that they would need a high level magic user and someone in Dawnharbour could probably help them; ditto the bard needing a highly skilled magical blacksmith. The third player didn’t really care where they went since he was on the run from his home country. So, off to Dawnharbour. They reached level 4 when they got to the city.

I won’t bore you with the rest of the details of my city or everything I changed for the campaign. Instead, I’ll talk up some hard and fast ways to make the adventure work for a higher level party. Most of them revolve around the encounters. I’m assuming the party will start around level 4 or 5.

Chapter 1

The book opens with the players in the Yawning Portal, a famous tavern with a big ass well to a megadungeon underneath. (More on this later.) They’re hanging out doing whatever when a troll and some stirges pop out of the well. The book says that the players get attacked by the stirges while the owner of the bar, a typical Forgotten Realms 15th level Fighter running a fucking bar for a living deals with the troll.

A troll is CR 5. They can handle a troll. If they can’t, you have a bigger problem.

Next up the book leads them to a Zhentarim warehouse. When they get there it’s abandoned and there are (ugh) 3 Kenku. Kenku are like tengu if they sucked. They’re bird people who can only speak in mimickry, like parrots. They can only repeat words they’ve heard before. This is stupid as fuck (especially when a player wants to be one) but more importantly, they are incredibly weak. I think the kenku are just hanging out or they got captured by the Zhentarim who left them there after they bail or something like that. Whatever.

I put the Zhentarim there instead. I put like 20 Zhentarim. I used the Spy statblock; they don’t have a lot of CR and at level 4 or 5, the players are real slice and dicey about killing them. They can basically carve through two of these dudes in a turn. It was *really* fun to just have the players mow down these mooks. They used the 2nd floor to their advantage, casting Grease on the stairs and creating a bottleneck and then picking them off with ranged attacks and spells. I think I might have given the Zhents 1hp and treated them as minions (see 4e). 

I think I had the police show up after they were all dead; someone heard the commotion and called the cops. I think I also put an NPC there; I shuffled around a bunch of the NPCs the module uses. (They got their quest to save Volo from Bigby in the Yawning Portal; instead of finding Volo here, I think they found my equivalent of Renaer Neverremember.) There was a day’s break between this and them going into the sewers in the next part.

The sewer introduces the Xanathar’s minions. I believe a Duergar is actually there and I took this as a sign--I made most of Xanathar’s mooks Duergar, and then decided--this dude is a Beholder and he has a Mindflayer for a lieutenant. The Xanathar’s forces should ALL be classic D&D dungeon monsters, like rust monsters and umber hulks and ropers. This gives you a wide variety of weird shit you can throw at your players at different CR levels, and the idea of a gangster Beholder who thinks hiring a bunch of umber hulks to go shake down a local deli is fucking hilarious. But, it doesn’t make them any less dangerous. Throw some umber hulks or something in this lair. Go nuts--the weirder, the better. Xanathar’s crew should have no qualm about hanging out with a gibbering mouther or a carrion crawler.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 is the least developed chapter in the book. It also revolved around a bunch of Forgotten Realms faction nonsense that I wanted nothing to do with. I used this time instead to formally introduce the Xanathar, the Cassalanters and Jarlaxle. After they foiled his plans to rig a goldfish competition (think a dog show but for fish), the Xanathar became convinced the players worked for the Zhentarim and invited them to have a sit down about their intentions; if they worked for the Zhents he wanted to formally declare war. The players hated the Zhents--they killed an NPC they liked back during N1, partially to set this all up. Xanny was cool with that.

The Cassalanters were a way to introduce a new player. They call up the Blackstaff to say, hey we have a magic item, can you send a guy here to deliver it? (Magic item possession is illegal on the streets in my setting, but if someone important hires you to transport it, then you can do it. This makes being a courier a very lucrative job; lots of people are just carrying around other people’s stuff for a living.) They almost immediately knock out the new player sent to pick up the item, and replace him with their dofflegagher. The idea was that the dofflegagher player would then infiltrate the Blackstaff’s organization.

Blackstaff is no dumbass and hired a random dude off the street--my new player. Then, Blackstaff hired the rest of the party to go rescue him--mostly as a ruse to snuff out the Cassalanters and get evidence that they were shitty.

When they encountered the Cassalanters, I used a Cambion; one of their servants turned into him. This guy slowly became a recurring lieutenant; he was basically the Goldar for the Cassalanter’s Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa. At the time, I hadn’t read any lore for Cambions; I’m not particularly concerned with monster lore the way the guys who make the game write it. I literally thumbed through my deck of monsters, saw this winged devil horn dude, and said, “Right on, he looks like he’ll work.” A Cambion is CR5, more than suitable for the encounters the party will have with him over the next few levels. The Fiendish Charm ability is fun and can really fuck with the players; I ruled, of course, that anyone under its affect would obviously be free if the Cambion was killed. Even after it was killed, he just kept on coming back, because he’s from Hell and killing him on this plane doesn’t really do anything.

As the players continue to face the Cassalanters, a go-to seems to be spined devils. This is fine but not very powerful for a level 4, 5, 6 party. Therefore I suggest supplanting it with barbed devils. They’re CR5. Adding one or two of those to an encounter with spined devils can make this a real fun encounter that isn’t too horribly overwhelming, especially if at least one of your martial characters has a magic weapon (which they fucking should; they’re level 5!)

IMO you can also introduce Jarlaxle in this chapter; a fun way is through his Zardoz Zord persona. It could simply be that Jarlaxle knows Volo (or any other NPC the players know) and wants to invite them to a free meal to get to know them. In my game, Jarlaxle operates openly as himself (I found it would just complicate things if he was someone else) and invited the players to his yacht shortly after they met the Xanathar, to formally tell them all about the Vault of Dragons, the Stone, and how everyone they have met in the city is after it.

Chapter 3

I am not the biggest fan of this part of the module. I think nimblewrights and similar creatures are really dumb and don’t fit my D&D world. A lot of the stuff in this chapter is investigation stuff, and you can play that out however you like. It doesn’t drastically need scaling up, though you may have to account for something like Zone of Truth that they might not normally have access to. It also helps if you do the opposite of the book, and make the police a bunch of shitheads who don’t care about the city--this way the players are actually motivated to help. I’ve seen a LOT of posts that open with “the fireball happened and my players shrugged and said they would let the police handle it.” Horrible! The police should either be incompetent, apathetic, or (best case) both. They don’t care who did this and if they did, they wouldn’t be able to catch them. Now it’s completely on the players.

IMO it also helps if you do the leg work to make the NPC someone they actually care about. In the book it’s an NPC they’ve never met but they have a mutual acquaintance through--it would be nice if they get invited to a dinner with this NPC or something similar prior to this. Or, change it to be any NPC they like who you don’t mind killing. Hell, they’re level 5 or 6 at this point--if they got a cleric, they can even cast Revivify and wake the dude up. They could even cast Speak With Dead and immediately find out who blew him up or what he was doing here!

Moving on, there’s the Gralland Villa. I retooled the name to actually sound like a good name; sue me. 

The book has a bunch of Zhents hanging out here. A simple way to make this dramatic and hard is to pull the trigger and make the players fight their way in. The stone is right here at the villa and they need to steal it. Sounds simple enough.

Things got complicated for my party when a recurring NPC appeared. She was an ex girlfriend of the bard in our party; they were both Tieflings. She now worked for the Zhentarim and was basically their second in command. And she was here to steal the stone, come Hell or high water. The bard, still in love with her, was perfectly content to let her steal it and even cover her getaway. The rest of the players, not so much, but when the chaos was ensuing and she was literally running past them with the stone in hand, made the decision that it was smarter to try and help her escape and then figure out how to get the stone from her later, than try and get it from her now.

This led literally directly to chapter 4.

Chapter 4

By now it’s obvious: I used all 4 bad guys.

I ran through the chapter and picked the coolest maps and best encounter ideas, including the rooftop chase, the theater, the sewer and the courthouse. I weaved them together carefully, and all the changes I had made to the groups paid off when they entered the theater, chased by barbed devils and our Cambion friend, only to have an Umber Hulk with the Xanathar’s logo painted on his face crash through the stage, flanked by two Duergar. Add in some Drow gunslingers and it was a fucking party.

(the large hexagon is where somebody cast Darkness; the big scuffed circle is a grody spot on my grid tiles. I still need new ones...)

The courthouse had a great scene where the Cassalanter dofflegagher impersonated the chief of police, interrogating the players for the code word to activate the stone (I added one; who cares?) until the real chief of police showed up! The players had to do an entire encounter with this guy while handcuffed; thank god for verbal only spells, right? 

From here the stone ended up with the players, and then it ended up with Jarlaxle who they are working for. Jarlaxle attuned to it and told them the Vault of Dragons is inside Undermountain; 3, 5 levels deep? Who knows? And it requires 3 keys: The Crown of Asmodeus, the Ring of Winter, and the Robe of the Archmagi.

I gave these 3 magic items to the Cassalanters, the Xanathar and Manshoon. This is a pretty common hack and it means the lairs in the book actually get used. I made up one of the magic items (Crown of Asmodeus) and stole another from a module I don’t intend to run as written (the Ring of Winter is, I believe, in either Tomb of Annihilation or Storm King’s Thunder). They’re fun!

So the rest of the campaign has been the players bouncing between going deep into Undermountain, the megadungeon underneath the Yawning Portal, and going to the 3 different villain factions to steal their shit. 

The villain lairs are NOT statted for level 5 players AT ALL. The players have no hope of actually killing ANY of the villains at level 5; to fight the Xanathar is a pure TPK at level 5. But at level 8, like where my players are now? One of them died and then got Revivified; the others all survived or made their saves when they were hit by death or disintegration. (In the spirit of the Xanathar, I rolled every eye beam randomly, rerolling if I had used that ray in the last round.) That’s about the best you can hope for with a Beholder IMO! 

The rest of the lairs you can mostly run as-is. Any very low CR mooks, basically anything lower than 1 or 2 CR, I would probably replace with a higher CR variant. We’ve already discussed what you can replace them with above, and if you’ve made it this far into the module, you should have a pretty good sense of what your players can handle.

[movienotesbyzawmer]

August 30: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

(previous notes: Mission: Impossible III)

I bet the powers that be at the Mission: Impossible movie factory didn't lose any sleep over the stupid colon in the title that screws everything up. I mean, just look at that up there with the colon after my date, then the colon in the middle of the OG title, and then it's like, well, you can do whatever you want with punctuation but we're adding a subtitle after it now and you just have to deal with it. On posters and stuff it's just "Mission: Impossible" and then underneath those words they put "Ghost Protocol" so they don't have to deal with it. What a mess. I tell you it is a damn mess is what it is.

Anyway, we have arrived at the M:I movie that, more than any of the others, just really hit the spot for me when I saw it upon its original release. I saw it at the end of a frustrating and tiring work day and it was exactly what the doctor ordered. At some point in the middle I realized that I was enjoying it thoroughly without having to tolerate the kinds of flaws that were apparently part and parcel of this kind of movie. Maybe there were flaws that I just wasn't registering. We'll soon see.

Continuing the tradition of making very hip choices for the directing duties, here we have the live-action directorial debut of Brad Bird, who started off directing episodes of The Simpsons before moving on to no less than The Iron Giant and The Incredibles. Dude had two Oscars on his mantle by the time he showed up for this. Press play already!

Um Sweet Christ those opening shots look gook in 4K like HOO boy

Whoa, neat opening where Sawyer from Lost is chased off the top of a building in Budapest but his jacket deploys an air mattress right as he almost-hits, but then he's shot by Lea Seydoux in an alley, rat-a-tat-tat with the action here, like what is up

Simon Pegg is back, and he's being tricksy with the tech in a prison! He's opening cell doors and the prisoners are surprised and delighted with that twist! He plays them a jazz standard on the intercom and Ethan Hunt suavely emerges from one of the cells. Fun silly things ensue involving Ethan's rebellious and confident independent strategy and a small riot that seems kind of like a bar fight.

He has made a pal in the joint and he's breaking him out. Some kind of cool tech creates a really sweet vortex-y hole in the floor and they are swooped up by their helpers, it's fun.

We're introduced to Paula Patton who is a new team member, and then the credits roll, and they are spirited in a way that recalls the first movie, also showing real scenes from later in the movie.

Flashback to the thing that was happening with Sawyer shows how that botched operation, something about a file and a courier, got Sawyer killed because lots of bad guys were all over the place there. AR contact lens technology figures prominently, and that is a good idea (plus we totally might have those soon, right?).

0:18:16 - Once again we begin the movie without the leading lady from the previous one, but we're starting to get an explanation here. Or just a tease of one I guess.

And quickly we get a sneaky-style self-destructing message that sets up that Ethan has to disguise himself as a specific Russian and sneak into the actual Kremlin. This movie 100% gets what a Mission: Impossible movie is supposed to be.

This time, they aren't using fancy masks or voice shifter things, just costumes and a fake mustache. They comment about that in the dialogue but don't explain why.

0:24:52 - Dialogue mixed SO QUIET here I have no idea what SP just said. It seems like you're supposed to have heard it.

But that is quickly forgotten when they use the coolest spy gadget of them all - a screen that is placed in a corridor that makes the guy at the other end of the corridor think it’s the corridor, but it's a screen and SP & Ethan are hiding behind it and it is super super neato I love it

Then just when it's cool that that is going well, it's suddenly cool how NOT well it's going because someone is spying on their spycraft! The thing they were going to heist isn't there, and someone deliberately makes their comms thing be heard by the bad guys!

And THEN we see something we really didn't think we'd see and it is kind of mind blowing - Ethan escapes from the Kremlin with a very smooth quick-change of his disguise that we see him do in all one shot… but then the Kremlin totally explodes and it explodes all over Ethan as he's running away! It looks amazing!

Right after that there is some fun with subtitles - Ethan is in the hospital all damaged and concussed and stuff, and the news is talking about the obvious big story, and the subtitles are in Russian. At first I was like, "hey is my home theater tech busted?" but no, the subtitles become gradually more in English as Ethan starts to come out of it. Then we see with subtitles that Ethan is reading lips about the police people that want to be bad guys to Ethan.

After Ethan escapes, we shift to a wholesome-looking Russian family we haven't seen before. The scene is a nice little piece of drama about how the dad sees the Kremlin news and wants to get the family out of there, and very quickly that goes south and thugs have them all at gunpoint, it's nicely done

Ethan is being extracted by two new characters played by accomplished, Oscar-nominated actors Tom Wilkinson and Jeremy Renner… the conversation is dire and I don't want to type during it gahhh gah gah gah I am watching because holy shit this goes south too! TW informs Ethan that the DoD is going to frame him for blowing up the Kremlin and his only choice is to escape. He's telling him HOW to escape in a funny way, but they are attacked and it's visually very interesting and TW is headshot and they are in the water and it is such bad news for Ethan and his new colleague played by Mr. Renner, I probably typoed a lot during that because it was so hard to look away.

So Ethan is on the hook for the terrorist attack of the century and he's being chased by a little battalion of thugs who just shot that important spy boss, and he's in Russia. It is very not good for Ethan.

He's with JR and JR is playing a different character for him. He's a bookish analyst guy who feels very out of place in action-land.

We're learning about the main bad guy, Hendricks, who was the guy that screwed everything up in the Kremlin. He's a super-smart theoretical physicist or something who has big, well-thought-out ideas about destroying the world with nukes, and he took nuke codes from the Kremlin. So things are just really really hairy and it's effective storytelling is what I'm saying.

Also effective is that they met up with SP and PP on a neat secret train car thing that is well appointed with spy gear

And VERY VERY EFFECTIVE is what happens next, which is a series of establishing shots of Dubai which KILL ON MY TV. I am glad I have a 4K panel, kids. This begins what I recall as being an extended sequence of sweet-ass suspense. Ethan has to break into a server room by climbing the outside of the 130th floor of the Burj Khalifa using glove-gadget tech that will hopefully work. There is at least some actual Tom Cruise clinging to the side of that building. It's so cool looking. And to make matters worse, a dust storm approaches! Or should I say "to make matters even cooler looking". Yes I should. Please read that part.

Paula Patton's character seems underdeveloped so far, especially compared to her teammates Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner.

Jeez you guys, if you like suspenseful action scenes about barely surviving climbing a skyscraper this movie is for you.

1:05:34 - In the middle of a tense conversation we see that they were using the maskmaker but it wasn't working. They just don't want us to have mask fun in this movie. They hate mask fun. Why does Brad Bird hate mask fun.

Oh then this scene which is neat - bad guys are meeting with LS… but Ethan and JR are taking their place, and PP is taking LS's place for the real bad guys one floor down. The movie explains it better than me, but it is pretty exciting, the two meetings happening at the same time with opposite trickery.

Hah, SP does a sweet fake-hand trick to get the diamonds from the bad guys so he can get them to Ethan and JN, and JN is doing the thing where he uses the contact lens tech… gosh why are you even reading this, just watch the movie. I really like the tricksy espionage.

It all falls apart because LS spots the contact lens in JR's eye. The plot is moving along in a way that, I'm once again noticing, would normally require more half-assed-ness. It's just a solid spy plot. Which probably makes these notes more boring. Poor you.

LS dies by getting kicked out of the open window of the Burj Khalifa with a brewing sandstorm in the background! Neat looking!

And then a thing where Ethan is in a thick dust cloud and he's tracking the important paper thing with his tracker device, and it starts moving quickly at him and we realize just as it's too late that it's in a car that's gonna run him over! Then that mechanic gets used in a car chase in a dust storm, which we don't see very often outside a Mad Max movie, and that climaxes in a really cool looking collision, followed by the reveal that one of the nuclear code bad guys was Hendricks in a supermask. So we DO like mask fun after all! Except why do we care that it was Hendricks?

A scene where JR is confronted for maybe being a double-crosser has a beautifully choreographed gun-get-grabbity-grab thing that was probably super fun for the actors.

1:27:05 - JR tells a story that at first we think is that family we saw briefly almost scramming, but no, he's talking about Ethan, and what seems to be a story about Ethan's wife (Julia from the last movie) getting killed in Croatia, and Ethan killing six Serbians for revenge, and that's why he was in prison in the beginning? It's still a little mysterious and kind of complicated. It doesn't quite fit with what we think we know.

Dubai imagery is pretty. I have been to Dubai. I am standing by for your marriage proposals now.

I didn't really follow how we got to this point, but Ethan went for a walk and met with some underworld Dubai person and made a deal the ended up with a huge cache of spy gear and a private plane to India. I went to India like right after Dubai. I have my own car and a job kind of so you might need to calm your hormones at this point.

A probing exchange with PP establishes that indeed Ethan's story is that he killed the men who killed his wife. Doesn't really seem legit, though. There's more to the story, clearly.

One of the tech things they play with on the plane is the most magic-seeming one. It is a suit that looks like tight chain-mail, and it floats over a cart, like a magic carpet that you wear.

We're introduced to Brij Nath, whose name I had to look up so I could tell you how it is spelled. He has an access code that they need, which seems like they just kind of simplified the situation, and he's one of those only-kinda-bad bad guys that's really just a pawn, for our heroes as well as for these storytellers.

The wearable magic carpet gadget is fun and funny! SP has to remote control JR wearing the floaty-suit and JR is trying not to freak out too badly, and maybe on purpose it recalls the scene from the first movie where Tom Cruise hovers parallel to the floor.

Hendricks is now in a secret room in the place where they all are, and he has a bad-guy briefcase computer and orders some subordinates to do something with a virus, and I don't actually understand what's really happening but am I to believe that Ethan et al are thwarting literal nuclear terrorism here in Mumbai? Right here at this pleasant party at the palace of an only kinda-bad bad guy?

1:48:30 - Ha, the climax of the wearable magic carpet thing involves JR barely surviving by doing an acrobatic stunt that seems oddly intuitive and satisfying. You'll just have to watch the movie to know what I mean.

The spy-tech car they have is rad.

They fail to prevent the launch of a nuclear missile! We see it come out of the sub and start missiling toward its destination which we have learned is California! Hendricks mutters things about how that should get the ball rolling making world powers hate each other and nuke each other and may there be peace on Earth, he also, yes, says that.

A chase on foot has Ethan and Hendricks suddenly brawling on an exotically elegant robotic parking ramp. Platforms move around mechanically and transfer unmanned cars to different areas, and it is against that video gamey backdrop that Ethan and Hendricks struggle to get that sinister suitcase which is all bouncing around that environment. Unexpectedly, Ethan's hope of grabbing it is thwarted by Hendricks suicide-jumping down several stories! We see it! He definitely does that! Ethan drives a car off a thing to follow him, plummeting down hood-first, and the airbag saves him! He gets the briefcase and barely saves the day in time!

Again a denouement making it very clear that everything is really shockingly okay and tidied up. Even the thing with Ethan revenge-killing Serbians and the thing with his wife is cleaned way up, but with an elegance and sweetness that elevates this movie above the others. She's not dead after all, just fake-dead for her protection. And they're only where they are in Seattle so he can glimpse her lovingly across a marina.

So! I feel strongly that this is the best Mission: Impossible movie! It is an extraordinarily deftly-constructed spy thriller! It's got all the funnest types of things that are in the other movies, and other fun spy thrillers, but with so much less garbage! They did a great job and they should be proud.

[johannstutt413]

(requested by mathmaticalknight)

“Hmph.” Angelina gave the Doctor a sidelong glance as they sat in his office. He’d asked her to be his assistant a while back, and she was sure something would have come out of it by now, but nope! It’s like he actually brought her in to do work! And I mean, sure, she was pretty good at paperwork - working as a courier helped with that - but still...It didn’t help he seemed biologically incapable of taking a hint. Who knew their HR lead was so dense?

Speaking of dense…“Doctor! Let’s go shopping!”

“Can’t. Working.” He glanced at his assistant, who was totally typing up a report right now and not just randomly pressing keys into a word processor. “Hey, Angie, you want to go shopping with her?”

“Eh? Um, sure, I gue-” Before she could even finish the word, the Nian had pulled her out of her seat and was dragging her to the shuttles.

The Vulpo began to float, essentially turning her into a balloon bobbing behind her captor to avoid scuffing her shoes as much. “Do we need to be going this fast?”

“You only have one life, kid. Why waste it walking from place to place?” In short order, they made it to the shuttle depot, and Angelina returned to earth. “What did he call you again? Angie?”

“That’s right, Miss Nian.”

She waved her off. “No ‘miss’ necessary. What kind of shopping do you like doing? I’m not too picky about where we go, as long as it’s not up here.”

“A music store, I guess.” The Vulpo shrugged. “You know, normally, the Doctor’s the one who goes with you on these trips, so I dunno what the plan is...Why didn’t he come today?”

“Who knows? You like him, right?” She hopped behind the wheel as a slightly stunned Angelina took the passenger’s seat.

A bit of blustering later, and she replied, “H-how did you-”

“It’s so written on your face, it’s not even funny,” Nian replied, smirking. “You’re like a starstruck puppy. Adorable.”

“I...Was it that obvious?”

The Nian chuckled. “I said it was, didn’t I? He doesn’t know?”

“Apparently not.” She pouted as her driver parked them within walking distance. “He should, though! I’ve given him all the hints.”

“And you haven’t told him directly?”

Angelina wasn’t quite floating, but she was definitely starting to hover. “Well, n-no, but-”

“So tell him, then.” Nian started walking towards the music shop. “If you really like him that much, why keep waiting around?”

“...I guess I could do that.” She sighed, but her mood was immediately boosted as they entered the shop and were hit with a wave of sound.

The Nian shuddered. “So loud. Angie, is that-”

“I love this band!” Whatever her companion was trying to tell her was entirely unimportant right now, as her near-favorite song was on, and it was time to jam. “What were you saying?”

“It’s nothing.” No, it had been something, but it didn’t matter. The Vulpo was literally walking on air, dancing around the store as she enjoyed the ambient music and argued with herself about whether she should buy a guitar or not for the umpteenth time. It was the polar opposite of the norm for these shopping trips, where Nian was putting in all the energy and the Doctor sponged it up...and it was so cute when Angie found a record she’d apparently been looking for and squealed.

Wait, was it happening again?

“Alright, I’m good~” Angelina found the Nian near the front, shopping bag in hand. “Somewhere you want to go next?”

“I had a few ideas. There’s a couple places that sell some stuff that might help get the point across to our oblivious friend.”

The Vulpo blinked. “You’re going to help me?”

“We’re here to shop, so I might as well get something.” She smiled. “Besides, I want to see how you look in it myself.”

“Oh, so we’re buying clothes, then?” Angie had thought of that, but in the end, she didn’t think it would help that much. Still, Nian seemed to know what she was talking about, and it was always fun shopping for new clothes to wear, so maybe it was worth a shot after all.

Their first stop gave her some doubts almost immediately, as a Rebbah with extensive facial piercings gave a feral smile upon their arrival. “Well, look what the Aslan dragged in. How’s it going, Nian?”

“Ah, you know how it is.” She gestured towards the Vulpo. “I’m actually buying something today, but for her, not me.”

“Really? Interesting. What can we do for you, little lady?”

It should be noted the shop clerk is a solid few inches shorter than Angie. “Um, well I’m looking for something that’ll get this guy in my office to notice me-”

“Say no more.” The Rebbah stepped out from behind her counter and ushered the pair deeper into the cavalcade of leather and cloth that was the apparel on offer. “Follow me. Do you know your sizes in Yen measurements?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She waved her hand. “Please, call me Becky. Let’s have those before I walk past too many more racks.”

For the next hour, Nian and Becky turned Angelina into a canvas to paint with belts, straps, studs, and occasionally actual fabric, eventually setting on a outfit that could probably double as light armor for someone with the Vulpo’s natural dexterity in a pinch. After a moment to get over the shock of seeing herself in something like this, there was no doubt in her mind that it was actually pretty badass, and since the Nian was the one buying anyway, there wasn’t any harm in taking it home with her. Things became a little more interesting when the Rebbah said she should probably wear it for the rest of the day to break it in, but if that was the professional recommendation, who was she to judge?

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” Angelina admitted as they left the store, “but I like it a lot more than I thought I would. You said you’ve never bought anything from there before, but Becky seemed to know you pretty well.”

“Usually the Doctor and I just browse and talk with the friendlier clerks. Becky gets a decent amount of business, but not a lot of conversation. How hungry are you?”

She shrugged. “I could eat right about now. It’s nearly time for lunch.”

“Then I know just the place.” Nian immediately turned down an alleyway. “How are you with spicy food?”

“Um, I like a little heat, but once it starts to hurt, that’s where I stop. Although there is this one brand of, like, pepper-flavored soda I can’t stop drinking.” The Vulpo glanced around, a little nervous about their current location.

The Nian stopped seemingly in the middle of everything and knocked four times on a seemingly random brick; a few seconds later, stone and steel began scraping against each other and themselves as a doorway-shaped part of the wall sunk into the sidewalk beneath them. “Well, this place has options if you’re not feeling adventurous.”

“Not feeling adventurous? What do you call this, then?” She traced along her current outfit with her free hand; the other had her normal clothes in a shopping bag. “Bring it on! I can take it!”

“Heheh. That outfit really boosted your confidence, didn’t it?” Nian had hoped it might. Angie was a nice girl, but just like everything in life, a little kick made her better.

Angelina smirked. “I guess it does. We going or not?”

“Alright, alright, keep your shirt on.” Not that she hadn’t seen it all already. “Oh, and there’s this chili pepper drink you have to try while you’re here.”

“Drink as in alcohol?...I guess a little wouldn’t hurt.”

A few hours later, Nian walked into the Doctor’s office with a leather-decorated Vulpo-balloon in her off hand. “We’re back! How was work?”

“Finished.” He looked up at his assistant, who waved from the ceiling. “Went to the Underbelly?”

“Yep! Did you miss me? I know I missed you~” The Nian let go of her, and Angelina floated over to her favoritest person ever to land in his lap.

As usual, this didn’t phase him. “New clothes?”

“Do you like them?” She leaned towards his face. “We got them for you~”

“I do.” And without a moment’s hesitation, he kissed her.

...Nian blinked, sure of what she’d seen but unsure if it’d been real. “Did you know this whole time and wanted to wait for her to make a move?”

“Yes.” That was the last word the Doctor said for a while, as Angelina didn’t need much more encouragement than that.

“Gotcha.” She stood there for a little bit before nodding to herself and leaving the office. ‘A job well done, I’d say...I wonder who else’s life can I change before dinner?’

[robotslenderman]

For the 21 questions otp ask, Elisa/Lettow, 3, 6, 11 and 12. I hope that wasn’t too much for you 😊

:3!!!!

OTP ask box game.

3. What is your favourite AU/prompt idea/trope for your pairing?

Favourite AU is the one where Lettow didn’t lose track of Elisa and managed to adopt her.

It did... not work out well at first, lol. Lettow had severe depression and had never had a childe before and had no idea what to do with her. Elisa had gone absolutely feral after three months of surviving night-to-night and sleeping in burrows she’d dug herself.

Over those three months Elisa had slowly gone batshit insane. In canon, Lampago scraped her out of it and taught her some survival skills, but this takes place earlier, before Elisa could do anything more than solve intra-kindred issues with “run away or claw their face off.” So in this AU Elisa has gone from a kind, generous and loving vet nurse that loved animals... to this near-wight who actually killed a couple of kindred over territory disputes.

Basically, she couldn’t control her Beast and was getting awfully close to wighting herself. In canon this was reversed by her watching Lampago and fighting hard not to be like her -- in this AU she doesn’t have a bad example to warn her away from going down that path, so she keeps indulging the Beast’s impulses by killing her prey and anyone trying to claim her territory.

Eventually it got bad enough that Lettow intervened before the Prince could put a blood hunt on her head (or his).

At first Lettow had a hard problem just keeping her around -- Elisa kept running away because she’d be overwhelmed or pissed off enough. Each time Lettow would give her a few nights then reappear at her burrow and talk her into coming back, because if she stayed out on her own there was no way she wouldn’t wind up killing someone else and he was highkey really worried the Prince would have her executed.

(Dove thought this was hilarious and that Lettow reaped what he sowed. “You left her so she could learn to survive on her own. Well, now she’s trying to do what you wanted her to do!”)

Needless to say, Elisa developed a Reputation among the Kindred of Tucson for being Lettow’s feral, low-humanity brat.

It did reach a turning point. In canon Lettow wouldn’t give her Stellaluna for thirty years, but in this one he had the same idea and gifted her her own famulus -- that little vampire bat she named Stellaluna. A bit of Elisa’s old humanity came back enough at the gesture that he was able to get through to her, and bond with her through teaching her animalism. Her love for Stellaluna, and her being touched at Lettow’s gesture, was a counterbalance to the Beast.

Yep, that’s right, Elisa had an emotional support vampire bat.

He’d been so desperate he’d seriously considered blood binding her to him until they both got her out of it; a blood bond would have made her so attached to him and desperate to please him it would have given her positive emotions to help lift her out of it instead of primal instinct and impulse, and would have given her willpower to fight her Beast at his behest.

Years later, she’d mention to Lettow that she attributed this phase of her life to severe depression. And he’d be like, “no, you weren’t depressed, you were turning into a wight.”

6. Least favourite canon moment of them?

I honestly can’t think of any explicit moments. All that comes to mind are concepts (that Elisa couldn’t bitch at Lettow about the blood bag thing) or moments that aren’t their moment (Lettow’s bizarre response to Jasper’s torture of Modian and his callousness to Dove), or something that isn’t even a moment (lack of more Reremouse-like missions in-game where you get to work with him hands on!).

11. If they aren’t a canon pairing, how would you get them together?

Their relationship didn’t happen as it did in canon.

Basically, canon moved too fast for them. Elisa strongly resented Lettow at least until the midpoint where he offered her the final three jobs, and she was terrified of him for the whole game except the epilogue because she kept waiting for him to throw her under the bus (the first half) or execute her for Diablerie (the second half). Even after he confronted her about Aila, she was mostly convinced that him having her be the bait was his attempt at killing her without having to execute her.

(Years later he’d tell her that that was sincerely not the case -- that he had her be bait because he firmly believed she could survive anything.)

Needless to say, that’s... not a healthy base for a relationship, even though she was crushing damn hard by the end of the game and was genuinely upset that he didn’t even intend to say goodbye.

But they did get together. After Lettow returned from the Middle East Dove wanted Elisa to do some dangerous jobs and was like, “hey, why don’t we get mister fucking invincible to play bodyguard?”

Lettow was genuinely surprised at how emotional she was at his return -- she would’ve been brought to tears if she could cry. They bonded better this time around, as equals. They talked about Aila and laid that to rest -- it was harder for Elisa to talk about than Lettow. Elisa talked about how Aila was still around. Lettow talked about how he resented Aila for leaving him and letting herself get Diablerised. Elisa got to be turned on by watching him beat the crap out of people who tried to hurt her.

But it was a slow burn because, well. Elisa ate his wife so how could she, in good conscience, ever make a move on him? And on Lettow’s side -- he absolutely despised himself and thought he wasn’t good enough for Aila to stay awake or even alive, and if Aila hated him so fucking much she basically killed herself and put an (in his mind) innocent childe at risk to get away from him, how could he possibly make Elisa happy?

Cue months of mutual pining, and occasionally doing couple things like sharing a bed or cuddling without acknowledging them as couple things.

At one point Lettow bites off more than he can chew even by his standards, which Elisa was able to see plain as day at the time. Their usual tactics when overwhelmed was for Lettow to distract the attackers and for Elisa to run, but this time the opposition was so overwhelming that Elisa knew if she ran Lettow would get destroyed, so she refused to run, which only made things more dangerous for both of them. They had a huge argument about it -- Elisa accusing Lettow of trying to kill himself, Lettow accusing Elisa of being an idiot who didn’t trust him to do his job -- but the whole “oh my god the other person almost DIED” helped them realise that

hey

maybe they should stop letting the Aila thing get in the way and just... get together anyway.

Because they loved each other.

So they did.

And they’ve been together ever since.

12. If you had to take them and plunk them into another fandom, what fandom would that be? Why?

Ooof I really had to think about this one.

There’s no one fandom I’d put them in, but I went into a lot of detail with just one so here’s the one I did:

Subnautica -- Human AU. Elisa is a courier on the Aurora delivering classified governmental data, stuff too important to trust to the post or the internet (or extranet, as it would be). She becomes the only survivor of its crash on 4546B. She feels guilty about falling in love with the planet she’s on and genuinely enjoying much of her time there (when she’s not pissing herself in fear) while knowing at home she has a boyfriend/husband who must be absolutely frantic with worry. She keeps a video diary of her survival there and documents the world as best as she can, tries to find other survivors, and wonders if she’ll ever make it out alive and see Lettow and her parents again -- and if she’ll ever be able to come back if she does.

Meanwhile Lettow is losing his shit, alternating between thinking she’s dead and hoping she’s alive. His subplot is him getting in touch with the loved ones of other survivors and harassing Alterra into mounting a rescue; his hopes are shot down, quite literally, with the discovery of the orbital canon and the fate of the Sunbeam. Alterra is refusing to destroy the orbital canon because uhh we don’t want war with ALIENS??? WE’VE GOT NO DIPLOMATIC TIES WITH ANY ALIENS??? DESTROYING IT MIGHT GET US ALL KILLED???,

but they have a satellite in orbit, out of range of the canon, and it’s looking for evidence of survivors. And it’s been picking up activity -- somebody they can’t identify swimming around near a life pod, or moving on one of the islands, or moving around the Aurora. It’s only when she one day takes a nap on the beach near the orbital canon, her face up to the sky, that they’re able to identify the first survivor -- Elisa Mulgrew, government worker.

That picture of her sleeping face and wet hair makes headlines across multiple systems.

So Lettow finds out she’s alive -- but there’s nothing he can do to bring her home. Nothing. And he doesn’t know how long she’ll live for, or how long Alterra will keep up the expense of the satellite. Because over time it’s becoming clear that Alterra is sinking millions into these efforts and there’s no evidence of any other survivors. There’s only camera recordings of one vehicle moving at a time, one person moving at a time, and the only person they’ve ever managed to record always has the same reddish-brown hair as Elisa. Alterra are trying to stop the search because they see it as essentially wasting millions on one person, who’s “only” a courier, who they can’t even save.

The only reason they’ve been humouring people this long is because of the amount of anti-Alterra political sentiment being whipped up in the wake of the disaster and Alterra’s handling of it, and how many people even within Alterra are upset about the whole thing, and how many people are behind the families of the people who were on the Aurora. And with less and less evidence that anyone other than Elisa survived, even they are starting to lose interest.

Yeah Lettow really copes badly in this AU. “Barely gets out of bed each day” badly.

(When Elisa eventually gets home she leaks the “the usual” audio, which starts a whole new wave of people being mad at Alterra and the guy on it almost certainly getting fired so hard nobody will ever employ him again. Elisa actually feels kind of bad for him.)

[stonecoldjerseyfox]

Jersey on my mind (part 7)

The grass underneath his worn out boots rustles as Daryl makes his way through the overgrown vegetation, back towards Alexandria. The tall leafy trees, stretching towards the sky, makes the sunlight dance over the area. He scans the surroundings, between the trees and beyond, as he makes his way through the grass, scouting for movement. 

He’s more than familiar with the woods. He knows every sound and tracks, can smell trouble miles away; which in this case means walkers. To be honest, it’s not very difficult. The scent of the rotten bastards is hard to miss out; an odor similar to old meat, that has been left out in the heat. He’s been out on these runs now for many times and yet, it’s different now, since about forty-eight hours. Maybe it’s because of the hostile group lurking around in the woods. Maybe it’s because of the three newcomers. Or a combination of both. Regardless, Daryl’s job, his only job in Alexandria has been taken away from him because of the Wolves. What a stupid name, he thinks and scoffs. Because of them he can’t explore the surroundings as before. Roam around the woods, killing walkers, trying to shoot some deers or squirrels. Find survivors.

Daryl stops when he hears the faint chirping of a bird, some sort of woodpecker, followed by another familiar sound. Tiny paws against wood. A squirrel. He clearly sees it about five or six meters in front of him, clinging to the trunk of a birch. It’s brightly auburn colored with a fluffy tail, its small nose trembles in the air. Daryl raises his crossbow, aims and pulls the trigger. The arrow cuts through the air. But the little critter reacts faster. Before the sharp arrow hits the target, the squirrel jumps up the tree, out of sight. 

”Fuck.”

Daryl strides over to the tree, pulls the arrow out of the branch. The forest around him is ever so calm. No walkers or Wolves as far as he can see. Just endless greenery and a happy squirrel. 

He continues to walk back to Alexandria. The early morning has turned into lunchtime and he’s been out for a couple of hours already. He left early, before Rick could stop him. Daryl has slept on the sofa in the living room for two nights, letting Jersey and Jersey junior take his bed. Twice a day Daryl has seen Denise come over to the house to check on the ’scrapbooking project’ (a term that got the otherwise low-key woman to give him the evil eye). Carol has served them meals three times a day on a tray and both Rick and Maggie have been visiting. 

Daryl, on the other hand, has not been up there once since Rick announced that the scouting missions for other survivors should stop and Mila asked for vodka. Vodka he took it upon himself to find, as an excuse to have something to do, now when scouting for survivors wasn’t an option. Great, I’ve become a booze courier for a Russian Jerseyite, Daryl thinks to himself. Well, he ain’t going to find vodka out in the woods, that’s for sure.

As soon as he enters the perimeter surrounding the Safe-Zone, he steers his steps towards the house, assigned for them. He notices that the curtains to the bedroom on the second floor, his bedroom, are separated. Are they awake? 

Daryl had actually been up there once to check on them. Gently he had glanced at the door, but found the room half-dark and Mila and Juri in deep sleep. As far as he understood it, and what little he heard from Carol, they slept a lot.

”No wonder she's tired.” his friend said while preparing a lunch tray for them. ”Those first years with a kid, you don't get much sleep.” 

Well, maybe they have caught up with the sleep schedule finally. Daryl continues to look up at the window and the curtains. At the same moment, the front door to the two story house opens and Rick steps out onto the porch. His gaze meets Daryls and he walks down the stairs to meet him.

”All good.” Daryl says, as to explain that he knows he shouldn't have left the grounds, but it went well, so there’s nothing to fight about. ”Didn't come across anyone.”

”Fine.” Rick stops in front of him. ”I need your help today. We need gasoline refills. We can't risk being left without and we’ll need it for the quarry.”

Yeah, Daryl had almost forgotten about it. In two days they will lure hundreds, thousands, walkers from the quarry and away from the Safe-Zone. Rick and Morgan discovered the quarry when they were going to bury Pete’s body. They quickly realized that the only reason Alexandria was spared from walkers, was because the quarry serves as a trap, but it now represents a serious threat for the community. What if the barricades breaches? Rick's plan is to lure the walkers 20 miles away from the Safe-Zone. It’s risky and dangerous, but Daryl couldn’t help but feel excited when Rick explained the plan to them. Excitement of something finally happening in this place. Something other than looking for survivors, and they’re not even allowed to do that anymore. Admittedly, they were presented with yet another threat, in the form of a hostile group calling themselves the Wolves, come on; what a stupid name! But the feeling of adrenaline pumping through the body…

Daryl nods.  

”I’ll do it.”

”Good.” 

They start walking back to the house. The small community has woken up. People are out in the streets and the birds are chirping from the rooftops. The front door to the gray house opens again and Daryl shrugs as Mila steps out onto the porch. He wasn't prepared for that. A fresh color has returned to her face and she’s walking surprisingly upright considering the extensive wound. She’s wearing jeans, a button down shirt and the long hair dances around her in the breeze. 

”She's up?” 

”Mhm.” Rick says. ”Stumbled down the stairs and wanted to have breakfast at the table. She seems to feel better.”

Daryl grunts. 

”You brought them back.” Rick looks at him. ”They’re alive and well. You did your job.”

Daryl doesn't answer. They have reached the porch. Where should he focus his gaze? He tries to fixate his gaze at the door behind her, but his eyes are automatically drawn to Mila, who peers back at him. 

”Mornin’.” he says sheepishly.

”It’s lunch time.” 

”Wasn’t when I got up.” 

Duh. The hell is wrong with him? The corner of Mila’s mouth turns slightly upwards. 

”Touché, Einstein.” she smirks. ”Are you going somewhere?” 

”We need gas.” Rick explains. He then looks at Daryl with a look he can’t place. ”Bring her with ya’.” Rick meets Mila's gaze again. ”If you’re up for it.”

Daryl wants to say that he can do it on his own. He’s not a damn kid! But his tongue is stuck to the palate. Is Rick out of his mind? Two days ago she could barely sit up. Does he expect her to carry five gallon cans of gasoline? That's exactly what Daryl manages to ask, when he manages to use his tongue again. Mila rolls her eyes at his words. 

”I can shoot.” she declares with great confidence. ”I'll get my gun.”

Her long hair sweeps behind her as she disappears back into the house. Daryl turns to Rick.

”Ya’ out of your damn mind?” he scoffs at his friend. “What if she gets hurt? She’s already hurt!”

Rick raises his eyebrow, but says nothing. Daryl looks away, to hide his blushing cheeks. Go away on his own with her. That's not what he had in mind when Rick asked him to get gas. Fuck. Rick pats him on the shoulder. Couldn't he have brought Aaron? Or Carol? Anyone would be better than the Russian Jersey girl now. Shortly afterwards, the door reopens and Mila steps out on the porch again, followed by Juri in a pair of dungarees. She’s wearing the fedora and carries some type of AK47 on her shoulder. Daryl’s gaze wanders between the hat and the little boy looking at him with the angelic face. 

”We’re ready.” Mila states.

”What’s he doing here?” Daryl nods towards Juri. 

”Oh. He’s coming with us.” Mila replies and grabs Juri’s little hand. The boy looks calm, the complete opposite of how Daryl feels. ”Well then, shall we?”

[mychemicalficrecs]

could i get a rec list of long (30k+) frank-centric any pairing fics? (preferably not in first person, and if there's smut with bottom frank)…weirdly specific but at least i know what i like?

Being specific is totally fine! Depending on what it is you’re looking for, it can even be super helpful :) I originally thought this would be difficult, but it turns out I already had all of these in my bookmarks. It didn’t specifically check for bottom!Frank though (sorry).

Frank-centric Longfic

Gerard Way's (Vampire) Detective Agency by jjtaylor, Pennyplainknits, mainly Frank/Gerard, 164k, Mature. Pete, in Decaydance Mansion, with a yarrow stake. Frank and Gerard, in the greenhouse, with a plant of questionable origin. Bob, everywhere you look, with a gang of assassins for justice. Vampires, valets, pamphlets, haunted furniture, dub-thrall, disembodied voices, zombie couriers, and sinister rituals.

Nightswimming by waxjism, Frank/Gerard, 141k, Not Rated. My Teenage Romance

Unholyverse by Bexless, Frank/Gerard, Ray/Mikey, 187k, Mature, Explicit. Religion! Horror! Exorcisms! Piercings! And Gerard is a priest.

Illyria (King and Country) by tabulaxrasa, Frank/Gerard, 57k, Explicit. Today, they'd woken up and Gerard was King of Illyria. Frank hasn't really been a stable boy since he ended up in the archduke's bed, but now Gerard's exile is over and he's king. Frank has to survive court, politics, and scheming nobles to figure out exactly what he is now.

Stunning Someone by morbid_beauty, Frank/Gerard, 82k, Explicit. Frankie, a tattoo artist living in Brooklyn, has basically everything ze wants...except, like, someone to cuddle with at night. As lame as that sounds. Gerard, an art student living in Manhattan, meets someone of questionable gender and starts a friendship with an unrequited crush. (Or: the one where Frankie is genderfluid, Gerard is kind of ignorant to much of the queer community, and sometimes you just fall for a stunning someone.)

Envision the Magic by innocent_wolves, Frank/Gerard, 69k, Teen And Up Audiences. Gerard is a talented magician, responsible for much of the success of the famous Envision Destiny cruise ship. He's also one of those people. You know, one of those people who just seem to take up all the space they come across with their arrogance and confidence. You wouldn't wanna touch their personality with a 10-foot pole, but still people admire them. That is beyond Frank. Working behind the cruise ship bars and seeing Gerard pretty much every day, he can't understand what's so great about him. Besides, everybody else doesn't have to deal with his snide remarks and rude comments. Because if there's one thing Gerard seems to love, it's the act of constantly pestering Frank.

Truths That He Learned by gala_apples, Frank/Mikey, Patrick/Mikey/Pete, Ashlee/Patrick/Pete, 37k, Explicit. It's Frank's senior year, and it seems like he's constantly having new experiences, at least half of which come as a complete surprise to him. He falls in love, comes out, and has sex, not necessarily in that order.

Fit to be tied by maryangel, Frank/Gerard, 56k, Explicit. Frank is a bartender. Gerard is an alcoholic. They were clearly made for each other. Also, Frank is a werewolf.

Only Going One Way by ataratah, jjtaylor, Frank/Gerard, 73k, Mature. Crossover with due South. Constable Gerard Way of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Detective Frank Iero of the Chicago PD team up find Mikey Way in a city where bowling alley score cards hide secret codes, where the good guys are either lying or undercover (and sometimes lying about being undercover), and where criminal bakers make drug-laced frosting.

James Cameron Got It Wrong by ladyfoxxx, Frank/Fun Ghoul/Party Poison, 57k, Explicit. In which 2005!Frank and Fun Ghoul get it on. Then Frank accidentally winds up in 2019.

Rock and Roll Never Looked so Beautiful by corruptedkid, Frank/Gerard, 58k, Explicit. Gerard Way is a rising solo artist, set to become the next big thing in the alternative scene. Frank Iero is a trashy punk with a reputation of his own as the frontman of Pencey Prep. When their paths cross, a love story is born, only to come crashing down when Gerard hits it big. As Gerard ascends to the A-list, Frank adjusts to life on his own. He almost manages it - until two years later, when fate puts him face to face with Gerard once more. Everything has changed, but the connection between them is still there. Their story has ended once before, but if they're lucky, they just might make a new one.

I never told you what I do for a living. by not0-fuckin-kay, Frank/Gerard, 60k+, PG-13 to NC-17. Frank Iero, male nurse at Pete Wentz's private hospital and possibly more to one new patient he can't keep his eyes off of. When a new pateint is brought in with amnesia, just days before Christmas, and with nothing but the clothes on his back and a strange drawing, it's left to Frank to find out who he is and what happened to him. When he does, it changes Frank's life forever, as he's thrust into love and health scares he never thought would complicate his life. This is the story of how he tries to make it through, juggling his job and his love-life and just trying to make things better. With Patrick the doctor, Bob the ward supervisor, Travis the unlikely therapist, and Mikey, the sometimes wannabe homicidal geek.

and me here on the ground by ohnoktcsk, Frank/Gerard, 32k, Explicit. Frank's worked hard to build a life for himself in the city of Jersey, where dragons swoop and dive over the river, and every day is divided by the ringing of the city bells. He knows the streets of the city like he knows the the tattoos on the backs of his hands, and he's content with what he has: a job as a bike courier, friends who love to give him shit, and a crush on a professor of art history at the local university. But he's also got a secret—one he's been running from for a long time. But all it takes is one delivery to a mysterious, quite-probably-magical bookshop to show Frank that there are some things you can’t outrun. Especially since he’s finally found a place that he doesn’t want to leave.

Companion by onceuponamoon, Frank/Gerard, 34k, Explicit. A workplace AU. There’s a dude sitting in one of the high-backed chairs opposite the reception desk. Mostly obscured by a fake ficus plant between them, the guy probably wouldn’t have been noticeable save for the lazy sprawl of his legs, the Chucks contrasting against the floral rug.

Your Heart The Only Place That I Call Home by dear_monday, Frank/Gerard, 30k, Explicit. When Frank and his crew of morally ambiguous ethernauts (pirates, as Imperial law would have it, but that's such an ugly word) fetch up on the doorstep of the fabled Sanctuary, they aren't expecting to find much - least of all a long-lost brother, a garden in a box and the key to an ancient riddle.

Give Me a Reason by mistresscurvy, Lindsey/Frank/Jamia/Gerard and most variants thereof, 38k, Explicit. July 2007. Frank is fucking stoked for the next tour. This one will be the best ever, because his wife's gonna be with him the entire time. They've been married for less than six months, and he still can't fucking believe he got to marry her. This summer is going to rock. But life never happens as he plans.

In Repair by autoschediastic, Frank/Gerard, 33k, Explicit. "Shit," Frank mutters, and shoves both hands through his hair. He looks around the kitchen like he's gonna find what he should do scratched into the old linoleum, then looks back at the bot. He gnaws on his lip. Fuck it. He already knows what he's gonna do. He's just gotta do it. Getting down on his knees, he braces a hand on the edge of the crate and leans over the bot. It's dressed in a plain white tee and matching drawstring pants like an escaped mental patient. Frank rolls his neck and cracks his knuckles, shaking the ache out of them before carefully laying his palm against its cheek. He's pretty sure his voice is steady when he says, "Activate." Nothing happens. Fucking shitty packaging-- the thing's busted. But Frank keeps his hand where it is, jumping a little when he feels the surge of energy beneath it. The robot's skin goes from room temperature to lukewarm, then warm. Frank watches it open its eyes, the light behind them adjusting until they're a pale sort of brown. It looks at him and asks, "Am I dead?"

Promises, Promises by silentdescant, Frank/Gerard, 31k, Explicit. "Sources on our investigative team say this was a bank robbery gone wrong, and that, when faced with a police task force surrounding the building, the suspect grabbed the nearest person and is now holding that young man at gunpoint as he makes his getaway."

Cover To Cover by silentdescant, Frank/Gerard, 32k, Explicit. You've Got Mail AU. Frank owns The Shop Around The Corner, which specializes in classic and rare books, and Gerard is opening up a large branch of Way Books & Café down the street. They meet online and fall in love.

Love: The Package Deal by jjtaylor, Frank/Gerard, Lindsey/Frank/Jamia/Gerard, 30k, Mature. Gerard gets a special kind of amnesia. Frank gets to reexamine his idea of acceptable relationship structures. Lots of people fail to communicate effectively, but they all sure remember how to kiss.

Let The Darkness Lead You Home by rivers_bend, Frank/Gerard, 49k, Explicit. Vampires are in charge and most of the humans on earth are prey, so Frank Iero's parents have him train as a cyber tech to protect him. Leaving the family he's born into may have saved his life, but his parents never could have expected the lengths he'd go to in order to find a new family to call home.

Gross roomies by turps, Frank/Mikey, 36k, Explicit. Frank loves living with Mikey. Sure, the apartment is a mess, the kitchen's a toxic wasteland, and there's something growing in the refrigerator that's just a day or two away from becoming sentient, but other than those minor inconveniences, it's all cool. Or it is until Mikey decides to embark on a journey of sexual discovery and adventure and Frank's left at home with nothing but the fridge monster for company. To make matters worse, Mikey insists on telling Frank everything he does with his new kinky friends, right down to the tiniest detail. And now suddenly Frank is best friends with his right hand and he can't stop thinking about Mikey in ways he never has before. The really big problem, other than suddenly being in lust with his best friend, is that Frank isn't sure why.

Of All The Hidden Corners by moneyes, Frank/Gerard, ~44k, PG-13. An epic, adventurous tale filled with alternate universes, lords, mischief, magical powers, snark, boyfriends, and luck of the bad kind.

Church of Hot Addiction by spleenjournal, 0nlymemories, Frank/Gerard, Frank/Mikey, 36k, Adult. When Gerard Way gets transferred to Our Lady of Peace in Arlington a few weeks into his Senior year, he thinks it's his chance to be cool. Too bad his idea of "cool" is no cooler than it was in 3rd grade, even if there aren't any green tights.

Paradox 'verse by stoplightglow, Frank/Gerard, 42k, Mature. You know the saying. The best part about hitting rock bottom is that you get to meet a hot psychic.

[icarus-suraki]

12, 46, 119 :)

12. What are your 5 favorite songs right now?

In no particular order...

The Banjo Beat Yeah, I know it's a meme staple, but it's got the kind of sound I love and how cool would a bellydance choreography look to this?

Little Dark Age (slowed) Yes, I first heard this in one of the Angels & Demons tiktok compilations and I loved it, shut up. I love the 80s goth energy in the video too. Like, it just hits the spot, you know?

Tick.Tock.Magical.Idol.Time  Because sometimes you just gotta find a happy place, okay? If there's ever a lipsynch or idol show at a convention, this is gonna be what I perform in my cute cyclops kigurumi mask. Absolutely. (The Pripara animes got me through a very long winter a few years ago. I'd literally get up earlier than I needed so I could see the latest clips after a new episode aired before I went to work lol. And, yes, I love Yui, but Lalaa is best girl. They get to perform together, though.)

Lots of Zenbukimi and Not Secured,Loose Ends songs lately. I'll throw these here for an example: "Loud Asymmetry" and "独白園" ["Garden Monologue" or "Monologue Garden"?]. I have a whole YT playlist, lol. I'm kind of fascinated by the whole "underground idol" phenomenon and the CodomoMental label groups because they're both idols and anti-idols, which is kind of an interesting conflict within "idol-style" music in Japan...

Superman This is what I use for my alarm every morning in the hopes that high energy ska-punk will make me get up. It doesn't always work, but I like the song anyway. I've been on a real ska and ska-punk streak lately.

46. What are you paranoid about?

On the one hand, as a Thomas Pynchon fan, who has major themes of paranoia in, uh, all of his books, I have to laugh. But, at the same time, I'm so much less paranoid than I used to be. I put this down to my medications. In the past, wow, I've been paranoid about, uh, everything?

I think I'm kind of weak willed because any kind of "world's gonna end on x date" thing would send me into multi-day panic attacks. Nostradamus, obscure and dubious prophecies, biblical interpretations, Book of Revelations, political stuff, anything. I'd find myself believing all kinds of irrational things but not feeling like I could do anything about it (I mention this in particular because it’s markedly different from the Q-Anon fandom that is determined to Do Something about what they believe is happening; I felt informed but helpless, like there was an air raid siren blaring but nowhere to go and no shelter to be had, only inevitable destruction needling down from the clear blue sky). Like, all these terrible things are going to happen to us all and there's nothing we can do about it. Biblical stuff would always set me off in a major, major way. I'm rather proud I can shake off all the people talking about microchips in vaccines because a few years ago I would have been panicking about whether that was true and what the ramifications would be because, obviously, there was no way to get out of this inevitable fate or possible damnation and maybe it was the Mark of the Beast so what does that mean? Are there going to be people starving outside grocery stores now? Was xyz event really a sign? How much are we going to suffer??? What if I'm not good enough for God?????? Lots of religious anxiety in my past, as you can see. And some still, to be honest.

Yeah, it sucked. Glad I got most of that anxiety sorted before 2020 lol. (I sometimes think I could use a bit of anxiety because now I'll do dumb shit without fear because, eh, who cares? So I may have swung too far in the opposite direction.)

119. Favourite book? It's a three-way tie, baybee!

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury: I wrote a bang-up college admissions essay on this book and why it's not actually about censorship (as is usually but incorrectly taught) but rather about a disinterest in books/reading or an anxiety about the intense emotions that reading can bring out in the reader and I want to major in English so please let me come to your school to do that. And, guess what? They did. I read this book and then I felt feverish for, like, a week after. That's how hard it hit me, especially surrounded by high school classmates who really didn't care about school or reading or anything. It was like "fuck, this is too close to possible!" Anyway, it's still not about censorship.

Ulysses by James Joyce: This book, this thing, has such a reputation of being Evil and Dirty. So I read it. Fuck it, why not? Actually, I had been assigned some stories out of Dubliners to read over the Thanksgiving break my freshman year and I was kind of like "why the fuck did no one ever tell me to read these before now?" So I went and read Portrait of the Artist. N.B.: I think I was ~18 or 19 at the time and that thing hit me like not just a ton of bricks but about six tons of bricks. Like, I know I'm part of the .05% of people who actually like The Catcher in the Rye, but I think that's because I read it when I was ~15 or 16, because I was the ideal age and in the ideal mindset to read it. (The older I get, the more I identify with Holden's teacher, Mr. Spencer, who essentially tells Holden that if you can just hang on, I promise it gets better and you can do the shit you want really soon. But I also know how badly that would have gone over with my 16 year-old self, so...) So, anyway, in internet parlance, I realized I was kin with Stephen Dedalus, right? The only natural next step after PotA was Ulysses, since that picks up after PotA, so I just jumped into that with a copy from the used bookstore and separate annotation book from my school's library. And, o my fuck, Jim, you fucko, how did you do this? Like "I'm gonna create so many references and so many layers that you're going to have fun picking at this for years." And he was right! I have never been to Dublin but I can navigate the older parts of the city thanks to this dirty, profane, vulgar, obscene piece of literature lmao. I finished it the first time when I was almost 22, Stephen's age in the book. I went to Europe that summer, 2004, which was 100 years after the events in the book (1904) and intended to play at being Stephen, but that shit did not work out as planned and ended up being more accurate to canon than expected: i.e. everything was terrible and I suffered very artistically. I had planned on going to Ireland this year, because I turned 38 this year, Leopold Bloom's age in the book. 2020 wasn't having it. So maybe 2021? Or maybe 2022, the anniversary of its publication. This thing hangs in the background for me constantly and it's like the most amazing running joke in my life. I dressed up as Stephen for Halloween in 2004 too. Just sayin’.

Gravity's Rainbow: When I was working at a major chain bookstore immediately after college, it was retail hell and I was extremely depressed and everything sucked. I had no direction, no plan, no nothing. I kind of wanted to go get a PhD in English, though. So I started using my employee's discount to buy and read all the books that everyone seemed to talk about but had never read. Among those was Gravity's Rainbow, which was a title that intrigued me but I had no idea what it was "about." And saying what it's "about" isn't all that easy but that's kind of not the point. Just know that it's a dirty little book about sex and rockets. The point is the fuckery that our boy Tom Pynchon does with words and language and imagery and little winking references to things. I fucking love it. It's like, yeah. It's set during World War II and immediately after and it's bonkers and the author wrote most of it while very, very high. I went on and read the rest of his books (The Crying of Lot 49 is pretty much tied with GR for my affections; I would cosplay a theatrical interpretation of a Tristero courier if I ever had the opportunity) and bought Against the Day literally on the day it came out because I had become that much of a dork. (I also read Finnegans Wake about this time, which I also really love, a fact which really unsettles some people.)

Why can’t I be normal? I have no idea. I blame my past and my proclivities. 

Ask me stuff! Put question in, get blathering out!

[ryder-s-block]

Jaig Eyes (Ch 69)

Jaig Eyes (69/?)

Summary:

Kida, a former slave who now thrives as a bounty hunter, finds herself sucked into the war she advised Jango Fett against. Now that she’s involved, she has to finally mourn the loss of Jango, seeing his face in the clones that man the GAR. What happens when she allows herself to get attached to one, not for his resemblance to her former mentor, but for his heart?

————————-

Chapter Sixty-Nine: Death Watch

I was on a ship, but it wasn’t the shuttle Senatorial shuttle I’d left Mandalore on. Nor was I in the well-worn boots and leather jacket I had on. Instead, I was in rather familiar tan garb.

The slave clothes I wore when I was owned by Jabba the Hutt.

“Kida.” I glanced up with a start, seeing Dirk, Jabba’s right-hand man. Or….Rattataki. “You seem to be feeling better.”

Right. I hadn’t been feeling well on this trip. I’d been terribly anxious to the point of nausea. I suppose that must have been my Force sensitivity trying to warn me of what was coming.

If only I’d understood it then.

“Not really,” my mouth responded for me, following the memory, “But I’ll be fine. I know how important this is to Jabba.”

Dirk hummed. “Yes, your master would be very displeased if you were to fail.” Ugh. This guy was such an ass. He loved rubbing it in that I was a slave.

Even if I had as much value on this mission as him, if not more. 

I guess that was what he hated most.

Still, I said nothing in response, letting him bathe in his false glory. I didn’t care. Slaves never got glory anyways.

I flinched when the ship jolted suddenly, but I already knew what was happening. We were being boarded...and I was going to be stolen.

“Get to the hold,” Dirk commanded, worry coloring his features.

I obeyed, the vision shifting rapidly to get me into the hold faster.

The ship shuddered again, cries pouring from some of the other terrified slaves. I hushed them in their native tongues, reliving the memory clearly. “....Mandalorian ships,” I overheard one of the guards saying. 

I lifted my head, glancing at the familiar female Zabrak known as Amiru. Her skin was a soft brown, two horns jutting from each side of her forehead. She, unlike many Zabraks, had long hair that covered most of her scalp, the grayish-blue locks pulled back in an elegant braid. Despite being a guard--and thus, paid and not owned--she was always kind. Firm, but gentle. She understood we were slaves, but never held that against us. To her...we weren’t property.

When she saw me looking, she slowly left her conversation and joined my side. “We’re being boarded,” she said quietly, but like she was reporting it, “We need to move.”

“Can we fight them off?”

“They’re Mandalorians.” Already knew that, but I suppose that should have been answer enough.

“Fett?” one of the Rodian twins, Yumi, asked.

“He wouldn’t dare,” Amiru responded firmly. I agreed with her. Jango had too much at risk if he attacked one of Jabba’s ships. He would never jeopardize his connection with one of his top employers.

The ship shook beneath our feet again, Amiru taking it as a sign to get moving. She touched my shoulder gently, leading myself and the other slaves from the hold. In the halls, there were sounds of fighting, but the ship was big and the halls echoed easily.

It was hard to tell which direction the sounds were coming from.

“Get down!” Amiru cried, all of us diving to the ground as shots zipped through the air. The Zabrak ducked against the wall, firing into the smoking corridor blindly. I grabbed my friends’ hands--the Rodian twins Jabba allowed to travel with me on translation and courier missions. They were like...my attendants. The people who got the work done when I dictated it in Jabba’s place.

Realistically, it was ridiculous how much power that Hutt granted a slave. A young slave, at that.

In the smoke, it was hard to see as our eyes stung and watered. We heard a cry and more blaster fire. And then silence.

Slowly, Amiru emerged, clutching her bleeding side. I raced forward, catching her as she collapsed forward with a strangled cry of pain. She’d avoided being shot, but something must have exploded, since shrapnel was protruding from the rough hide shirt she wore. 

“Amiru!” another voice cried, this one deeper. I glanced up, seeing some of the other guards finding us in the smoke. The Torgruta who had spoken kneeled beside my Zabrakian guard, helping her to her feet. 

“Talon,” she replied weakly, finding some of her strength again at the sight of her friend. “What’s going on?”

“They’re taking the bridge,” Talon explained, glancing at the rest of us. “We need to get to the escape pods.”

I nodded dutifully, turning to gather the slaves that were present on the voyage. Some were Jabba’s and only there to attend to either myself or the guards. Others were gifts and payment for the client.

None were being left to the mercy of the pirates ransacking our ship.

We raced through the halls, myself and the other slaves ducking into cover whenever a fight would break out. Amiru stayed with us as our personal guard, mostly because she was slowing down more and more the longer we fought. 

She hadn’t stopped bleeding and our only supplies were in the medbay….on the other side of the ship. 

But we were almost to the escape pods. We could make it. Then we’d get her help.

And then we turned the next corner, a blaster shot burning through Talon’s forehead in a second. I screamed in horror as he fell, Amiru renewed with rage. She leapt forward, blaster firing….only to fall herself after only succeeding to hit one of the attackers in the leg.

Even so, with the beskar, the man hardly seemed fazed anyways.

I collapsed to my knees, feeling the loss of my friends all over again as the other guards fell around their still forms. Through my tears, I heard one of the Mandalorians say, “These ones are slaves. We’ll take them as our own spoils.”

There was dark laughter from them and only tears from us as we were gathered and dragged over the corpses of our friends and guards. Bile climbed in my throat at both the sight of my friends’ murders and the thought of what was coming. 

I threw up on myself.

One of the guards struck me for ‘making things stink’ before I was hastily doused in water and dragged, soaking wet, to their ship. I was gagged to ensure I wouldn’t vomit again. And if I did, I’d choke on it and die, rather than make it a burden for everyone else.

No one would speak to us after that, other than to enforce obedience and silence. I huddled close to the Rodian twins, Yumi and Unreeti, shivering in the cold of space. We couldn’t speak, but even without the Force I could have felt their questions filling their heads. Dirk wasn’t among us, meaning he was dead, too. I didn’t mourn him, like I did the others.

The Mandalorians told us nothing until we arrived on their moon and were forced to our knees before their leader. Even then, I knew he was a skanah. He glared us all through his blue helmet, his blade sheathed at his side.

My eyes followed it, my breathing heavy with fear.

Suddenly, the memory altered from what I remembered, the blade igniting near my face. It kissed my cheek with a dark laugh, my skin bubbling painfully. 

I screamed, the images shifting from the cackling face of Vizla, to the smiling face of Mina Bonteri. I saw flashes of her speaking in political rallies. I saw her helping me to my feet, a motherly scolding on her lips, despite not knowing a thing about me. I saw a Dathomiran Zabrak, his face long and hollowed, his horns untrimmed and gnarled. 

They became too much. I forced myself to surface before I drowned.

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

My eyes snapped open suddenly, my hand flying to my face to touch the scar that still accented my left cheek. I’d received it shortly after I’d gotten the one that slashed down the opposite side of my face, along the temple and down to my jaw.

Why had that dream surfaced? Now of all times? And why all the extra images? Mina? And was that Zabrak who I thought it was?

I shook my head as R2 beeped beside me worriedly. Maybe it was my brain still trying to work through what Krell had done. He made me feel like a slave, again, in some weird way. He stirred up a lot of old memories.

Yeah, that must have been it.

I forced myself to focus, pushing past the haze left by the….taser. That’s right. I had a face to punch. I stood, wobbling only slightly. A quick glance told me that my weapons and armor were gone from their usual stow.

My nose crinkled as I sneered. “Damn the debt,” I muttered darkly, “I’m killing this kid.” I glanced out the window, surprised to see snow and trees in bloom. “Where are we, R2?” I asked, rubbing my forehead to try and chase away the remaining fog from my rather unexpected nap.

The astromech beeped back dutifully as I looked out the front viewport, seeing Bonteri’s back outside the ship.

“Carlac,” I repeated what R2 said with a sigh. “Of course it is. See if you can find my things. Especially my lightsaber. They’re on board, I can feel it.” 

R2 beeped again, both in agreement and to ask what I would be doing.

“I’m going to go kick Bonteri’s ass,” I growled, exiting the cockpit. Considering the snow I’d seen through the viewports, I stopped off at the Senator’s closet and donned one of her giant shawls, the dark olive fabric coming up to wrap around my head and face. 

The Carlac air was brisk, but not unbearable. I trudged into it with determination, my boots crunching in the snow. I saw Bonteri, the boy standing with his back to me as he watched the horizon, as if expecting an arrival.

Wonderful.

“Bonteri,” I called as I drew closer, the boy turning only slightly at the sound of my voice. “Have you lost your mind?” I stopped just behind him, crossing my arms. I wanted to punch him, but something told me not to. There was an apprehension within him that set me off-balance. “What are you even doing out here?” I asked finally.

He turned to me, his eyes sad. “You should have stayed on the ship.”

I became aware of new presences….and some familiar. I jumped as figures clad in beskar appeared around us, descending from the sky with their jetpacks. They circled us, my back turning against Lux’s immediately.

“Hey kid,” a familiar female voice greeted Lux, making me turn to see the painted helmet of Bo-Katan. “You’re late.”

I lowered my head, letting my face dip into the folds of the shawl’s hood. “Deathwatch,” I whispered hoarsely, both with anger and fear. I hated them, sure. But what I’d endured as their slave were memories I preferred not to face or relive.

Bo stepped closer, her focus on Lux. “You get us what we need?” she asked.

“Yes,” Bonteri replied dutifully, “And I have the information with me.” I reached up casually, tucking my hair behind my ear. In the same motion, I securely tucked the shawl over the lower half of my face, disguising me as best as I could at the moment.

Unfortunately, the movement, though small, drew Bo-Katan’s gaze. “Who’s this?” 

My back straightened immediately, my mind in overdrive. I couldn’t say friend. That invited too many questions. Wife could imply terrible things, and I wouldn’t put anything past Deathwatch. I had to find something that protected me from the members of Deathwatch, but also kept me out of their watchful gaze.

“I’m his...betrothed,” I settled on with a forced smile, linking my arms around his. I looked up at Lux, giving him my best doe eyes I could muster.

“Um, right. Right,” he managed with a stupid grin, a small dusting of a blush coloring his cheeks. Ugh. Men.

Bo tilted her head, seeming unconvinced. “Betrothed?” She walked around me, her fingers reaching to pull down my mask. I swatted her hand away, acting like it was violating for her to take it off. After all, some cultures felt that way. Bo only grunted a hum. “A little skinny, isn’t she?” she asked finally, giving my butt a firm slap.

It was hard enough to shove me forward, my senses kicking into overdrive. I whirled, absolutely intent on kicking her ass, but found Lux instead. 

“She serves her purpose,” he said easily, making me want to punch him in the back of the head now too. Still, he had stepped between Bo and I, keeping me from both blowing my cover and probably getting us killed.

Okay. Maybe he wasn’t so bad.

A whistle turned my gaze to see R2 rolling through the snow, his mechanical hands holding my lightsaber and one of my pistols. He’d found where Lux had hidden my things.

Not a great time, though.

I shook my head at him, the droid immediately drawing my weapons into his internal compartments to keep them hidden. It was in just enough time, as the Mandalorians turned to see the droid shifting awkwardly in the snow.

“We leave now,” Bo-Katan called, her men moving into action immediately. “The snow is coming.” The stepped away, shoving her shoulder into mine mockingly as she passed.

I grabbed Bonteri’s shoulder when he moved to follow, pulling him back to whisper, “What the hell are you doing?”

“It’s all under control,” he dismissed. Bo reappeared with a speeder and speeder bikes, the men stepping forward to board.

“This is Death Watch,” I growled, forcing him to listen to me. “They will kill us--”

“You coming?” a soldier interrupted.

Lux glanced at me before following with a firm, “Yes.”

I cleared my throat, shifting awkwardly with R2 behind me. “I should look after our ship.” I didn’t give them a chance to answer, turning away with my hand on R2’s dome.

“No,” the soldier spoke again, making me stop with a grimace under my shawl, “You’re coming, too.” R2 beeped wildly in a panic when two members of Death Watch hoisted him up onto the back of the speeder. I followed shortly after onto my own speeder bike, my arms wrapped hesitantly around the torso of a Mando.

Wonderful. Now even if I managed to sneak back to the ship, my weapons were with R2. Though, I suppose there were benefits to my weapons coming along with us. I’d be needing them, I was sure.

Their encampment, thankfully, wasn’t far. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could have ridden on the speeder while holding onto a member of Death Watch without….well….without stabbing him.

I was off and away from the soldier before the speeder even came to a full stop. I couldn’t fight off a squad on my own before, and now I was in the center of their very full camp. Great. Loved it. What an amazing break away from the war.

“Dance, droid. Dance!” I glanced over at the sound as Lux’s speeder slowed in front of me. Across the yard, Death Watch was torturing poor droids that looked like they’d already been destroyed and repaired countless times.

R2 was lowered from the speeder, the poor astromech shaking in his coils. I stopped beside Lux as Bo-Katan landed. “The boss will see you in there,” she instructed, gesturing to the tent behind her.

I swallowed thickly, flinching when Bonteri’s hand clasped mine firmly. He was practically pulling me into the tent with him. Dammit. I did not want to see Vizsla. 

He dragged me into the tent, the flaps falling closed behind us. “Don’t ruin my plan, okay?” Lux whispered into my ear.

I shoved him away with a scowl. “What plan? Suicide?”

“This is a holo-trace device,” he explained, pointing to a mechanism on his wrist. “It can identify the origin of any holo transmission.

I rolled my eyes. “I know what a holo-trace is. I’m a bounty hunter, you idiot.” So accusing Dooku was just a way to get his location. I’d tell the boy he was clever if I wasn't so pissed off at the moment. And we needed to get the hell out of here.

“A bounty hunter who can use the Force,” Bonteri muttered softly, his eyes widening. “You’re the hunter Ahsoka told me about.” His Force signature blossomed a bit with warmth at the mention of the Torgruta. Ah. I suppose he was expecting her beside Padme, but found me.

That explained the disappointment.

“You fight in the war. You understand Dooku must fall. If Death Watch moves fast enough, we can destroy him!” His fervor was almost enough to falsify my own beliefs. But I knew Death Watch better than most. “Is that enough of a plan for you?”

I stepped forward, shoving the young man in the shoulder. “These are not mercenaries or just an idealistic group. They will take the information you brought and then kill us both. Or worse.”

Lux glanced away, unconvinced. “I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

My jaw tightened as I scowled, grabbing him by his shirt to force him to look at me. “No. You don’t understand. These people are slavers and murderers. I will not stay here and be--” My words were smothered by Lux’s lips pressing against my own.

They were sudden and uninvited.

And I’d been wanting to hit him anyways.

So I pulled away from Lux’s face, his arms still wrapped around me firmly. Twisting in his grip, I lifted my fist and connected it to his jaw, sending the boy spiraling backwards.

“Get the shab off me,” I growled.

“You always were quick with languages, but I didn’t think you’d still be whoring yourself around. Never thought you were a fan of that bit.”

The voice behind me sent chills down my spine, gluing me in place. My muscles were frozen in fear, my breathing short. Lux’s kiss had pulled the shawl away from my face.

Not that it mattered, considering the owner of the voice already seemed to know who I was. And how to push every button I had.

A glance over to Lux revealed the boy finding his feet again, rubbing his aching jaw. When he saw the man behind me, he straightened, but his expression was confused. He wasn’t sure why I already seemed familiar with Death Watch….and they with me.

Slowly, I turned, knowing it was inevitable. Vizsla stepped forward from the entrance, his helmet dark and imposing in the shadows. He moved into the light, dipping his head to remove the beskar helmet, revealing his newly scarred face, the blond hair buzzed to practically bald.

His mouth twitched in an evil smirk as my blood went cold. His voice lowered, his tone mocking while he looked directly into my eyes. “Welcome home.”

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

MANDO’A

Skanah--- ‘very hated person’....equivalent to ‘fucker’

Shab-- fuck

[stillthewordgirl]

LOT/CaptainCanaryBlazer fic: I Say It’s Up to Fate

After the events in "(I Don't Believe in) Destiny," Constantine is back and moping. Sara and Leonard decide to do something about that.

---

This is a sequel to "(I Don't Believe in) Destiny," taking place about a week after the end events of that story. However, I believe it stands alone if you don't want to read that. (Or just want to read this first.)

My heart belongs to CaptainCanary, but after a certain exchange in IDBID, a number of people challenged me to write a Sara/Leonard/Constantine story (which I'm dubbing CaptainCanaryBlazer for lack of a better term). This is that story. (I might write a more explicit version at some point. But I hope you enjoy this for now!)

Many thanks to Pir8grl. Can also be read here at AO3 or here at FF.net.

---

The ship is quiet.

Sara lets out a long, satisfied breath, slumping back into the captain’s chair. As much as she loves her team, her crew, it does sometimes get…rather busy, here, so often.

But. Nate and Ray and Nora are all still back at the Vanishing Point at the moment. Zari and Charlie have headed out into the city, and Sara’s sure enough that it’s effectively their first date, something that makes her smile. And Gideon had decided she wanted to see Central City herself, to try out her human guise, but when Sara had proved reluctant to let her go on her own, Mick had grunted, cast a glance at Sara (and Len, leaning against the wall nearby) and offered to go with her.

She owes him something for that, she decides, getting up and stretching. What she and Leonard have may not be Mick’s sort of relationship, but he’s doing his best with it, and she’s doing her own best to get what Mick and Len have, and it works.

And now, for the first time since the whole Oculus drama, she’d rather like to get laid without having to worry about someone rapping on the door and yelling for the captain.

As if he’s been summoned by the thought, Leonard appears in the doorway to the bridge. He pauses as he sees Sara there, then smirks, strolling toward her, clearly with the same thing in mind she has. Sara smirks back, running her fingers down the arm of the chair, then stands, taking a step toward him.

“Alone at last.” Her crook lifts an eyebrow at her. “All the children are out to play until tomorrow. Whatever shall we do with our time?”

Sara takes another step. “Oh,” she purrs. “I think we’ll think of somethi…”

Which—of course—is when a bellow echoes through the Waverider’s corridors, drawing both their attention.

Sara lets out a hefty sigh right as John Constantine strolls on to the bridge, a bottle swinging from his hand, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.

“And I am back,” the warlock announces with a flourish, saluting them both with the bottle, in which an amber liquid sloshes. “Miss me?”

The booze, Sara thinks, isn’t the only thing getting a bit sloshed. “John,” she acknowledges with another sigh, giving Len a look and turning toward the other man. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” He winks at her. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Leonard snorts. Sara sighs. Again. “Well, I don’t know?” she asks, putting her hands on her hips. “But you’ve been gone a week, and you seem to be three sheets to the wind, and…where’s Gary?”

“No worries. He’s back with his own ilk, at the bureau. Had him drop me off here.” John perches on the edge of a jumpseat and smirks at her. He turns his attention, such as it is, to Leonard. “Ah, handsome. You’ll be pleased to know that your little—time adventure—didn’t do any harm to things. The…” He takes a slug directly from the bottle. “…walls ‘tween here and there—whatever here and there may be—are still intact. Huzzah.”

Leonard retorts, amusement in his voice, but Sara’s chasing down something else. “You just…ran off on him again? John, you know that man’s kind of besotted with you, right?”

John takes another healthy swig from the bottle. “Oh, darlin’, y’know I’m a love-em-leave-em kinda bloke.” A shadow crosses his face, and he takes another drink. “It’s better that way.”

Oh. They’re going there again, huh? Sara fixes him with a glare. “John. What happened?”

“Nothing, love.” Another drink. “Nothing. Kinda the point, ain’t it?”

Then he blinks, looking up and back and forth between Sara and Leonard. “Ah. Interrupted something, did I? I can…” He gets to his feet, weaves a little. “Leave. Far be it from me to stay in the way of people who…might actually be…making something work…”

It’s the brittle kind of self-deprecating that Sara knows well…and that actually worries her when it comes to John, who’s seen far too many people come and go—many permanently, many violently—in his life. But before she can even glance at Leonard, the crook speaks up, tone pointed.

“Don’t be stupid,” he says sharply, folding his arms and staring at Constantine. “But if we’re gonna drink, it’s gotta be something better than that crap. I have standards.” He glances at Sara. “There’s a few bottles left of Rip’s old stash, right?”

There are, and he knows it, because Sara has shown him. She’s been saving it for a rainy day, or some sort of occasion, but…

Oh, this will do.

“Yep,” she confirms, giving Leonard another significant glance. “Come help me carry it.”

John subsides back into his seat with a grumble as Sara turns for the door, Len following her, but at least he doesn’t seem inclined to go anywhere.

She waits until they’re out of earshot and even then, lowers her voice to speak to him.

“Thank you. If we told him to leave right now,” Sara says in a low voice, “I think he might do something really stupid. Even for John.” She glances at Leonard. “He…gets like this sometimes.”

Her lover nods. “Self-destructive,” he says quietly as they reach the captain’s quarters. “I get it.” A pause. “You take care of your crew.”

“Yeah.” She retrieves the scotch from its hidey hole, handing him two bottles, then sighs, studying him.

“I love you,” she murmurs, still pleased with her ability to say it, and how true it is.

Leonard smirks at her. “I know.”

*

Sara still halfway expects John to have vanished again by the time they return to the bridge, but the warlock is still there, staying morosely at nothing, bottle swinging from his fingertips. He brightens when he sees their burden, pouts when Sara won’t simply give him a bottle, shrugs philosophically when Leonard takes the rotgut he’d been drinking and drops it fastidiously in a waste bin, and happily accepts a glass of the scotch, taking a long drink and leaning backward.

“Ah. Now that’s the stuff,” he says with a sigh, waving the glass at Leonard. “You’ve got good taste indeed, handsome.”

“Yes,” Sara tells him drily, taking a seat herself, glass in hand. “He does.” She watches as Leonard drops into a nearby seat, hooking one foot over his opposite knee and slouching in that attractively boneless way he has, then looks back at John.

“Now,” she says, taking a drink herself, and staring him down, “what’s got you in this state?” She points at him. “And don’t go all mysterious and broody again. You know I don’t fall for that crap.”

John’s quiet another moment, but then that same self-deprecating smirk touches his mouth again, and he shrugs.

“Oh, you know,” he says, a lightness in his tone that Sara knows isn’t really lightness at all. “Sometimes you look back through…things…and you don’t care for what you see.” He drains half his glass in one go. “Regrets. Stupid mistakes. Big stupid mistakes, the kind that get people dead or worse.” He finishes the rest of the glass abruptly. “Lost loves. Y’know.”

Ah. “You were skipping around through time, checking things out via Gary’s time courier, and you couldn’t resist a little self-flagellation,” Sara translates. She’s suddenly tempted to drain her glass too but resists. “Desmond?”

“Among others.”

His voice is very low. Sara looks at Leonard, who’s frowning at John, but not in a way that suggests he’s annoyed. She knows Mick had filled him in on the goings-on over the last few years, but how much detail, she’s not sure. She herself has told him more about John, to some extent, but she’s not sure exactly what he’s thinking.

“You saved him,” she says, getting up and moving over to refill John’s glass for him. “You did that.”

He toasts her again, mockingly—although the mockery is certainly directed at himself. “In a way. And the reward?”

“He’s not in Hell. He’s alive.”

“And married now.” He smirks as Sara blinks at the word. “To a blond bloke, looks a lot like me actually. They’re newlyweds. Quite sweet.” He throws back a good deal of the scotch again and coughs. “Guess he moved on all right.”

Sara takes another drink. “Well, that sucks,” is all she can think of to say.

There’s silence a long moment.

“So…what?” Leonard breaks in then, the slight harshness in his voice making Sara wonder idly if he wants to play this good cop/bad cop. “You don’t want him to be happy ‘cause it’s not with you?” He gets up and refills his glass, too. “Doesn’t sound like love to me.”

John scowls at the crook, while Sara darts a warning glance at him. “Not so much that, handsome, as that it’s hardly the first time,” he says. “Reminders that other people get what you’ll never dare have.” He looks at Sara. “We’ve talked about this.”

It’s her turn to frown. “John…”

“Oh, I know, I know.” He waves his (empty again) glass in the air. “ ‘Love makes us stronger,’ and all that jazz. An’ maybe it’s even true.” Then, yes, he goes there. “You’ve been luckier than most, though, Sara, no mistake.” He glances at Leonard. “Because here you are.”

It’s true, and yet…Sara sucks in a breath, trying to hold her temper, thinking of all those she’s lost, and not just romantically.

“You do recall,” her crook drawls, however, cutting in, “that we’ve both died.” He glances at Sara. “More or less. And Sara, more than once.”

“And yet you’re here now.”

Is there a good way to respond to that? There’s probably not a good way to respond to that.

Leonard gets them all another refill and it’s silent again for a bit. At one point, Leonard takes off his black jacket and slings it over a chair, an action that gets a wolf whistle from John, which he ignores. The warlock follows suit, though, removing his battered trench coat and shoving up the sleeves of his shirt restlessly before subsiding back down into the jumpseat.

That reveals something Sara already knows about, although she sees Leonard’s eyes sharpen as he studies the other man. They’ve all had a good bit of scotch by now, but he’s no less observant than usual.

And John, for all he’d gotten a head start, notices Leonard’s regard too.

“Noticing my war wounds, mate?” he says mock-casually, lifting an arm and regarding the small, round scars there with a critical eye. “I made a good ashtray as a kid. Certainly, my father thought so.” He considers his arms, expression analytical. “No pity, please. Long time ago.”

Leonard snorts. Then, a little to Sara’s surprise, he shoves up his own sleeves, first one and then the other, exposing very similar scars and other, larger marks.

Sara, watching and drinking, notices John’s eyes widen just a fraction before he conceals the reaction with a gulp of scotch.

“Your ol’ man?” he asks quietly.

“Yep” is the drawled response. Leonard tilts his left forearm up to inspect the longer, twisted mark there, thick with scar tissue. “So was this. Broken beer bottle.”

John makes a thoughtful noise. He undoes another button of his shirt and yanks the collar to the side, exposing a scar with the puckered look of a long-healed but very deep wound. “Same here.”

Leonard looks like he’s considering upping the ante, but he polishes off his drink first. To Sara’s continued surprise and amusement, his fingers twitch toward the hem of his sweater, though he stops them.

“If you two are going to do the whole stripping-down-and-comparing-scars thing,” she says before she can think better of it, “at least let me lower the lights, put on some music and get more scotch.”

Two sets of eyes, blue and brown, flick her way, and Leonard’s lips twitch, while John laughs out loud. He winks at Leonard, swirling the scotch around in his glass.

“It’s not fair, though,” he says in a commiserating tone. “She’s already seen the both of us bare. She knows where all the scars are.”

Sara coughs, although Leonard merely lifts an eyebrow in her general direction. There’s nothing jealous in the look—he’s not that type—but there is curiosity.

“Yes, we’ve slept together…” she tells him with a sigh.

“Sleeping had nothin’ to do with it, love.”

“It was a while back,” Sara continues, ignoring John. “Even before Ava…long before you returned.” She gets herself a little more scotch. “It was a…friends-with-benefits thing. Once. It’s not that kind of relationship.”

“Sara, you break my heart,” John announces grandiosely, the sheer drama in his tone showing that she’s doing nothing of the sort. He looks through his lashes at her and waves a hand at Leonard. “I don’t think it’s fair that you have the advantage of both of us, though.”

Sara eyes him. “Pardon?”

“You’ve gotten to kiss both of us.” John beams at her, then shrugs. “Well, more than that. But definitely that.”

Sara’s eyes dart sideways to Leonard, reading how he’s reacting to John’s teasing. To her relief, her lover looks amused and relaxed, none of the telltale tension in him that she knows would mean he’s uncomfortable with this line of discussion. And maybe because of that, she says something else.

“Well, I won’t stand in your way. If you want to even things up,” she says, motioning with her glass. “But you’ve got to talk to Len about that.”

John blinks at her. Then he glances at Leonard, who lifts an eyebrow.

“A kiss, huh?” the crook drawls, sitting his glass down and eyeing John in return. “I could handle that.”

“Oh, yeah, you could handle this, handsome,” John retorts, seeming somewhat dazed despite the flippant words. He glances at Sara as Leonard rises easily to his feet, then clears his throat and stands as well, though looking distinctively disbelieving in a rather un-John-like fashion.

Leonard, once committed anyway, has no such qualms. Sara watches as he saunters over to the other man, grabs that red tie, flicks the quickest glance and smile her way, and then hauls John’s mouth to his.

Damn. Sara downs her scotch, unexpected desire stirring, feeling like a voyeur—but not in a bad way.

Leonard doesn’t rush the kiss, and when he finally lets John go and steps back, the blond man staggers a little, staring at him open-mouthed. Leonard, who’s looking a little ruffled himself, winks at Sara, but while he does take a few more steps back, he doesn’t sit down again.

John takes a deep breath, shaking his head. “You,” he tells Sara somewhat huskily, “are a lucky, lucky woman.”

Sara clears her throat. “I am,” she acknowledges, watching Leonard, a smile hovering on her lips, wondering if the look he’s giving her means what she thinks it means. She trusts him, and she trusts what they have, and…

Exactly as she’d somewhat expected, John’s expression darkens as he looks back and forth between them then—more of that self-deprecating brittleness, the bleak loneliness that he keeps behind his façade of dissolute good humor.

“Outside looking in, again,” he says in a low tone. “Ah, well. I’m glad for you, love.” He picks up one of the bottles—one that’s still mostly full—and salutes them. “I’m off. Hate being a third whe…”

“Oh, bloody hell,” Sara says suddenly, fervently, getting to her feet and stalking toward him.

She grabs John’s tie with one hand and grabs the front of Leonard’s sweater with the other, going up on her toes, pulling first the former man toward her and kissing him hard. She hears a noise of surprise, tastes scotch and cinnamon and the faintest hint of mint, then pulls away (still holding his tie) and turns toward Leonard, yanking him toward her and kissing him too. The mint on his breath, familiar and reassuring, is mingled with the faint spice of cinnamon, and something about tasting the other in each man’s kiss is one of the sexiest things Sara’s ever encountered in her life.

When she relaxes her grip on Leonard, breaking the kiss, she meets his eyes, a question in her own. She’s answered by understanding and amusement and desire together. He inclines his head, gaze never leaving hers, and Sara smirks, tightening her grip on each of them as she and Leonard both look at John, who’s still looking rather stunned.

Then she starts towing them both down the corridor toward the captain’s quarters, and then in, closing the door firmly behind them.

*

At some point during the night, John disentangles himself, gets up quietly and leaves. Sara, waking just enough to be aware of it, wonders groggily if she should check on him, but the low chuckle and the gentle kiss he presses to her forehead before departing lead her to decide that he’ll be all right. She drifts back to sleep, listening to Leonard’s steady breathing still beside her.

It’s sometime in the very early morning that Sara wakes again, this time with a faint stirring of worry. She doesn’t regret what they’d done, the three of them, but with a faint scotch haze hanging over her, she does hope she’d read Leonard right. What they have is still a little new, and if she’d misinterpreted…

And, honestly, she’s always rather thought that Leonard tends toward guys the same way she tends toward girls. She’s confident in their relationship, really she is, but John is charming, and handsome, and great in bed, and…

She rolls toward Leonard, noticing with a little surprise that he’s awake and watching her. She hadn’t heard the change in his breathing, for once.

“Hey,” he says quietly, eyes on her, one hand reaching out to push a strand of hair out of her face.

“Hey.” Sara bites her lip, watching him, then decides not to torture herself any longer. “We OK?”

Leonard lifts an eyebrow. Then, to Sara’s great relief, he smiles.

“You think I’m going to fall for Trouble-with-a-capital-T there because of one admittedly enjoyable night?” he asks, amusement in his tone. “No. One, it’d be a little too much like…” He pauses. “Well. Let’s just say I think we’re a bit too much alike.”

“In some ways,” Sara acknowledges, wrapping her fingers around his. “Not others.”

“Hmmm. For another…” Those blue eyes, once so icy, now so warm, are focused on hers. “Sara. I was four years adrift in the timestream. The Time Force, to protect my mind, gave me dreams to keep me going. And most of them were of you.” He pauses. “That, last night? That was fun. I like him—and we both know I don’t like many people. Wouldn’t mind a repeat, if circumstances were right.”

His eyes darken, and he moves toward her, just a little, as she moves toward him. “This is something else.”

And he kisses her, and Sara reaches for him again, and they’re OK.

They’re better than OK.

*

Later, they find John sitting in the galley, staring down into a mug of black coffee like it holds all the mysteries of the universe. His trench coat is still missing, and he’s back in shirtsleeves, though looking rumpled as always.

He glances up at Sara and Len as they enter, a rather tentative expression on his face. Sara knows a moment of concern that she’s gone and led her friend into falling for her love—and damn, did she really have to make life more complicated in that particular way? But what’d happened, had happened, and it was done with. She doesn’t regret it.

When he’s close enough, Leonard holds out a hand and lets John’s red silk tie slither from his fingers, allowing it to fall to the table, giving the other man a smirk when he blinks.

“You’re lucky I didn’t decide to keep it,” he drawls, taking a seat and the cup of coffee Sara slides over to him. “As a souvenir.”

Sara can’t resist. “I was going to make him wear it this morning,” she says, sitting down and sipping her own coffee. “And nothing else.”

Leonard laughs. John blinks again then chuckles quietly. He takes a drink, then pauses, and Sara waits, watching him.

“Y’know, this probably ain’t gonna be a regular thing,” the warlock says finally, waggling a hand in the air as if to indicate the three of them. He pauses. “Or rather, a frequent thing.”

Sara blinks at the words—actually fighting off a bit of unexpected disappointment--but John keeps going, the ghost of an odd, vulnerable sincerity in his expression, something she’s very rarely seen.

“But I’ve gotta say…thanks for letting me in on it,” he says quietly, looking back and forth between them. “Into what you have. What you’ve found. You give this ol’ cynic hope.”

Then he holds his mug up, familiar smirk appearing once again. “And if you ever tell anyone I said that, I’ll deny it with alacrity. And many lovely, lascivious details.”

Sara laughs, holding her mug up too. “I think we can agree to keep this between us,” she says, glancing at Leonard, who looks back at her, a gleam in his eye. “A nice memory. A possibility. A pact between…friends.”

The three of them clink their mugs together in agreement. 

[neverwatchedonepiece]

499-504: “The Battle Against the Big Tiger! Who Is Going to Be Captain?!”, “Freedom Taken Away! the Nobles' Plot Closing in On the Brothers!”, “The Fire Has Been Set! the Gray Terminal in Crisis!”, “Where Can Freedom be Found? A Sad Departure of a Boy!”, “Take Good Care of Him! A Letter from the Brother!” and “To Live Up To The Promise! Departures Of Their Own!”

R.I.P. Sabo.....?

I watched six episodes in a row and it was totally worth it.

Mobile users better limber up those scrollin fingers because this post is about to get long.

Quick 499 Filler Summary (so I can move on to the good stuff...)

I hate watching filler when I don’t know it’s filler. It messes up my sense of canon. I end up analyzing it, then get annoyed when I realise it was a waste of time. Still, I’m glad I picked up on Sabo telling Ace’s family secret in front of the old Filler Pirate from 498. Even though his character had only just been introduced, I knew he wasn’t the type to blab. Glad you guys pointed that out.

To sum up 499:

1. The boys have no luck with Big Tiger, so they train with Filler Pirate.

2. Ace is shocked to learn Filler Pirate does not loathe Roger.

3. Filler Pirate is returning to the sea to find his old crew. The boys end up helping him build a ship.

4. They train under Filler Pirate. With the power of friendship, they defeat Big Tiger together (without needing catnip, thanks Sabo!)

5. Filler Pirate teaches Ace Pirate Life Lessons such as: there is more to being a pirate captain than strength. Only your crew’s approval makes you a good captain.

6. Filler Pirate heads out to see. Bye, bye Naguri the Filler Pirate!

Now for the good stuff...

Poor People Blood Is Icky

Episode 500 opened on an ominous note. Not only was the title sinister but a literal storm ripped apart the boys’ refuge in the forest. Nice foreshadowing there.

To repair their hideout, Ace, Sabo and Luffy searched Grey Terminal for scraps. They were ambushed by Bluejam and Sweaty Chins. (Never found out his name, so Sweaty Chins he shall remain.) 

Instead of thinking, “Hey, maybe my terrible parenting caused Sabo to run away?” Sweaty Chins pinned the blame on Ace and Luffy, the nasty common children. They had tempted Sabo to run away. They were after his money. Ace did not like that latter comment one bit and tried to fight back. Bluejam smacked him and, horror of horrors, got some of Ace’s blood on Sweaty Chins’ face. 

Because everyone knows if you get poor blood on you, you might catch poor, right?

Poor Sabo begged them not to harm Ace and Luffy. “They’re important to me! They’re my brothers!” Of course, Sweaty Chins pulled the old, “If you come with me, they won’t be harmed.” Dying inside, Sabo agreed.

Sabo returned to his gilded prison. Ace and Luffy were dragged to Bluejam’s hideout. He tried to convince Ace and Luffy to stay away from Luffy. He told them Sabo only escaped to Grey Terminal as a mockery of the people who live there, that Sabo really looked down on them as an amusement to make himself feel superior. Of course Ace and Luffy did not buy his bullshit, so he said straight up that if they cared about Sabo, they’d have to let him go.

Weirdly, Bluejam gave them a job as couriers. I’m still not sure if this was because he genuinely wanted to recruit Ace and Luffy into his crew or if he wanted them to be part of the bomb plot and laugh as they realised they’d helped destroy Grey Terminal.

I Fell Into The Burning Ring Of Fire

Back in High Town, Sweaty Chins was hard at work trying to erase Sabo’s criminal record. He can do this because he has cash and social clout. Sweaty Chins tried hard not to part with cash, urging Sabo to lie. He had been tempted into those criminal acts by feral bandit children, after all.

Because Sabo isn’t awful, he refused to drop his brothers in it. Sweaty Chins kicked his chair away (excellent parenting there) and bribed the guard to erase Sabo’s record. Problem solved! Now he could become a good, obedient noble again. Hurrah!

Then things got weird...

Back at Sabo’s home, Mr and Mrs Sweaty Chins had adopted a sinister noble child called Stelly. The name might resemble Stelio Kontos, but this kid is nowhere near as cool. Stelly was replacement, in case Sabo didn’t work out, apparently. Lovely.

Turned out Stelly had a big mouth. He blabbed to Sabo that the Nobles of High Town had planned a spate of Social Cleansing By Fire because a Celestial Dragon was due to visit. The sight of all the icky poor people and the garbage heap might be too much for the Celestial Dragon’s delicate eyes.

This news freaks out Sabo because he is not evil. “But.. people live there!” 

“YES. THEY WILL BURN!” Stelly crowed with glee.

Sabo had a “screw this,” moment and jumped out the window. Seeking clarification, still unsure that anyone could be that heartless, he roamed High Town. For some reason, everyone was making fire jokes. “OHOHO, IT SURE IS WINDY TODAY. FIRES MIGHT SPREAD!” Unable to take it any longer, Sabo straight up asked an old gent if it was true.

It’s as if High Town had a residents’ meeting and thought, “Screw it, let’s just burn Grey Terminal. Cheaper than hiring a skim, am i rite?”

Of course, Sabo went nuts. He was surrounded by freaks. Utter psychos. His brothers would burn because the poor people of Grey Terminal were inconvenient. But before he got the chance to escape, he was caught. Sweaty Chins kicked him into a cellar and locked the door. What a guy! Watching Sabo beating on that door screaming for Ace and Luffy was sad. 

I would love to see Sweaty Chins have karma hit him like a brick one day, I swear...

Someone Set Him Up The Bomb

Back at Bluejam’s Courier Business, Bluejam finally let Ace and Luffy in on the big secret. The boxes they had been carrying contained oil and explosives which would be used to Blow Grey Terminal to Kingdom Come. But hey, he wasn’t the mastermind behind it, so that was alright, right? He was just getting paid. And speaking of money, did Ace and Luffy happen to have any lying around?

Because what Bluejam care about more than anything? Money. Turns out the mastermind of the fire was the King of Goa. Apparently, he promised Bluejam and his crew titles and status. As soon as Bluejam said this, I thought, “There is no way in hell, mate. You are being played.” Nobles barely help their own. As if they’d help you, one who was born a commoner.

I didn’t have long to wait. Bluejam hammered on the gate to Edge Town, gave the signal to be let in. But they were ignored by the guards inside, just like the desperate residents of Grey Terminal were ignored by the guards when they begged to be given refuge. When they retreated to the ship, they found that burning too. The king had double-crossed them.

The whole fire story was actually pretty brutal because something similar happened in real life that was all over the news where I live. A tower block of apartments where poorer people lived went on fire. Seventy-two people died. Some of the bodies will never be identified because they were living there illegally or were sub-letting while waiting for naturalisation papers. Why did the tower block burst into flames? Cheap, shoddy, flammable cladding. Why was the tower block clad in that material? To approve its appearance for the rich people who lived opposite. It looked grimy and run down. The sight of it might hurt their delicate eyes.

This entire plot just reminded me of that and I’ve got say, if Dragon asked me to join his army right now, I’d probably say yes.

And speaking of Dragon...

We Need Febreeze, Stat.

Desperate to save Ace and Luffy, Sabo escaped through a vent. He reached the city gate, tried to open it and had the crap kicked out of him by a guard. When a mysterious man in a green cloak approached, I thought, “YES! DRAGON IS HERE. HE WILL TAKE SABO AWAY AND LET HIM JOIN THE REVOLUTIONARY ARMY. ANOTHER FINE RECRUIT.”

Wherever there is injustice and class-cleansing, there is Dragon.

Dragon asked Sabo what happened. Sabo spilled his soul and I felt wretched watching him. The self-hatred Sabo has and his powerlessness to effect any change because of the firm grip the defective system has on the OPverse. 

“This town smells worse than Grey Terminal. It smells like rotten people. If I stay here, I’ll never be free. I’m ashamed of being born a noble.”

“I know how you feel. I was born in this country too. But I still don’t have enough power to change a country.”

“You’re really listening to me...” Sabo whispered. (That got to me. For the first time, an adult actually listened to him and acknowledged his feelings on the matter.)

“Yes,” Dragon said. “And I will never forget.”

Breaking News: The Poor Can Avoid Being Poor By Not Being Born Poor!

While Bluejam swore vengeance against the King (optimism!), the king himself had planked his arse on his throne and was complaining the sky was too bright because of the fire. Never has the urge to reach through reality to slap a fictional character been stronger.

“Daddy?” little noble daughter asked. “Why aren’t the people in Grey Terminal humans? Why do they have to burn?”

A great question! A potential ray of light! Might this innocent child stir the king’s conscience?

Did she hell.

Honestly, this scene was too real. People actually talk like this. They genuinely believe it. This may be filler, but damn, it is near-the-knuckle good filler.

Mama Bear To The Rescue

In the meantime, Bluejam had gone off the deep end because he realised the futility of vengeance and hit rock bottom. Out for blood, he cornered Luffy and Ace and insisted they died together... but first, that treasure they had stolen!

About to put a bullet through Luffy, a strange, blue haki-like moment felled every single member of Bluejam’s crew. Only Bluejam himself remained standing. I’m still not sure what happened here and who was responsible for it (Dragon? Was he the one who cut the path through the fire to help the Grey Terminal people escape?)

At any rate, it gave Dadan the opening she needed to storm in and rescue her boys. (I was so happy when she called them that. JUST ADMIT IT, DADAN!) “I won’t stand by and watch someone try to take my boys’ lives... even if I’m not their real parent.”

I was a bit annoyed by Ace standing his ground when Dadan wanted to scarper. He endangered everyone else and Dadan was horribly injured fighting Bluejam (mostly burns from fleeing the fire after). It was explained later that Ace is like Roger, who would never run from a right because he would rather let the ones he loves escape. The noble sacrifice only works if you can guarantee their safety. If you’re wiped out then the enemy turns on your loved ones, how can you protect them them?

It distressed Luffy too, who was carted off and didn’t hear from them for days.

At least that convenient path through the fire was created, eh? And where did that path lead?

A Revolutionary Army ship with Dragon, Ivan-san and BARTHOLOMEW BLOODY KUMA!

LOOK WHO’S IN THE BACKGROUND!

(I really hope this is canon because this is something I have wanted confirmation of for AGES. Please let it be true that Kuma was once part of the Revolutionary Army.)

I loved this entire scene. When Ivan asked Dragon how he knew what was going on in this East Blue Backwater and Dragon answered, “This country is an example of how the world will be in the future. There can be no happiness where the undesirables are thrown away. I will change the world.” For all Dragon’s deadbeat dad status, you can see where Luffy gets his ambition and stubborn determination.

Then Dragon addressed the tired, frightened, shivering crowd of poor, Grey Terminal outcasts and shouted: “Those of you who are willing to fight for freedom, come aboard!”

But there was one person missing. I must admit I looked for Sabo on the boat. I thought Dragon might have taken him along. Maybe Dragon didn’t because Sabo was only a kid and he might have had family. 

I wish he had. :(

Destination? Anywhere But Here

The next morning, the sun came out and the clear up began. Any survivors were to be shot on sight. The guards remarked how few charred bodies they found. Hopefully, most of them were Bluejam’s crew and the rest found their way to Dragon’s ship.

Sabo woke up in an alleyway. I was disappointed because Dragon hadn’t taken him. The disappointment was compounded when he was immediately caught and dragged home to High Town. Sweaty Chins enlisted two of the king’s goons as personal guards and calmly threatened to have Sabo killed unless he educated himself to be a noble.

“Be more like Stelly”, Sweaty Chins said, “who is so dependable and who will be getting new clothes to see the Celestial Dragon.”

Of course, Sabo would not be going. He could not be trusted. Sabo was imprisoned in his room. Everything was greyscale except Sabo. All colour had drained from his life. He had no idea whether Luffy and Ace were alive or dead. Was sure they were alive but realised trying to see them would place them in danger. Living like that would be awful. I felt sorry for Sabo, despite his privileged upbringing. The kid was straight up depressed.

“What is freedom?” he wondered. “Where can I find it?” Then he overheard a convenient conversation between his guards. The Celestial Dragon would visit tomorrow. Only one guard and Sabo would be in the house.

This was his chance. He wrote a note with a huge smile on his face.

The next day, a huge, flag-waving crowd gathered at the port to welcome the Celestial Parasite Dragon. I hate stuff like that, so I was already in rage mode.

My mood was NOT IMPROVED when Saint Jalmack SHOT SABO’S WITH A BLOODY BAZOOKA BECAUSE HE WAS A RUDE COMMONER.

:|

At that point, I was convinced Sabo was dead because his top hat (Sabo’s symbol) was seen drifting to earth). I’m still 70% certain he’s dead. Mainly because he hasn’t been seen since (unless there’s something I’ve missed). Sabo’s death also puts Luffy’s reaction to Saint Charloss in perspective. Luffy punched him because no one punched the guy who killed Sabo.

But... there was no body. That is my number one rule. And there was that moment when Dragon’s ship pulled in at tiny Zoro’s island (TINY ZORO!) with someone who was badly injured and needing Ivan’s treatment. Dragon had also been in the audience watching the ceremony for the Celestial Dragon. I have my fingers crossed but won’t get my hopes up.

Take Care of Luffy

Of course, that wasn’t enough heart-string tugging. This is One Piece. My feelings had to be put through the wringer.

Dadan and Ace finally made it home. That was the single good thing that happened in 503. They saved each others’ lives. Dadan punched Bluejam to death (metal) and ran through fire with Ace. Ace stole medicine, treated her burns and carried her back to the shack.

But Dogra (a bandit) also made it back with news of Sabo. Ace immediately flew off the handle, seeking vengeance. Dadan talked sense into him. This was a Celestial Dragon. They would only have him killed. “Your father’s death changed the world. When you become a man as important as that, you can do whatever you like!”

Oh, Dadan. Where were you at Marineford? Weirdly, her words were prophetic because Ace’s death really will usher in a new pirate era.

Then the letter from Sabo arrived. 

“Ace, Luffy, I hope you guys weren’t hurt in the fire. I’m worried about you but I believe you’re okay. I’m sorry to say it but when you get this letter, I’ll already be out to sea. Things led to things and I decided to set out before you. My destination will be anywhere but here! I’m gonna become stronger and be a pirate! The three of us have to become the freest pirates ever. One day, let’s meet up somewhere. Somewhere on the wide open sea, definitely. By the way, Ace, which of us do you think is the bigger brother? It’s odd but our brotherhood is my treasure. Luffy is still a weak crybaby but he is our little brother so take good care of him.”

At that point, I hadn’t seen the scene when Dragon’s ship pulled into Little Zoro’s island, so that brought a tear to my eye. I was so mad at the waste of Sabo’s life, mad that Ace and Luffy had already lost something so precious to them while they were still so young and mad that Sabo’s worthless parents hadn’t taken action against the slug who murdered their son. I was also mad at Dragon for not taking Sabo (but I still have hope that actually did happen).

After that, Ace swore to take care of Luffy. The boys worked hard to improve themselves. They even asked for help with their manners (that dine and dash thank you was hilarious). Now Ace’s well-mannered persona makes sense. Imaginary Sabo guided Luffy in his training, encouraging him just like he always used to.

Then, when they each turned seventeen, they broke Dadan’s heart by heading out to sea.

Why did they chose seventeen? Because that was Sabo’s deadline. At eighteen, he would become a full-fledged noble, so he intended to escape when before then.

Damn... this series. ;_;

[lolabean1998]

Avengers Fanfic - 3rd Super Soldier (Part 8)

Bucky's POV!

"You've been staring out that window for over an hour now sugar, what's troubling ya?" A large woman with warm eyes and brunette hair asked.

"Just thinking is all, thanks Maggie." I replied to the woman as she poured yet another cup of coffee.  It hurt that you'd left, I felt as though my heart had been torn apart. I was in agony.

"Loki said we'd find you here. What you looking at Buck?" Steve asked as he sat down beside me whilst Banner and Tony sat opposite them.

"Top floor second window on the right." I replied shortly, eyes fixed on the window. Steve having super human eyesight as well moved his gaze to the window I had directed him to, watching intently as a figure moved back and forth past the window. He was just about to call it wishful thinking when the petite figure moved past the window carrying what appeared to be a large wardrobe.

"Is it her?" Tony asked when Steves eyes flew open. "Steve what did you see?"

"She's up there, moving stuff around. Buck how'd you find her?" Steve asked curiously, Tony and Banner had searched the whole room for clues only turning up a newspaper, that also had nothing.

"The newspaper." I replied, his gaze still fixed on the window, my voice sad and low.

"We searched it, there was nothing on it." Banner gasped irritated that he had missed something.

"Invisible ink, you weren't meant to see anything. She made a deal with the landlord, she gets to stay there if she does up the top floor. Got a job a a private courier and is returning the clothes we bought her s soon as she can afford her own." I reported, ignoring the disbelieving faces opposite him.

"So you're telling me that if i had just scanned the paper like i was going to I'd have found her without going through all of this." Tony ranted throwing his hands about gesturing to the situation at hand.

"No, she wrote it in a code,a code she made up when we were kids." I had to take a deep breath to steady his voice when he spoke about the code. She may not remember me and Steve but she remembered something. Something's better than nothing. It's a start. I thought moving my attention to the group. "We should go, she kept it a secret for a reason. She doesn't want us around."

"She chose this place for a reason Buck. The whole of New York to choose from and the only place willing to make a deal just happens to be opposite our favourite diner. The place you always come when things are getting too much at the compound." Steve reasoned, he knew how much I was hurting but he also knew how much you were hurting. You wanted to bury yourself in work to drown out the flashes and emotions tearing you apart inside. You never were one for emotions that weren't bubbling giggles or furious rage, dipping a toe in sympathy when absolutely necessary.

"I won't ask again Steve. Leave her be, it's what she want's." I snarled flashing cold Winter Soldier eyes at the group, smirking to myself when the quickly scurried outside without a word. Works every time.

Your POV!

It had been almost a month since you'd left the compound and after working day and night, the apartments you had been fixing up were almost complete. You had spent your days running around the city delivering parcels and important letters to rich people and gang members. Spending your nights working on the apartments, you had torn out everything from each one deciding it was easier to start from scratch. After a final lick of paint the whole floor was transformed from back end motel to four star apartments. The landlord had been so impressed with it he had offered to let you stay for free if you did the rest of the building. The look of surprise on his face when he saw your petite figure carrying heavy loads, working harder and faster than a team of builders and contractors.

You were just about to jump in the shower to wash off the paint spotted across your face when there was a hesitant knock at the door. The fuck does he want now? I'm already redoing the whole fucking building. You grumbled to yourself as you strolled past your new, modern day open kitchen towards the heavy oak door. "Coming Mr O'Malley!" You called to the door as it knocked again. "What's up Mr O'Mall-" You were cut off when you opened the door to see Nat and Wanda instead. "You're not Mr O'Malley. You're not Mr O'Malley at all." You stated feeling a little confused. "You guys look like shit come in. Just made a pot of coffee so help yourselves and Maggie dropped off some blueberry muffins earlier so tuck in." You offered leading the inside, smiling as the two girls grabbed a muffin and filled two large mugs to the brim with fresh coffee. "What's up guys?" You chirped hopping onto the counter top.

"What's up guys?" They mocked snarkily, glaring at you with daggered eyes.

"Hey don't give me that, i gave the clothes back and started paying back the money it cost to house me." You said defensively, holding your hands up in surrender.

"I'm gonna kill her." Wanda grumbled after a large swig of coffee, sending your eyebrows into a worried and confused frown.

"We don't care about the clothes or the money! We care that you left!" Nat snapped, rolling her eyes at your dumbfounded expression.

"More specifically, we care that you left without HIM!" Wanda continued setting her mug on the counter before her shaking hands spilled it all over the nice white tiles.

"What the fuck are you two on about?" You demanded looking at the dark circles around their eyes and their peculiar body language.

"BARNES!" The pair shouted in chorus making you jump and spill your coffee, luckily it only went on your shirt which was already covered in dirty and paint.

"His nightmares are getting worse and since he's stopped bothering to even attempt sleep he's been even more grumpy than usual." Wanda explained, her voice shaking with exhaustion and a strange blend of anger.

"It's making training impossible, none of us can keep up with him. He looks like hell and his temper is even worse!" Nat finished through a mouthful of blueberry muffin.

"Why you telling me? Go run to Steve or someone. Now if you don't mind, i have to jump in the shower quickly before work so if you could the door on your way out that'd be great." You snarled, giving them a snarky smile as you strolled into the bathroom slamming the door once you were in. You quickly stripped and stepped under the powerful jets of water.

After a quick shower you threw on a pair of black jeans matched with a baggy blue t-shirt and your favourite navy blue combat boots. They were the only thing you refused to return. Your turned the corner to the small courier service shop to pick up your load for the day.

"Y/N my darling how good to see you!" A thick, joyful Italian accent hit you as you entered through the back, you gave a bubbly chuckle at the large man who strode towards you with open arms, groaning as they wrapped around you squeezing you into a hug.

"You saw me less than thriteen hours ago what do you want Anthony?" You groaned with a pained chuckle. The large man placed you back on the ground releasing you from his death grip before stepping back to grab a large rucksack filled to the brim.

"Vincent couldn't make it in today, got into a bar fight with some guy and the guy broke his jaw. Said something about his lack of respect." Anthony replied shaking his head, neither of you were surprised the kid had a reputation.

"Doesn't surprise me, Vinnie's always getting into shit. Didn't think he had such a weak chin though. Must've been some fight." You mused swinging the heavy rucksack onto your back and jumping on the steel blue bike in the corner, for some reason the colour of it gave you strange sense of security.

"You never fail to impress. Even I'd struggle with that bag but you? You just swinging it on like its any other round. Here's you list of drop offs and you're pay from last week as you asked and if you're done before three we have another set of VIP drop offs if you're up for the challenge." Anthony smiled at you before turning to walk back to the shop front.

"See you at three!" You called confidently pulling your mask and sunglasses over your face, clipping the buckle of your helmet up before heading out. Your headphones blasted with 1940's swing music as you whipped through the city, dropping off parcels and letters left right and centre. Fuck me i hate stairs! You grumbled to yourself as you tore your way up the stairs of a very prestigious feeling skyscraper, fighting your way to the top floor. You were faster than the elevator and you needed to shave as many seconds off your time as possible if you were to make it by three. You flew round the corner, past the elevators, through the woman at the front desk as she protested against you before crashing through the door to the delivery point. A tall grey haired man wearing a suit worth more than the building you lived shot up from his desk giving you a disgusted look as you shoved a form towards him for him to sign before placing the parcel carefully on the desk in front.

"Parcel is delivered and in one piece. Sign so i can get on with my round I'm on a tight schedule!" You breathed clutching your rib cage as you spoke, giving the man a bone shattering glare when he refused to speed up. "You have two seconds before i take it to your wife and tell her who it's from." You snapped grinning when the man immediately scribbled on the dotted line thrusting the paper back at you. "Can't believe that actually worked, BYEEE!" You chirped mischievously, bolting back towards the stairway and jumping down the stairs like your life depended on it.

The rest of your round went by rather smoothly, a few almost collisions with taxi's and trucks but other than that it was a breeze. You skidded to halt outside the shop with minutes to spare. Damn I've been slacking! You thought as you looked down at you're watching, you had found it outside your door a few days after you had moved out with a note attached to it say 'A good bye gift from a Captain and a Sergeant'.

"I told you she'd make it! She is the fastest courier New York has ever seen!" Anthony's thick Italian accent boomed through the shop as he strolled out to greet you, a hooded figure following close behind. "Y/N this is Mr Barton, he has a very important message to deliver and requires my best and brightest courier. I'll leave you too it." With that he gave you both an abrupt nod and headed back inside.

"You're not even trying to hide who you are so take the hood down. What are you, some high school drop out gangsta with a black eye and stash of weed? Come on man you can do better than that! What do you want?" You questioned feeling more and more annoyed by the minute, this was the second time today an Avenger had shown up. The figure dropped the hood revealing their face. "Barton! What a surprise, the was me thinking it was the hulk." You mocked rolling your eyes, arms folded as you lent against your pedal bike.

"You don't even care do you? Do you have a heart at all? Or do you just enjoy making other people suffer!" He snapped aggressively, taking you by surprise. This was a side of Barton you never thought existed.

"The fuck are you talking about?" You snarled in response, whatever was going on had nothing to do with you.

"I'm talking about leaving without saying good bye, shutting us out. Shutting your FRIENDS out! Shutting Barnes out and then when Wanda and Nat show up at your door you boot them out! Not even batting an eye to what they told you about you're friend! What happened? Did you get bored of toying with his emotions? Or maybe it's even worse, Maybe this is all part of your plan. No wonder you stayed with H.Y.D.R.A. for so long. You weren't a prisoner at all, you were part of them. One of the crew. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if you were one the ones torturing him. Even if you weren't YOU SURE A SHIT ARE NOW!" Barton bellowed, his voice echoed through the alleyway you were standing in. Your eyes went cold and you felt the hairs on your neck stand on end. He had crossed a line.

"You think I don't know what he's been through? You think i don't remember screaming until my vocal cords broke, begging them to stop. You think i don't know there's something going on? The way Bucky just HAPPENED to know my favourite food or how Steve saw right through me? How about how Bucky knew every one of my moves? And then all of a sudden not only am i the freak with super human abilities but I'm also the freak the can switch species! I have no idea who I am, no memory of who i was and to make things worse, no idea who they were to me. I don't want them to hold onto the hope that I'll be back to who I was because I don't want to let them down. Now piss off before your wife becomes a widow!" You roared viciously, your eyes were as cold as ice and your body was trembling with rage.

"Stand down little girl, i didn't come alone." Barton warned just as Vision and Rhodes landed beside him. You raised an amused eyebrow. "We aren't done yet." He snapped taking a step towards you.

"You were warned." You sighed dodging Barton and crashing your fist into Visions shiny little gem sending him flying back into the traffic and colliding with the front of a bus. Problem one is gone, can't be doing with super powers. You muttered to yourself as you grabbed Barton’s shoulder swinging him into Rhodes and leaping on your bike the second you a the chance. Can't fight in the city, too many people but there’s an abandoned building not far from her. That'll do. You peddle faster than you had all day as you thought up a plan, checking behind you to make sure they were still following. No sign of Vision FUCK! He's gone for back up! You cursed zooming through traffic towards the huge industrial site a few miles away. No no there he is. So they're going against orders. You figured knowing that if that had happened on a mission Vision would've gone for reinforcements.

"Give it up kid, there's no where to go!" Rhodes called from above as you skidded to a halt having arrived at your destination.

"Jokes on you. I planned to be here." You shouted before bouncing yourself off a nearby wall and leaping into the air grabbing Rhodes' foot. Climbing up before he had a chance to shake you, tearing off the excess guns and weapons as you went. An arrow pierced through your calf as you tore out a handful of important looking cables, gripping on tight when the suit dropped. "I take it they were important." You quipped pulling the arrow from your leg. The sight of bloody arrow triggered something deep inside you. Your eyes flipped losing any sign of life and your posture became more threatening, your eyes washing over Barton and Vision with blood thirst.

"That doesn't look good." Barton pointed out readying his arrow. You charged towards him dodging arrow after arrow as he fired rapidly in an attempt to survive. You caught site of Vision closing in and threw an arrow in his direction watching as it tore through his abdomen. Turning your attention back to Barton you swung yourself underneath and onto his shoulders before hurtling forwards and slamming him to the ground. The unmistakable sound of snapping bones rang out loud and clear as you twisted his arms behind him, disabling his ability to fire or fight. Standing up you pulled his right leg up kicking in his knee, nodding in approval as the joint popped out of place before twisting it slightly so he couldn’t pop it back in. Your eyes flicked over to Rhodes who was still froze on the floor, by the looks of things his suit had malfunctioned trapping him inside. The only threat left was Vision and with one smooth swoop you grabbed three large arrows from Barton’s side launching them towards Vision. The each plummeted into his chest and stomach dropping him onto his back, a pool of blood rapidly forming around him.

"Woah easy there Tiger" Tony called, his Iron Man shining in the afternoon sun. "I'm here to help you." He tried but you weren't having any of it, grabbing a brick from nearby and hurtling it towards him, snarling when he dodged it.

"Woah take it easy Y/N." The voice from behind you hitting you like a wave. The voice was soon followed by cautious foots steps inching there way closer, you tried desperately to turn to face your attacker but you body was frozen solid. The harder you tried to move the more pain shot through you and it was only when a warm arm wrapped around you pulling you in tight that you realised you had been screaming. "Easy doll, it's ok it's Bucky." The smell of his cologne mixed his natural scent intoxicated you, some how pulling out of the abyss you had fallen into. Your body collapsed in his arms as your mind began whirling.

"She ok? You got her?" Tony called landing beside Rhodes and leaning over to free him from the suit.

"Yeah, I'm going to take her back to her place. You good here?" Bucky asked lifting you into his arms.

"Yeah Nat's on her way with Wanda and the quinjet. I told them to leave her be, to leave it be. It's their own fault." Tony sighed pulling the arrows from Vision, chuckling as the holes in his chest and stomach began closing up almost immediately.

Bucky placed you carefully on the sofa wrapping a small blanket around you. He took a moment to explore your apartment, admiring your handy work as he inspected the kitchen. He had done a full tour of your small apartment and had yet to find any evidence that you had slept at all that month, the bedroom was empty holding nothing but a large wardrobe and a mirror. The floor however was littered with sketches and drawings, some were sketches of the team but most of them were images from her past, violent and dark and filled with horror. Images of the memory wiping, savage training, brutal torture and hooded figures. This is what she did instead of sleeping, she drew her nightmares. Bucky wandered around the room to get a better look at some of the drawings without stepping on any when a floor board let out an angry squeak. You've done this whole place to perfection but didn't change a squeaky floor board? I don't buy it. Bucky thought as he knelt down to investigate further pulling up the vocal floor board which was surprisingly easy to do. What he found inside brought tears to his eyes, stashed beneath the floor board was a small stash of sketches, all with one thing in common. Him. He slid down the wall, sketches in hand and began looking through them, taking great care in handling them. There were sketches of Steve's birthday, dancing in the bar, playing in the park and playing ball. Each sketch was done carefully with each and every detail added in, the total opposite to the rest of your drawings. Tears began trickling down his cheek as he stared at the small array of pictures, each with three happy smiling faces beaming up at him.

"You know it's rude to go through other peoples stuff." A croaky and hoarse voice muttered from the doorway. Bucky's head shot up, a sad smile pressed against his lips no matter how hard he tried to hide it.

"There's supposed to be a bed in here. You're supposed to sleep." He stammered, trying to muffle the sorrow in his voice.

"I don't think that's what you're mad about." You replied weakly, your body language small and cowering. "I've made coffee." You slowly turned making your way cautiously to kitchen. Bucky wiped the tears from his eyes and cheeks before stepping over the paper surrounding him and making his way over to the kitchen watching as your trembled about trying to pour the coffee.

"Here let me." He offered stepping forwards to take the pot from you, but his movements were fast making you jump out of your skin dropping the pot and fleeing to hide in the corner by the sofa. Your whole body shaking and trembling with fear. Bucky had just managed to catch the pot in time saving it from spilling or smashing placing it safely on the counter. He crept over to you slowly kneeling to face you when he was a couple of feet away from you, watching as you flinched eyeing his hand warily when he reached out to you. She thinks I'm going to hurt her. The horror of what occurred to him made him choke slightly on his inhale. "Easy doll, I'm not going to hurt you. I'll never hurt you I promise. It's Bucky, just me. No one else is here and no one will ever hurt you again." Bucky promised soothingly.

"Bucky, Rabbit teeth Bucky from Brooklyn?" You questioned with a whisper, too afraid to turn your head towards him.

"Yeah It's me. Come on trouble i need you to come out of the corner." He soothed, placing a warm hand on your shoulders as he spoke. The moment his hand touched your skin you felt a wave over tears crash down on you, bursting from your eye's. Bucky didn't waste anytime before wrapping his arms around your shaking figure pressing a warm kiss on your head.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Bucky. I'm sorry..." You sobbed repeatedly into his shoulder, your hands clutching his black t-shirt.

"What are you sorry for doll? You didn't do anything wrong." Bucky smiled reassuringly, picking you up in his arms and carrying you to the kitchen placing you carefully on the counter top beside him.

"I hurt your friends and i hurt you, i left you... I forgot you." Your voice was hurt and apologetic, your big Y/E/C eyes staring up at him through puddled tears.

"None of this is your fault. Stop blaming yourself, your remembering now and that’s what matters." Bucky reassured pouring you a hot cup of coffee and searching through your fridge for something to cook. "Where's the food?.. Hang on, is your fridge even turned on?" He quizzed sticking his flesh arm inside and giving you an unamused glare. "Y/N have you eaten anything other than the food Maggie sent you?"

"Um, no. Guess i forgot." You shrugged sipping at the steaming beverage in your hands. Bucky let out an exasperated sigh closing the fridge, melting at the sight of your weary eyes and apologetic smile.

"I'll call Maggie, ask her to send us some food."Bucky groaned, moving to lean beside you resting his arm on your leg as he placed his order. You smiled resting your chin on his shoulder as he spoke.

"Say Bucky, How did Maggie know where i lived and why did she keep bringing me food I hadn't ordered or paid for?" You questioned after he'd hung up, the blush on his face said it all but you wanted to hear him say it.

"I found your notes in the newspaper and tracked you down, within about three hours of you leaving. Asked Maggie if she'd bring you some food up every now and then and to bill it to me." He admitted turning to face you, his hands resting on your legs as he watched you sip your coffee in thought.

"But i made that code up, theres no way you could've figured it out!" You exclaim pouting at him.

"Y/N i helped you invent that code when you were ten. We used it for everything." Bucky smirked, running a thumb a long your pouty bottom lip.

"You know if we carry on like this, Sam's going to win the bet." You commented fighting the urge to melt under his touch. Bucky looked at you in suprise.

"You notice that too huh." He smiled pulling you closer into him, his hands wrapped around your waist making you bite your lip, draping your hands over his shoulders as you did. "So who do you think should win? If you say Steve or Tony I'll slap you." He joked raising a pair of warning eyebrows.

"I was thinking more, Peter. Only another fews weeks and if you offer to stay with me to help with the renovations then we wouldn't have to hide it all the time. Its either him or Sam." You reasoned, your body lighting up each time he brushed his thumb against your side.

"Ok, i like it. The kid could use the win and It's better than Sam winning." Bucky agreed leaning into you just as the doorbell rang. "Of course!" He sighed hanging his head before pulling his wallet from his back pocket and striding towards the door. When he opened the door he was greeted with the smell of burgers, fries and onion rings, he smiled down at the young girl who handed him the food with an excited grin on her face. Her eyes flicking from his face, to his arm, to you in the kitchen and back.

"You're the Winter Soldier aren't you and she's your girlfriend, Trouble. Isn't she!" The young girl giggled, he had seen her around the diner a few times before, she was Maggie’s niece. Bucky smiled at her comment, the blush running to his cheeks when he heard the word 'girlfriend'.

"Yes but you have too keep it a secret for a little bit. Our friends placed bets on us so we're playing a trick on them ok?" He whispered secretively, giving her a friendly wink.

"I will i promise, Auntie Mags said to give you these peanut butter sticks too. Said she made them specially for you now that you're back together. Don't worry I'll make sure she keeps your secret." The little girl grinned handing him a small paper bag filled to the top with delicious pastries. Bucky smiled handing her the money for the food and giving her a large tip for keeping her troubles. "Nice to see you again Miss Y/N/N." She called before skipping her way back down stairs.

"Miss Y/N/N? care to explain doll?" He smirked making his way over to the sofa where you now sat, two sets of cutlery and dishes laid out alongside a fresh mug of coffee. You blushed at the question.

"I asked Maggie to keep an eye on you. Told her to keep me up to date on how you were doing. I think she knew what was going on before we did." You blushed, staring up at him through thick eyelashes making him chuckle.

"You're so cute." He smirked dishing out the food and pulling you further into his side.

"Hey take that back! I could kick your ass any day of the week and i did this whole renovation on my own. I am NOT cute!" You demanded fiercely only making the grin on his face even bigger, it took all he had to hold back the laughter desperate to fight it's way through but it was no use you could still see the humour and adoration his face. "I hate you." You grumbled rolling your eyes. Bucky smirked wrapping arms around you and pulling you onto his lap, caressing a hand over your cheek and holding your head gently as he lent in placing soft kisses over your cheek and lips. A smug grin plastering his face when he felt you smile against him.

"You sure about that doll?" He teased brushing the hair from your neck for more access but just as he was about to kiss your neck he stopped, moving closer your ear and whispering. "Foods getting cold." You shoved him playfully trying to force you giggling face into a scowl but it wasn't happening.

"You're such a punk!" You laughed moving off his lap and tucking into your piping hot food. We had time! You thought grumpily watching as Bucky flicked through the channels until he landed on an old black and white movie. "Ugh god, i forgot how old you are." You mocked sending him a cheeky sideways glance.

"Excuse you I'm only eleven months and two days older than you." He replied with a chuckle, your face lifting in surprise.

"How? No, Why do you remember that?" You asked in shock, it had been such a long time since either of you had remembered your time before all of this had happened and so much had happened, to hold onto a single scrap of worthless information like that was just simply amazing.

"Don't say it." He warned playfully, making you give him a questioning look. "I know what you're going to say doll. It maybe worthless to every one else but to me, it's one of the most important pieces of information in the world. The first five obviously being your favourite food, song, colour, the sound of your laugh and the colour of your eyes." He continued smiling deep into your eyes, he didn't expect you to remember anything. How could he, you'd been through so much and you'd only just begun the healing process.

"Peanut butter stick and Macaroni salad, Heart and soul, green but not just any green spring grass green, you laugh at the frog joke every time even though its awful and your eyes are steel blue with a grey strip through the left." You listed nonchalantly, moving your gaze from the ceiling to his face, smirking at the look of amazement spreading around his perfect features.

"How the hell...?" Bucky trailed off his mouth hanging open a little at his loss for words. You slowly pushed his jaw back up smiling nervously. You were Just about to ask again when Bucky grabbed your face and waist pulling you into a deep kiss.

"I take it i got it right then?" You asked with a smile against his lips. Bucky pulled away slowly, resting his forehead against your own, the emotion in that kiss had told you everything you needed to know, you had nailed it.

"Shut up and eat your food before it gets cold." He muttered moving back to continue eating the rest of the food piled on his plate. You couldn't help but grin smugly as he turned his attention to the movie on TV.

"ARE YOU INSANE?! WHAT WERE YOU IDIOTS THINKING?" Tony roared staring down at Rhodes, Barton and Vision, his face red with rage as he paced back and forth in front of them. Vision was almost completely healed and Rhodes barely had a scratch on him but Barton now had both arms in casts and had been signed out of active duty for at least six months.

"Bucky was losing his mind and she was a threat to civilians!" Rhodes defended.

"Oh that's funny because in the last few weeks she's been living there. There hasn't been a problem, she kept her nose clean and was actually making progress." Tony quipped viciously. "Do you think i didn't keep tabs on her? You think i just let her wander out into the big wide world on her own. The second Bucky found her i asked Maggie and Mr O'Malley to keep tabs on her, hell i even asked shield to put an undercover operative there in case something happened. And d'you know what? NOTHING FUCKING DID!" He bellowed making the trio leap back in their chairs.

"Hey Tony, can I have a word?" Steve’s head popped round the corner, saving the group from any further scoldings.

Masterlist

[klcthebookworm]

Mission on Mimban 11 of 12

Previous Installments

Introduction, One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten,

What Happens in the Chapter

The Coway are nice enough to delay the party until Luke has dried out. Large platters of exotic-looking foods were passed around a series of concentric circles around the pond. The visitors were entertained by endless dancing. Halla points out what is safe for humans to eat and that only steers the Yuzzem wrong a couple of times. Luke complains to himself about the taste of some of the edible food, but it's fresh and he's starved for that after the concentrates. Leia enjoys the dancing display and admits that she found her way to the Rebellion looking for creative vitality. These two crazy kids are having a moment™ when Luke has a reaction™.

Suddenly his hand opened as if he'd been shot. The pink bulb fell to the ground as Luke stood bolt upright, eyes open and staring. The Princess rose, tried to make something of the gaping expression on his face.

...

"He's coming," he murmured, every letter resounding. "He's near, very near."

"Luke boy, you'd better start making some sense or I'll have Hin hold you down and feed you dipills," Halla said. "Who's coming?"

"There was a stirring," Luke whispered by way of reply. "A profound disturbance in the Force. I've felt it before, weakly. I felt it most strongly when Ben Kenobi was killed."

Leia finally gives a name before Halla makes good on her threats, Lord Darth Vader, a dark lord of the Sith.

A Coway courier runs into the assembly shouting his story. One of the three chiefs tells the Coway what's going on and panic seizes the crowd. The chief then comes over and explains the situation to Halla. "Humans are coming. Hard-shelled humans. Down the main passage from the surface. The way we came in." Leia questions Halla as to how the Imperials found them so quickly (answering my question on how easy is the trail to spot from way back in Chapter Seven), and Luke finally hypothesizes the Force did it. Vader has more experience and if Luke can sense Vader, the opposite is probably true.

The Coway chiefs look to Luke, since he defeated their champion he is the greatest warrior present. Leia's all for fighting, pointing out that the Coway took down two Yuzzem with just their spears and axes and that the Coway have the home field advantage. Luke isn't convinced and tries to tell the Coway to negotiate with the Imperials. The Coway won't; they recognize an invasion force when they see one. Leia points out that they have to fight Vader because he won't stop chasing them. Halla puts in that they've said they are different from the mining officials, now they have to show the Coway they meant what they said.

Luke finally agrees to fight and is admiring the Coway warriors preparations for fighting back. They are experienced warriors. They outfit themselves. Hin hands his heavy energy rifle to Leia since he prefers the enormous axe the Coway offered him. Luke is given a pistol that Halla and the Yuzzem had brought into the cave system. They take positions. Coway started to vanish before Luke's eyes, moving, jumping, secreting themselves where no hiding place seemed possible. They disappeared into crevices and cracks, into the ground, slipped into holes in the cave ceiling, froze behind false flowstone curtains. While taking cover behind a bulwark of striped travertine, Leia makes Luke promise to kill her if it looks like Vader's going to take them prisoner. Luke mumbles his agreement and then they are hushed by a Coway warrior and Halla.

Numerical superiority means nothing in this fight. The advance Imperial stormtrooper scouts are taken out and their weapons given to the ones who use them (Luke and Leia), the rest march into the kill zone three and four abreast. The Coway also use sound and echoes to add to their attack. Halla and Kee in one spot fire into the crowd of stormtroopers while Luke and Leia do the same from their cover. Once the Coway are mingled with the Imperial troops, Luke charges in with his lightsaber and Leia goes with him. Luke blocks a shot from behind with the lightsaber. Luke yells for Vader's attention from where he is on the sidelines, and the Lord of the Sith ignites his red lightsaber and strides into the fray, cutting his way toward Luke. Leia meanwhile finds a new high perch.

Grammel sends ten stormtroopers to the high ground in the tunnel. They reach the summit of the small ridge and just when they were lining up their weapons on the crowd below, Hin and his Coway pals drop on them from the cavern ceiling above. No Imperial survivors. Vader realizes the way the battle is going and calls for the retreat without having reached Luke. The Coway do not let all that many retreat as their reserve forces come into play now, dropping stalactites and nets onto the Imperials.

Leia takes her shot at Vader and hits him, but not hard enough to do lasting damage.

A powerful beam of energy struck him in the side, sent him spinning to the ground. Leia smiled. Her joy turned to disappointment when she looked back through the blunt telescopic sight.

Vader had rolled over and was beating at the smoke issuing from his left side. There was a gaping hole in his protective cloak and the black armor beneath it had been partly melted away. But the full force of the energy bolt had missed him.

Vader appears to stare straight at her, but does nothing else before turning and heading back up to the surface. Leia climbs back down to find the Coway killing the wounded and Luke rather distraughtly trying to stop them. She finds this behavior almost human, and tries to encourage him to find the rest of their group and celebrate the victory. "There's nothing here I want to celebrate," he tells her before leaving the scene of the battle.

What I Liked

The worldbuilding on the Coway is fascinating. I'd like to see a New Republic anthropologist do a professional study of their culture. And I do appreciate the reminder of alien biochemistries can't all eat the same things.

Luke sensing Vader through the Force is well done. I got shivers. Good job, Foster.

Leia finally sounds like herself as she concentrates on more Imperial atrocities. "Using energy weapons on primitive sentients," she muttered in outrage. "Another gross violation of the original Imperial charter. Another reason for the Alliance to fight on."

"Don't you two ever shut up? Hush now, children ... company's coming." No, they don't, Halla, and they pick the worst possible moments to act just like children. I fully expect for Halla to find an audience whenever Luke Skywalker's and Leia Organa Solo's names hit the HoloNet for something heroic and newsworthy and say "Let me tell you about the time those two almost got themselves killed while mud wrestling on Imperial controlled world!"

Oh I like the detail given when Luke deflects blaster bolts.

Without realizing it, he then swung blindly backward. The blue of his saber intersected a beam fired point-blank at him by an Imperial rifle.

Turning, he barely had time to utter a silent thanks to Ben Kenobi. The trooper was so shocked at the apparent coincidence of having his shot blocked that he didn't react in time. Thinking something had to be wrong with his weapon, he readjusted it to compensate for the imaginary fault. As he swung it upwards again Luke jabbed him through the sternum.

All that practicing with Ben's remote is paying off!

What I Found Problematic

No mention is made while Luke is drying his clothes by the bonfire and getting dressed again of what Leia and Halla are doing. I really hope it's not ogling Luke, as tempting as it is.

Leia's Rebellion journey, wow am I glad Foster's version didn't stick.

"[The Empire]'s art has grown as decadent as the government. Both suffer from a lack of creative vitality. That's what originally drew me to the Alliance, not politics. Politically, I was probably almost as naive as you."

"I don't quite see," he said drily.

"When I was living in my father's palace, I was utterly bored, Luke. Examination of why I found nothing entertaining led me to discover how the Empire had stifled any original thought. Long-established totalitarian governments fear any kind of free expression. A sculpture can be a manifesto, a manuscripted adventure can double as a cry for rebellion. From corrupt aesthetics to corrupt politics was a smaller step than most people around me realized."

I appreciate what he's saying about art and do agree with the freedom of self-expression is important, but again word choices matter. My first impression when I read this bit:

Leia: "Daddy, I'm bored."

Bail sets down his datapad and looks at his pre-teen daughter. "I'm part of an alliance of rebellious cells that wishes to overthrow the Emperor and usher in a New Republic. Fitting payback since he morphed the Old Republic into his Empire. Do you want in?

Leia: "Sure, I don't have anything better to do."

That the Empire puts hard limits on artistic expression to curb rebellious sympathies, I have no problem believing and it's a good observation. It just needs more tweaking to be believable from Leia, Imperial Senator and Rebel spy and now is taking the lead in a diplomatic mission to get systems to join the Rebellion. Politics has always been her thing.

Word choices, Foster. We have had this discussion before.

"What do you expect," he mumbled, laughing at himself, "from an untutored country boy?"

"I think," the Princess responded softly, not looking at him, "that for an untutored country boy, you're one of the most sophisticated men I know."

I'm all for finally paying Luke a compliment here, Leia. He carried your butt out of the lake, but no sophisticated is not the word to use. I think sincere is a good one for Luke, but not the comparison he started off with. Maybe wisest?

Alright Vader's on Mimban, now it's epically exciting! Wait, where's the pinch point scene in which we are treated to the Imperial pissing contest that Grammel is in no shape to ever win? It doesn't exist. Why doesn't it exist? Let me back up and explain. Both Pinch Points, which are set between the Plot Points, are times to see the antagonist's power and to remind the reader what the protagonist is up against. When I'm composing a story that has multiple points of view, this is where I make certain to have the antagonist's POV scenes. You're not limited to that, but you have to show the threat the antagonist is to the protagonist. That's why I identified Luke and Leia's meeting with Grammel as the First Pinch Point. They see how brutal he is and he wants the Kaiburr crystal. The Midpoint is Luke and Leia breaking out of the prison and destroying Imperial headquarters in their wake. But the last time we saw Grammel was when he was getting stitched back together. Good scene, but it didn't "bring the antagonist force front and center to foreshadow the coming Third Plot Point and to break up the remained of the Second Act." (5 Secrets of Story Structure by K.M. Weiland) It didn't give the reader anything to truly fear, just a "damn Luke missed that a-hole" moment.

Now what if instead the exposition while our gang of protagonists is traveling, we have a scene of how Grammel's search for them is interrupted by Lord Vader's arrival on Mimban. Grammel makes a worse impression on Vader than he did on Governor Essada and now they're both working together to find the Rebels. Then readers go back to the wandrella attack and Luke and Leia's cave hike with mounting dread because they know something the characters don't. The battle with Vader and the stormtroopers versus the Coway and Luke and Leia is more the Third Plot Point because their victory is a hollow one and Vader is heading straight to the Kaiburr crystal.

And once again Threepio is RIGHT THERE not translating anything for the Coway. Over six million forms of communication, and all he does is try to turn himself off in the droid equivalent of a faint when he hears Vader is coming.

Oh, I found the steel kitten description that Blue Milk Special made fun of. "Swear it!" she demanded, her voice that of a steel kitten. I'm having trouble with this metaphor. Kittens make adorable sounds, metal does not. Kitten also does not symbolize fierceness and Leia is asking for Luke to kill her if this all goes south rather than face Imperial imprisonment again.

What Changes in My Fic

Concentrates versus ration bars: I think I'm bringing back ration bars. There's just something too Jetsons Space Age about one pill keeping you fed for several hours, even though I appreciate the work Foster put into creating them.

The art comparison is a perfect one for Mara to make. Raised in the Imperial Court in the heart of Coruscant, trained in dance as her cover but it and music for dancing were probably the one fun thing she was allowed once her training began in earnest, she has the technical expertise and the Force Sensitivity to figure out what is different between the Coways' dance and the Imperial ballet corps. She wants to dance with the Coway to combine their moves with the ones she was taught. Will she get the chance? Will she take the chance?

Vader or not to Vader: To be honest, I had thought about leaving Vader out of my version of this story despite his pose on the cover art.

Grammel is the big bad at the beginning, so I was considering ways he could continue being the big bad all the way through. Or if he absolutely couldn't, make concrete the more Emperor's Hands with a new character taking Vader's spot to get rid of Luke Skywalker once and for all. But since Foster neglected to give Vader his proper due, I'm back to wanting him. And it will do Anakin some good to be rejected by Luke three times in the series. Trust me.

Plot events time. Helping Writers Become Authors further explains this breakdown. I've added in the scenes in between the eight critical scenes, so I hope it's easier to see where the story broke format to its detriment.

Hook 1% mark = Crashing onto Mimban

Set-up 1% - 12% =

Reuniting Leia and Threepio with Luke and Artoo,

Leia sinking in quickclay,

hiking and camping

Inciting Event 12% mark = Finding the Imperial mining outpost

Build-up 12% - 25% =

Disguising as miners,

Ordering food in the tavern,

Discovered and Luke lies to Imperial

1st Plot Point 25% mark = Luke and Leia agree to find the Kaiburr crystal with Halla

Reaction to 1st Plot Point 25% - 37% =

Mud-wrestling,

Fight with miners,

Captured by stormtroopers

1st Pinch Point 37% mark = Meeting with Grammel

Realization 37% - 50% =

Grammel talks with Essada,

Luke and Leia meet Yuzzem,

Halla finds them

Midpoint or 2nd Plot Point 50% mark =

Prison break,

Blowing up Imperial headquarters

Action 50% - 62% =

Stealing the crawler,

Grammel's medical care,

Wandrella chase,

Lake monster fight,

Coway attack,

Canu's judgment fight,

Coway feast

2nd Pinch Point 62% mark

Renewed Push 62% - 75% = Coway prep for battle

3rd Plot Point 75% mark = The battle with Vader and the stormtroopers

Recovery

Climax Begins 88% mark

Confrontation

Climactic Moment 98% mark

Resolution

[jarienn972]

Only a Little Superstitious - Chapter 15

I'm going to preface this chapter with the revelation that it came together as the result of a very stressful couple of weeks for me. So, that said, this one is going to be heavy on the angst  - with just a couple of major developments playing out both in Phoenix as well as back home in Storybrooke. I promise, there is going to be a happy ending, but there's still a bumpy road ahead for both Emma and Killian..   @killian-whump, I’d forgotten to tag you on the last couple of chapters, but I didn’t want you to miss out on some juicy angst.

 AO3   FF.net

From the beginning on Tumblr:  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14

Evening was quickly descending on Storybrooke as Regina yanked open the heavy front door of the town library, here thanks to an urgent message from Belle stating she'd discovered something very important. Regina didn't see the brunette librarian anywhere as she entered but she could hear a couple of muffled voices off in the distance.

"Belle?" Regina called out, having recognized Belle's voice as well as a male one – David. "You've got news?"

"Regina!" Belle's voice shouted back from further back in the dusty, musty building. "We're back here – in the computer room."

"We?" Regina asked. She had only made out two voices so she wondered who else might be present.

"David and I," Belle replied as Regina came around the corner into the library's make-shift computer room which also housed most of the reference section. David, clad in a blue plaid flannel shirt and jeans, was leaning against the wall across from Belle. "I figured he should be here as acting Sheriff so he could hear this as well…"

"Must relate to Emma and Hook then," Regina said in what came across as a perpetually annoyed tone.

"Sort of…," was Belle's cryptic response as she took a couple of steps over to a huge, solid oak library table stacked with piles of leather-bound first editions and reference materials. Belle pushed one of the stacks to the side and produced a fistful of papers. "Actually, it has more to do with Yzma's partner, Kronk…"

"Kronk? The guy who stabbed Hook then followed my daughter and son-in-law through the portal to Arizona?" David queried.

"That Kronk," Belle confirmed, plucking the first page from her pile of papers, one that looked like a poor quality photocopy. "I've been doing some research into both of our recent troublemakers, both Yzma and Kronk."

"Okay…" Regina hadn't expected the the petite librarian to continue looking into the pair once they'd been identified, but maybe this was a good thing.

"Well, we know that they arrived here with Mr. Hyde and his cronies from the Land of Untold Stories," David stated, curious as to what else Belle might have uncovered.

"Yes, they did come from the Land of Untold Stories," Belle verified. "I confirmed that through some of the journals found with both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde's belongings. Each seemed to be trying to keep records which partially identified the story book characters trapped in that realm. Thing was, neither of them made any mention of Nehemiah Kronk or what his story was. That got me very curious so I started to do a little digging and, with the help of some modern technology, I found something very interesting…"

"Are you going to kill us with suspense?" Regina deadpanned, eager to get home after a long day.

"Sorry, let me get to the point," Belle responded, voice dripping with sarcasm as she had no intention of being bullied by the mayor's insolence. "Nehemiah Kronk isn't a fairytale character at all…"

"What?!" both David and Regina chimed in unison.

"What do you mean he isn't a fairytale character?" Regina repeated Belle's revelation. "He has to be…"

"He's most certainly not," Belle replied very matter-of-factly as she passed the paper clutched in her hand to Regina. "Nehemiah Kronk is from this world, the Land Without Magic. Look…"

Regina perused the slightly blurry page before her which appeared to be a badly preserved copy of a very old newspaper article. "What exactly am I looking at? Old news?"

"That is a printout of an article I uncovered, published by the Arizona Republican newspaper in 1892…" Belle started to say as Regina handed the barely legible page to David.

"This says something about a missing US Marshal?" David asked as he glanced down at the page, confused as to what this had to do with Yzma's dangerous henchman. "I guess I'm missing something here…"

"Let me finish?" Belle asked, to which both David and Regina agreed, promising not to interrupt again. "That article talks about the mysterious disappearance of United States Marshal Nehemiah Kronk who vanished somewhere outside of the city Phoenix, then in the Arizona territories, while escorting a prisoner from Denver to Los Angeles. He and his partner turned their prisoner over to the California team, but when his partner checked in the next morning before they were to board the train back to Denver, Kronk was nowhere to be found. Witnesses reported he was last seen in a tavern talking to an old man. No one ever saw Kronk again and he was suspected of becoming a victim of one of several Apache attacks that week."

"Okay, but this is from the 1890s… How could someone from this world still be alive and unaged over a century later?" David wondered. "I'm sure the frozen time aspect of the Land of Untold Stories had something to do with it, but how did he get there if he isn't from a story? And how did he manage to hook up with Yzma?"

"I can't give you answers to those questions, but it's definitely the same guy…" Belle peeled the second page from her pile which contained a grainy, black and white photograph of the missing Marshal and while the hairstyle, attire and facial hair were different, David recognized the face of the man he'd fought alongside his son-in-law.

"Damn… that's him…" David sighed, unsure what this would mean for his daughter and her wounded husband.

"Well, at least we now have something that explains how they ended up in Arizona," Regina spoke up. "If Emma's right about the dagger being the object that opened the portal, not the scepter, Kronk may have had an impact on their destination."

"You think Kronk had a reason to go back to Arizona after all of these years?" David asked.

"Maybe. There are a lot of things we aren't going to be able to answer, but maybe this information would help Emma's friends track him down before he finds them?" Belle questioned. "Maybe we should call her?"

"She's still waiting for the dagger and potion to arrive," Regina said as she glanced down at her gold, diamond encrusted watch. "It won't get there for a few more hours but she's supposed to call when the package arrives and let us know if the potion works."

"Emma's got enough on her mind right now," David began. "Let's wait until we know the potion worked before we give her something else to worry about…"

"Agreed," Regina said. "Let's not bother her with a story about a century and a half year old former Federal Agent until the dark magic is dealt with. As for me, I'm heading home. If you happen to hear from your daughter sooner, let me know."

Sunsets in the Valley of the Sun were always spectacular and Carlos found his eyes immediately drawn to the blaze of color stretching across the Western sky as he exited his battered old pickup truck. The last few rays of sunlight could be seen reflecting off of the front windows of the nondescript office building in Scottsdale that he'd parked in front of, one which housed the National Parks Service field office. At nearly 6pm, only a few of his fellow government employees would still be here, most swapping their assigned Parks Service SUVs for their personal vehicles after a long day of patrolling the surrounding expanse of Federal lands.

He tapped his ID badge against the electronic security panel to the right of the entrance, tugging the door open when the panel buzzed and flashed a green light. Ana, their receptionist, glanced up from her desk as he entered, momentarily startling her as few people entered through the front door at this hour.

"Littlecreek? What are you doing at the office at this hour?" she asked, her dark eyes narrowing in confusion. "And isn't it your day off?"

"Hey, Ana," he greeted her with a friendly smile, hoping he could sell her on the basic story without going into a lot of detail. "Yeah, sorry for the confusion. I've got a package being delivered here from back East. It's pretty important so I didn't really want to risk having it dropped off at my place."

"Ooh, the mystery deepens, huh?" Ana teased him as he pulled one of the waiting area chairs away from the window and flopped down onto it. "Must be pretty important for you to show up here on your day off…"

"Yes, it is. Important enough to warrant private, same-day courier delivery. Good thing it's not on my tab. Figured I'd get over here early though in case the plane lands earlier than scheduled."

"Okay, well, you're on your own. I'm not sticking around while you wait," Ana stated as the clock on her desk now read six o'clock. "My day is over and I'm heading home. See you later, Littlecreek."

"Goodnight, Ana," he replied as she retrieved her purse from beneath her desk and scurried out the door. While he would have preferred the company, the less prying eyes, the better. He didn't want to have to go over the story of the package's contents more times than necessary.

He'd nearly drifted off from boredom when a loud knock sounded against the thick glass door forty-five minutes later. Carlos sprang to his feet and took a step towards the door, taking in the sight of a slight, blond haired man in his early to mid twenties dressed in a navy blue uniform and clutching a small box wrapped tightly in clear tape.

"Evening," the courier greeted Carlos from the opposite side of the thick glass door. "I've got a package here for a Mrs. Emma Jones, care of a Ranger Carlos Littlecreek?"

"And that would be me," Carlos replied. "One moment. Let me buzz you in…" Carlos found the button to his left and pressed it before pushing the door open for the courier to enter the office lobby.

"Thank you," the courier said as he took a few steps inside toward the reception desk. He rested the package on the desk while fumbling through his pocket with his free hand to find his tablet so he could collect Carlos' signature confirming the delivery. It was only as the package was placed atop the counter that Carlos noticed that one side was dented significantly. "I just need you to sign here but I'd also like you to take a look over the package and the contents and make sure they're intact in case you need to file a claim. We had a pretty bumpy flight and everything in the cargo hold got jostled around a lot. 'Found this package beneath a heavier one that got bounced on top of it and since the manifest stated it contained medicine, I was a little concerned…"

"Yeah, it contains some cough medicine for a colleague of mine. Desert air doesn't quite agree with her," Carlos chuckled as he hunted around Ana's desk for a pair of scissors so he could cut through the many layers of tape securing the box. Upon closer inspection, it appeared the courier had valid reason for his concern. He could see that beneath the tape, corners of the cardboard seemed to be damp with a reddish liquid and as he lifted it, the bottom was sticky against his palm. It was all adding up to be a little disconcerting. What if the potion bottles were damaged? There might not be time to wait for another batch… He cautiously cut through the tape securing the top flaps of the box and pulled them open to reveal layer after layer of bubble wrap lining the carton. He dug into it, easily finding the first prescription bottle and breathing a small sigh of relief upon discovering it was intact. They'd have one dose at least.

Unfortunately, as he discovered more of the sticky liquid clinging to the plastic, it became fairly evident that the second container hadn't been spared and as much as he hated it, he was right. He found the second bottle positioned against the dented side of the box sporting a large crack down the side. Grabbing what looked to be a clean coffee mug from Ana's desktop, he carefully extracted the second bottle, trying to preserve as much of the precious liquid inside as he could. He dropped the damaged container into the mug so it could catch any additional spillage, then slowly removed layer upon layer of bubble wrap, pouring what he could salvage into the mug.

"Damn…," the courier sighed. "I'm so sorry about that. We'll notify the sender so they can put in a damage claim if they want."

"Nothing you could do about the turbulence," Carlos assured the courier, not blaming him for this setback. At least one bottle had survived so they had one full dose and he was doing all he could to collect every drop he could rescue from the broken bottle. "Here, let me sign that so you can get out of here and I can get this stuff over to my colleague." The courier handed him the tablet and a rubber tipped stylus to sign and Carlos scrawled out his name as best he could with his now very sticky fingers. Once the transaction was all completed, he buzzed the courier out and tried to decide if he should call Emma now to warn her or just explain it all in person. Neither option was particularly pleasant at the moment.

Deciding it preferable to explain face to face, Carlos packaged the borrowed mug inside the box with the unblemished container and the still wrapped dagger then hurried out to his truck. He headed south toward Mesa, driving as quickly as he could without drawing too much unnecessary attention. Last thing he needed was to get pulled over for speeding and lengthen the delay the snarled traffic was already causing.

He finally arrived back at the hospital just after 7:30pm, box carefully tucked under his left arm. The unusual package had gotten a bit of scrutiny from security, but a casual mention of Tim Stillwater's name managed to get him through without too many questions. As he at last approached the room, it looked like Killian was asleep. Emma's back was to him but Grandmother spotted him lurking in the corridor and waved him inside.

"Why were you standing out there just staring?" Grandmother scolded him. "You could have just entered."

"I saw that Killian was sleeping and I didn't want to disturb him," Carlos replied in defense of his stalling.

"Right now, I don't care who you wake," Emma stated, standing up and hurriedly retrieving the box Carlos was carrying. "This package right here is the only thing I'm worried about right now."

"Well, the potion is definitely in there, as was the dagger," Carlos told her. "I wasn't even gonna try to bring that thing in here though so it's locked in my truck, but unfortunately, we may have a small problem…"

"Problem?" Emma's gaze shot up to meet Carlos', the earlier eagerness now tempered with a hint of trepidation. "What kind of problem?" She had already placed the cardboard box atop the rolling side table and was lifting the flaps to open it, not yet noticing that the corners were damp and discolored, but Grandmother's eagle eyes had spotted the stains.

Sharing a knowing glance with her grandson, the old woman was already asking "What happened?" even before Emma had the lid open, knowing not all of the potion had survived the journey from Storybrooke. Grandmother's intuitive suspicions were confirmed when Emma peeled back the sticky bubble wrap to discover the ceramic mug holding the cracked prescription bottle and the remnants that Carlos had managed to salvage.

"One of the bottles was broken?" Emma asked with a very audible sigh, lifting the mug carefully from the box so she wouldn't spill any more of its valuable contents. "It's all soaked through the box…"

"The courier said they hit some nasty turbulence and some other boxes fell on top of this one," Carlos explained. "I salvaged what I could from the broken one, even what I could manage to save from inside the layers of bubble wrap. 'Borrowed a friend's mug so I'd have something to catch it all. Looks like there's maybe a third of the original amount left…"

"The other bottle is intact?" Grandmother asked just wanting to be certain.

"Yes, it's fine," Emma responded as she withdrew the undamaged bottle from the package and placed it atop the table. Resting the mug beside the prescription container, she extracted the broken bottle and removed its lid, dumping the remaining contents into the mug. The thick, reddish-brown liquid certainly looked and even smelled like cough syrup. Regina had done well disguising it, but they had only a little more than a single dose. "Might as well have him drink all of it now," Emma decided, raising the second bottle to remove its cap and emptying it into the mug as well. Now all she had to do was get Killian to drink it.

"You're not worried it might be too much?" Carlos wondered, figuring there had to be a reason it was split into two separate doses. He didn't really expect Emma to answer as there definitely wasn't enough left to make a second dose that would likely have any effect, but he was still curious that too much could be equally as troubling as not enough.

"I don't see much of a choice," Emma replied as she gently nudged her husband's shoulder in an attempt to get him to stir. "Killian? If you can hear me, you need to wake up…" There was little response from her first effort so she had to try a bit harder this time, stroking his upper arm as she called out to him once again. "Killian – we've got the potion… You need to wake up so you can drink it…" This time, his head lolled toward the sound of her voice, followed by a faint, pained groan of displeasure. "That's it…" Emma continued to encourage him out of his drowsiness. "C'mon, talk to me…"

"'M tired, Swan…" Killian complained, eyes still closed tightly.

"I know," she apologized. Emma hated forcing him, but deep down, she knew it was for the best. "You've got to wake up and drink this to fight off that dark magic that has a hold on you." Killian's eyelids parted to slits, barely enough to make out the shape of his wife's face as she leaned over him. He took another moment to allow his sleepy eyes to adjust until he could discern a mug clutched in her right hand.

"Regina's potion?" Killian asked, his left eyebrow arching with suspicion.

"Yes," Emma smiled at him. "It's the potion we've been waiting for." She gently took a seat beside him on the narrow bed. "Let me help you sit up…" She found the controls for the adjustable bed and pressed the button to raise his head, slipping her left hand behind his shoulder to help ease him forward until he was seated upright, nearly eye level with her. He immediately grimaced and nearly tumbled back against the pillows as a twinge of pain shot through his chest. "Ooh, sorry… Shouldn't have done that so fast…"

"Be fine in a moment…," Killian insisted, gritting his teeth until the discomfort lessened. "Where is it?"

"Here," Emma replied, offering the ceramic mug. He managed to wrap his fingers around it, but found his hand shaking too much to keep a grip on the handle. "Maybe I should hold it?" his wife offered, to which he nodded in agreement. "Okay… take it slowly, but you'll have to drink it all." She raised the mug to his lips and gradually tipped it. When he nearly gagged on the first mouthful, she instinctively pulled the offending vessel away, fearful that it might be too much right now, but Killian shook his head and reached for her.

"It's fine, Love," Killian assured her despite a crinkled nose and a frown stretching across his lips. "It's a bit much. Rather distasteful, to be honest, but I can do this…" The frown melted into a weak smile as he cupped his hand around hers, still trembling from even such a slight exertion. His fingers stayed with hers as she brought the mug back to his open mouth again. Killian wasn't shy about displaying his displeasure at the foul-tasting liquid but he drank all of it. Emma lowered the mug and passed it to Grandmother as Killian forced himself to swallow the last of the potion.

"Feel any different?" Emma asked, remaining at her husband's side while Grandmother placed the mug on the counter next to the sink to wash later.

"Burns a little," Killian responded, his fingers latching onto Emma's upper arm for support. "Kinda like heartburn after eating that noxious substance Granny calls chili…" That statement had Emma trying to stifle a chuckle even as she felt his grip tighten.

"You sure you're okay?" Emma asked, no longer amused. "You've got a death grip on my arm."

"Sorry… Don't know my own strength…" Killian grinned, but the forced smile was soon betrayed by a powerful spasm that sent his body tumbling into his wife's arms.

"Killian?!" Her arms immediately wrapped around his torso as she caught him crashing into her, nearly knocking her over. His heart was thumping against his chest wall; his breaths coming rapid and shallow and suddenly, the electronic monitor behind him was beeping in time with his racing heart. This was definitely going to draw attention they didn't need.

Sensing what was happening, Grandmother shooed Carlos away from the door as Emma clung to her trembling husband. These spirits weren't going to give him up without a fight, but the old woman recognized that an interruption by medical personnel at this critical moment would disrupt the process so she moved swiftly to intercept the nurse before she entered.

"Is everything alright here?" the nurse asked suspiciously as she saw her patient clenched in his wife's embrace, apparently wrought with tremors. The first thought as the monitors had lit up with alarms was that Killian Jones was suffering another seizure. "This might be another seizure so if you'd please, move out of my way so I can examine my patient."

"Everything is fine," Grandmother insisted, voice calm and steady so that she might sound more convincing. "It's not a seizure. Mr. Jones merely woke from a very visceral nightmare – the poor man forced to relive the horror of being stabbed by an assailant that has yet to be captured. His wife is attempting to comfort him. She gave him a little bit of water and is holding him while the shaking subsides. Please, give her some time before you interrupt them. You might startle him anew." The nurse relented, partially because she noticed that the monitor displaying the patient's heart rate showed his pulse returning to normal and partially because she didn't want to argue with this old woman standing before her.

"I'll be back in two minutes to check his vitals," the nurse insisted. Grandmother responded only with a nod, returning to the room to find that Killian had passed out, his body slack in Emma's arms as she eased him back against the mattress, lowering the bed's angle to a more comfortable sleeping position.

Once Killian was resting seemingly peacefully, Emma drew her arms back from beneath him, but then raised her right hand to sweep away the unruly strands of dark brown hair that had cascaded over his temple when he'd fallen forward. His forehead still felt a bit warm to her touch, but perhaps not as much as earlier? "Please let this work." Her plea came out in a barely audible whisper.

"I don't sense the evil spirits here in this room any longer," Grandmother stated as she extended a hand to help Emma to her feet. Emma's gaze remained fixed on Killian as she stood, allowing him to rest without crowding him.

"I sure hope you're right," Emma responded, her voice quivering as she allowed only a single tear to escape. "I guess only a little time will tell us for sure…"