#the way you think he's chill then he stealthily murders someone

[itsmoonpeaches]

I can feel myself slowly becoming obsessed with captain flint and it scares me

[kaiparker-avengerssmut]

Their Doll 13

Thump

B.Barnes x Stark!Reader, S.Rogers x Stark!Reader

series synopsis:  y/n Stark, all records of her non existent, and yet Hydra still find her. When she is kidnapped by a certain super-soldier and no one believes her, she finds herself searching for unexpected familiarity in her not-so-distant past.

Series Warnings: smut, violence, torture, swearing

Chapter Summary: y/n goes on her first and only mission at HYDRA with Bucky

Warnings: swearing, violence, blood, death

A/n: The timeline in this has been altered, as there I things I wanted to include but I also wanted this fic to follow the storyline/timeline of Winter Soldier and Civil war.So for purposes of this fanfic, Peter Parker was discovered by Tony at a much younger age - when he was bitten - and has been an intern with him since, almost like a protégée.(For the purposes of this story Peter was bitten much younger too - more like when he was 9 or ten rather than 14/15)

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

This was the first mission I was assigned to with the Soldier. And I had a strong feeling it'd be the last. The Soldier's mind seemed less distant, clearer recently. I never complained, of course, as it meant two things: one, I actually had someone to talk to here that didn't want to either murder me or rape me and two, he was really fucking good with his dick when his mind was sharper.

We were currently holed up in a train carriage, which was stacked ceiling-high with wooden crates all marked 'stock'. Stock of what, neither of us knew. We had sneaked on, jumping onto the top of the train as it passed a hill we'd been waiting for. Once on top of the train, the soldier helped me into the back - which is where we currently are. It appeared like he'd done this a hundred times before - and one thing I did pick up on was his hesitance while scaling the side of the train. I didn't think much of it - I for one was nervous as shit when we were simply clinging to the small ladder down the end of the back carriage.

We were huddled close, the coldness seeping in from the mountains surrounding the track, the chill in my flesh making me shiver slightly and lean further into the Soldier. His arm was thrown over my shoulders, his own teeth chattered slightly but I could tell he was trying to appear unaffected by the surging weather.

I took the time to replay the briefing for the mission in my mind. Sneak in, stay discreet, use the vents to find the room with the politicians in, take them all but one out, frame the one who remained alive. God I'm happy I'm not doing this alone.

We had a plan. We would sneak in through the back entrance after sniping the two guards that were meant to be stationed there. From inside the door, just a meter to our left was easy access to the vents that we could crawl through for 50 minutes and we'd be directly above the room they were all set to gather in at 18:00. Once there, I'd use my voice to bring them into a state of unawares, from which The Soldier would shoot them all except one. I'd then use my powers to convince the left over that he was the one who did it and the Soldier would give him the gun that was used.

From there, I'd sneak down and take photos of the files they were discussing - HYDRA hadn't told us what they were but I was sure it was something that would deeply concern them - and then we'd leave the way we came.

Simple enough, really.

"You seem on edge." I commented, observing the way his eyes never remained in one place. "Something bad happen here?" I prompted when he only looked at me.

"I- I don't know." He came back with, eyes boring into mine. "You know the plan, right?" He asked, eyes still locked on mine like magnets. I nodded, humming in affirmation. "Good, I don't know if they'll fight back or not, so be ready." The soldier said, head tilting towards my waist in gesture of my belt that wrapped around the black tactical suit, holding various knives I could throw and a small, but powerful, gun.

I never liked using the gun, I always found the loud noise distracting. I preferred knives, and as my aim was particularly good whilst throwing them, I had little need for a gun unless I ran out of blades. But that seldom happened.

The temperature seemed to change, warming only slightly. A subtle thing that very few would pickup on, but as trained assassins you learn to notice the subtle things. I today, I knew this temperature change meant we'd entered the city. The pollution and bustling of people always increased the temperature, and only by a few degrees but when you were freezing your ass off, you tend to notice the discrete change.

"Time to get our asses moving." The soldier muttered before rising to his feet, offering me a hand as he did so.

"Let's get this show on the road." I murmured once on my feet, standing back as the soldier wrenched the door at the side of the carriage open.

"Roll once you land, it'll make the impact less brutal." He commented before he was diving from the train, landing with a smooth roll over the gravel, which crunched beneath him. I took a deep inhale, leaping from the carriage with nothing but hope that I'd land it rather than end up dead in the process.

My eyes sprang open as I landed, shock rolling through me as I realised that I was alright. A wide smile beckoned my lips, curling them upwards into a grin and I pushed myself from the floor and up onto my feet.

"That was the easy part." The soldier assured me as he walked towards me, my smile instantly dropping and his face falling into a hard expression. I new that face - it was his mission face. One that meant no more messing around, because shit was about to get real serious and real dangerous.

"Let's go." I said, beginning to walk towards the mass of buildings. The soldier followed quickly, directing us to slip behind the first block of apartments we came across so no one in the city would see us.

As we snuck our way to the centre, we flattened ourselves against the wall - melting into the plentiful shadows. As we approached our target, I felt the soldier's hand wrap around my bicep, pulling me back.

"Stay here. I'm going to get higher ground. When you see them drop, continue on and get into that door." He ordered gruffly, and before I could agree he was gone.

I crouched down slowly, now aware with how close we were to the two security guards that any sudden movement had the possibility of catching their attention. I leant into the side of the building, observing the two men as they blatantly ignored their surroundings. We're they trying to make this easy for us?

I felt a sneeze rise in my throat, that tangy feeling settling over my nose as I covered the lower half of my face with my hand. Try as I might, I couldn't prevent the unwanted noise, the small sound catching one of the guard's attention.

"Over there!" He hissed, tapping the other on the shoulder furiously in order to get their attention.

"What is it? I can't see anything." They dismissed, clearly trying to turn back around before the first guard yanked his attention back. I stayed as still as a statue, for once extremely glad that I was completely clad in black.

"I heard someone. Over there." The guard exclaimed, pointing almost directly at me. I held in my breath, eyes widened as I sat petrified. That's when my weight shifted, a small twig I didn't know was beneath my shoe snapping under the pressure. I stopped myself from wincing, the snapping noise echoing and completely giving away my position.

"There they are! Quickly, shoot them!" The second guard shouted, pointing at me as the first fumbled with his belt. I took the opportunity, pulling a blade from my belt as quick as I could and preparing to throw. But two pained shouted caught my attention, my gaze raving to see the two men sprawled on the floor, foreheads pierced with bullets.

My gaze drifted upwards, the soldier crouched over the top of a clearly abandoned bridge, gun in hands and still pointed towards them. A scowl was etched on his features, the lower banks of his face now covered by an ominous black mask.

I snapped from my trance, darting along the back of the building until I reached the door. Once I reached it, I cursed under my breath, realising it was locked as I tried to tug it open. I sighed in frustration, reaching into a pocket on the side of my leg and pulling out a pin.

I crouched by the door again, trying to not be caught a second time as the piece of metal wiggled around in the key hole until I heard the  soft, tell-tale click that signalled the door had unlocked. I stood up, tucking the pin back into my suit and moving to open the door. As I slowly tuned the handle, edging the door open enough to check inside, the Soldier appeared beside me.

"Great job." He deadpanned, eyes cold as he glared at me.

"Hey! It wasn't my fault, blame the gardener that decided daisies were a good idea!" I retaliated in a whispered-shout.

"Just shut up and go." He demanded, brushing past me and into the building once he realised it was clear. Once I'd collected my thoughts as called him a wanker under my breath, I pushed through the door after him to be met with the sight of the soldier's muscles bulging as he tried to pry the vent door from the wall as quietly as he could.

The metal clanked gingerly as he removed the door, placing the vented slab to the side of the now-clear entrance before turning to me and gesturing for me to follow. I got to my knees, crawling through the hole in the wall and placing the vent back in place behind me to lower suspicions.

We crawled through the vents stealthily, the concentration on us apparent as we both counted the meters. I almost crashed straight into the soldier's behind when he abruptly stopped, so I assumed the vent we needed to take out the plan was in front of him. He climbed over it quickly, so we were either side of the slats in the floor.

The soldier looked at me, bringing a finger to his lips as one of the politicians went in a rant.

"It's ridiculous! They expect us to vote on this and we don't even have all the information!"

"Well maybe if you'd read the file, you'd know the answer to all these bloody questions you keep asking!"

The soldier pointed a finder towards the men below us, before moving the same fingers so it was pointed at my mouth. I gave him a curt nod.

The tune flowed from my lips freely, easily, as I began humming. I almost stopped when I saw one of the men tense through the vent, knowing we'd been caught and probably executed or something. But when his shoulders relaxed my fear dissipated, the song falling from my continuously.

I noticed the metal plugs now in the soldier's ears as he leant over the vent, which he'd now pried open and had slid toward me slightly. His gun was pointed down the space he'd created, eyes cantered in on presumably one of the targets. Then he fired, and I flinched as I heard a hollow thump as the body slipped limply to the ground.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

The man who had tended remained alive, still relaxed and eyes glazed over. The soldier motioned for me to move, pushing the vent conger completely out of his way before jumping down into the room, the expected thud as he landed never coming. Wow, this man really is light on his feet.

Maybe he should've been a ballerina, that little voice in my head sung, a smug smile drawing over my lips at the thought of the Winter Soldier in a tutu.

I snapped out of it, following him down and landing crouched, almost disappointed at the tiny thud when I landed.

I barely noticed I'd stopped singing until the burning pain in my shoulder pierced through my thoughts.

"Get down!" The soldier shouted, shoving my down my my good shoulder and taking a lethal shot to the remaining politician's throat. He fell the the floor with a garbled cough, the splatter of blood across my cheek making my wince. The soldier chucked the gun to the table, scooping up the files and pushing them desperately into one of his big pockets on the leather he wore before yanking my up via my arm. "We have to hurry." He gritted through clenched teeth, using two clasped hands under my foot before hoisting me back into the vent.

He all but jumped up after me, replacing the grate before placing two hands on my cheeks to centre me. Hot tears ran down my cheeks, my breathing fast and uneven and my eyes refusing to meet him.

"Hey, look at me," my eyes found his, "I know you're in pain, trust me." He said, a tiny smirk pulling at his lips as the words tumbled from his lips, "but right now, you're running on adrenaline and we need to take advantage of that. So you're going to turn around, and you're going to crawl to the end of this vent and get out of the building. Quietly." He instructed, and I began nodded. I went to turn around, but he used two gloved, metal fingers I redirect my head to him. "It's nothing personal." He said with a  pitiful smile before whipping a few hanker chiefs from his pocket and stuffing them into my mouth. "Bite down on them if it hurts." The soldier clarified when I gave him a confused expression.

...

The sound of the alarm seemed to follow us and we ran, my hand clutching my shoulder as my big down aggressively at the cloth in my mouth. The soldier was behind me, making sure I didn't fall behind with my injury.

The blaring noise of the alarm stressed me out, knowing that they were probably looking for us making my pick up the pace despite the burning in my shoulder.

"There!" The soldier exclaimed, my eyes low finding the black car that we knew would be to pick us up. As we approached the end of the alley we walked down, the soldier over took me, sprinting forward to hold the door open for me.

I stumbled into the back of the car, being ushered farther in as the soldier climbed in behind me and slammed the car door shut.

The vehicle began moving, the chauffeur barely paying kind to us as my chest heaved and a scream broke through the cloth in a muffled shout.

The panicked look on the soldier's eyes is all that I could focus on, his mask off now and his lips moving but I couldn't seem to hear him. Black crept up on me, clouding the edge of my vision as it invaded my senses.

...

"Someone's finally awake then." The displeased    chide of the General filling my ears as my eyes fluttered open.

"You have to leave her alone! It wasn't her fault!" The soldier's voice said desperately, I could hear the worried tone edging his words.

"Quiet. She's the reason you failed your mission, Soldat. I won't have it happen again." The general snapped, my vision fully in focus now.

The general was stood before me, my hands strapped to the ceiling and my toes barely touching the floor. The pain in my shoulder screamed at me, but I could no longer feel the sickening wetness of my blood dripping down my back. They must've taken me to the medic on the flight home.

"Please, don't you think she's endured enough? She was shot for god's sake!" The soldiers reasoned, and I could see him fighting against his restraints. But the general ignored him.

"I think you're memory is getting too sharp. I'll be sure to get you reset once I'm done." He dismissed, a wince finding me as three guards filed into the cell. "Make her pay." He barked, standing back.

The guards grinned sickeningly, my eyes widening as a scream of protest trying to escape the silencer as I caught sight of the bats in their hands. It felt like the air had been punched from my lungs when one of the bats made contact with y stomach, and I already knew the area would be bloody and bruised when they were done.

"And don't stop until she passes out."

[themadlostgirl]

Keeping Warm

*It is soft Felix simping hours*

Prompt: Reader gets cold easily and steals Felix’s cloak to keep warm not knowing it was his. Felix has some feelings about this.

Requested by: anon

Warnings: language

~~~

I am not good with cold. I’m just not. It’s been that way ever since I was little. When I am cold I shut down and for some reason I always seem to be cold. I don’t know what caused it but I needed to be in the heat at all times. I figured that when I flew to Neverland I wouldn’t have to worry about the cold anymore. It is a tropical jungle after all.

The days are long and the sun is sweltering. I bask in the heat and humidity with a reverence reserved for deities. I was warm and I was happy. The Lost Boys often joked that I was just like a lizard basking on a hot rock. Almost no one actually called me by name anymore after they made that connection. I was always lizard or viper. I learned to live with it.

With that said it looked as if Neverland was my dream come true and it was...until night came. The second the sun was no longer in the sky the island got cold. I expected it to drop a few degrees during the night but the difference was so stark that I spent most nights shivering in my tent with my thin cloak huddled tight around me.

One night I had been so cold that I huddled myself near the bonfire and fell asleep there. It was at that moment I decided to suck up my pride and ask the boys for some help.

“Hey guys,” I approached a group of boys I was sorta close to, “Are there any blankets around?”

“What do you need a blanket for?” One of the asked.

“Well, I get really cold at night and I was wondering if I could maybe get a blanket or at the very least a thicker cloak.” I muttered, meekly.

“How on earth are you cold?” The boys started laughing. “This island is a thousand degrees all the damn time. You really are cold blooded, lizard.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” I crossed my arms, “I’m a wuss because I get cold easily. Can you stop making fun of me?”

“Awe, did we hurt your feelings?” One of the boys pinched my cheek, “Little lizard girl can’t stand a little cold?”

“You guys are such jerks!” I shoved them off. “Forget I said anything. I’ll find something on my own.” I huffed and marched off. The boys were wrong about me being cold blooded because I could feel the blood boiling in my veins. Now if only I could bottle this red hot anger and use that to warm my tent at night.

I went up to other Lost Boys asking around for a spare blanket but they all gave me the same bark of laughter and refusal to help me. I had enough and went out to the beach to find my sunbathing rock. It was a large smooth flat rock that stretched into the sea a bit. It was a nice place to keep warm and get some peace and quiet.

When I got there I saw that I wasn’t the only looking for some quiet.

“Hey Felix,” I sat down next to him, “What brings you here today?”

“Stone skipping,” He gestured to the pile of stones by his feet. “Come to warm yourself, viper?”

“What else do I do?” I sighed. I liked Felix. He was easy to talk to and unlike a lot of the other boys when he called me lizard or viper I didn’t think he did it out of malice. It was just a name like Toodles or Slightly. I thought briefly about asking him about acquiring a blanket but decided not to. I had enough of the boys laughing in my face and I really didn’t want to add Felix to that list.

The minutes passed by as I laid down to soak in the sun. Another thing that I liked about Felix was that I didn’t feel the need to fill the silence around him. We could simply exist next to each other. It was rather comforting that we could have these moments when I lived on an island full of boys that couldn’t stand still for more than five seconds.

“Scoot over,” Felix nudged me with his foot.

“Run out of rocks already?” I made room next to me so Felix could lay down as well.

“Yeah,” He sighed and closed his eyes. “Weren’t a lot to be found today.”

“Happens,” I shrugged. I pulled an orange out of my pocket and started peeling it. “Orange slice?”

He opened his mouth and I rolled my eyes before dropping a slice in. “You know,” I said, “One of these days I’m going to do something like drop a rock or a little hermit crab in your mouth.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Wouldn’t I?” I bit into a slice. Felix opened an eye to glare at me. I held out another slice as a peace offering. He took it with his hand this time. “Smart choice.”

“Remind me why I put up with you?”

“Because I’m fun and also quiet and I always end up giving you half of my snack when we’re together. Speaking of, my canteen is empty.”

“Here,” he handed me his.

“Thank you.” I took a generous swig. We passed the rest of our time laying in the sun not saying much until Felix had to leave.

The sun started to set and it was with a heavy heart that I braced myself for the cold and meandered back to camp. The boys I had spoken to earlier sniggered as I passed. I got to my tent and sighed when I realized what exactly those idiots had been giggling about. My cloak was gone. The one thing I use to keep myself warm at night and it was gone. Assholes.

Fine. If they want to take my stuff then I’ll take theirs too. I maneuvered stealthily around the camp looking for an unattended cloak. I eventually found one in a distant tent near the edge of camp and grabbed it. Let’s see how funny they think it is that their stuff gets stolen.

I bundled up the cloak and made a straight line for my own tent. I unfurled the cloak and was surprised by how much thicker this one was than the one I had. Probably thicker than what any of the boys wore. It also smelled kinda nice. I don’t know why but I caught a whiff of it and it put me at ease almost immediately. I wrapped myself in the cloak and reveled in the extra warmth it provided before promptly falling asleep.

~~~

Someone was gonna die!

Felix was turning in for the night and had noticed that his cloak had been missing. One of these idiots stole his cloak and when he found out who he was gonna murder them. No one steals from him. Not even as a joke.

It was the whole reason he set up his tent away from the main bustle of the camp. So stuff like this wouldn’t happen. But now it had and heads were gonna roll.

He noticed a group of boys together laughing it up by the fire. He saw one of them holding a bundle of fabric and charged.

“Hey!” Felix grabbed the kid by the neck. “You got some explaining to do you little shit!”

“Felix, calm down buddy.” One of the boys tried saying. “You’re choking him.”

“That’s the point.” He growled. “Cloak. Give. Now!”

The boy shoved the cloak into Felix’s free hand. Felix released him and the kid stumbled back gasping.

“Why do you have to be such a kill joy?” The boys complained. “Did the lizard send you to do her dirty work?”

“What?” Felix asked. “What are you talking about?”

“We stole her cloak cause she was complaining about being cold again. I really don’t see how she can be cold when it is always hot on this island.”

“Oh so this isn’t mine.” Felix really looked at the cloak in his hands. It was very thin and threadbared from years of use. It was a wonder that it was still together at all. He balled the cloak up and stuffed it under his arm. “So which one of you assholes stole my cloak then? It was in my tent this morning and now it’s gone.”

“We didn’t take anything from you.” The boys said. “We swear we didn’t go anywhere near your tent.”

Felix prowled closer, fire in his eyes. “You had better not have. You know how I feel when people touch my stuff. So if I find out you are lying I will shove a spear up your ass and roast you over the fire.”

Felix trudged away leaving the terrified Lost Boys behind. Now he just needed to get this cloak back to you. As thin as it was it was the only thing you had to keep the chill off so some coverage was better than none. Maybe he could approach Pan about getting you a real blanket or at the very least a thicker cloak. He knew how easily you got cold.

Felix sighed. He really was stuck on you. Out of everyone on the island you were the only one that he liked spending time with. Unlike everyone else you were able to sit still and enjoy the moment of silence the world offered. Spending time with you was like finding the eye of a hurricane. All the noise and chaos continued while he stayed safe.

He came upon your tent and peered inside. You were already fast asleep. Looking closer he realized that you already had a cloak covering you. How was that if the boys had taken yours earlier?

Wait. That was his cloak. Why would you steal his cloak? He plan was to wake you up and make the swap but upon seeing you laying there without shivering he couldn’t bring himself to take his cloak away from you. It was much thicker and warmer than your old one was and you clearly needed the layer.

It didn’t help matters that he got a strange fluttering in his chest when he saw you curled up in his clothes. Why was that happening? Why did you look so...cute? Cute was not a word that Felix used, ever. But it was the only appropriate word he could find as he gazed at you.

With a sigh Felix left your tent. He threatened the Lost Boys to not take anything of yours again lest they answer directly to him. The boys nodded in terror, not wanting to incur the wrath of Pan’s second in command. He threw your old shitty cloak into the bonfire. You wouldn’t be needing it anymore now that you had his to keep you warm. Felix let himself a small grin as he watched the cloak turn into a pile of ash. Besides, he thought, his cloak looked way better on you anyway.

---

(Part 2)

[aceofthegreenajah]

Because I’ve been on Nirvana in Fire brain, and also to distract myself from constantly checking the news while I was stuck on train, I started to collect tags from @hunxi-after-hours LYB/Nirvana in Fire rewatch liveblog. Here are some non-spoilery ones in completely randomized order for extra non-spoileryness.

(compromising situation being: murder)

I mean is it even a party in ancient China if you haven't fought with the cutlery

I once had a DM emotionally hamstring me during a session by playing the LYB soundtrack

this show is Saying Things about revenge and justice and the lines in between and that's very sexy of it  

women supporting women but at what emotional cost  

the way this show balances stress and comedy; truly legendary  

I think there's a lot to be unpacked in this show about moral purity and righteousness; methods vs. intentions

please stick my hand into a brazier it would be less painful

it is a beautiful day in the capital and you are a conniving conniving tactician

how are all the actors for this show so damn good: we get drunk princes in these episodes and it's fascinating how inebriation sits on their physicality differently; the sheer TALENT of this cast  

I came here to have a good time and now I'm ride or die for every secondary character in the cast    

I'm realizing that when I first watched LYB; it was before I got into my major before I studied film; and before I did lighting design; so of course on this rewatch I am constantly losing my mind about all of the above  

I recommend 8 hours of sleep in order to prepare yourself to receive information that may hurt you

how dare this show be beautiful as well as well-written

everyone in Su Manor continues to be A Mood  

I still think all the time about that one article that called LYB1 Hamlet and LYB2 Othello  

we haven't seen him for a few episodes and I've honestly been worried about him; has he been getting enough hugs?? is someone making sure he sleeps and takes care of himself???; has he been getting enough hugs??????

this show delivers such competence porn for secondary characters and that is my jam

anyway where's my Fei Liu spin-off series where he fights people for forty consecutive episodes

there is so much. HOPE. in his eyes; I need to take a lap around the room AAAHHHHHHH

because here is someone who will understand the depth of what that means; the unspoken horrors and the aching wrongness  

I forgot how funny this show is and I am delighted

where's my spin-off sitcom series about Su Manor Shenanigans  

the virtue in sticking to your morals come hell or high water or imperial persecution; and the virtue in being able to change with the times and emerge unscathed

Nanchu spin-off series when  

he's just like 'this is not how an interrogation is supposed to go'

it comes from the back muscles built by carrying the comedy of all 54 episodes  

we love stealthily plot-relevant aesthetic shots of teapots

I have a TYPE; and the type is MURDER

it's me I need a drink for the emotional damage this show is causing me

we stan the best mother hen of this dynasty and all that come after

sure sure it's melodramatic but goddamn if it doesn't give me CHILLS

you know how the CQL fandom collectively loses their mind over that one (1) shot of sunlight illuminating Xiao Zhan's eyes?; yeah that's this show but like; Constantly; and I Suffer

singlehandedly restoring months to my lifespan right there

still waiting for an entire spin-off series about Xiao Jingrui if we're being honest

this music still has its claws in my hindbrain; I hear the xiao I start holding back the tears that's just how it works

[random-mha-thoughts]

Skater Boy (Kirishima x Reader)

Pairing: Kirishima x Reader

Genre: Fluff

Summary: College!AU; You’re going to get pizza and you run into a group of skaters from your university

Word count: 2,640

Tags:  @yuki-osaki​ @liviitehe​ @iamsoftsodonttoucheume-blog​ @bunnythepipsqueak​

a/n: I was talking to my cousin one day and the thought just suddenly hit me, What if the Bakusquad were skateboarders?  And so this idea was born!  Not the best but I think it’s cute, and he deserves fluff after I just wrote angst for him.

"I think I might actually fail that class," I deflate, hunched over.  "I study until I'm blue in the face and I still do bad on the exams.  And he doesn't even curve the grades!"

Tzuyu raises an eyebrow at me.  "(Y/n), you have a B in that class, why are you so worried?"

"Because I want an A!" I burst out as we walk up the parking lot of the pizza shop.  "It's still only the middle of the semester, I need a good enough cushion just in case I slip up on the last few exams.  I can't get another C!"

My dark haired friend grabs my shoulders and looks me in the eye.  "You're freaking out for nothing, just chill.  Do something fun for a change."

I sigh exasperatedly.  "I don't have time for fun.  I need enough time to study and do my homework, and I need time to procrastinate because of how stressed I am."  She doesn't understand since she's not a science major, she's a lucky Communications major.

She rolls her eyes.  "If you keep going like this, you'll start having premature grays hairs.  And you'll look older than you already do."

I shove her playfully.  "Are you saying I look older than my age?"

"Yup.  And it doesn't help that you have resting bitch face either."

I jump in front of her to jokingly insult her too.  "You're-"

"Incoming!"

Stepping backwards, the ground underneath my foot is slightly higher and shaky, making my leg jerk to the side instinctively and I land square on my ass, almost knocking into the shop's glass doors.  My head follows the sound of wheels rolling to see a skateboard gliding away from us.

"Hey, stupid."  A shadow casts over me and I meet the eyes of a pretty annoyed ash-blond boy, his hands in his forest green cargo pants pockets.  He looks down his nose at me with a grimace.  "That was my board you tripped on."

I blink, not knowing what he expects me to say.  "Um.  Sorry?"

Tzuyu helps me off the floor.  "Why would you let it roll away if you didn't want anyone touching it?"

He grabs it from the small distance it traveled, kicking the edge and gripping it by the metal between the wheels.  His board is almost all black with a giant white skull in the middle surrounded by orange and yellow flames.  "We warned you, not our fault you stepped on it like an amateur."

My gaze flicks briefly to the group of other people hanging around the side of the building before returning back to him.  "All you said was 'Incoming,' how were we supposed to know what to watch out for?"

The boy rolls his eyes and swaggers up to me.  Being almost an entire head taller, he slouches over me.  "You should've know to just freeze up," he growls.

The combination of his height towering over me and his murderous crimson eyes makes me gulp, but stand my ground.  I cross my arms over my chest.  "M-Maybe if you weren't so bad at skateboarding, you wouldn't have messed up for it to roll away from you."

The boy growls and bares his teeth at me.  "You wanna say that again?!"

"Okay, calm down, dude, it was just an accident."  A red-headed friend of the boy runs up and pushes him away when I flinch into Tzuyu's arms behind me.  "You don't have to pick a fight with everyone you meet, just chill."

The porcupine-haired boy grumbles under his breath and walks back to the rest of his group.

I turn to the saintly friend.  "Thank you-"

As soon as he turns around, the words get jumbled in my throat.  The front of his hair is so cutely tucked over his face under his black beanie.  His features give off a boyish charm with sharp features like his eyes and his jawline.  His beaming smile puts blindingly white sharp teeth on display as his eyes crinkle up.  "Sorry about him, he's a bit of a hothead."

"It's okay!" I say quickly, waving my hands in front of me and looking down.  My eyes meet with his board, the pattern a scarlet matching his hair color with black lettering outlining the initials RR.  "You have a pretty cool board.  Matches your hair."  It's a dumb compliment and I know it is, I'm just trying to make conversation.

He picks it up by the sides and admires it himself.  "You like it?  Painted it myself!  I bought the wheels, but I sprayed the trucks black because I thought it looked cooler."

"Seems like a personification of you."  You sound so lame and boring, why would you say that?

"It's new, I'm trying to get it scratched up and everything."  He holds it with one hand at his side and holds his hand out to me, flashing another brilliant smile.  "I'm Eijirou Kirishima by the way!"

Tzuyu and I introduce ourselves.  "Do you go to the university here?" my friend asks.

"Yeah, we all do," he motions to the rest of them.  "We just like to come out and chill every once in a while, usually we're at the park though."

I know which one he's talking about.  About a block away, opposite the direction of our university, is a skate park that I've seen whenever we pass by here to get food.

Tzuyu clears her throat and nudges me from behind and I shoot her a look to stop.

"Yo, Kiri!  We're goin' back to the park, you comin'?"  One of the boys with bright blond hair and a black hoodie calls out.

Kirishima's head flits back and forth between us and his friends.  "I'll meet up with you guys later!" he answers before turning his attention back to us.  "I can treat you guys to lunch since Bakugou was being an ass if you want?"

My eyes widen.  "You don't have-"

"Sure, why not?" Tzu talks over me and grabs my arm.  "Let's go grab a table!"

I will kill everything you love.

.

Tzuyu does most of the talking while I eat my pizza like a silent bunny.  We find out he's an Exercise Science major with an average GPA.  The most surprising thin is that his loudmouth friend who almost jumped us is a pretty bright student.

"You really can't tell, he's such a hothead," Tzu comments.

"Yeah, he's been trying to work on it," Kirishima laughs and rubs the back of his head.  "But he's a really smart guy, I usually ask him to explain stuff I don't understand."

I stare at the board he's laid down on the seat next to him.  We're spread out inside a semicircle booth near the window, so it's right next to me.  I stealthily reach out to spin one of the white and red wheels.  Some part of me feels like a child because I get easily amused by these things.

"You must really like my board."

My heart lurches when I realize I've been caught, my face turning red when I meet his beaming face.  "I'm sorry for touching it."  I scoot away from it a little bit.

"No need to apologize, I don't mind."  He pushes it towards me and leans his arms on the back of the cushioned seats.  "Do you skate?"

I fiddle with the wheels again.  "I have a board, actually, but I can't really skate."  It's at my house, under my bed where I can't see it.

"That's cool, do you have a picture?" his scarlet eyes light up in excitement."

"No, I don't."  I deleted it.  "I, uh, dated someone who bought it for me and was supposed to teach me how to skate."

"And you broke up?" Kirishima finishes, his expression neutralized to a blank slate.

Damnit, look what you did, you've made everyone uncomfortable now.  I take a last bite of my pizza, leaving the crust.  Usually Tzuyu eats it for me.

Kirishima eyes it and his face turns a bit red, darting away from me.  "Would it be weird to ask if I can eat your crust?"

I feel my own face get hot at his suggestion.  Tzuyu coughs to hide her giggle and nods slightly.  "Sure, go ahead," I manage to get out shakily.

He doesn't even hesitate to grab it once he has permission, happily chewing at it.  Tzuyu bites her lip to keep herself at my obviously red face.  Don't think about it, that's so childish, I chant to myself.

He licks his lips when he's finished.  "So, (Y/n), do you still wanna learn?"

My entire body erupts in a strange combination of warmth and cold.  I never really thought about skating after I broke up with the previous guy.  It's just been sitting under my bed because  I unconsciously can't bring myself to remind myself of anything about him.  It wouldn't be a bad idea, but I also don't really want to embarrass myself in front of another cute guy.

Noticing my hesitation, Kirishima offers a warm smile.  "You don't have to worry about falling in front of me!  I couldn't stay on the board at first either!"

I can't imagine it, but something about his affable, trusting demeanor draws me to him.  "I guess it wouldn't hurt to try."

"Awesome!"  His entire face lights up and his eyes crinkle up again.

"You guys can go ahead, I'm going back to the dorms to study," Tzuyu gets up to throw her plate away.  When Kirishima isn't looking, she wiggles her eyebrows and mouths, "Have fun."

"That's too bad.  It was nice meeting you!"

I shake my head quickly at her, but she just sticks her tongue out at me and leaves.

The redhead grabs his board and stands up.  "Shall we?"

Lord, I'm gonna die today.

.

Kirishima had already got me to feel out my balance standing on the grass and was now planing on moving me to the concrete.  Cue all my fears of falling off and busting my head open.

"Do you know which stance you're more comfortable standing with?" he asks, placing the board in front of me near a pole in the parking lot.

"I think so?"  I'm not familiar with it, but I can switch it up later.

"Alright, hold onto the pole and step up.  I'll stand in front of you just in case you fall forward, just be careful falling backwards."  He's been extra patient with me this whole time, it's endearing.

"Can you clone yourself so you can be in both places?" I ask feebly, clasping my hands in front of me, staring at the little board.

He chuckles, "I wish I could.  You'll do fine, I'll try to catch you either way."

I take a breath, holding onto the pole and placing my foot on the board.  I don't want to look like a coward in front of Kirishima, so I grasp the metal tightly and plant my other foot, wobbling a little in place and whining.

"You're doing good!  Are you cool so far?"  He moves to stand on the side where my body faces forward.

"I think so?"  My blood pumps with adrenaline and all I want to do is leap off and go back to the dorms.  Damnit Tzu, why did you leave me here?

"Okay, whenever you're ready, just push off and roll!"

My front fist clenches in front of me, every instinct telling me not to let go of the pole.  "You'll catch me, right?" I confirm, my legs shaking in anticipation.

"Yup!"  He holds his hands out, palms up and ready.  "Ready when you are!"

Don't be a coward, just do it.  I push off weakly and start rolling only slightly faster than a snail's pace before I shake and spasm, putting a hand on Kirishima's arm instinctively.  "Shit, sorry-" I take my hand off only to windmill my arms and lean backward.

He grabs both of my hands.  "Lean on me, it's okay."

His warm smile and gentle voice makes me feel stupid for being an imbalanced fool.  "I'm sorry, I'm such a klutz, I'm really bad at this," I burst out quickly.

"You're fine, take your time."  The warmth from his hands flusters me even more and I want to let go, but if I do I'll fall over.  "Do you want me to push you so you can try again?  Is it okay?"  I nod, my body still shaking.  I shift to balance with one of his hands as he frees the other.  "I'm gonna let go after I push you, plant yourself."

He pushes at the small of my back gingerly, sending me rolling a little faster than before.  Despite being wobbly, somehow I manage to keep my balance for a few more seconds, the board wavering back and forth under my feet.

"You've got it, good job!" Kirishima praises, keeping a brisk walking pace to keep up.

The board slows to a crawl and I waver, stopping when I grab his arm again and letting out a breath I didn't know I was holding.  "That's not too bad I guess," I exhale.

He chuckles.  "Do you wanna try riding towards me alone this time?"

Please no.  "Okay," I squeak out.

Kirishima stands a good 10 meters away from me.  Starting from the pole, I push off towards him and balance myself across.  When I approach him, he raises his hands up for me to hold onto and walks backwards to match my speed.  "Just step off now."

As soon as I take my back foot off, the front tips forward into the ground.  The mini sensation of falling makes me yelp and lean into him reflexively.

A snicker leaves his lips.  "Not really a successful stop, but at least you did it."

I look up, about to say something snarky, but I realize how close we are to each other.  His eyes bore into mine, and I notice he has a small vertical scar on his right eye.  I'm about to reel back for staring before he grips my hands tighter and brings them down to get closer.  My heart thumps in my ears, body still shaking with adrenaline.

"You know, it won't take just a single day to skate well, you need to practice at it."  His eyes relax into a half-lidded state, one side of his lips lazily turned up slightly.

"Yeah..." I want to curse myself for such a dumb response.  The smell of his wooded cologne wafts from his hoodie.

He bites his lip and glances down at mine briefly and his voice drops an octave.  "Would you like it if we kept this up?  Maybe tomorrow?"

Without thinking, I nod slowly.

"Maybe we can grab something to eat together?" he tips his head, "Like a...date?"

My face flushes.  Oh, this is happening.  I nod again, not trusting my voice to do anything but scream.

A low chuckle resounds from him throat and he quickly brushes a finger to my cheek.  "You're cute.  I'm glad you wanna see me again too."

My chest throbs at the compliment, eyes dropping to the ground.

Another melodious laugh and he lets go of me, grabbing his board that rolled a few feet away.  "Come on, I'll walk you back to your dorm."

I hang back, dazed after what just happened.  The adrenaline is slowly emptying out of my system and my heart is trying to normalize, but replaying how close we were a few moments ago kicks everything back into gear.

"You coming?" he calls from behind.  Seeing my disorientation, he smiles teasingly.  "Have you lost your balance to walk too?  Here," he clasps his free hand with mine gently, "I'll help you."

A new tremor of warmth flows through me.  Oh.

[rigorwh0retis]

Payback Part 1

Pairing: Adrien/Keone (Keke belongs to @schmeesky)

Warning: Mentions of Violence, Mentions snuff films, Mentions of the deep web, public sex, indecent sex and misogyny (kinda I guess? Just in case)

    A haze filled the narrow alleyway as Adrien leaned against the building behind him, the buildings rough exterior dug into his back as he took another drag of his cigarette. Adrien's eyes wandered to the others, most looked like employees of the surrounding restaurants lingered around for a smoke break. Their features almost unrecognizable by the dimly lit light that flickered so often as moths surrounded it like it was their own little haven. He watched them more until one looked up from his phone and met Adrien's gaze which quickly made him look away to gaze out to the open street in front of them. 

               Laughter and indistinctive chatter of people filled the warm night air as they roamed the sidewalks. The scent of spice, grilled meat and nicotine wafted throughout the streets while lights twinkled from the distant buildings as cars bustled across the streets to their current destinations. Tonight was a special night, something that sent an excited chill down Adrien's spine.

             He was back in Jamaica again, it was his second time coming here though Adrien didn't think he'd return so quickly after a couple of months. He mainly came back to see Keone, how he missed that bratty douchebag and his fat cock. Though, there was another reason why he came back so fast as well. Adrien was getting a constant flood of demands for snuff films from his most high paying customers, they were getting insatiable with their hunger for slashing of flesh. He came over to get as many requests done as he could though Adrien had been procrastinating for a while since he was still sore from the previous trip he had. Being in a forgien country it would be harder for detectives to trace the murders back to him through the videos he made for his clients if shit went south. Adrien mainly just had to be on the lookout for the local police if things got sloppy when he rids of his victim's bodies though a missing tourist surely isn't something they haven't encountered nor would they care too much about.

    Adrien was keeping an eye out for any potential play toys in between the little fuck sessions he had with Keone. He spent many nights after getting railed wandering (more like limping) around the villa to find any promising tourists that might peak his clients interests, many of them were picky and each of these perverts had their own flavors of people they craved to watch get skewered for their own sick enjoyment. Sadly, many of the visitors here were just old rich prunes with too much money and time on their hands including way too many slabs of wrinkles slipping out from under their bathing suits. He was getting tired being bombarded with the smell of those old hags musty perfume wafting all around him wherever he went, about to give up after sitting by the pool side with a beer in his hand until he saw the perfect toy swaying her hips and shaking her ass as she entered the pool area.

                 She was a skinny little thing with giant fake tits and an even faker huge ass on her while this bitch wore some skimpy red stringed bikini that barely covered anything with long bleach blonde hair that reached her mid back. She had a generic face, no interesting features that made her any special from any other dumb bitch on the street with a shitty orange tan and cheaply slapped on acrylic nails. She was perfect. One of his clients, skullfucker69 they liked to call themselves, had a thing for blonde little bimbos and this girl would be an easy kill.

                  The girl had been eyeing him from the moment she stepped into the pool area.  Throwing glances his way when she wasn't speaking to her equally bland looking friends, fluttering her eyelashes at him and giving him a wink. He couldn't help but chuckle at her flirting, it was almost cute how desperate she was for some dick that wasn't aged like wine. Adrien took a swig of his beer and leisurely made his way over to her. It didn't take Adrien long to charm the girl, her name was Ashley and she came all the way from New York. He doesn't remember too much of the details she threw at him, after a while her incessant rambling was boring him so he cut to the chase and asked her out for dinner in the downtown area of Montego Bay.

              Adrien took another drag of his cigarette, chuckling to himself at how easy this will be. Throwing his cigarette on the ground, extinguishing the small nicotine bud with his flip flop the man made his way around the corner and entered the restaurant. The light were dimmed, letting the fluorescent, colored lights of the bar shone brightly against the glossy wood as rows of bottles sat on the shelf behind it were illuminated like little disco balls. Across the bar were red and white little tables, only big enough to hold two people, seated in several neatly organized rows with little fake candles that barely gave off any real life flickered softly. It was a small little place, hardly anyone was here except for the odd elderly couple and Ashley who sat memorized looking at her phone in the very back of the place away from everyone. Their table was right by the big, black curtain that swayed gently on the other half of the room, separating the restaurant half from the little dance floor they rented out to parties. 

              Adrien walks through the mazes of chairs, trying to stealthily make it through without bumping into anyone or anything as he makes his way to his newest victim, like a predator stalking closer to its prey before he's standing in front of her. Ashley is so fixated by her phone, probably texting her friends thinking she'll get dicked down as her nails click against the glass of her phone. Adrien clears his throat, growing annoyed by the lack of attention from this little cunt. Ashley jumped in her seat, her brown eyes widened as she snapped her head up to see Adrien towering over her. 

                  "O-Oh! Hey, there Adrien." The blonde stuttered out, quickly throwing her phone in her purse. Ashley pushed her arms up against the side of her tits to make them poke out more up more from the tiny pink tube top she wore. Her brown eyes looked at him through her fake, long eyelashes. How cute. She's trying to seduce him but Adrien isn't easily swayed by blow up dolls. Adrien smirked at her before he pulled out his chair and sat down.

                   "Hey, there cutie. Sorry to keep you waiting so long, I just had to smoke real quick. Hope you'll forgive." Adrien said as he flashed her with a pearly white smile and a wink. A blush bloomed on her tanned cheeks and she sat their almost awe struck at him before she replied.

                   "Oh no, it's totally okay. I mean I wasn't even waiting that long. I was just texting my friends because I was thinking maybe going clubbing and maybe you wanna come with me because I know a great place and I get a little loose..." Ashley continued to ramble on and on. Adrien stared at her, giving some responses here and there but letting this whore talk for the most part as she continued to talk about herself. Adrien was getting bored letting her do all the talking and wanted to hurry this up to the part where he sliced open this dumb sluts stomach.

                    "Actually," Adrien interrupted her in mid sentence causing her to raise her eyebrows at him. "I was thinking we could do something a little...crazy. There's this place outside of town that is-" Adrien paused as he felt calloused fingers gently glide up the skin of his thigh and ghost over his soft, placid cock before gripping it. Adrien jumped at the contact to his cock and let out a small hiss as the hand continued to palm Adrien as he grew harder. He looked up to see Ashley looking at him with a wider variation of emotions. Adrien had to quickly come up with something before she's scared away. Adrien quickly threw his dinner knife on the floor. 

                     "Oh shit sorry my knife fell on my foot. Don't worry I'm fine let me get it." Adrien quickly said before he hunched over to be met with a pair of golden eyes staring back at him. Keke sat between his legs, his tiny body being able to fit underneath the table without being noticed by Ashley as Keke continued to touch the blonde man. Adrien had no idea how in the hell Keke even got here until he glanced over to see the drapery next to them was pulled back. That little fucker had snuck in here and for what reason he didn't know why. Adrien bit his lip when he felt Keke tug at his now hardening cock roughly. 

                       "Keke, right now is not the time for this. This is for a very important so I can't fuck this up." Adrien hissed at him. As much as Adrien didn't wanna lose this bitch for his client, he couldn't help but like this new risky side of Keke that made a delicious electrifying chill run up his spine to be touched right in front of someone. Adrien has to mentality slap himself, he had to get his job done or he will lose this high paying customer. He tried pushing Keke away from him only to feel the smaller man's nails dig deep into the meat of Adrien's thigh.

                       "Keone. You need to fuck off right now or I'm gonna make your cunt so loose from when I destroy it so leav-" 

                       "Ummm, Adrien is everything okay down there? " Ashley questioned from the table above. 

                      "Yeah everything's fine just got butter fingers and keep dropping be right up in a second, princess." Adrien yelled from below before glaring down at Keke who had a toothy smirk plastered on his lips as he started to pump Adrien's cock. 

                   "F-Fuck! Ugh fine you fucking brat you can stay and continue but if you make me mess up kiss that cunt of your destroyed, bitch." Adrien growled at Keke who replied by harshly squeezing the blondes balls. Adrien sat with the knife in his hand only to be met with the confused face of his date.

                 "Sorry about that, sweetie. It's been one of those nights, huh?" Adrien said before laying his hands on the table to keep himself from touching Keke.

                "Yeah I guess…" Ashley replied and sipped her wine and looked anywhere but Adrien. Shit she must be disinterested from the knife incident, Adrien tried to figure out something to break the ice.

                "So tell me more about New York. What places did you like to shop at since you clearly love...fashion." Adrien said through gritted teeth when he felt Keke unzip his shorts, letting Adrien's cock spring forward before running his warm tongue along the hardened cock. Adrien let out a shaky breathe and clenched his hands as he waited for Ashley to answer. Not noticing or not caring, she perked up and started rambling again but Adrien couldn't focus on anything she was saying.

                   He was lost into the sensation of Keone slowly running his tongue over the head of Adrien's cock and light stroking him. Keke would take a little bit of Adrien in his mouth, sucking softly and slowly licking him, so close to bringing Adrien to the edge before pulling away. He then would start dragging those sharp canines over Adrien's cock, those teeth feeling like needles dragging across the sensitive skin which the pain caused Adrien to hiss in pleasure and pain. Adrien looked up to see Ashley with an expression of disgust and confusion. Before Adrien could say anything, he felt Keke take his entire cock into his throat. Feeling Keone's tight, warm wet throat tightly squeezing around Adrien made him lose it, the blonde let out a deep throaty moan as Keke bobbed his head on Adrien's cock, taking him all the way down to the base until Keone's nose was pressed into the the trail of hair the covered the taller man.

        Adrien's heart stopped when he realized what he just did. He looked over to see Ashley's mouth agape in horror as she stared with utter shock and disgust. Adrien saw the other customers in the restaurant stare at him with equal horror. Before Adrien could explain himself, Ashley stood up quickly with her purse in hand.

               "Ihavetogotothebathroom." Ashley quickly said before she made a dash to the bathrooms to hide until someone came get her or until he left. Adrien felt anger bubble up in him and he went to snatch Keke up by his air only to grab air. Somehow Adrien didn't notice Keke had slipped away after the blonde made a commotion. The tall man needed to get out of here before any cops came for the indecent thing going on here but more importantly to beat that little twinks ass red. Adrien tucked himself in his pants before throwing a random amount of money and scurrying out into the open, abandoned streets. He turned the corner into the alleyway and decided to take the backstreets towards the villa. As he made his way through the darkened path, he was met with a pair of golden eyes glaring at him in the shadows before at lighting speed slammed right into him causing Adrien fall to the ground as pain bloomed throughout his back. 

[shou7]

Translation: To My Father and the Person in His Reminiscences by Yoru Sumino

A bonus short story sequel distributed to audiences of the “I Want to Eat Your Pancreas” anime film adaptation.

(Chapter Index)

　

I hate how ordinary I am. “Ordinary” – it doesn’t have the same meaning as the word “normal”.

Ordinary home environment, ordinary school life, ordinary athletic ability, ordinary academic ability, ordinary appearance, and ordinary interests.

To me - as to the general public - “ordinary” means something like “boring”.

That was why, the day after an ordinary fight with my parents, it came as a shock that my dad could have been having an affair. But at the same time, I was excited. Something unordinary may have finally fallen into my life.

The following day, I enthusiastically called my childhood friend out to a café beside a station we didn’t normally use, and informed her she had to be in disguise.

“Fuyu, you’ve definitely misunderstood.”

A sigh escaped Anzu’s lips, which were of a colour as reminiscent of spring as her name.

“No no, even I wonder what’s so good about that old man y’know, but I’m just doing what I gotta do.”

“Oh-ho, is that so.”

Anzu took another sip from her café au lait, as her gaze casually returned to her paperback. Even so, she had picked out a bucket hat and a pair of fake glasses for our stakeout, so that was enthusiasm enough.

Anzu’s heart was as hard to read as ever. It was moments like this that gave her a little air of mystery or something, and so made her discreetly popular. Having known her since childhood, I knew that she was just exceedingly good at staying calm, but it couldn’t be denied that she had an unordinary knack for putting just the adequate amount of effort into doing things, which made me envious. Well, that - and her face that was considerably more than just ordinarily cute.

“Well, I came along because I wanted to see Fuyu again after such a long time, but y’know.”

“Even though we spent the day before yesterday bumming around in your room.”

“And so I was wondering, what makes you think Uncle is having an affair?”

I slightly lifted the visor of my cap, trying to give my best impression of being lost in thought. I was thinking about how I should best order my explanation to convince her easily. But in the end, I figured that a just adequate answer would work best for a “just adequate” Anzu, so I stopped thinking too hard about it.

“Intuition.”

Anzu took a deep breath.

“Even though Fuyu keeps on falling for scummy guys, for a moment I thought I could trust your intuition, but if you really had good intuition you wouldn’t fall for scum, so if you’re going to call me in the spur of the moment because of something like that, I think I definitely deserve some compensation.”

“Don’t waste oxygen on unnecessarily lengthy speeches. And they’re not scummy, just chill.”

“Chill has the same meaning as scummy, and expressionist is close too.”

Making a befitting face, Anzu had practically read my mind, and had done it like she was just killing time. It was that part of her that made her an unpleasant fellow. I know many a brave soul who had their hearts shattered after picking a fight with Anzu. But it wasn’t like I’d nothing to show for staying by her side.

“Mm, well? Being told by the guys you’ve dated that you were a pain despite being strangely conscious about timings and stuff? Or that you were like the child of a teacher? I can totally understand why Anzu would be upset with chill guys, y’know?”

“I’ll kill you, you fathercon.”

We glared at each other, but it was too troublesome to continue. So despite not knowing who yielded first, we stopped.

“Is Fuyu’s intuition really worth spending a whole day of summer vacation on?”

Yes, it was summer vacation now. A precious day that we flower-like high school girls had to cherish.

“This has more real world consequences than playing The Game of Life in Anzu’s room. If my family falls apart then let me become a child of Anzu’s family okay.”

“I think my Papa and Mama would really take you in so please stop. I want to keep being pampered as an only daughter.”

“If that’s so then help me investigate Dad’s affair, and bring an end to it before Mom finds out. And then once I get ahold of his weakness I’ll be able to dangle it in front of him every time we get into a fight.”

“So you got scolded again.”

“It was a fight. Seriously pisses me off.”

“I still think this is just gonna be a waste of time though.”

It seemed that although she had come all the way out here, Anzu wasn’t going to be easily convinced unless I properly explained my suspicions. It probably didn’t matter if I did so or not, but there was still some time before Dad arrived, and I wasn’t the type to kill time reading books like her.

Basically, it was this sort of thing. I had overheard Dad having a phone call with a young lady. Last night, Dad had come home late. But since the flames of anger within had yet to subside, I didn’t even speak to him unless our eyes met. I quickly retreated to my second-floor room. Before I knew it, I’d spent my evening reading magazines and playing games, and it was already 12 AM. Deciding to brush my teeth first, I headed down to the first floor and found that the lights had already been switched off. Relieved, I brushed my teeth in the washroom, and proceeded to help myself to a cup of tea in the kitchen. Suddenly, I noticed a faint voice coming from Dad’s room near the entrance of the house. I wasn’t particularly interested, but as I quietly drew closer, pretending to be half asleep, I heard an unusual gentleness in his voice. I got irritated for a second, thinking 'how about using that gentleness on your own daughter?' But then Dad called out the other party's name. It was clearly her first name, and he even added a "chan" at the end. Afterwards, Dad let the other party know the time and place, and ended the call once they had confirmed the meeting. I quickly headed back to my room.

"Couldn't she just be a company junior or something? Isn't there a high percentage of women?"

"My Dad uses 'san' even for his subordinates so it's definitely not that."

"So Uncle and that woman are gonna show up by that clock tower over there right. If this ends up being a pointless trip I want a parfait."

"I'll treat you once you get me ahold of some evidence."

"You should give the appropriate compensation for the labour done regardless of the result."

"So you won't do anything if I don't create any incentives huh, ah-"

I was interrupted by his arrival.

Wearing a navy blue necktie on a sky blue shirt – the epitome of plainness – my Dad walked over to the clock tower that was representative of the station. I bent down reflexively. My cap and sunglasses were probably a perfect disguise, but it didn’t hurt to be safe.

"Fuyu I'm begging you, just don't break down crying if a woman really does show up."

"Just what do you think of your childhood friend?"

"A fathercon that simply wants to have a peace of mind after making sure that her father isn't having an affair."

Ignoring rubbish Anzu's nonsense, I kept a close eye on Dad. Somehow it looked as if there was a grin on his face, and as the fact of his infidelity set in, I felt murderous intent welling up inside me.

"Just what kind of woman is she?"

Though I had only just barely made a whisper, without looking like she was giving anything much thought, Anzu said something that reflected her genius at thinking up horrible things.

"Wouldn't it be the worst if she looks like Fuyu's mom when she was young?"

"I'll kill someone."

"You shouldn't say something like killing your own parent y'know."

"It's you."

"Oh you meant me huh."

Even though I knew it was all nonsense, I wondered if I would really be able to accept it if it really happened. After considering that sort of thing despite not being a fathercon, I concluded that I probably couldn’t, and so I put those thoughts aside for the time being.

But.

"She's young."

Anzu said so before I could. The girl meeting up with an uncle that was the culmination of plainness probably wasn't even five years older than us. Without thinking, I gasped.

"......Anzu, you don’t have to keep on glancing over here, I’m not going to cry."

At the moment, surprise had overridden everything else. No, it wasn’t that I was shocked but. I’d just never thought that such a young girl would’ve shown up.

No but, no matter what it was, wasn't she way too young?

The term “compensated dating” came to mind as they exchanged greetings and started walking to the station. They didn't appear to be heading towards the nearby red-light district, so that at least was a relief.

"Time to go."

I tugged my cap further down and left the shop, dragging Anzu by the arm despite her mock nonchalance.

　

Keeping our gazes low where possible, we stealthily passed through the station's ticket gates, and found the two of them straight ahead on the first platform. So that we wouldn't be found out, we snuck past behind their backs and kept our distance. I decided then that we should get into the adjoining carriage after they boarded the train.

"Refusing to ride the same carriage as your own parent - are you a child in the middle of puberty?"

"If you're not going through puberty then what are you? More importantly, Anzu, can you hear what they're talking about?"

"Nope. It’s all unintelligible."

Ignoring Anzu who only seemed to be interested in messing with me, I pondered over what sort of circumstances would cause that girl to meet with my dull father.

Despite my best efforts to occupy my mind otherwise, my thoughts returned to the idea of compensated dating. If it were simply compensated dating, surely the girl would be reluctant to move about unnecessarily. Not to mention, there were too many witnesses in broad daylight. So maybe they were dating seriously after all? But then how would they have met? A fateful encounter like in a girl’s manga was out of the question for my Dad. I'd met the people in his workplace a couple times, and there shouldn't have been anyone that young. Could it be - that he laid his hands on a new employee? If so, I'd be utterly disappointed.

While I was lost in my thoughts, the train had arrived. Once we had ascertained that Dad and the girl had boarded, we got on too. We made our way through a few carriages before we caught sight of them again in the next one, sitting side-by-side, smiling at each other. Conveniently for us, there was a window between the carriages. From the corner where we sat, we could see the two of them enjoying their time together.

“Well aren’t they all lovey-dovey?”

“No, it’s too soon to say yet.”

“But wasn’t it Fuyu that said they were having an affair?”

While I was stuck formulating a response to her reasoning, Anzu sighed, as if on purpose. “In the first place, why did you get scol- oops. I mean, get into a fight with him?” She asked, jabbing a finger at my cheek. I’m gonna eat that finger y’know.

Without turning to Anzu, I remembered the quarrel from a few days ago.

It was something trivial. Really trivial. I just happened to be watching a movie on TV. And my dad just happened to come home early from work that day. As I watched the TV from the living room sofa, Dad sat eating dinner behind me at the dining table. Because I had grown weary of my tediously ordinary everyday life, while I watched the movie, as I messed around on my smartphone, somehow or other I said it.

“Must be tedious to live a long life where nothing happens huh.”

The movie just happened to have that sort of theme. Though I wasn’t particularly looking for a response, Dad spoke up.

“That’s not true.”

Perhaps, that too, was something he just happened to say. The way I heard it, the tone of Dad’s voice was less like idle chatter and closer to a lecture, and that activated some sensor at the back of my brain. And so, I made a rebuttal.

“It’s tedious. Living ordinarily, with nothing going on, and turning sixty just like that? There’s no hope in that.”

Perhaps there would be some people that think it would’ve been best if I hadn’t gone on further than that. However, the one who was at fault was Dad. The one who had already broken the peace in this house was that person.

“If life is going to stay as tedious as it is, I feel like I’d rather die dramatically.”

“Fuyumi.”

Since my name was called, I turned around. Dad was looking firmly at me, and I understood from his face that he was about to start some lecture. Looking at that face, even without anything having been said yet, probably just like all the other high schoolers of the world, I got pissed off.

“Something like it’s better to die, you shouldn’t say such things.”

“Because there are people in this world that want to keep living - are you going to say something boring like that?”

“That’s right.”

“As expected of a boring girl’s boring father.”

The situation quickly deteriorated into a mudslinging contest from there, so there was no need to recall it in any detail. When it reached the point that our war of words became more trouble than it was worth, I withdrew into my own room. Later that night, I heard the sound of a knock on my door, but I chose to ignore it.

I thought that if I told Anzu everything, she’d probably just find fault with me again, and so I decided to explain it simply.

“It was about the meaning of life, y’know.”

I thought that since she was probably going to call us an embarrassing parent-child combo anyway, I may as well put on the most self-satisfied look I could muster, but contrary to my expectations, all Anzu did was let out an agreeable “hmm.” Sometimes having expectations trips us up. Of course, I meant it figuratively, so I didn’t actually trip.

We swayed on the rattling train for a while longer, until Dad and the girl eventually got up at one of the stations. Dad stood up first, so it seemed like he was the host today. It didn’t really matter, but I wondered what sort of date plan Dad prepared back when he was dating mom. It must have been seriously boring.

I nudged Anzu who was reading her paperback, and we alighted as well. Fortunately, the two of them had their backs turned to us. Beside me, Anzu was giving her body a good stretch.

“We’re pretty far out huh.”

“Yeah, it’s my first time alighting here.”

There were scant few people on the platform, and it didn’t seem like there were any places around the station that could be called bustling. It wasn’t very solid proof, but it probably wasn’t a place to go to for a date.

“Looks like just the right place to rent a house for a mistress.”

As if reading my mind, Anzu once again said something detestable. If that really turned out to be the case, I’d blackmail Dad and make the rent my allowance. No share for Anzu.

We kept our distance as we tailed them, and once we passed through the ticket gates, a roundabout spread out before our eyes. I was thankful at least, that rather than getting on a bus or taxi, they ignored all the vehicles and headed by foot up the slope at the opposite end of the roundabout. Looking around, it wasn’t just the two of them - a small crowd had formed, walking in the same direction as them. The slope itself was pretty unremarkable; it simply led up a hill.

“Whaaat, I don’t wanna exercise,” whined Anzu as I pulled her along, following them up the slope.

“Nooo, I’m gonna die if you make me exercise when it’s this hooot.”

“You’re not gonna die! People are gonna think that genetic inheritance is nonsense if they look at Anzu.”

“I’m gonna die if you don’t get me the tallest parfaait.”

“That depends on how you do!”

It was backbreaking work dragging the cunning girl around when she was acting difficult and putting on a reluctant expression. But the fact of the matter was that I’d be too nervous if anything were to go wrong, so I needed Anzu by my side. I was a troublesome girl too, so surely that must have been why we’ve done pretty well as friends for as long as I could remember.

We continued to mess around even as we hiked up the slope, and soon our backs were sticky with sweat. I bought some water from a vending machine, and after sharing it with Anzu, we pressed on once more. Along the way, we were overtaken by a healthy-looking elderly couple, and we couldn’t help but to let out a weird laugh.

Just where in the world were Dad and the girl putting in this much effort to go to? My question was answered unexpectedly soon. Where the slope ended, a long, long stone stairway began. “I think the rest is for the family to resolve,” I happened to hear someone say from beside me.

Presumably for those that had come by car, there was a large sign board that showed the way to the parking lot.

“Anzu, it’s a grave.”

“Ah, mm, a grave, a grave? A grave huh. I see.”

With our ability to make conversation crippled by the midday heat, we trudged on, trying to keep our eyes on our two targets. I ignored the toddler-like pleas for piggybacks and carrying that started halfway up the stairs. Maybe that little child’s mood would improve if I rewarded her with a parfait once I’d confronted Dad.

Reaching the top of the stairs at long last, I saw the gentle slope that lay ahead, and in that moment, perhaps because of the adrenaline rushing through my veins, I concocted a new theory about the two people standing before me.

“Maybe she’s an illegitimate child or something.”

“......It doesn’t matter anymore.”

I bought the exhausted Anzu juice from a vending machine that seemed to have been calculatingly placed to extract the maximum value from any worn out stair-climbers. I’d have a guilty conscience if she were to really die at a graveyard.

That said, the path ahead was much gentler compared to the slope and stairs from before. Gravestones lined both sides of the track, and while occasionally admiring those which were unusual in shape, we continued pursuing their trail.

At some point, the ground had given way to stone pavement without me noticing. The two of them still didn’t look like they were going to stop just yet. Just whose grave had they come to visit? It was going to be Obon soon, so maybe this had something to do with that? I started to think of something more straightforward. That perhaps Dad’s friend had passed away recently, so he simply came with their daughter to visit their grave. I shuddered. A boring result for a boring family. That was something I didn’t want.

As we advanced, it was as if everything unnecessary had been pruned off, and the area became silent. We could hear the sound of our own footsteps. The wind soughed.

When we were passing by the graves’ water point, the two in front headed up another short flight of stairs. Once we could no longer see their figures, we cautiously headed up the stairs as well. Perhaps the wind was cooperating with us. Their unwhispered conversation flowed to us.

“Have you told your daughter?”

I didn’t think that we had been discovered by the girl. But even so, my heart was still pounding.

“No, I’ve been waiting for the right timing, but in the end I never got to talk to her about it.”

The sweat dripping on my forehead turned cold as I heard the regret choking up Dad’s voice.

“I see, mmm, it may be intrusive for me to say this but-“

“Mmhmm.”

“I think that if I were your daughter, I’d want to know. About the irreplaceable person in my father’s life.”

Hearing the girl’s remark, I ran up the stairs and declared, “So you really were doing something shameful!” Or so I thought I could’ve done. I refrained, not because of the hard work we’d put in till now, but because I wanted to hear how Dad would answer.

However, this time round, the wind blew in the opposite direction. It felt as if the wilful wind were making an expression similar to that of a prank-loving high school girl. Without thinking, I turned to Anzu beside me. She said something that was only common sense.

“Why don’t you go and ask?”

“But, it’s kinda-“

“I’ll go with you. It’ll be fine.”

With a push on my back from my irreplaceable friend, I strengthened my resolve. Climbing up the last few steps of stairs, I spoke to my dad in a determined manner, or at least I meant to do so, but it didn’t go that well.

For some reason, Dad had doubled back, and our eyes met. We both got a shock simultaneously. Perhaps as to be expected from parent and child, our “wah!” resounded in the cemetery in the exact same tone of voice.

“Fuyumi, why-”

“Good afternoon, Uncle!”

Dad flinched again at Anzu’s oddly spirited greeting. It seems like he only just noticed that there were two of us.

I wondered what to do about this unexpected development. Many excuses came to mind, but I decided that a direct approach would be best.

“Dad, I want to hear more about your earlier conversation.”

“By earlier you mean......”

“What did she mean by an irreplaceable person?”

In response to my tone that had unintentionally turned aggressive, Dad’s eyes widened momentarily, as though he were transfixed in thought. Then, just like I guessed would happen, he resigned himself and gestured for us to head up the stairs.

We followed after Dad. Standing amongst the graves of this next level was the girl from before. Drawing closer, I could tell that she couldn’t have been much older than us. I couldn’t help but to be irritated - this girl knew about things Dad wouldn’t even tell me.

The girl was shocked to see our faces. Conscientious as ever, Dad stepped aside to introduce us.

“Mmm......”

Was it really so hard to say that I was his daughter? Ah, I see, of course it’d be difficult to say that in front of his illegitimate child or mistress.

“I’m very sorry for the sudden introduction but-“

The girl was naturally perplexed.

“We just happened? To run into each other over there. This is my daughter, Fuyumi.”

“......Good afternoon.”

I bowed my head just in case, and the girl let out an “ahh”. Judging by her expression she was surprised, but strangely enough, I could hear a tinge of delight in her voice towards the end.

Following which, Dad gestured towards Anzu, leaving the stranger for last. Anzu, who had been examining the grave, turned to face the other girl.

“And this is Anzu. Fuyumi’s childhood friend, as well as Kyouko-san’s first-born daughter.”

“Nice to meet you! My mother has been in your care!”

Anzu said something adequate and bowed her head with uncharacteristically good manners. The girl let out another shocked gasp. I didn’t expect her to know Auntie Kyouko as well. Just who was this person?

With a “nice to meet you”, the girl respectfully bowed her head at us. Seeing that, Dad finally began to introduce the excessively polite identity-unknown-cheating-partner-candidate-maybe-illegitimate-love-child.

“This is Ryouka Yamauchi-san.”

Ryouka – the name of the person Dad had talked with on the phone. But I didn’t know her last name, nor had I heard it before.

My thoughts must have shown in my expression, as Dad gestured towards the grave next.

“She’s the daughter of the older brother of the person resting in this grave.”

“Nice to meet you, I’ve been in your dad’s care.”

She bowed her head, but still suspicious of what kind of “care” she was referring to, I hesitated to reciprocate. But it would have been rude to ignore her entirely, so with a hollow “yes, likewise”, I turned to look at the grave. Inscribed upon the gravestone were the characters for “Yamauchi Family”. I had no recollection of any kin or kith with that name.

In the midst of all the confusion, only one thing was clear.

Given the dignified manner with which she greeted me, it was unlikely that she was a mistress - or an illegitimate child, for that matter.

And thus, it looked like this detective drama that had wrecked my precious summer vacation had ended with a whimper. Anzu silently nudged me in the back. It seemed like I’d have to get her a parfait later.

So, what exactly was going on here?

“Right then, so what are the two of you doing here?”

“Who’s the person resting in the grave?”

Making false conjectures and getting discovered so soon after arriving really weakened our position, so I tried to redirect the conversation. Of course, there was also the fact that I was genuinely interested.

Dad knew right away that he couldn’t do anything about my deflection and so made a troubled expression. Then for some reason, he turned his attention to Anzu before returning it to me.

“Come on! If it’s not an affair or anything, don’t leave me hanging!” These thoughts of mine were interrupted by a reply from an unexpected source.

“Mmm, you don’t have to worry. I’ve heard about it before.”

Having said that, Anzu turned to look at the grave again. Eh, she knew? About what?

To think that I’d be betrayed by Anzu like this.

“Anzu, what do you mean? You’ve never come here before, right? Did you lie to me?”

“No, I’ve never come here before. But I recalled something just now. Come on, I wouldn’t lie to Fuyu about anything important.”

Anzu gazed fixedly at me. Mmm, could I trust her?

“I understand,” Dad sighed with resignation, just as I felt the cracks appearing in our friendship of many years.

Then, little by little, as though he deliberated over every word, Dad told me about the person resting here.

At long last, he had let out his feelings.

His tale rendered me speechless.

I was dealt a great shock.

From Dad’s past that I had not known about.

From how it had contained experiences that I’d never even imagined.

Now I understood the reason why Dad corrected me so harshly the other day. The reality of life and death was something Dad was familiar with. Unlike me.

But what dealt me the largest blow, was that I could tell - this girl wasn’t just some person from the past. Even now, Dad thought of her dearly in his heart.

That he didn’t think of her as just a friend – I understood from his tone and expression.

Though the story sounded so unreal it left room for doubts, though I should’ve been able to look up the incident on my smartphone, I ultimately decided to believe in Dad. There was no way he could have carried the same tone and expression towards a fictitious person.

Having heard the story to its conclusion, as his daughter, there was probably much that I should have said to Dad.

But what spilled from my mouth instead was just what was on my mind.

“Do you still like that person?”

I asked because I wanted to know. The question surprised Dad, but his face soon broke into a gentle smile, and he shook his head from side to side.

“The sort of feelings that Fuyumi is thinking of, for example that which you’d have towards a lover, wasn’t what I looked at her with.”

“But, you weren’t friends right?”

“We weren’t friends. Nor were we lovers or family. We got along – so she would say, but I feel like something about that was off too.”

“I don’t really get it though.”

“Yeah, I’m sure no one would understand.”

What an indecisive way of putting it.

“Were you happiest when you were with that person?"

In response to the surely slightly mean-spirited question from me, who was but a child, Dad’s smile only deepened.

“……Ah, I had fun, and it was a special time.”

I see.

“But you know, Fuyumi.”

Dad spoke with a voice meant to address not just anyone in the area, but only me.

“The one I thing I want you to know, is that-”

What’s with that formality?

“Right now, is the best.”

It likely wasn’t a sudden embarrassing declaration. I recalled the conversation with Dad from a few days ago.

“Meeting your mom, Fuyumi being born, and all of us living healthily together. Though life may be quiet, simply having the two of you by my side – there is nothing in my life that could give me greater happiness. That’s all I really want you to know, so please believe me.”

Dad had said it all so boldly that I got flustered and shifted my gaze to the gravestone. “I got it,” I said, with a single nod of my head.

Not knowing how to carry on the conversation, I silently scrutinised the grave when Anzu called out, “Uncle.”

“If you were going to say all of that, then you should’ve just brought Fuyumi along for the grave visit to begin with.”

Anzu’s bold statement for her best friend’s sake made Dad’s eyes open wide. “Guess you’re right,” he nodded obediently.

“I did think that I’d have to talk about it someday, but I couldn’t find a good way to say it. I’m sorry, Fuyumi.”

Having received even an apology on top of everything else, I was at a loss. “I got it,” I repeated, with yet another nod.

While my gaze remained fixated on the grave, I received an explanation regarding Ryouka-san. It appeared that she and Dad had only started corresponding recently. She had wanted to learn more about her aunt, who had passed away before she was born.

With any pretense for quarrel having vanished, we were left with an odd silence as the four of us proceeded with the grave-visiting rites. Dad poured water over the grave, and offered a bottle of plum liqueur he had brought along. I pondered for a bit – wasn’t she only a higher schooler when she’d passed away?

Once we had put away the water-collecting bucket, Dad remembered something unnecessary.

“Speaking of which, why are you really here?”

“……I’ll go tell Mom that Dad talked to me about a girl from his past.”

Even though I said it as a joke, Dad made a really troubled face. Under any other circumstance I’d probably have laughed, but since I couldn’t tell how Mom would react, I put a stop to the topic there.

We descended the slope and boarded the train, and when we had reached our original station, parted ways with Ryouka-san. As we bade our goodbyes, she invited us to have dinner together next time. Imagining how our suspicions could become a funny story one day, we exchanged contacts.

At the station for our town, I thought that Dad would be heading home first. To my surprise, it was Anzu who said, "Well then, I'm heading home kay."

"What about the parfait? Are you sure?"

"I'll put it on your tab. For today, since Uncle's already given in to Fuyu, please do your best to get along with him."

Anzu stealthily jabbed her finger at my back, and after making plans for tomorrow, she quickly got on her bike and left.

She was probably being considerate in her own Anzu way, but I wished just a little that she hadn’t left me to fend for myself in this awkwardness. Though I guess I shouldn’t really be thinking that way.

I realised it. I understood that if I didn't confront the awkwardness now, it would linger forever.

Seeing that I had come to the station on a bicycle too, Dad suggested that I could head home on my own first. But reasoning that I wanted to be treated to some ice cream since we were already here, we began walking together.

The sun had set, and the night air had started to cool.

We talked about things that didn't matter, while acting like nothing was the matter. Basically, I was chatting about Anzu and Ryouka-san. I didn’t think that Dad noticed, but I was stalling for time.

Eventually, I ran out of topics and I had to talk about something meaningful.

But what could I say to get rid of this awkwardness?

No, I definitely had to apologise - so I thought. Even Dad had apologised to me. Because I owed him, it was an awkward situation.

I had to apologise. For calling him boring. Because Dad experienced something special when he was in high school- no.

What I really needed to apologise for was ridiculing Dad’s life, even though Mom and I were his greatest happiness.

But just when I was going to say it, the words got caught in my throat. It was strangely difficult to say something like that between parent and child, and the most I could muster were some “mm”s and “ah”s.

Even though I had tried my best, the awkwardness won in the end.

In exchange - or rather - as a starting point, I tried asking something like this.

"Dad, y’know, how did you choose your path in life?"

It was a good time to redirect the topic to my own future.

"Before you thought of working in a publishing firm, for example, since you experienced that sort of thing in high school, have you never thought of becoming a doctor?"

“That’s true,” he said. Since the question touched upon his precious memories, I had anticipated for him to mull over it quietly for a little while, but he took even longer than that.

"Perhaps that choice existed too. But I decided not to let her death weigh over my life.”

“Why?”

“Because the most important thing she taught me was, to live while acknowledging myself. So I chose own my path in life, treasuring the things that I myself wanted to do.”

And just like that, Dad attained his extraordinarily ordinary everyday life.

“Do you want me to do the same thing too?”

“No. Fuyumi, I wish for you to decide your future on your own. But well, that’s just my own thinking.”

“I see.”

A just adequate response like that was all I could muster.

And so, I continued to make insignificant chatter, leaving the important things unsaid. And before long, we had reached home. There were probably any number of times I could have apologised, but I didn’t till the very end. Maintaining a poker face, I parked my bicycle.

I guess it couldn’t be helped, huh– “Fuyumi,” Dad interrupted my thoughts as I was putting away the bicycle.

“Sorry, for keeping quiet about something so important till now.”

“……About Sakura-san?”

Obviously, that was what I had thought, but Dad shook his head.

“About how it’s special that I have you.”

What’s with that?

The first words on my lips were disparaging ones. But the feelings that simultaneously sprang forth coiled together tightly and spurred me on.

“Me too, I’m sorry.” It was just a short phrase, but though it was just a short phrase, I managed to apologise.

And with that, Dad and I made our ordinary return into the same home as always.

　

“Fathercon.”

It was still summer vacation, and those were the words Anzu uttered as soon as we met. I was thinking of voiding the parfait agreement, but given what happened yesterday, I couldn’t really deny it, so I just quietly continued making my way towards the family restaurant.

“Well, isn’t it fine? This must be like what they call the calm after a storm. Ah, want some gum?”

“Don’t need it. Hmm, well, it turned out to be an opportunity to think about various things y’know. For now, the plug’s been pulled on chill guys.”

“That’s good. Though I’m sure you’ll get caught up with one of them again.”

My childhood friend really couldn’t live without saying unnecessary retorts. But she was having fun, and that was all that really mattered.

“I was thinking that we should just be happy.”

“Is it alright even if it’s boring?”

“I realised that it wouldn’t be boring if I prioritised my own happiness.”

Though I still didn’t know what else to do besides idle aimlessly, I could at least understand that philosophy now.

It dawned on me after listening to that story of Dad and that person in his reminiscences, whose face and voice I didn’t know.

“Speaking of which, Fuyu, rather than talking about the past, I wanna talk about the future, alright?”

“Alright, alright.”

“After speaking with Mama yesterday, she gave the okay for that two-girl trip we were talking about before.”

“Ooh! They’d really let their precious little Anzu-chan go on a trip, huh?”

“Riiight, I’m worried about whether Papa and Mama can bear with not having their super duper cute daughter around in the house for a few days.”

“Go leave behind a doll or something then.”

Our hearts danced with new hope for the future. As we wondered where to go and what to do, a gust of wind blew from somewhere and caressed us.

[the-blind-assassin-12]

Jigsaw // Black: Part Three

Home

A/N: This is the final part of the Jigsaw series, and I could not be happier to have it done. I’ve carried this one around in my head for quite some time now, and while I don’t regret a single thing, it’s been rough to say the least. I want to thank everyone who has stuck it out and made it to this final chapter. I truly hope you like the way it ends. 

Warning: major character death (I think by now that goes without saying) 

Word Count: 2,625 

A young woman sat quietly at the table as two detectives looked on through the one way glass. Her hands were in her lap, her eyes trained on a small dent in the sheetrock; a leftover mark from a previous interview, one where tensions had run high and fists had flown. Won’t be like that this time. Detective Brett Mahoney sighed to himself as he watched her take a deep breath, the slight rise of her chest as her lungs expanded and the subsequent shuddering deflation as she exhaled had been the only movement she’d made since she’d been shown into the room, a cup of coffee placed on the table in front of her. It sat there, untouched, the creamer and sugar packets unopened, nothing added to the dark, bitter liquid. She’s not here to put up a fight. 

 Mahoney tapped the manila folder in his hand twice against his thigh before turning to his partner. “Let me do the talking, got it Buchard?” 

 The second detective nodded solemnly, understanding that he was only there as a matter of protocol. “Yeah, got it,” Buchard responded. 

 Brett returned his gaze to the woman in the interview room, a deep frown cutting into his features as he sighed again. Last loose end. He’d been working on the Castle case, which had been looped in with this mess, and now, finally, the ends were being tied off, the frayed edges cut. “Alright then,” he took another breath, still in slight disbelief that it would all be over soon. Alright, here we go. 

 He gripped the doorknob, knuckles straining at his skin as he turned it and pushed the door open, Buchard following him into the small room. The woman remained still, not even turning to face the two men as the door clicked shut behind them. Mahoney cleared his throat, suddenly dry and harsh now that he actually had to speak to her. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with us, Miss-” 

 “This is about Billy Russo, isn’t it, Detective?” She looked up at him then, sad eyes leaving that fist shaped hole in the wall to lock with his. Mahoney got the feeling that almost everything in this woman’s life for the last year or so had been about Billy Russo. He got the feeling that she was as ready as he was to turn the page and move on. Will we be able to? It wasn’t the first time he’d wondered if someone would be able to cope with the aftermath of one of his cases. But it was the first time he’d wondered about it for himself. This one was… rough. Apart from the grief that dulled the light in her eyes, she showed no other emotion, not even contempt for the man she’d been called in to discuss. 

 Brett nodded as he moved to take the seat opposite the woman and her untouched black coffee, Buchard silently following suit. “Yes,” he answered her question. “I’m sure you’ve heard that-” 

 Her palms came up to lay flat on the table, Mahoney’s eye immediately drawn to the ring the woman wore on her left hand, and the bracelet, engraved with a name, that she wore on the right. “I heard that he escaped the hospital, yes. And I heard that he was being considered armed and dangerous.” She looked at him, unblinking. “Is that right?” 

 Mahoney felt his partner’s eyes shift sideways onto him as he blinked back at the woman’s question. Billy Russo was probably the most dangerous man Detective Mahoney had ever come across, armed or not. It’s either him or Frank...well, was. So the fact that Billy’s escape wasn’t causing her to have more of a reaction raised a flag for him. “That’s right,” he said. “He murdered his therapist, and then killed four more people. I’d say that’s pretty dangerous, wouldn’t you?” His eyebrows rose as he posed the question, waiting for her response. 

 She sighed. “Look, detective, I know that can’t be the reason that you called me down here.” Her eyes flicked back to that small dent, refocusing before they returned to his. “To discuss whether or not Billy Russo is a dangerous man? He’s an elite Special Forces Marine operative. Of course he’s a dangerous man.” She shrugged, her lips turning down as she shook her head. “But that’s not all he is. I know him, know what he’s like, and if you’re looking for some kind of-” 

 “We’re not looking for anything, ma’am,” Brett calmly interrupted her. “We… we found him.” She sucked in a breath and stared at him, absently pulling at the links in her bracelet, rubbing over the engraved piece. He was able to see the flat piece of metal once she’d run her fingers over it, and it made his stomach drop to see your name there. Goddamn. “Ma’am?” She swallowed, mouth falling open. “Can you tell me how your sister knew Billy?”  

 ..  .. ..  ..  ..  ..

 His hand shook as he placed it on the cool stone, a forceful exhale leaving his lungs as he made contact. Knees buckling, he traced a finger through the deep v-cut grooves of the engraved letters, vision too blurry to read the inscription clearly. Dropping to the ground, another forceful burst of air escaped him in the form of a sob. He pressed his forehead against the granite, still gripping the curved top before flattening both palms on the smooth face. “I promised I’d … come...back to you.” He struggled to choke the words out, chest shaking with the effort to breathe let alone speak. Rolling his forehead to the side, he rested his cheek against the surface, skin absorbing the chill. I’m here. 

 In the moments between his phone call with Frank and their final encounter in the now smoldering warehouse, Billy had sifted through the remaining contents of the folder he’d left the hospital with. Most of it was worthless- session notes in Dr. Dumont’s obsessively neat handwriting, a list of charges that Homeland was trying to hit him with, medical documents detailing his post-op recovery. He’d thrown it all in a pile that would become nothing but ash, engulfed in flames and erased. None of it matters. The only items that Billy had seen fit to save had been the pictures of the two of you, which he’d already been carrying in his pocket, and one sheet of paper, which he held in his trembling hands. It was an address, and he’d read it over and over, finding every crack and crevice in his memory and jamming that information into them. Gotta get back to her. 

 He’d dragged himself out of the burning building in a final act of defiance, refusing to let himself slip away in that place, refusing to break his promise to you. Not when I’m so close. The walk had been mercifully short, and he was grateful for the cover of darkness as he pushed through. He knew that if he were to be seen, covered in blood and ash and fighting for every ragged breath, that he’d be stopped before he could finish his mission. But once again, for the last time, Billy Russo disappeared into the night, stealthily seeking out a place where he could rest. With every stumbling step forward and each impossible beat of his heart, he repeated your name and felt you calling back. 

 By the time he’d made it to the small parcel of land dotted with headstones and encircled in a pointed black wrought iron fence, his vision was little more than shapes and blurs, his breathing rattled in his lungs, and he’d fallen twice, adding a few more scrapes and bruises to his battered body. His feet brought him to the numbered plot that he’d read from that sheet of paper in Krista’s file as though they knew the way through habit- as though this wasn’t the first and only time he’d ever been where he was now. He felt what little strength he had left leave him in a rush as his body finally relaxed, sitting on the hard ground and leaning all his weight against the stone. A sob broke free from his heart as his hand fell away from the stone. He knew he’d only be able to do this once, knew that this wasn’t something he’d be capable of repeating even if it were possible to do so, the clawing feeling in his heart completely eclipsing every ounce of pain, every shred of damage he’d endured. Your name fell from his lips in a gasp, and he was glad that he’d waited until now, glad that this was where he’d be when it happened, that he wouldn’t be alone.

 A cool breeze swept across the cemetery then, blowing leaves and blossoms from the branches of a nearby cherry tree through the air, chilling and drying the tears on his cheeks. He opened his eyes as a few petals fell into his lap, but the soft pink flowers didn’t register. He focused instead on a shimmering light, just like he’d seen in his dreams about you. It can’t be… 

 He choked out your name, eyes wide in disbelief as you appeared before him, the blue of your dress and the scarlet hue of your lips the only vivid colors he could see as the rest of the world faded around you. He tried to reach for you, but couldn’t make his limbs move, too broken, too weak, too damaged to do his bidding any longer. Desperate to touch you, hold you before he closed his eyes, he looked up at you and sobbed two words, “I’m sorry…” 

 Dropping to his side, you said his name, clear and calm, all of the pain and fear that was present the last time he’d heard your voice gone now. “It’s okay,” you said as you sank down beside him, arms slipping around his shoulders to pull him closer. I thought I’d never…  He felt your lips, warm and soft as they dropped to the corner of his eye. I thought I’d never have this again... “It’s okay now.”  He let his eyes fall closed, let himself finally let go of the fight that had been raging inside of him all of his life. A weight lifted from his chest and he leaned into you, arms winding around your body as his breathing evened out. “It’s okay Billy, you’re home.”  

 ..  .. ..  ..  ..  ..  

 “She...she, my sister,” The woman spoke your name, her voice catching as she did. “She loved Billy.” A tear slipped silently down her cheek as a mournful smile played with her lips. “She loved him.” She nodded. “I knew she did from the start, even before I met him, just from… from the way she’d,” she closed her eyes and tilted her head back so that when she opened them again she was looking at the ceiling. “From the way she’d talk about him, the way she’d sound when she’d tell me something… it was...she was happy with him. Happier than I’d ever seen her, and then when I met him,” some more tears pushed their way through, her voice breaking once more as she continued. “When I met him I knew he loved her, too. I just… I knew he’d do anything for her.” You can say that again. “So, like I was trying to say, detective, if you’re looking for more fuel for the fire that you’re going to roast him on, you’re asking the wrong person.” 

 In his tenure with the NYPD, Brett had seen his fair share of people he’d considered to be brainwashed; victims with Stockholm syndrome that showed far more love for their captor or attacker than was reasonable to any sane individual. He was stunned to hear it coming from your sister, though, about the man who may or may not have gotten you killed. “I’m not looking for any fuel, ma’am.” No need. Bastard roasted himself. “I just don’t understand… why are you protecting him? Even after-” 

 “Billy did not kill my sister, detective Mahoney.” She spoke louder and more clearly than she had the entire time, making sure that the tape that Buchard had started recording at the onset of the interview picked up her intent and inflection. She shook her head, a hard look changing her sad eyes. “I don’t care what you tell me, or what the record says. I don’t care what they say in court, or what the official military statement is. I know that he didn’t kill her. And no matter what else he’s done,” determination took over her face as she balled her hands into fists. “I won’t help you put her death on him. I won’t do that to what they had.” 

 Incredible. Mahoney realized that he wasn’t getting her to budge on that front. He chalked it up to grief and the way it had a tendency to alter people’s memories of those that they lost. She wants to think of her sister and Russo as an angel and a choir boy? Fine. But she still needs to know. He cleared his throat again, opening the file that he’d brought into the room with him to pull out a single photo. Jesus, he glanced down at it before closing the folder, and for the first time since he got the call that they’d found Russo, he saw the kind of connection that the woman was trying to tell him that the man had with her sister. To do that… drag yourself there in that shape… goddamn. He winced. Maybe she’s right. He blew out a heavy breath. “Ma’am, I’m not looking to change your mind about anything.” He suddenly felt exhausted. The way she must feel. “I’m,” he shook his head before locking eyes with her. “I called you here today for closure.” For you and for me. He looked down at the picture again. And for them. Her eyebrows came together and her lips twitched and Brett could see that she already knew what he was about to say next. “I called you here today to tell you that we found Billy Russo at your sister’s grave.” He watched as her eyes blinked closed, her throat working to swallow the lump of emotions his closure had brought up. “He’s-” 

 “He’s dead.” She said it in an even tone, not as a question, voice barely a whisper. Eyes still closed, the lids quivered as tears slipped from beneath them. 

 “Yes ma’am,” Brett responded, trying to match her evenness. “He was found this morning,” he explained, “It appears as though he-” 

 “He wanted to be with her.” 

 Not what I was going to say but… He was going to say that it appeared as though he got into a fatal showdown with Frank Castle before dragging himself several miles to her sister’s final resting place. But that works, too. It did. No matter what he thought he knew about Billy Russo, Mahoney could clearly see that there was infinitely more that he didn’t know, couldn’t understand. She wiped at her eyes, eyeliner and mascara creating dark smudges around them as she cried. For you, for herself, for Billy. He tucked the photo away. She doesn’t need to see this. 

 “I’m glad,” she said after a beat, drawing Mahoney’s attention back up to her tear-streaked face. “Glad he got out...glad he...glad they’re together.”   

Mahoney sniffed. Goddamn. He turned to give Buchard a meaningful look, the other man reading it instantly and leaning forward to press a button on the recorder before nodding and leaving the room. Waiting until the click of the door resonated in the room, Brett reached for the woman’s hand. “Me too.”  

.

.

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@something-tofightfor @its-my-little-dumpster-fire @suchatinyinfinity @gollyderek @thesumofmychoices  @obscurilicious @traeumerinwitzhelden @jigsawlover10 @getlostinyourparadise @breanime @nananananananananananabatman @lexxierave @songforhema @fireeyes-on-teller-dixon-grimes @lysawayne @roses-in-your-country-house @ymariejp @belladonnarey @audreychaz @songtoyou @stories-you-wont-hear @luminex3 @ificouldhelpyouforget

[danetobelieve]

As Mime Goes By || Harsh, Ricky, Rio and Winston

Winston looked over at Ricky as they pulled over to the agreed point they would park. Turning to Orion and Ricky, they swallowed before looking out the window. They’d taken the essentials of course, flashlight, tablet, camera, everything that you needed when you were doing recon, not to mention lots of energy heavy snacks for when they inevitably over did the magic. They hoped that wouldn’t be a problem, but just in case they’d brought a baseball bat. “Listen, these,” they waved their bat as they got out the car, “are just precautions, we’re just looking around and Rio is here because he’s you know you’ve got the whole,” Winston flexed and grunted before continuing, “going on and Ricky is here because he looks like that. So recon. No fighting, oh and this guy’s name is Harsh. So no funny jokes about it, please.” 

It was the unspoken rule of heists that the guy with the truck drove, and so Ricky was the one behind the wheel as the three of them pulled into their destination. Winston had asked them to tag along and Ricky was in the habit of doing whatever Winston wanted because well it was nice to have more members of the family. He snickered a little bit as Winston dragged the baseball bat out of the car before tucking one of several hunting knives he’d picked up into strategic and easily accessible points around his person, “Uh huh. It doesn’t help that the last time the three of us went someplace together we almost blew up a restaurant. We probably need more than a baseball bat but, that’s why you’ve got me and muscles over here.” he pointed to Rio and shrugged, “Harsh isn’t the weirdest name I’ve ever heard. As long as they don’t feed us to the mimes I’m chill.” 

This whole thing was a terrible idea. Harsh shouldn’t have agreed, hell he shouldn’t have suggested it. Oh well, too late to back out now. Winston seemed decent, so he couldn’t just let them and their roomies go it alone. He lingered in the shadows, watching as the car pulled up and parked. Those looked like the guys. Lifting a hand in greeting, he made his way over. “Winston? This is our backup? Nice to meet you, I’m guessing Winston already told you about me. I figure we just go around, try to keep quiet and see if we spot anymore of those assholes wandering around. As soon as we run into trouble though, we run. I fought one of those things already and I’m not up for doing it again tonight.” He shifted on the spot, glancing back toward the restaurant. The area nearby seemed way too normal for some place that should have been blown up recently. “So, you ready to head in?”

Another day, another potentially dangerous and absolutely stupid thing that Orion had let himself get dragged into. The things he did for his roommates. “I detest being called muscles” Rio spoke nonchalantly from the back seat. He wasn’t serious for the most part, though he wasn’t exactly a fan of using the super strength unless necessary. And he was currently praying to the God he didn’t really believe in that it wasn’t necessary. He was getting pretty sick of mimes trying to kill him. “Nice to meet you mister. I’m Orion, or Rio.” He introduced himself to Harsh. “I like the running idea. We should bring you along more often.” The only reason he agreed to come along was because he was afraid his roommates were going to get themselves hurt. Plus he had night vision. “If I say no, do we get to leave?”

Rolling their eyes, Winston wished to all hell that they could just walk away from here. But with their mime attempting to murder them multiple times now, enough was enough. It was time to find a solution. Skylar was losing her mind, Roland was mute, Athena too. It was too much. Something had to be done and Winston might be able to do it. Hopefully. “Yeah, I’m Winston and this is my other friend Ricky,” they wished that they had someone like Nic with them, but it seemed weird to come to a hunter with a random problem when they didn’t know them and they DEFINITELY weren’t talking to Athena about this. “Let’s get this over with so that we can begin planning how we solve this problem.” Winston crept slowly down the deserted street. Which was weird for this time of night. It shouldn’t be this empty right? Was it also really necessary that the street lights were flickering? 

Ricky flashed a peace sign as Winston introduced him, “Yo. I’m Ricky. I drive the truck, get stuff off tall shelves, and have some knives for mime stabbing. I would love not having to rip anyone else’s throat out with my teeth. That’s like…. Stretch goal for the evening.” He followed closely, if not nearly as stealthily, behind Winston as they made their way slowly to the restaurant “There are… uh there’re street lights, my dude. I think they can see us. Also if we were gonna be sneaking you should have told me so I didn’t roll up in a fucking bro tank and skinny jeans. Archer would be so disappointed in me.” He glanced quickly behind him to make sure Rio was still in his field of vision. Hunter revelation aside Ricky felt a certain level of protectiveness over his new roommate. He wasn’t the biggest fan of the fact that there was a real chance they’d all get murdered by a fucking mime. “Yo. W.” he got closer to Winston and lowered his voice, “Is your new friend chill? If I have to go all bitey again I don’t want someone freaking out.” 

“Oh yeah? I think I heard about that throat ripping thing, nice work on that, man,” Harsh said, with a little grin. “But yeah, I’d rather run than have to resort to that.” He kept pace with the others, eyes flicking this way and that. It was quiet, way too quiet. There was a knife tucked inside of his jacket, but he didn’t plan on going for it except as a last resort. As they drew closer to the restaurant, he frowned, an odd smell catching his attention. It was almost… sweet? “Hey, you guys smell that? It’s like… pastries? The place is supposed to be closed isn’t it?” His frown grew slightly. Wait… he knew this smell, the last time he had noticed it was at Flipped, right after he had cut that mime’s throat. Not a great sign there. His eyes drifted around again. “Anyone see anything moving? I think… those mime things, when they bleed, they smell like this.”

Orion crept along with the group, keeping an eye around the place to see if anything caught his attention. “Maybe they cook overnight?” Rio asked curiously, but he could already tell that he couldn’t hear any footsteps or anything from within the restaurant. That didn’t seem to mean much honestly, he also hadn’t heard anything when Erin’s mime chased them or when Rio and Blanche’s mime had broken into the house. Somehow these things moved completely silently. For someone that was so used to hearing everything, it was a bit unnerving. “I don’t see anyone moving around inside but…” He hopped a bit, trying to get a better look inside, “I see something on the floors.” It was dark, almost viscous. It only took a moment for Rio to realize that it looked remarkably similar to whatever it was that the mimes bled. “I think… I think you’re right,” Rio looked over at Harsh. “I can see the stuff on the floors inside. Like trails of it leading somewhere.” Rio personally had no desire to figure out where it led, but something told him he wasn’t getting off that easily. 

It would be a dream come true if Winston was able to believe that that bizarre smell that had enveloped them was from them cooking overnight. Whilst they were sure that was something that a normal thing that restaurants did, but this was as far from being a normal restaurant as it was possible to be. Their baseball bat felt somewhat unwieldy and Winston was regretting not bringing a knife along with them like the rest of them. They guessed ultimately they wouldn’t be doing anything other then trying to use magic to work things through. “That stuff looks kind of like … tar?” Winston hadn’t really ever seen tar before but this was exactly how they imagined that it looked. Winston crept closer, were those foot prints? “Hey guys, come look at this, looks kind of like someone walked in that stuff. Maybe we weren’t the first ones here?” 

The smell and the look of the footprints on the floor immediately gave Ricky flashbacks to the Al’s parking lot and his first face to face run in with the mimes. “I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news… but… well we’re all in a fucking mime restaurant in the dead of night tracking killer mimes we all knew this was gonna be bad news from the fucking start…” he toed the goop on the floor a little, “This be the shit those fuckers bleed. Smells like baked goods, looks like tar, tastes pretty fucking gross too if you were wondering.” He walked over to wear Winston was standing, glad that for all his color blindness his dark vision was actually pretty fucking good. “My incredibly uneducated yet fantastically handsome guess wouldn’t be that someone walked through it. Maybe… secreted it? Trailed it from them when they were birthed into this world from whatever screaming fucking hellscape breeds clone mimes? We should probably all stick real close together.” 

Great, just fucking great. Harsh clenched his jaw, focusing on any slight sounds. He followed after Winston, keeping his head on a swivel, watching for the faintest hint of movement. Crouching down, he tentatively dragged a finger over the print. “It’s dry. I think these have been here a while. I’m no tracker, but I don’t think whatever left these is still around. Or I sure hope it’s not.” He straightened up slowly, wiping his hand absently on his jacket, even though the stuff hadn’t stuck to him. Just touching it dry made him feel like he needed to wash his hands. “So… is everyone else thinking that at least some of those things came from here? I think it’s not just their blood. This is gonna sound weird, but… I think they’re made of this stuff, whatever the hell it is.” He grimaced as he turned toward the doors of the restaurant. “It looks pretty empty in there,” he said slowly, glancing at the other three. “I agree, let’s stick close, maybe circle around the place, see if there’s more footprints.” 

Orion cringed when Harsh bent down and touched the stuff. “Ricky, stop giving theories you’re gonna give me nightmares.” He should have offered to wait in the truck, be a getaway driver in case they needed a speedy getaway. Anything to keep him away from here. He had goosebumps trailing his arms. “Well they’re clearly not human. Whatever they are they burst into smoke when they die. It’s uh… well I don’t like the idea that they’re coming from a restaurant. Where food is made.” Not that Rio had ever eaten there, nor did he ever plan to. “Just make sure you keep an eye out for anything. This sounds crazy, but they don’t like, make noise. Footsteps, heart beat. Nothing.” 

Somehow, not that Winston was sure how it was possible, the smell here seemed to be even stronger. “It doesn’t seem like a bad theory that these things are related to this goop in someway.” They could help but crouch down alongside Harsh and examine it as well, though they hadn’t touched it out of fear of what it might do. Harsh seemed fine though and Winston put the thought from their mind. “Maybe they could be made from this stuff, do you think this means that this stuff is made here?” They wondered if it was some kind of weird magic or something else. Whatever the case, Winston didn’t want to know what was going on. Not really. Not enough to actually be here. The urge to bolt and sprint from here was irresistible. But they managed. “We should see if we can see anything else, maybe see if we can get around the back.” Winston was sure it wasn’t going to be there. “Just be careful, I had a run in with something weird here a little while back.”

“Rio if you get nightmares I’ll read you a bedtime story and fix you a glass of warm milk with vanilla and cinnamon. My mom used to swear by it.” What Niamh Cordero had actually sworn by was mackerel before bed but there wasn’t any reason for Harsh to get the idea that Ricky wasn’t human. Not at least until it was unavoidable. “It is nice that for once at least my near deafness isn’t a detriment. We’re all gonna be fucked for hearing!” When Winston suggested checking around the back Ricky took point, pulling a serrated knife out of its sheath tucked into his jeans, “You know…” his voice was low as they all crept towards the back of the incredibly fucking spooky restaurant, “It was entirely too easy to buy like all of these knives. There’s literally a section in the farm goods store off route 48. It’s practically a whole “get ready to skin trespassers” department back there. He peered through the oval window of the swinging door back to the kitchen, not seeing anything immediately visible. “I’ll go through first. Since in classic horror trope the dumb jock dies first.” He had expected at least a little squeak from the door but the hinges were whisper quiet as he slowly pushed through.

“I don’t know, it could be coming from this place, but what even is it? If this place is making this stuff, I don’t want to know what kind of food they serve.” He followed after Ricky, eyes lingering on the knife. “You have a lot of those? Listen, if we see another one of those mime things, I’d rather bolt than try to fight it. The first one of them was hard enough to take out.” Harsh stopped by the door, watching Ricky head inside. He looked over Winston and Orion. Maybe it had been a bad idea to ask them to tag along. They were both young… and scared. Shit, this whole worrying about people thing was a pain in the ass. “You two hang back, I’ll go in after him. Just keep watch out here. If you see anything, yell and we’ll come running.” He shook out his hands at his sides before following after Ricky, careful to keep his steps light and quiet as possible. Only a few steps in, he froze. There was something, the faintest of sounds, like… like footsteps, but wrong. Reaching out, he lightly tapped Ricky’s arm, trying to get his attention as he more mouthed the words than said them: “There’s something in here. I don’t think it’s human.”

There was a certain amount of relief that Orion felt when Harsh told them to hang back. He was also worried, and scared and anxious but he spent most of his life being those things. At least out here they could keep an eye on things. A few seconds later and Rio and Winston were standing alone out in the darkness. They had been alone a lot since the two had first become friends, first within the Scribe building after Winston’s night of sleepwalking, which Rio often regarded as one of the luckiest nights of recent memory. Now within the house too, if Ricky was gone and Rio and Winston found themselves hanging out. Things felt different now than they had when they first started hanging out. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the Athena revelation or from… something else. And because Rio had no time to start panicking about that particular revelation, he decided he needed to distract himself from thinking about what that something else might mean. “Dying at a mime restaurant would be the worst.” Rio whispered randomly, wandering around the open space because he couldn’t stand still at the moment. As he wandered, he noticed some sort of smell. He wasn’t sure what but… it wasn’t a good smell. The bakery smell of the gross liquid had mostly kept it covered up, but there was definitely something else around here too. “Hey, I think there’s something over here.” Rio warned before heading off to try to find the source of it. And… well unfortunately he did. 

Thank God Winston wasn’t expected to be taking point here. They made a mental note that they had to make more friends with people who were far more capable then they were so that they didn’t have to continue taking point in potential life or death situations like this one. “Oh I don’t know, better to die in a mime restaurant then a clown rodeo or something equally absurd, besides, the french have the best cuisine right?” Winston rolled their eyes and sighed, this was as from their idea of fun as it was possible for them to have. “What the hell is that?” they moved away from where Harsh and Ricky had gone, wondering if there was something other then terrifying footprints and the smell of pastries here. Moving as stealthily as they could (which was not very) Winston crept across the room. The first thing that they witnessed was what looked like a very heavily chewed hand. Bite marks littered the fingers and here and there the flesh was entirely stripped away, leaving clear sections of bone exposed. Then there were more body parts, and more bones and more chunks of flesh. What Winston had originally decided was the tar like substance was actually a grotesque mixture of the substance and blood. It had congealed together into a viscous mucous like liquid and Winston had to stop themselves from being sick, but that seemed clear to them that it could only mean one thing. Eyes flashing up to Harsh and Ricky, they lurched to their feet and sprinted after them. The thing they’d found with Regan. It was clearly still here, but if they shouted they’d draw it’s attention faster then before.

“I have a lot of them now that there are killer mimes on the loose in the town. I decided to make a “you might die horribly but at least you can try to defend yourself first” shopping trip before this little outing” They crept through the kitchen as quietly as they could; the smell of yeast and dough turning from something appetite-inducing to something bone-chilling “I would also like to run since I don’t really fancy getting a chunk taken out of my shoulder again but I’mma make sure Winston and Rio make it back to the truck before I do. I managed to kill mine last time. So I’m 1-0 for mime slaughter.” The tall stainless steel of coolers reflected the dim emergency exit and Ricky nearly had a heart attack when Harsh reached out to tap Ricky’s arm. He turned and watched the other man’s lips move, spelling out a sentence he desperately hadn’t wanted to hear. Nodding tersely he kept his head on a swivel, trying to see what was purely shadow and what was a murderous stereotype waiting to devour them. It was only by chance that he happened to see the reflection of something in the glass door of the tall rotating oven. He grabbed Harsh’s arm and tugged them towards the relative safety of a small alcove that seemed to hold spices and flavorings. He hoped his wide-eyed panic and pointing to the general direction of whatever-the-fuck that thing had been was getting his point across properly. 

Shit. Harsh had known this was a terrible idea from the start. He really had to start not diving into these things headfirst… and dragging random strangers into them with him. That was probably the part he should feel bad about here. At least that hollow inside had plenty of room for gut wrenching fear. He didn’t resist the pull on his arm, letting Ricky tug him into the alcove and flattening himself to the wall. The knife in his pocket was in his hand before he could think about it. If they could wait, stay quiet, maybe the… whatever it was would pass. But then he heard it, footsteps--Winston’s footsteps getting closer. Shit, they weren’t in cover and that thing was still out there. “It’s coming,” he muttered to Ricky. Whatever it was, the damn thing was almost dead silent, but it wasn’t invisible. Harsh saw movement and made a choice. “Grab Rio and go, I’ll get Winston. I’ve got a couple tricks up my sleeve, but that thing won’t be confused forever.” He shifted, moving to the edge of the alcove as he held a hand next to his mouth. “Over here, frenchy! Suck on this baguette, asshole!” The yell was his, but his voice came from the far corner of the restaurant. Those skittering feet turned on a dime, heading toward the sound. Harsh looked back to Ricky. “Go, now,” he said before darting out of the alcove. He reached Winston’s side with admittedly inhuman speed, but now wasn’t the time to worry about keeping pesky little secrets. Grabbing at their arm, he tugged. “We gotta go.”

Whatever the leftover remains that Winston and Orion had found was, it seemed abundantly clear that they were human. Rio felt sick, and his vision blurred a bit before he realized that Winston had ran off to find Ricky and Harsh. “Winston!” Rio whisper-yelled after them, but they were already gone. “Crap.” He crept toward the entrance, slower and more cautious than Winston had. This was not going as planned. Rio was ready to get into the room when he all but crashed into Ricky. “What the heck is going on?” Rio questioned, hearing Harsh yell some expletive. He was… distracting something. That wasn’t a good sign. “Truck, trucky” Rio said, turning and running off for it. Ricky was the getaway driver, so Rio needed to figure something out. He slid into the door, running too fast to have time to stop himself and through it open. “Why do you have a hacksaw?” Rio asked as he dug around in the backseat. Between that and an axe, Rio didn’t have a lot of options. “I hope you aren’t super attached to this.” He exclaimed, grabbing the axe, “Get the car started.” Then he took off running to another side of the building, taking a deep breath before he swung the axe at the window, shattering it and making as much noise as he possibly could.

As Harsh yelled, Winston knew that they had been too late in their mission of preventative warning. They were by their side alarmingly fast and Winston didn’t need anymore convincing that it was time for them to get out of here. They had seen that thing that had been behind the restaurant snapping up a cat and they didn’t want to see what would happen if they were given the opportunity to try and eat Winston again. They were running headlong from the restaurant when Winston saw an axe that looked shockingly like one of Ricky’s axes in Rio’s hands. “Hey, is that Bertha?” Winston grunted as they turned and saw their friend setting off for the other side of the building. It was their turn to do something about this all. “Uh, cover your eyes!” they pulled to a stop, the mime monster thing scrabbling after them, taking a deep breath they summoned their energy and hurled a bright spark of energy through the air in the direction of the friend. It exploded with a bright flash. “That’s like maybe a few seconds right?”

A lot of things happened in really quick succession, and Ricky wasn’t really sure he was prepared for any of them. Harsh threw his voice in a way that was decidedly not some expert ventriloquism and between the two of them they divvied up the friends waiting in the dining room. Ricky couldn’t run as fast as Harsh could apparently, but when the choices were hustle or being eaten by whatever the fuck had been stalking them in the kitchen, he could pound the pavement with the best of them, “We’re going now!” he grabbed Rio’s sleeve and kept running, charging for the truck that waited just down the street. “Not the axe!!!” he tried to stop Rio from throwing what had been a $250 investment in a hand-forged Swedish axe but it was far too late. “Yeah that’s Bertha but we’ll mourn her later. Everyone in!!!” Winston threw up a truly impressive magical flashbang grenade and Ricky started up the truck, “Everyone in?! Sound off quick cuz I’m about to floor it and I don’t wanna leave anyone in the dust.” 

Apparently he wasn’t the only one with tricks up his sleeve. Harsh made a mental note to ask about that when they weren’t being chased by some kind of horrific spider mime or whatever the hell that thing was. He wasn’t really in the mood to stop to get a better look. On Winston’s command, he ducked, throwing up a hand in front of his eyes, shielding them from the worst of the light. “Not bad,” he noted before grabbing Winston again, half lifting, half dragging them to the truck. Offering an arm, he boosted Winston into the truck before throwing himself in behind them. “We’re here, let’s move!” The flash had definitely thrown the whatever-it-was for a loop, and he couldn’t imagine the crash of the axe had gone unnoticed either, but sticking around to make sure was not high on his list of priorities.

Orion made a beeline back to the truck after throwing the axe and jumped for it, missing the door and smacking into the side of the truck. “Ow.” Rio ring out before correcting himself and climbing into it. Ricky peeled onto the road once everyone was in. “Oh god oh god I can’t believe we just did that.” He was breathing heavily and staring at the ceiling of the truck to try to calm himself down. “I’m sorry about your axe” Rio apologized to Ricky, trying to connect the dots from what they had found. Had they even found anything? “What was in there? I never even saw it.”

Shuddering gently, Winston settled in next to Ricky and sighed as they drove off into the night. “That was enlightening, obviously whatever it is that is causing this seems to be coming from the restaurant itself…” Winston frowned and tried not to think about whatever that thing was. It seemed to have gotten somehow more dangerous. “As for whatever that was, I don’t know, but I sure as hell don’t want to find out.” 

[alchemist-shizun]

Do you do intrulogical? If so, so you think you could write a small thing with them? I'm thinking that maybe Remus finds out about Logan's love for astrology and makes him something in the stars in his part of the imagination? Or something like that?

Hey you guys guess who took up the challenge to write in Remus's pov for the first time? Sorry for taking so long, I wanted to make something nice and I ended up procrastinating, so I did something slightly longer than planned as an apology~ Thank you for the prompt! I hope this can satisfy you, in case it doesn't I apologize hdbdhd this is the first time I write this ship

Word count: 1,326

The other sides are all only mentioned

✾

He had spent too long on this.

Sure, passing time in the imagination wasn't that big of a deal itself for Remus, but having to clear out of the path a multitude of threatening animals that could've attempted anyone's life if they weren't prepared as he was, was pretty much dirty work.

Now, don't get him wrong, he liked dirty, but making sure his place didn't attempt to murder intruders at first sight required dedication and a strong willpower.

Nevertheless, he was going to accomplish this mission for Logan.

Of course, he could have kept all the wild creatures of the forests and the lakes, ready to pounce of their preys at any given moment, only to show off the amazing fighting skills he had mastered back when he and Roman still hung out together in the dreamscape.

But that would've been just pretentious, wouldn't it?

No, he had to do this right.

Wait, was he stressing too much over it? Why all these questions and overthinking? Damn it, that was Virgil's job. Remus considered the possibility he might have been messing with his head in the past few days.

Which was also the amount of time in which he had started working on his project.

Everything started a week prior, when he had casually learnt an interesting curiosity about the logical side.

Remus had been gathering some stuff from the kitchen to- actually, scratch that, we do not want to know what Remus eats, now, do we? He had been rummaging through the cupboards for whatever totally valid reason he had, while he heard Logan talking quietly to himself.

He had mentioned something about the stars ... a particular set of stars which was brought to his attention thanks to a certain tv series Thomas had recently watched.

He had repeated the name all over again, so much that it got stuck in his head and that was the only thing he thought until a new idea formed in his mind.

« Huh. Wouldn't it be nice to have that in my room's ceiling? » he mused, withdrawing almost immediately: that would have taken too much work and all the sides were all busy anyway.

Well, what do you know about that?

He could do more.

Remus had swiftly gone back to his room after that, without being acknowledged at all by a Logan who was too lost in his own thoughts to be able to even recognize what laid in front of his eyes.

And so he worked, he spent days elaborating a detailed and painfully accurate constellation in the night sky of his side of the imagination; sometimes, the creatures from Roman's side crossed over and lied down in admiration of his magnum opus.

Was it a bad moment for Remus to realize he had hopelessly fallen for the glasses nerdy guy under the light of a myriad of starry flickers?

Certainly, he was too tired to even notice his own brother occasionally coming over and leaving snacks in a sleepy silence both of them could understand better than a normal conversation.

It was in times like these that they remembered how much they were still alike, plus Roman had not seen him this dedicated for a long time by then.

Remus may or may not have slept for an entire day when he finally felt satisfied enough with what he had created (cue to Deceit having to drag him back in their part of the mindscape): he had passed the latest hours perfectioning his work, even checking the right position and orientation on the internet, or stealthily stealing books from Logan's own shelf. 

What? It was for a good cause, he would have returned them. 

Covered in mud, But he would have regardless. 

To be sincere, he wasn't exactly sure how he was going to convince Logan to get there without spoiling his true intention beforehand.

That was why he decided to go for the shock value way and randomly sink in his room only to immediately go back to the imagination after having grabbed his arm. 

They stumbled for the sudden movement and, when they were both steady, Remus let go. 

Logan sighed. « You now have my attention. »

« I have a surprise! » was all he was able to let out, excitement buzzing in his chest. 

Logan tilted his gorgeous head to the side with a suspecting expression. « If this is another one of those times you try to stab me- »

« You're supposed to stab back. »

« Why on earth would I do that? »

« On earth? Would you do it somewhere else? »

« Oh my stars, did you make friends with Patton? »

Stars! Gosh, he was so clever, did he already know where he was taking him?

« Right! » Remus took a hold of his arm again and began leading him towards their destination. 

He expected weirded out comments, or displeased ones, but none came. Not when they went through a forest of leafless trees or when they crossed paths with some innocuous but scary looking creatures. 

Instead, Logan only studied his surroundings, occasionally humming when he recognized specific species.

That was weird, and he was the one to talk. 

They reached a clearing in the woods with probably the best vision of the night sky above. 

« Lie down. » Remus demanded, after clasping his hands. 

« Excuse me? » Logan raised an eyebrow, didn't he say he had a surprise? Why would it involve lying down? Was it a trap he wanted to test on him? How many times did he have to explain he wasn't going to respond when he threw pointy objects at him? 

His train of thought got cut off when Remus pushed him down by the shoulders. « Just do it. »

He decided to trust him at that point, why not? 

Why not? There are a lot of reasons why there, Logan.

Ultimately, that part of his mind got silenced.

Especially when he looked up at the dark blue sky hovering above them.

His pure and utter pleasant disbelief caused him not to notice Remus lying down at his side, too.

Right then and there, depicted in the starry night aether, was the constellation of the Centaur and, more beautiful than ever, Alpha Centauri blinked at them in a vivid glowing.

There was only one word that could have described him: speechless. As for the moment, breathtaking.

He couldn't even fathom how much it could have taken for Remus to be that precise, so much that, for a moment, he thought he wouldn't have been able to do that, had he been in his place.

« How ...? » was everything he was able to formulate, as his eyes traveled down every single and minimum detail of every star he could reach with his sight. 

« Heard you rambling, I guess? » there was no way Remus could hide the grin forming in his lips and the pride upon seeing Logan marveling at his work.

« You ...actually paid attention to that? »

« Why wouldn't I? »

That half whispered line lingered in the air which was cold enough to let the breeze run chills down their bodies but warm enough to let them enjoy the outside nature.

It was an artificial idyllic space in a deserted nightmare.

« I, well ... I don't know. » was that the first time he didn't? Was it the first time he felt flustered like that? The first time someone had done something so great for him? 

The conversation's topic shifted back to Alpha Centauri and they both discovered they knew more about it than they actually realized. 

Eventually, they found out how simple and nice it was to talk like that. 

Eventually, they realized they were holding hands.

And, just like the constellation, that was surprisingly exactly how it was supposed to be. 

[nayutai]

4 | Bulletproof

Word Count: 2174

Warnings: language, threats of violence, minor character death, explicit violence

Laila slows slightly as she and Cyn meander around the corner near her townhouse. The weather had been so nice that they’d spent the past thirty minutes just ambling around the neighborhood enjoying themselves. Now, the hair on Laila’s arms is standing at attention. Nothing appears to be outwardly wrong but something in the air just feels off in a way she can’t really explain. Cyn meows curiously as her owner stands stock still in the middle of the sidewalk, mind racing with possible plans of action.

Her feet pivot to quickly lead her and Cyn back the way they came. She knows that there is a dead end alley next to the house on the corner that’s closed in by the east facing wall of her own house. The only way out of the alley other than its entrance is the fire escape of the building that forms the right side. The building is several stories taller than her own home so climbing the fire escape will allow her to jump onto the roof of her house.

Cyn, who is known for making noise, has fallen silent as she feeds off of Laila’s changing energy. When Laila gently lowers the blinking ball of fur into the leather backpack she’d been carry, she doesn’t make a sound. After returning the backpack to its place on her back and adjusting the straps, Laila stealthily makes her way up the fire escape. She nimbly avoids the noisier steps in an attempt to draw as little attention to herself as possible.

Making the four foot leap from the ledge of the fire escape to her own roof is practically a no brainer. She surveys the small rooftop garden she’d painstakingly arranged for any sign of a disturbance. Her suspicious gaze notice a potted tree that is just slightly out of place. The sliver of concrete that’s a few shades darker from the dirt and lack of sun just barely peeks out from beneath the clay pot but her keen eyes notice it anyway. Someone has been up here.

The most obvious way into Laila’s townhome from the room is through the access door next to the potted tree. If there is truly someone waiting to ambush her like she’s beginning to think then the obvious way in is definitely not the way that she’ll be going. On the other side of the door is a staircase that ends in her laundry room. There’s space behind the staircase that would be a perfect place to lay in wait in order to take someone by surprise. Her eyes are trained on the heavy door in front of her as she mentally goes through her options.

She carefully darts across the concrete expanse of her roof, bypassing the door. She says a silent prayer that she doesn’t get her head blown off before peeking over the ledge to her bedroom balcony down below. Thankfully, the coast is clear. Four blocks of light are arranged on either end of the balcony. Whoever is in her house must have opened the blackout curtains to give themselves a view of the balcony. Laila carefully lowers herself down between the two windows right next to the fern she has sitting there. To the untrained eye, it looks like a real plant but it’s not. She quickly lifts the convincing fake out of the pot and grabs at the loaded gun she has hidden there. Laila grabs the silencer that she has stashed in the pot as well, screwing it into place. The heavy piece of metal feels more like an extension of her arm as she turns the safety off.

“Okay, Cyn. You stay here while mommy goes to work.” Laila whispers lovingly to her cat. She strokes her soft fur a few times before gently setting the backpack down next to the fern.

Laila peeks in through the uncovered window to see that her bedroom is currently empty. She tiptoes across the balcony so she can look through the other window which gives her a direct line of sight through her open bedroom door into the hallway beyond it. The coast appears to be clear. Seconds later she’s crouched low next to her raised bed, listening, feeling. She slows her breath down till she’s almost not breathing at all. That’s when she hears it. The light tapping of someone slowly climbing her wooden stairs. She rolls beneath her bed and thanks her lucky stars for giving her the foresight to choose a bed set that reached the floor.

“Come out, come out wherever you are. I just want to play.” The raspy, disjointed Korean that probably sends chills down a normal person’s spine only serves to piss Laila off. She lets go of her gun and uses the sound of his voice to cover up the noise of her unstrapping the katana blade from the bed frame above her head.

Her uncle had called her stupid for stashing her mother’s treasured swords in such an odd place but as she hears the satisfying sound of the metal slicing through the air towards her would be assailant’s calf muscles she knows she made the right decision. His screech sends shockwaves for adrenaline rocketing through her body as Laila escapes her hiding place. She stands to see a young man probably around the age of 25 desperately trying to stem the bleeding from the arteries she just severed.

“Play time is over, bitch.” She spits out through teeth gritted in anger. The low pop of her weapon firing ends him seconds before the bleeding can.

*   *  *

The sight of their apartment complex looming in the distance makes Seokjin’s heart beat a little faster. Sleeping in hotel beds is something that he’s gotten used to out of necessity but his dozing is never as fulfilling as it is when he does it in his own bed.

Yoongi is the first one to the door. He quickly enters the passcode, flinging the door open wide. The rest of them follow behind him, slamming the door and nearly cause a pile up when the Daegu rapper suddenly stops short after flicking on the light.

“Yo what the fuck? You’re blocking-” Yoongi silences Jimin with a single raised hand.

“Someone’s been in here.” All of them are on high alert now. They always joke about Yoongi’s “sixth sense” but when Yoongi has a gut feeling about something he’s usually right so they’ve learned to trust it.

“Well done, Min Yoongi.” Jungkook and Seokjin make eye contact over Jimin’s head at the sound of the familiar voice from somewhere inside their dorm.

Their surprise guest doesn’t wait long to show their face as Laila steps out from a dark hallway off to the right dressed in black from head to toe. Jungkook thinks she looks like a much hotter Lara Croft but something tells him that now is not the time to mention that. Her lips are curved into a delicate smile but her eyes dark pits of murderous rage. Rage that she intends to act on if the handgun leveled in their general direction is anything to go on.

Jimin sizes her up and takes a half step in her direction but Seokjin stops him. Jimin is quick but Seokjin has already learned his lesson where Laila is concerned. She is not to be underestimated. “What are you doing here, Laila?”

“You don’t get to ask questions, Jin.” She sneers, spitting his name out like a curse. “I just wanted to be left alone and instead you put a fucking price on my head? Men really are the weaker species because that was stupid as hell.”

If Seokjin was confused before he’s even more confused now. What in the world would make her think that he was the one to put a hit out on her? He looks around the room and his eyes land on Hoseok who looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here. He has that sheepish look on his face that he always does when he’s done something that he knows he shouldn’t. That tells Seokjin everything he needs to know. He’s overcome with the urge to rip Hoseok several new assholes but right now he has bigger fish to fry.

Laila’s observant eyes don’t miss the way Seokjin’s face morphs from confusion to realization. “Oh, so you didn’t know? Tsk tsk I smell mutiny on the horizon.”

“Why don’t you put the gun down so we can talk about this?” Jin reasons. The small laugh that bubbles up past her lips sends a shiver down his spine. It’s so cold and evil.

“The time for talking is long gone.” She starts, “I did all the talking I was going to do when I told you to leave me the fuck alone. This life took away the only family I had in this world and outside of punishing the people responsible I want nothing to do with it.”

Seven sets of eyes grow wide as her voice cracks with emotion. It’s painfully obvious that Laila is still mourning the loss of her parents all these years later. She seems to almost forget herself as she wipes at her wet cheeks with the hand that still clings to her weapon. Jungkook is overcome with the urge to hold her close but he knows she’d put a bullet between his eyes the second he takes a step in her direction.

Jimin moves once more to disarm her now that she’s distracted. Once again, he’s restrained as Seokjin latches onto the back of his shirt. He makes eye contact with Yoongi, who has yet to speak since this entire fiasco began, indicating that it’s time for him to spill the beans on the little project he’d been assigned.

Yoongi clears his throat which seems to bring Laila back to the present as she trains her gun on him. “What if I told you that I know who had your parents killed?”

“You’re lying to me.” Laila accuses vehemently. There’s no way that Yoongi has done in a few weeks what she’s failed to do in years.

“Choi Minseok. That name ring a bell?” Yoongi responds.

“Stop lying to me.” Laila bites out. Her voice rises in anger. “Why would he do that? He was my mom’s second in command.”

Saying the words out loud seems to trigger something in her mind. She repeats the phrase softly to herself a few times, working through whatever thought process has just occurred to her.

“You can prove it was him?” Yoongi nods to the affirmative.

“If you work with us, we’ll help you take him down.” The air is tense as Laila considers the new offer Seokjin has just made.

“I’m in.” Much to the relief of everyone in the room, Laila lowers her weapon and tucks it into the holster strapped to her thigh. Jungkook claps in ill-concealed glee at what this means.

“I just want to make it known that I don’t like this.” Hoseok pipes up over the noise of everyone else voicing their opinions on what just happened.

“And I just want to make it known that you owe me new carpeting in my bedroom. I had to rip it up to get rid of that amateur you sent to kill me. I’ll be sending you the bill.” With that, she pivots on her heel to follow Yoongi down the hallway to his lab.

Laila situates herself on the leather couch Yoongi has situated along one wall as she waits for him to get his system booted up. Taehyung and Jungkook are quick to sandwich her between the two of them, firing off questions rapid fire about how she thwarted Hoseok’s hired gun. The aforementioned rapper has perched himself on a stool in the corner to sulk. Surprisingly, Laila finds herself at ease despite the events that have lead to her being in this room. Something about the aura of these men makes her feel truly relaxed for the first time in years.

“A sword?!” Laila can’t help but chuckle at the way the three youngest members collectively make the same face of disbelief at her story. Jimin reaches around Taehyung from his spot on the arm of the couch to close the younger man’s gaping mouth. Something about flies getting in and onion breath. Laila opens her mouth to continue her storytelling when Yoongi interrupts.

“If you’re all done with story time, I have some things to say.” Yoongi declares, swiveling around to face his impressive bank of monitors once more.

Various pictures and documents appear across the screen as Yoongi’s agile fingers fly across the keyboard. According to a three-message email chain from September 1997, Minseok had grown power hungry in his new position at the top. He didn’t believe that Cobra was cut out for the domestic life and would eventually return to reclaim her throne. Now that he’d had a taste of true power he was unwilling to give it up.

[sasorikigai]

If they had a kid killed someone meme 

Send ⚰️ + a ship and I’ll tell you who I think: || @paindealt || accepting 

is more likely to kill someone

They both are more than capable of killing someone, obviously, but Scorpion/Hanzo more likely than Sub-Zero/Kuai, because Scorpion absolutely does not have an ounce of chill if he makes his mind up for it. 

only threatens to kill someone but won’t actually go that far

Kuai Liang all the way. He could be menacing and merciless with his words, but unless it is absolutely necessary and the antagonist serves as a threat to the Lin Kuei and its allies, he will not shed unnecessary blood and exert force. Hanzo is much more impulsive and rash compared to Kuai and prone to cave into his vices/darkness of his mind. 

freaks out and who stays perfectly calm and collected

Neither. They are well-trained and formidable ninja and assassin. Even in Scorpion’s propensity to sink beneath the vice of wrath and revenge, he’s entirely deadpan calm and collected when he moves in stealthily for a kill. 

provides the utensils to help get rid of the body

Neither, since both use natural elements, Scorpion could simply incinerate the body and pulverize someone into ash and dust, while Sub-Zero could freeze them all the way down to bones and blood and shatter for their form to dissipate into pulpy mess. 

comes up with the hiding place for the body

Neither, for the aforementioned reason above. That alone could give away that they have killed someone, so they are most discreet by utilizing their abilities. 

watches out that nobody witnesses them getting rid of the body

Neither. Kuai Liang may take more precaution in killing someone, because he does not kill for the sake of killing someone. 

hides the body and murder weapon

Neither, the body could be rendered almost naught and so does their weapons. 

knows the right people to deal with this

They are their own one-man army, and even if they needed someone, they have each other and their respective clan members. 

isn’t doing this for the first time

Both, they are probably more experienced in anyone in the Earthrealm, and gone through hell and back, served as pawns beneath the greater power and killed numerous people as Scorpion and Revenant Sub-Zero. 

will cave in and eventually call the police

Neither. This question just makes them laugh in a sarcastic manner. 

puts the blame on themself to save the other

Both. They would try all their best to avoid that situation, but they are honorable Grandmasters and function on code of their sacred philosophies of reforming and redeeming their clan. Because of all the guilt and remorse he feels of his past life, Hanzo may feel much more inclined to do so to protect and save Kuai Liang. 

is the better liar

Neither. Both are honorable and exceedingly honest when it comes to their emotions. While Kuai Liang may not come off as emotionally inclined, he isn’t the one to lie right off the bat to someone. Hanzo simply wears his emotions on his sleeve and has a hard time disguising them. 

[shy-violet-soul]

Try to Remember (2)

Summary:  Continuation: A forgotten memory surfaces and breaks Rae’s heart.  How will the boys, with their own heartbroken history, help her heal? (Read Part 1 HERE) Warnings: Graphic descriptions of injuries/fatal injuries; grief; parent death; depression; angsty fluff Pairing:  OFC Rae Himmel, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Castiel  Rating: Mature due to descriptions of canon-type gore Word count: 1300-ish

A/N:  We all love the funny moments with the brothers.  But their sensitivity to someone else’s pain has always broken my heart a little, and I wanted to explore that. This is a companion piece to Life is Good (for you) & Just Desserts. You don’t have to read them to understand this story. This is my OFC Rae’s “origin” story. 

A huge, sparkly, fluffy hug to my 2 betas @pinknerdpanda and @thesassywallflower. Ladies, you get all the Sam cuddles!

This is a work of fiction based upon characters created and owned by the CW. My work is not to be copied/distributed elsewhere without my written permission.

To listen to for this part: Try to Remember by Harry Belafonte

After a half hour of just sitting on the shower floor, letting the hot water pour over her, Rae finally found the energy to get up. Busting out her fancy, boutique soap and expensive, impressive in-shower lotion, she scrubbed. The debrided bits of painful memory from her careful box washed away, soothed with shea butter and the newer notes of Winchester hugs. A little achy, a little empty, Rae felt both tethered and light as she bundled her favorite fleece robe around her. A knock on her door frame caught her attention as she combed out her wet hair.

“Cas! I didn’t know you were here!”

The angel took in her genuine smile along with the puffy, drawn pallor as he accepted her hug.

“Do you mind if we sit a moment, Rae?”

“Of course, please.”

A methodical, analytical thinker herself, Rae had never chafed under Castiel’s considering stares. She only smiled as the blue eyed angel tilted his head as he pondered her.

“I know you have questions, Rae. About your parents’ death.” Rae only nodded, waiting for him to continue. “I also want to tell you how sorry I am for your loss. It’s always awful to watch someone you love die.”

Rae dropped her gaze to her hands, feeling the echo of her pain in her ribs. It thrummed anew as she thought about the times Cas had watched his own loved ones die. Two of them repeatedly.

“No, it never is.”

“I have those answers for you, Rae. Dean and Sam had me follow up on your case while they cared for you.” Cas sighed gently as he glanced around her room. “Knowledge. It doesn’t always end pain. In the millenia I’ve watched God’s children on this Earth, I’ve learned something. I think that the resonance an answer carries depends upon the heart that receives it. A soul fueled by anger, by fear - answers can trap them. Anger and fear take over their lives. But a soul led be compassion and hope accepts the pain along with the truth. They let it be their freedom.”

Cas’ words cast about in her ears. More weary than she could ever remember being, Rae braced herself for anger, more tears; but numbness lapped at her instead. The achy spot where her cobbled box sat empty in her chest pinched at her, but with no true threat. She lifted her eyes and met Cas’ gaze unblinkingly.

“What is my soul led by, Cas?”

After a moment, the angel smiled at her with heart-tugging gentleness, and took her hand.

“The Thule Society is a splinter group of the Nazi Party.  They’ve practiced the dark arts and necromancy since before the second World War. Another group of Jewish Rabbis known as the Judah Initiative have fought against them for decades, their mission to stop their evil ways once and for all. The Thule High Command also made up Hitler’s inner circle, with their chief goal being to bring Hitler back from the dead. The leader of this effort was a man called Nauhause. After he died, his son, Christoph, swore he would abandon all heinous deeds of his father. Sam and Dean believed him.

A few weeks before your parents’ death, a member of the Judah Initiative contacted the Winchesters. He said he’d discovered that a sect of the Thules had happened upon a list of supposed Judah Initiative operatives who had immigrated to America after the war, and was systematically killing who they saw as enemies. The name of one of them was Aleksender Himmel.”

Cas’ heart thumped in sympathy as Rae’s eyes widened.

“My...my father’s name was…”

“Alexander Himmel.”

Rae honestly didn’t think she could hurt anymore, but the tightness in her throat wringing out fresh tears proved her wrong. Cas squeezed her hand, offering her wordless comfort.

“The worst part of the whole thing, Cas? My father was adopted. He wasn’t Jewish by birth,” a sob choked off the word as Rae covered her face and cried. “My parents were murdered by a monster because of a spelling mistake.”

Cas twitched as her pain emanated in cold, chilling waves, poking pinches against his vessel. After a moment, Cas couldn’t subdue the urge any longer.

“It’s appropriate in many societal groups to offer an embrace to one in pain. I would like to offer you an embrace, Rainbow, as I’m reasonably certain this societal group finds it acceptable.”

Rae snuffled out a chuckle as she flopped her arms around Cas’ shoulders.

“Your reasonable certainty is correct, and I accept, Cas.”

The two friends sat in a companionable silence for a moment before Rae leaned back, wiping at her eyes. She offered him a shy smile that was all fatigue and flusterment.

“Thank you, Cas. I mean it.”

“Rae, nothing will ever erase the pain of your loss, I know. But I can tell you I’ve seen their souls in heaven. They remember nothing of that moment, and their heaven is all moments with you.”

Bittersweetness trembled on her lips as Rae nodded her thanks. Dean suddenly poked his head around the doorway.

“I hate to break this up, but movie night is on in the Dean Cave in five. C’mon, you two.”

Rae huffed a chuckle as she let the men bundle her along the hall to the Dean Cave. The elder Winchester had commandeered one of the rooms, tricking it out with a couch, recliners, and a non-possessed flat screen that shone in a place of honor in all its HD splendor. Rae was given the comfiest seat, the middle of the recliner-couch combo unit. The brothers had gone all out - someone made an emergency run, and an array of theatre candy was waiting for them. Twizzlers, Junior Mints, M&M’s, Dean’s nasty black licorice, and Skittles.  Each one of them had their own bowl of popcorn, and Sam produced a surprise with a smiling flourish.

“3-D glasses! And, I did some research. The best movies to watch in 3-D are ‘Iron Man’, ‘Kung Fu Panda’, and ‘How to Train Your Dragon’. We’ve got all three. Rae, you pick the first one!” Sam urged, holding out the DVD cases excitedly.

Rae went with ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ first with a promise to Dean that ‘Iron Man’ would be second. While Cas blandly pointed out that night fury dragons didn’t really look like that, and that their belly scales were more dark blue in color, Dean started a personal contest on how many popcorn bits he could flick into Sam’s hair without him noticing. Dean and Sam got into a heated debate on how possible Tony Stark’s tech actually was. Rae stealthily dropped Skittles into Dean’s beer, laughing until tears smarted her eyes when he gagged at the first chewy, fizzy swallow. And as Master Shifu said goodbye to Oogway in a beautiful billow of blossoms, Sam slid his fingers into Rae’s hand.

“See? ‘There are no accidents’. You’re here. We’re here,” he whispered to her, wishing he could see her eyes behind the 3-D glasses.

Rae was glad he couldn’t. Her heart wasn’t ready to look too closely at the softer, warmer feelings she had been ignoring for weeks. She knew she couldn’t forget the pain of her past. To heal, she needed to remember. But, not just the pain. She would try to remember the love of her parents. Her dad’s Old Spice cologne, her mom dropping socks, and them holding hands. She would try to remember Cas’ compassion, and the safety and comfort she felt right now - resting among her friends, sugar high in her veins, laughter in her ears.

For now, Rae offered Sam a soft, tender smile, and snuggled herself in a hug around his arm. Rubbed her cheek against his shoulder just a breath. And studiously ignored Dean’s approving, ‘go get him’ wink.

She would try to remember it all.

[warriorsredux]

Chapter Thirty-Two

Fireheart had to give Rosy credit. Even when he had lived here, he couldn’t get Smudge to do anything when it was cold outside. Rosy only had to explain the situation to get Smudge’s attention and agreement to help out.

“And remember to keep it quiet,” Fireheart said as they climbed over Smudge’s fence. “Don’t just tell everyone you’re asking about a potential murder. Ask if they saw a dead golden cat. That’s it.”

“So what do we do if we come up with something?” Smudge panted, lugging his huge belly over the railing.

“You come get me as fast as possible,” Fireheart said. He landed easily and turned to watch them follow. “I’ll be searching for anything I missed when I first was looking for Lionpelt.”

“‘Lionpelt’, what a name,” Smudge muttered.

“It’s been quite a while since that,” Rosy said, scrambling down the wood. “Are you sure you don’t want to help us talk to the other house cats?”

Fireheart’s whiskers twitched as Smudge stumbled on his landing. “I don’t think I’d be a welcome sight.”

“Yeah, he made a few cats sore when he lived here.” Smudge approached and tapped his tail on Fireheart’s back. “Always exploring and trying to get into everyone’s house. But maybe they won’t recognize you.”

“All the same,” Fireheart said, “I’ve got a sharper nose than you two, and way less charisma.”

The three of them turned the corner and stopped. The snow was mostly gone on and by the road, but there were still a few stubborn patches left that had clumped and chilled into icy mounds. Fireheart could smell the road much better than before.

“I’ll take the left side,” said Smudge. “Rosy, you take the right. You know everyone over there better than I do. Rusty?”

“I’ll be crossing over wherever my nose takes me,” Fireheart said. “Thank you two for helping me, by the way. I didn’t think-”

Smudge waved his tail dismissively. “This is a serious matter. You need all the help you can get.”

“Great way to spend the day, though,” Rosy said, and her tail was flicking and twitching excitedly.

Fireheart looked up. The sky was gradually lightening. Through the clouds, he could see a faint, round glow on the horizon.

“Let’s be quick,” he said. “I can’t be here too long.”

“We’ll have this done in no time,” Rosy said. “Don’t worry.”

“This is one of the times where one actually should worry, Rosy,” Smudge said, again with that gentle air, like he was talking to a kit. “It’s a pretty serious thing we’re investigating.”

“Right.” Rosy straightened her posture, inhaled deeply, and nodded. “Let’s go.”

The three split up, the house cats taking one side each and clambering over the fences, Fireheart lowering his nose and crisscrossing over the street, ears perked and eyes wide open. The road was freezing and rough on his paws, but he barely paid attention - he was too focused on locating where he’d found the fur and blood. He could faintly hear Rosy and Smudge pawing at doors and speaking to the cats inside.

The round, faint light rolled up higher in the sky, and the higher it got, the more Fireheart tensed up. There was nothing on the road aside from flattened snow and frigid mud puddles. He couldn’t remember where the fur had been, and the road wasn’t giving anything up aside from the stink of cars. Fireheart picked up his pace, but that only made him more nervous. Rosy was right - it’d been a long time since he’d come here. There was nothing left of Lionpelt.

Fireheart raised his head, sniffing out of habit more than an actual attempt to find something. At the exact same time, the wind picked up, bringing to him a scent. A very familiar scent, barely covered by tansy, swiftly approaching.

Tigerclaw.

Fireheart sprinted across the road, skittering over the ice and leaping over the closest fence. This particular section had a hole in it just large enough for him to peer through with one eye. Careful to crouch and hide himself as well as he could, Fireheart settled next to the hole and waited.

Time inched by, until a hulking figure came into view, bright yellow tansy bulbs sticking all over his pelt. Tigerclaw paused, sniffed and shook himself, sending most of them drifting to the ground. He looked around with narrowed eyes. Fireheart held his breath and lifted his head away from the hole, praying he wouldn’t be noticed.

There was a long moment before the very faintest sound of footsteps started moving away. Fireheart looked through the hole again. Tigerclaw was out of sight.

Fireheart waited a little longer before moving to the fence line that bordered the next yard. As silently as he could, he hopped onto a lawn chair and jumped onto the railing. Smudge’s voice was a few yards behind him.

Tigerclaw was striding with purpose, alternating between a trot and a fast walk. His tail was stiff and horizontal, his ears back and his head low. Whatever he was doing here, he looked anxious to be back in the forest as soon as possible.

Fireheart kept his distance behind the deputy, climbing when he didn’t have to jump and pausing every time he went into the next yard before crossing over the fence. Tigerclaw didn’t seem aware that someone was following him. Hopefully it would stay that way.

Tigerclaw turned left where the street split up. By fortune, there were a few more houses with fences along that side before the ground turned flat and grassy. Fireheart continued forward until the fence ended. This side was made of a few white bars rather than the tall wooden slats. Fireheart settled down behind a pot of flowers, his head half poked out to watch the deputy.

Tigerclaw seemed to think he’d gone far enough too. He stopped on the side of the road and sat down, looking around with his tail jerking about impatiently.

The sun rose higher, the clouds lightening. Just as they parted enough to let one ray of light through, a pair of cats approached from around the corner. Tigerclaw stood up and walked forward to meet them.

They were almost exactly identical - black on top, white on the bottom, with broad shoulders and scars all over their sides and necks. The one furthest away had an underbite from what Fireheart could see. The one with the underbite strutted over to Tigerclaw with his head high, while the other one slunk, his tail waving from side to side like a snake. Neither of them were as large as Tigerclaw, but they were pretty bulky, almost heavyset. Even from a distance, Fireheart wrinkled his nose at the stink wafting off of them - like rotten meat and spoiled plants.

Tigerclaw sat down when he met them and began talking. Fireheart couldn’t make out what he said, but the cat with an underbite scoffed and said something that sounded like “your sorry dog-arse”. The other one spoke too, but he was even quieter than Tigerclaw. Fireheart leaned forward, straining his ears.

“Rusty!”

Tigerclaw looked up. Fireheart flinched and ducked fully behind the pot. When he dared another look, Tigerclaw had gone back to talking with the pair of loners. As stealthily as he could, Fireheart went through and over the yards and fences, only daring to run and leap higher when he was around the corner.

A few fences in, he jumped down and met up with Smudge. His face was lit up.

“I found someone,” Smudge said.

Fireheart hushed him with a raised paw and whispered, “Take me to them. Are they on this side?”

“Rosy and I met up and started talking with her,” Smudge said, muted now. “Come on.”

Fireheart crossed a couple more yards before stopping. Rosy was sitting down and chatting with an incredibly old white cat, whose fur was stained yellow on the edges of her legs and belly. She lifted up her short nose when Fireheart approached, scars striping her muzzle.

“Rusty, this is Wisp,” Smudge said. “Wisp, Rusty.”

Fireheart started to correct him, but remembered Tigerclaw and his company. He simply shut his mouth and nodded politely. Before Rosy could correct him herself, Fireheart said quickly, “Smudge says you may know something about a cat who died here a while ago?”

“That I do,” Wisp croaked. She sat up from her crouching position and shook out her fur. “You’re asking about a big, yellow cat, right?”

Fireheart nodded. “He may have been struck by a car.”

“Struck by a car, nothing,” Wisp snorted. “I saw the body before the humans took it away. It wasn’t flattened at all. Bloody ‘round the neck and chest, sure, but not flattened.”

Fireheart fought back his nausea at the image and said, “What would you say he died of, then?”

“Probably whatever got his neck,” Wisp said. “I couldn’t tell you what did it, but it sure wasn’t a car.”

Fireheart sat down, eyes shut in a grimace. “Tigerclaw...”

“So it was a murder?” Smudge said hesitantly.

“Might’ve been,” Wisp said. “But I can’t think of anyone who could or would kill a cat that big.”

“I can.” Fireheart got to his feet slowly, making himself open his eyes. “Thank you very much, Wisp. I might come back with other cats and ask you about this again. Is that okay?”

“Fine with me.” Wisp licked at her paw, entirely too casual for their conversation. “Just in the morning, though, before my human feeds me.”

“Alright.” Fireheart turned around for the fence, stopped, and looked over his shoulder. “And, uh... don’t mention any of this to anyone else if they’re not with me.”

Without so much as a goodbye, Wisp turned and trotted for her door-flap. Rosy and Smudge followed Fireheart into the street. The three of them jogged in silence (except for Smudge’s heavy breathing) until Fireheart halted in front of Smudge’s house. He turned to them sharply and lowered his voice.

“That goes for you, too,” he said. “This needs to be kept quiet until I come back. If anyone at all tries to ask you if I was here, or if you know anything about Lion- the dead cat...”

“We’ll be silent,” Smudge promised. He side-eyed Rosy. “I’ll make sure of that.”

“What are you going to do now?” Rosy said.

Fireheart looked out the way Raventhroat and Greystripe had gone. “Right now, I need to get back to patrolling. I’ll let you two know if something comes up.”

“Good luck with this information,” Smudge said. “Come on, Rosy, we should go home.”

With that, they split up. Fireheart sprinted into the woods along the border, hoping he could catch Raventhroat and Greystripe before they hit their meeting place. 

It didn’t occur to him that he'd left his scent where Tigerclaw could smell it.

[darkstrangevirgilanxiboi]

Shit I Pulled In High School

So my friend and I got talking about the good old days and it hit me that I've probably got some mildly entertaining tales from my teenage years ( which only ended four years ago I can't believe I made it to 23 ) So here's a few of the shenanigans Hot Mess High School Me got into ~ ( I went to a weird school that threw grades 7 -12 together in the same buildings so this is at the same school the whole time just not divided into middle school and high school ) 7th Grade - Made the art teacher gasp because I knew a surprising amount about Medieval art styles ( I'm obsessed with history and the Medieval era is just such a hot mess of a time) - Got scolded in Math class for reading , learned to read more stealthily - Memorized the coded language from ' Vladimir Todd ' , a popular teen book series about a sarcastic teenage vampire who just wants to be normal, and used it to write notes in class Eventually this resulted in my getting sent to the counselor because the teacher suspected me of being a cult leader I ran with that assumption and to this day the school still thinks I founded the cult of Vladimirism , a cult devoted to the protection and support of rebellious teen outcasts , queer kids , and unfairly treated main characters ( we're a small cult but we are very nice and membership is free , we spread love and rebellion , our mascot is a baby bat ) - Started a week long debate on sexism in history class with my teacher , which resulted in him actually awarding the most fervent arguers a free soda Turned out it was just a scam of his to see how many of us were actually morally upstanding , and which ones were rooted deep in the patriarchal bullshit . I got a soda AND a candy bar because I kicked off the debate by asking " We talk a lot about oppressed groups but we haven't talked about women yet, do you think women aren't oppressed?" Which got a sexist boy in back to go " Women don't count " And I snapped back " Women can count higher than YOU" 8th Grade - Caused an ethical , moral, and spiritual debate in my Seminary class over abortion that ended with three girls declaring themselves Athiests - Accused my Seminary Teacher of racism and sexism for his assumption that God is white and male - Got kicked out of Seminary for arguing with the teacher about God hating gay people , and instead of going back in after ten minutes I just left and went to my friend's house - Called out my chemistry teacher for overlooking the accomplishments of women in the scientific fields - Accidentally became a student librarian because I spent so much time there and I memorized the book keeping system - Was officially the most well-read student and got an award for checking out over thirty books in a month 9th Grade - Got suspended because a teacher heard me singing P!nk's " Fun House " and thought the lyric ' burn this sucker down' was a threat of arson so I got to meet the Sheriff ( who incidentally was the father of one of my classmates and who still invited me to his daughter's birthday party the next week ) and even though Sheriff Brooks was intimidating I cry REALLY easily so I got off with a warning despite me never remotely intending to burn my school down I got suspended for a week but it was actually fine , and the Sheriff was super chill to me after that - Was extra enough to get voted Most Dramatic in the yearbook Was it because I frequently flopped down on the floor to nap if I was tired? Or was it my complete overreaction to anything unexpected? Maybe it was my scathing remarks to everything ' Do you want to be study buddies' ' Brittany, why would I want to study with someone with can't spell their name right ' Or my dramatic reactions to anything even slightly inconvient ' THE HEAVENS ARE DISPLEASED WITH YOU MERE MORTALS, THEY WEEP AT YOUR FAILURES " ' It's just raining calm down ' ' dude I'm more concerned about the fact she referred to US as mortals but not her? ' ' Aw man , the cafeteria is out of pudding cups ' " THE FIRST PLAGUE BEGINS , WE WERE WARNED OF THIS IN THE PROPHECY " " What? What prophecy? " 10th Grade - Got caught writing fan fiction in class but didn't get in trouble because my teacher was a hardcore Harry Potter fan and he just wanted to read the story ( it was a Weasley Twins Deathly Hallows AU and I'll post it on ao3 if you wantttt) - Skipped school like six times to watch Inuyasha with my friend Melanie ( I faked being sick and just went to her house instead of going home) - Became the school's top badass because I stealthily orchestrated the expulsion of every kid who bullied me or my siblings and never got caught ( hey Ashley Bassett if you're reading this I snitched on you , and I don't regret it ) 11th Grade - Planned a prank that scared my U.S.Marine drama coach so much he almost called in reinforcements I got my whole Drama class to fake a murder scene in the auditorium because Tony ( our coach) said we didn't act dead convincingly . So we faked a Sweeney Todd worthy slaughter fest , making it appear as though thirty teens were brutally murdered . It was GLORIOUS. My friend Indi runs out into the hall , knowing Tony is just entering the building , and he first thing Tony sees is an apparently mortally wounded kid running toward him, gasping out last words. ' They...got ...us ...They got all of us....run....SAVE YOURSELF " And then Indi collapses right there , looking for all the world like he's dead , and poor Tony just panics and burst into the auditorium , flips the lights on, and screams We listen to him freak out for a minute, but as he pulls out his phone to call the cops , Indi sneaks up behind him and taps his shoulder and goes " Was that convincing enough, Tony? " Tony about fainted 12th Grade - Snuck the name Sasuke Uchiha into every assignment - Turned Naruto Running into a thing at my school - Caused an existential crisis for my English teacher by suggesting that everything we experience could be fictional and we could be fictional characters unaware we don't exist , and that death is simply someone finishing our book , but there's no way to probe or disprove this theory because this reality (?) is all we know - secretly wrote cryptic riddles in my school books for the next student to find - The words ' Bankai', ' Hollow' and ' soul reaper' got banned in class because teachers thought it was a cult thing and none of us discouraged that thought

[mosaicabstract]

Has anyone answered yet? I love the robins. I especially love Damian. He's such a brat. I adore him being obnoxious while the other Robins try to ignore him. Also that he like him well enough if he would stop being the son of Batman and the son of Talia Al Ghul and the Grandchild of R'ah... so many different reasons to be a bit entitled. But all Batfam is awesome. Batman being himself is amazing too.

(ok, so this is going to be kind of weird, but here’s the thing. i’ve been sitting on this massive unfinished batfam fic for over a year and i’m never going to finish it so instead of writing a new drabble... i’m just gonna post it here. it’s much longer than a drabble and not finished and could either be shippy in the sense of jaydick or seen as just brotherly bonding but there’s some damien and tim in there as well at the end. let me know if you want another drabble and i’ll write you one!!! i just figured that i’m never gonna finish this thing but i like it, so i might as well let it see the light of day....)

*

Despite the shitty lighting from the single, dying securitylamp at the mouth of the alleyway, Jason knows it’s him. There’s no possibleway to mistake him: the long, sinewy arms, the straight line of his spine, hisimpeccable posture… the “OG” boy wonder himself. He can’t even see the brightblue bird strapped across his chest but he knows it’s there. He doesn’t evenknow how acrobat boy got there; probably some death defying shit, but hedoesn’t have time for this.

Putting out his cigarette and sliding his helmet back on, hewatches as Dick slinks stealthily along the dark alleyway, silent but visible, which is his first mistake.

Did Daddy teach younothing, Dickieboy? Bruce always drilled it into Jason that it was betterto be heard rather than seen. Sound can be distorted. Sight is vulnerability.And here he is, sitting on the roof of a modestly high-roofed bank, watchingthe asshole he used to quietly idolize, his brother of circumstance, crownjewel of their fucked-up little family, make an idiot out of himself in anattempt to stop the hostage situation currently happening right underneathJason’s ass in the bank below.

What pisses him off the most is that he has this under control. Yes it’s technically closer to Blüdhaventhan to Gotham Proper, but on the outskirts. Maybe technically Nightwing’s territory, yes, but Jason got here first, and some childish part of himthinks that’s good enough reason for him to handle this solo.

He’s in the middle of his own variety of trying to fix thesituation: stay on top of things (literally), watch, and wait for the perfectopportunity to shoot off a couple of rounds through the slightly openedskylight beside him into the base of these motherfuckers’ skulls. He has aperfect view of the bank through the propped-up skylight cover, and all three perps,but the time hasn’t been right yet. They’re too busy flirting with the cops,jeering threats from behind ski masks. Besides which, they’re too antsy. He cansee the way they shift around, nervously looking at all of the exits, waitingfor something (or someone, likely with a cape) to jump out and foil theirscheme. They haven’t gotten comfortableyet.

The second any ofthe prickless pieces of shit holed up below him set eyes on a masked vigilanteof any sort (let alone a pretty boy in a leotard), they’ll blow the brains outof the three hostages they currently hands on with guns to their heads. They’vethreatened as much to the police, at least, and maybe they don’t have the ballsto actually do it, but Jason knows that people like himself exist in the world,people who pull the trigger first and find time for guilt later. And there’s always time for guilt.

Dick pauses in front of the back entryway to the bank, mutteringinto his wrist comm too quietly to be heard. Jason assumes he’s calling home toBabs, trying to get an update on the situation or a shred of information thatwill help him carry out his mission.

Jason lifts his pointer and middle finger and his thumb, forminga hand-gun which he aims carefully down at the dark form below him.

“Boom,” he whispers, pulling the imaginary trigger, thinkingof just how easy it would be forsomeone even half as good a shot as him, at his same angle, to splatter Dick’sgenius brains all over the grimy brick and asphalt. Clearly, regardless of allthe bullshit he’s seen in the world, Dick Grayson is far too trusting ofhumanity. Of circumstance. Taking down the bad guys is what Dick lives for,helping people out, but he’d never expect something so random and brutal tohappen as someone watching him, stalking him, taking him out when he’svulnerable.

But that wouldn’t do, would it? Jason imagines that any painBruce felt after he died, he wouldfeel it tenfold more if his precious Richard were to snuff it. But Bruce’sreaction isn’t the one that gnaws at him, makes him shutter. Tim would likelymalfunction like a glitched operating system and implode if his hero were todie. Babs would wreak havoc on the world at large. And then there’s the little shitheadheir apparent. Jason finds it hilarious hearing stories about how Damian usedto despite and mock Dick to no end when now he would likely burn down the worlddefending Dick’s honor, possibly even over his own father’s.

Dick has that effect on people. Always has. Jason, back whenhe still donned the campy ol’ red, yellow and greens, had harbored a borderlineobsessive crush on the older boy, even if he’d only catch glimpses of him.Dick, always a gentleman to strangers (nice strangers that weren’t trying tokill him), had regarded him with a sort of hesitant kindness that Jason didn’tfully understand until Jason saw Tim in costume the first time. The feeling ofbeing replaced cut deep, even if deep down he knows now that he couldn’t haveasked for a better protégé to pass the torch to. He likes Timmy. Knows he’s a good kid. Knows that Dick probably neverfelt that sort of acceptance and appreciation about him as Robin, but he can’tblame him. Tim’s as noble as Dick. Jason’s always been the unstable fuse in thecircuit.

For a while, things seem to calm down from a boil to asimmer, the hostages huddled back in the corner of the bank behind the welcomedesk silent with the robbers staying spread out, sometimes shouting commandsout to one another. One of them shuffles back toward the vault in the back, outof Jason’s sight, and he curses. He glances back down at Dick, and at the samemoment he does, the emergency light goes out with a purposeful buzz.

Now all he can see is the dark, sinister outline ofNightwing traced against the shadowy brick and it sends a thrill down hisspine.

“Jay,” Dick greets darkly.

“Dickhead,” Jason retorts, smirking and leaning forward,“fancy seeing you here.”

“Lay off. This one’s mine.”

“I got here first.”

“Don’t be so childish.”

“I’m not the one in tights.”

He can sense Dick’s scowl rather than see it, and it makeshim laugh.

“Chill out, Grayson. I’ve got this. I have eyes on two ofthem and I know the location of the third… it’ll be as easy as skipping rockswhen the time comes.”

“Sorry Jason,” Dick responds, moving even further into theshadows and out of Jason’s field of vision. “You know I can’t let you do that.”

Jason can’t help but roll his eyes, tugging off his mask sohe can fully glower down into the darkness in hopes that Dick can see howunamused he is.

“Not gonna happen, bird brains. Not interested in fightingyou tonight when three teenage girls have guns to their heads right now andnineteen more hostages are crammed in a corner, waiting to die. I’m gonna dealwith this how it’s supposed to bedealt with.”

“It can be dealtwith,” Dick says in the dangerous voice he usually only reserves for Bruce whenthey’re on bad terms, “in a way that doesn’t involve murder.”

Jason laughs, maybe a bit louder than he intends to, but itforces its way up out of his esophagus like a mocking tune. “This is why we’llnever see eye to eye. You’re too much like him,Dickiebird. Too righteous. Too ‘moral’. Maybe I’ll of let these cocksuckerswalk away with shattered tibias and blunt force trauma if, and only if, theydon’t put a bullet into any of those little girls, or the other hostages. Ifthey do, they’re dead. And you can’t stop me.”

Dick stays silent for a long moment and Jason imagines himwith that look of righteous fury etched onto his pretty face that he used tolong to wear himself but could never quite get it right.

Before Dick can respond, however, Jason can hear the heavysound of gunfire. It shakes the foundation of the building and makes his earsring. With a practiced instinct, he stands and yanks his handguns out of hisbelt in one motion, both pointer fingers resting on triggers. Out of the cornerof his eye he sees a flash of neon blue from below as Dick finally makes a moveto kick down the back door. At the same moment, on top of another chorus ofgunfire, he hears a cop out front yell into a radio:

“No hostages dead, just injured! They just shot at a copbecause he got too close! Hold your fire, goddammit!”

Shit.

The thoughts move through Jason’s mind at the speed of soundas he flies into action. His thought process is as follows:

1.      He and Bruce have their issues, this much istrue, but he doesn’t hate him enough to allow him to experience the pain oflosing another kid. Another robin. Heseemed pretty broken up about him after the Joker blew him up, or so he’sheard, and Jason can’t fathom what his reaction would be if his precious Dickwas killed. Possibly apocalyptic.

2.      As much as he thinks Dick is a cocky, pompous,over-optimistic fuckhead sometimes who’s too kind for his own good as a masked hero,he doesn’t deserve to die.

3.      If Dick does,in fact, end up six feet under because of this little mishap, Jason’s going tomake sure to pump lead into whoever’s responsible. He won’t go unavenged. Notlike Jason did.

In the same second that Dick launches himself through theback door, Jason kicks the latch of the skylight fully open and shatters theglass with his boot, jumping down into the chaos below.

He lands with practice, bouncing off his heels and rollinginto a kneeling position with guns out. Quickly, he assesses what he sees infront of him.

The three perps are spread evenly in a triangular fashionthroughout the store. The first is standing near the front glass swinging doorswith his hostage carefully positioned to be in view of the police with a gun toher head. The second’s back near the teller booths, hostage sitting in a chairin front of them. The third is back near the vault against the wall, his ownhostage seemingly handcuffed to him. He assigns them names in his head: FuckerA, Fucker B, and Fucker C.

Dick’s coming in from the back, closest to Fucker B.

What happens next happens fast.

Jason gets eyes on the robber nearest to him, Fucker A, a builtman with combat boots and tattoos covering his pale arms. He rages like a bullwhen he sees Nightwing and charges, hostage still under his arm, but Jason getsa bullet in his head before he has time to harm her or Dick. After making surethe hostage crawls to safety with the others, out of the corner of his eye,Jason sees Dick pivot to look at him in a fluid motion that he imagines wouldlook like shock on anyone else. But all he sees is a grimace.

“Hood, what the hell are you-”

Jason sees Fucker B fling his hostage aside and pull thetrigger before he can swing his own gun on him, and it’s followed by thedisgusting sound of flesh ripping and bone snapping. Dick’s left shoulder jerksback and the rest of his body goes with it in one fluid motion. He doesn’t godown right away, but manages to take a few steps over to a pillar for support.Jason shoves this information temporarily to the back of his mind, ignoring theanger threatening to force its way out of his chest and into his throat likebile. With gusto, he turns one of his guns on Fucker B, seeing a glimmer offear flash across his shiny eyes from behind the mask before he squeezes thetrigger, watching as his bullet lodges itself in his skull right between hiseyes. With hard eyes, he turns toward the Fucker C, who’s backed up against thewall with his own hostage.

“Don’t fucking move,” Fucker C says from under his mask,reaching behind himself and retrieving a small black device with a shaky hand.“One funny move and I blow this fuckingplace straight to hell!”

It’s rigged to blow. Whyis it always rigged? Jason’s eyes dark back to the slightly askew vaultdoor behind C, imagining that the explosives have likely been set up in there. Somethingakin to panic nags at the back of his mind – some post-traumatic bullshit maybe,sometimes his constant and forceful repression doesn’t always hold up – but heignores it and instead turns to look at the crumpled figure of Dick Graysonslumped against a pillar, a hand pressed to the gushing wound in his claviclearea.

“I won’t touch you,” Jason grunts at him, tossing down hisguns. “Just let me go make sure this idiot isn’t dying.”

“You think I give a shit about your friend dying, man? Youjust killed my brothers!”

Jason glowers at the little shit and looks down at the twocorpses he just made.

“Listen, I get it. ‘Desperate times call for desperatemeasures’. But these hostages? Children? Really,dude?”

“Just… don’t…fucking move.”

Fucker C’s voice cracks and Jason sighs, trying to gaugejust how young he could be. Seventeen, eighteen… poor kid. Maybe he was evenforced into doing this by his brothers, told to stay put in the back with thebomb trigger in case worst came to worst. And now they’re lying on the floormotionless, and it appears that worst has indeed come to worst.

Jason holds up his hands, palms forward.

“Listen, what would you rather? Me walking ten steps in thatdirection to help him stop bleeding, or all of us dying? Because let me tell you, buddy… getting blown upis not an ideal way to go.” Not that I’d know any other ways, butgetting blown up wasn’t exactly pleasant. Or painless. Or quiet.

Fucker C seems to contemplate his offer, falling intosilence and staring over at where Dick is starting to slump forward. He shrugs;a quick, twitchy movement of his shoulder.

“Fine. But put all your weapons on the floor. Now.”

“Already did, kid.”

“All of them.”

Smartass. Jasonpulls the taser out of his jacket and the blade out of its ankle strap andtosses them both on the ground before putting his hands back in the air andmaking his way over to Dick, slowly. The last few steps turn into a sprint ashe slides down beside him, gritting his teeth.

“Dammit, Grayson,” he snarls quietly. “Why couldn’t you havejust left this one for me?”

Dick’s eyes shoot up to look at him like two blue flares,slightly hooded and out of focus.

“Didn’t know you were gonna be here,” he grits out. “But Iwould’ve still come if I did…”

Jason sees Dick look past him at the two bodies on theground and rolls his eyes. Typical Grayson, trying to claim the moral highground even in a situation like this.

“Whatever.” Jason pulls Dick’s hand away from the entrywound and presses his own hands down to it in an attempt to stop the bleeding,but the blood gushes out through his fingers in a slow trickle down over hisfingerless gloves and down his wrists. He shutters thinking about having toscrub it off later, regardless of the outcome. He quickly calculates thatDick’s probably lost about two pints of blood so far, which explains whybeneath his fingers Dick starts to shiver violently, probably slipping intoshock. “Hey,” Jason chides, shaking his shoulder a bit. “Keep your eyes open,Nightwing.”

Dick does as he’s told, but his eyes are glossy and distant,staring upwards past him like something – maybe his life, maybe not – isflashing before his eyes. They seem to be moving in a sweeping motion up anddown, and Jason wonders briefly if he’s having a blood loss-induced vision ofthe night his parents died, something he only knows the vague details of.

Soon, maybe in three, five minutes, Dick will faint, andsoon after that he’ll be dead, leaving Jason with very few options except toact quickly and hazardously. He swears and pats Dick down, trying to find anyof Bruce’s fancy tech that could ignite a flame. He comes up short, cursingDick for having decided to run light tonight.

It’s a huge gamble, but he figures he could out-wit the kidwith the bomb. The only problem is the hostage. He’ll have to be fast enough,take out the kid efficiently without the girl with long black hair gettingcaught in the crossfire. She doesn’t even look twelve. Then again, the kiddoesn’t even look eighteen. If there’s an option to put him down withoutkilling him, Jason would take it without question. He often saw them – young,ignorant juveniles with fear in their eyes – and thought of himself beforeBruce had plucked him off the streets only to put him back out onto them as aweapon.

He needs a gun, though. One of his automatic hand guns, sohe could fire a few rounds into the ceiling and get the barrel hot enough toclose the wound. He’s never done it before… but in theory, it should work. Shockingly,this isn’t something learned from the League of Shadows, but rather the Bathimself. Bruce had taught him a lot of fucked up ways to save a life; ways toclose a wound, ways to get a heart up and started again, ways to reverse theeffects of arsenic poisoning. All things cute little boy wonder Jason hadlistened to eagerly while hoping never to use.

“This might not end well,” Jason mutters to him beforestanding again and slowly turning toward the kid.

“Listen.” He takes a step forward, eyeing his guns layingstrewn on the clean tile. “We need to work something out here. Why don’t youjust give this up and walk out of that door, alive, with your hands up? Thepigs will treat you much better than I will, or whatever bomb you’ve riggedback there. You have a choice, right now, to live. Are you gonna take it?”

Silence. The kid looks like he wants to collapse and cry,his eyes scrunched up and wet. Jason takes another small step forward, one thatputs his toe right up against the butt of one of his guns. The kid flincheshugely and lets go of the girl, pointing his gun at Jason.

“Don’t FUCKING move!” he screams. Jason puts his hands backup in the air, watching as the girl scrambles to safety over to her parents,who envelop her in their arms and sob.

“I’m not. Relax.”

“Move and this place goes sky-high.”

“I’m not moving,kid. Breathe. Set down the trigger, and the gun, and walk away. It’s thatsimple.”

He hopes that behind him, Dick’s still conscious and eatingall this mercy shit up.

But then that just reminds him of Dick. Dick’s dying, anymoment now. He doesn’t have time forthis.

He gives the kid five seconds to make up his mind. Five. He considers it generous.

After quietly counting in his head, Jason moves. He lurchesforward, tipping the gun up with his foot to get a good handle of it and surgesforward, aiming for his head.

In the same second that he squeezes the trigger, the kidsqueezes the button. Jason sees it, the smallest of movements, and he canalmost feel whatever’s in the vault cometo life. When the kid falls, dead, Jason stays perfectly still, waiting for theexplosion, waiting for the all-too-similar searing pain of fire tearing throughflesh and bone, tossing him through the air like he weighs nothing. The fear hewas holding back, pressing below his diaphragm for Dick, rushes up in a floodand makes him dizzy, makes his vision swim. His helmet suddenly feels like it’ssqueezing, closing in on him, and everything’s too hot and too close.

He falls to his knees, dropping his gun to clutch at hishelmet and scream, his throat closing and his heart pounding so hard it feelslike it might burst out of his ribcage to wreak havoc on his other organs. Fora fraction of a second he’s thereagain, bleeding out, watching the electric glow of the timer numbers as theyburn his retinas. But then, there was peace. He accepted it, he let it happen. Thereisn’t peace now. No, now he knows what it feels like to have every bone in yourbody broken, all of your skin charred and peeling off the muscle. He knows whatit’s like to die, to know you’redying, to feel it happen…

Not again. Not fuckingagain.

But the pain never comes. Jason glances up, glances at allthe hostages staring at him, waiting for some kind of cue.

It makes no sense. Werethey lying? No, he wouldn’t have bothered to press the button. And Jason heard it, the hum of circuits coming tolife. He felt the way the air stills before it gets assaulted with energy andfire.

It dawns on him then that they’re likely hanging in adelicate balance of the bomb having been triggered but not detonated. It’s afluke, a glitch, and it could go off at anyminute.

The panic comes back, but this time it has determination tofight with.

Any movement, any vibration of the floor, could detonate theexplosives. The bomb’s both lit and unlit. He’s sitting right the fuck insideof Schrödinger’s Bank.

“No one move,” he says after he’s sure his voice will work. It’s hoarse, and he still feels like he’sfighting his own throat to stay open, but it comes out in a serious enough tonethat the group of hostages, who were starting to get restless to find a way tothe exit, stop dead in their tracks. “The bomb didn’t go off, but that doesn’tmean it won’t.” His mind is swimming. All he wants to do is get the fuck out of there, get Dick the fuck out of there, but he’sstill Batman’s son, no matter how hard he tries not to be. To be better.

He looks back at Dick to find him still awake, watching himwith bleary eyes. There’s some sort of sealed sticker over his wound –something Jason assumes is one of Bruce’s gadgets – and it seems to be haltingthe bleeding. He must’ve gotten Babs on the comm to ask what to do. She alwaysknows what to do.

With Dick stable, he has to find a way to get everyone elseout alive.

“We have a better chance of survival if we go out in pairs.Two bye two, children first. Crawlcarefully toward the exit, on your knees and forearms, sliding. Tell the copswhat’s happening, see if they can get the bomb squad here as fast as they can.”He’s shocked at how calm he sounds compared to what he’s feeling, the way hismind’s reeling and his body feels like it’s shutting down from panic.

He watches as they organize themselves, sending out the girlwith long black hair and a kid that looks like her little brother, obviouslythe youngest in the group. They carefully slide along, but their shufflingbecomes a bit frantic.

“Slower,” he tells them, gesturing to them with his palmdown, “gently.  Like you’re on ice.”

They follow his instructions, sliding gingerly across thetile. Jason thanks the stars that it isn’t hardwood. Eventually, they breakthrough the front door slowly. Against the flood of headlines and neon red andblue, he makes out the outline of three cops rushing forward to collect them.

Two down, nine to go.

“Nightwing,” Jason calls behind him without turning hishead, “how’re you doing?”

“I’m fine, Hood,” is Dick’s reply. “A bit woozy, but I’mfine.” He pauses, drawing in a wheezy breath that makes Jason nervous again.“So do you think it’s gonna blow?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Seriously.”

“I don’t know. I mean, I doknow. It’ll go off unless it’s diffused. Which I’m sure I can do, but it’svolatile. Any vibration, any movement, hell, a light breeze could set that thing off. When I set foot in there I need toknow everyone’s out. Including you.”

He glances back again, Dick looking at him with some kind ofshadow over his eyes, his lips pressed into a hard line.

“Jay- Hood. Youneed to get out of this too. There’s no sacrificing yourself this time, okay?You’re not getting blown up again. I won’t allow it. B won’t allow it.”

Jason shutters but lets out a small bark of laughter.

“Shut up. You’re down, I’m fine, I’m going to figure thisout. I’d rather not get blown up again either.”

“I’d have liked not to have gotten shot again, but sometimesthings don’t work out the way we want them to. You get out after them, I’llstay and try and diffuse the bomb.”

“I should shoot you again for even suggesting that,” Jasonall but snarls, feeling his fists clench up by his sides.

     He turns his attention back to the hostages, now in theirfinal stages of escape. A middle-aged woman helps an elderly man shuffle hisway across the floor on his stomach. And then, and then, they’re out. And then it’s just Dick, him, and the bodies hemade.

“Go,” Dick urges and Jason turns on him, risking themovement, just to glare venomously.

God, Jason thinks,why does he have to be such a martyr?Jason’s over the sacrifice bullshit. If it meant saving Dick’s life, fine. Butjust because he isn’t afraid of death anymore doesn’t mean he isn’t afraid of dying, no matter how much he’d like todeny or deflect. He realizes then that no, this bomb’s not worth diffusing. Thebomb’s not worth his life. He grins.

“Shut the fuck up,Grayson. You’re gonna live another day to listen to that stupid fucking pop music you love so much, eata thousand pieces of pizza and never gain a goddamn pound, and make Bats so, so proud. And I’m gonna live another dayto torment you for all of it.”

The corner of Dick’s lip quirks as he lifts his head, hiseyes so tired but brimming with somerenewed sense of hope.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here.” Jason slides carefullydown to his stomach, slithering across the tile slowly. Dick lets out a weaklaugh.

“How are you gonna get me out, then? Am I gonna ride on yourback like a giant snake with a saddle or something?”

“Where the hell do you think of these things, Grayson?”Jason can’t help but laugh as well. “You’re gonna lay down on top of me andwe’re both gonna slither out of her like a fucking snake, okay?”

Dick looks down at him dubiously when he reaches him, butJason simply gives him a wicked smile.

“Climb aboard, circus boy.”

Dick snorts.

“I’m so never gonna let you live this down, Jaybird.”

The nickname warms Jason from somewhere inside of him hedidn’t know existed anymore. Dick whimpers a bit as he bends over, his bodypressing down into Jason’s back. He starts sliding.

Then he hears it: the tinny, obnoxious beeping of a timerset to go off from somewhere behind them. The glitch fixed itself.

No.

He dumps Dick off of him, who rolls to the ground with asurprised oof and a wince, beforestanding and lifting him, sprinting as fast as his legs will take them withtheir combined weight bearing down. And damn,Dick is lean as hell but he’s all muscle. It’s like carrying the concretelikeness of a normal person, but allhe concentrates on his his feet hitting the tiles at a decent pace, carryingthem forward.

They make it to the door, and for a beat Jason smells thefresh air and hears the screeching sirens and the cops yelling at them before awave of hot air and fire propels them forward violently, and Jason has a momentto think about how he might have made it out on the right side of the explosionthis time before everything goes black.

  **

 “Drake, I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but staringintently at him will not wake him up.”

“Shut up, Damian. I’m trying to detect eye movement. Ithought I saw his eyes twitching, meaning he’s entering REM sleep, meaning heshould be awake soon.”

“Whatever.  I am goingto go make sure Grayson’s not in an indecent amount of pain.”

Jason feels the bed shift from under him, meaning thatlittle shit was sitting on his bed.Unusual behavior, at best. Suspicious behavior at worst. The room falls quietagain.

“Jay,” Tim says softly. “I know you’re awake. Yourbreathing’s changed.”

“You do make it your business to know everything,” Jasonsighs, opening his eyes blearily. He half expects to see the sterile whiteceilings of a hospital, but is instead met with the Green Day poster he oncepinned to his ceiling in his Wayne Manor bedroom. Fuck.

“Twerp.” Jason attempts to sit and winces. Broken ribs. Wonderful.“What the hell am I doing here?”

“Bruce insisted you come here so he and Alfred could lookafter you.”

Jason resists the urge to roll his eyes so hard he snaps hisown neck.

“How’s Dick?”

Tim chuckles.

“Awake, raising hell, trying to do things to the point whereBruce has the physically restrain him… the usual.”