#the police report took 3 hours but oof

[gallusneve]

had to disarm a guy and put him in a chokehold because he was waving a gun and aiming it at people and there were kids around

only for me to find out it was an airsoft pistol and he removed the orange tip of it but he's been passed out on the floor and I feel bad

[mmimagine-40]

Pup 3

Alpha!Steve x Omega!Reader

Okay!!Yes, I know i have been gone some time! I’m sorry! School has been crazy and I haven’t been able to write or work on it has much as I would like. But here it is Pup 3!

!!Somethings to know first!: Alpha!Sheriff Sam , Betas! Wanda and Pietro. Pietro and Bucky are officers. Wanda is like an assistant , receptionist type thing at the Police station (Sorry I don’t know what to call it!). Also for just background info. In this story Pepper and Tony and lawyers. I’m not sure what I want them to be. (Alpha/omega, betas, who should be the omega or what). So please help me out what do you think?

Last thing: if you didn’t see my last post. I have a tiktok where I’ll be mainly doing some small imagines that aren't big enough to write something out of. I’ll also be doing some updates on stories / pieces I’m writing. Like talking about How Bucky and Nat (from this story) meet and small things like that. So if you interested go check it out: @mmimagines40

As Steve was moving around he caught a glimpse of Y/n. “Well look who's awake.”, Steve chuckled. Y/n laughed softly. “Yeah, my foot started to hurt.”. Steve frowned as he checked his watch. “Well , sadly pup you can’t have more meds for another hour. But let's ice it and see if that helps.”, Steve checks the food again before turning to the fridge to grab an ice pack, “Dinners close to done, so you just want to stay here?”. Y/n nodded as she started to move to the side and move a chair in front of her. While Steve went to grab a pillow she took the boot off. He helped her get her foot situated and the ice on it. Checking it over first.  “Oof , Pup. You're getting a nasty bruise.”, Steve says. Her whole foot was almost brown and yellow, with dark purple and black colors around her ankle. Y/n pouted as she looked at it. Steve looked up to see her pout, “Aw it’s okay pup, it’ll go away soon.”. He bops her nose. Causing her to giggle. Steve smiled down at her softly. He makes his way back to the food to check it. “What are you making? It smells amazing.”, Y/n asked, turning to look at him again. ‘Cajun Pasta.”, Steve answers. “It’s pasta with a heavy cream and Chicken broth sauce with chicken and sausage. (And shrimp *if you like it*). With some Cajun seasoning and some other things.”. “Mmm. Is it almost done? My mouth is watering.”, Y/n says. Steve laughs nodding. He grabs two bowels and fills them up. He sets them both down on the table and turns back to the stove. Turning it off and grabbing the bread inside. He puts the bread sticks on a plate and grabs some forks. Setting them down as well he goes back to fill two glass with water. Taking a seat he hands the other glass to Y/n. “Thanks.”, Y/n says taking a drink. Before picking up her fork and digging in. She moans at the taste. “Oh my Steve! This is so good!”. Steve’s eyes darkened as he watched her. The grip on his fork tightened as he bit his check. Excited by the sounds leaving the omega. Steve shook his head looking down. Trying to shake the thoughts out of his head. Now was not the time. 

Brock watched from just outside the property line. Far enough away to not alert the Alpha or omega in the cabin. Using a pair of binoculars he watched. Just making out some movement and the lights shining through the window. He watched , as anger boiled inside of him. Y/n was to be his omega , and his alpha took her from him. He was going to get his omega back no matter what it might coast. Brock smirked as he got an idea. He quickly grabbed his things and made his way back to town. 

Unaware of the eyes on him not to fair away. A person in the shadows. Hindan in the tree line. Making away around the woods after a report about their being hunters out there , out of season. The person watched as Brock made his way down the path to the town, before heading back to the ATV. Radioing it in. 

“This is officer Maximoff radioing in for Sheriff Wilson.”

“Sheriff Wilson speaking.”

“I got eyes on the guy you said to watch out for. He was just outside of Rogers property line. Looked like he was looking in towards the house.” 

“Is he still there?”

“No sir, he just packed up and looks to be heading back to town.”

“Okay, finish up the rout and head back into town. When you do keep an eye out for him and what he’s doing.”

 Sam sets the walkie talky down on his desk , next to the files he was looking over.  “Who even is this guy?”, Wanda asked. “All Steve told me was that this guy's father bought an omega for him. Who he has been abusing and forcing himself on. Now he’s hunting her down. Now what did you get?”, Sam explained. Wanda sighed looking down at the notes she took, “ Most everyone said they have seen him walking around. Mostly up around Steve’s property. Some say he was in some of the business asking about seeing an omega. With the description Steve gave you. As well as asking about Steve. But they say they didn’t give him much info.”. Sam nodded as he looked down at the file. On the file this guy seemed okay. Just a few speeding tickets. But those were paid off and fast. Nothing else. But then again people had their secrets. And he was involved with omega selling and abuse. As well as states abuse. Sam closed the file , handing it to Wanda.” Send all this info to Pepper.``. Wanda nodded, taking the file and heading to her desk. Starting an email to Pepper with all the info of this alpha , what Steve told them, and the info she got. The ding of the front door, made her head snap up. Her eyes widen a bit seeing the same alpha from the files walking in. Quickly she shut the files and info putting them away. And closes the email. Before the alpha walked up to her desk. She looked up at him with a fake smile. “Hello sir. How can I help you?”.  He smiles at her. “Hi there. Is the Sheriff in?”, Brock asked. Wanda nodded, “He sure is, can I ask what this is about?”. “I need help with another alpha in town. I believe he is holding my girlfriend against her will. “. Wanda nods as she types a few things on her computer before standing up. “Oh no. That sounds terrible. I'm sorry. I go see if he can see you.”, Wanda pouts acting like she cared. Brock gave her a sad smile like he was really hurting and sad. But Wanda could see right through him. Knowing he’s lying and faking this act. She makes her way back to Sam’s office. She looks back as she walks in. Making sure he is still standing there. Sam looks up at her as she walks in. Watching her close the door , while looking into the lobby. “He’s here.”, Wanda says looking towards Sam. “Saying that an alpha he's holding his girlfriend against her will.”. Sam nods as he stands up. “Okay, tell him I’ll be with him in just a minute.”, Sam says, pulling his phone out and dialing Steve. Wanda nods , making her way out. She smiles as she sees Brock look up towards her. As she walks back into the waiting area. “He’s finishing with some paperwork and will be out shortly. In the meantime have a seat. Would you like something to drink? Cup of coffee?”, she asked, overly friendly. Brock shook his head as he took a seat waiting. Wanda's smile dropped as she watched him. He hung his head down. Really playing off the sad alpha look. But reeked of anger. 

“Wow, that was really good Steve.”, Y/n says handing him her bowel. Steve smiled down at her. Taking the dishes to the sink. “Thank you. It’s rare that I get to cook for someone else.”.  “You never cook or have get-togethers with your friends?”, Y/n asked. As she removed the ice pack and looked over her ankle. Steve chuckles. “We do get togethers. But Nat usually cooks. She enjoys cooking and hosting them. Even if any of us try to talk her out of it , she won’t listen and will cook a feast. Bucky said it’s something about a mated omega. Apparently they enjoy the hosting and cooking for a group of people.”, Steve says as he cleans the dishes. Y/n laughed softly. “Reminds me of my mother. She was also like that. Loved to cook a huge feast for when my dad had his business parties. She loved hosting them. I never understood it. Especially since she and I were forced to do these things as we are omegas. She once told me it wasn’t about the work. It was the compliments. To know everyone was enjoying her hard work.”. Steve humbled as he turned back to her , drying his hands. “I never thought of it that way but it makes sense. Nat always does have a beaming to her when we complain about her work. And Bucky he gets a proudness to him.”. Y/n turns to look at Steve as she finishes putting her boot back on . “Really?”, She asked. Steve nods. “Alpha’s have these strong feelings to make their omegas happy. To see them loved and full of happiness. ...Well that's how true mates are.”, Steve says. Y/n laughs , shaking her head. Steve smiles watching her , “what do you not believe in true mates?”. Y/n shakes her head no as she looks up at him. “No, seeing what I have growing up. No , not really.”. Steve shrugs as he pushes off the counter walking towards the table. “I get it. I used to not believe it too. My ma used to tell me all those fairy tales about true mates. But seeing how my father treated her and me. I didn’t believe it. “. Y/n’s eyebrow’s crunch together as she looks at him. Watching his movements. “What changed your mind?”, She asked. “Nat and Bucky. You see we both met Nat at college. She asked us where some of the classes were. As she walked away. Bucky couldn’t take his eyes off of her. Watching her walk away. He then turned to me and said that one day she would be his mate. I thought he was crazy till I saw how they acted around each other. Then it clicked. Everything my ma use to tell in those stories unfolded in front of my eyes.  Made me a believer.”, Steve explains making his way to her. “But how did you know?”, Y/n asked. “I didn’t at first. I thought it was just young love. Till I talked to the both of them separate. They both talked about how being around each other was like nothing else. One touch left their hearts beating so fast. How they got tingles and this gushy, warm feeling from just one little touch. How the others smelled, smelled of home. A warm , loving feeling.”, Steve moves the chair that he leg was on. He stands in front of her holding a hand out. Y/n looked up at him in awe. Thinking over his words , as she takes his hand. As he helps her stand his scent hits her. The scent that makes her feel warm and safe. Hitting her. That those things he spoke of is how she felt towards him. But surely not. They weren’t meant to mate. Although she did have that dream. That dream that left her longing for those things. To be Steve’s. Waking up next to him. In his arms , surrounded by their mixed scents. Carrying his children. Something Y/n use to not want. She didn’t want to bring children into this world of horrible alphas. But Steve has changed her mind in just a few days. Is it possible? Could he really be her true mate? 

“Pup?....hello? Pup?...did you hear me?”, Steve asked waving a hand in front of her. Y/n shakes her head of the thoughts, “sorry , this true mate's talk just has me remembering home. Well not home my mom. She too told me of those stories. It was the only time of  the day I really enjoyed. Sorry , i just miss her.”, Y/n says looking down. Steve’s face falls as he looks at her. Understanding her. “It’s okay, pup. Even if I didn’t believe the stories they were a time of joy for me too. When my father was asleep. Passed out, not bugging us. A time of peace between me and my ma.”. Steve grabs her chin making her look at him. He cups her check. Rubbing her check, soothing her. Y/n gives him a small smile. As she closes her eyes and leans into his touch. Letting the soothing movement and the warmth from him , calm her down. “Thank you , Steve.”, Y/n finally says as she opens her eyes looking at him. Steve smiles , “for what?”. Y/n lightly chucks as she smiles more, “For being you.”. “Well , I don’t know how to do anything else. Now, while you were in memories lane. I asked if you would like to continue ‘The Office’, while we get your room all set up and the stuff put away.”. Y/n nods yes. “Okay , come on then.”, He helps her up the stairs and into the room. Where they get all the bags from Nat's shopping , and puts them on the bed. Sorting them. “Here these are all for the bathroom. While you get those put up and how you like. I’ll get  the show on.”, Steve says handing Y/n the bags. Y/n grabs them making her way to the bathroom. She closes the door. She smiles as she pulls the stuff out of the bag. Needing to thank Nat for everything. 

Steve sighed as he fell on to the bed. Grabbing the remote to turn on The Office. As he gets it set up to play , he feels his phone start to ring in his pocket. He pulls it out seeing it's Sam. Looking back up to see the bathroom door still closed. Steve stands up as he answers the phone call. “Hey Sam, what’s up?”. “Red Star.”, Sam says. Steve's jaw clenched as anger started to take over him. “Where is he now?”, Steve says through a clenched jaw. “At the station. Wanda said that he came in asking for me. Saying he thinks an alpha in town is holding his girlfriend against her will. I don’t know much more. I haven’t talked to him. What do you want to do?”, Sam asked. Steve sighed thinking of a plan. His mind was running all over everything that's happened thinking. But stops on one thing. The fake claim mark. “Okay i got it. I gave Y/n a fake claim mark. So what we will do is, you do your sheriff stuff. Bring him out here whatever. We will just have to pretend that I claimed her already.”. “Okay I’ll bring Pietro and See if Bucky can come along too in case he gets out of hand.”. Steve falls back onto the bed , “okay good thinking. I better warn her first , so she doesn’t freak on us.”. “Okay , I’ll try to delay him as much as I can.”, Sam says before hanging up. 

Steve sighed as he threw his phone to the side. Hoping this works. But he has to convince Y/n. He’ll need her to be calm and ready to face him. To make it look real. Cause if not, Brock could go to State troopers about him before they can get Tony and Peppers help with this first. The sound of the door opening , makes Steve snap his head up to look towards Y/n. As she walked out of the bathroom. “Hey , Pup.  We need to talk?”, Steve says looking down at his hands. Y/n forward softly as she walked closer to him. “What’s wrong Stevie?”, She asked. Steve Smiled softly at the nickname. But it quickly fell as he thought over how to word what he was about to say. He looks up at her. Looking over her face. He took her hand , just in case she flips or something. “I haven’t been completely honest with you. Going behind your back. But I promise , I only had the best intentions…..I have a friend who's a lawyer. Him and his wife work on cases like yours. Helping omegas and...well really anyone in abusive situations. I asked my bubby , also the sheriff, If he could look into Brock and send all the info of him and what you told me to Pepper and Tony. So they can help you. Fully get Brock away from you.”, Steve starts explaining. Y/n looks down taking a deep breath. Trying to process everything he just told her. She did feel hurt that he did this behind her back. But a part of her knew that there was no way if he didn’t , he wouldn’t have gotten Y/n to open up to someone else to get help. And she guessed Steve knew that too. But it still hurt. She was starting to trust Steve. She wishes he would have just told her. But what was getting her was she opened up to him. Told him what happened to her. Something she’s never done. She hasn’t told anyone. Now 3 or even more people will know. Which she knows if this goes now more will know. She doesn’t want to look for sympathy or look like she was broken. Steve squeezed her hand. Nervous at her silence. “I’m sorry Pup. I know you were starting to trust me and I went behind your back and told your story to others. But I promise it’s for the good. They will get you help.”. “It’s not that. I don’t doubt your intentions or theirs. As I have seen you have good friends. People who are like you. Have big hearts and want to help. I know that with them and you I’ll get help. But this means more and more people know my life growing up. What happened to me. It’s just I’m …..I just don’t want to keep reliving it. I just want to be done with it. And how a normal life.”, Y/n says as she wipes her face as tears start to run down her face. Steve pulls Y/n closer to him. Making her fall onto his lap. Where he wrapped his arms around her holding her close. “I promise pup, you won’t. Not for ever at least. The most I know of. I’ll have to retell everything to Pepper and Tony so they can get a case going. Then depending on how fair it goes you might have to testify. Which means retelling it again and then answering questions about what happened. But after that I promise you don’t have to talk about it ever again. I’ll make sure of it too. Make sure that no one will ever make you talk about it. Okay ,pup?”, Steve pulls back to look at her face. He reaches a hand up wiping her tear stained face. Y/n nods , closing her eyes. Thinking it all over. Steve gives her a few seconds. “Pup, i wasn't going to tell you all of this yet. I was waiting to see what pepper suggested. But something happened. So i need to tell you to warn you and start helping to prepare you for facing Brock.”. Y/n pulled back, eyebrows scrunched. Looking at Steve. “What? What's going on?”. Steve sighed looking down for a sec thinking , before looking back to Y/n. “I just got a phone call from my buddy at the sheriff station , Sam. He informed me that Brock showed up to the station. Asking for Sam. Saying that he believes that an Alpha is holding his girlfriend against her will. I don’t know what else he’s going to string together , telling Sam. But as sheriff and part of Alpha/Omega laws, Sam has to bring him to where he asks and check it out. Making sure an alpha in fact did not hold an omega hostage and mate them against their wishes. So , I’m going to need you to be strong. You’ll need to face him and make him believe I mated you. And you consented to it.”, Steve explains. Watching her face closely to see how she is taking everything. “But we aren’t mated.”. “The fake bond will fool him. I’ll just have to mark it again to it smell like an actual bond.”, Steve moves her hair. Running his fingers over her neck. Where the fake bond is, slowly fading. Y/n nods understanding, “what if he doesn’t buy it or sees through it?”. “We will just have to convince him. Alpha/Omega laws are huge. So he could go to State Troopers about it. Which will lead to more trouble and make it harder for Tony and Pepper. But with the mark and witness of me , you and Sam. We could all testify against him if he does. That Sam has already checked it out and We are in fact mated. And we both consented to it. But you are going to have to be brave and face him. Saying it to his face that you mated with me. Okay, pup? You think you can do that?”, Steve says. y/n Looked away from him thinking about it. Facing Brock. Something she was so scared of. But if she wanted to be gone from him for good she knew she had to do it. Pulse Steve would be by her side the whole time. Something about being with him made her feel stronger and braver. Y/n turned back to him. Nodding in agreeing. Steve smiles at her. “Okay, good. Now first things first. We need to redo your mark.”. Y/n nodded as she moved her hair and leaned her head to the side a bit for Steve to have better access. Just like last time. Steve was a bit slow. Not wanting to rush and hurt or scare Y/n. He left light kisses around and on the mark. Before letting his teeth lightly sink in. This time Y/n wasn’t able to hold back as small whimpers left her lips. Wanting him to actually bite down. Claim her. After he then again left small, light kisses to the bite. Before pulling back. Y/n looked away from Steve. Not wanting to face him. As her face was already somewhat red. ‘There Pup. Now it seems you are mated.” Steve says trying to get her to look at him. He frowns at first thinking he did something wrong. Till he noticed the long her looked at her the more red her face got. He opens his mouth to say something which is interrupted by the sound of knocking at the door. Y/n’s head then snapped back to finally look at him. Steve looked at her , “Okay Pup. Show time. You got this okay. I’ll be standing next to you the whole time. Ready to jump in at any time if anything happens, okay?”. Y/n nods getting up. Steve takes her hand as he stands up. Leading her downstairs. He stops in the living room. “Wait here till I call you okay?”, Steve says. Y/n nods giving his hand one last squeeze as he pulls away towards the door. Y/n stands by the Stairs. Biting her nails nervous. Waiting and listening closely to what was going on. 

Steve took a deep breath as he reached the door. Before opening the door. Putting on the act. “Sheriff, Hi. How can I help you?”, Steve smiles at Sam. Trying to keep calm as his eyes move over to the Alpha standing next. Brock. The same guy he saw the other day in the forest. “Hey, Steve. Sorry to bug you this late but this guy came into the station. Saying he was out here the other day looking for his girlfriend after she ran away. And he ran into you and you told him you haven't seen her then asked him to leave. Well he thinks you where lying and are holding his girlfriend here against her will.”, Sam explains. Steve's eyebrows raise in surprise. “What? Come on Sam , you know I would never do something like that.”, Steve says. Sam sharks his head ,”I know but you know the laws make me have to question and check it out no matter what. Now tell me what happened that day?”. “I was out cutting some wood. When I heard someone running around. Thinking it was a hunter on my land. I went to check it out and found this guy. I just informed him it was private property and I was sorry to hear about his girlfriend. But asked him to leave.”, Steve explains. “Was that a lie? Did you see a girl he was talking about?” sam asked, taking notes. Steve nods , “Yes , I saw her. But not till after I had asked him to leave. I found her on my way back , injured. She sprained her ankle tripping over a tree root. I brought her back here to help her. I didn’t know at the time she was the girl he was talking about. Till after she told me what she was doing out in the woods alone.”. Sam nods as he writes it all down. “Is she here now?”, He asks looking back up at Steve. Steve Signs looking down. Looking as if he was hurting and not wanting to say. He sighed one more time as he looked up. He looked towards Brock. Meeting his hard eyes as he stared back. Before turning back to Sam. “Yes..Yes she is. She’s….She’s my mate now.”. “WHAT?! YOUR MATE?!IT”S ONLY BEEN A DAY AND YOU FORCED YOURSELF ON HER?!”, Brock started yelling. Keeping the play up that Y/n was his and he was scared for her well being. But really , Steve could see it was anger that he beat him to mating her. Sam grabs him by the arm pulling him back. “Now you stop right there! I’m the sheriff! I’ll be the one asking questions and getting down to the info here! If you don’t like that then you can go wait by the car.”, Sam says growling as he pushes Brock back. Brock just huffs nodding as he backs up. Sam then turns back to Steve, “Could you please ask this young lady to come here , so I can ask her some questions?”. Steve nodded as his eyes stayed on Brock. Watching him with an angered look. “Pup, Can you come here for a second?”, Steve calls into the cabin. 

Y/n took a deep breath. Calming her nervousness. Knowing that Brock will be able to smell her emotions. She just hoped that Steve’s scent on her would distract him from it though. She takes one more breath as she makes her way to the door. “Hhmm” She says walking up next to Steve. He wrapped an arm around her waist. “This is Sheriff Sam, He wants to ask you some questions.”, Steve says. Y/n turned to the man in front of them. Trying not to let her eye wander over to the man next to him. She actually felt relaxed as she met Sam's eyes. His eyes and smile were soft. Especially for an alpha. He seems so sweet and nice. “Evening Ma’am. I just have a few questions to ask if you don’t mind.”, Sam says sticking his hand out to shake her hand. Y/n nodded, shaking his hand. “Okay.”. “Okay firstly, you are Y/n L/N right?”, He asked.

“Yes sir.”

“Okay , can you tell me , do you know this man?” Sam points to Brock. Y/n sighed shaking her head. Steve pulled her closer to him. As he watched Brock's breathing pick up noticing the mark on her neck. Sam nodded , “Can I ask what your relationship is with this man?”. “Nothing, he has been chasing after me wanting to mate me. But I didn’t want to.”, Y/n says taking a quick glance at him.  “Okay and can you explain to me what happened that led you into the woods and meet Mr. Rogers.”, Sam says. Y/n nodded looking down quickly before looking back at him. “We got into a fight about the mating thing. He tried to force himself on to me and tried to mate me.  I was able to get away from him and ran away. But he was following me. So I ran into the forest thinking I could get away from him. But he followed after me. I ended up tripping and hurting my ankle. While I was sitting on the ground, not being able to walk. Steve found me. He helped me up and into his cabin. Asking what happened.”, Y/n explains to Sam. Sam nods writing what she told him down. “You Bitch! In Thanks you let him fuck you and mark you!”,Brock yelled trying to step closer. But Sam wiped around putting his hand on his chest. Pushing him back, “Mr. Rumblow this is your last warning!”. Brock huffs pushing Sam's hand off of him. Y/n jumps do to the yelling. Causing Steve to wrap both his arms around her and hold her closer. She puts her head in his neck not wanting to see Brock anymore. Sam sighed as he turned back to Y/n and Steve. “I’m sorry about that. I know this is a touchy subject but can I ask how this mating came across.”, Sam asked. Y/n looked up at Steve , not knowing what to say. Steve looked at her too. Before looking back to Sam . “It was an accidental mate.”.  Something popped up in Y/n’s mind. She just praid that Sam understood it or knew what it was. “Partialis Calor.”. Sam looked at her for a bit , before nodding in understanding. “And what? She’s making shit up now. He probably forced her to make some stupid shit up like that.”, Brock says turning to Sam. Sam kept looking at her impressed. “No she’s not. A partialis calor is something that happens between true mates.”, Sam says turning to Brock.  “It's a heat/rut type thing that takes over an Alpha and Omega when they meet their true mate. And most end up like these two. Alphas will have this other power to mate their omega.”, Sam explains.  “So see he forced that mark on her! Are you going to do anything about it!”, Brock started yelling again getting in Sam's face. “No! Miss . L/n and Mr. Rogers has made it clear that their mating was conditional. Even if it was accidental , they are both fine and happy being mated together.”, Sam says trying to push Brock away. “This is bullshit! Your mine Y/n! You know who your true alpha is!”, Brock keeps trying to push Sam away and get closer to them. Something snapped in Y/n. She finally turned to fully look at the alpha. “My true alpha is Steve. Even though I may have just met him , we have more of a connection then you and I ever did. He makes me feel things you never could. In every way possible.”, Y/n snapped at him. Steve smirked not only proud of her but also at what she was implying. Brock's eyes widen and fill with pure agner. “YOU FUCKING BITCH!” He pushed Sam down the steps of the deck and away from him. Reaching behind his back. Pulling out a gun. He raises it to her face. Steve was quick to pull her behind him. “Even better!”, Brock says. Before he could do anything , he heard the sounds of guns cockling all around him.  He looked around seeing Sam behind him pointing a gun at him and Two other large guys on either side of him , holding shotguns. One an alpha and another a beta. “Put the gun down, or not I don’t mind putting a hole through you.”, The dark haired alpha says. Brock turned to look at Sam , ‘You set me up.”. Sam shrugged. “I wouldn’t call it a set up. Just safety procedures. You reeked of anger and dominance when you walked into the station. Those two things usually never mix well and end good for alphas like you. Now put the gun down!” ,Sam says staying calm. Brock looked back to Steve. Staring him down as he dropped the gun. Raising his hands in surrender. Dropping slowly to his knees. Bucket reached over kicking the gun away. Before they lowered their weapons. Sam walked up behind the alpha and cuffed him. “Pietro, read him his rights then take him back to the station. Throwing him in a cell. “, Sam says. Pietro nods, taking the alpha towards the car. Steve turned around to face Y/n. “You okay , pup.”, he asked. Y/n nodded as she threw her arms around Steve pulling him into a hug.  Steve wrapped his arms around her. Pulling her close. So close he was lifting her up to where she was on her tiptoes. “You're okay , pup.” , he whispers in her hair. “Y/n? You okay?”, A voice asked. Y/n and  Steve pulled away and turned back to Sam and Bucky. “Yes, I’m fine. Just a little shaken up .”, She says. “I’m sorry, Y/n. I had no idea he had a gun.”, Sam says looking like he really was truthfully sorry. “It’s okay, it’s a good thing you thought beforehand to bring back up.”. Sam’s attention was brought to his phone as it buzzed. “That’s Wanda she said she emailed Pepper and she got back to her fast. She and Tony will be out here in a couple days to see and talk to Y/n. I’ll email her this report and what happened tonight.”. Steve nodded , “Thank you Both of you I owe you two.”. “It’s nothing. You would have done the same.”, Bucky says. “Now enough chick chat. You two get some rest. This add on to everything else is going to be a long and tiring process once Tony gets here.”, Sam explains looking back and forth to Steve and y/n. Mainly watching Y/n to ensure she is okay. They both nod in understanding. They all say their goodbye. Steve and Y/n watch from the door as Sam and Bucky leave following Pietro. Down the road to Town.

------- TAGS-----------

Pup: 

@woodworthti666    @chrisevanisliterallysir   @sukeraa   @bxnnywriting            

@cuddlebuddydraco   @tnysmalls   @tenaciousperfectionunknown

@wonderlandfandomkingdom    @animegirlgeeky   @gryffindorqueensworld

 @loveisgayandmy    @waywardwifey       @supernaturallover2002

ABO:

@physically-a-cheesecake

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

So I have basically no school next week , so I’m going to try and work on this story. I’m thinking it might be only a couple more parts! But I honestly don’t know yet. Again if you want updates or small imagines check out my tiktok. Also if you like MHA i have another tiktok (@babybird_40) where I have posted some small imagines about some of the characters. Right now it’s just Hawks. But depending how it does I’ll be adding more and others. - MM

[forsakenoathkeeper]

I Am Alive (chapter 16/?)

Chapter 16: Sufficiently Healed

Deviant!Connor[RK800] x (fem!)Reader Rated M(18+) for canon-typical violence and gore, medical procedures, and graphic sexual content

Chapters: 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • more coming soon

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It was late when you returned to the apartment; however, you were too on edge to possibly be tired just yet. While you had replaced his thirium pump regulator, there was still some damage that needed to be addressed.

Connor had reluctantly let you patch his skin before taking Robert into the police station; however, a wound like that undoubtedly caused some internal damage that he decided not to disclose with you.

"Connor, please read me your diagnostic report," you asked him insistently.

He seemed conflicted for a second. "I told you I'm alright," he replied softly.

You eyed him suspiciously, intending to continue on about how you didn't believe him. However, surprisingly, Connor caved quickly.

"Minor membrane damage inside central chassis," he uttered lowly, like a scolded child.

"I won't look if you don't want me to," you offered gently.

"It's not that," he replied immediately, not wanting you to think he was untrusting of your abilities. It was quite the opposite, actually. "You did this all day. You deserve a break."

"But, you're Connor," you replied softly.

You touched his shoulders and gently nudged him, a gesture encouraging him to step back.

"I-uhm..." he uttered, following along with your gentle pushes until the back of his knees hit the couch. He sat down and you kept nudging at him until he lifted his legs, scooted back, and laid down across the couch, head falling onto the armrest.

"I never need a break from you," you added on as he finally got the hint and arranged himself across the couch comfortably.

You retreated briefly to rummage through your bag, seeking out a tool kit specifically for this. As you did, Connor shook his jacket and button-up shirt off, laying them across the back of the couch.

When you turned around and was met with bare, cream colored skin, you had to resist the urge to stare like an idiot. You had seen his nudity before; but, the assortment of freckles running down his torso never ceased to amaze you.

It didn't help that he had a muscular appearance to his chassis. Then, of course, there was that damn pube trail starting beneath his belly button and disappearing into his pants.

Connor really was unfairly attractive.

Brushing those thoughts aside, you set the toolkit down nearby and straddled Connor's thighs. It was intimate and you definitely did not do it like this with your other patients; but, it was easier to access his chassis this way, considering he was on a couch and not an operating table and you didn't have a chair that would set you at the right height.

Connor didn't seem perturbed by you mounting him, not that this was anything new. He looked up at you with nothing but trust reflecting in his brown eyes.

The android relaxed against the cushions and opened the skin layering on the front of his chassis. The shell of his unit parted down the middle from his sternum to his belly button. There were multiple pieces that made up either side of his chassis; but, for ease of access, they parted in two. The material was flexible, yet firm.

Connor seemed to be taking a second to relax, judging by the way he was clenching his jaw. Undoubtedly, this wasn't a pleasant feeling. His system was likely warning him that he was exposing sensitive components that were susceptible to damage.

You admired the design beneath his skin in silence. The membrane fibers that acted like muscle layers were laid out intricately over his abdomen, almost like the perfect drawing in a human anatomy textbook. His internal network layout was far more advanced than anything you had ever seen before. He had more fibrous connectors than the average android, more individual, artificial muscles.

"Oh, Connor," you hummed, not finding the strength to reach inside and touch him yet.

Connor looked up at you, brown eyes reflecting something quite innocent.

"I-I don't think I can..." you trailed off, intimidated by the sight of his insides.

Like all androids, wiring connected to the various internal parts and membranes, allowing for precise movements and artificial muscle controls. Thirium was flowing through the artificial muscles, painting them a magnificent blue hue that was glowing in an otherworldly light.

Connor had more connectors than the average android. His layout was more precise and detailed than any other android you had ever worked on before.

Up until this point, you had only worked on androids designed for yard work, child care, and the likes. Before Connor, you had never heard of an RK series. He was the only android you had come across designed for something... violent. Considering his purpose, it wasn't particularly surprising that his design was more advanced.

"You're just so... I've never seen this much detail before. The intricacy here is amazing, really. We should get a professional," you suggested.

"What?" he uttered lowly, like you had just said the most ridiculous thing. Your eyes shifted from his exposed membrane to his eyes. He looked... offended.

"-someone who knows what they're doing," you explained.

Connor's hands reached for you, cupping either of your elbows. He leaned up a little. "You know what you're doing," he said firmly, leaving no room for argument.

He was a little mad, you realized. You were prepared to rebuttal that, but Connor, catching that look in your eyes, continued, "I've seen the kind of damages you've repaired, and the way you handle androids. No one is better suited to take care of me."

The fierce look in his eyes made it clear this wasn't a discussion. He released your arms and slid back flat onto the couch. You gawked at him for a moment: intimidated, awestruck by his confidence in you.

"O-okay," you uttered weakly.

You reached for your tools before shimmying your body down so you could practically lay on him, and started working.

Membrane repairs were usually simple; however, in Connor's case, partially because his design was so unique, and partially because you were terrified of making a mistake, you took your sweet time. Connor didn't seem to mind. When you glanced up to check on him, his eyes were closed and his LED was a pleasant, blue hue.

Was he... enjoying this? You couldn't tell. But, his face looked peaceful.

Connor was beautiful, intricate blue muscles pulsating with thirium, the tissue firm and soft at the same time, strong and resilient. It was no wonder that he was so fast, so agile. He was designed to be an apex predator.

You lost track of time before you eventually sat upright and admired your work. Muscle tissues had been returned to their proper position, wrapped protective around his thirium regulator, wires carefully tucked back into their proper placements.

"Will you run a new diagnostic?" you asked him gently.

Connor nodded, his eyes still closed. "All readings are normal," he replied softly, sounding almost tired. You couldn't resist smiling at the sight. He looked so relaxed.

"Good," you hummed, carefully shimmying off his lap and rising to your feet. You set your tools down and groaned, rotating around to stretch your legs.

"Oof," you huffed as you stretched, trying to relax your aching back. Behind you, Connor closed his chassis carefully, until the seams relaxed and became unnoticeable.

He sat up to watch you, amused. "I'm not surprised to find your legs are sore. You were working for almost an hour."

"What!?" you shrieked. It definitely didn't feel like you had been going at it that long. You had been so worried about doing something wrong, about damaging him more than he already was.

"Are you sure I did alright?" you asked, sincere, turning around to face him.

Connor patted his abdomen, right where his thirium regulator rested beneath the surface. "The alignment feels more stable and... comfortable," he said with a confident smile. "I am sufficiently repaired."

You laughed softly. "But, are you sufficiently healed?"

His head tilted a little, brow quirking slightly. Androids were repaired, humans were healed; but, he doubted you meant it in that context.

You approached him and dropped down to your knees, pushing him back slightly. You ducked your head down and kissed the spot right above his belly button, where you had just repaired his membrane fibers.

You were smiling when you came back up and Connor looked intrigued.

"There. All better," you hummed innocently.

The android tilted his head slightly, briefly searching the internet to determine why you would do such an odd thing. After briefly viewing a couple answers, Connor felt strangely bashful and squirmed nervously where he was seated.

"'m gonna take a shower," you stated as you rose back to your feet.

Connor looked up at you with a silent question, his eyes warm and inviting and his lips curved into a faint smile.

"Would you like to join me?" you asked softly.

"Yes," he blurted without hesitation.

Together, you trotted over to the bathroom. You undressed as Connor prepared the shower, testing the temperature until he had it at the degree of warmth he thought you would like.

You were already nude and startled him when you reached around his waist from behind and started fiddling with his belt. You didn't touch his pants, but slid the leather through his belt loops and spun around to place it on the rack where he organized his collection.

Connor watched you curiously as he unceremoniously peeled his shoes and socks off before removing his pants and underwear. You ducked into the tiles and warm water before he could finish.

He was fast to come in behind you, startling a squeal out of you with how cold he was compared to the warm water. You caught the look of his proud smirk over your shoulder, before you shrugged him off your back, trying not to be too flustered by the proud erection he was sporting.

After you were sufficiently soaked, you rotated around carefully so that he could take his turn standing beneath the running water. It was almost hypnotizing, watching the droplets fall across his skin.

When androids activated their human skin, it felt undistinguishable from the real thing; however, there was no denying that water reacted a little differently to it. Perhaps, because their skin was so ungodly smooth, water just danced across the surface.

His hair, sopping wet, flopped over his forehead before he brushed it back with his hand. That unruly strand that touched his forehead and gave some deviance to his otherwise prim and proper cut was finally behaving, clung to the rest of his wet strands.

When Connor stepped out of the pouring water, you were quick to ask, "can I do it?" while reaching for the shampoo he used. As you brought the bottle in closer, you realized it was made specifically for android's synthetic hair fibers. Connor didn't respond verbally, but looked down at you eagerly.

You squeezed a small dollop into your palm, surprised to find it was more foamy than typical shampoo. As you lathered it between your hands, the cool, clean scent floated around the shower.

Connor tilted his head down as you reached for him. You weaved your fingers through his locks, impressed, as always, by how soft they were. You massaged your fingers into his scalp in a manner you hoped he would find enjoyable, down the back of his head to work the soap into the shorter hairs, careful not to catch on his ears. He must have enjoyed it, considering the way he sagged against you.

"Connor," you laughed softly.

You reached past him to rinse your hands off. The android tilted his head back to chase your hands and the water hit his head and sent the suds spewing down his back. His eyes were shut and he seemed relaxed. You let your hands return to his head to aid in rinsing the soap from his locks.

For a moment, you were mindful of not getting any in his eyes, until you remembered that his optics could handle a vast majority of cleaning agents and this would likely not cause any irritation. Still, you doubted he would want soap splashed in his face.

When his hair felt sufficiently rinsed out, Connor took hold of your waist and carefully pulled you around so that you traded places and was beneath the water again.

"You were getting cold," he observed, looking down at you sweetly. Water was clinging to his eyelashes and heavy droplets dripped from his sopping wet hair; however, he didn't seem to mind, or notice.

You smiled at him, feeling the warm water splash down your back. He looked in awe, staring at you, hair clinging to your skin, water droplets decorating your body. He tried not to stare at your nudity, doubting you would want that after what transpired today.

Wanting to return the favor, Connor reached for your shampoo. You couldn't help but giggle at the questioning glance he tossed you before pouring some into his palm. You fluttered your eyes shut when he reached for you.

He was gentler than you had been, careful to not get any on your face, mindful of how rough he was with his fingers. You felt him lean in closer, even though it wasn't required to reach you seeing that he had long arms and flexible digits.

After a minute or so, you leaned back to rinse it off and gently shrugged his hands away.

"I wanted to ask you," you began, voice distant over the sound of the running shower.

"When you asked me to stay here for my safety, was that a ploy to get me to move in?" you teased, eyes opening halfway through and watching Connor's gaze shift from curious to a deer in headlights.

"I wouldn't trick you like that," he protested softly.

You laughed quietly and his concerned expression relaxed.

"It's just," you continued. "I've been here a lot, and that's not fair to you. I'm pretty much squatting."

"It doesn't bother me," Connor retorted.

"I use more water than you. I use your heater. I'm running the stove more than you ever would," you carried on. "I should be paying rent."

"I don't require many human essentials," Connor said robotically. "My cost of living is significantly lower than yours. I don't require you to help pay my bills."

"But, they aren't just your bills if I'm here all the time," you retorted.

You rang out your hair and swapped places with the android again. You huffed out a laugh when he snatched the conditioner bottle out of your hand and, quite literally, took matters into his own hands.

"Please, Connor. I don't want to be a freeloader," you protested, eyes fluttering shut as he worked the conditioner through your hair with careful fingers.

"I don't see you that way," he uttered sincerely. You moaned softly when his palms smoothed over your skull and his fingers carefully worked the conditioner through your hair.

"I see me that way," you retorted grumpily.

"I don't mind paying for-"

"Well, I do," you interrupted him, a little harsher than intended.

He carefully removed his fingers from your hair and you opened your eyes to look at him intensely, hoping he realized this was important to your independence.

"I-... don't believe you make enough money to afford two places," Connor stated analytically, rinsing his hands in the flowing water. "So, it would only be logical for you to choose one over the other."

He handled surrendering rather well, you realized fondly.

"I like your place better. If you want me here?" you asked softly.

Connor was quick to answer before any doubt could blossom. "I do."

After you rinsed out your hair, Connor's bodywash followed: this time, something clearly designed for humans. Android's plastic skin didn't typically require a need for this sort of thing; but, you were pleased to see he had ignored this and treated himself. The bodywash had a masculine scent with a faint mint aroma that seemed oddly appropriate for his polished demeanor.

There was a perfectly good scrub brush right there; but, you ignored it, opting for your hands instead.

"Do you care if I smell like your body wash?" you asked as your hands smoothed over his shoulders and down his chest and over his stomach.

"I don't mind," Connor replied.

Your arms encircled his waist and you pulled him into an embrace, wet bodies smacking together. Connor seemed surprised, or perhaps unsettled by the sudden closeness, judging by the look he made. Your hands continued to spread the soap along his back, shamelessly enjoying the feel of his back muscles tensing beneath your touch.

"Sorry, is this bad?" you uttered, trying to make sense of his expression.

"No. I just didn't want to make you uncomfortable," he answered, struggling to keep his eyes focused on yours when he could feel your breasts smooshed against his chest, the soft expansion of your tummy and the heat radiating off your thighs.

It was obvious he was referring to the erection that he had been struggling to subdue ever since you undressed in front of him. Now, with the closeness, it was pinned between your bodies, smooshed against your inner thigh.

Connor looked embarrassed. "Sorry, I usually can control that better."

You shook your head rapidly. "I don't want you to control it," you whispered sharply.

The android tightened his lips, seemingly spurred on by your encouraging words.

"Does it bother you?" you asked, sincere, a little worried that he might have been uncomfortable.

"Is it not... demeaning?" the android asked softly.

"Why would it be demeaning?" you asked, tilting your head a little.

"It seems inappropriate after what happened today, and you didn't express a sexual interest to warrant this response," Connor explained, again in that very android-like way.

You huffed a little at him. "It's not like you tried to force yourself on me," you proclaimed, a little scold to your tone. "Should I be upset with you for being attracted to me?"

Connor's lips curved into a smile that was a little innocent despite the context of the discussion at hand.

"That is accurate, but-" the android began. "I-... Feel a little possessive at the moment."

Curiosity, excitement maybe, danced behind your eyes.

"You could have died today," you commented lowly. "Is that what has you on edge?"

"It is... a possibility," he drawled.

You were silent for a moment, rubbing soap all over him, not caring that a lot of it ended up all over you, too.

"...you were in danger," Connor confessed quietly, voice weak through the sound of the rushing water hitting the tiles. You couldn't help but feel enamored by those words. He was pent up and frustrated at the fear that he could have lost you today.

"For a second, I thought you were going to kill him," you stated softly, not sounding disgusted or angry, but perhaps worried.

"I thought so, too," Connor admitted, oddly not feeling scrutinized in your gaze. If anything, you seemed proud of him.

Connor wasn't quite sure if that was how he felt: proud. Part of him knew that he had to do what was best for androids and humans, so that they could create a better world together. He wanted to participate in Markus' vision; yet, when it came to you, he found himself second guessing those desires.

He would do whatever he had to do to keep you safe.

To accomplish his mission-

"Do you want to get out?" you asked softly, trying to rotate him around so he could wash off the soap. However, lost in his thoughts, Connor was standing there, stiff and unmovable. Eventually, he complied, traded places with you once more, and let the water wash the soap away.

Instead of answering your question, Connor was more concerned that perhaps you wanted to leave. "Is the steam making you dizzy?" he asked, concerned.

You shook your head with a smile. "No. It's just-... You seem-..." you trailed off, deciding against telling him what was on your mind, that he had kept his hands to himself despite admitting that he was pent up.

Captivated by him, you felt feral, longing for him to have you in the most intimate way humans were capable of. Connor was a sophisticated android, beautiful and strong, graceful and elegant. You felt as graceful as a flopping fish on dry land compared to him.

Of course, the android didn't see you that way. If he could sleep, if he could dream, you would be the woman that came to him in the dead of night.

You stepped out of the shower to retrieve a towel. Connor followed you to the shower exit, careless that he was dripping wet all over his bathroom tiles. Before you could get the towel wrapped around yourself, he gently cupped your arm and tugged you back in.

Your eyes, bright and confused, looked up at him, noticed the desperate look he was making, and dropped the towel on the floor. As soon as he had you back inside, he looked like he regretted that decision.

"I'm sorry-" he stammered.

"Connor, please-" you uttered, sounding suddenly like you were in so much agony. "-no more whiplash. Ok? Tell me what's on your mind."

"I want you," he confessed lowly, staring down at you with a desperately hungry look in his eyes.

His hands slid over your ribs, fingers curling over the outline of the bones with deep fascination. He unconsciously pinned you against the tiles, not too far from beneath the shower head, where water could sputter across your body. The android arched over you, patience waning.

Yes, please-

"Show me that you're alive, Connor," you breathed against his lips.

Finally - finally, he kissed you. You moaned shamelessly, arms weaving around his shoulders to drag him in closer. The android practically smooshed you against the tiles with his own body, trying to mold himself against you. His kisses were desperate, hungry, but somehow still managed to be soft.

He wasted little time before propping your leg on his waist and dipping his fingers into the heat between your thighs. Water was definitely not a suitable lubricant, and he wasn't too stupid to not be able to tell them apart. When he was met with your folds, the slippery substance couldn't be mistaken for anything but your natural slick.

He hadn't done anything and you were already dripping. He had been torturing himself with guilt while you had been as aroused as he was. The thought eased his troubled mind just a little.

The android trailed your nub for a brief second before pushing his longest digit into your cavern. You moaned against his mouth shamelessly. He gave you a second to breathe before shoving his tongue into your mouth. For a second, your eyes fluttered open and caught the sight of his closed eyes, tense eyebrows, and vibrant, crimson halo on his temple.

His tongue explored your mouth selfishly while he fingered you eagerly. His flexibility was a strong reminder he wasn't human, and you loved it. He thrust his digit aggressively, knuckles brushing against your folds, while his thumb pressed down on your bud, shifting with the movement of his digits.

Connor carefully maneuvered another finger inside and devoured the hiss that escaped your mouth. The stretch was brief, more so by the sudden intrusion than the extra girth. He was being a little more aggressive than necessary; but, you shamelessly loved every second of it.

When you started to pant desperately, he finally let go of your lips and trailed soft bites down your neck. You could hardly focus properly, pinned against the wall to ensure you wouldn't fall, overwhelmed by the delicious friction he was delivering to your cunt.

The android bent down and took a rosy nipple into his mouth, sucking on the bud in slow, but firm, successions that you would be able to feel strongly. You most certainly did, and arched your back, moaning and whimpering helplessly. Your hands gripped his shoulders for dear life.

You were shaking violently, feeling an orgasm approaching, but not quite there. It felt far away until Connor released your poor, abused nipple and leaned up, groaning a staticky moan into your throat when his erection brushed your thigh.

You weren't sure if it was his moan, the way he humped you slightly for just a second, or the fact that you wanted him inside you so fucking badly. Suddenly, you were coming, so hard that you screamed and startled yourself with how loud it sounded in the shower.

Connor was unwavering until you had rode out the wave and regained enough composure to reach down and wrap your fingers around his cock. He faltered and nearly collapsed on top of you at the sudden touch.

You stroked him a few times before letting go and pushing at him until he got off of you. He complied with the most adorable, disagreeing pout on his face. You almost wanted to smack him for daring to think you didn't want more - all of him, every fucking inch.

The shower had a small platform sticking out opposite from the entrance, clearly designed to be sat on like a bench. You stepped towards it and propped up one of your legs, knee on the tile, braced your palms across from you, and bent over, propping up on your toes on the one foot that was on the ground.

The android groaned approvingly and immediately covered your body with his. One of his arms came into view, sliding along the tiles on the wall in front of you. You were confused briefly until you felt him nudge you forward and your cheek came into contact with his skin instead of the cold tiles.

The water from above was pouring across his back and sending water spattering over you obnoxiously, not that you could find the willpower to care.

You heard the familiar sound of him spreading lubricant down his shaft and tried to arch up your behind as invitingly as you could, whimpering like a pathetic animal.

He didn't brace his hand on your hip, but reached around and cupped your cunt. His chest collided softly with your back and forced you to arch just a little more, until the angle was perfect and his tip hooked on your entrance. You were more than ready; yet, still, his size managed to force a whimper out of you.

He sheathed himself inside you and groaned low and staticky, beautiful mechanical noises. He was most of the way inside, thrusting shallowly a few times to let you adjust. You turned your head and bit at the skin on his forearm. That seemed to spur him on and Connor shifted his hips and filled you to the brim.

You moaned through your teeth, still latched onto his skin, enough of an encouraging sound for him to start moving properly. Wet, fleshy noises of skin slapping together echoed around the shower. Connor's fingers toyed with your pearl as he fucked you, displaying a sort of inhuman flexibility as he bent over you.

"Ohhh, Connor," you moaned against his skin before lapping your tongue against the spot you just tug your teeth into. It blossomed pale white briefly before fading back to his artificial, human skin tone. One of your hands was clinging awkwardly to his bicep while the other gripped the wrist that was curled between your thighs.

His hand against the tile was splayed, fingers bent and nails digging into the tile. Your pressed your cheek into his skin and huffed out a pathetic breath every time he slid back inside.

"-so beautiful," Connor breathed against the skin at the base of your spine. You whimpered when you felt the unique texture of his tongue as it lapped against the top vertebrae.

You wanted to arch into his touch, to tilt your head and expose more skin, so that his mouth could reach every part of you possible in this position. However, you were already struggling to keep yourself upright and didn't want to dare ruin this: the perfect drag of his cock at the angle that made you see stars.

You felt the android's forehead fall into the back of your neck and the heat of his exhaust against your skin as he let himself get lost in the moment. It was burning hot; everywhere he touched you was burning hot. His skin against your back and the tops of his thighs where they touched the backs of yours felt ungodly warm.

It occurred to you, then, that this was likely an unsafe combination: the heat from the water, the steam wafting about the shower, and his internal biocomponents heating as a response to external stimuli.

"W-wait, Connor," you urged, pushing back against him. His pace staggered, but he didn't immediately let you go. "Stop," you added on insistently, until he finally slipped out of you and backed up.

Hastily, you stood up and stepped over to the faucet, turned the water off and looked up at him with concern, cupping his cheeks.

"Are you overheating?" you asked, trying to make sense of the look in his eyes.

He seemed a little distant, not looking at you quite properly.

"Connor?" you insisted, a little louder than necessary.

He blinked as if startled by your voice.

"I-... a little," he admitted quietly.

"Oh, geez," you huffed. "Did you disable those warnings?" you scolded him lightly, taking him by the arm to guide him out of the shower. You ignored the chill when you stepped out and grabbed a towel to start drying him off.

"No," he lied as you plopped the towel on the top of his head and gently patted his hair. Before you could run it down his shoulders, he gently pushed your hands away and removed the towel from himself and wrapped it around you. You looked up at him with a harmless glare.

"I'll reenable them," he promised, looking at you fondly as he bundled you up.

"You better," you scolded him.

"I just-... didn't want my hardware limitations getting in the way," he commented lowly.

"Pssh," you hissed, delivering a gentle smack against his chest. "That's not a hardware limitation. Humans pass out from heat, too," you stated.

You retrieved another towel and flung it at the android. "It's called being alive," you added on. He caught the towel, but didn't seem particularly interested in drying himself off. You didn't miss the way he was staring at you, pleading eyes and lips parted slightly.

"Cool down a bit first," you teased, nudging at his hands until he got the message and started drying himself off.

You let the towel unravel from your body so you could dry the back of your neck and pat it gently through your hair. You heard a soft whoosh when Connor unceremoniously dropped his towel. As soon as you let go of your hair, he descended upon you.

You gasped when he backed you up against the sink, the cool marble pressing against your behind.

"I’m not going anywhere," you laughed, hands coming up beneath his arms, smoothing over the plains of his back.

Connor blinked away the hungry look in his eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm being too insistent," he apologized politely.

His cock, pinned between your bodies, was hard and throbbing. He seemed eager to continue, undoubtedly pent up and desperate for release. Your state wasn't much better, sticky and warm between your thighs, and not nearly satisfied.

"You're lucky I don't have work tomorrow," you surrendered with a sigh, though you had a warm and inviting smile on your face.

The grin on his face was charming and handsome, but hid something mischievous when he guided you to the bed. "You asked me if I was sufficiently healed," he started as he gently pushed you back onto the sheets, not the least bit concerned that you were still fairly wet. "I don't think I am."

You huffed out a laugh at his matter-of-fact tone. Your arms weaved over his shoulders when he arched over you. He intended to take your lips; however, you avoided his mouth and peppered kisses over his freckled face.

Your legs found their way around his hips. He nudged forward, teasingly brushing his length against your folds. Your head fell back into the sheets and you sighed at the sensation. He took that opportunity to steal the kisses you had denied him a second ago.

Somehow, you just knew, it was going to be a long night.

[snowdice]

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 18]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. Chapters 3-8 and what I have of Chapter 9 are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

I have homework due tomorrow, so let’s go.

Arc I: Finding Cinderella

Chapter 4

Janus was frozen in surprise for a few long moments after Pat disappeared. Which had been, admittedly, his mistake, because, while their window had technically been until 11:17pm and it was only 11:10, the loud crack that whatever Pat had been using for time travel made, garnered the attention of someone else.

“Uh oh,” Remus said, likely hearing footsteps. “Hide.”

That snapped Janus into action, but instead of hiding immediately like a sensible human being, he chose to go for the only link to the man who’d just stolen time travel tech and waltzed away, the mask.

Which was why he ended up getting arrested.

 Remy tsked the moment they were all alone in the police car having come to ‘transfer Lee to another facility.’ Remus was already waiting in the front seat, and flashed Janus a smug smile. If Janus wasn’t still handcuffed, he’d slap him.

“Well,” Remy said. “At least you didn’t shoot anybody like I asked. I was joking by the way. I didn’t really want to pick you up from a 1920s police station period.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“Mmm, nah, ‘cause Remus managed to not get arrested this time, so you defiantly screwed something up.”

“Oh, he defiantly wanted to screw something all right,” Remus said joyfully.

 “Remus,” Janus hissed.

“What?” he asked. “I’m not the horny one for once. Well, no, that’s a lie, but it didn’t affect the job this time.”

Janus groaned and leaned his head back against the seat.

Remy pulled into a seemingly random garage around 20 minutes later. “Alright,” he said. “Here we are.” He got out of the car and then helped Janus out before uncuffing him. “Here’s your ‘watch,’” Remy handed him the timepiece that had been confiscated when he’d been arrested.

Janus put it on and activated it. “Shit,” he said.

“What?” Remus asked.

“An appointment with cultural outreach has already been downloaded to my calendar for once we get out of decon.”

 “Oof. Going to baby jail,” Remy laughed. Remus was cackling.

“This,” Janus said, “was not a cultural faux pas. I did nothing that indicated that I was not from this time. I am not some rookie.”

“Don’t forget cell phones don’t exist in the 1920s,” Remus sang.

“The real question is whether or not my foot exists in your…” Remus disappeared before he could finish, a smirk on his face. Janus growled. “By Remy,” he gritted out. He selected the decontamination chamber from his queue, ignoring the appointment that came after it for now.

He knew exactly where Remus would be standing when he landed, which was why he stepped forward on reentry to ram into him.

 He yelped in surprise. “Sorry,” Janus said pleasantly. “I must have also forgotten landing procedures.

Remus laughed good naturally. “Aw, come on Jay,” he said, bumping Janus back, albeit much gentler than Janus had been. “It’s not a big deal. You just go talk with some crusty old college professor who is far too interested in spoons and then everything’s fine.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” he growled. “They’re treating me like I’m an idiot who accidently invented disco in the 1920s when I was conned by some free agent time traveler.”

“‘Conned,’ Remus said. Is that what they’re calling it now?”

 “I know where and when you live Remus,” Janus said.

Remus gave him a dopey smile as the decontamination cycle finished and the door unlocked. Janus’s wrist buzzed telling him that the coordinates to the cultural outreach office were now unlocked. Instead of pulling them up, Janus walked to the door.

“Um,” Remus said, following him. “Aren’t you supposed to be going to your appointment?” Janus just kept walking towards their office. “Uh… Jan?”

“It’s absolutely ridiculous that I have to go to cultural outreach,” Janus said. “In fact, no one can make me. If they want me to go have a discussion about the definition of ‘bushwa,’ they’re going to have to have me dragged there.”

 “Mmm, I feel like The Boss won’t be too happy about that, and I have a feeling she’d be 100% down to dragging you there herself.”

“Well, then, let her,” Janus said, stalking through the door to his office. “I’m not going to…”

“Ah, Agent Picani,” the woman standing next to his desk, clearly waiting for him, said when he came through the door. “Dr. Picani was informed that there were complications with your last mission and wishes to have a conversation with you and asks that you meet him in his office at the AMO.”

“Oh, um,” Janus said, stumbling a bit before plastering on a regretful half smile. “Unfortunately, I actually have an appointment right now at Cultural Outreach. It’s mandatory and very important, and I have to go now. So, I’ll have to take a raincheck on that.”

 “But-” she started, frowning.

“Remus, work on the report!” Janus said quickly as he waved his hand to bring up his timepiece display and jammed his finger at the glowing appointment card in his queue. A few moments later, Janus was at Cultural Outreach.

Cultural Outreach was not part of the TPI, though it often worked very closely with them. It was a collaboration between the government and multiple universities to help government workers, politicians, and other citizens understand and bridge cultural gaps. It had existed before time travel was invented but had expanded to also teach people who needed to time travel how to behave in unfamiliar times and cultures.

 After it had to be expanded to provide for the TPI, it had been moved to Silver Mountains University. The building had once just been a museum, but it had been thoroughly renovated and there had been add-ons for office space and some classrooms. It was still a museum, however, its purpose had expanded greatly and there were many areas that were off limits to the general public.

One of these areas was the fourth floor, where Janus’s timepiece had dumped him. This was the floor that was almost exclusively for TPI agents and staff of Cultural Outreach who worked with them.

 He immediately turned away from the reception area, hoping that he could escape and go sit on the university’s quad or something of the like for the next hour or so in hopes the woman his brother sent to fetch him would give up and go back to the AMO. Yet, the receptionist apparently saw him.

“Janus Picani?” he asked.

Janus grimaced and turned back towards him. “Yes,” he said.

“Is something wrong?” he asked. “You’re 5 minutes late for your appointment and seem disoriented.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Is your timepiece malfunctioning?”

“No.”

“Uh… okay. Well, if you sign in here, I can take you to your appointment.”

“…Fine.”

 He begrudgingly stepped forward and touched the screen he’d gestured to sign with his fingerprint, and then let the man lead him down the hall.

The door they stopped at was propped open slightly, but he still paused and knocked. “Professor Eran? Your 2:30 is here.”

Janus had just a moment upon hearing the name to think that maybe there was actually some sort of intelligent design of the universe and whatever being of ultimate power had crafted it was a dick.

The door opened and Virgil Eran’s eyes immediately narrowed on him. “Janus.”

“Virgil.”

“I see you’re still late for everything.”

“I see you’re still a bastard.”

 Janus saw the receptionist slowly back away in the direction they’d come.

“Why don’t you come in?” Virgil said faux pleasantly.

Janus did, because he really didn’t have much of a choice at this point unless he wanted to jump out of a window… or push someone out of a window.

Virgil turned back into his office and took a seat behind his desk. Janus unhappily followed him in and sat across from him.

He took his time pulling up whatever the TPI sent him and reading it over. “So, I see you failed your recovery mission and were arrested in 1923.”

 “It wasn’t like that,” Janus said. “I shouldn’t be here.”

Virgil gave him that same suspicious look he used to give Janus whenever Janus claimed to have not eaten his hot pockets out of the freezer in the middle of the night. He’d only been lying 80% of the time. Virgil had a tendency to forget what he’d eaten in a half-conscious state at 3 o’clock in the morning.

“I shouldn’t,” Janus snapped defensively. “Nothing went wrong with anyone from the time period. An illegal time traveler screwed up the mission details.”

“Well, it is still protocol to make sure nothing slipped when agents go off script. You weren’t prepared to be in a jail cell, and it is possible that you screwed something up.”

 “I didn’t screw anything up,” Janus growled.

“Alright,” Virgil said pulling up a document on his desk. “The mission started on July 27th, 1923 at 9:58pm, correct?”

“Oh, god, we’re not really going to fill out a time sheet. I don’t have time for that today.”

“It is protocol and best that the information is documented when it is still fresh in your mind. Besides, your schedule has been cleared for the rest of the workday.” The bastard was enjoying this. He knew how much Janus hated this stuff.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Janus said, “it was the damned illicit time traveler.”

“And I will be the judge of that,” Virgil said. Janus should have just bit the bullet and had coffee with his brother. “If you truly did nothing wrong, your supervisor will see that when I send this to her.”

 Yet, despite the fact that Virgil clearly relished in his suffering, he was charitable enough to do most of the actual filling out of the forms. He’d read out the questions and write down what Janus said instead of making him do it himself. Janus really only had to do a quick quality check and sign it at the end.

He still was an asshole about the details, but really he’d been like that about stupid thing like the settings for the dish washer and how the pantry was organized during their college days before they’d had their falling out, so Janus wasn’t particularly surprised. When they were finally done, Virgil sent it off to get filed by the TPI.

 Then, they were left staring at each other with nothing between them but almost a decade of radio silence and a whole lot of awkwardness.

“I should go,” Janus finally said, standing up.

Virgil tilted his head slightly to the side and gave him a half smile. “Don’t lock the door behind you,” he said. “Not that I’d expect you too.”

Janus took it for the clear attempt at a joke it was intended to be and puffed out a breath of amusement with a head shake. “No risk of that,” he said. Then, he turned and walked out of the office.

 Chapter 5

Janus stepped back into the reception area and booted up his time piece. Instinct said to go back to the office despite the fact that it was late enough that most people had gone home, but he hesitated. Surely Emile had given up by now, but considering he’d sent someone to ambush him in his office, Janus wasn’t sure if he should trust that. He could just go home, but he already knew his mind was racing too much to sleep tonight so he’d probably just end up staring at the lake for the next 6 hours. So, he decided on the only other legitimate option he had. He pulled up Remus’s home coordinates and selected.

 The home that Remus had chosen (after his long line of rejected requests) managed to somehow make no and absolute sense simultaneously to anyone who knew him. It was a small farm in the United States just west of the Mississippi in 1842 in what would be ratified as the state of Iowa in a few years. When asked why he would choose that time and place, Remus always responded with “I thought it was funny,” whatever that meant.

Unlike most time agents who simply used the identities assigned to them by the AMO as a cover, Remus actually lived his part time.

 Janus was… fairly certain he was cheating a bit to get everything done, but he maintained his small farm all on his own, growing most of his own food. The neighbors he had lived very far away, but he still spoke with them far more than Janus did his own.

Janus appeared inside the small home, his eyes already shut. “Are you hear and dressed?” Janus called. Something bumped lightly into his legs.

“I’m in the kitchen!”

Janus peaked his eyes open and squatted to pet the cat at his feet. “That doesn’t answer my question!” he called back to Remus.

 “It’s a surprise!” Remus said.

“Remus.” Diesel Fuel the cat flopped to her side on the ground as Janus continued to pet her ears. He heard Remus’s footsteps, and saw cloth covering his legs, so risked looking up. He was currently not only dressed, but wearing an apron that Janus was fairly sure was not time appropriate judging by the fabric and cat pawprint design. He had a bit of flour on his hands, and it may have been a bit too white for the time and place, but Janus couldn’t be completely sure.

“What’re you doing here?” Remus asked.

 “My day has been an endless series of frustrations,” Janus said. “So, I have come to see the only tolerable being in the history of the universe.”

Remus snorted. “Since I know that isn’t me, I’ll assume you’re talking about the cat.”

“I still don’t understand why you tolerate this creature,” Janus addressed Diesel Fuel. She blinked slowly up at him. “To be fair, he was assigned as my partner. I didn’t have much of a choice in it. You could go always run away and become feral in the woods if you’d like.”

“So could you, technically,” Remus pointed out.

“I’m thinking about it after today.”

 “Would you like some bread?” Remus asked. “That’s all I’ve been making this afternoon. Some fresh should be coming out of the oven in a few minutes.”

“Do you have anything stronger made out of wheat?”

“Ew, no, but I do have vodka.”

“Vodka works.”

“Want me to mix it with something?”

“No.”

“One of those night then,” Remus said, easily. “Let me finish up the bread, so I don’t burn the kitchen down. You can go get the alcohol from the cellar while you wait if you want, or you can just flop down on the couch.”

He was going to just flop down on the couch.

 He did just that as Remus disappeared back into his kitchen. The cat hopped onto his stomach, proceeding to purr loudly and kneed at chest. Janus petted the cat and listened to the noise of Remus moving around in the other room, letting his mind drift. His mind drifted to Virgil for a bit and he steadfastly did not allow it to drift to his brother. Yet, the thing that most was on his mind was the strange man who had flirted and charmed Janus all night before mercilessly screwing him over. ‘Pat’ he’d said his name was, but surely that was not his real name.

 Janus sighed and scratched the cat’s ear. “He certainly wasn’t an amateur,” Janus mused to the cat. “With that amount of precision to get in before we did, he must have someone not on the ground feeding him information. Perhaps more than one.” He was part of a group of time traveling thieves perhaps or something worse. “I didn’t get a good look at his face since he was wearing a mask,” Janus said, “but I spent a lot of time with him, and I’m sure Remy swiped the mask from the police since it had been on me when I was arrested. It’s a good lead.”

 He continued to pet Diesel Fuel. Eventually, Remus came back in, noticed Janus hadn’t bothered to get the alcohol and went outside to the cellar. “I’m going to find him,” Janus told Diesel Fuel. “I’ll stop whatever it is he’s doing, and I’ll bring him in.” Diesel Fuel mewed her support, and Janus patted her on top of the head.

Remus came back in with the bottle of vodka and handed it to him without a word. He sat down on the couch near Janus’s feet and patted his lap so Diesel Fuel would come over to him and allow Janus to sit up.

 The bastard waited until he was approximately 3 shots in (he didn’t have a shot glass and was just taking drinks from the bottle) to ask the questions Janus really didn’t want to answer. “Are you mad at Emile?” Remus asked.

Janus groaned, trying to wash out the bitter taste of shame and grief with the sharp sting of vodka. It didn’t work. “No,” he said to Remus.

“Then why have you been avoiding him?”

“Shit, I’m here because I didn’t want to think about it. Can’t we just not.”

“Don’t want to think about what?

“It’s none of your business, Remus.”

 He could feel Remus frowning at him, but Janus stared resolutely ahead. At least, he did until a foot poked his face. He slapped it away, but it did the job of getting Janus to look at Remus.

“It is my business,” Remus said, foot still in the air. “I’m your partner and your friend.”

“If I’m your friend, you’ll drop it.”

“So, you’re not mad at Emile,” Remus continued, contemplatively. “Did you do something to him, then?” Janus bit his lip and looked away. “What?” Remus asked. Janus didn’t respond. “Look, I’m sure he’ll forgive you for whatever it is. He’s a good guy. Just talk to him about it.”

 “I can’t,” Janus said.

“Whatever it is, it’s probably been long enough that he forgives you. You literally just have to have a conversation, say you’re sorry, and everything will be A-OK.”

“I can’t,” Janus repeated.

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t know about it.”

Remus paused. “So, as far as he knows, you just cut contact with him all of a sudden for no reason and have been avoiding him ever since?”

Janus looked at his shoes. “Yeah.”

“That…” Remus said, “is not fucking fair Janus.”

“I know.”

“Then why the hell are you doing that to him? He’s like… soft and feeling-y. He’s probably really upset.”

 “I know, Remus.”

“Tell him. Whatever it is.”

“I can’t.”

“Look,” Remus said. “You tell him and he either forgives you or he doesn’t. If he does, everything’s fine. If he doesn’t… well, it’s not like it would be any different from you two never being in the same room the last few years. Either way, you can’t just do this to him. He’ll probably forgive you. He’s your brother. Brothers don’t… brothers would forgive each other.”

Janus laughed softly and met Remus’s eyes. “That’s the problem,” he said. “He’d definitely forgive me.” He turned away and opened the vodka bottle again. “Now, if you’ll shut up for a few minutes, I’m going to drink until I black out.”

 Chapter 6

“Really, Khalid,” Janus said, storming into his boss’s office. “A yellow?” It had been about a week since the 1920s incident, and his incident report had finally been cleared. Sure, it wasn’t a red or a black and he wasn’t facing any reprimand, but it should have been a green.

She looked up at him, clearly unconcerned. “There was an incident,” she said. “You handled it well, but there was one. Therefore, yellow.”

“It wasn’t a time travel incident! It was a rouge time traveler.”

“Janus, you helped me make these rules,” she said impatiently.

“Which is why I know this is bullshit,” he snapped.

 She rolled her eyes. “If it was anyone else, you would agree with me. While you didn’t go against protocol and had no time related incidents, the fact of the matter is, you were still distracted by this ‘rouge time traveler,’ didn’t complete your mission, and were arrested.”

“He was good,” Janus said. “You can’t fault me for that. He also could be dangerous and you’re busy handing out yellows instead of working to track him down.”

She raised an eyebrow. “We are working on tracking him down,” she said. “We have done an analysis on the mask and found fibers dating to the 2010s and some DNA. Though it isn’t exactly a high priority.”

 “We have no idea who he is or what he’s planning to do. Why is that not a high priority thing?”

“At the moment?” she asked. “Because we have reports of a time bomb being activated.”

“What?” Janus asked sitting up. “When?”

“New Years Eve going into the year 3,000 in Brazil,” she said. “Which you’d know about if you’d bothered to check your integration port this morning before storming into my office.”

“It’s my mission?” Janus asked.

“The incident investigation is over and your active again despite the dreaded yellow,” she said, clearly making fun of him a bit. “So, yes, and it’s a high priority mission, so I’ll be running it.”

 “Who all is going?” he asked.

“Other than the two of us, Remus, Lena, and Fred,” she told him. “We leave in three hours, so, you might want to run off to Rhi before Fred gets to her and ties her up for an hour on details.”

Janus nodded and got to his feet. He turned back at the door. “I still don’t deserve the yellow,” he hissed.

She waved him off. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Picani.”

He ground his teeth a bit about the dismissal of his worries, but his resentment was slightly soothed by the fact that she’d assigned him to go on such a high priority mission and with only senior agents.

 He took the advice and grabbed Remus from the office, noting Lena hadn’t been able to wrangle Fred yet as she was still at her desk, and they both headed off to see Rhi.

A few hours later, they were all in decontamination together, decked out in truly god-awful costumes. The turn of the third millennia had been a wild event, and the best way to fit in was to look like you’d grabbed something from every century in recorded human history, dyed it in neon paint, and rolled around in a vat of glitter.

Remus had opted to stick his head in a vat of glow in the dark green paint that costuming had offered them, and it wasn’t even going to be slightly disruptive to their covertness.

 In fact, costuming had frowned when Janus had insisted he not get his hair dyed and instead wore a bowler hat. They had required him to have flowers made out of glitter on it.

There were five people waiting for them when they landed 6 hours before the turn of the millennia. Three were touchdown agents, including Remy, and two were on location tech support. Usually it would be overkill to have that many people there just for support even with five agents in the field, but today the TPI needed to be cautious because they were planning on instituting a time lock.

Time bombs were dangerous things that would ripple through time if not contained. Even if it did end up going off (killing everyone in its reach), the time lock would serve to prevent most damage outside of the city and, more importantly, the year it was planted.

 Janus had only been in two time locks before, and he was one of the most senior agents in the TPI, outranked only by the founder: Lia Khalid. Time locks were designed to keep all time linear in a certain fixed time and geographical area as well as prevent any time travel in and out. Once it was engaged, all forms of time travel would not work for the duration, bar the pin device. Khalid was already switching out her regular timepiece with the slightly bigger one that was designed to support the time lock.

There was a failsafe back at the TPI that could be engaged in an emergency, which was why tech support was here, but other than that, the only thing that could break the time lock was that timepiece, and it would break the moment the time lock ended.

 As soon as it was on Khalid’s wrist, she looked up at them all. “Our information says the time bomb was planted in the costume of one of the ‘Millennium Birds’ who are the organizers of the different events,” she said. Janus had seen a photo of the identical costumes in the mission details. They were all robe like garments with giant fans of feathers coming from the neck that coalesced in a peak a foot above their head to hold a fake bird egg. At least they’d be easy to find. “There are 25 of them throughout the city. We need to find each of them. So, we don’t double count, you’ll need to subtly,” her eyes touched on Remus, “scan each one you find for the bomb and tag them with a tracker if it’s not on them. You can view the already tagged ones, as well as the rest of us on your timepiece even once the time lock is engaged. When you find the bomb, call it in.”

 They all nodded, and Khalid looked over at one of the techies. She nodded at her and then the techie flipped a couple of switches. “Three, two, one,” the techie said. There was a slight shift in the air that most people would disregard, but Janus as a seasoned time traveler could feel the change even before his wrist buzzed. He glanced at his timepiece to see it had a big red ‘X’ across its display. He tapped it and was still able to bring up the map of the city with 10 green dots on it all clustered together in their current location.

 After that, he tested the scanner on his timepiece that he would use to search for the bomb, just to make sure the time lock hadn’t messed anything up with his equipment. He glanced up to see everyone else was doing the same.

“Keep in contact,” Khalid said before everyone split up. Janus and Remus started by going North while Fredrick and Darlene were to go South. Khalid was a floater who would tag any Birds she saw but was mostly there for backup and orders.

Janus and Remus stepped into the chaos of New Years Eve before the turn of the third millennia. The streets were already swamped with people and it would only be getting worse the later it go.

“Where should we start?” Remus asked.

 “Let’s go all the way North to the games area,” Janus said. “We can work our way back here.”

“Okay!” Remus said. “I wonder if they have those fun little genetically modified goldfish as prizes. I’ve always wanted to eat one and see if I end up getting whatever design was on the fish on my body.”

Janus gave him a disgusted look.

“What?! People eat fish all the time!”

Janus shook his head. “We’re not playing the games anyway. We have work to do. Important work.”

“Boo,” Remus replied. Janus chose to ignore him as he spotted one of the Millenia Birds letting people into the gaming area.

 They walked over towards the entrance. Janus got in range first and moved to subtly scan the Millenia Bird, Remus doing the same the next moment. After a second, Janus’s timepiece buzzed and lit up red, meaning the bomb was within range. “Well, that was easy,” he said. “It was on the first one we found.”

“Uh…” Remus said. “Jan.” When Janus looked, he was holding up his wrist to show his green lit time piece.

“What?” Janus asked. He quickly moved to rescan the Millenia Bird, and his timepiece came up green as well. Which, meant the bomb was not in range, even though the Millenia Bird had not moved. “But…” He and Remus’s eyes met, and they quickly both started turning in a circle to look at the crowd around him. No one looked like they’d just stolen a time bomb off the Millennial Bird, but then Janus’s eyes caught on a man. He blended in perfectly to his surroundings. He was wearing the disgusting garb of the times, a large light blue piece that bubbled near his hips, and had most of his skin covered in rainbow neon paints. Yet, something about him, the curl of his hair or the way he moved, drew Janus’s eyes to him. He recognized the man immediately even in a completely different dressing style. Yet, what cinched it was the moment Janus’s eyes met his and they seemed to sparkle slightly in the afternoon sun. The next moment, the person Janus knew as Pat, turned to disappear into the crowd.

 Chapter 7

“Him,” was the only thing Janus said before taking off after the figure who had just disappeared into the game area.

“What?” Remus’s voice followed after him. “Janus! What?!”

Janus did not pause, just continuing to run after Pat, hopping over two barricades as a shortcut. Janus cursed when he lost sight of the man for just a moment near the prize table filled with colorful goldfish, but he was able to spot him once again walking into one of the tents. Janus blasted into the tent. It was a game where they raced rats, and when Janus entered, Pat was cooing at one of them.

 “Who’s a tiny little squishy precious baby?” he was asking one of them, wiggling his pointer finger at it.

“You,” Janus growled stepping up to him.

He turned and tilted his head at Janus with a frown. “Um, me?” he asked, pointing to his chest, all sorts of innocent, but Janus could see a spot of hidden amusement in his eyes.

“Where is it?”

His eyebrows drew together, but it was an act. It was clearly an act! “Where is what?”

“The…” he glanced around them at the people surrounding them. “Thing you just took.”

“I didn’t take anything,” Pat said with a frown.

 “Oh, no,” Janus said. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fooling me twice is not an option.”

“I’m sorry sir,” Pat said. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bull. Shit.”

Just then, Remus jogged into the tent. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“It’s him,” Janus said pointing. “He took it. He has it.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about,” Patton said. He looked over to Remus with a confused frown.

Remus looked at Janus. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “It’s him. It has to be him. He’s the mask guy.”

Remus squinted at Pat. “He is?”

“Whoever you think I am, I’m not. I haven’t worn a mask all night. I just did the face paint,” he pointed to his cheeks.

 Remus raised his wrist and his timepiece lit up green. He looked at Janus.

“I lost sight of him for five seconds. He must have stashed it somewhere,” Janus said. He turned on Pat. “Where did you put it?”

“…Are you,” Pat asked, his eyes going back and forth between Janus and Remus, “… the police?”

“We are, actually,” Khalid said as she stepped into the tent. Remus must have called her. She inserted herself between Janus and Pat. “Agent Khalid,” she said, offering a hand with a smile. Pat looked at it in surprise and then smiled back hesitantly as he took it. “Apologizes, one of the big game prizes was stolen by someone matching your description. Would you mind coming down to security for questioning? Just to clear it up.”

 “Oh,” Patton said, hesitant. Janus expected him to refuse outright, but then he said. “Uh, sure.”

“Thank you very much, Mr…”

“Jonas,” Pat told her earnestly. “Do I need to be handcuffed?”

“No,” Khalid said. Janus frowned at her, but she ignored him. “It’s just a talk for now.” She gestured to the tent entrance. “Come with us.”

He did without argument, and Remus and Janus followed behind the both of them. Khalid did not lead them back to the base, but to a little spot that said “security” near the center of the event. Remy was already there waiting for them at a desk.

 “Remy, would you please take Mr. Jonas to go sit down?” she asked.

“Sure, boss,” Remy said, standing up. He led Pat away.

Khalid turned to Janus and Remus once they were out of earshot. “What is going on?”

“It’s the mask man,” Janus said, “the one from 1923, and my scanner said the time bomb was on the Millenia Bird outside the games entrance, but then it was gone the next second, and I saw him, and then he ran away.”

“So, does he have it on him?”

“No. I lost sight of him, and he must have stored it somewhere, but I know he took it.”

10264

“He’s the man from 1923?” she asked.

“Yes! Remus, that’s him, right? You recognize him.”

“Well,” Remus said thoughtfully. “He was in a mask, and it was dark in the room with the necklace. Other than that, I only really saw his back, and he was wearing pants. Mr. Jonas is wearing a dress, so I can’t really tell if their asses match.”

“Okay, but I was with him for hours. I swear it’s him, and I swear he took it,” Janus just about shouted.

“We’ll question him,” Khalid placated, “and Fred and Lena will keep looking in the meantime.”

 “He knows where it is,” Janus insisted. “I swear.”

“Okay,” Khalid said, before leaving to follow where Remy and Pat had gone. She stopped Janus with a hand on his shoulder. “I think Remus and I will do the interrogation.” He opened his mouth to argue. “You know the most about him, so observe from the sidelines and see if he makes any mistakes that indicate you’re right.”

“That’s just to placate me and you know it.”

“Observation’s over there,” she said pointing.

He got a thumbs up from Remus as he walked by, and Janus glared at his back before walking off to the indicated location.

 He watched as Remus and Khalid entered the room, and Remy left it. Remy joined him in the observation room after leaving and leaned against the wall.

Pat was sitting at a table and watched Remus and Khalid with that same rubbish placid confusion that he had before. “So,” Khalid said, “Mr. Jonas.”

“You can call me Nick,” Pat interrupted.

“Lia,” Khalid replied. He smiled at her happily. “So, are you enjoying your day?” she asked.

“I am!” he replied. “It’s a big day. You only get to see the turn of a millennia once in your life.”

“Ah, yes,” Khalid said. “Doing anything special for it?”

 “Um, not really,” he said. “Other than the party. I’m going to meet up with my roommates after dinner. Kevin doesn’t like this sort of thing, and Joe couldn’t come.”

“Your roommates,” Khalid said, considering him. “Do you live around here?”

“Uh huh,” Pat replied.

“Do you have any ID?”

“I do, want me to get it?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Pat unzipped one of the bubbles on his waist and handed her a chip. “Remus, would you mind going out and getting the ID scanner?” she asked, even though her timepiece would be able to read it.

“Ah, shit,” Remy said. “Props. What do those things even look like?”

 As Remy scrambled to find something that would pass for an ID reader so “Nick” didn’t get suspicious of Khalid using her timepiece, Janus watched the two alone in the room like a hawk.

“I see you’re wearing a dress inspired by the 2770s,” Khalid noted, as Remus came to stand next to him.

“Yeah!” Pat replied. “Joe made it for me. He’s really good at fashion design!”

“Can I see?” she asked.

With a happy smile, he reached over the table to let her get a look of the sleeves. Janus saw her subtly scan the fabric, probably to make sure it was from the 2990s and not actually from the 2770s. Considering she didn’t mention it, Janus assumed it checked out.

 Remy came back with some sort of device then and handed it to Remus who saluted and wandered back into the interrogation room. Khalid pretended to scan the ID in her hand. She handed it back to him without comment. “So, you said you live with your roommates: Joe and Kevin?” she asked.

“Yep!” he replied. “We’re practically like brothers.”

“Would you mind calling them?”

“Erm,” he titled his head like he was confused by the question. “Well, like I said, Joe is a bit busy, but I could definitely call Kevin.

“Here,” Khalid said, “use my phone.”

“I have my own,” he said with a frown.

“Humor me,” she requested.

“Uh, okay,” Pat agreed. He took the offered 2999 phone and dialed a number on it. Khalid reached over to put it on speaker.

“Hello?” a voice asked after a few seconds.

“Um, hey Kevin, it’s Nick.”

There was a sigh on the other end. “Hello Nick, is something wrong? Why are you calling me from someone else’s phone?”

“I’m fine, I think.” He looked up at Khalid. “Why am I calling him exactly?”

“Hello, I’m Officer Khalid,” Khalid said. “I just wanted to confirm that you are Nick Jonas’s roommate, and he does live in Manaus.”

“Yes, we live together with our other roommate,” the man replied flippantly. “Officer? Is something wrong?”

“I believe there was just a case of mistaken identity,” Khalid said.

“Bullshit there was!” Janus hissed, though she could not hear him.

“No need to worry,” Khalid continued.

“I’m good Kevin,” Pat said.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Kevin asked.

“Don’t be Paranoid, Kevin. I’ll see you Tonight for the New Years Celebration. You know I Live to Party.”

“I am hanging up now,” Kevin said.

“No! Comeback.” The line went dead. Pat handed the device back to Khalid.

She took it and smiled at him. “Give us just a couple of minutes,” she requested. He nodded easily, and she and Remus exited the interrogation room. “I… think we’re done here,” Khalid said.

“No, he’s lying,” Janus insisted, and got a dubious look in return. “I know he is! Remus!”

“The alibi is pretty solid…” Remus said, “and he doesn’t have the bomb on him.”

“Oh, come on,” Janus said. “You can’t say there is nothing fishy going on here.”

Khalid and Remus shared a look. “Janus,” Khalid said. “I respect your intuition. It is usually very good, but you have been a bit intense about the man from the 1920s, and I think that may be blinding you a bit...”

“I am not imagining this!” Janus said. “That’s him and he took it.”

“You only met him once while he was wearing a mask,” Khalid pointed out with a frown, “and you didn’t see him take the bomb, did you?”

“No, but he looked at me and I knew,” Janus argued. They both gave him a skeptical look. “Oh, come on!”

“You know that’s a little weak, Jan,” Remus said.

“Let me talk to him,” Janus requested. “Just give me five minutes to talk with him.”

Khalid raised one eyebrow. “Fine,” she agreed. “You have five minutes, but after that, you have to let it go. We can’t waste any more time.”

 Chapter 8

Pat looked up as Janus stepped into the interrogation room. “Hi,” he said with an innocent smile that could cut steal.

Janus didn’t say a word as he took a seat; he just watched him intently. He leaned slightly over the table and steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “So, your name is Nick this time?” Janus asked.

“Nicholas Jonas,” he said. “Always has been.”

“Stop it,” Janus said.

“Stop what?”

“Cut the crap. I know.”

Pat leaned forward, mirroring Janus as he leaned closer, interlocking his fingers and laying his chin on top of his knuckles. “What did you say your name was again?” he asked, pleasantly.

 “Janus,” Janus replied.

“No, I’m Jonas,” he said, pointing to his chest.

“Not Jonas,” Janus spat. “Janus.”

“Um,” Pat said, eyes alight with amusement. The bastard. “Those are the same words.”

“No, they’re not. It’s Janus. J-A-N-U.-S.”

“Well, that’s confusing,” Pat said with a frown, but his nose was crinkling. “It’s close to my name. You should go by a nickname instead.”

“What?” Janus said. “No.”

Pat hummed. “How about Love Bug?”

“What! No!” Janus sputtered, almost flipping the table, as Pat winked at him.

“BB Good?”

“What does that even mean?!”

“Mandy.”

“No!”

“Okay, okay, how about Macy Misa.”

11594

Janus stared at him for a moment. “Fine. Whatever. What was I even talking about?”

“Hmm. I Believe we were talking about my name and how you think it’s not my name.”

“Right,” Janus said. “So, Nick. That was your roommate, Kevin on the phone, right? He seemed a bit unhappy with you. Any reason?”

“Nah, we’re Cool” said Pat. “That’s Just the Way We Roll.”

“Not because you’re messing up a mission right now?”

Pat’s eyes crinkled together. “A mission?” he parroted. “I’m not messing up a mission.”

“Oh, really?” Janus growled. “Because you’ve been captured by the TPI, and I know who you are and what you’ve been doing.”

“I have no idea what the TPI is,” he claimed.

“Yes, you do!” Janus said, standing up. “You obviously do! Or you wouldn’t be playing this game!”

 “Game?” Pat asked. “Macy I ask you what you’re talking about.”

“This is all just a game to you isn’t it!” Janus said, slamming his hands down on the table in front of them.

“Whoa,” Pat said, putting his hands up. “Calm down. Your face is getting all red. You must be Burnin’ Up.”

“I’m not sure what, but something about what you just said pisses me off.”

“And that is five minutes,” Khalid said, bursting into the room. He felt a tug on the back of his shirt and glared back at Remus who was putting his own body between Janus and Pat.

 “There was no way that was five minutes,” Janus growled.

“It was five minutes,” Khalid gritted out. “Remus, get him out of here.”

“Come on Jay,” Remus said, dragging him back towards the door.

“Remus, I swear to god.”

“Just chill, Janus,” Remus said, slamming the door closed behind them.

Janus shrugged him off. “You chill!” he snapped. “He’s playing you all for the fool.”

“Wow, Macy,” Remy drawled like an asshole. “I’ve never seen you so fired up.”

“Oh, my gosh. No one is going to believe me, and he’s going to get away with this.”

“You’re not really helping your case, babe,” Remy said.

 Remus grabbed him by the shoulders again. “Here, let’s go get some water.”

“I don’t want water,” he said even as he let Remus lead him to another room to get a glass of water.

“Look,” Remus said. “I know the Mask Guy thing really sucked, but you have to look at the facts.

“I am looking at the facts,” Janus insisted, “and the facts are, he’s fucking with me.”

“You don’t know what mask guy looks like,” Remus said. “You didn’t see Nick take the time bomb, he has an ID from this time period and a roommate in this time he called on the phone, and he legitimately seems to not know what any of us are talking about.”

 “Did you even listen to our conversation?” Janus asked. “He was screwing with me the entire time!”

“Janus…” Remus said.

“What?” Janus said, narrowing his eyes at Remus’s tone.

“I know you recently had a bad experience, but not everyone who flirts with you is doing it out of evil.”

Janus’s mouth hung open for a few seconds. “That’s what you got out of our conversation?”

“He called you Love Bug.”

Janus felt his face heat a bit at the reminder. “That’s not… I. I’m stealing your cat and then never speaking to you again.”

Remus laughed. “Ah,” he said. “Young lust.”

Janus elbowed him roughly in the side. “No!”

“Yes!” he crooned, pleased.

 “You are the worst partner,” Janus hissed. “When I’m right you owe me 10 loafs of your fresh bread.”

“Branching out from poptarts?” Remus asked.

Janus shook his head. He still wasn’t happy about the state of things, but he could feel himself cooling down a bit.

Khalid came out of the integration room after a few minutes, leaving Pat with Remy. “What was that?” she asked him.

“He got under my skin,” Janus said.

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “For now, we’re letting him go and then going back to looking for the bomb like we’re meant to be.”

 “Fine,” Janus relented. “Just do me the favor of tagging him before he leaves. Just that. I beg of you.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “If it will calm you down.”

He nodded.

“Then, let’s go,” she said. When they met back up with Remy and Pat, he saw Khalid make the subtle gesture that would tag Pat like they would have for the Millennium Birds. Pat sent him what could pass as a sweet smile if Janus didn’t know better. Then, they walked him outside, leaving Remy on clean-up duty for the make-shift security office.

“So, I’m free to go?” Pat asked. His bemused expression edged far too much on the side of amused verses confused for Janus’s taste.

 “You are,” Khalid said. “Have fun at the festivities.”

His hands went flapping about. “Oh, you too!” he said. “Well, I guess you’re working, but you can have fun anyway, I’m sure.”

“We’ll do our best,” she said.

He gave her a blinding smile and reached forward to shake her hand enthusiastically. Janus rolled his eyes and looked up at the heavens. “It was nice to meet you!” he said, “and you too, Remus!” He turned to meet Janus’s eyes. “Macy Misa.”

Janus pressed his lips together.

Then, Pat turned and walked away.

“Well, now that we’re done with that,” Khalid said, turning to them. “We have only a few more hours before midnight and we really need to find the time bomb.

 “Oh,” Pat called. He’d paused a few yards away and turned back to them. “Thanks for letting me go so easily by the way,” he said, “and just in the Nick,” he winked, “of time too.” Janus narrowed his eyes at him. He smiled back. “Wrist check,” he said holding up his arm to show off the timepiece there. Khalid immediately looked down at her own wrist just to see that the one timepiece that could move through the time lock was no longer there. Pat made a gesture and disappeared.

All three of them stared at the spot he’d been for a long moment.

Janus was the one to speak first. “I want. The yellow. To be erased. From my record.”

 Chapter 9

Khalid immediately called everyone back to base.

“What happened?” asked Fred when he and Lena arrived. The tech people were already scrambling to get through to the TPI and get the time lock broken from the outside.

“Remus, Remy, and Khalid got played by Pat or whatever his name is. It certainly isn’t Nick. He was just setting up a joke,” Janus told him.

“Stop being smug,” Remy said. “It’s not a good look for you.”

“Pat is…?” Lena asked.

“They guy who fucked me over in 1923,” Janus said, “and is currently in the middle of fucking us all over because he stole the pin timepiece, and by extrapolation, probably the time bomb too.”

 “It will be fine,” said Khalid, “because what he doesn’t know is that timepiece has a tracker on it. Wherever and whenever he went, we’ll have his coordinates.”

“Speaking of,” one of the techies said. “It’s about to break. You might want to hold onto something.” Janus grabbed for a support beam next to him as the techie put a device on the ground in the center of the base. It blinked once, twice, and on the third blink the ground rumbled. There were sounds of panicked yelps outside. The fail safe for the time lock was not nearly as gentle as ending it correctly.

 Everything settled after a few moments, and they all straightened themselves out. Janus’s timepiece buzzed to indicate it was now functioning normally. Khalid had returned her usual timepiece to her wrist and now used it to open a display they could all see. “The pin timepiece’s closest time/space coordinates are…” she trailed off. “Right outside?” She frowned. “That’s strange. Why would he still be here?” She turned to march outside, following the coordinates to a trash can. She pulled the pin timepiece out and stared at it. “Fuck,” she said.

“What just happened?” Remy asked.

“He ticked us,” Janus said. “Again.”

 “He was stuck in the time lock,” Khalid said. “That’s why he got our attention. He couldn’t leave with the time bomb unless he had the pin timepiece or we broke the time lock. Apparently, he’s smart enough to know that if he took the pin timepiece away from here, we’d probably be able to find him, but he knew we’d break the lock as soon as the pin went missing. So, he must have stashed his own timepiece and went back in time within the time lock to grab it while we were distracted with the past version of him. As soon as the time lock went down, I imagine he left.”

 “Probably with the time bomb,” Janus said.

“Probably with the time bomb,” she confirmed.

And everyone knew the only thing worse than a time bomb was a time bomb you didn’t know the location of.

They evacuated after that, of course, and time locked the location once they were out just in case they were wrong, but midnight 3000 struck without thousands of people dying in Brazil, so the time bomb had defiantly been removed from then.

The, they initiated a time travel lockdown for all nonessentials, not willing to let random history students get caught up in an explosion if Pat decided to set the thing off somewhere.

 Then, it was a matter of figuring out everything they could about ‘Pat.’ First, they checked the tracker data as Khalid had tagged him with one of the Millennium Bird trackers. It wouldn’t work outside of the zone they’d set up that day, but the record would show his behavior during the time lock after he’d escaped with the pin timepiece.

There had been many little green dots on the map that day as Fred and Lena had actually been doing the job they’d set out to do, but most of those were running around in the south. There had been one green dot, however, that appeared suddenly in the game area about 10 minutes before the time bomb had been stolen.

 They could see Janus’s yellow dot almost brush his when he’d been chasing the earlier Pat down, around when he’d lost him briefly. The earlier Pat must have all but handed it off to his future self.

“He doubled back,” Remus commented when they watched the recorded data. It was a ballsy move and one that most people balked at, because there were inherent dangers any time you interacted with yourself from a different point in the timestream. It was ripe for paradoxes. It made everyone at the agency even more worried, because if he was willing to risk that, then what else was he willing to do?

 Because of the lockdown of all nonessential time travel, people working for the TPI were not allowed to go home for the night. They were allowed to pick up anyone or anything dependent on them for care like kids and pets if there wasn’t someone in their home time to care for them, but other than that, they were unfortunately all sleeping in their offices for the foreseeable future.

“You are the only tolerable one,” Janus told the cat who upon being let loose in the office by Remus, immediately jumped on Janus’s lap.

“I have literally done nothing to you,” Lena said, but then added. “Yet.”

 “You exist. In my space.”

“Can’t we just all get along?” asked Fred. “It’s only been an hour past when we’d usually go home. I went and grabbed milk and I have my giant thing of different flavored hot chocolate under my desk. We can try them all and vote on which is better.”

“Fuck your hot chocolate, Fred,” Janus growled, having been one of the three who had chipped in to buy it for him on his last birthday.

“Don’t go after Fred, jackass,” Lena spat.

“He’s just testy because his boyfriend escaped,” Remus contributed.

Janus’s lips turned down into a frown and he cupped Diesel Fuel’s face. “We agree we’re eating him first, right?” he asked her.

 She purred her agreement.

“I’d have it no other way,” Remus replied.

“There is plenty of food,” Fred said, sounding stressed. “In fact, I was thinking we should all chip in on ordering take-out soon. “What does everyone like on pizza?”

“This is not a slumber party, Fred,” Janus pointed out.

“Shut it,” Lena snapped and turned to Fred. “I’m fine with almost everything, except…”

“Bananas and tuna salad!” Remus interrupted.

“…whatever Remus is about to say.”

Janus rolled his eyes as that started a debate about whether or not fruit and/or fish belonged on pizza. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, which was when there was a knock on the door.

 He froze when he heard the familiar voice. “Hello, hello,” said Emile, cheerfully. Janus looked up to see Emile standing at the open office door. Shit. Apparently, the man had decided to give up on sending lackeys to come fetch him and had decided to track him down himself when Janus couldn’t even escape without breaking a time lockdown. They met eyes briefly and Janus could see irritation if not anger in his eyes despite his otherwise cheerful expression and tone.

“Janus,” he said when he’d gotten their attention. “I’d like to have dinner with you.” The word choice told Janus everything he needed to know. Usually Emile was careful with how he said things to make sure people knew they had a choice. Typically he’d say something like, “I was wondering if you’d have time to have dinner with me tonight,” or “I’m about to go get food, would you like to come?” Today, there was no choice in the statement.

 Janus still dried to dodge anyway. “Uh,” he said. “We were actually about to order pizza.”

“Go ahead,” said Fred kindly. Janus wanted to strangle him. “We can order pizza with olives if you’re not here.”

“I…” said Janus. “Guess, I’ll be going with you.”

“Great!” Emile said. “Let’s go.”

“Oh,” Janus said. “Uh, now?”

“Now,” Emile said a bit of uncharacteristic steel to his tone.

 Well, Janus was screwed. He swallowed his nervousness and got to his feet, taking Diesel Fuel with him. He turned to hand her off to Remus with a plea in his eye, but he just got an eyebrow raise in return. Traitor.

Then, he followed Emile out of the office door. “What would you like to eat?” asked Emile.

“Uh,” Janus said. “I don’t know. You asked me to eat, don’t you have any ideas?”

“I don’t actually,” Emile replied. Right.

“…Noddle Bar?” Janus threw out the nearest restaurant he knew.

“The one noodle restaurant? Sure,” Emile answered simply. They walked side by side out of the front doors of the TPI building. Janus actually couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken these stairs. He usually used his timepiece to get in and out.

 The noodle bar was only moderately busy at this time. They were quickly able to find a table near the back and Emile pulled his menu up in front of him. Emile hummed as he flipped through the different displays. “What are you having?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Janus said, only then pulling up the menu himself, but still not quite looking at it.

“What about the fortune noodles,” Emile suggested.

Janus shook his head. “I don’t like those,” he said.

Emile glanced at him through the menu displays. “You used to.” Fortune noodles were a bit cheekily named. They didn’t actually indicate anything about your future. They were just supposed to taste like what you wanted from your future. A grad student might experience a feeling like they’d just aced a paper. A child that they got to stay up an hour later that night. Janus had liked the experience when he was younger, but in recent years, he’d begun to taste the underlying chemicals in the dish until that’s all he could.

 “Well,” Emile said lightly, eyes on his menu. “That makes me even more worried for your mental health than I already was because of the almost three years of you avoiding talking to me.”

“No small talk, huh?” Janus asked.

“Forgive me,” Emile said, eyes now focused on Janus, and tone much darker. “How has your life been since I last saw your face 5 months ago during a business meeting and you refused to look me in the eye? Anything interesting happen? Shave your head and let it all regrow? Develop an allergy to peanuts? Join a convent and take an oath of silence that you only just broke today?”

“No,” said Janus quietly into the table.

 “Great,” Emile said clipped. “Small talk over. Order your food.” Janus reached up blindly to select the first thing that came up on the food and drink menu as Emile punched something into his own and both menu displays disappeared, meaning there was nothing between their faces anymore. “You know, I was willing to give you a year,” Emile said. “I was willing to let you deal with it on your own because I thought eventually, you’d come talk to me about it, but apparently I was mistaken. The next year, I thought maybe you thought I didn’t want to talk to you, so I subtly made myself available, and you never took me up on the offer. I thought maybe I was just not being clear, and I should make my desire to talk to you more explicit, but as you have been routinely, clearly avoiding me at every single turn, I’ve decided I’ve had enough. So, let’s lay it all on the table. Is it me or do you need help?”

 Janus closed his eyes. “It’s not you.”

“Then you need help,” Emile concluded.

Janus shook his head.

“Yes,” Emile snapped. “Whatever this is has gone on far too long.”

Janus stood up and slammed his hand down on the table. “And it’s going to keep going on!” he said. The food popped up at that moment. It appeared Janus had ordered lasagna and bubble tea, and Emile had ordered something with spaghetti and a fizzy drink.

“So, you’re just planning to go on being miserable then?” Emile asked, and Janus wasn’t sure if it was worse or better that he didn’t sound angry anymore.

14656

Janus slapped his hand down on the “To Go” button and his dinner was insta-wrapped by the table. “Yes,” he said.

“What exactly do you think you’re paying penance for, Janus?” Emile asked.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Janus said, paying for both of their meals with his fingerprint.

“That’s a cop out and you know it,” Emile said. “All you’d have to do is talk to me. Or even just talk to someone else. Please.”

“Just…” Janus said, grabbing his bag of food to avoid looking at him. “Just, leave me be.” He walked out of the noodle shop without another word.

 Chapter 10

“And I thought Remus was going to be the most disgusting roommate in this equation,” Lena grumbled. Janus and Lena were apparently the earlier risers in the group as Fred was still curled up around a pillow and Remus was sprawled out under his desk.

Janus flipped her off.

“Protein infused Poptarts and caffeinated orange juice for breakfast?” she asked. “Just eat an energy bar and have a cup of coffee like a normal person.”

He took another pointed bite of his Poptart.

“You’re a horrible roommate. This is why they gave us different partners.”

“Yeah, well you snore, asshole,” Janus said after finishing off his meal.

 “I’d tell you to go eat shit, but you already did that once this morning.”

A pillow flew across the room and somehow managed to hit the both of them. “S’op fighting,” Fred mumbled. “It’s sleep time.”

“It’s morning Fred,” Lena said.

“No,” Fred mumbled.

Janus ignored them, turning back to his integration port to continue to keep plugging in phrases of interest, but he kept getting nothing.

“What are you doing?” Lena asked after a few moments of him huffing at his screen reader.

“Trying to do anything that may change our current living arrangements.”

She puffed out an amused breath. “Can I help?”

 “Can you see any connection between these words and phrases?” he asked, pulling away his screen reader and tapping at the words he’d typed out.

“Paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback, love Bug, BB good, Mandy, Macy Misa, I believe, cool, that’s just the way we roll, burnin’ up,” she said. “What are these?”

“They’re things Pat said when we interrogated that struck me funny,” Janus explained. “I feel like he was saying something more than what he said.”

“Hmm,” she said. “PTI for the first three?”

“Maybe,” Janus agreed, “but what about the rest of it? I feel like I’m missing something.”

15080

“Millennia,” Remus mumbled from under his desk. Janus hadn’t been aware he was awake. “He said something something about it being the only time he could see the change of the millennia.” He turned his head to look at Janus. “Considering he’s a time traveler, that’s definitely a weird thing to say.”

“Millennia,” Janus contemplated. “A different turn of the millennia. Oh no.”

“What?” Lena asked.

Janus sighed, and rubbed his temple. “I know someone who studied the 1700-2200s.”

“Isn’t that good?”

“No,” Janus groaned, “because now I have to go talk to him.” He stood with a sigh and then paused. “How do I even get to Silver Mountains University without my timepiece?”

[macgyvertape]

50 or so hours into Cyberpunk 2077

This should be roughly the correct amount of time, ive been leaving the game running as I get up to get food or do stretches. Quests are roughly in order I did them

non spoilers above cut:

 i haven't found a single hat/helmet i like, and since you can't hide them I just am not wearing any. It matters that much.

I posted the other day about bugs, every few hours I play I find new bugs. some require me to go back and reload a save others I honestly can’t tell if it’s a bug or just really poor development

there are several perks that don’t quite do what the description says, like the Anamesis perk. Based on reddit and trying it out it seems to just not do anything.

sometimes in car chase segments the passenger will say “look out” as cars spawn in my path and hit me. Can’t tell if that was deliberate or a pop in issue

Yeah I’ve just totally given up on doing pacifist things unless required by a mission. Given up on doing stealth too unless a mission objective, except for sneaking around to set up a fight.

:readmore:

the delemain car quest is fun. From the shock of the one going "beep beep motherfucker" and doing a hit and run to start it off, to the GLADOS car i see a lot of people talking about. It was fun to explore the city when i might have missed places like the landfill apparently there is follow up on T-bug's death if you go back to the quick hack shop in Kabuki. It's not much but better than nothing I made the pass with Panam of "what if the room just had one bed". I know she won't do a wlw romance, which is fine since I wouldn’t have chosen her.  I enjoy her as a character, don’t get me wrong, my V considers her as a friend, but it seems like theres always drama going on which would be tiring. I would have gone for a fling, i like her leotard-pants combo with all the straps

but also her questline was buggy as hell. Multiple cases of having to reload due to clipping into objects, including her in a driving section, or just insta-dying when collision physics with some rocks broke "your neural network can no longer function independantly of the chip" me slapping my desk: s y m b i o te!!! come on lets have some s y m b i o s i s

in the scene with hellman i really liked how Johnny moved around the room. It made him feel like he was really there. it was hard to follow the convo as I left the room, i would not have understood it without subtitles. But i guess Takemura fucking waterboarded hellman. :|

lol I hope the dialogue is different b/c i refuse to smoke for Johnny

i am level 18 and still can't beat the first opponents in the fist fighting quest. ffs

I looked up the romances options so I went to do the I fought the law quest as soon as i got it. ACAB, but like I literally just met River Ward 2 minutes ago, and I really like him. His earring and cyborg eye, his big fluffy coat. I'm definitely gonna sleep with him Ok i like how when River Ward is dealing with the tiger claws if you interject it leads to a fight. It goes better if you follow his instructions and let him deal with it. Seriously I enjoy that sometimes its good to not pick a dialogue choice.

during the red queen club part, there was no dialogue over the phone. So i reloaded a save and got myself spotted and attacked. Then River showed up to help me <3 and it was more enjoyable having him there. I honestly am not sure if him not going to the club level is bug or not.

then uuuuuugh the worst of irl police "cops are my family" from Detective Han. Again ACAB "FRATERNITY OF CITY COPS RESEMBLES A [Nomad] CLAN NOT AT ALL" ok a few minutes ago i was complaining about bugs, but the character modeling in this game is good (when they're there). You can see body posture, characters jiggle their legs when they are nervous. Like I though character A was just throwing a cigarette on the ground, but then character B flinches back; I realize Char A threw it at B as a fuck you

I'm honestly curious if "I fought the Law" quest will have any impact later on. My choices were that I thought there was more going on than Holt being the only person behind this (based on how complicated the main questline heist is, and keeping an eye on some of the in game news), and told him not to take it to internal affairs, and I loved his response of how he doesn't give a shit what we think, he's doing it anyway.

In the elevator to report in, Johnny said "this muck is deeper than you think, tell them nothing", so i just said that the case was complicated. anyway i love how much of a sarcastic asshole V is

I thought i was being nonlethal with the monk quest, but it seems i accidently killed someone. RIP, but thats kind of the problem with this game. Like when i do the non lethal cyberpychosis quests I equip my non lethal modded gun and hope for the est. I like how a go here kill things quest led to Charles the ripperdoc. He's getting all his parts from scav gang members so I felt obligated to take him out. I got a police bounty for it but w/e.

I merged the Delemain fragments with the whole. Guess he's the meta now. (Side note: some of my favorite rvb fanfic plots are Ai consiousness/memory merging with the humans, so I’m having fun with this game and look foward to introspective fanfic)

Honestly Jonny made some good points, the fragments didn't deserve to die; but also destroying the core and freeing the fragments, they couldn't really function alone.

I was able to rescue Saul fine with stealth. Using cameras and the synapse overload really made it easy.  Can't use the sniper rifle reward b/c I don't have the stats for it, and while it has a silencer the fact that it's a ricochette weapon and not a shoot through walls weapons, makes it not as good imo; and theres a legendary one that is stats free for only 100k.

Lol made a pass again at Panam, and she immediately shut me down. I then did Mitch's quest and I love every time someone tells V they area  good person.

I hacked the operation carpe noctem shard, and wow the corporations are using ai to make people have cyberpsychosis, or something like that. What a shocker /s, I've played Deus Ex HR before

lol driving through the unifinished interstate, past the fight from Panam's first quest I found a "batcave" with a very nice car, and a manifesto written by "muckman'. But here's my complaint about the loot, there is a legendary top, but it had 16 armor. My current top has 84 armor, like why would i switch?? then later i found a bunker with soviet spies in it. Wild

Doing River's second quest, love the timing of as soon as you ask, why are we breaking in, someone shows up to tell you he got kicked off the force. It's funny how Johnny comments how maybe River's into you, and V just doubts Johnny's words. Love how the first kid asks River if I'm his girlfriend. also wow like oof both the second parts of Judy and River's quest are SUPER fucked UP!! oof like i stopped doing first person mode on the braindances for those quests as soon as i could, just made me too uncomfortable seeing that in first person.

DRIVING IN THE GAME IS BAD! nowhere is it more apparent than the sinnerman quest, which took me 3 times to get the driving section done, as cars spawned out of nowhere to hit me. Then when you restart, there is a bunch of dialogue it doesn't let you fast forward through. The rest of the Sinnerman questline is interesting. My V took every option to tell the dude that he was messed up, and what he was doing was wrong. idk, I was surprised how much dialogue there was that let you buy into his whole "forgiveness thing" and how there wasn't any real dialogue to call him the fuck out, that in seeking forgiveness he continues to do harm both emotional to the mother of the man he killed, but also that he got the husband killed via cop. The later follow up quest, I told him that what he is doing is crazy, studio is just going to profit off this vid. Then I refused to join him prayer, and told him fuck no i wasn't going to hammer him to the cross, or even watch. Yes, the man is scared of dying, and the corporation is exploiting him, but he keeps creating burdens for others.  I think the discussion on this quest will be interesting to read, it's definitely my own personal experience with religion coloring my view. Anyway back to a main quest, yeah i don't trust Placide, especially in that scene where he grabs my hand, then jacks in. I ran off to do most of the sidequests here and got some criticism from him. I do love how in the cinema the western movie switches to a mission brief as the netwatch agent talks. its a fun enviromental detail.  I took the netwatch offer, i don't think he's being fully honest with me, but he didn't put a virus in my head. As I told Placide later, I didn't pick a side. I like how you can then talk with the agent, who is a fan of Western movies, b/c they show "a simpler time where all good guys carry badges" :eyeroll:, and then V recommends Unforgiven, which from the wiki summary goes against that theme.

Looks like the Voodoo boys all got killed by Netwatch, but I as revenge for them trying to set me up I'm fine with it. Honestly after speaking with ai!Alt I don’t believe their plan of trying to be on good relations with AI would work. 

doing the johnny flashback 2, and wow Johnny really is an asshole. Like I had gotten so used to him in side missions I forgot how self centered and unlikable he was.You constantly get prompts to drink or do drugs, which I ignored. But i do love the goth/punk love Rogue and others have.

lol i called it, when Hellman said that the engram would seek to override the host, put V on the engram. I really like how as the relic malfunctions, you wind up in the chair with a cigarette, which you can either smoke and say you are turning into Johnny or throw away. My dialogue "your problem is the ends justify the means", which is true!!! He and Rogue detonated a nuke downtown, does anyone know that, and like ask Rogue about it????

(Funny you can ask Rouge about Johnny silverhand, over the phone, then the game bugs out and spawns her npc where you are. She doens't say much about the nuke, but she does say no one trusts you for jobs). The line of no one trusting you for jobs is pretty funny at level 46 street cred where im at “respected” status. really loving the family atmosphere at River's 3rd quest. Also his big strong arms, and the fact he is no longer a cop. I totally let the kids win, and wow the family dinner where they GRILL YOU over the relationship and try to set the two of you up, then the water tower scene!!!!! I don't love the first person sex cutscenes but they do have personality. I'm glad afterwards you got to tell River about the biochip and that you might die. Because he's so far removed from your personal plot. So I took that option to back out of a relationship.

I do love that you wake up with "river's tanktop" that says "fuck the police" It actually has extremely good armor stats, so thats what I'll wear now.

panam 3rd quest, when shes like why did you help me, I'm like "because it's important to you". Basically the closest you can get to "when a friend asks for help you help them", which as an ex-nomad backstory I really choose the nomad options when ever i can Paralezes quest part 2! I love the piano song but I always think of it as ocean's 11 music. It's also fun to see the computer and see Judy recommended you for the first quest. The emails talk about "forgetting" to hire a staffer, on the balocony a strange antennia was scannable, the color of the roses was remembered wrong...  lol guess i was right with those giant wall screens. Its fun environmental details that spell things out before you can notice, and it ties into some other quests where people's behavior is being altered. Actually, this quest "Dream On" I love it! For a while I've been like "wheres the illuminati conspiracy! Here it IS! I chose to follow Elisabeth's wishes and not tell her husband he was being brainwashed. In best case they program him to forget again, in worst case he ends up dead. The gaslighting Elisabeth described is CHILLING, her husband describes a vacation she can't remember and she doesn't know whose memories have been messed with. On your way to the plaza you get a call from someone/something that says the know exactly WHAT you are, any you black out!!! It's such a great feeling of helplessness that you're just one person in a world so big that you can't fight every power. As Johnny said, could be a corporation, could be a rogue ai, either way Jefferson is fucked (and so are you).

[blackheart-skz]

Ateez as Yanderes.

TW: Mentions of abusive behaviour, toxic relationships, violence, self-harm and other topics that might be triggering.

Note: I am, in no way, trying to romanticize or portray the persons involved as heroes. The behaviour of the characters is not healthy and extremely harmful. If you or someone you know sees such characteristics in someone, do not overlook it. Furthermore, this is a work of fiction. I am not trying to represent the idols through my writing.

Ahhh I'm actually not very good at doing reactions. I feel that for some of the members I did a sort of a mini scenario but then for others it's like a description oof. Hope it's not super bad.

Kim Hongjoong = Over-proctective

- Hongjoong's caring and protective personality was what made you like him and now the same personality makes you despise him

- Hongjoong does not trust you at all

- He thinks you're incapable of doing things without him

- He treats you like a porcelain doll that could easily break

- He has put a lot of restrictions on where you can go or what you can do

- He will not let you go anywhere without his permission or go somewhere without him

- He doesn't trust you with anyone

- People are evil and they could hurt his precious one

- He is very afraid of something bad happening to you

- If you even get a minor cut, he will freak out and will not even let you move

- You do not have the freedom to do anything

- If you ever say that you want to leave him, he will lock you up

- He thinks that you're not mentally strong enough to know what's good for you

- And that's what drives him become your guardian and imprison you in your own house

Park Seonghwa = Dominant/Narcissistic

- Seonghwa has a huge ego

- Rejection is one thing he never accepts

- He expects everyone to worship him and you're no exception

- You wouldn't have been forcibly taken away and chained in his basement had you not uttered the word "no" to his face

- If you do anything that he even feels was disrespectful or if you try to leave him, he will severely punish you

- He sees inflicting pain and other severe punishment methods a way to mold you into his perfect slave

- You have to be really careful to not displease him cuz his anger is unpredictable

- He will reward you if you're obedient at all times

- He also makes sure he is the only person you invest your time and effort in

- He is your master and your life should revolve around him and him only

Jeong Yunho = Jealous/Overly-sensitive

- Yunho started off as the best man ever but then as time passed, the good in him started fading away.

- He started getting jealous a bit too often

- And now it's a daily occurence

- He does not trust you one bit

- He downloaded a tracking app on your phone so that he can keep track of where you go

- You talking to any guy or girl makes him go absolutely nuts

- he threatens people behind your back

- He also twists your words a lot which is rooted from his lack of trust as well

- He thinks that everything you say has a hidden implication behind it

- Like seonghwa, he wants your life to be about him

- He doesn't like you giving attention to anyone else be it a person or a hobby

- So if you want to talk to your mom or write a bunch of poems as a hobby, too bad.

Kang Yeosang = Sadistic/Cruel

- Yeosang was very good at hiding his sadistic side when he first met you.

- He used his charming looks and soothing voice to make you fall in love with him

- Once that happened and you entered into a relationship with him, his true colours started showing

- He slowly started getting both physically and emotionally abusive

- His initial reason was to keep you with him but eventually he started enjoying it

- As much as he loves you, seeing you helpless and at his mercy pleasures him to no end

- He prefers using physical punishments over emotional anytime you disobey him

- He loves seeing you break piece by piece

- But he also likes peppering you with kisses and telling you how gorgeous you are

- which makes him even more scarier

- Trying to leave him is not a smart idea at all

- You try to run away and he breaks your legs

- He will never hesitate to use excruciatingly painful methods to keep you from leaving

Choi San = Manipulative

- Just like Yunho, at first, he treated you like a king/queen

- But then slowly he started becoming a bit too obsessive and wanted to be with you 24/7 and know everything that you did

- He wants to know every single detail of your life

- If you ever try to reject him, he starts guilt tripping you

- He says that you're ungrateful for all the things that he does for you

- Afterall, he did treat you like no one else in the beginning

- Your family and friends slowly start cutting ties from you

- You don't know why but San knows very well

- If you find him being too burdensome and call out his behaviour, he blames it on you instead

- He targets your weaknesses to justify his behaviour and make you feel guilty

- No matter what, he never admits that he's wrong

- If you try to blame him, he starts playing victim

- He makes himself seem so pitiful that you can't help but feel guilty

- If you ever try to leave him, he would threaten to kill himself

- He will make you feel like you're the bad one in the relationship

- And you'll not have anyone to go to either so it's a win for him

Song Mingi = The clingy/stalker type

- Mingi was absolutely mesmerized by your beauty when he saw you for the first time

- He wanted to talk to you but he didn't have the courage to so he just start following you around and keeping track of every move you made

- He found out everything about you from what school you went to to what your pet peeve was before he made a move

- It took him a year worth of courage to eventually talk to you and of course considering how much he knew about you, he also knew what he had to do in order to make you fall for him

- And it worked

- Once that happened, Mingi stuck to you like gum

- Now, he does not leave your side for even a minute

- He wants to be with you 24/7 and sends you over a 100 texts everyday

- If you try to leave him for even a second he'll throw a tantrum and cling on to you to you like a koala

- Has become too dependent on you and you would actually believe him if he says that he would die without you

- coming back to him biting his nails to the point that his fingers were bloody and him literally jumping on you when after you left him alone for not even 3 hours is enough proof for you to believe him

- He has never and never will hurt you but he wont hesitate to hurt others

- He hasn't yet but he surely will if you don't take his threats seriously

Jung Wooyoung = Delusional

- A very dangerous yandere

- but more than that a pitiful yandere

- He isn't able interpret your words or read your emotions

- He mistook your gesture of kindness as an invitation for love

- After helping him once, you started seeing him around a bit too often

- He started talking to you as if you guys were close friends

- You ignored him but he never stopped

- After a while, he started treating you like his girlfriend/boyfriend though you barely knew him

- At that point you realized that this wasn't normal and you needed to do something

- You told you friends and were planning to contact the police

- Wooyoung started noticing how people looked at him weirdly and he thougjt its cuz they were jealous of your "relationship" and want you guys to break up

- You had come to the final decision to report him but before you could, he kidnaped you and locked you up in his house claiming that he's trying to "protect" your relationship

- The more you try to push him away, the closer got

- Be it physically or emotionally

- None of your attempts to snap him out of his imaginary work

- His imagination is too far gone for him to come back

Choi Jongho = The selfish/violent type

- A bit of what you would call a spoiled brat

- A lot actually

- What he wants, he gets

- Even if that means hurting others in the process

- He's a selfish man and he isn't scared to acknowledge that

- Kinda like Seonghwa but not quite

-Unlike him, Jongho is aware of what he's doing

- Seonghwa's ego leads him but Jongho leads his ego

- Jongho doesnt hesitate to get violent either

- You disobey him, he punishes you

- But the fact that he remains calm both before the punishment and after shows that he isn't actually bothered by your behaviour

- He just likes the power he has over you

- To him it doesn't matter if you love him or not, you're something that he admires therefore he has to have you

- No matter what you do, his heart will never go soft and even if it does, it will only be to an extent where he let's you breathe freely

[gimmesumsuga]

Concealed Weapon (M)

Pairing: Jungkook x reader

Word count: 10K (approx)

Warnings: Smut.  Smutty smut smut.  Unsafe handling of weapons.  Dirty talk.  Unprotected sex.  Bondage.  Rough sex.  Multiple orgasms.  Oral sex (male receiving).

Summary: Jungkook turns out not to be quite who you thought he was, and your reaction takes you both by surprise.

Happy belated Birthday @yminie ! I hope you survive! <3 <3 

This is kinda PWP, which is why I chose to keep the super cheesy porno title I first came up with haha (plus, I couldn’t actually think of anything better - so sue me). Also, this is the first moodboard I’ve ever made, so please don’t repost or use without credit. 

“Home by seven my ass…” you mutter darkly under your breath as your hands dwell somewhere beneath a layer of lemon-scented suds, a scouring pad clenched in fist.

You'd intended leave the dishes until after having eaten tonight, but seeing as your dinner companion is still yet to show after more than half an hour of you being sat at the table like an idiot, waiting, you figured you'd make a start.  Anger is great for removing stubborn baked on bread crumbs from an oven tray, apparently; by the time you're done pretending its surface is your husband's face and stashed it on the drying rack you've never seen it look cleaner.  

You wish you could pretend this was the first time he's come home later than intended.  It's an occupational hazard you guess; as one of the heads of IT tech support for all of the healthcare providers in the local province it's up to him to make sure every system is running seamlessly no matter the time of day.  If a piece of software goes down it's not just the clinicians who suffer - it's the patient's blood results or x-ray reports they can't gain access to who suffer as well.  

So maybe you shouldn't be so mad - maybe you should be glad to have a husband so hard-working and committed to his job that he's willing to stay late more often than not.  As you pick at little pieces of the beef you'd so painstakingly roasted, long since gone cold, this is what you so avidly try to convince yourself of, but it doesn't really make you feel any better.  It doesn't change the reality of you being stood all alone at your kitchen counter with tears threatening in your eyes, all dressed up with nowhere to go.  

The sound of keys turning in the front door lock has your ears pricking to attention and your back straightening as you abandon your leftovers in favour of watching the entranceway to the hall.  The smouldering embers of annoyance that'd been threatening to dwindle away into sadness come roaring back into life with his impending arrival, and as soon as you hear your husband cross the threshold you're hollering his name, nostrils flared.  

“Jeon Jungkook!”  His heavy exhale reaches your ears even from several metres away; tired and weary.  You know he’ll be worn out after work, and he’s more than likely been dreading having this fight with you all the way home, but your famously short temper won’t let you show him an inch of mercy.  Not yet, anyway. “What the hell kinda time do you call this?!”  

It’s odd - usually Jungkook would be rushing in by now, a pink tinge to his cheeks and an apology on his lips - but tonight he appears to be taking his time.  There’s the sound of his keys clinking against one another as they’re placed on the side and then the heavy tread of his boots coming down the hall that follows, so slow and steady that it only serves to infuriate you all the more.  Let him drag this out if he wants; all he’s doing is prolonging the length of the cold shoulder he’ll be receiving later on.  

“You could’ve at least called,” you carry on, rounding the kitchen island with one hand on your hip, waiting for him to emerge, “I wouldn’t have bothered busting my ass if I’d have known you - oh my god!”  

Hands flying upward to cover your gasping mouth, your wide eyes run rapidly up and down the sorry state of a man who enters your kitchen with his busted lip slanted into a wry smile.  It’s not very often you’re at a loss for words and yet here you are, speechless, all anger eradicated by the sight of your husband’s naturally handsome face so marred with cuts and bruises.  

“Sorry baby,” he apologises as he comes to a standstill in front of you, voice soft.  There’s blood on the usually pristine white collar of his shirt - Jungkook always prides himself in keeping his clothes crisp and sharp - and as your body begins to tremble he touches the pad of his thumb against where his smile has re-opened the split at the corner of his full bottom lip, dabbing it with his tongue.  

“What happened?!” You throw yourself into the arms that Jungkook manages to open just in time to receive you, and when he ‘oofs’ in discomfort as you hit his chest you cringe, peeling yourself back just enough to look up at him past your eyelashes.  They’re wet, glistening with tears, and your husband smiles affectionately down at you as he wipes them away with his fingertips.  You hadn’t even realised you were crying though it doesn’t exactly surprise to find that you are; who wouldn’t when confronted with the sight of a loved one so battered and bruised?  

“Some assholes got the jump on me on the way home,” he shrugs, behaving far more casually than you would ever expect of someone who’s apparently just been mugged, “Took my wallet… my phone.  It could’ve been worse.”

“It could’ve been worse?!” you repeat incredulously, stepping back but allowing him to keep the gentle grip he has on both of your hands, large palms wrapped around your tiny, angry fists.

“I’m home in one piece, aren’t I?”

“Barely!”  You really should stop shrieking sometime soon; it’s not as though it’ll do any good.  It won’t fix the torn sleeve of his expensive suit jacket, nor halt the deepening in colour of the bruise that lays across his cheekbone, and Jungkook keeps on cringing as though you’re assaulting his eardrums every time your voice climbs another octave.  

“Sorry,” you apologise embarrassedly, withdrawing a hand from one of his and using it to stem any further tears from falling and leaving smudges of mascara behind, “Sorry.  Are you-”  You sigh, brushing your palm over the lapel of his jacket to wipe away the white specs of dust sprinkled across it.  “-Are you ok?”

“I’ll live,” he assures you, once more taking a hold of your hand to raise it to his mouth, pressing a gentle kiss onto your palm.  You know he will, yet that knowledge doesn’t stop you frowning at every single mark your eyes pass over; the gash across his eyebrow from which blood has ran and dried, now crusted and flaking away, or the purple bruising of broken blood vessels that decorates the sharp angle of his jaw.  

And these are only the injuries you can actually see.  Judging by the way Jungkook tenses when you wrap your arms around him you can only presume there must be more under the rumpled cotton of his shirt.  

“Fucking assholes,” you mutter as you press your cheek to his chest, planting a kiss along the way.  Jungkook is so soft, so kind, so absolutely good - right down to his bones - how could anyone ever want to hurt him?  Ok, so maybe before you saw the state he was in you might’ve wanted to give him a swift kick in the shins, but now?  Now the only blood you’re out for belongs to whomever it was who thought they could get away with hurting the love of your life.

Jungkook’s palm slips downward from the back of your neck into the curve at the bottom of your spine, his soft lips pressing to the top of your head.  

“You called the police, right?” Jungkook cocks one dark eyebrow at you when you look up, amused.  

“And how exactly would I have gone about doing that?” he teases, a playful twinkle in his eye.  Your mouth opens as though to argue but then promptly closes again when you realise how valid a point he’s made.  

“Well, you should now,” you persist, slipping out of his embrace to cross over into your living room and grab a hold of the phone that sits atop of your coffee table, brandishing it at Jungkook when he walks through the doorway after you, shrugging off his jacket.  He throws it onto the back of the sofa and lets you press the handset into his hand before discarding that a moment later, too, sighing.  

“There’s really no point,” he tells you with a shake of his head, his dishevelled bangs sticking up at odd angles when he runs his hand through them.  His knuckles are grazed too, you notice, and you feel a grim sense of satisfaction come over you on realising that he must’ve at least gotten one good punch in during whatever fumble occured.  You hope it hurt.  “I barely saw anything; one guy grabbed me from behind and the other had.some kind of ski mask on or something.”  

“But what if there was CCTV?” you persist, stepping towards him but stopping when you see a look of annoyance fleet over Jungkook’s face.  He looks away from you, his eyebrows furrowing as he places his fists on his hips, shifting his weight.  

“Look-”  He meets your eyes, and when he sees the way you’re worrying your bottom lip it’s as though he makes a conscious effort to soften his expression.  “-All I want right now - more than anything - is a long, hot shower.”  Jungkook closes the gap between the two of you, so close that your chests are almost touching, yet his hands remain at his sides as he looks down at you.  “I want to shower, I want to eat.  I want to snuggle up with the woman I love-” Jungkook returns the little smile that appears on your face, his head tilting slightly to the side, “-And forget all about it.”  

How is it that after two long years of matrimony Jungkook can still have such an effect on your heart rate by his proximity alone?  Just by standing in front of you - close enough to catch the lingering scent of his aftershave that you know so well - he has you feeling a little weak at the knees; a little breathless as you look up into the darkest chocolate of his eyes.  

“Is that ok?” he checks when you neglect to reply, lifting a hand to brush gently against your cheek, voice soft.  

“I suppose so,” you force out, recovering enough to let a little bit of snark enter your tone.  Jungkook’s already smiling lips part as it grows, flashing his adorably imperfect row of front teeth, eyes crinkling at the sides.  “Go on, you stink.”  Grinning playfully, you twist your head enough to noisily kiss his palm where it’d been resting on your cheek before stepping away and walking past him.  “Don’t blame me if your dinner tastes like microwave.”  

You don’t expect the hand that suddenly grabs a hold of yours, nor for Jungkook to suddenly pull you back into his arms and seize a hold of your lips with his own, squeaking your surprise into the kiss and making your husband chuckle at how quickly and effortlessly you melt into his embrace.  He kisses you as though it’d been the only thought to occupy his mind all day, one hand in the small of your back and the other still clutching yours, the thick band of metal encircling his ring finger brushing your skin as they lock together, holding tight.  

A rolling press of his tongue to your lips is enough for you to grant him access to your mouth, wet muscle meeting in the middle before he chases after it when you pull back, inviting him in.  Jungkook groans throatily when you gently tug on his bottom lip with your teeth, forgetting all about the split to the pillow soft flesh until the next time his mouth presses to yours and you feel it there, the drying blood making it feel slightly tacky against your own.  

Running his tongue against the inside of his teeth, Jungkook relinquishes you from his grasp, smirking at the way you wobble a little on losing the support of his firm body pressed to yours.  

“Tastes pretty good to me.”  He grins wolfishly, making sure to cock one eyebrow at you before turning on his heels and heading for your bedroom, leaving you to recover with a flushed red face and one hand pressed to the new-found ache in your lower abdomen.

“God damn it Jungkook,” you murmur to yourself as you will your body to stop acting like some pre-teen girl when confronted with the attentions of the captain of the football team.  It’s just embarrassing, especially when less than five minutes ago you were supposedly hopping mad.  So much for that.  

You’re just putting Jungkook’s dinner into the microwave and punching in the time for it to cook when all over a sudden another sound catches your attention over the shrill beep of the buttons which you press.  It’s an unfamiliar tune but still recognisable enough for you to realise that it must be coming from a cell phone, and it’s with a frown of confusion that you abandon Jungkook’s meal to venture back into the living room, looking around.  

It’s definitely not yours - you have a very bad habit of leaving it on silent 24/7 and repeatedly missing your husband’s calls - but then whose else’s could it be?  The muggers had taken his, he’d said, and yet as you approach the ruined suit jacket that he’d so carelessly flung over the back of the sofa the ringing is most definitely getting louder.  

It cuts off before you can figure out its exact location but you carry on patting down his jacket anyway, certain that whatever was ringing must be tucked away somewhere inside, and when you reach into the soft inner breast pocket your fingers close around the solid rectangular form of a cell phone that you don’t seem to recognise once its laid flat in your palm, staring up at you.  

What is going on?  You’ve never seen Jungkook carrying this sort of phone before; for one thing it’s far too low-tech for anything he’d usually be caught dead with.  It doesn’t even seem to have a proper camera on it, for heaven’s sake.  

Why would he lie?  Why would he have some secret, ancient phone stashed away?  You can’t help but jump to the worst conclusion as it goes off again, the screen illuminating to show one missed call and the text message that has just come through, and as you attempt to figure out how to unlock it your heart begins to race with anxiety, eyes darting nervously towards the corridor down which your bedroom lies.

Is he having some sort of affair?  This is the question that remains at the forefront of your mind as you try various different combinations of numbers to try and guess his six digit passcode, not even pausing to think of how much an invasion of his privacy your husband might see this as.  You’d never dream of going through his phone usually, but this isn’t his - not really.  Perhaps it should reassure you that the code that finally works is the same digits as your birthday, yet the nauseating rolling of your stomach only continues as you open up his messages to find one singular text waiting under the initials of ‘NJ’ and nothing more.  

Fingers shaking, you open the message and read.  

“You better get your shit together, JK.  Another fuck up like tonight and they’ll be pulling you out of the river next time.  Don’t let me down.”  

Pulling him out of the what?  What the hell does that mean?  

Fumbling, you lock the phone and scramble to slip it back into the pocket you retrieved it from with hands that are trembling even more severely than before, convinced that you’ve already seen too much.  

What the hell has Jungkook gotten himself mixed up in?  

Whatever it is it sounds really, really bad - the illegal kind of bad - and suddenly you’re no longer so sure that the injuries Jungkook sustained earlier tonight were really the product of two simple muggers.  No, this sounds far more sinister, but as damning as this evidence is you’ve no idea how to even begin to comprehend that the man that you love - as silly and sweet and goofy as he is - might ever be involved with someone who could send a message so threatening as that.  You’ve met Jungkook’s friends; they’re all as daft as he is!  

Cool metal awaits the brush of your fingers when you slot his phone back into its rightful place, and despite how you may tell yourself not to pry any further you’re unable to shake the curiosity that has you fishing out what appears to be a very small bunch of keys from within the silky black pocket.  

It only takes a split second of peering down at them spread out along your palm for your to make the connection to the lock with which you know they must belong.  Hurried footsteps and shallow breaths lead you directly to Jungkook’s ‘gaming room’ and the desk on which his custom built PC tower sits neatly alongside a 27-inch screen.  

The screen remains black and the CPU’s many cooling fans silent, though you know they won’t remain so for very long.  It’s a mutual agreement of yours and your husbands to allow each other an hour or so a night to indulge in whichever solo hobbies you deem necessary for maintaining your sanity before settling down to spend the rest of the evening together, whether that be curled in front of the tv or tangled up in bed.  

It’s the thought of such times that causes you to hesitate with the key already halfway into the lock, down on bended knee.  What happens if you find something in there that you’d rather not see?  What if whatever it is puts an end to this lovely little life you’ve built?  

You bite your lip, frowning hard at the trembling pincer grip in which you hold the key.  Part of you wants to turn back and try to erase all memory of this from your mind but you know that that’d be an impossibility.  If you don’t look now you’ll always be wondering, worrying - wracked with suspicion every time your husband leaves your side.  No, best to confront it now and deal with the cards that you’re dealt as soon as they reach your hand.   

Whatever it is, whatever you’ve faced, you and Jungkook have always gotten through it before.  

You take a deep breath as though to brace yourself as you slide in the key the rest of the way and turn it smartly to the right.  Opening up the drawer the first thing you see is a neat stack of plastic folders in a variety of colours, and when you take a peek inside the uppermost one it’s full of papers detailing acronyms and figures of which you have no understanding.  They’re confusing but look innocent enough, and as you start to remove one folder after the other you dare to feel a little more hopeful than you did before.  

You’ve probably gotten yourself all worked up over nothing; there’s got to be a reasonable explanation for that phone and the text that followed, a reason for Jungkook to have all these papers locked away from sight.  You shake your head at yourself as you appear to be coming to the bottom of the pile; you should’ve known better than to doubt him.  What exactly were you expecting?  Pictures of some secret family? Drugs?  Maybe even some -

Brass knuckles?

Your stomach drops so violently it feels almost as though it’s fallen out when you see the golden device sat at the bottom of the drawer, the curved metal specially shaped to encase the wearers knuckles and allow them to deliver more lethal a blow to the victim of their choosing.  

These can’t belong to Jungkook, surely?  Not your gentle husband?  He won’t even kill a spider, nevermind don something like… like those.  With a sense of morbid curiosity you reach out and lift them from the drawer, turning them over and shivering at how weighty such a weapon feels rested in your palm, and it’s only then that you realise that there’s a matching set laid there too - one for each hand.  

“Jesus christ,” you mutter under your breath, and as you lift that one out too you become aware of a fault in otherwise smooth wooden bottom of the drawer.  Placing the brass knuckles aside, your relentlessly curious nature has you poking, prodding and jiggling at what appears to be some kind of false bottom.   You finally manage to open it up by pressing it downward and then sliding the thin wooden barrier backward and underneath the other half of the panel, gasping involuntarily when you see what lies beneath.  

A gun.  

A real gun; matte metal grey and chillingly cold to the touch when you run your fingertips gingerly along its barrel, purposefully avoiding the trigger.  It strikes you as odd how threatening an inanimate object can look even when lacking someone to wield it, and it’s with a swallow of trepidation that you very gently lift the pistol from its secret compartment to hold it in two hands.  

Has Jungkook really ever used something like this?

Unwanted images begin to plague your racing mind as you inspect the makings of it, turning it about in your grip.  You see Jungkook stood with gun in hand, his arm outstretched to press the barrel to the temple of some faceless man with whom he regards without a trace of mercy, his expression unfeeling and cold, and the image of it sends a chill right down your spine.  This can’t be your husband; not this cruel figure that your imagination has so conjured up.  

There must be something else.  Some other reason for him to have this - some other reason for him to have kept it all hidden.  If you ask him… if you confront him, surely he’ll have -

One strong hand closes firmly around both your wrists, so rough and so sudden you'd very nearly have let the gun fall to the floor if it weren't already being wrenched away from you, out of the reach of your inexperienced hands.  You look up sharply at the unexpected touch, your mouth falling open with the sharp inhale you take, and it's Jungkook's face you see staring back down at you, expression as hard and stern as you'd pictured it to be with a gun in hand.  

“Jungko-" you start but he cuts you off, tightening his grip around your wrists.  It's testament to how large his hands are that his fingers quite comfortably encircle both, pinning them together.  

“What the fuck do you think you're doing?” he questions angrily, brows furrowing even further, shower wet hair dangling in front of his eyes.  Your husband must've just this moment stepped out of the bathroom; not even yet dressed, a towel knotted low around his hips and droplets of water clinging to the sculpted planes of his chest.  

Purple bruising along his ribs aside, it'd be all too easy let yourself become completely distracted by Jungkook's mouth-watering appearance if it weren't for the gun that hangs by his side.  It’s pointed firmly at the floor, steady in his hand, and you’re relieved to see that his index finger is resting well away from the trigger.  

You grope for some sort of response, your pulse thudding deafeningly in your ears at having been caught in the act, and when you fail to even try to defend yourself Jungkook huffs an exhale, infuriated.  

“I should've known you'd come snooping around in here one day.”  Keeping your wrists firmly locked, Jungkook pulls open the top drawer to his desk and rummages for something, gun still in hand.  “Too damn curious for your own good,” he adds, grumbling under his breath, and you're just about to start protesting at how unjust it is right now for him to be mad at you when the sight of him pulling a long black strip of plastic from the drawer totally derails your train of thought.

“What are you doing?” you ask, a fringe of panic lacing your voice as he places the gun down on the table with a satisfying ‘thunk’ of wood against metal and then loops what you now recognise as a cable tie around the underside of your wrists, just above where his other hand is squeezing them together.  

“Trying to make sure you don't go running off before you hear me out,” he informs you matter-of-factly, and it's with alarming swiftness that Jungkook manages to secure your wrists together, the strip of plastic pulled not quite so tight as to cut into your flesh but enough to remind you that it's there, unyielding against your skin. “Besides, you clearly need some help keeping your hands to yourself.”

He releases your hands and they fall, fixed, to knock against your thighs as you look up at him in trepidation.  Jungkook stares right back, unblinking, and you wish you weren't knelt so vulnerably like this on your knees, though his expression - although visibly annoyed - looks neither threatening or unkind.  

Before now it's always been a bit of a running joke amongst your mutual friends that you're the one who wears the trousers in your marriage.  You're marginally older than Jungkook and have always been a bit more ballsy; a bit more outspoken in circumstances in which your husband would be more inclined to let things go and keep the peace.  Even-tempered, patient and perhaps a little bit of a perfectionist, Jungkook has always happily followed your lead - until now.

“I never wanted you involved in any of this,” he tells you wearily, momentarily releasing you from his gaze to turn and take the gun from the table with a shake of his head.  

“Involved in any of what?!” You suddenly seem to find your tongue again, vulnerable or not, and as you speak the volume of your voice seems to climb, near hysterical.  “The hell are you doing with a gun, Jungkook?!  Who's NJ?!”  Jungkook pauses at your outburst, apparently changing his mind about putting the gun away and choosing to slam the drawer shut instead, rounding on you with a scowl.

“It's nothing that concerns you.”  Incensed, you glower right back up at him, pretending not to notice the way a vein in his neck bulges when he clenches his jaw.  

“It is if it means you're coming home all battered and bruised,” you insist vehemently, bunching your fingers into angry little fists whilst you're still able to feel them, “You were supposed to be working late!  Where were you?”  

Jungkook doesn’t answer right away but he does laugh, smirking as he reaches out and grabs you by the arm to pull your feet.  Defiant, you tilt your chin up.  You won't be intimidated; whether he's been keeping secrets or not Jungkook is still your husband, and you know he'd never hurt you.  

“So fiesty,” Jungkook admires, smiling growing as he tilts his head, looking down at you from his greater height, “Even when you're so obviously at a disadvantage.”  

You wish you were oblivious to the heat you can feel radiating off of Jungkook's naked chest as you stand toe to toe but your body if refusing to play ignorant, heart pounding rapidly against the inside of your ribcage and your mouth bone dry.  

“I was at work.”

“Yeah, ok,” you scoff disbelievingly, rolling your eyes toward to the ceiling until Jungkook grabs a hold firm of your chin and pulls your attention back to him with a sharp snap of your name.  

“Did you really think a little desk job could've bought us this house?” Jungkook asks, his thumb and forefinger still holding you in place, dark eyes flicking between your own, “That rock on your finger?”  You jump as the cold metal of Jungkook’s gun taps against your ring finger, flinching and drawing your clasped hands up to your chest with a deep flush filling your cheeks.  

Why are there butterflies swirling frantically within your stomach at the cocky little flick of your husband's eyebrow as he releases your chin?  You're supposed to feel angry - betrayed - not like... this.  Not like your insides are slowly filling with molten heat; desire pooling heavy in your pelvis.  

“Th-then what is it?” Your voice is halting, catching in your throat, and when Jungkook releases you to press two fingers to your sternum and walk you backwards with a wicked gleam in his eyes you're swallowing nervously, yelping in surprise when you're suddenly pushed into the soft leather gaming chair in which your husband spends so many of his evenings.  Unable to brace your landing with your hands your fall is somewhat ungainly; the floaty fabric of your skirt settling somewhere halfway up your thighs to expose more skin to Jungkook’s slowly roving eyes.  

He leans forward over you, bracing his weight on the arms of the chair that enclose you on either side, and when he speaks he’s so close that you can smell the peppermint of his breath as it blows upon your face.

“Are you sure you want to know?” he asks quietly, and you nod.  He’s right, you really are too curious for your own good.  

With a heavy sigh of resignation, Jungkook straightens up and runs a hand through his damp hair, bicep flexing. 

“I work for an organisation called BTS.”  BTS… that’s one of the acronyms you remember seeing amongst the paperwork you’d just been scouring through, printed neatly alongside a multitude of dollar signs and zeroes.  “Namjoon - NJ - is it’s leader.”  

Slowly, you nod.  Organised crime, then, you’re guessing; that’s the business to which your husband belongs.  How could he have managed to keep this from you for so long?  You’ve known each other since your late teens and yet this is the first time he’s ever come home looking like this - the first sign you’ve ever had.   Maybe he’s not in so deep as you think.  Maybe it’s not as bad as all that.  Maybe he’s just their... their accountant or something…

“What do you actually… do?”  you persist, though you’re not entirely sure you want to know.  Jungkook’s lip curls into a smirk once more as he glances down to the gun that hangs at his side, and before your widening eyes he lifts it till it’s pointed straight at you, mechanism clicking as he disengages the safety, index finger hovering over the trigger.   

You heart rate skyrockets the moment it’s turned on you, eyes fixed fixed on the open, gaping mouth of the barrel staring back.  It feels as though the organ is in your throat and choking you, thumping hard, blood rushing and roaring in your ears until your husband next speaks, deadly soft.  

“What do you think?”

There can be no doubt any longer.  Up until this point you’ve been trying to convince yourself that perhaps you’re wrong, perhaps this is all some mistake or you’re just overreacting - over-reaching to draw the most dramatic of conclusions - but no.  Every presumption you’ve jumped to appears to be coming true, and now you can't seem to stop wondering about just how many lives Jungkook must have ended with the gun that’s now so steadily aimed at you.  

You should be livid at having been lied to for so long, and you should probably be afraid, too, given the circumstances in which you’ve found yourself - and yet you’re not.  Maybe in the deep recesses of your mind you have those thoughts,  maybe, but not right now; right now the singular, most overwhelming feeling  you’re aware of is desire.  Desire, lust, want, and need.  

You've never seen him look like this before; so powerful, so in control.  The dominant aura Jungkook’s exuding has you feeling all hot and bothered under the thin fabric of your clothes, and when he tilts his chin downward to inspect the flush across your chest you can't help but clench your thighs together to quell the aching where they meet, spurred on by his watchful, almond eyes.  

“Why lie to me?” Your voice comes out slightly breathless, husky, though if Jungkook notices it he doesn't say so.  He holds the gun in place for a second or two longer before letting it drop again to his side with a shake of his head.  There's another click as the safety goes back on and a loud, shuddering exhale that passes your lips as he finally puts the thing down.  

“It was the only way I could try to keep you safe,” he answers a moment later, the angry expression he's been wearing softening slightly as he turns back to you, one hand still poised upon the desk, “What do you think they'd do if they got their hands on you, if it meant they were able to get to me?" Jungkook gestures to his own face as an example, furrowing his eyebrows. “This is nothing.”

Swallowing, your eyes travel from mark to mark, injury to injury; the gash to the bridge of his nose down to the black cherry bruising of the hip bone peeking out above his towel.  Every inch of him, battered or not, is still just as pleasing to your eye - still just as tempting to touch if only you were able - and so busy are you inspecting his finely honed physique that you're barely even aware of the silence that's settled between the two of you until Jungkook lets out a heavy exhale, mistaking your preoccupation for something else.  

“It's ok… if you want me to leave.” You look up, blindsided by the pained expression your husband is wearing now - the worry lines evident in his brow.  “I'll understand.”  He reaches into the drawer again to pull out a switchblade this time, flicking free a small, silver knife as he approaches you and draws your hands away from your chest, cradling them in one of his own.  “I never wanted to hurt you.”

“- Don't!” you exclaim quickly when he slips the blade between the cable tie and the flesh of your wrist, meaning to cut you free, and at your shout Jungkook comes to a sudden halt, his gaze lifting to look up into your eyes where he's bent over you, leaning close.  “I don't want you to leave.”  Your throat feels tight with nerves as you bring your conjoined hands, knife and all, towards the base of Jungkook's throat to brush your fingertips along the smooth skin there, digits trembling.

He's still a little damp after his shower - his gorgeous, caramel skin soft and smooth to touch - and you lick your lips with the want to lap up the little dew drops that remain clinging onto his broad chest.  

Your husband utters your name under his breath, confused by the hunger in your restless eyes as they trail over the length of him.

“Don't go,” you tell him thickly, and unbeknown to you your pupils expand at the moment you look up and meet his gaze.  “Don't let me free.”  You bite your bottom lip as Jungkook withdraws the knife, and slowly he begins to understand what it is that has you watching so eagerly as he flips the blade away.  “Not yet.”

He observes the way you press your thighs together as he stands to full height, a smile pulling at his lips when he comes to realise the full extent of how aroused you are; the heaviness of your eyelids as you gaze lustfully up at him, the shuddering rise and fall of your chest.  This is not the reaction that he'd expected, yet he wonders how he hadn't noticed it before.  

“It almost seems like you're enjoying this,” Jungkook muses, beginning to pace around the chair in which you're sat.  Your hands are clammy clasped together against your chest, but the sudden, subtle shift to the look in Jungkook's eyes has you tingling all over with excitement in anticipation of what you're hoping is yet to come.  

You turn your head so as to not lose his gorgeous visage from your sight as he circles you, swivelling the chair until Jungkook grabs a hold of the back of it to jerk it to a halt, barking,

“Eyes straight ahead.”

Back straight and your eyes wide open, you stare at the wall opposite as instructed whilst your heart gallops at the feel of him stood behind you.  Goosebumps rise across your shoulders as Jungkook leans in, not touching you save the brush of soft lips to the curve of your ear.  

“Do you like it when I'm bad, baby?” he questions teasingly, blunt teeth nipping at your earlobe, “You like a little bit of danger?”  

“M-maybe,” you allow yourself to admit, though there's no maybe about it.  Beneath your skirt your underwear is starting to feel warm and damp, and the brief passing of Jungkook's hand around your throat as he nuzzles into your hair, inhaling, does nothing to dampen the growing flames of arousal which are unfurling deep in your insides.  

“You've been a naughty girl, poking your nose in where it doesn't belong,” Jungkook scolds as he releases you, tongue tutting against his teeth at the little whimper you fail to withhold.  You open up your eyes that'd flopped closed and pick up your head from where it'd fallen back just in time to see your husband come to a stop right before you, and though the heat within his gaze is familiar enough from all the many, many times such as these that've come to pass before, you've never seen him look quite like this.  

So dark. So seductive.

“I think you ought to make it up to me.”  Jungkook's eyes flick southward and yours follow, down to where the front of his towel is draping awkwardly over the semi-erection concealed beneath.  When he begins to untuck the knot that's tied around his hips - his eyes locked on yours - your mouth is quick to water for whatever it may be that he has in store, and as his towel drops to the floor, crumpled messily at his feet, your core starts to drip equally as warm and wet.  

You swear you're not a shallow woman, but only an idiot would think to deny how easy your husband is on the eyes.  Tall and broad, Jungkook's lithe torso tapers from muscular shoulders into the inexplicably narrow waist you so love to wrap your arms around, and all of him is golden, flawlessly smooth save the dark thatch of neatly trimmed hair nestled around the base of that which currently holds your rapt attention.  His cock, half-hard and currently held by one Jungkook's well-practised hands is already leaking the clear, serous fluid that belies his arousal as it's stroked, the muscles of his thighs flexing as he approaches where you're sat.  

“Open up that pretty mouth, baby,” Jungkook purrs, pointing it towards your lips, “Show me what a good girl you can be.”  

You'd never anticipated before tonight that you would ever be so receptive to the idea of your husband being the one to call the shots between the sheets.  Sure, it's something you’ve daydreamed about every now and then, maybe, but with how quiet and obliging Jungkook has always been in the bedroom before now - so solely focused on your pleasure rather than his own - you'd convinced yourself it would likely never happen.  

Now that it is, and now that Jungkook's cocking one of his thick, dark eyebrows down at you in expectation, it feels like a dream come true.  Eagerly, you shuffle forward on his chair, tied wrists rested on your lap, and obligingly open your mouth nice and wide, sticking out your tongue for good measure.  

“That's it,” he mumbles quietly, no longer watching you but focusing instead on guiding his cock into your open, waiting mouth and licking his lips as the pink, weeping tip brushes your tongue.  The weight of it is so satisfying, the musky taste one you know and love, and it's with a groan of delight that you finally seal your lips around him and begin to suckle sweetly at its sensitive head, pleased when you hear Jungkook's answering moan.  

“Suck baby.”  His encouragements are soft but as just as insistent as the firm hand that makes its way into your hair whilst you busy yourself tracing his frenulum with the tip of your tongue, your eyes flopping closed.  He neither pulls nor tugs, simply caresses your scalp as you diligently set to work easing him deeper into your mouth - perhaps digging his blunt nails into the roots on the odd occasion that he looks down and is overcome by the sight of your lips stretched so tightly around his girth.  

“Come on, pretty girl, I know you can take some more,” Jungkook hums, a little breathless, and you feel your cheeks fill with warmth at the way he addresses you so fondly, “You're so good at sucking my cock.  My perfect little slut.”  You feel a hand on your aching jaw, supporting it as you slide your mouth back and forth along his length, sucking and slurping as you go.  

You're determined to take him all, determined to show your husband what a good, dutiful wife you can be - snooping aside - and after a few more strokes and a conscious effort to relax your throat, you're face first amongst his pubic hair and resisting the urge to gag when his cock twitches on your tongue.

You hear Jungkook groan with satisfaction above you, and when you peel open your eyes to gaze up you're delighted to see nothing but the sharp angle of his jaw from below, his head lolling back as he savours the feeling of being stuffed so far down your throat.  

“You’re doing so well,” he says breathlessly as his chin tips forward again, meeting your watering eyes he looks down, “Knew you could be a good girl for me.” Still holding onto your jaw, Jungkook rocks his hips back to withdraw his length almost all the way to the tip before sliding it all the way inside, slow and steady, resting there sheathed fully inside before doing it again and again, gradually gaining speed.  “Gonna let me fuck your mouth, aren't you, baby?”

Mouth full and saliva leaking from the corners of your mouth, you nod, and Jungkook flashes you a cocky, satisfied smile.  

As your husband uses and abuses the hollow vacuum of your eager mouth in the minutes that follow, your desire for him only continues to grow.  Save the brief seconds in which you're forced to close your eyes when you gag, you spend every other moment you can greedily watching the man come apart; every twitch of his toned stomach and every tick of his jaw making your dipping core begin to pulse with need.   

So fierce is the ache between your legs that your helpless hands soon grow restless in your lap.  They search out the hem of your skirt and slide underneath it, clumsily attempting to provide yourself some much needed relief as best you can with your wrists pinned together as they are.  It’s difficult, but by spreading your legs as wide as you can you just about rub the heel of your hands between them, wantonly moaning around Jungkook’s cock at every slightest bit of friction you manage to press against your lace-covered clit.  

The rocking of your husband’s hips slows on registering the needful pitch of your moans, turning soft and shallow, willing to let catch your breath, at least, if not yet quite ready to fully withdraw himself from the warm, wet utopia that lies behind your lips.

“You know,” he muses as he lets the slick, swollen head of his cock sit stationary at the entrance of your mouth, watching with a heavy heaving chest as your tongue laves it all around, tracing every ridge and mapping out every vein before swiping up along his frenulum to dip shallowly inside his slit. “If you ask nicely enough, I might just give you a hand.”  Opening up your eyes, you see Jungkook’s dark ones glance down past where you’re joined to the desperate shifting of your bound hands against your mound.  

“I might even let you have this big, fat cock, if you say please.”

Your core contracts, hard, as if to express its enthusiasm at the prospect, and it’s with a wet slurp and wide, hopeful eyes that you you slip your mouth off of his length to beseech with neither shame nor eloquence,

“Please, god, touch me, fuck me.  Whatever you want - anything.”  You’re breathless, panting with want, and you know Jungkook’s relishing in just how desperate you appear - you can tell by the slanted smile that spreads across his handsome face - but you’re so far gone at this point that you really don’t care about any dignity that you may have lost.  He can be an asshole if he wants, as long as he’s balls deep inside of you.  

“I think you can do a little better than that, baby,” he presses, holding your eye contact as he sinks into a deep squat before you, golden thighs so thick that they look almost fit to burst, “I’ve heard an awful lot of begging in my time; it’ll take a lot to convince me.”  

God, that really shouldn’t turn you on.  

Jungkook hooks his thumbs under the sides of your underwear and you rock onto your tiptoes where your feet are planted on the floor in order to lift your hips and enable him to drag them off, pulling you towards him in the process, and it’s there, slouched deep in the leather of his chair, that you begin to beg and plead for mercy.  

He smiles all the way through your whimpers and whines, relishing in the way you shudder with every light brush of his fingertips as he slowly peels you from your clothes - careful not to touch you too much.  Your skirt goes first and then your little white ankle socks, his teeth nipping a bite into the meat of your calf as he rolls them off, and then because the cable tie encircling your wrists make it impossible to remove Jungkook improvises, hitching your vest top up above your breasts and then grabbing a hold of your hands, placing them on top of your head.  

You’re still whimpering his name when Jungkook stands back to admire the view, taking his time to slowly stroke one large, vascular hand back and forth along his cock that’s weeping excitement at the sight of you.  Your hips twist restlessly against the leather, your buttocks wet with the copious arousal that’s leaked from your core, and it’s an act of impulsion that has you boldly picking up your feet from the floor and placing a heel on the end of each arm rest to put yourself on full display, praying it might tempt him into giving in.  

“Desperation looks so damn good on you,” Jungkook grits out, his fist tightening around his cock as he pumps it roughly, his attention focused directly on your glistening folds, “Fucking beautiful.”   

“Please Jungkook,” you mewl, your needy little hole visibly clenching for him to see, wetness running down between your buttocks and making every inch of your filth slickened skin seem to shine, “I need you, please.”  

You’re not sure exactly what it is that finally makes your husband snap.  All you know is that one second he’s stood above you, hand wrapped his cock, and then the next he’s all over you, fingers dug deep into the meat of your thighs and his tongue behind your teeth.  It’s the first time you’ve kissed since your discovery, and this is like none you’ve shared before, even in your most passionate of moments.  

Jungkook dominates in every sense of the word, his teeth sinking into your already well-chewed bottom lip and tongue diving deep, reckless with the weight of his body as he presses himself on top of you, the girth of his cock slipping against your core.  

“Oh god,” you gasp into his open mouth as you feel him angle his hips just so, so eager to take you that there’s no preparation, no stretch of his fingers to ready you before he starts to push inside, groaning low as you let out a strangled cry in half-hearted protest, “Jungko-ah!”

Inch by inch, he eases himself inside, his forehead pressed to yours as your walls convulse around the intrusion, like your body is trying in vain to drag him further in faster than Jungkook will allow.  He’s dragging this out to enjoy every wail that you release into his mouth, every jump of your hips each time he sinks further in.

“Know you love that burn, baby,” Jungkook grunts out, teeth clenched and jaw tight, “Love my fat cock stretching you out just right.”  With your hands bound as they are and your body trapped under Jungkook’s own, you have little choice but to wrap your thighs around his narrow waist and gratefully receive all he has to give you, whimpering with pleasure when he finally bottoms out, the head of his cock nestled snug against your cervix.  

“Fuck, you’re so tight.”  Slowly, he pulls all the way out.  “Fuck.”  The second thrust is much easier than the first and the third just right, and each and every time Jungkook sinks into you it's to an accompaniment of wet, squelching sounds that border on obscene.  

“J-jungkook,” you stammer, driven mad by the excruciatingly slow pace he’s adopted and the leisurely way he rolls his hips against you.  Before every thrust he pulls all the way out before plunging back inside, and every time he slips out it leaves you with an ache so fierce deep down in your core that it almost makes you cry, throat burning with the effort it takes to hold back the tears.  

“You want it harder, baby?” Jungkook smirks into the crook of your neck where he’d been busy trailing kiss after kiss to your extra-sensitive skin when he feels your heels dig into his meaty buttocks, fighting to keep him inside.  Your throat has always been your weakness, and clearly your husband means to exploit by the way he lavishes it with such attention, tongue and lips and teeth working in tandem to make your wriggle around on the end of his cock all the more.  

He pulls away just enough to fix you in a dark, heated stare, stilling inside of you before uttering huskily,

“Want me to show you how rough I can get?”  

Air stolen out from your lungs, all you can do is nod your acquiescence and the fingers resting atop of your head twist together as you palm begin to sweat, suddenly nervous, wondering what it is you’re letting yourself in for, but Jungkook doesn’t give you time to second guess.  

As soon as your head is bobbing he’s abruptly lifting you up and out of his chair, still buried deep within, grabbing handfuls on your ass to hold you in place as you sling your arms around his neck and clench your thighs around him tight, afraid that you might fall.

Jungkook has no intention of letting that happen.  Grunting with the effort, he begins to bouncing you rapidly on his cock in mid-air, and the exertion of it breaking him out into a sweat only seconds after he begins, dripping between the frown that creases his brow.  Underneath you his powerful thighs are straining to breaking point and yet he still doesn’t stop, not until you’re practically sobbing at how heavenly it feels to have him slam against your g-spot again and again, your face buried at the juncture of his shoulder and neck.  

You feel him side-step and then all of a sudden you’re falling backward and your back is crashing down onto the desk, Jungkook grabbing at both of your thighs to push them back and bury himself even deeper into you, utterly unconcerned with the sound of his gun falling to the floor at his feet.  He has far sweeter noises to listen to; the endless moans of pleasure that are pouring forth from your wide open mouth, back arching, head tilted back.  

“You make the prettiest sounds when you’re taking my cock, baby,” Jungkook informs you through his laboured breaths, “You take it so well.”  

With great effort you manage to open your eyes to the sound of his voice, body jolting with every one of his thrusts, and the visage that awaits you has your orgasm you could already feel approaching lurching ever nearer.  Jungkook towering over you, his musculature covered in a sheen of sweat and a hungry look in the eyes that follow the path his hand trials downward from your stomach to reach between your legs for the rough pads of his fingertips to locate your clit and pinch it, hard.  

“O-oh shit,” you curse at the feel of your high fast approaching; a delicious tightening of every one of your muscles that Jungkook is able to feel from the inside, your passages squeezing even harder than before, impossibly tight.  Your whole pelvis feels as though it’s liquefying into a molten heat that spreads further out into your veins with every thrust of his hips and circle of his fingers, alighting every one of your nerves along the way until a wave of white hot pleasure engulfs you from your head to your toes.

“Cum nice and hard for me, baby,” Jungkook encourages even as you convulse underneath him, crying out his name, your stomach muscles tensing in perfect time with your core, “There’s a good girl.”  

Your orgasm is so fierce, so long-lasting, that it takes all Jungkook has to hold back and not finish there and then - to pour himself into you as he so longs to.  Instead, he forces himself to pull out before the temptation proves too much, and even as in the haze that accompanies your coming down you’re still aware of his sudden absence within you.  You look up - chin tilted forward - confusion flashing across your fucked out expression.  

Jungkook’s sinks back into his computer chair, spreading his legs open wide, and it’s with a curl of his finger that he beckons you to come take your place on his lap.  On wobbling legs you manage to stand, your gaze fixed on the thick cock that awaits you, stood tall against his stomach and shining with the fluid that’d gushed forth with your orgasm.   

Jungkook hums lowly as he watches you climb onto his lap, admiring the way your body moves to settle your thighs either side of his own, a hand on your hip to keep you steady.  His chestnut brown hair is a mess from having dried in disarray yet it only serves to make him look all more irresistible, and you find It amazing that even having cum so hard just a matter of minutes ago you’re still craving him more and more; your appetite for him insatiable.

Leaning yourself forward, breasts against his chest, you begin to rub your core up and down his length, rolling your hips and softly whining every time it almost slips inside.  Without your hands you can’t quite angle everything right, and after a minute or so of senseless grinding against him your husband helpfully grasps his cock between thumb and forefinger to nestle the head amongst your folds, just as eager as you are to put an end to your mutual frustration.  

“Fuck, that’s right,” he groans as you sink down onto him, his pretty eyes closing as his chin tilts up, head rolling back, “Bounce on me, baby.  Fuck yourself on my cock.”  Bracing your forearms against his chest, hands clasped together at the base of his throat, you begin to move.  You’ve no intention of taking things slow or drawing this out - you’re both long past that - and the tempo with which you slam yourself down onto his lap, over and over again, is relentless from the offset.  

Your thighs burn with the effort it takes to keep going, but it’s worth it; worth it for the pleasure that throbs inside with every smack of his cock against your cervix, every drag of your clit against his pubic bone and every broken moan that falls from Jungkook’s lips.  When you start to circle your hips on each stroke up and down his head tips forward again, eyes opening and making you quiver with the intensity with which they look you up and down, greedily taking you in.  

“You like riding me, huh?” he asks you, voice strained and his fingertips digging into the flesh of your hips when you nod, boneless, dragging you down onto him even harder. “Ngh - feels so good.  Love watching these titties bounce.”  Jungkook grabs a handful of your breast to feel it undulate in his palm with your every movement before plucking at your nipple sharply enough to make you gasp, rolling the bud between his fingers and licking his lips like he’d rather it were inside his mouth.  

“J-Jungkook,” you mewl, unlinking your fingers to paw helplessly at his skin as you rock back and forth, pace refusing to falter even with your growing exhaustion.  It feels to good to stop to stop now - not until you’ve cum again and made him cum with you.  “W-wanna cum, please, oh god.”  

“Come on then, pretty girl,” Jungkook smiles, leaning his head back against the chair and letting it tilt slightly to the side so as to better admire the view of his cock plunging into your depths over and over again, “No-one’s stopping you.”  

“Oh fu-uuck!”  You’re close - so close - so very almost there, your head thrown back and sweat beading down your chest with the effort it’s taking to get yourself there without any help from the man beneath you who’s content just to watch you using his body in order to get off, save the extra push and pull of his hands on your hips.  

“Come on baby,” he persists, and you can tell from the timbre of Jungkook’s voice and the further hardening of his cock within you that he’s getting close too, “Don’t stop now.  You look so good, so perfect for me, fuck, babe, you’re gonna make me cum so hard.”  Somehow, you find it within you to start moving even faster, letting out a strangled moan in amongst the sounds of skin slapping and the squelching that accompanies every your every motion thanks to the juices that have seeped onto onto his lap and thighs.  

“That’s what you want, right?”  His words may be starting to slur - to pour out from his mouth so fast that you’re not even sure that they really make sense - but they’re driving you wild.  Jungkook has never been this vocal in bed before you’re starting to think that you might have to insist on it from now on; he’s too good not to.  “Want your s-sweet little pussy stuffed full of my cum.”

“Mmff, yes, yes, please, yes,” you chant, unaware that you’re even speaking aloud.  Your please are directed more to your own body than to your husband, anyway, egging on the pleasure you can feel growing within until you break for the second time, teeth clamping down on your bottom lip so hard you draw blood.  Your movements slow dramatically - a slow undulation of your pelvis rather than the frantic grind that had led you here - but Jungkook is quick to pick up where you left off.  

Whilst the walls of your pussy are still clenching around him he grabs onto your ass and begins to thrust up into you from underneath, ruthless, and oversensitivity has you crying out his name and letting your head flop forward to rest on his shoulder as he takes control.  Like a ragdoll he lifts you up and down, hips and ass and thighs working hard to reach his end, expending so much energy that he can no longer speak to save the quiet, breathy,

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” that fall endlessly from his lips.  

It’s with a faltering cry of your name that Jungkook finally cums, his face pressed into your hair to muffle the moans that follow.  You feel every muscle he owns tensing underneath you, as rock solid as his cock has become inside, and then he’s twitching and pulsing and spilling himself inside of you in ecstasy; white hot ribbons of cum squirting out so thick and fast and so much that you can feel it start to seep out even while he’s stuffed so deep.  

His breath is hot against your scalp as he tries to catch it, your heaving chests sticky with sweat where they’re pressed together.  

“I love you,” Jungkook sighs into your hair after a minute has passed, a hand running through it, and when he sits up you feel him brushing it gently back from your face to look down at where you remain in the crook of his neck, completely exhausted.  “I’m sorry I never told you.”  

“It’s ok,” you murmur, eyelids fluttering open to be greeted by your husband smiling softly down at you, eyes creasing at the corners, “I’m still mad… and there’s a lot we need to talk about.”  It takes a great effort to sit yourself upright again but with Jungkook’s help you accomplish it, smiling sleepily back at him.  “But I still love you, even if you’re not quite who I thought you were.”  

“Good to know.”  Cradling your cheek, Jungkook leans forward and presses a sweet, lingering kiss to your mouth and another peck thereafter, touching noses.  

It’s reassuring to have him act so sweetly with you now; gently lifting you off of his length to settle you crossways over his lap, uncaring about the mess that swiftly leaks out of you onto his thighs.  He’s extra careful, too, as he cuts you lose from your binds, and after he sets his knife aside Jungkook spends a good few minutes dutifully massaging and kissing at the red marks that are left behind, the soft brown of his eyes full of love as he lavishes you with affection.    

No matter who he is - or what he might be - Jungkook is still the man you fell in love with so many years ago.  He’s still the same man who falls asleep every night at your side and who kisses you awake every morning; who brings you breakfast in bed and makes you laugh until you cry.  It’ll take a lot of time, and a lot of talking, but somehow you’ll get through this.  No matter what, you couldn’t bare to part.  

You’re not sure what that says about you - but one problem at a time.  

“So,” you begin as Jungkook is carrying you across the living room in his arms, your fingers playing in the back of his hair where it’s starting to grow just a little too long, “There’s definitely nothing else you need to tell me?”  

“Nothing,” he confirms with a decisive nod, “Promise.”  

“Hm.”  Dangling your legs over the crook of his elbow, you cluck your tongue thoughtfully. “That’s a shame… I kinda liked the cable ties.”  Your husband pauses on the bathroom tile, looking down at you with raised eyebrows and an amused twinkle in his eyes.

“... I’m sure I can think of something.”  

[snowdice]

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 17]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. Chapters 3-8 and what I have of Chapter 9 are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

I have homework due Friday and it’s long so let’s go.

Chapter 4

Janus was frozen in surprise for a few long moments after Pat disappeared. Which had been, admittedly, his mistake, because, while their window had technically been until 11:17pm and it was only 11:10, the loud crack that whatever Pat had been using for time travel made, garnered the attention of someone else.

“Uh oh,” Remus said, likely hearing footsteps. “Hide.”

That snapped Janus into action, but instead of hiding immediately like a sensible human being, he chose to go for the only link to the man who’d just stolen time travel tech and waltzed away, the mask.

Which was why he ended up getting arrested.

 Remy tsked the moment they were all alone in the police car having come to ‘transfer Lee to another facility.’ Remus was already waiting in the front seat, and flashed Janus a smug smile. If Janus wasn’t still handcuffed, he’d slap him.

“Well,” Remy said. “At least you didn’t shoot anybody like I asked. I was joking by the way. I didn’t really want to pick you up from a 1920s police station period.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“Mmm, nah, ‘cause Remus managed to not get arrested this time, so you defiantly screwed something up.”

“Oh, he defiantly wanted to screw something all right,” Remus said joyfully.

 “Remus,” Janus hissed.

“What?” he asked. “I’m not the horny one for once. Well, no, that’s a lie, but it didn’t affect the job this time.”

Janus groaned and leaned his head back against the seat.

Remy pulled into a seemingly random garage around 20 minutes later. “Alright,” he said. “Here we are.” He got out of the car and then helped Janus out before uncuffing him. “Here’s your ‘watch,’” Remy handed him the timepiece that had been confiscated when he’d been arrested.

Janus put it on and activated it. “Shit,” he said.

“What?” Remus asked.

“An appointment with cultural outreach has already been downloaded to my calendar for once we get out of decon.”

 “Oof. Going to baby jail,” Remy laughed. Remus was cackling.

“This,” Janus said, “was not a cultural faux pas. I did nothing that indicated that I was not from this time. I am not some rookie.”

“Don’t forget cell phones don’t exist in the 1920s,” Remus sang.

“The real question is whether or not my foot exists in your…” Remus disappeared before he could finish, a smirk on his face. Janus growled. “By Remy,” he gritted out. He selected the decontamination chamber from his queue, ignoring the appointment that came after it for now.

He knew exactly where Remus would be standing when he landed, which was why he stepped forward on reentry to ram into him.

 He yelped in surprise. “Sorry,” Janus said pleasantly. “I must have also forgotten landing procedures.

Remus laughed good naturally. “Aw, come on Jay,” he said, bumping Janus back, albeit much gentler than Janus had been. “It’s not a big deal. You just go talk with some crusty old college professor who is far too interested in spoons and then everything’s fine.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” he growled. “They’re treating me like I’m an idiot who accidently invented disco in the 1920s when I was conned by some free agent time traveler.”

“‘Conned,’ Remus said. Is that what they’re calling it now?”

 “I know where and when you live Remus,” Janus said.

Remus gave him a dopey smile as the decontamination cycle finished and the door unlocked. Janus’s wrist buzzed telling him that the coordinates to the cultural outreach office were now unlocked. Instead of pulling them up, Janus walked to the door.

“Um,” Remus said, following him. “Aren’t you supposed to be going to your appointment?” Janus just kept walking towards their office. “Uh… Jan?”

“It’s absolutely ridiculous that I have to go to cultural outreach,” Janus said. “In fact, no one can make me. If they want me to go have a discussion about the definition of ‘bushwa,’ they’re going to have to have me dragged there.”

 “Mmm, I feel like The Boss won’t be too happy about that, and I have a feeling she’d be 100% down to dragging you there herself.”

“Well, then, let her,” Janus said, stalking through the door to his office. “I’m not going to…”

“Ah, Agent Picani,” the woman standing next to his desk, clearly waiting for him, said when he came through the door. “Dr. Picani was informed that there were complications with your last mission and wishes to have a conversation with you and asks that you meet him in his office at the AMO.”

“Oh, um,” Janus said, stumbling a bit before plastering on a regretful half smile. “Unfortunately, I actually have an appointment right now at Cultural Outreach. It’s mandatory and very important, and I have to go now. So, I’ll have to take a raincheck on that.”

 “But-” she started, frowning.

“Remus, work on the report!” Janus said quickly as he waved his hand to bring up his timepiece display and jammed his finger at the glowing appointment card in his queue. A few moments later, Janus was at Cultural Outreach.

Cultural Outreach was not part of the TPI, though it often worked very closely with them. It was a collaboration between the government and multiple universities to help government workers, politicians, and other citizens understand and bridge cultural gaps. It had existed before time travel was invented but had expanded to also teach people who needed to time travel how to behave in unfamiliar times and cultures.

 After it had to be expanded to provide for the TPI, it had been moved to Silver Mountains University. The building had once just been a museum, but it had been thoroughly renovated and there had been add-ons for office space and some classrooms. It was still a museum, however, its purpose had expanded greatly and there were many areas that were off limits to the general public.

One of these areas was the fourth floor, where Janus’s timepiece had dumped him. This was the floor that was almost exclusively for TPI agents and staff of Cultural Outreach who worked with them.

 He immediately turned away from the reception area, hoping that he could escape and go sit on the university’s quad or something of the like for the next hour or so in hopes the woman his brother sent to fetch him would give up and go back to the AMO. Yet, the receptionist apparently saw him.

“Janus Picani?” he asked.

Janus grimaced and turned back towards him. “Yes,” he said.

“Is something wrong?” he asked. “You’re 5 minutes late for your appointment and seem disoriented.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Is your timepiece malfunctioning?”

“No.”

“Uh… okay. Well, if you sign in here, I can take you to your appointment.”

“…Fine.”

 He begrudgingly stepped forward and touched the screen he’d gestured to sign with his fingerprint, and then let the man lead him down the hall.

The door they stopped at was propped open slightly, but he still paused and knocked. “Professor Eran? Your 2:30 is here.”

Janus had just a moment upon hearing the name to think that maybe there was actually some sort of intelligent design of the universe and whatever being of ultimate power had crafted it was a dick.

The door opened and Virgil Eran’s eyes immediately narrowed on him. “Janus.”

“Virgil.”

“I see you’re still late for everything.”

“I see you’re still a bastard.”

 Janus saw the receptionist slowly back away in the direction they’d come.

“Why don’t you come in?” Virgil said faux pleasantly.

Janus did, because he really didn’t have much of a choice at this point unless he wanted to jump out of a window… or push someone out of a window.

Virgil turned back into his office and took a seat behind his desk. Janus unhappily followed him in and sat across from him.

He took his time pulling up whatever the TPI sent him and reading it over. “So, I see you failed your recovery mission and were arrested in 1923.”

 “It wasn’t like that,” Janus said. “I shouldn’t be here.”

Virgil gave him that same suspicious look he used to give Janus whenever Janus claimed to have not eaten his hot pockets out of the freezer in the middle of the night. He’d only been lying 80% of the time. Virgil had a tendency to forget what he’d eaten in a half-conscious state at 3 o’clock in the morning.

“I shouldn’t,” Janus snapped defensively. “Nothing went wrong with anyone from the time period. An illegal time traveler screwed up the mission details.”

“Well, it is still protocol to make sure nothing slipped when agents go off script. You weren’t prepared to be in a jail cell, and it is possible that you screwed something up.”

 “I didn’t screw anything up,” Janus growled.

“Alright,” Virgil said pulling up a document on his desk. “The mission started on July 27th, 1923 at 9:58pm, correct?”

“Oh, god, we’re not really going to fill out a time sheet. I don’t have time for that today.”

“It is protocol and best that the information is documented when it is still fresh in your mind. Besides, your schedule has been cleared for the rest of the workday.” The bastard was enjoying this. He knew how much Janus hated this stuff.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Janus said, “it was the damned illicit time traveler.”

“And I will be the judge of that,” Virgil said. Janus should have just bit the bullet and had coffee with his brother. “If you truly did nothing wrong, your supervisor will see that when I send this to her.”

 Yet, despite the fact that Virgil clearly relished in his suffering, he was charitable enough to do most of the actual filling out of the forms. He’d read out the questions and write down what Janus said instead of making him do it himself. Janus really only had to do a quick quality check and sign it at the end.

He still was an asshole about the details, but really he’d been like that about stupid thing like the settings for the dish washer and how the pantry was organized during their college days before they’d had their falling out, so Janus wasn’t particularly surprised. When they were finally done, Virgil sent it off to get filed by the TPI.

 Then, they were left staring at each other with nothing between them but almost a decade of radio silence and a whole lot of awkwardness.

“I should go,” Janus finally said, standing up.

Virgil tilted his head slightly to the side and gave him a half smile. “Don’t lock the door behind you,” he said. “Not that I’d expect you too.”

Janus took it for the clear attempt at a joke it was intended to be and puffed out a breath of amusement with a head shake. “No risk of that,” he said. Then, he turned and walked out of the office.

 Chapter 5

Janus stepped back into the reception area and booted up his time piece. Instinct said to go back to the office despite the fact that it was late enough that most people had gone home, but he hesitated. Surely Emile had given up by now, but considering he’d sent someone to ambush him in his office, Janus wasn’t sure if he should trust that. He could just go home, but he already knew his mind was racing too much to sleep tonight so he’d probably just end up staring at the lake for the next 6 hours. So, he decided on the only other legitimate option he had. He pulled up Remus’s home coordinates and selected.

 The home that Remus had chosen (after his long line of rejected requests) managed to somehow make no and absolute sense simultaneously to anyone who knew him. It was a small farm in the United States just west of the Mississippi in 1842 in what would be ratified as the state of Iowa in a few years. When asked why he would choose that time and place, Remus always responded with “I thought it was funny,” whatever that meant.

Unlike most time agents who simply used the identities assigned to them by the AMO as a cover, Remus actually lived his part time.

 Janus was… fairly certain he was cheating a bit to get everything done, but he maintained his small farm all on his own, growing most of his own food. The neighbors he had lived very far away, but he still spoke with them far more than Janus did his own.

Janus appeared inside the small home, his eyes already shut. “Are you hear and dressed?” Janus called. Something bumped lightly into his legs.

“I’m in the kitchen!”

Janus peaked his eyes open and squatted to pet the cat at his feet. “That doesn’t answer my question!” he called back to Remus.

 “It’s a surprise!” Remus said.

“Remus.” Diesel Fuel the cat flopped to her side on the ground as Janus continued to pet her ears. He heard Remus’s footsteps, and saw cloth covering his legs, so risked looking up. He was currently not only dressed, but wearing an apron that Janus was fairly sure was not time appropriate judging by the fabric and cat pawprint design. He had a bit of flour on his hands, and it may have been a bit too white for the time and place, but Janus couldn’t be completely sure.

“What’re you doing here?” Remus asked.

 “My day has been an endless series of frustrations,” Janus said. “So, I have come to see the only tolerable being in the history of the universe.”

Remus snorted. “Since I know that isn’t me, I’ll assume you’re talking about the cat.”

“I still don’t understand why you tolerate this creature,” Janus addressed Diesel Fuel. She blinked slowly up at him. “To be fair, he was assigned as my partner. I didn’t have much of a choice in it. You could go always run away and become feral in the woods if you’d like.”

“So could you, technically,” Remus pointed out.

“I’m thinking about it after today.”

 “Would you like some bread?” Remus asked. “That’s all I’ve been making this afternoon. Some fresh should be coming out of the oven in a few minutes.”

“Do you have anything stronger made out of wheat?”

“Ew, no, but I do have vodka.”

“Vodka works.”

“Want me to mix it with something?”

“No.”

“One of those night then,” Remus said, easily. “Let me finish up the bread, so I don’t burn the kitchen down. You can go get the alcohol from the cellar while you wait if you want, or you can just flop down on the couch.”

He was going to just flop down on the couch.

 He did just that as Remus disappeared back into his kitchen. The cat hopped onto his stomach, proceeding to purr loudly and kneed at chest. Janus petted the cat and listened to the noise of Remus moving around in the other room, letting his mind drift. His mind drifted to Virgil for a bit and he steadfastly did not allow it to drift to his brother. Yet, the thing that most was on his mind was the strange man who had flirted and charmed Janus all night before mercilessly screwing him over. ‘Pat’ he’d said his name was, but surely that was not his real name.

 Janus sighed and scratched the cat’s ear. “He certainly wasn’t an amateur,” Janus mused to the cat. “With that amount of precision to get in before we did, he must have someone not on the ground feeding him information. Perhaps more than one.” He was part of a group of time traveling thieves perhaps or something worse. “I didn’t get a good look at his face since he was wearing a mask,” Janus said, “but I spent a lot of time with him, and I’m sure Remy swiped the mask from the police since it had been on me when I was arrested. It’s a good lead.”

 He continued to pet Diesel Fuel. Eventually, Remus came back in, noticed Janus hadn’t bothered to get the alcohol and went outside to the cellar. “I’m going to find him,” Janus told Diesel Fuel. “I’ll stop whatever it is he’s doing, and I’ll bring him in.” Diesel Fuel mewed her support, and Janus patted her on top of the head.

Remus came back in with the bottle of vodka and handed it to him without a word. He sat down on the couch near Janus’s feet and patted his lap so Diesel Fuel would come over to him and allow Janus to sit up.

 The bastard waited until he was approximately 3 shots in (he didn’t have a shot glass and was just taking drinks from the bottle) to ask the questions Janus really didn’t want to answer. “Are you mad at Emile?” Remus asked.

Janus groaned, trying to wash out the bitter taste of shame and grief with the sharp sting of vodka. It didn’t work. “No,” he said to Remus.

“Then why have you been avoiding him?”

“Shit, I’m here because I didn’t want to think about it. Can’t we just not.”

“Don’t want to think about what?

“It’s none of your business, Remus.”

 He could feel Remus frowning at him, but Janus stared resolutely ahead. At least, he did until a foot poked his face. He slapped it away, but it did the job of getting Janus to look at Remus.

“It is my business,” Remus said, foot still in the air. “I’m your partner and your friend.”

“If I’m your friend, you’ll drop it.”

“So, you’re not mad at Emile,” Remus continued, contemplatively. “Did you do something to him, then?” Janus bit his lip and looked away. “What?” Remus asked. Janus didn’t respond. “Look, I’m sure he’ll forgive you for whatever it is. He’s a good guy. Just talk to him about it.”

 “I can’t,” Janus said.

“Whatever it is, it’s probably been long enough that he forgives you. You literally just have to have a conversation, say you’re sorry, and everything will be A-OK.”

“I can’t,” Janus repeated.

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t know about it.”

Remus paused. “So, as far as he knows, you just cut contact with him all of a sudden for no reason and have been avoiding him ever since?”

Janus looked at his shoes. “Yeah.”

“That…” Remus said, “is not fucking fair Janus.”

“I know.”

“Then why the hell are you doing that to him? He’s like… soft and feeling-y. He’s probably really upset.”

 “I know, Remus.”

“Tell him. Whatever it is.”

“I can’t.”

“Look,” Remus said. “You tell him and he either forgives you or he doesn’t. If he does, everything’s fine. If he doesn’t… well, it’s not like it would be any different from you two never being in the same room the last few years. Either way, you can’t just do this to him. He’ll probably forgive you. He’s your brother. Brothers don’t… brothers would forgive each other.”

Janus laughed softly and met Remus’s eyes. “That’s the problem,” he said. “He’d definitely forgive me.” He turned away and opened the vodka bottle again. “Now, if you’ll shut up for a few minutes, I’m going to drink until I black out.”

 Chapter 6

“Really, Khalid,” Janus said, storming into his boss’s office. “A yellow?” It had been about a week since the 1920s incident, and his incident report had finally been cleared. Sure, it wasn’t a red or a black and he wasn’t facing any reprimand, but it should have been a green.

She looked up at him, clearly unconcerned. “There was an incident,” she said. “You handled it well, but there was one. Therefore, yellow.”

“It wasn’t a time travel incident! It was a rouge time traveler.”

“Janus, you helped me make these rules,” she said impatiently.

“Which is why I know this is bullshit,” he snapped.

 She rolled her eyes. “If it was anyone else, you would agree with me. While you didn’t go against protocol and had no time related incidents, the fact of the matter is, you were still distracted by this ‘rouge time traveler,’ didn’t complete your mission, and were arrested.”

“He was good,” Janus said. “You can’t fault me for that. He also could be dangerous and you’re busy handing out yellows instead of working to track him down.”

She raised an eyebrow. “We are working on tracking him down,” she said. “We have done an analysis on the mask and found fibers dating to the 2010s and some DNA. Though it isn’t exactly a high priority.”

 “We have no idea who he is or what he’s planning to do. Why is that not a high priority thing?”

“At the moment?” she asked. “Because we have reports of a time bomb being activated.”

“What?” Janus asked sitting up. “When?”

“New Years Eve going into the year 3,000 in Brazil,” she said. “Which you’d know about if you’d bothered to check your integration port this morning before storming into my office.”

“It’s my mission?” Janus asked.

“The incident investigation is over and your active again despite the dreaded yellow,” she said, clearly making fun of him a bit. “So, yes, and it’s a high priority mission, so I’ll be running it.”

 “Who all is going?” he asked.

“Other than the two of us, Remus, Lena, and Fred,” she told him. “We leave in three hours, so, you might want to run off to Rhi before Fred gets to her and ties her up for an hour on details.”

Janus nodded and got to his feet. He turned back at the door. “I still don’t deserve the yellow,” he hissed.

She waved him off. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Picani.”

He ground his teeth a bit about the dismissal of his worries, but his resentment was slightly soothed by the fact that she’d assigned him to go on such a high priority mission and with only senior agents.

 He took the advice and grabbed Remus from the office, noting Lena hadn’t been able to wrangle Fred yet as she was still at her desk, and they both headed off to see Rhi.

A few hours later, they were all in decontamination together, decked out in truly god-awful costumes. The turn of the third millennia had been a wild event, and the best way to fit in was to look like you’d grabbed something from every century in recorded human history, dyed it in neon paint, and rolled around in a vat of glitter.

Remus had opted to stick his head in a vat of glow in the dark green paint that costuming had offered them, and it wasn’t even going to be slightly disruptive to their covertness.

 In fact, costuming had frowned when Janus had insisted he not get his hair dyed and instead wore a bowler hat. They had required him to have flowers made out of glitter on it.

There were five people waiting for them when they landed 6 hours before the turn of the millennia. Three were touchdown agents, including Remy, and two were on location tech support. Usually it would be overkill to have that many people there just for support even with five agents in the field, but today the TPI needed to be cautious because they were planning on instituting a time lock.

Time bombs were dangerous things that would ripple through time if not contained. Even if it did end up going off (killing everyone in its reach), the time lock would serve to prevent most damage outside of the city and, more importantly, the year it was planted.

 Janus had only been in two time locks before, and he was one of the most senior agents in the TPI, outranked only by the founder: Lia Khalid. Time locks were designed to keep all time linear in a certain fixed time and geographical area as well as prevent any time travel in and out. Once it was engaged, all forms of time travel would not work for the duration, bar the pin device. Khalid was already switching out her regular timepiece with the slightly bigger one that was designed to support the time lock.

There was a failsafe back at the TPI that could be engaged in an emergency, which was why tech support was here, but other than that, the only thing that could break the time lock was that timepiece, and it would break the moment the time lock ended.

 As soon as it was on Khalid’s wrist, she looked up at them all. “Our information says the time bomb was planted in the costume of one of the ‘Millennium Birds’ who are the organizers of the different events,” she said. Janus had seen a photo of the identical costumes in the mission details. They were all robe like garments with giant fans of feathers coming from the neck that coalesced in a peak a foot above their head to hold a fake bird egg. At least they’d be easy to find. “There are 25 of them throughout the city. We need to find each of them. So, we don’t double count, you’ll need to subtly,” her eyes touched on Remus, “scan each one you find for the bomb and tag them with a tracker if it’s not on them. You can view the already tagged ones, as well as the rest of us on your timepiece even once the time lock is engaged. When you find the bomb, call it in.”

 They all nodded, and Khalid looked over at one of the techies. She nodded at her and then the techie flipped a couple of switches. “Three, two, one,” the techie said. There was a slight shift in the air that most people would disregard, but Janus as a seasoned time traveler could feel the change even before his wrist buzzed. He glanced at his timepiece to see it had a big red ‘X’ across its display. He tapped it and was still able to bring up the map of the city with 10 green dots on it all clustered together in their current location.

 After that, he tested the scanner on his timepiece that he would use to search for the bomb, just to make sure the time lock hadn’t messed anything up with his equipment. He glanced up to see everyone else was doing the same.

“Keep in contact,” Khalid said before everyone split up. Janus and Remus started by going North while Fredrick and Darlene were to go South. Khalid was a floater who would tag any Birds she saw but was mostly there for backup and orders.

Janus and Remus stepped into the chaos of New Years Eve before the turn of the third millennia. The streets were already swamped with people and it would only be getting worse the later it go.

“Where should we start?” Remus asked.

 “Let’s go all the way North to the games area,” Janus said. “We can work our way back here.”

“Okay!” Remus said. “I wonder if they have those fun little genetically modified goldfish as prizes. I’ve always wanted to eat one and see if I end up getting whatever design was on the fish on my body.”

Janus gave him a disgusted look.

“What?! People eat fish all the time!”

Janus shook his head. “We’re not playing the games anyway. We have work to do. Important work.”

“Boo,” Remus replied. Janus chose to ignore him as he spotted one of the Millenia Birds letting people into the gaming area.

 They walked over towards the entrance. Janus got in range first and moved to subtly scan the Millenia Bird, Remus doing the same the next moment. After a second, Janus’s timepiece buzzed and lit up red, meaning the bomb was within range. “Well, that was easy,” he said. “It was on the first one we found.”

“Uh…” Remus said. “Jan.” When Janus looked, he was holding up his wrist to show his green lit time piece.

“What?” Janus asked. He quickly moved to rescan the Millenia Bird, and his timepiece came up green as well. Which, meant the bomb was not in range, even though the Millenia Bird had not moved. “But…” He and Remus’s eyes met, and they quickly both started turning in a circle to look at the crowd around him. No one looked like they’d just stolen a time bomb off the Millennial Bird, but then Janus’s eyes caught on a man. He blended in perfectly to his surroundings. He was wearing the disgusting garb of the times, a large light blue piece that bubbled near his hips, and had most of his skin covered in rainbow neon paints. Yet, something about him, the curl of his hair or the way he moved, drew Janus’s eyes to him. He recognized the man immediately even in a completely different dressing style. Yet, what cinched it was the moment Janus’s eyes met his and they seemed to sparkle slightly in the afternoon sun. The next moment, the person Janus knew as Pat, turned to disappear into the crowd.

 Chapter 7

“Him,” was the only thing Janus said before taking off after the figure who had just disappeared into the game area.

“What?” Remus’s voice followed after him. “Janus! What?!”

Janus did not pause, just continuing to run after Pat, hopping over two barricades as a shortcut. Janus cursed when he lost sight of the man for just a moment near the prize table filled with colorful goldfish, but he was able to spot him once again walking into one of the tents. Janus blasted into the tent. It was a game where they raced rats, and when Janus entered, Pat was cooing at one of them.

 “Who’s a tiny little squishy precious baby?” he was asking one of them, wiggling his pointer finger at it.

“You,” Janus growled stepping up to him.

He turned and tilted his head at Janus with a frown. “Um, me?” he asked, pointing to his chest, all sorts of innocent, but Janus could see a spot of hidden amusement in his eyes.

“Where is it?”

His eyebrows drew together, but it was an act. It was clearly an act! “Where is what?”

“The…” he glanced around them at the people surrounding them. “Thing you just took.”

“I didn’t take anything,” Pat said with a frown.

 “Oh, no,” Janus said. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fooling me twice is not an option.”

“I’m sorry sir,” Pat said. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bull. Shit.”

Just then, Remus jogged into the tent. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“It’s him,” Janus said pointing. “He took it. He has it.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about,” Patton said. He looked over to Remus with a confused frown.

Remus looked at Janus. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “It’s him. It has to be him. He’s the mask guy.”

Remus squinted at Pat. “He is?”

“Whoever you think I am, I’m not. I haven’t worn a mask all night. I just did the face paint,” he pointed to his cheeks.

 Remus raised his wrist and his timepiece lit up green. He looked at Janus.

“I lost sight of him for five seconds. He must have stashed it somewhere,” Janus said. He turned on Pat. “Where did you put it?”

“…Are you,” Pat asked, his eyes going back and forth between Janus and Remus, “… the police?”

“We are, actually,” Khalid said as she stepped into the tent. Remus must have called her. She inserted herself between Janus and Pat. “Agent Khalid,” she said, offering a hand with a smile. Pat looked at it in surprise and then smiled back hesitantly as he took it. “Apologizes, one of the big game prizes was stolen by someone matching your description. Would you mind coming down to security for questioning? Just to clear it up.”

 “Oh,” Patton said, hesitant. Janus expected him to refuse outright, but then he said. “Uh, sure.”

“Thank you very much, Mr…”

“Jonas,” Pat told her earnestly. “Do I need to be handcuffed?”

“No,” Khalid said. Janus frowned at her, but she ignored him. “It’s just a talk for now.” She gestured to the tent entrance. “Come with us.”

He did without argument, and Remus and Janus followed behind the both of them. Khalid did not lead them back to the base, but to a little spot that said “security” near the center of the event. Remy was already there waiting for them at a desk.

 “Remy, would you please take Mr. Jonas to go sit down?” she asked.

“Sure, boss,” Remy said, standing up. He led Pat away.

Khalid turned to Janus and Remus once they were out of earshot. “What is going on?”

“It’s the mask man,” Janus said, “the one from 1923, and my scanner said the time bomb was on the Millenia Bird outside the games entrance, but then it was gone the next second, and I saw him, and then he ran away.”

“So, does he have it on him?”

“No. I lost sight of him, and he must have stored it somewhere, but I know he took it.”

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“He’s the man from 1923?” she asked.

“Yes! Remus, that’s him, right? You recognize him.”

“Well,” Remus said thoughtfully. “He was in a mask, and it was dark in the room with the necklace. Other than that, I only really saw his back, and he was wearing pants. Mr. Jonas is wearing a dress, so I can’t really tell if their asses match.”

“Okay, but I was with him for hours. I swear it’s him, and I swear he took it,” Janus just about shouted.

“We’ll question him,” Khalid placated, “and Fred and Lena will keep looking in the meantime.”

 “He knows where it is,” Janus insisted. “I swear.”

“Okay,” Khalid said, before leaving to follow where Remy and Pat had gone. She stopped Janus with a hand on his shoulder. “I think Remus and I will do the interrogation.” He opened his mouth to argue. “You know the most about him, so observe from the sidelines and see if he makes any mistakes that indicate you’re right.”

“That’s just to placate me and you know it.”

“Observation’s over there,” she said pointing.

He got a thumbs up from Remus as he walked by, and Janus glared at his back before walking off to the indicated location.

 He watched as Remus and Khalid entered the room, and Remy left it. Remy joined him in the observation room after leaving and leaned against the wall.

Pat was sitting at a table and watched Remus and Khalid with that same rubbish placid confusion that he had before. “So,” Khalid said, “Mr. Jonas.”

“You can call me Nick,” Pat interrupted.

“Lia,” Khalid replied. He smiled at her happily. “So, are you enjoying your day?” she asked.

“I am!” he replied. “It’s a big day. You only get to see the turn of a millennia once in your life.”

“Ah, yes,” Khalid said. “Doing anything special for it?”

 “Um, not really,” he said. “Other than the party. I’m going to meet up with my roommates after dinner. Kevin doesn’t like this sort of thing, and Joe couldn’t come.”

“Your roommates,” Khalid said, considering him. “Do you live around here?”

“Uh huh,” Pat replied.

“Do you have any ID?”

“I do, want me to get it?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Pat unzipped one of the bubbles on his waist and handed her a chip. “Remus, would you mind going out and getting the ID scanner?” she asked, even though her timepiece would be able to read it.

“Ah, shit,” Remy said. “Props. What do those things even look like?”

 As Remy scrambled to find something that would pass for an ID reader so “Nick” didn’t get suspicious of Khalid using her timepiece, Janus watched the two alone in the room like a hawk.

“I see you’re wearing a dress inspired by the 2770s,” Khalid noted, as Remus came to stand next to him.

“Yeah!” Pat replied. “Joe made it for me. He’s really good at fashion design!”

“Can I see?” she asked.

With a happy smile, he reached over the table to let her get a look of the sleeves. Janus saw her subtly scan the fabric, probably to make sure it was from the 2990s and not actually from the 2770s. Considering she didn’t mention it, Janus assumed it checked out.

 Remy came back with some sort of device then and handed it to Remus who saluted and wandered back into the interrogation room. Khalid pretended to scan the ID in her hand. She handed it back to him without comment. “So, you said you live with your roommates: Joe and Kevin?” she asked.

“Yep!” he replied. “We’re practically like brothers.”

“Would you mind calling them?”

“Erm,” he titled his head like he was confused by the question. “Well, like I said, Joe is a bit busy, but I could definitely call Kevin.

“Here,” Khalid said, “use my phone.”

“I have my own,” he said with a frown.

“Humor me,” she requested.

“Uh, okay,” Pat agreed. He took the offered 2999 phone and dialed a number on it. Khalid reached over to put it on speaker.

“Hello?” a voice asked after a few seconds.

“Um, hey Kevin, it’s Nick.”

There was a sigh on the other end. “Hello Nick, is something wrong? Why are you calling me from someone else’s phone?”

“I’m fine, I think.” He looked up at Khalid. “Why am I calling him exactly?”

“Hello, I’m Officer Khalid,” Khalid said. “I just wanted to confirm that you are Nick Jonas’s roommate, and he does live in Manaus.”

“Yes, we live together with our other roommate,” the man replied flippantly. “Officer? Is something wrong?”

“I believe there was just a case of mistaken identity,” Khalid said.

“Bullshit there was!” Janus hissed, though she could not hear him.

“No need to worry,” Khalid continued.

“I’m good Kevin,” Pat said.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Kevin asked.

“Don’t be Paranoid, Kevin. I’ll see you Tonight for the New Years Celebration. You know I Live to Party.”

“I am hanging up now,” Kevin said.

“No! Comeback.” The line went dead. Pat handed the device back to Khalid.

She took it and smiled at him. “Give us just a couple of minutes,” she requested. He nodded easily, and she and Remus exited the interrogation room. “I… think we’re done here,” Khalid said.

“No, he’s lying,” Janus insisted, and got a dubious look in return. “I know he is! Remus!”

“The alibi is pretty solid…” Remus said, “and he doesn’t have the bomb on him.”

“Oh, come on,” Janus said. “You can’t say there is nothing fishy going on here.”

Khalid and Remus shared a look. “Janus,” Khalid said. “I respect your intuition. It is usually very good, but you have been a bit intense about the man from the 1920s, and I think that may be blinding you a bit...”

“I am not imagining this!” Janus said. “That’s him and he took it.”

“You only met him once while he was wearing a mask,” Khalid pointed out with a frown, “and you didn’t see him take the bomb, did you?”

“No, but he looked at me and I knew,” Janus argued. They both gave him a skeptical look. “Oh, come on!”

“You know that’s a little weak, Jan,” Remus said.

“Let me talk to him,” Janus requested. “Just give me five minutes to talk with him.”

Khalid raised one eyebrow. “Fine,” she agreed. “You have five minutes, but after that, you have to let it go. We can’t waste any more time.”

 Chapter 8

Pat looked up as Janus stepped into the interrogation room. “Hi,” he said with an innocent smile that could cut steal.

Janus didn’t say a word as he took a seat; he just watched him intently. He leaned slightly over the table and steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “So, your name is Nick this time?” Janus asked.

“Nicholas Jonas,” he said. “Always has been.”

“Stop it,” Janus said.

“Stop what?”

“Cut the crap. I know.”

Pat leaned forward, mirroring Janus as he leaned closer, interlocking his fingers and laying his chin on top of his knuckles. “What did you say your name was again?” he asked, pleasantly.

 “Janus,” Janus replied.

“No, I’m Jonas,” he said, pointing to his chest.

“Not Jonas,” Janus spat. “Janus.”

“Um,” Pat said, eyes alight with amusement. The bastard. “Those are the same words.”

“No, they’re not. It’s Janus. J-A-N-U.-S.”

“Well, that’s confusing,” Pat said with a frown, but his nose was crinkling. “It’s close to my name. You should go by a nickname instead.”

“What?” Janus said. “No.”

Pat hummed. “How about Love Bug?”

“What! No!” Janus sputtered, almost flipping the table, as Pat winked at him.

“BB Good?”

“What does that even mean?!”

“Mandy.”

“No!”

“Okay, okay, how about Macy Misa.”

11594

Janus stared at him for a moment. “Fine. Whatever. What was I even talking about?”

“Hmm. I Believe we were talking about my name and how you think it’s not my name.”

“Right,” Janus said. “So, Nick. That was your roommate, Kevin on the phone, right? He seemed a bit unhappy with you. Any reason?”

“Nah, we’re Cool” said Pat. “That’s Just the Way We Roll.”

“Not because you’re messing up a mission right now?”

Pat’s eyes crinkled together. “A mission?” he parroted. “I’m not messing up a mission.”

“Oh, really?” Janus growled. “Because you’ve been captured by the TPI, and I know who you are and what you’ve been doing.”

“I have no idea what the TPI is,” he claimed.

“Yes, you do!” Janus said, standing up. “You obviously do! Or you wouldn’t be playing this game!”

 “Game?” Pat asked. “Macy I ask you what you’re talking about.”

“This is all just a game to you isn’t it!” Janus said, slamming his hands down on the table in front of them.

“Whoa,” Pat said, putting his hands up. “Calm down. Your face is getting all red. You must be Burnin’ Up.”

“I’m not sure what, but something about what you just said pisses me off.”

“And that is five minutes,” Khalid said, bursting into the room. He felt a tug on the back of his shirt and glared back at Remus who was putting his own body between Janus and Pat.

 “There was no way that was five minutes,” Janus growled.

“It was five minutes,” Khalid gritted out. “Remus, get him out of here.”

“Come on Jay,” Remus said, dragging him back towards the door.

“Remus, I swear to god.”

“Just chill, Janus,” Remus said, slamming the door closed behind them.

Janus shrugged him off. “You chill!” he snapped. “He’s playing you all for the fool.”

“Wow, Macy,” Remy drawled like an asshole. “I’ve never seen you so fired up.”

“Oh, my gosh. No one is going to believe me, and he’s going to get away with this.”

“You’re not really helping your case, babe,” Remy said.

 Remus grabbed him by the shoulders again. “Here, let’s go get some water.”

“I don’t want water,” he said even as he let Remus lead him to another room to get a glass of water.

“Look,” Remus said. “I know the Mask Guy thing really sucked, but you have to look at the facts.

“I am looking at the facts,” Janus insisted, “and the facts are, he’s fucking with me.”

“You don’t know what mask guy looks like,” Remus said. “You didn’t see Nick take the time bomb, he has an ID from this time period and a roommate in this time he called on the phone, and he legitimately seems to not know what any of us are talking about.”

 “Did you even listen to our conversation?” Janus asked. “He was screwing with me the entire time!”

“Janus…” Remus said.

“What?” Janus said, narrowing his eyes at Remus’s tone.

“I know you recently had a bad experience, but not everyone who flirts with you is doing it out of evil.”

Janus’s mouth hung open for a few seconds. “That’s what you got out of our conversation?”

“He called you Love Bug.”

Janus felt his face heat a bit at the reminder. “That’s not… I. I’m stealing your cat and then never speaking to you again.”

Remus laughed. “Ah,” he said. “Young lust.”

Janus elbowed him roughly in the side. “No!”

“Yes!” he crooned, pleased.

 “You are the worst partner,” Janus hissed. “When I’m right you owe me 10 loafs of your fresh bread.”

“Branching out from poptarts?” Remus asked.

Janus shook his head. He still wasn’t happy about the state of things, but he could feel himself cooling down a bit.

Khalid came out of the integration room after a few minutes, leaving Pat with Remy. “What was that?” she asked him.

“He got under my skin,” Janus said.

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “For now, we’re letting him go and then going back to looking for the bomb like we’re meant to be.”

 “Fine,” Janus relented. “Just do me the favor of tagging him before he leaves. Just that. I beg of you.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “If it will calm you down.”

He nodded.

“Then, let’s go,” she said. When they met back up with Remy and Pat, he saw Khalid make the subtle gesture that would tag Pat like they would have for the Millennium Birds. Pat sent him what could pass as a sweet smile if Janus didn’t know better. Then, they walked him outside, leaving Remy on clean-up duty for the make-shift security office.

“So, I’m free to go?” Pat asked. His bemused expression edged far too much on the side of amused verses confused for Janus’s taste.

 “You are,” Khalid said. “Have fun at the festivities.”

His hands went flapping about. “Oh, you too!” he said. “Well, I guess you’re working, but you can have fun anyway, I’m sure.”

“We’ll do our best,” she said.

He gave her a blinding smile and reached forward to shake her hand enthusiastically. Janus rolled his eyes and looked up at the heavens. “It was nice to meet you!” he said, “and you too, Remus!” He turned to meet Janus’s eyes. “Macy Misa.”

Janus pressed his lips together.

Then, Pat turned and walked away.

“Well, now that we’re done with that,” Khalid said, turning to them. “We have only a few more hours before midnight and we really need to find the time bomb.

 “Oh,” Pat called. He’d paused a few yards away and turned back to them. “Thanks for letting me go so easily by the way,” he said, “and just in the Nick,” he winked, “of time too.” Janus narrowed his eyes at him. He smiled back. “Wrist check,” he said holding up his arm to show off the timepiece there. Khalid immediately looked down at her own wrist just to see that the one timepiece that could move through the time lock was no longer there. Pat made a gesture and disappeared.

All three of them stared at the spot he’d been for a long moment.

Janus was the one to speak first. “I want. The yellow. To be erased. From my record.”

 Chapter 9

Khalid immediately called everyone back to base.

“What happened?” asked Fred when he and Lena arrived. The tech people were already scrambling to get through to the TPI and get the time lock broken from the outside.

“Remus, Remy, and Khalid got played by Pat or whatever his name is. It certainly isn’t Nick. He was just setting up a joke,” Janus told him.

“Stop being smug,” Remy said. “It’s not a good look for you.”

“Pat is…?” Lena asked.

“They guy who fucked me over in 1923,” Janus said, “and is currently in the middle of fucking us all over because he stole the pin timepiece, and by extrapolation, probably the time bomb too.”

 “It will be fine,” said Khalid, “because what he doesn’t know is that timepiece has a tracker on it. Wherever and whenever he went, we’ll have his coordinates.”

“Speaking of,” one of the techies said. “It’s about to break. You might want to hold onto something.” Janus grabbed for a support beam next to him as the techie put a device on the ground in the center of the base. It blinked once, twice, and on the third blink the ground rumbled. There were sounds of panicked yelps outside. The fail safe for the time lock was not nearly as gentle as ending it correctly.

 Everything settled after a few moments, and they all straightened themselves out. Janus’s timepiece buzzed to indicate it was now functioning normally. Khalid had returned her usual timepiece to her wrist and now used it to open a display they could all see. “The pin timepiece’s closest time/space coordinates are…” she trailed off. “Right outside?” She frowned. “That’s strange. Why would he still be here?” She turned to march outside, following the coordinates to a trash can. She pulled the pin timepiece out and stared at it. “Fuck,” she said.

“What just happened?” Remy asked.

“He ticked us,” Janus said. “Again.”

 “He was stuck in the time lock,” Khalid said. “That’s why he got our attention. He couldn’t leave with the time bomb unless he had the pin timepiece or we broke the time lock. Apparently, he’s smart enough to know that if he took the pin timepiece away from here, we’d probably be able to find him, but he knew we’d break the lock as soon as the pin went missing. So, he must have stashed his own timepiece and went back in time within the time lock to grab it while we were distracted with the past version of him. As soon as the time lock went down, I imagine he left.”

 “Probably with the time bomb,” Janus said.

“Probably with the time bomb,” she confirmed.

And everyone knew the only thing worse than a time bomb was a time bomb you didn’t know the location of.

They evacuated after that, of course, and time locked the location once they were out just in case they were wrong, but midnight 3000 struck without thousands of people dying in Brazil, so the time bomb had defiantly been removed from then.

The, they initiated a time travel lockdown for all nonessentials, not willing to let random history students get caught up in an explosion if Pat decided to set the thing off somewhere.

 Then, it was a matter of figuring out everything they could about ‘Pat.’ First, they checked the tracker data as Khalid had tagged him with one of the Millennium Bird trackers. It wouldn’t work outside of the zone they’d set up that day, but the record would show his behavior during the time lock after he’d escaped with the pin timepiece.

There had been many little green dots on the map that day as Fred and Lena had actually been doing the job they’d set out to do, but most of those were running around in the south. There had been one green dot, however, that appeared suddenly in the game area about 10 minutes before the time bomb had been stolen.

 They could see Janus’s yellow dot almost brush his when he’d been chasing the earlier Pat down, around when he’d lost him briefly. The earlier Pat must have all but handed it off to his future self.

“He doubled back,” Remus commented when they watched the recorded data. It was a ballsy move and one that most people balked at, because there were inherent dangers any time you interacted with yourself from a different point in the timestream. It was ripe for paradoxes. It made everyone at the agency even more worried, because if he was willing to risk that, then what else was he willing to do?

 Because of the lockdown of all nonessential time travel, people working for the TPI were not allowed to go home for the night. They were allowed to pick up anyone or anything dependent on them for care like kids and pets if there wasn’t someone in their home time to care for them, but other than that, they were unfortunately all sleeping in their offices for the foreseeable future.

“You are the only tolerable one,” Janus told the cat who upon being let loose in the office by Remus, immediately jumped on Janus’s lap.

“I have literally done nothing to you,” Lena said, but then added. “Yet.”

 “You exist. In my space.”

“Can’t we just all get along?” asked Fred. “It’s only been an hour past when we’d usually go home. I went and grabbed milk and I have my giant thing of different flavored hot chocolate under my desk. We can try them all and vote on which is better.”

“Fuck your hot chocolate, Fred,” Janus growled, having been one of the three who had chipped in to buy it for him on his last birthday.

“Don’t go after Fred, jackass,” Lena spat.

“He’s just testy because his boyfriend escaped,” Remus contributed.

Janus’s lips turned down into a frown and he cupped Diesel Fuel’s face. “We agree we’re eating him first, right?” he asked her.

 She purred her agreement.

“I’d have it no other way,” Remus replied.

“There is plenty of food,” Fred said, sounding stressed. “In fact, I was thinking we should all chip in on ordering take-out soon. “What does everyone like on pizza?”

“This is not a slumber party, Fred,” Janus pointed out.

“Shut it,” Lena snapped and turned to Fred. “I’m fine with almost everything, except…”

“Bananas and tuna salad!” Remus interrupted.

“…whatever Remus is about to say.”

Janus rolled his eyes as that started a debate about whether or not fruit and/or fish belonged on pizza. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, which was when there was a knock on the door.

 He froze when he heard the familiar voice. “Hello, hello,” said Emile, cheerfully. Janus looked up to see Emile standing at the open office door. Shit. Apparently, the man had decided to give up on sending lackeys to come fetch him and had decided to track him down himself when Janus couldn’t even escape without breaking a time lockdown. They met eyes briefly and Janus could see irritation if not anger in his eyes despite his otherwise cheerful expression and tone.

“Janus,” he said when he’d gotten their attention. “I’d like to have dinner with you.” The word choice told Janus everything he needed to know. Usually Emile was careful with how he said things to make sure people knew they had a choice. Typically he’d say something like, “I was wondering if you’d have time to have dinner with me tonight,” or “I’m about to go get food, would you like to come?” Today, there was no choice in the statement.

 Janus still dried to dodge anyway. “Uh,” he said. “We were actually about to order pizza.”

“Go ahead,” said Fred kindly. Janus wanted to strangle him. “We can order pizza with olives if you’re not here.”

“I…” said Janus. “Guess, I’ll be going with you.”

“Great!” Emile said. “Let’s go.”

“Oh,” Janus said. “Uh, now?”

“Now,” Emile said a bit of uncharacteristic steel to his tone.

[snowdice]

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 19]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. Chapters 3-8 and what I have of Chapter 9 are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

I have nothing really due this week, but a lot of big looming deadlines. Not sure how long I’ll be working today, but I want to do some planning and get some stuff done. :D

Arc I: Finding Cinderella

Chapter 4

Janus was frozen in surprise for a few long moments after Pat disappeared. Which had been, admittedly, his mistake, because, while their window had technically been until 11:17pm and it was only 11:10, the loud crack that whatever Pat had been using for time travel made, garnered the attention of someone else.

“Uh oh,” Remus said, likely hearing footsteps. “Hide.”

That snapped Janus into action, but instead of hiding immediately like a sensible human being, he chose to go for the only link to the man who’d just stolen time travel tech and waltzed away, the mask.

Which was why he ended up getting arrested.

 Remy tsked the moment they were all alone in the police car having come to ‘transfer Lee to another facility.’ Remus was already waiting in the front seat, and flashed Janus a smug smile. If Janus wasn’t still handcuffed, he’d slap him.

“Well,” Remy said. “At least you didn’t shoot anybody like I asked. I was joking by the way. I didn’t really want to pick you up from a 1920s police station period.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“Mmm, nah, ‘cause Remus managed to not get arrested this time, so you defiantly screwed something up.”

“Oh, he defiantly wanted to screw something all right,” Remus said joyfully.

 “Remus,” Janus hissed.

“What?” he asked. “I’m not the horny one for once. Well, no, that’s a lie, but it didn’t affect the job this time.”

Janus groaned and leaned his head back against the seat.

Remy pulled into a seemingly random garage around 20 minutes later. “Alright,” he said. “Here we are.” He got out of the car and then helped Janus out before uncuffing him. “Here’s your ‘watch,’” Remy handed him the timepiece that had been confiscated when he’d been arrested.

Janus put it on and activated it. “Shit,” he said.

“What?” Remus asked.

“An appointment with cultural outreach has already been downloaded to my calendar for once we get out of decon.”

 “Oof. Going to baby jail,” Remy laughed. Remus was cackling.

“This,” Janus said, “was not a cultural faux pas. I did nothing that indicated that I was not from this time. I am not some rookie.”

“Don’t forget cell phones don’t exist in the 1920s,” Remus sang.

“The real question is whether or not my foot exists in your…” Remus disappeared before he could finish, a smirk on his face. Janus growled. “By Remy,” he gritted out. He selected the decontamination chamber from his queue, ignoring the appointment that came after it for now.

He knew exactly where Remus would be standing when he landed, which was why he stepped forward on reentry to ram into him.

 He yelped in surprise. “Sorry,” Janus said pleasantly. “I must have also forgotten landing procedures.

Remus laughed good naturally. “Aw, come on Jay,” he said, bumping Janus back, albeit much gentler than Janus had been. “It’s not a big deal. You just go talk with some crusty old college professor who is far too interested in spoons and then everything’s fine.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” he growled. “They’re treating me like I’m an idiot who accidently invented disco in the 1920s when I was conned by some free agent time traveler.”

“‘Conned,’ Remus said. Is that what they’re calling it now?”

 “I know where and when you live Remus,” Janus said.

Remus gave him a dopey smile as the decontamination cycle finished and the door unlocked. Janus’s wrist buzzed telling him that the coordinates to the cultural outreach office were now unlocked. Instead of pulling them up, Janus walked to the door.

“Um,” Remus said, following him. “Aren’t you supposed to be going to your appointment?” Janus just kept walking towards their office. “Uh… Jan?”

“It’s absolutely ridiculous that I have to go to cultural outreach,” Janus said. “In fact, no one can make me. If they want me to go have a discussion about the definition of ‘bushwa,’ they’re going to have to have me dragged there.”

 “Mmm, I feel like The Boss won’t be too happy about that, and I have a feeling she’d be 100% down to dragging you there herself.”

“Well, then, let her,” Janus said, stalking through the door to his office. “I’m not going to…”

“Ah, Agent Picani,” the woman standing next to his desk, clearly waiting for him, said when he came through the door. “Dr. Picani was informed that there were complications with your last mission and wishes to have a conversation with you and asks that you meet him in his office at the AMO.”

“Oh, um,” Janus said, stumbling a bit before plastering on a regretful half smile. “Unfortunately, I actually have an appointment right now at Cultural Outreach. It’s mandatory and very important, and I have to go now. So, I’ll have to take a raincheck on that.”

 “But-” she started, frowning.

“Remus, work on the report!” Janus said quickly as he waved his hand to bring up his timepiece display and jammed his finger at the glowing appointment card in his queue. A few moments later, Janus was at Cultural Outreach.

Cultural Outreach was not part of the TPI, though it often worked very closely with them. It was a collaboration between the government and multiple universities to help government workers, politicians, and other citizens understand and bridge cultural gaps. It had existed before time travel was invented but had expanded to also teach people who needed to time travel how to behave in unfamiliar times and cultures.

 After it had to be expanded to provide for the TPI, it had been moved to Silver Mountains University. The building had once just been a museum, but it had been thoroughly renovated and there had been add-ons for office space and some classrooms. It was still a museum, however, its purpose had expanded greatly and there were many areas that were off limits to the general public.

One of these areas was the fourth floor, where Janus’s timepiece had dumped him. This was the floor that was almost exclusively for TPI agents and staff of Cultural Outreach who worked with them.

 He immediately turned away from the reception area, hoping that he could escape and go sit on the university’s quad or something of the like for the next hour or so in hopes the woman his brother sent to fetch him would give up and go back to the AMO. Yet, the receptionist apparently saw him.

“Janus Picani?” he asked.

Janus grimaced and turned back towards him. “Yes,” he said.

“Is something wrong?” he asked. “You’re 5 minutes late for your appointment and seem disoriented.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Is your timepiece malfunctioning?”

“No.”

“Uh… okay. Well, if you sign in here, I can take you to your appointment.”

“…Fine.”

 He begrudgingly stepped forward and touched the screen he’d gestured to sign with his fingerprint, and then let the man lead him down the hall.

The door they stopped at was propped open slightly, but he still paused and knocked. “Professor Eran? Your 2:30 is here.”

Janus had just a moment upon hearing the name to think that maybe there was actually some sort of intelligent design of the universe and whatever being of ultimate power had crafted it was a dick.

The door opened and Virgil Eran’s eyes immediately narrowed on him. “Janus.”

“Virgil.”

“I see you’re still late for everything.”

“I see you’re still a bastard.”

 Janus saw the receptionist slowly back away in the direction they’d come.

“Why don’t you come in?” Virgil said faux pleasantly.

Janus did, because he really didn’t have much of a choice at this point unless he wanted to jump out of a window… or push someone out of a window.

Virgil turned back into his office and took a seat behind his desk. Janus unhappily followed him in and sat across from him.

He took his time pulling up whatever the TPI sent him and reading it over. “So, I see you failed your recovery mission and were arrested in 1923.”

 “It wasn’t like that,” Janus said. “I shouldn’t be here.”

Virgil gave him that same suspicious look he used to give Janus whenever Janus claimed to have not eaten his hot pockets out of the freezer in the middle of the night. He’d only been lying 80% of the time. Virgil had a tendency to forget what he’d eaten in a half-conscious state at 3 o’clock in the morning.

“I shouldn’t,” Janus snapped defensively. “Nothing went wrong with anyone from the time period. An illegal time traveler screwed up the mission details.”

“Well, it is still protocol to make sure nothing slipped when agents go off script. You weren’t prepared to be in a jail cell, and it is possible that you screwed something up.”

 “I didn’t screw anything up,” Janus growled.

“Alright,” Virgil said pulling up a document on his desk. “The mission started on July 27th, 1923 at 9:58pm, correct?”

“Oh, god, we’re not really going to fill out a time sheet. I don’t have time for that today.”

“It is protocol and best that the information is documented when it is still fresh in your mind. Besides, your schedule has been cleared for the rest of the workday.” The bastard was enjoying this. He knew how much Janus hated this stuff.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Janus said, “it was the damned illicit time traveler.”

“And I will be the judge of that,” Virgil said. Janus should have just bit the bullet and had coffee with his brother. “If you truly did nothing wrong, your supervisor will see that when I send this to her.”

 Yet, despite the fact that Virgil clearly relished in his suffering, he was charitable enough to do most of the actual filling out of the forms. He’d read out the questions and write down what Janus said instead of making him do it himself. Janus really only had to do a quick quality check and sign it at the end.

He still was an asshole about the details, but really he’d been like that about stupid thing like the settings for the dish washer and how the pantry was organized during their college days before they’d had their falling out, so Janus wasn’t particularly surprised. When they were finally done, Virgil sent it off to get filed by the TPI.

 Then, they were left staring at each other with nothing between them but almost a decade of radio silence and a whole lot of awkwardness.

“I should go,” Janus finally said, standing up.

Virgil tilted his head slightly to the side and gave him a half smile. “Don’t lock the door behind you,” he said. “Not that I’d expect you too.”

Janus took it for the clear attempt at a joke it was intended to be and puffed out a breath of amusement with a head shake. “No risk of that,” he said. Then, he turned and walked out of the office.

 Chapter 5

Janus stepped back into the reception area and booted up his time piece. Instinct said to go back to the office despite the fact that it was late enough that most people had gone home, but he hesitated. Surely Emile had given up by now, but considering he’d sent someone to ambush him in his office, Janus wasn’t sure if he should trust that. He could just go home, but he already knew his mind was racing too much to sleep tonight so he’d probably just end up staring at the lake for the next 6 hours. So, he decided on the only other legitimate option he had. He pulled up Remus’s home coordinates and selected.

 The home that Remus had chosen (after his long line of rejected requests) managed to somehow make no and absolute sense simultaneously to anyone who knew him. It was a small farm in the United States just west of the Mississippi in 1842 in what would be ratified as the state of Iowa in a few years. When asked why he would choose that time and place, Remus always responded with “I thought it was funny,” whatever that meant.

Unlike most time agents who simply used the identities assigned to them by the AMO as a cover, Remus actually lived his part time.

 Janus was… fairly certain he was cheating a bit to get everything done, but he maintained his small farm all on his own, growing most of his own food. The neighbors he had lived very far away, but he still spoke with them far more than Janus did his own.

Janus appeared inside the small home, his eyes already shut. “Are you hear and dressed?” Janus called. Something bumped lightly into his legs.

“I’m in the kitchen!”

Janus peaked his eyes open and squatted to pet the cat at his feet. “That doesn’t answer my question!” he called back to Remus.

 “It’s a surprise!” Remus said.

“Remus.” Diesel Fuel the cat flopped to her side on the ground as Janus continued to pet her ears. He heard Remus’s footsteps, and saw cloth covering his legs, so risked looking up. He was currently not only dressed, but wearing an apron that Janus was fairly sure was not time appropriate judging by the fabric and cat pawprint design. He had a bit of flour on his hands, and it may have been a bit too white for the time and place, but Janus couldn’t be completely sure.

“What’re you doing here?” Remus asked.

 “My day has been an endless series of frustrations,” Janus said. “So, I have come to see the only tolerable being in the history of the universe.”

Remus snorted. “Since I know that isn’t me, I’ll assume you’re talking about the cat.”

“I still don’t understand why you tolerate this creature,” Janus addressed Diesel Fuel. She blinked slowly up at him. “To be fair, he was assigned as my partner. I didn’t have much of a choice in it. You could go always run away and become feral in the woods if you’d like.”

“So could you, technically,” Remus pointed out.

“I’m thinking about it after today.”

 “Would you like some bread?” Remus asked. “That’s all I’ve been making this afternoon. Some fresh should be coming out of the oven in a few minutes.”

“Do you have anything stronger made out of wheat?”

“Ew, no, but I do have vodka.”

“Vodka works.”

“Want me to mix it with something?”

“No.”

“One of those night then,” Remus said, easily. “Let me finish up the bread, so I don’t burn the kitchen down. You can go get the alcohol from the cellar while you wait if you want, or you can just flop down on the couch.”

He was going to just flop down on the couch.

 He did just that as Remus disappeared back into his kitchen. The cat hopped onto his stomach, proceeding to purr loudly and kneed at chest. Janus petted the cat and listened to the noise of Remus moving around in the other room, letting his mind drift. His mind drifted to Virgil for a bit and he steadfastly did not allow it to drift to his brother. Yet, the thing that most was on his mind was the strange man who had flirted and charmed Janus all night before mercilessly screwing him over. ‘Pat’ he’d said his name was, but surely that was not his real name.

 Janus sighed and scratched the cat’s ear. “He certainly wasn’t an amateur,” Janus mused to the cat. “With that amount of precision to get in before we did, he must have someone not on the ground feeding him information. Perhaps more than one.” He was part of a group of time traveling thieves perhaps or something worse. “I didn’t get a good look at his face since he was wearing a mask,” Janus said, “but I spent a lot of time with him, and I’m sure Remy swiped the mask from the police since it had been on me when I was arrested. It’s a good lead.”

 He continued to pet Diesel Fuel. Eventually, Remus came back in, noticed Janus hadn’t bothered to get the alcohol and went outside to the cellar. “I’m going to find him,” Janus told Diesel Fuel. “I’ll stop whatever it is he’s doing, and I’ll bring him in.” Diesel Fuel mewed her support, and Janus patted her on top of the head.

Remus came back in with the bottle of vodka and handed it to him without a word. He sat down on the couch near Janus’s feet and patted his lap so Diesel Fuel would come over to him and allow Janus to sit up.

 The bastard waited until he was approximately 3 shots in (he didn’t have a shot glass and was just taking drinks from the bottle) to ask the questions Janus really didn’t want to answer. “Are you mad at Emile?” Remus asked.

Janus groaned, trying to wash out the bitter taste of shame and grief with the sharp sting of vodka. It didn’t work. “No,” he said to Remus.

“Then why have you been avoiding him?”

“Shit, I’m here because I didn’t want to think about it. Can’t we just not.”

“Don’t want to think about what?

“It’s none of your business, Remus.”

 He could feel Remus frowning at him, but Janus stared resolutely ahead. At least, he did until a foot poked his face. He slapped it away, but it did the job of getting Janus to look at Remus.

“It is my business,” Remus said, foot still in the air. “I’m your partner and your friend.”

“If I’m your friend, you’ll drop it.”

“So, you’re not mad at Emile,” Remus continued, contemplatively. “Did you do something to him, then?” Janus bit his lip and looked away. “What?” Remus asked. Janus didn’t respond. “Look, I’m sure he’ll forgive you for whatever it is. He’s a good guy. Just talk to him about it.”

 “I can’t,” Janus said.

“Whatever it is, it’s probably been long enough that he forgives you. You literally just have to have a conversation, say you’re sorry, and everything will be A-OK.”

“I can’t,” Janus repeated.

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t know about it.”

Remus paused. “So, as far as he knows, you just cut contact with him all of a sudden for no reason and have been avoiding him ever since?”

Janus looked at his shoes. “Yeah.”

“That…” Remus said, “is not fucking fair Janus.”

“I know.”

“Then why the hell are you doing that to him? He’s like… soft and feeling-y. He’s probably really upset.”

 “I know, Remus.”

“Tell him. Whatever it is.”

“I can’t.”

“Look,” Remus said. “You tell him and he either forgives you or he doesn’t. If he does, everything’s fine. If he doesn’t… well, it’s not like it would be any different from you two never being in the same room the last few years. Either way, you can’t just do this to him. He’ll probably forgive you. He’s your brother. Brothers don’t… brothers would forgive each other.”

Janus laughed softly and met Remus’s eyes. “That’s the problem,” he said. “He’d definitely forgive me.” He turned away and opened the vodka bottle again. “Now, if you’ll shut up for a few minutes, I’m going to drink until I black out.”

 Chapter 6

“Really, Khalid,” Janus said, storming into his boss’s office. “A yellow?” It had been about a week since the 1920s incident, and his incident report had finally been cleared. Sure, it wasn’t a red or a black and he wasn’t facing any reprimand, but it should have been a green.

She looked up at him, clearly unconcerned. “There was an incident,” she said. “You handled it well, but there was one. Therefore, yellow.”

“It wasn’t a time travel incident! It was a rouge time traveler.”

“Janus, you helped me make these rules,” she said impatiently.

“Which is why I know this is bullshit,” he snapped.

 She rolled her eyes. “If it was anyone else, you would agree with me. While you didn’t go against protocol and had no time related incidents, the fact of the matter is, you were still distracted by this ‘rouge time traveler,’ didn’t complete your mission, and were arrested.”

“He was good,” Janus said. “You can’t fault me for that. He also could be dangerous and you’re busy handing out yellows instead of working to track him down.”

She raised an eyebrow. “We are working on tracking him down,” she said. “We have done an analysis on the mask and found fibers dating to the 2010s and some DNA. Though it isn’t exactly a high priority.”

 “We have no idea who he is or what he’s planning to do. Why is that not a high priority thing?”

“At the moment?” she asked. “Because we have reports of a time bomb being activated.”

“What?” Janus asked sitting up. “When?”

“New Years Eve going into the year 3,000 in Brazil,” she said. “Which you’d know about if you’d bothered to check your integration port this morning before storming into my office.”

“It’s my mission?” Janus asked.

“The incident investigation is over and your active again despite the dreaded yellow,” she said, clearly making fun of him a bit. “So, yes, and it’s a high priority mission, so I’ll be running it.”

 “Who all is going?” he asked.

“Other than the two of us, Remus, Lena, and Fred,” she told him. “We leave in three hours, so, you might want to run off to Rhi before Fred gets to her and ties her up for an hour on details.”

Janus nodded and got to his feet. He turned back at the door. “I still don’t deserve the yellow,” he hissed.

She waved him off. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Picani.”

He ground his teeth a bit about the dismissal of his worries, but his resentment was slightly soothed by the fact that she’d assigned him to go on such a high priority mission and with only senior agents.

 He took the advice and grabbed Remus from the office, noting Lena hadn’t been able to wrangle Fred yet as she was still at her desk, and they both headed off to see Rhi.

A few hours later, they were all in decontamination together, decked out in truly god-awful costumes. The turn of the third millennia had been a wild event, and the best way to fit in was to look like you’d grabbed something from every century in recorded human history, dyed it in neon paint, and rolled around in a vat of glitter.

Remus had opted to stick his head in a vat of thick glow in the dark green paint that costuming had offered them, and it wasn’t even going to be slightly disruptive to their covertness. It was so caked on that Janus couldn’t even recognize him.

 In fact, costuming had frowned when Janus had insisted he not get his hair dyed and instead wore a bowler hat. They had required him to have flowers made out of glitter on it.

There were five people waiting for them when they landed 6 hours before the turn of the millennia. Three were touchdown agents, including Remy, and two were on location tech support. Usually it would be overkill to have that many people there just for support even with five agents in the field, but today the TPI needed to be cautious because they were planning on instituting a time lock.

Time bombs were dangerous things that would ripple through time if not contained. Even if it did end up going off (killing everyone in its reach), the time lock would serve to prevent most damage outside of the city and, more importantly, the year it was planted.

 Janus had only been in two time locks before, and he was one of the most senior agents in the TPI, outranked only by the founder: Lia Khalid. Time locks were designed to keep all time linear in a certain fixed time and geographical area as well as prevent any time travel in and out. Once it was engaged, all forms of time travel would not work for the duration, bar the pin device. Khalid was already switching out her regular timepiece with the slightly bigger one that was designed to support the time lock.

There was a failsafe back at the TPI that could be engaged in an emergency, which was why tech support was here, but other than that, the only thing that could break the time lock was that timepiece, and it would break the moment the time lock ended.

 As soon as it was on Khalid’s wrist, she looked up at them all. “Our information says the time bomb was planted in the costume of one of the ‘Millennium Birds’ who are the organizers of the different events,” she said. Janus had seen a photo of the identical costumes in the mission details. They were all robe like garments with giant fans of feathers coming from the neck that coalesced in a peak a foot above their head to hold a fake bird egg. At least they’d be easy to find. “There are 25 of them throughout the city. We need to find each of them. So, we don’t double count, you’ll need to subtly,” her eyes touched on Remus, “scan each one you find for the bomb and tag them with a tracker if it’s not on them. You can view the already tagged ones, as well as the rest of us on your timepiece even once the time lock is engaged. When you find the bomb, call it in.”

 They all nodded, and Khalid looked over at one of the techies. She nodded at her and then the techie flipped a couple of switches. “Three, two, one,” the techie said. There was a slight shift in the air that most people would disregard, but Janus as a seasoned time traveler could feel the change even before his wrist buzzed. He glanced at his timepiece to see it had a big red ‘X’ across its display. He tapped it and was still able to bring up the map of the city with 10 green dots on it all clustered together in their current location.

 After that, he tested the scanner on his timepiece that he would use to search for the bomb, just to make sure the time lock hadn’t messed anything up with his equipment. He glanced up to see everyone else was doing the same.

“Keep in contact,” Khalid said before everyone split up. Janus and Remus started by going North while Fredrick and Darlene were to go South. Khalid was a floater who would tag any Birds she saw but was mostly there for backup and orders.

Janus and Remus stepped into the chaos of New Years Eve before the turn of the third millennia. The streets were already swamped with people and it would only be getting worse the later it go.

“Where should we start?” Remus asked.

 “Let’s go all the way North to the games area,” Janus said. “We can work our way back here.”

“Okay!” Remus said. “I wonder if they have those fun little genetically modified goldfish as prizes. I’ve always wanted to eat one and see if I end up getting whatever design was on the fish on my body.”

Janus gave him a disgusted look.

“What?! People eat fish all the time!”

Janus shook his head. “We’re not playing the games anyway. We have work to do. Important work.”

“Boo,” Remus replied. Janus chose to ignore him as he spotted one of the Millenia Birds letting people into the gaming area.

 They walked over towards the entrance. Janus got in range first and moved to subtly scan the Millenia Bird, Remus doing the same the next moment. After a second, Janus’s timepiece buzzed and lit up red, meaning the bomb was within range. “Well, that was easy,” he said. “It was on the first one we found.”

“Uh…” Remus said. “Jan.” When Janus looked, he was holding up his wrist to show his green lit time piece.

“What?” Janus asked. He quickly moved to rescan the Millenia Bird, and his timepiece came up green as well. Which, meant the bomb was not in range, even though the Millenia Bird had not moved. “But…” He and Remus’s eyes met, and they quickly both started turning in a circle to look at the crowd around him. No one looked like they’d just stolen a time bomb off the Millennial Bird, but then Janus’s eyes caught on a man. He blended in perfectly to his surroundings. He was wearing the disgusting garb of the times, a large light blue piece that bubbled near his hips, and had most of his skin covered in rainbow neon paints. Yet, something about him, the curl of his hair or the way he moved, drew Janus’s eyes to him. He recognized the man immediately even in a completely different dressing style. Yet, what cinched it was the moment Janus’s eyes met his and they seemed to sparkle slightly in the afternoon sun. The next moment, the person Janus knew as Pat, turned to disappear into the crowd.

 Chapter 7

“Him,” was the only thing Janus said before taking off after the figure who had just disappeared into the game area.

“What?” Remus’s voice followed after him. “Janus! What?!”

Janus did not pause, just continuing to run after Pat, hopping over two barricades as a shortcut. Janus cursed when he lost sight of the man for just a moment near the prize table filled with colorful goldfish, but he was able to spot him once again walking into one of the tents. Janus blasted into the tent. It was a game where they raced rats, and when Janus entered, Pat was cooing at one of them.

 “Who’s a tiny little squishy precious baby?” he was asking one of them, wiggling his pointer finger at it.

“You,” Janus growled stepping up to him.

He turned and tilted his head at Janus with a frown. “Um, me?” he asked, pointing to his chest, all sorts of innocent, but Janus could see a spot of hidden amusement in his eyes.

“Where is it?”

His eyebrows drew together, but it was an act. It was clearly an act! “Where is what?”

“The…” he glanced around them at the people surrounding them. “Thing you just took.”

“I didn’t take anything,” Pat said with a frown.

 “Oh, no,” Janus said. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fooling me twice is not an option.”

“I’m sorry sir,” Pat said. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bull. Shit.”

Just then, Remus jogged into the tent. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“It’s him,” Janus said pointing. “He took it. He has it.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about,” Patton said. He looked over to Remus with a confused frown.

Remus looked at Janus. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “It’s him. It has to be him. He’s the mask guy.”

Remus squinted at Pat. “He is?”

“Whoever you think I am, I’m not. I haven’t worn a mask all night. I just did the face paint,” he pointed to his cheeks.

 Remus raised his wrist and his timepiece lit up green. He looked at Janus.

“I lost sight of him for five seconds. He must have stashed it somewhere,” Janus said. He turned on Pat. “Where did you put it?”

“…Are you,” Pat asked, his eyes going back and forth between Janus and Remus, “… the police?”

“We are, actually,” Khalid said as she stepped into the tent. Remus must have called her. She inserted herself between Janus and Pat. “Agent Khalid,” she said, offering a hand with a smile. Pat looked at it in surprise and then smiled back hesitantly as he took it. “Apologizes, one of the big game prizes was stolen by someone matching your description. Would you mind coming down to security for questioning? Just to clear it up.”

 “Oh,” Patton said, hesitant. Janus expected him to refuse outright, but then he said. “Uh, sure.”

“Thank you very much, Mr…”

“Jonas,” Pat told her earnestly. “Do I need to be handcuffed?”

“No,” Khalid said. Janus frowned at her, but she ignored him. “It’s just a talk for now.” She gestured to the tent entrance. “Come with us.”

He did without argument, and Remus and Janus followed behind the both of them. Khalid did not lead them back to the base, but to a little spot that said “security” near the center of the event. Remy was already there waiting for them at a desk.

 “Remy, would you please take Mr. Jonas to go sit down?” she asked.

“Sure, boss,” Remy said, standing up. He led Pat away.

Khalid turned to Janus and Remus once they were out of earshot. “What is going on?”

“It’s the mask man,” Janus said, “the one from 1923, and my scanner said the time bomb was on the Millenia Bird outside the games entrance, but then it was gone the next second, and I saw him, and then he ran away.”

“So, does he have it on him?”

“No. I lost sight of him, and he must have stored it somewhere, but I know he took it.”

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“He’s the man from 1923?” she asked.

“Yes! Remus, that’s him, right? You recognize him.”

“Well,” Remus said thoughtfully. “He was in a mask, and it was dark in the room with the necklace. Other than that, I only really saw his back, and he was wearing pants. Mr. Jonas is wearing a dress, so I can’t really tell if their asses match.”

“Okay, but I was with him for hours. I swear it’s him, and I swear he took it,” Janus just about shouted.

“We’ll question him,” Khalid placated, “and Fred and Lena will keep looking in the meantime.”

 “He knows where it is,” Janus insisted. “I swear.”

“Okay,” Khalid said, before leaving to follow where Remy and Pat had gone. She stopped Janus with a hand on his shoulder. “I think Remus and I will do the interrogation.” He opened his mouth to argue. “You know the most about him, so observe from the sidelines and see if he makes any mistakes that indicate you’re right.”

“That’s just to placate me and you know it.”

“Observation’s over there,” she said pointing.

He got a thumbs up from Remus as he walked by, and Janus glared at his back before walking off to the indicated location.

 He watched as Remus and Khalid entered the room, and Remy left it. Remy joined him in the observation room after leaving and leaned against the wall.

Pat was sitting at a table and watched Remus and Khalid with that same rubbish placid confusion that he had before. “So,” Khalid said, “Mr. Jonas.”

“You can call me Nick,” Pat interrupted.

“Lia,” Khalid replied. He smiled at her happily. “So, are you enjoying your day?” she asked.

“I am!” he replied. “It’s a big day. You only get to see the turn of a millennia once in your life.”

“Ah, yes,” Khalid said. “Doing anything special for it?”

 “Um, not really,” he said. “Other than the party. I’m going to meet up with my roommates after dinner. Kevin doesn’t like this sort of thing, and Joe couldn’t come.”

“Your roommates,” Khalid said, considering him. “Do you live around here?”

“Uh huh,” Pat replied.

“Do you have any ID?”

“I do, want me to get it?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Pat unzipped one of the bubbles on his waist and handed her a chip. “Remus, would you mind going out and getting the ID scanner?” she asked, even though her timepiece would be able to read it.

“Ah, shit,” Remy said. “Props. What do those things even look like?”

 As Remy scrambled to find something that would pass for an ID reader so “Nick” didn’t get suspicious of Khalid using her timepiece, Janus watched the two alone in the room like a hawk.

“I see you’re wearing a dress inspired by the 2770s,” Khalid noted, as Remus came to stand next to him.

“Yeah!” Pat replied. “Joe made it for me. He’s really good at fashion design!”

“Can I see?” she asked.

With a happy smile, he reached over the table to let her get a look of the sleeves. Janus saw her subtly scan the fabric, probably to make sure it was from the 2990s and not actually from the 2770s. Considering she didn’t mention it, Janus assumed it checked out.

 Remy came back with some sort of device then and handed it to Remus who saluted and wandered back into the interrogation room. Khalid pretended to scan the ID in her hand. She handed it back to him without comment. “So, you said you live with your roommates: Joe and Kevin?” she asked.

“Yep!” he replied. “We’re practically like brothers.”

“Would you mind calling them?”

“Erm,” he titled his head like he was confused by the question. “Well, like I said, Joe is a bit busy, but I could definitely call Kevin.

“Here,” Khalid said, “use my phone.”

“I have my own,” he said with a frown.

“Humor me,” she requested.

“Uh, okay,” Pat agreed. He took the offered 2999 phone and dialed a number on it. Khalid reached over to put it on speaker.

“Hello?” a voice asked after a few seconds.

“Um, hey Kevin, it’s Nick.”

There was a sigh on the other end. “Hello Nick, is something wrong? Why are you calling me from someone else’s phone?”

“I’m fine, I think.” He looked up at Khalid. “Why am I calling him exactly?”

“Hello, I’m Officer Khalid,” Khalid said. “I just wanted to confirm that you are Nick Jonas’s roommate, and he does live in Manaus.”

“Yes, we live together with our other roommate,” the man replied flippantly. “Officer? Is something wrong?”

“I believe there was just a case of mistaken identity,” Khalid said.

“Bullshit there was!” Janus hissed, though she could not hear him.

“No need to worry,” Khalid continued.

“I’m good Kevin,” Pat said.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Kevin asked.

“Don’t be Paranoid, Kevin. I’ll see you Tonight for the New Years Celebration. You know I Live to Party.”

“I am hanging up now,” Kevin said.

“No! Comeback.” The line went dead. Pat handed the device back to Khalid.

She took it and smiled at him. “Give us just a couple of minutes,” she requested. He nodded easily, and she and Remus exited the interrogation room. “I… think we’re done here,” Khalid said.

“No, he’s lying,” Janus insisted, and got a dubious look in return. “I know he is! Remus!”

“The alibi is pretty solid…” Remus said, “and he doesn’t have the bomb on him.”

“Oh, come on,” Janus said. “You can’t say there is nothing fishy going on here.”

Khalid and Remus shared a look. “Janus,” Khalid said. “I respect your intuition. It is usually very good, but you have been a bit intense about the man from the 1920s, and I think that may be blinding you a bit...”

“I am not imagining this!” Janus said. “That’s him and he took it.”

“You only met him once while he was wearing a mask,” Khalid pointed out with a frown, “and you didn’t see him take the bomb, did you?”

“No, but he looked at me and I knew,” Janus argued. They both gave him a skeptical look. “Oh, come on!”

“You know that’s a little weak, Jan,” Remus said.

“Let me talk to him,” Janus requested. “Just give me five minutes to talk with him.”

Khalid raised one eyebrow. “Fine,” she agreed. “You have five minutes, but after that, you have to let it go. We can’t waste any more time.”

 Chapter 8

Pat looked up as Janus stepped into the interrogation room. “Hi,” he said with an innocent smile that could cut steal.

Janus didn’t say a word as he took a seat; he just watched him intently. He leaned slightly over the table and steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “So, your name is Nick this time?” Janus asked.

“Nicholas Jonas,” he said. “Always has been.”

“Stop it,” Janus said.

“Stop what?”

“Cut the crap. I know.”

Pat leaned forward, mirroring Janus as he leaned closer, interlocking his fingers and laying his chin on top of his knuckles. “What did you say your name was again?” he asked, pleasantly.

 “Janus,” Janus replied.

“No, I’m Jonas,” he said, pointing to his chest.

“Not Jonas,” Janus spat. “Janus.”

“Um,” Pat said, eyes alight with amusement. The bastard. “Those are the same words.”

“No, they’re not. It’s Janus. J-A-N-U.-S.”

“Well, that’s confusing,” Pat said with a frown, but his nose was crinkling. “It’s close to my name. You should go by a nickname instead.”

“What?” Janus said. “No.”

Pat hummed. “How about Love Bug?”

“What! No!” Janus sputtered, almost flipping the table, as Pat winked at him.

“BB Good?”

“What does that even mean?!”

“Mandy.”

“No!”

“Okay, okay, how about Macy Misa.”

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Janus stared at him for a moment. “Fine. Whatever. What was I even talking about?”

“Hmm. I Believe we were talking about my name and how you think it’s not my name.”

“Right,” Janus said. “So, Nick. That was your roommate, Kevin on the phone, right? He seemed a bit unhappy with you. Any reason?”

“Nah, we’re Cool” said Pat. “That’s Just the Way We Roll.”

“Not because you’re messing up a mission right now?”

Pat’s eyes crinkled together. “A mission?” he parroted. “I’m not messing up a mission.”

“Oh, really?” Janus growled. “Because you’ve been captured by the TPI, and I know who you are and what you’ve been doing.”

“I have no idea what the TPI is,” he claimed.

“Yes, you do!” Janus said, standing up. “You obviously do! Or you wouldn’t be playing this game!”

 “Game?” Pat asked. “Macy I ask you what you’re talking about.”

“This is all just a game to you isn’t it!” Janus said, slamming his hands down on the table in front of them.

“Whoa,” Pat said, putting his hands up. “Calm down. Your face is getting all red. You must be Burnin’ Up.”

“I’m not sure what, but something about what you just said pisses me off.”

“And that is five minutes,” Khalid said, bursting into the room. He felt a tug on the back of his shirt and glared back at Remus who was putting his own body between Janus and Pat.

 “There was no way that was five minutes,” Janus growled.

“It was five minutes,” Khalid gritted out. “Remus, get him out of here.”

“Come on Jay,” Remus said, dragging him back towards the door.

“Remus, I swear to god.”

“Just chill, Janus,” Remus said, slamming the door closed behind them.

Janus shrugged him off. “You chill!” he snapped. “He’s playing you all for the fool.”

“Wow, Macy,” Remy drawled like an asshole. “I’ve never seen you so fired up.”

“Oh, my gosh. No one is going to believe me, and he’s going to get away with this.”

“You’re not really helping your case, babe,” Remy said.

 Remus grabbed him by the shoulders again. “Here, let’s go get some water.”

“I don’t want water,” he said even as he let Remus lead him to another room to get a glass of water.

“Look,” Remus said. “I know the Mask Guy thing really sucked, but you have to look at the facts.

“I am looking at the facts,” Janus insisted, “and the facts are, he’s fucking with me.”

“You don’t know what mask guy looks like,” Remus said. “You didn’t see Nick take the time bomb, he has an ID from this time period and a roommate in this time he called on the phone, and he legitimately seems to not know what any of us are talking about.”

 “Did you even listen to our conversation?” Janus asked. “He was screwing with me the entire time!”

“Janus…” Remus said.

“What?” Janus said, narrowing his eyes at Remus’s tone.

“I know you recently had a bad experience, but not everyone who flirts with you is doing it out of evil.”

Janus’s mouth hung open for a few seconds. “That’s what you got out of our conversation?”

“He called you Love Bug.”

Janus felt his face heat a bit at the reminder. “That’s not… I. I’m stealing your cat and then never speaking to you again.”

Remus laughed. “Ah,” he said. “Young lust.”

Janus elbowed him roughly in the side. “No!”

“Yes!” he crooned, pleased.

 “You are the worst partner,” Janus hissed. “When I’m right you owe me 10 loafs of your fresh bread.”

“Branching out from poptarts?” Remus asked.

Janus shook his head. He still wasn’t happy about the state of things, but he could feel himself cooling down a bit.

Khalid came out of the integration room after a few minutes, leaving Pat with Remy. “What was that?” she asked him.

“He got under my skin,” Janus said.

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “For now, we’re letting him go and then going back to looking for the bomb like we’re meant to be.”

 “Fine,” Janus relented. “Just do me the favor of tagging him before he leaves. Just that. I beg of you.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “If it will calm you down.”

He nodded.

“Then, let’s go,” she said. When they met back up with Remy and Pat, he saw Khalid make the subtle gesture that would tag Pat like they would have for the Millennium Birds. Pat sent him what could pass as a sweet smile if Janus didn’t know better. Then, they walked him outside, leaving Remy on clean-up duty for the make-shift security office.

“So, I’m free to go?” Pat asked. His bemused expression edged far too much on the side of amused verses confused for Janus’s taste.

 “You are,” Khalid said. “Have fun at the festivities.”

His hands went flapping about. “Oh, you too!” he said. “Well, I guess you’re working, but you can have fun anyway, I’m sure.”

“We’ll do our best,” she said.

He gave her a blinding smile and reached forward to shake her hand enthusiastically. Janus rolled his eyes and looked up at the heavens. “It was nice to meet you!” he said, “and you too, Remus!” He turned to meet Janus’s eyes. “Macy Misa.”

Janus pressed his lips together.

Then, Pat turned and walked away.

“Well, now that we’re done with that,” Khalid said, turning to them. “We have only a few more hours before midnight and we really need to find the time bomb.

 “Oh,” Pat called. He’d paused a few yards away and turned back to them. “Thanks for letting me go so easily by the way,” he said, “and just in the Nick,” he winked, “of time too.” Janus narrowed his eyes at him. He smiled back. “Wrist check,” he said holding up his arm to show off the timepiece there. Khalid immediately looked down at her own wrist just to see that the one timepiece that could move through the time lock was no longer there. Pat made a gesture and disappeared.

All three of them stared at the spot he’d been for a long moment.

Janus was the one to speak first. “I want. The yellow. To be erased. From my record.”

 Chapter 9

Khalid immediately called everyone back to base.

“What happened?” asked Fred when he and Lena arrived. The tech people were already scrambling to get through to the TPI and get the time lock broken from the outside.

“Remus, Remy, and Khalid got played by Pat or whatever his name is. It certainly isn’t Nick. He was just setting up a joke,” Janus told him.

“Stop being smug,” Remy said. “It’s not a good look for you.”

“Pat is…?” Lena asked.

“They guy who fucked me over in 1923,” Janus said, “and is currently in the middle of fucking us all over because he stole the pin timepiece, and by extrapolation, probably the time bomb too.”

 “It will be fine,” said Khalid, “because what he doesn’t know is that timepiece has a tracker on it. Wherever and whenever he went, we’ll have his coordinates.”

“Speaking of,” one of the techies said. “It’s about to break. You might want to hold onto something.” Janus grabbed for a support beam next to him as the techie put a device on the ground in the center of the base. It blinked once, twice, and on the third blink the ground rumbled. There were sounds of panicked yelps outside. The fail safe for the time lock was not nearly as gentle as ending it correctly.

 Everything settled after a few moments, and they all straightened themselves out. Janus’s timepiece buzzed to indicate it was now functioning normally. Khalid had returned her usual timepiece to her wrist and now used it to open a display they could all see. “The pin timepiece’s closest time/space coordinates are…” she trailed off. “Right outside?” She frowned. “That’s strange. Why would he still be here?” She turned to march outside, following the coordinates to a trash can. She pulled the pin timepiece out and stared at it. “Fuck,” she said.

“What just happened?” Remy asked.

“He ticked us,” Janus said. “Again.”

 “He was stuck in the time lock,” Khalid said. “That’s why he got our attention. He couldn’t leave with the time bomb unless he had the pin timepiece or we broke the time lock. Apparently, he’s smart enough to know that if he took the pin timepiece away from here, we’d probably be able to find him, but he knew we’d break the lock as soon as the pin went missing. So, he must have stashed his own timepiece and went back in time within the time lock to grab it while we were distracted with the past version of him. As soon as the time lock went down, I imagine he left.”

 “Probably with the time bomb,” Janus said.

“Probably with the time bomb,” she confirmed.

And everyone knew the only thing worse than a time bomb was a time bomb you didn’t know the location of.

They evacuated after that, of course, and time locked the location once they were out just in case they were wrong, but midnight 3000 struck without thousands of people dying in Brazil, so the time bomb had defiantly been removed from then.

The, they initiated a time travel lockdown for all nonessentials, not willing to let random history students get caught up in an explosion if Pat decided to set the thing off somewhere.

 Then, it was a matter of figuring out everything they could about ‘Pat.’ First, they checked the tracker data as Khalid had tagged him with one of the Millennium Bird trackers. It wouldn’t work outside of the zone they’d set up that day, but the record would show his behavior during the time lock after he’d escaped with the pin timepiece.

There had been many little green dots on the map that day as Fred and Lena had actually been doing the job they’d set out to do, but most of those were running around in the south. There had been one green dot, however, that appeared suddenly in the game area about 10 minutes before the time bomb had been stolen.

 They could see Janus’s yellow dot almost brush his when he’d been chasing the earlier Pat down, around when he’d lost him briefly. The earlier Pat must have all but handed it off to his future self.

“He doubled back,” Remus commented when they watched the recorded data. It was a ballsy move and one that most people balked at, because there were inherent dangers any time you interacted with yourself from a different point in the timestream. It was ripe for paradoxes. It made everyone at the agency even more worried, because if he was willing to risk that, then what else was he willing to do?

 Because of the lockdown of all nonessential time travel, people working for the TPI were not allowed to go home for the night. They were allowed to pick up anyone or anything dependent on them for care like kids and pets if there wasn’t someone in their home time to care for them, but other than that, they were unfortunately all sleeping in their offices for the foreseeable future.

“You are the only tolerable one,” Janus told the cat who upon being let loose in the office by Remus, immediately jumped on Janus’s lap.

“I have literally done nothing to you,” Lena said, but then added. “Yet.”

 “You exist. In my space.”

“Can’t we just all get along?” asked Fred. “It’s only been an hour past when we’d usually go home. I went and grabbed milk and I have my giant thing of different flavored hot chocolate under my desk. We can try them all and vote on which is better.”

“Fuck your hot chocolate, Fred,” Janus growled, having been one of the three who had chipped in to buy it for him on his last birthday.

“Don’t go after Fred, jackass,” Lena spat.

“He’s just testy because his boyfriend escaped,” Remus contributed.

Janus’s lips turned down into a frown and he cupped Diesel Fuel’s face. “We agree we’re eating him first, right?” he asked her.

 She purred her agreement.

“I’d have it no other way,” Remus replied.

“There is plenty of food,” Fred said, sounding stressed. “In fact, I was thinking we should all chip in on ordering take-out soon. “What does everyone like on pizza?”

“This is not a slumber party, Fred,” Janus pointed out.

“Shut it,” Lena snapped and turned to Fred. “I’m fine with almost everything, except…”

“Bananas and tuna salad!” Remus interrupted.

“…whatever Remus is about to say.”

Janus rolled his eyes as that started a debate about whether or not fruit and/or fish belonged on pizza. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, which was when there was a knock on the door.

 He froze when he heard the familiar voice. “Hello, hello,” said Emile, cheerfully. Janus looked up to see Emile standing at the open office door. Shit. Apparently, the man had decided to give up on sending lackeys to come fetch him and had decided to track him down himself when Janus couldn’t even escape without breaking a time lockdown. They met eyes briefly and Janus could see irritation if not anger in his eyes despite his otherwise cheerful expression and tone.

“Janus,” he said when he’d gotten their attention. “I’d like to have dinner with you.” The word choice told Janus everything he needed to know. Usually Emile was careful with how he said things to make sure people knew they had a choice. Typically he’d say something like, “I was wondering if you’d have time to have dinner with me tonight,” or “I’m about to go get food, would you like to come?” Today, there was no choice in the statement.

 Janus still dried to dodge anyway. “Uh,” he said. “We were actually about to order pizza.”

“Go ahead,” said Fred kindly. Janus wanted to strangle him. “We can order pizza with olives if you’re not here.”

“I…” said Janus. “Guess, I’ll be going with you.”

“Great!” Emile said. “Let’s go.”

“Oh,” Janus said. “Uh, now?”

“Now,” Emile said a bit of uncharacteristic steel to his tone.

 Well, Janus was screwed. He swallowed his nervousness and got to his feet, taking Diesel Fuel with him. He turned to hand her off to Remus with a plea in his eye, but he just got an eyebrow raise in return. Traitor.

Then, he followed Emile out of the office door. “What would you like to eat?” asked Emile.

“Uh,” Janus said. “I don’t know. You asked me to eat, don’t you have any ideas?”

“I don’t actually,” Emile replied. Right.

“…Noddle Bar?” Janus threw out the nearest restaurant he knew.

“The one noodle restaurant? Sure,” Emile answered simply. They walked side by side out of the front doors of the TPI building. Janus actually couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken these stairs. He usually used his timepiece to get in and out.

 The noodle bar was only moderately busy at this time. They were quickly able to find a table near the back and Emile pulled his menu up in front of him. Emile hummed as he flipped through the different displays. “What are you having?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Janus said, only then pulling up the menu himself, but still not quite looking at it.

“What about the fortune noodles,” Emile suggested.

Janus shook his head. “I don’t like those,” he said.

Emile glanced at him through the menu displays. “You used to.” Fortune noodles were a bit cheekily named. They didn’t actually indicate anything about your future. They were just supposed to taste like what you wanted from your future. A grad student might experience a feeling like they’d just aced a paper. A child that they got to stay up an hour later that night. Janus had liked the experience when he was younger, but in recent years, he’d begun to taste the underlying chemicals in the dish until that’s all he could.

 “Well,” Emile said lightly, eyes on his menu. “That makes me even more worried for your mental health than I already was because of the almost three years of you avoiding talking to me.”

“No small talk, huh?” Janus asked.

“Forgive me,” Emile said, eyes now focused on Janus, and tone much darker. “How has your life been since I last saw your face 5 months ago during a business meeting and you refused to look me in the eye? Anything interesting happen? Shave your head and let it all regrow? Develop an allergy to peanuts? Join a convent and take an oath of silence that you only just broke today?”

“No,” said Janus quietly into the table.

 “Great,” Emile said clipped. “Small talk over. Order your food.” Janus reached up blindly to select the first thing that came up on the food and drink menu as Emile punched something into his own and both menu displays disappeared, meaning there was nothing between their faces anymore. “You know, I was willing to give you a year,” Emile said. “I was willing to let you deal with it on your own because I thought eventually, you’d come talk to me about it, but apparently I was mistaken. The next year, I thought maybe you thought I didn’t want to talk to you, so I subtly made myself available, and you never took me up on the offer. I thought maybe I was just not being clear, and I should make my desire to talk to you more explicit, but as you have been routinely, clearly avoiding me at every single turn, I’ve decided I’ve had enough. So, let’s lay it all on the table. Is it me or do you need help?”

 Janus closed his eyes. “It’s not you.”

“Then you need help,” Emile concluded.

Janus shook his head.

“Yes,” Emile snapped. “Whatever this is has gone on far too long.”

Janus stood up and slammed his hand down on the table. “And it’s going to keep going on!” he said. The food popped up at that moment. It appeared Janus had ordered lasagna and bubble tea, and Emile had ordered something with spaghetti and a fizzy drink.

“So, you’re just planning to go on being miserable then?” Emile asked, and Janus wasn’t sure if it was worse or better that he didn’t sound angry anymore.

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Janus slapped his hand down on the “To Go” button and his dinner was insta-wrapped by the table. “Yes,” he said.

“What exactly do you think you’re paying penance for, Janus?” Emile asked.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Janus said, paying for both of their meals with his fingerprint.

“That’s a cop out and you know it,” Emile said. “All you’d have to do is talk to me. Or even just talk to someone else. Please.”

“Just…” Janus said, grabbing his bag of food to avoid looking at him. “Just, leave me be.” He walked out of the noodle shop without another word.

 Chapter 10

“And I thought Remus was going to be the most disgusting roommate in this equation,” Lena grumbled. Janus and Lena were apparently the earlier risers in the group as Fred was still curled up around a pillow and Remus was sprawled out under his desk.

Janus flipped her off.

“Protein infused Poptarts and caffeinated orange juice for breakfast?” she asked. “Just eat an energy bar and have a cup of coffee like a normal person.”

He took another pointed bite of his Poptart.

“You’re a horrible roommate. This is why they gave us different partners.”

“Yeah, well you snore, asshole,” Janus said after finishing off his meal.

 “I’d tell you to go eat shit, but you already did that once this morning.”

A pillow flew across the room and somehow managed to hit the both of them. “S’op fighting,” Fred mumbled. “It’s sleep time.”

“It’s morning Fred,” Lena said.

“No,” Fred mumbled.

Janus ignored them, turning back to his integration port to continue to keep plugging in phrases of interest, but he kept getting nothing.

“What are you doing?” Lena asked after a few moments of him huffing at his screen reader.

“Trying to do anything that may change our current living arrangements.”

She puffed out an amused breath. “Can I help?”

 “Can you see any connection between these words and phrases?” he asked, pulling away his screen reader and tapping at the words he’d typed out.

“Paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback, love Bug, BB good, Mandy, Macy Misa, I believe, cool, that’s just the way we roll, burnin’ up,” she said. “What are these?”

“They’re things Pat said when we interrogated that struck me funny,” Janus explained. “I feel like he was saying something more than what he said.”

“Hmm,” she said. “PTI for the first three?”

“Maybe,” Janus agreed, “but what about the rest of it? I feel like I’m missing something.”

15080

“Millennia,” Remus mumbled from under his desk. Janus hadn’t been aware he was awake. “He said something something about it being the only time he could see the change of the millennia.” He turned his head to look at Janus. “Considering he’s a time traveler, that’s definitely a weird thing to say.”

“Millennia,” Janus contemplated. “A different turn of the millennia. Oh no.”

“What?” Lena asked.

Janus sighed, and rubbed his temple. “I know someone who studied the 1700-2200s.”

“Isn’t that good?”

“No,” Janus groaned, “because now I have to go talk to him.” He stood with a sigh and then paused. “How do I even get to Silver Mountains University without my timepiece?”

 Luckily Sliver Mountains ended up only being about an hour away from the TPI by time adherent travel, but considering Janus was used to his travel being instantaneous, it was an aggravating trip. He had to show ID and be buzzed up to the fourth floor since it was usually locked to everyone not traveling by timepiece or who worked in the office.

The receptionist was the same man as before. “I’m here to speak to Professor Eran,” Janus said.

The receptionist nodded. “He mentioned you asked to meet him but didn’t know when you’d arrive. He’ll be done teaching his class in about 5 minutes. You can wait over there.”

 Janus nodded and sat, waiting for time to slowly tick by. Virgil arrived after a few minutes, lugging a giant bag with him. He caught sight of Janus and wordlessly jerked his head towards the hallway. Janus followed him.

“What’s in the bag?” Janus asked.

“Early 21st century cell phones,” Virgil said, dropping it on his desk. “I let my students mess around with them for their lab.”

“I see,” Janus said.

“What did you need?” Virgil asked. “You said it was official business.”

“You’ve heard about the lockdown, I presume,” Janus said.

“Yeah, it really screws up my research schedule for the summer,” Virgil said.

15412

“Do you know why the lockdown was instituted?” Janus asked. Virgil shook his head, so Janus explained briefly that they had been trying to find a timebomb on the eve of the year 3000, but it had been swiped by a free agent time traveler. “Some of the things seemed to be references to things that I couldn’t place, and I was wondering if you would recognize any.”

“Shoot,” Virgil requested, seeming intrigued by the prospect.

“Okay,” Janus said. “First, the alias he was using was Nick Jonas.” A weird expression crossed Virgil’s face immediately and Janus paused.

“You said the year 3000?” Virgil asked.

 “Er. Yes.”

“Nick Jonas. Year 3000,” Virgil repeated with a snort. “Were Joe and Kevin a part of this too?”

Janus blinked. “Yes, how did you know that?”

“Yo-you’re going to have,” his sentence was broken by a giggle, and actual full-fledged giggle, “have to give me a minute.” With that, he sort of listed to the side and seemed to purposefully fall off his chair onto the floor under his desk.

Janus blinked and when he didn’t surface after a moment, he stood up to lean over the desk and look down at him. Virgil had his arm thrown over his beat red face, as he shook from what Janus thought was suppressed laughter.

 “What?” Janus asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Just…” Virgil said, sobbing through his laughter. “Just tell me the things he said.”

“Er, mostly he just had weird inflections on words and phrases. There was ‘paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback…’”

“Wait, stop,” Virgil said. “Let me guess a few. That’s Just the Way We Roll, Burnin’ Up, Sucker.”

“The first two were, but not the last one.”

Virgil laughed. “Maybe the last one was just implied.”

Janus frowned down. “What are you talking about? What does this all mean?”

Virgil pulled himself out from under his desk and grabbed his bag of phones. He dug through it for a few seconds before pulling one out and handing it to Janus. “I have a lab for my students where they get preloaded phones from the early 21st century and are supposed to guess the demographics of the person who owns it. This one is an iPhone 3 meant to belong to a pre-teen to teenage girl from the year 2009. Look under music artists starting with the letter ‘J.’”

15810

Confused, Janus scrolled through the old style phone, finding the music app and opening it easily. Upon getting to the ‘J’s, he immediately paused on an artist called the ‘Jonas Brothers.’ He clicked on it and read a few of the song titles. They weren’t all there, but…

“That rat bastard,” Janus said.

“Scroll to the bottom,” Virgil said. Janus did and found a song titled ‘Year 3000.’

“You’re kidding me.”

“Click on it,” Virgil requested.

Janus did, listening to the fairly standard pop like intro from the time period. It wasn’t until he got to the lyrics saying, ‘He told me he built a time machine’ that he cursed, understanding exactly what Pat had been doing. When the singer a few lines latter proclaimed that his neighbor said ‘I’ve been to the year 3000’ he almost smashed the artifact to pieces right then and there.

“I have no idea who this guy is,” Virgil said, “but he’s a comedic genius.”

 Chapter 11

Khalid caught him on his way back into the TPI building. “I heard you went to Silver Mountains to follow up on a lead,” she said.

“Yeah, but it was garbage,” he seethed. “All I learned was ‘Pat’ knows early 2000s popular culture and likes to fuck with us.”

She hummed. “I’d still like a report about whatever you found. Who knows what we might end up getting from seemingly inconsequential data.”

“Sure,” he said.

“Anyway,” she continued. “I have a mission for you.”

“We’re on lockdown,” Janus pointed out with a frown.

“For nonessentials,” she said. “This is essential.”

 “What happened?” Janus asked.

“We picked up a small time distortion in France 2027. At the moment, it is small enough not to cause any disruptions, but it is slowly growing, and we don’t know what caused it. Usually we’d just send surveillance agents at this stage, but considering what’s going on, I think it would be best to send a field agent. And it would just be you, because we don’t want to send too many people out at once.”

“Is this related to the time bomb?” Janus asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “At the very least, it’s not it being set off as it was in 2999, but if it’s been altered for some other purpose…”

 “I’ll go,” Janus said.

“I’ll send over the mission directive to everyone who needs it. You’ll go in around 3 hours.”

He nodded. “I’ll be ready,” he agreed.

In less then 3 hours, he was dressed for 2027 France and in decontamination. “Well,” he said out loud when he was given the all clear sign, “I hope I don’t explode.” He selected the coordinates on the timepiece and the next moment he was in a small alleyway in the city of Montpellier, France in 2027.

It was a little bit warm, but not stifling even in the mid-afternoon and he could faintly smell the sea on the breeze.

 After a moment to get his bearings, Janus made his way out of the alleyway and onto a small street. The street was lined with restaurants and shops as people went about their daily lives. He carefully integrated himself into the crowd and began weaving his way through them. He needed to find the source of the distortion but doing a quick scan with his timepiece told him there wasn’t any sign of it yet. He’d have to wait for it to act up.

For now, he decided to get slightly away from people by heading towards the river. He found a park that had benches along water.

16421

As he walked towards the river, he noticed a man on the bench, angled slightly away from Janus and looking out at the water. He immediately recognized the man. “You!” he exclaimed.

Pat’s head shot around to look at him, and he gave a slight head tilt. Then, he smiled, amused. “You are not the person I’m here for,” he said.

“Well, I am now,” Janus snapped. “Where’s the time bomb?”

“Time bomb?” Pat asked, eyebrows drawing together, but amusement on his lips. “Oh sweetie, the time bomb happened a long time ago for me.”

“What?” Janus asked.

“Oh, you’re just a baby,” Pat laughed. “Don’t you get it yet? The two of us are out of sync timeline wise. You’ve been apparently running around with a much younger version of me, but all of that happened quite a while ago for me. Don’t worry though, it gets better.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The time bomb has been long deactivated. Here,” he reached into his pocket and tossed him something. Janus caught it on instinct. “Proof. Don’t worry, we took all of the dangerous bits out years ago from my perspective.” It was the core of a time bomb, the time bomb Pat had stolen if he was to be believed. “You can tell your people it’s safe to remove the lockdown.”

Janus curled his fingers around it. “I don’t get it.”

Something on Pat’s wrist beeped and he looked at it curiously before he stood from the bench, “and I don’t have time to explain it.”

Janus jerked forward to grab his wrist. “Don’t you dare.”

Pat reached up to pat his face. “Don’t worry honey, you’ll be seeing me later.” He twisted his wrist and a small electric current sparked between them. Janus jerked his hand away, and Patton smiled at him. “Or… earlier.” He winked, and then he was gone.

Janus cursed, but he didn’t have more than a moment to be angry because in the next second there was a yelp, and something landed on top of him. He was bowled over into a tangle of limbs and pained noises.

“Oh my god, we need to figure out the height thing,” a familiar voice groaned, just as Janus managed to pull himself away. Pat blinked up at him and his eyes narrowed. “You,” he hissed.

“…What?”

[snowdice]

Folds in Paper (Chapter 4: Before All the Paperwork Got Signed)[Folds in Time Universe]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Janus/Patton, Remus & Roman, eventual Logan/Virgil (maybe more)

Characters:

Main: Janus, Patton, Remus

Appear: Remy, Emile, Virgil, Logan, Roman

Summary: Janus, a disillusioned senior agent working for the Time Preservation Initiative, struggles to find meaning in a world where time travel could change everything about your life’s history in less than a moment. When time distortions start popping up, threatening the timeline and the fabric of reality as he knows it, it becomes a race against the clock to fix the damage before everything unravels. And the problem with time travel… you never how long you have before the clock strikes 12 and your time is up.

With a partner who has more mysteries in his past than Janus had anticipated and an enigmatic free agent time traveler mucking about time always with a clever pun or a time appropriate pet name on his lips, Janus will need to figure out what went wrong with time, and more importantly, how to fix it.

Chapter Summary:  

I can draw a straight line Through my mind Right back to the good times Back when all the stars were aligned Before all the paperwork got signed

Notes: Time travel AU, mystery, enemies to lovers, alcohol

This is a fic I’ve been writing on study breaks that you have probably all already seen at this point. I’ve slightly edited it for wording and grammar, but not for content from my previous posts. Feel free to send in asks to direct it because I’m not 100% sure where this is going and you can help decide if you feel so inclined! You can see the process I went through to build this at this link.

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted).

AO3 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Janus was frozen in surprise for a few long moments after Pat disappeared. Which had been, admittedly, his mistake, because, while their window had technically been until 11:17pm and it was only 11:10, the loud crack that whatever Pat had been using for time travel made, garnered the attention of someone else.

“Uh oh,” Remus said, likely hearing footsteps. “Hide.”

That snapped Janus into action, but instead of hiding immediately like a sensible human being, he chose to go for the only link to the man who’d just stolen time travel tech and waltzed away: the mask.

Which… was why he ended up getting arrested.

Remy tsked the moment they were all alone in the police car having come to ‘transfer Lee to another facility.’ Remus was already waiting in the front seat, and flashed Janus a smug smile. If Janus wasn’t still handcuffed, he’d slap him.

“Well,” Remy said. “At least you didn’t shoot anybody like I asked. I was joking by the way. I didn’t really want to pick you up from a 1920s police station period.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“Mmm, nah, ‘cause Remus managed to not get arrested this time, so you defiantly screwed something up.”

“Oh, he defiantly wanted to screw something all right,” Remus said joyfully.

“Remus,” Janus hissed.

“What?” he asked. “I’m not the horny one for once. Well, no, that’s a lie, but it didn’t affect the job this time.”

Janus groaned and leaned his head back against the seat.

Remy pulled into a seemingly random garage around 20 minutes later. “Alright,” he said. “Here we are.” He got out of the car and then helped Janus out before uncuffing him. “Here’s your ‘watch,’” Remy handed him the timepiece that had been confiscated when he’d been arrested.

Janus put it on and activated it. “Shit,” he said.

“What?” Remus asked.

“An appointment with cultural outreach has already been downloaded to my calendar for once we get out of decon.”

“Oof. Going to baby jail,” Remy laughed. Remus was cackling.

“This,” Janus said, “was not a cultural faux pas. I did nothing that indicated that I was not from this time. I am not some rookie.”

“Don’t forget cell phones don’t exist in the 1920s,” Remus sang.

“The real question is whether or not my foot exists in your…” Remus disappeared before he could finish, a smirk on his face. Janus growled. “By Remy,” he gritted out. He selected the decontamination chamber from his queue, ignoring the appointment that came after it for now.

He knew exactly where Remus would be standing when he landed, which was why he stepped forward on reentry to ram into him.

He yelped in surprise. “Sorry,” Janus said pleasantly. “I must have also forgotten landing procedures.

Remus laughed good naturally. “Aw, come on Jay,” he said, bumping Janus back, albeit much gentler than Janus had been. “It’s not a big deal. You just go talk with some crusty old college professor who is far too interested in spoons or something than can be healthy and then everything’s fine.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” he growled. “They’re treating me like I’m an idiot who accidently invented disco in the 1920s when I was conned by some free agent time traveler.”

“‘Conned,’ Remus said. Is that what they’re calling it now?”

“I know where and when you live Remus,” Janus said.

Remus gave him a dopey smile as the decontamination cycle finished and the door unlocked. Janus’s wrist buzzed telling him that the coordinates to the cultural outreach office were now unlocked. Instead of pulling them up, Janus walked to the door.

“Um,” Remus said, following him. “Aren’t you supposed to be going to your appointment?” Janus just kept walking towards their office. “Uh… Jan?”

“It’s absolutely ridiculous that I have to go to Cultural Outreach,” Janus said. “In fact, no one can make me. If they want me to go have a discussion about the definition of ‘bushwa,’ they’re going to have to have me dragged there.”

“Mmm, I feel like The Boss won’t be too happy about that, and I have a feeling she’d be 100% down to dragging you there herself.”

“Well, then, let her,” Janus said, stalking through the door to his office. “I’m not going to…”

“Ah, Agent Picani,” the woman standing next to his desk, clearly waiting for him, said when he came through the door. “Dr. Picani was informed that there were complications with your last mission and wishes to have a conversation with you. He asks that you meet him in his office at the AMO.”

“Oh, um,” Janus said, stumbling a bit before plastering on a regretful half smile. “Unfortunately, I actually have an appointment right now at Cultural Outreach. It’s mandatory and very important, and I have to go now. So, I’ll have to take a raincheck on that.”

“But-” she started, frowning.

“Remus, work on the report!” Janus said quickly as he waved his hand to bring up his timepiece display and jammed his finger at the glowing appointment card in his queue. A few moments later, Janus was at Cultural Outreach.

Cultural Outreach was not part of the TPI, though it often worked very closely with them. It was a collaboration between the government and multiple universities to help government workers, politicians, and other citizens understand and bridge cultural gaps. It had existed before time travel was invented but had expanded to also teach people who needed to time travel how to behave in unfamiliar times and cultures.

After it had to be expanded to provide for the TPI, it had been moved to Silver Mountains University. The building had once just been a museum, but it had been thoroughly renovated and there had been add-ons for office space and some classrooms. It was still a museum, however, its purpose had expanded greatly and there were many areas that were off limits to the general public.

One of these areas was the fourth floor, where Janus’s timepiece had dumped him. This was the floor that was almost exclusively for TPI agents and the staff of Cultural Outreach who worked with them.

He immediately turned away from the reception area, hoping that he could escape and go sit on the university’s quad or something of the like for the next hour or so in hopes the woman his brother sent to fetch him would give up and go back to the AMO. Yet, the receptionist apparently saw him.

“Janus Picani?” he asked.

Janus grimaced and turned back towards him. “Yes,” he said.

“Is something wrong?” he asked. “You’re 5 minutes late for your appointment and seem disoriented.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Is your timepiece malfunctioning?”

“No.”

“Uh… okay. Well, if you sign in here, I can take you to your appointment.”

“…Fine.”

 He begrudgingly stepped forward and touched the screen the receptionist gestured to for him sign with his fingerprint, and then let the man lead him down the hall.

The door they stopped at was propped open slightly, but he still paused and knocked. “Professor Eran? Your 2:30 is here.”

Janus had just a moment upon hearing the name to think that maybe there was actually some sort of intelligent design of the universe and whatever being of ultimate power had crafted it was a dick.

The door opened and Virgil Eran’s eyes immediately narrowed on him. “Janus.”

“Virgil.”

“I see you’re still late for everything.”

“I see you’re still a bastard.” Janus saw the receptionist slowly back away in the direction they’d come.

“Why don’t you come in?” Virgil said faux pleasantly.

Janus did, because he really didn’t have much of a choice at this point unless he wanted to jump out of a window… or push someone out of a window.

Virgil turned back into his office and took a seat behind his desk. Janus unhappily followed him in and sat across from him.

He took his time pulling up whatever the TPI sent him and reading it over. “So, I see you failed your recovery mission and were arrested in 1923.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Janus said. “I shouldn’t be here.”

Virgil gave him that same suspicious look he used to give Janus whenever Janus claimed to have not eaten his hot pockets out of the freezer in the middle of the night. He’d only been lying 80% of the time. Virgil had a tendency to forget what he’d eaten in a half-conscious state at 3 o’clock in the morning.

“I shouldn’t,” Janus snapped defensively. “Nothing went wrong with anyone from the time period. An illegal time traveler screwed up the mission details.”

“Well, it is still protocol to make sure nothing slipped when agents go off script. You weren’t prepared to be in a jail cell, and it is possible that you screwed something up.”

“I didn’t screw anything up,” Janus growled.

“Alright,” Virgil said, pulling up a document on his desk. “The mission started on July 27th, 1923 at 9:58pm, correct?”

“Oh, god, we’re not really going to fill out a time sheet? I don’t have time for that today.”

“It is protocol and best that the information is documented when it is still fresh in your mind. Besides, your schedule has been cleared for the rest of the workday.” The bastard was enjoying this. He knew how much Janus hated this stuff.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Janus said, “it was the damned illicit time traveler.”

“And I will be the judge of that,” Virgil said. Janus should have just bit the bullet and had coffee with his brother. “If you truly did nothing wrong, your supervisor will see that when I send this to her.”

Yet, despite the fact that Virgil clearly relished in his suffering, he was charitable enough to do most of the actual filling out of the forms. He’d read out the questions and write down what Janus said instead of making him do it himself. Janus really only had to do a quick quality check and sign it at the end.

He still was an asshole about the details, but really he’d been like that about stupid thing like the settings for the dish washer and how the pantry was organized during their college days before they’d had their falling out, so Janus wasn’t particularly surprised. When they were finally done, Virgil sent it off to get filed by the TPI.

Then, they were left staring at each other with nothing between them but almost a decade of radio silence and a whole lot of awkwardness.

“I should go,” Janus finally said, standing up.

Virgil tilted his head slightly to the side and gave him a half smile. “Don’t lock the door behind you,” he said. “Not that I’d expect you too.”

Janus took it for the clear attempt at a joke it was intended to be and puffed out a breath of amusement with a head shake. “No risk of that,” he said. Then, he turned and walked out of the office.

Want to read more? Click below!

AO3 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9