#there is (checks clock) an hour and a half until revolution

[doublearmbars]

fic: i got the handshake (under my tongue)

Hey the max has a crush fic is finally here! read either under the cut or here

Maxwell couldn’t help but smile when fate threw him Wheeler Yuta as soon as he got back.

The slap shook him, but it wasn’t a problem. He has 7 years experience fighting him off and on. He responded in kind and the roar of the crowd made his bones rattle. It’s good to be back. He channeled that energy into his attack, dealing out body blows with a kind of glee that he hadn’t felt in a long time. 

He could handle Wheelsie, Wheeler who would roll over for the bigger dog, who used to enter tiny gymnasiums in what could be charitably described as a cheap cybergoth fetish mask. Maxwell could handle that. Nevermind that he hadn’t scouted and he hadn’t wrestled in months. He could talk circles around him without trying.

It was going to be easy. 

Then Philly happened.

It’s not like Maxwell was unaware of Wheeler’s vicious streak, or the fact that it’s been nurtured by sadomasochistic freaks, but he didn’t think it would make that much of a difference. Wheeler would do his little speech, try and fail to win over a hometown crowd, and then Maxwell would swoop in and do what he does best: get cheap boos.

“I don’t care about your money. I don’t care about your clothes. If you won’t fight me in this ring right now, I will leave you in a pool of blood on Broad Street!”

Wheeler’s voice cracked, not like a rookie trying to sound big, but like his voice couldn’t contain his anger. Maxwell felt his eyes widen. That’s… new. Usually an angry Wheeler is an annoyance and not an actual threat. To him at least.

Then he got thrown over a couch and they had to be separated by security. 

And all that brought him here. 

It isn’t until 20 minutes before the fight that he realizes, to his horror, he’s got a crush. 

He kicks his locker hard enough to hurt. The metal dents under the blow. He kicks it again, and again, until it’s crumpled and the door’s barely functional. It does not make him feel better, just emphasizes the hurtling sensation in his gut, like he’s about to fall over. 

This doesn’t happen to him. This can’t happen to him. Not now. Not with him.

Max presses the heels of his palms to his eyes as if he can squeeze this feeling out of his brain. He knows this is futile, that it's already got roots in his skull, that it’s wrapped around his spine and is a part of him now. Has been. 

And it’s Yuta. He’s always been low level attracted to Yuta, the kind he could pass off as recognizing him as a fellow attractive individual. He was square in the jaw and the shoulders, long limbs and warm brown eyes. Athletic, but in a different way to Max. There was a brief period when he bleached his hair, which most people thought was a bad decision but he had the guts to make it. Yuta barged into his hotel room more than once to show him something bloody or ridiculous, often both. 

It’s not the first time he’s fought someone that he has stupid, uncontrollable feelings for. He hopes (in vain) that it will be the last.

He’s shaken out of his head when someone knocks on his dressing room door. Fuck. Put your face back on Maxwell. Shove all the feelings under the rug. Maybe stomp on them for good measure. Just focus on the walk. 

It’s his cue. He walks down the tunnel as his music hits and soaks in mostly boos, but an isolated cheer or two. The walk to the ring is the easy part. He settles in the corner after soaking in anger. 

Yuta’s stalk to the ring is familiar, even if his music isn’t quite. He starts yelling when he gets to the ropes, but Max can’t hear him over the crowd, and won’t let himself look at Yuta’s lips long enough to read them. Max gestures into the ring, inviting him in. 

The crowd starts chanting for Yuta. Of course they do. Max whips his head around anyway, prey-animal eyes as he stays back in his corner. He opens with a taunt, because of course he does, he can’t let the fear overstay its welcome. 

The whole match Max has to try and compartmentalize. Stop thinking and wrestle. Play the crowd. It’s easier when he can find moments to scramble away, to taunt and invoke ire instead of fighting Yuta. Or when he does fight, pretend it’s not Yuta. 

That compartmentalizing carries him through the first half of the match. He relies on the muscle he’s picked up since the last time he fought Yuta, throwing him around, mentally erasing his face, trying to make him nobody. 

The first crack is when Yuta reverses an Irish whip, using Max’s muscle against him. Then when he goes for the pin, Yuta shifts and the count goes in his favor. The second crack is when Yuta traps him in a waistlock, like he’s going to go for a suplex. Max gets to the ropes and he clings to them while trying not to think about the clasp of Yuta’s hands at his waist. 

Four suplexes later he is dizzy and flat on the canvas. Yuta roars in triumph somewhere above him. Max rolls out of reach for the splash and tries to get some air back in him. It shouldn’t be this hard. What is he doing wrong?

The backbreaker over his knee is a desperate move. When Yuta pauses in the air for a moment before impact, Max almost blurts out an apology. There’s a bit of his brain that is shouting itself hoarse telling him to get mean. 

He listens to his brain. It’s a huge mistake. 

Yuta’s reaction to the slap is immediate. Him, there on his knees, radiating fire, makes Max feel so small, like he’s the one kneeling. When Yuta rises, striking fast, Max panics. 

The sunset flip transforms into a sequence that feels like it goes on forever. The whole sequence it’s as if Yuta is in his head, as they go counter for counter, curling into each other infinitely, like turning and turning until they both go for clotheslines and hit them. 

Max’s concentration shatters. He’s laying there with an ache in his throat from the lariat. He wheezes. His head’s pounding and the count is going. And he staggers to his feet like he’s dying. 

The rest of the match passes in a blur. His muscles are screaming at him, and Yuta is so close and so warm and he knows Max. The fingers digging at his eye sockets, the teeth in his scalp, the nails scraping over his back, Max knows them. Distantly wishes he could know them better. The body beneath his back breathes heavily, squirming and fighting against the wrenching stretch. The loud resonance of canvas being slapped. 

He won. He can breathe now. 

_____________

Hands on his shoulders, wrenching him off the ropes. Yuta points to the crowd cheering for both of them, out of breath, and stretches out his hand. 

“You hear that?” 

Yuta’s breathing hard, his stomach fluttering, sweaty. There’ve been glimpses of this before. But he hasn’t been hit by the full brightness of it. Especially not after a match. The stupid, infatuated part of Max’s brain thinks he looks radiant. 

For a moment the crowd noise falls away and all he hears is Yuta. Like all the other things have emptied from his head. There is no title match awaiting him. There is nothing but him and Yuta and the space between their hands.

“You won, be a man and shake my hand now, okay?” 

Max has to step away, the flip-flop of his stomach, the sudden spin-up of his brain running all the angles, thinking about all the possibilities. 

They’ve been here before. 

Before. Max reaches out his hand to shake before a match, mouth full of a lie about sportsmanship. His intent to gain the upper hand is obvious, whether through a slap or a low blow, but sometimes it’s not even because he wants an advantage; it’s simple disrespect. Yuta doesn’t fall for it again. He catches Max’s foot when he goes for the low blow, or pushes him away by the shoulder. 

Yuta is offering him a hand. A genuine handshake, after he’s won. He wants to. He really does. Tries to smother the urge but it is undeniable. This could be the start of something. Briefly he imagines what it would be like to shake Yuta’s hand. To share that with him. In the back of his mind he wonders how Yuta kisses. If he’d cradle the back of Max’s head the way he likes on the first try.

Then Lee comes barreling across the ring. The noise is deafening again. Everything happens so fast Max can’t even think. His instinctual reaction pushes through, shoving Lee away, yelling orders. He turns and there’s Stokely, offering him a weapon. 

He considers. He replays the match and every match they’ve had before. 

Better to ruin it than to let himself hope. Max has always been great at ruining things. 

He takes the ring.

[fruitcoops]

Ok so what sbout remus/sirius being too sick to go to an away game so the other one has to go alone, and then tons of facetime conversations and "get well soon" videos from the team?

This is related to this fic about Remus and Finn bonding over terrible reporters--hope you enjoy! SW credit goes to @lumosinlove, and the Loops/ Talker bonding is for @lee-1012!

TW for illness

“You don’t look so good.” Remus frowned as he held the inside of his wrist against Sirius’ forehead. “And you definitely have a fever.”

“Non.” Sirius sat up on his elbows with a groan, then almost immediately flopped back down.

“Yes.” He leaned back on his heels and checked the clock—they had two hours before they had to be at the airport. “Baby, I don’t think you should—”

“ ‘m going.”

“It’s not a good—”

“Gotta go. Games.” Sirius cracked one glassy eye open. “Two weeks away. I’ll take the first couple days off.”

Remus sighed through his nose and brushed his sweaty hair out of his eyes. “You shouldn’t go on the plane if you’re sick. Not just for your sake, but for the rest of us. We don’t need everyone to come down with this.”

He received a halfhearted glare in response, but Sirius finally huffed and curled on his side to nuzzle against his thigh. “I’m gonna miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too, baby,” Remus said quietly, bending to kiss his temple. They hadn’t been apart for that long since before he was a player, nearly a year prior. Hell, he had never played a game without Sirius, let alone two weeks’ worth. “Lily will check on you, okay?”

Sirius mumbled an incoherent response and cuddled closer when he began combing his fingers through his hair. The second alarm beeped, loud against the quiet of their bedroom; time to go, he thought ruefully. Sirius touched his knee as he started to stand. “Love you. Be safe.”

“Love you more.”

“Love you most.”

“Go back to sleep,” Remus said as his heart clenched. “I’ll let Coach know what happened, but you’ve got to rest and take care of yourself. Hydrate or die-drate, yeah?”

“Yeah. Love you.”

“Sleep,” he repeated, kissing his forehead once more before hauling himself out of bed and tucking the covers around Sirius’ shoulders. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

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

The clouds were a soft, pastel pink around them as the sun rose—Sirius’ favorite. If his phone was correct, Lily would be there soon to let Hattie out and make sure Sirius wasn’t pushing himself too hard. The thought brought Remus a bit of relief, but not enough to quell his concern.

Talker poked his forearm, snapping him from his reverie. “What’s going on?”

“Just worrying.”

“About Cap?”

Remus waved a hand vaguely. “And Hattie, and Lily, and whether he’s got a cold or something worse. Feels weird being here without him.”

Talker hummed his agreement and offered one of his earbuds. “Want to listen to half of Bohemian Rhapsody with me? It’ll give you five minutes and 55 seconds of relative peace.”

“It’s too quiet,” James groaned just before he pressed ‘play’.

Across the aisle, Remus saw Kasey roll his eyes. “Your husband is sick, dude, not dead. He doesn’t talk to you on planes anyway.”

“It’s the principle of the thing, Bliz.”

“Oh my god,” Kasey muttered under his breath, securing his headphones tightly over his ears.

James let his head flop to the side with a baleful look. “Loops, you’re on my side, right?”

“I’ve got you, buddy,” he assured him. Talker stifled a laugh, and the opening chords began as more clouds rolled past. Remus let himself drift with them, taking deep breaths to soothe his worries; Sirius would be fine. He had the sniffles, or at worst the flu, and he would be join them for the second week in top form. There was nothing to worry about.

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

“He’s got pneumonia,” Lily sighed.

“He what?”

“A mild case, but the doctor said it would take a week of antibiotics and rest before he’s close to a hundred percent. No hockey for about a month, too.”

Remus stared at the wall of his empty hotel room, lost for words. “Well, fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck.”

“Pretty m—absolutely not, go lay down.” There was a rustling noise and two grumbling voices. “Sorry about that.”

“Will you put me on speaker real quick?” Remus asked, pinching the bridge of his nose until he heard a faint click. “Sirius? You there?”

“Yes! I miss you, and I was just going to tell you that it’s really not that—”

“Please sit your ass down. Lily, if he tries to fuck around and find out exactly how nasty pneumonia is, you have full permission to sit on him. I miss you too, love,” he added after a short pause.

“He’s blowing you a kiss,” Lily informed him. “Oh, and he’s giving me the puppy eyes.”

“Resist if you can. Love you both. Give Hattie lots of cuddles from me.”

“We will,” she promised.

The second the call ended, Remus groaned aloud and thumped his head against the wall before padding down the hall. Just my fucking luck. The door swung open after the second knock; Arthur’s face fell. “How bad is it?”

“Mild pneumonia.”

“Fuck.”

“Yep. Doctor said he’d be out for a month.”

Arthur rubbed his eyes and nodded, motioning Remus back towards his own room. “Get some rest, then. I’ll let everyone know in the morning. Any idea how he got it?”

“Not a clue.”

“Thanks for the update, Loops. Sleep tight.”

“I will,” Remus lied as he headed back for a sleepless night between cold sheets.

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

Lily sent updates every few hours; most reported that Sirius was sleeping well and looking better with each passing day, but Remus couldn’t help but feel overwhelmingly guilty. If something happened while he was hundreds of miles away, he would never forgive himself. He had sworn in front of their closest friends and family to be there in sickness and in health—what kind of husband ditches their partner for one of a million roadies?

This one. He stabbed a piece of broccoli and shoved it in his mouth. And then he goes and makes an idiot of himself for the world to see.

The interview was supposed to be easy, but he couldn’t let it roll off anymore. Not when he couldn’t answer their questions even when he wanted to, not when he was states away from the love of his life while he was sick, not when he felt helpless and shoved aside in every current aspect of his life.

“So.” The chair next to him creaked as Talker planted his full weight in it and set his plate decisively on the table.

“What.”

“Oh, pissy Loops. Haven’t seen you in a while. Talked to Cap yet?”

“Yeah.” Another piece of broccoli fell victim to his frustration.

“How’s he sound?”

“Better.”

“Sweet.” Talker continued to munch away on his dinner. “Anyone ever told you that you have the general disposition of a wet cat when you’re upset?”

Remus tried and failed to keep down a smile. “I seem to recall you bringing it up on occasion, yes.”

His dark eyes softened and he bumped their elbows together. “He’ll be okay.”

“I know.”

“Really, Loops. Cap’s going to be just fine. Lily doesn’t sugar-coat this kind of stuff, and he’s a tough guy. Mild pneumonia doesn’t stand a chance. Besides, we’ve only got four days left and we need you to kick some ass out there.”

If Remus was a little more emotionally vulnerable, he would’ve burst into tears. Instead, he settled for leaning his temple against Talker’s with a quiet ‘thanks’ and allowed himself to be pulled into a side hug. Across the dining hall, Finn shot him a thumbs-up and a wink. “Love you, man.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Talker teased. “The internet is already coming to your aid, you know.”

“About…?”

“Not only have those asshole reporters become a new meme, you’ve also got a shit ton of people bringing up past mistreatment of athletes in the press room. You’re the face of a revolution, Loops.”

“I’ve been the face of too many revolutions for one person,” he groused, not even bothering to duck out of the way when Talker ruffled his hair.

“Well, one more won’t kill you.”

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

Remus’ heart raced as he stepped off the plane. The logical part of him knew that Sirius would be waiting outside the security gate, but everything else screamed to see him now, now, right now so he could be sure he was alright. At least he had sounded healthier on the phone the night before—Remus wasn’t sure what he would do otherwise.

“Deep breaths,” James reminded him as they walked toward the baggage claim. “I’m sure he’s—”

An excited shout broke through the thick crowds. Remus’ heart skipped a beat, and then he was running, racing through the people that parted for him as his vision tunneled. His carry-on hit the ground with a low thud that he hardly heard as Sirius lifted him straight off the ground and held him tight.

“I love you,” Remus said immediately, locking his ankles around Sirius’ lower back and squeezing his eyes shut. “Are you okay?”

In lieu of a response, Sirius pulled back and kissed him, cradling one side of his face in his warm, warm hand. Two weeks may as well have been an eternity. He broke away after a moment, searching his face for any signs of illness or pain. “I’m fine,” Sirius said softly, as if he could read his mind. “I promise. A little tired and sore, but there’s no lasting damage.”

“Don’t do that again,” Remus said into the side of his neck as he hugged him close. He smelled like home. “Not when I have to leave.”

Sirius’ arms were steady around his back. “I won’t.”

“I’m going to grill you on everything as soon as we get home.”

“I know.”

“But right now, I’m just going to hug you because I missed you and I worried myself into a hole, like, every night.”

He could feel Sirius’ smile against his shoulder. “I know.”

[kaibutsushidousha]

Cat, Ghost, and Revolution Sunday (Sagrada Reset 1) - Chapter 1: Starting on Sunday (part 2)

[INDEX]

Upon hearing the sound of the opening door, Asai Kei checked the café's clock. 9:55. Exactly 5 minutes before the agreed time.

Kei stood up, looking at the entrance. Haruki also stood up from the seat next to his. A girl with red glasses entered through the door.

She looked around the café with a serious expression and walked toward Kei.

"Hello. Are you Murase?"

She raised her eyebrow a little in response to the question but quickly nodded.

(Her expression is stiff. Not sure if she's wary of us or just nervous. I should soften up my smile.)

"Nice to meet you. My name is Asai Kei. And she is Haruki Misora."

After hearing that, the girl, Murase Youka, tried to smile. Her expression didn't get any less stiff, but at least she managed to lift the corners of her lips. On the other hand, her eyes were glaring intensely from behind the lenses. Kei paused for a second to think about the meaning of her gaze but decided he shouldn't be getting attached to first impressions. He focused on his own smile.

She spoke, intentionally trying to contain her voice.

"Hello. My name is Murase Youka. Tsushima told me a lot about you two."

Tsushima Shintarou was a teacher in Kei's school, Ashiharabashi High School. He was also a member of the Management Bureau. Every school in the city had a teacher like him. Just like how every school has a teacher licensed to operate the infirmary. They need to be prepared since ability-related incidents can happen in schools.

Kei and Haruki went to meet Murase by Tsushima's orders. However, all he told them about her was her name and age. He clearly remembered that she is one year older than them. From that, he could assume she was a high schooler, but he had no idea which school she attended.

Murase whispered fast.

"Sorry, I'm not used to this kind of thing."

Kei responded with a smile.

"Neither we are, honestly."

It's very rare for them to learn about their tasks from anyone other than Tsushima.

"Let's sit down before we talk", said Kei. He had stood up without much thought because he felt it would be in bad taste to greet someone from his chair, but he didn't know when was the best time to sit down again.

The waiter came to take their orders and Murase just uttered the word "coffee". Kei added ice cream to his order.

After the waiter left, Murase spoke in a quiet voice.

"Asai, you're a high schooler, right?"

"Yes. I'm a freshman."

"Why are you working for the Bureau?"

Kei reacted to the question with an ambiguous smile.

"Because I'm part of a club dedicated to helping their operations."

"The Service Club."

"Yes."

The Ashiharabashi High School Service Club. Every school in Sakurada has a Service Club and they are all supervised by the teacher from the Bureau.

The Bureau monitors people with special abilities. Technically, every ability is special, but the Bureau's tight surveillance is dedicated especially to the potentially dangerous abilities.

Joining a Service Club was one way to soften that surveillance, even if not by much. The teacher responsible for it gives them jobs according to their abilities and demands detailed reports of how they handled their missions. By filling a report form, the club members would be exempt from a few necessary steps of the regular management, gaining a certain degree of freedom.

"Not the nicest name, don't you agree?", said Murase.

"What name?"

"Service Club, what else?"

"Oh, of course. I'm quite fond of it, actually."

Kei's answer cut the conversation short. Murase didn't know what to say next. After a while, Kei asked:

"Could you explain what's happening? What do you want us to do?"

"He didn't explain anything?"

Her voice was strong, with small hints of annoyance. "Tsushima didn't tell you anything about my request?", she corrected herself in a much calmer tone.

(She's not very used to talking to strangers, isn't she?)

He had received a very simple explanation about his task.

"He told us we'll search for a lost cat. But that felt a bit off since he should have people better equipped to handle this job."

"He said you two were experts in finding things."

(Only if you lost it recently, I guess.)

"When did your cat disappear?"

"About one week ago."

(That's too late. What a shame, this would have gone without a hitch if you had lost it precisely 3 days ago.)

Murase softly closed her eyes and continued with a dark expression.

"But I'm not exactly looking for the cat. I found it last morning. I found it on a neighboring roadside."

"Then what are we supposed to do?"

"When I found the cat, it was already cold."

(I don't like the way she worded this. "Already cold.")

"Was it a car accident?"

"Yes."

Kei got the gist of his mission. He also understood why Tsushima phrased it as a "search for a cat".

He moved his eyes back to Murase, seeing she was also looking at him. The same glare as always. He noticed her eyes had been like this ever since she sat down. Her overall face changed to express her emotions, but her eyes were fixed, always facing forward. Never lowered, never raised. Those were eyes that could never find a rainbow.

Murase spoke in a firm tone.

"I hired you to revive a dead cat."

That was a very difficult request. As far as Kei could tell, no one in Sakurada had the ability to revive the dead, be it a human or a cat. That said, it's still true that Kei and Haruki were a good pick for this job.

"Got it."

"Can you do it?"

"Revive it? No. But we can undo his its death."

"Really?"

Murase didn't smile. She didn't look relieved. Kei confirmed her pressing glare was still daring him to do it.

Kei answered her question with another question.

"Why do you want to save the cat?"

"I just want my cat back. Is there any problem with that?"

"No, that's a perfectly valid reason."

He never planned to reject Tsushima's request.

He turned to Haruki, who was sitting next to him. She was playing with the black cat keychain attached to her phone, showing no signs of interest in Murase's story. It was always like this. Kei was in charge of all the conversations.

He held back on this urge to sigh. He turned back to Murase and tried his best to look serious.

"Do you have the resolve to kill three days worth of the world for this cat?"

There's no point in asking this question. Kei only did it to feel clever. After all, she would lose her memories of this conversation very soon.

Murase raised her eyebrow.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Today, yesterday, and the day before might be undone to save your cat. Do you have the resolve to force every person in the world to redo the past three days one more time?"

Murase paused to think for a while. The waiter brought the coffee and the ice cream while she did.

After waiting for the waiter to walk away, Murase gave a short answer.

"I do."

Kei ate a spoonful of ice cream.

"Then please tells us about your cat."

She told the cat was originally a street cat, until Murase Youka adopted it about half a year ago. It was a kitten at the time, but it quickly grew up. It was a crossbreed male. Its name was Calico.

Murase had a photo of the cat on her phone. Kei asked for her contact information so she could send him the photo. A soot gray cat with a crooked tail was eating under the shade of a street lamp. The cat didn't look too amiable, but Kei thought that only made it cuter. He died yesterday, ran over by a car in a commercial district. She found its body around 9:15 in front of a bakery.

After giving all the basic information, she thanked them in advance and stood up. She walked away, leaving behind the hot coffee cup she only touched once.

"What are we going to do?", asked Haruki.

Kei answered while trying to get a spoon of his mostly melted ice cream.

"We'll save the cat, of course. It's an official job, and I like cats, too. I can't find any reason to refuse."

If everything went right, the cat would be brought back to life, the girl who only looked forward would be happy, and the Ashiharabashi High Service Club's reputation would improve, potentially leading to a rise in their budget. A Service Club's budget was close to a part-time salary. They could use it for pretty much anything they wanted, as long as they remembered to get a receipt.

Haruki waited for him to finish enjoying his ice cream before she talked.

"But didn't this request feel any strange to you?"

"What part of it was weird?"

"First off, the goal of the mission. The Bureau wouldn't get involved unless the cat was killed by an ability, would they?"

"You're completely right."

The Management Bureau acts exclusively on problems caused by abilities. Things would easily get out of hand if they got involved in every problem that ever happened.

"Second, the request happened too soon after the accident."

"Yeah. I agree."

It was still mid-afternoon of the previous day when Tsushima gave them the order to meet Murase. According to her, the accident happened on the same day's morning. That would mean she contacted the Bureau, got her case approved, and transferred to Tsushima in merely a couple of hours. This was unnaturally fast.

"And considering this, what are we going to do?", Haruki asked again.

"We'll save the cat, of course.", Kei answered again. He didn't repeat his reasons why.

(This might not be an official job. It's quite possible that Murase simply asked Tsushima for help without even trying to contact the Bureau. If she's a student in Ashiharabashi, it'd make sense for her to know Tsushima. It's not like I know the names of every student there. If that was a private request to Tsushima, the inconsistencies Haruki pointed out start making sense. The timing sounds reasonable assuming the Bureau was never involved. Honestly, this whole story has many more curious points to it. That said, no one can know everything about something before trying it. Besides, I really like this job. "Save a cat's life". Really nice stuff there.)

Haruki gave a quick nod. It was a movement without emotion. And then, she said:

"Then, let's go to the festival tonight."

Suddenly changing topics used to be one of Kei's bad habits, but now it fully belongs to Haruki.

"What festival?"

(It is festival season, now that I think about it. We have festivals almost all over July, and then summer vacations start. That's how summer goes in Sakurada.)

"Sure. I'm free tonight, I think."

(That should be all for today, regarding this job. The complicated day will be yesterday, when the cat will die.)

Haruki had an innocent smile.

"Then let's hurry and save the cat."

"No, we need information first."

(The time limit is last morning. The cat will already have suffered the accident by 9:15. From my point of view, this moment will come in two days from today. I want to find him before that happens.)

Haruki tilted her head.

"We're asking Sakuin?"

"No, let's go with Unknown Caller today. The case might blow out of proportion if we rely on Sakuin."

After swallowing the last bit of ice cream, Kei stood up.

[imaginesmai]

Peter Parker-Beautiful

Plot: study break is better if Peter is with you.

He didn’t have to look at you to know you were beautiful, he thought.

Peter took a deep breath, eyes shutting as he felt the body next to him cuddle close, the history notebook gently thudding to the floor. He was cold, too cold to fall asleep or to focus on the notes in front of him, but he didn’t, couldn’t ask for the sweater back. Besides him, as if you had read his thoughts, you pulled his hoodie, the one he had stolen from Tony so long ago that was then him, closer to your frame, settling into it. You had given up on studying for the exam everyone was worried about an hour ago, when Peter noticed you were muttering more of your words than not, eyes drooping shut as you attempted to read. He turned onto his side, smiling to himself at the sight; sometimes, it was hard to believe he was so lucky.

Your eyes were closed, some strands of hair resting on your face as you slept soundly on his bed. Soft lips parted slightly and Peter hummed softly, his eyes looking at and you and checking you were asleep. You had a gentle glow, skin smooth and he hesitated, leaning close to press a barely-there kiss to your cheekbone.

He didn’t expected you to wake up.

His face reddened and he quickly flopped onto his back, already muttering something about the exam. Staring straight up at his ceiling, he could feel your eyes on the side of his face.

“Were you waiting for me to wake up?” your voice was rough with sleep, lacking the teasing tone you used when you caught him doing something weird. You let out a small laugh when Peter stuttered, as you stretched.

“I wasn’t staring” Peter denied, although you hadn’t asked if he had been doing that. “I just – I thought you looked pretty. But, uh, you’re always pretty. Not just today”

“And you’re cute, Pete” you leaned over his legs, and pecked his check, that turned even redder. “How long was I out for?”

“Twenty minutes?” he glanced at the clock on his desk, and smirked. “Well, three times twenty minutes”

“An hour?” you looked at the clock too, sighing. “Shit, I didn’t mean to fall asleep, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologise, you were exhausted” Peter smiled at you, and picked the book from the floor.

Maybe, meeting you to study hadn’t been the best idea, Peter thought. He knew you were busy with the decathlon practice; now that Liz had gone, you were the head of the team and were trying to set everything back in order after the last competition. It wasn’t as if he was always looking at you (he was), but he had noticed how you closed your eyes in lunch while your friends talked and how you almost fell asleep on Chemistry last Monday.

Still, you were there, with him, when you could be in bed resting. He was happy, but guilty as hell.

“Take a break, you need it” he said, pushing his hair off his forehead.

“Exam’s is on Monday” you stated, leaning against him as you pulled your legs up to your chest. “We need to review-“

“We have two days” he wrapped an arm around your shoulders, breath hitching when you cuddled closer to him, one hand resting on his slender waist.

Even if you had been dating for almost three months, it felt strange to him to get to hold you like that. It was not a bad feeling, though, he wasn’t uncomfortable. It felt the good kind of strange, where his stomach would turn into a roller coaster and his head would get dizzy with your smell.

The way his body tensed was strange, too, and you apologised and tried to move away.

“No! No, this-this is nice” he gently pulled you closer. “For the record, you’re… really nice to cuddle”

Peter could feel the tips of his ear burning. You smiled shyly, hiding it by pulling the collar of Peter’s sweatshirt up to hide your mouth.

“Shut up and study”

“What?” Peter laughed softly, leaning back to look at you. “What was that?”

“I said study-“

“No, that thing you did with your mouth” he teased. “Why are you hiding in my sweatshirt?”

“I also said shut up” you crossed your arms over your middle, pulling the sleeves of your -his, whatever- sweatshirt over your hands. Surprisingly, Peter had long arms. “Go back to reading about the French Revolution. Or quiz me”

“Will it make you smile again?”

Peter loved to compliment you. From the way you dressed in the mornings, even if you used the gym’s uniform, to how your cheeks rounded when you smiled. He was all about showering you with compliments and praises. What made you a couple of blushing, stuttering teenagers.

You scoffed at him, trying to make yourself smaller in his sweatshirt and curling around his side.

“You have a nice smile! Why do you have an issue with your smile?”

“Moving on, the Bastille stormed because neither of the sides could reach an agreement, only caring about their motives and goals.”

“Those people got upset that they would never see Y/N’s lovely smile”

He had always been shy, and had cowered away from talking more than two sentences in a row without stuttering. And he wasn’t that good in romantic stuff. At least not until he spent the worst two minutes of his life trying to invite you to the cinema, and started dating you. He assumed dating you did that to him.

“Pete, shut up!” he could hear a laugh in your voice before you groaned, leaning heavily against him almost with the purpose of knocking him over.

“Make me”

Best scenario, he was hoping for a kiss, maybe something more; only if he was really, really sure you were okay with it.

Worst case scenario, you could slap him and throw him out of the bed. He was awfully aware of the way half of his ass was hanging from it, and not even spiderman could avoid embarrassing himself.

What he wasn’t expecting was for your sneaky hands to drop from their place in front of your face, thin fingers wiggling into Peter’s sides. He tried to hold back his giggled pulling his arm from around you to attempt to block your hands.

“Y – Y/N! Wait, wait, come on! This… This isn’t fair!”

“Why? You said to make you shut up, so I am” you shook your hair out of your face, moving to sit on Peter’s thighs to straddle him. Peter let the first giggle out, after you touched a sensitive part. You smirked, he squirmed.

“Sa – ah! – ays the girl who won’t smile – le! Ev – eh! – er!”

Peter arched his back, trying to twist away from your nimble fingers as he laughed and giggled loudly. He jerked when your hands scratched over his stomach, arms coming up to try and cover his skin.

“You talk about my smile a lot, but your laugh is really cute too!”

The overly sweet tone of your voice made Peter laugh harder, kicking his legs out under you; always measuring his force. One of your hands rose to Peter’s neck, gently scratching under his chin and the sides before his shoulders scrunched up and trapped your hand.

He reminded you of a puppy, the way he scrunched his nose and squeezed his eyes. His brown curls were bouncing, making him seem younger.

You took your moment of opportunity and let your other hand wiggle your fingers under his arms, grinning as Peter’s laugher increased, sounding more frantic than before.

“Is this where you’re most ticklish, Pete?”

“Ye – he, ah! – yes!” he choked out, back arching as you cooed at him.

It went on for a while; Peter crying for you to stop, while you laughed with him. The room went from having a peaceful environment to having the floor covered in papers from Peter’s kicks. You wanted him to admit his laugh was cute, and he wanted you to stop before laughing a laugh off.

Neither of you noticed May peeking through the door, face tired from work. She had wanted to invite you over for dinner, but once she heard the laughs and the dorky faces, she smiled and stepped back.

Finally, you stopped and let Peter breathe, pulling your hands away from under his arms, pouting childishly as he held your hands in his.

“I’m not going to tickle you again”

“I just want to hold your hands” Peter panted, shutting his eyes. “Also, you’re smiling again. It’s beautiful.”

He was so tired, he almost didn’t notice your eyes glance down for a split second before meeting his gaze again. Several times.

“Can I kiss you?” you asked softly and sweetly, looking down to Peter’s lips for another second.

“But Y/N” Peter fake pouted, and the corner of his lip turned into a smirk. “The French revolution, the Bastille, when was it stormed? What did it cause?”

“The Bastille was stormed on July 14, 1789. It was a French prison broken into by the lower class estate and parked the beginning of the French revolution. Now, can I kiss you?”

Peter smiled and nodded, his eyes fluttering shut as your soft lips gently met his.

He didn’t have to look at you to know that, still, you looked beautiful.

Want to know more about me? Here is my Masterlist! Feedback is always appreciated!!

Peter Parker/Tom Holland tags:

@delicately-important-trash​ @lexxxistrips​

[charmingnines]

(i kinda wanna be) more than friends - DE artfest day 7/time loop

summary: 

Gavin is stuck living the same day over and over. He doesn't know how to break the cycle. Maybe it has something to do with his feelings for a certain gray-eyed android....

read on ao3 (rest of fic will be posted on here not tumblr!)

or read it below vvv

Gavin had a habit of hitting the snooze button on his alarm clock. But could he be blamed? It was Monday. Insomnia was a bitch, Gavin was late, what else was new? He threw on some clothes and rushed off to work.  

Gavin paused outside of the DPD to catch his breath. Then, he walked in casually, like he wasn’t half an hour late, making a beeline for the break room. “Hey, T,” Gavin said.

Tina nodded at Gavin. “O late one,” she said, buttering her bagel.  

Gavin flipped Tina the bird and Tina rolled her eyes, their version of a friendly greeting. Gavin pulled out the pot of coffee from the machine, swearing when he realized it was empty.

Tina clicked her tongue. “Maybe if you were here earlier….”

Gavin returned the pot to the machine, using a little too much force. He shrugged. “Guess I’ll die.”

Tina hummed. “I think your funeral will have to wait,” she said, inclining her heads towards the bullpen.

Nines was sitting at his desk across from Gavin’s; not unusual. What was unusual was the steaming mug of coffee sitting on Gavin’s desk.

Gavin looked at Tina questioningly. “Did you…?”

“You know I’m not that nice,” Tina said. Then, smiling deviously, “Guess Nines thought of you.” Tina left the break room, leaving Gavin to digest that information. Gavin stalled in the break room for a few moments before walking to his desk.

“You’re late,” Nines said, as Gavin sat down, not even looking up from his terminal.

“Good morning to you, too. Is this for me?” Gavin asked, pointing at the coffee.

Nines looked up. “I can’t drink coffee.”

“Is that a yes?”

Nines’ LED flickered yellow. “Yes,” he finally said.

Gavin studied the mug. “Did you…poison it?”

Nines rolled his eyes. “You can’t function without caffeine and I need you at your optimal performance today.”

Gavin took a sip of the coffee, ignoring Nines’ jabs. It was surprisingly good for precinct coffee. Gavin wondered when Nines had cataloged how he took his coffee. Nines always acted so above it all, but he really... paid attention. Not just to me, Gavin thought, Nines was crazy detail oriented because he was originally programmed to be a police android.

Detail oriented may as well have been Nines’ middle name (did Nines have a middle name? Did Nines have a last name?). It showed especially in Nines’ appearance. Today, he wore a high collared, navy blue button down and black slacks. His hair, of course, was perfectly styled. Even that one stubborn piece that hung into his face seemed artfully placed….

Stop staring at Nines. He’s pretty. Move on, Gavin told himself. “What’s going on today?” Gavin asked.

“Check out the case Fowler assigned to us this morning,” Nines said.

Gavin pulled the case up on his terminal and started to read. He didn’t get very far; Connor seemed to be trying to teach Anderson a coin trick. Anderson dropped it every time, the coin pinging annoyingly against the ground.

Gavin spun around in his chair. “Hey dickheads, some of us are trying to work.”  

Anderson flung the coin from one hand to the other, dropping it, again. “Didn’t you get here thirty minutes late?” he asked innocently.

Gavin scowled. “Least I’m not fucking around.”

“Quick reflexes are actually a very important skill for field detectives,” Connor said, flashing a grin. Gavin narrowed his eyes. It was difficult to tell when Connor was shooting the shit; he always said everything in such a sincere tone.  

“I think we should check out the house on Mack Ave,” Nines said. Then, lowly, “Unless you’d like to stick around and see Hank hit himself in the eye with that coin. The probability increases each time he fails.”

Gavin barked out a laugh. “Tempting,” he said. “But no. Let’s go.”

_

Nines ran over the case as Gavin drove them to the house.

After Jericho took over Cyberlife, they gained access to all of Cyberlife’s records, including all of the androids who’d ever been sold. It was painstaking work, but Markus had managed to document all the androids who were currently apart of Jericho, as well as all the ones who’d died during the revolution. That left a handful of androids unaccounted for. Connor, Hank, Nines, and Gavin had been working with Jericho for months to try and track the missing androids down.

Apparently, there’d been several noise reports about the house they were going to. As Gavin got a glimpse of it, he realized why it’d been put on their radar. The house was a shithole. It was a structural miracle that it wasn’t falling down just from Gavin closing the car door in its proximity. There was no way a human squatter could live there. The noise reports had to be about an android.  

Gavin grimaced as he and Nines walked inside. There were holes in the roof, allowing weak light to stream throughout the house. There was no furniture and the walls were filthy with grime. The wood floor was warped and rotting from water damage. As Gavin moved through what he assumed would be a living room, he stepped on a weak spot. His foot broke through the floor. Nines caught Gavin underneath the arms, before he could break his ankle.

“Jesus, shit,” Gavin said, shaking the debris off his shoe.

Gavin’s ‘thank you’ died in his mouth when Nines held a finger up to his lips. Nines must have heard something; Gavin knew Nines’ hearing was far more sensitive than his own (when their stakeouts had lulls, Nines would relay the gossip of passing strangers to pass the time). Nines pointed to the hallway that led to a closed bedroom. They both took out their guns and approached the door slowly.  

Gavin led the way. When he opened the bedroom door, several things happened in fast succession. Gavin was spun around and gripped tightly around the shoulders. He struggled until he felt the cold press of a knife against his throat. Nines trained his gun Gavin’s attacker, a difficult thing since Gavin was being used as a human shield.

His attacker was no doubt an android judging by the inhuman, iron grip he had around Gavin. Gavin didn’t dare move anything but his eyes, trying to silently communicate with Nines. Nines’ gaze darted between the android and Gavin, LED spinning yellow.  

“We’re here to help you,” Nines said.

“Put down the gun,” the android demanded. A man, by the sound of his low, staticky voice.

Nines’ aim didn’t waver. “We just want to talk.”  

“I want you to put down the gun,” the man said, pressing the knife harder against Gavin’s throat.

Nines pointed his gun at the ground, but didn’t drop it. “What’s your name?”

“He didn’t give me a name,” the man said. Gavin could feel the man’s hand shaking. “I saw the news. About Markus. All of those androids joining him. My owner-” the man spat- “tried to kill me. I ran away.”  

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Nines said. To the untrained eye, Nines was calm. But Gavin could see the tension at the corners of his mouth, the sadness in his eyes.

“You’re sorry,” the man parroted, voice wavering. “Why should I believe you? You came here with a human.”

“There are humans that are on your side,” Nines said.

The man pressed the knife against Gavin’s throat hard enough to draw blood. “Humans can’t be trusted.”

Nines’ LED turned bright red. “I really am sorry,” he said. Then he shot the man in the shoulder. The man dropped the knife from Gavin’s throat in shock, then jerkily sunk it deep into Gavin’s stomach.  

Gavin fell to the floor. The pain muddled his senses. Vaguely, he registered the sound of the man falling over and shutting down. “Nines,” Gavin murmured. Nines’ worried face appeared above him, telling Gavin to hold on, that the ambulance was on its way. Gavin wanted to reach up and smooth out the crease between Nines’ brows but he couldn’t find the strength. Gavin closed his eyes.

_

Gavin woke up heart pounding, breathing heavily. Instinctively, his hands went to his side where there was… nothing?

Gavin sat up, confused. Had that all been just a really elaborate dream? He realized his alarm, which had woken him up, was still beeping. Gavin turned it off, frowning at the date. It was Monday (hadn’t it just been Monday?). He was going to be late. Gavin shook off his uneasiness and got dressed. He’d have to get coffee at work….

[whiskynottea]

We’ll rise up

Previously  Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13  Chapter 14 Chapter 15

AO3

                                                       ~~~~~~

Chapter 16. A missed rendezvous

Claire glanced at the door, then back at Raymond.

“Don’t worry, Madonna, I’m sure he’s as eager in being here as you are. Something must have kept him behind.” 

She didn’t doubt Jamie wanted to meet her and that made the fact that he wasn’t sitting next to her in the dark apothecary all the more disturbing. Claire’s gaze was fixed on the big wooden clock hanging on the wall behind Raymond’s counter and she kept worrying her bottom lip in a failed attempt to distract her mind from worrying. 

“I will wait for half an hour,” he resolved, murmuring more to herself than to inform Raymond. “If he hasn’t arrived till then, I will send Fergus to find Murtagh at the wineshop.”

The minutes came and passed by, like indolent strollers by the Seine on a spring day. The front door opened and closed, and every time a customer got inside Claire’s heart leapt inside her chest. But none of them was Jamie. 

It was an hour later when Claire started for St Antoine, her quick pace barely matching the volley of thoughts firing inside her head. She found Fergus first thing, and he bolted down the street as soon as he knew where he needed to go. 

He wasn’t away for more than an hour, but to Claire, it seemed like an eternity. Maybe two.

“Milady, milady,” he gasped for breath when he returned home. “Milord…” He placed a hand at his side to relieve the stabbing of a stitch. “He wasn’t… Murtagh wasn’t… A man…”

“Fergus, mon chou, stop.” Claire gave him a smile despite her worry. He kept referring to Jamie as Milord, and it was really sweet, if not a hasty deduction. “Take a breath, collect your thoughts.”

The boy opened his mouth as though to deny the offer, but thought better of it and closed it again. A minute later, with the air in his lungs guaranteeing a normal breathing rate, he spoke again. “Milady, I didn’t find Milord or Murtagh. There was another man there, and I know I shouldn’t talk to him but I was curious and you were waiting for an answer and I thought… I thought it wouldn’t matter if I spoke to somebody else if it was only this one time.”

“And what did this man say?” Claire asked, her concern enough to make her overlook Fergus’s disobedience.

“He said Milord and Murtagh weren’t there, and I better don’t go searching for them.”

Claire didn’t know what to make of this. For some strange reason, she expected that Murtagh would be at the shop and she could get her answers. Now she remained in the dark, with both Jamie and Murtagh missing, and she didn’t know what to do. 

“Fergus, I’m afraid I have to ask for another favour,” she said, still unsure if it was wise to ask such a thing from the boy.

“Anything Milady!” Fergus almost jumped with the need to be useful.

“I want you to go to Jamie’s home tomorrow, early in the morning, before Murtagh leaves for work. If Jamie is there, tell him to write to me and wait for his letter. If he’s not but you find Murtagh, ask him if Jamie is alright, and where has he been. Can you do that for me?”

“Oui, oui, Milady! I can go now, I remember the way!”

Claire smiled and ruffled the boy’s curly hair with affection. “I doubt you’ll find him now. We have to wait until tomorrow. Maybe Murtagh and Jamie had to tend to certain issues…” Claire trailed off, thinking of Jamie’s insistence on procuring information regarding Frank Randall.

What if somebody found out and let Frank know? The Scot was a man with a purpose, and a stubborn one to boot. If only he gave up on that. Frank’s servant hadn’t shown up at St Antoine after Claire’s return, as though the single note he’d left was everything he meant to say. 

Be careful.

She hadn’t expected a message like that and she didn’t know what to make of it, but she was sure it wasn’t the threat Jamie read into it. Claire had pondered multiple times on the message and replayed the incident at the park close to Notre Dame in her mind. This was the last time she’d met Randall and he wanted to talk to her. What did he want to say? And why had he insisted so much?

Jamie had defended her back then but Randall couldn’t possibly know about her relationship with him. Thoughts were feeding on her hope like moths in old furniture. What if Frank was behind Jamie’s absence?   

She surveyed her replenished medicine supplies, as though a full kit would somehow heal the dull ache in her heart. With Fergus out to play with his friends, Claire started brewing a chamomile and peppermint tea for Louise’s sore throat. It had been days with her cough not improving a bit, and she often complained of headaches. 

Claire had already boiled the water when three heavy knocks on her wooden door reverberated in the silent room. She patted her dress absentmindedly and prepared herself for the worst.

What that worst could be, she didn’t know. The world was giving her so many options to choose from, these days. Wounds from fights, from accidents, festered ones that nobody had tended to for days, fresh ones still oozing blood.

What she hadn’t expected was to see Murtagh outside her door, alive and well albeit with dishevelled hair and a sheen of sweat covering his brow.

“What happened?” The words were out of her mouth before she could control herself. “Come in,” she invited hastily, stepping at the side to free the way. 

The man gave an indiscernible sound and joined her inside the room. “Claire,” he started, the ‘r’ of her name rolling on his tongue in an achingly familiar way. “I need ye to be calm and not overreact about what ye’re going to hear.” 

“Well, this introduction surely doesn’t help,” she commented with a frown.

The corner of Murtagh’s mouth curled up at her retort, but his face soon became sombre again. 

“Jamie didn’t come at the apothecary today. We had a rendezvous and he missed it,” Claire prompted him.

“Aye, I ken. And a good reason he had,” Murtagh murmured. “Look, Claire. Jamie never showed at the wineshop yesterday morning, as he was supposed to. He hadn’t come back home the night before, either.”

“Why? Where is he?” she interrupted again but her voice was no more than a whisper. 

“As I said, we lost track of him two days ago. He passed by the wineshop but Jared didna need him to stay. He looked fine, Jared said, and was supposed to come home, but he never did. I found out the morning after, foul that I am. He’d just gone to meet Annalise and it never occurred to me to checked that he’d returned.

“Murtagh, you couldn’t possibly know…”

“But I should, shouldna I? In any case, I did few things the past two days apart from searching for him, lass. I found him a few hours ago. They,” he hesitated, running a hand over his brow to wipe off a nervous drop of sweat. “They got him, Claire. He’s been held at La Force Prison.”

Claire was pretty sure that the earth kept spinning around itself and continued its well-timed rotation around the sun, that people kept going on with their everyday chores, that children kept laughing, and babes kept crying as they searched for their mothers’ breasts. Still, the world seemed to stop for her; a pause in life, an interminable empty moment that gradually got filled with the echo of Murtagh’s announcement and a stabbing pain in her chest. 

She knew what being imprisoned meant. There was no court, no order or procedure ensuring a hearing for the captives. There was no chance for them to prove their innocence, to claim a truth as their own or fake a lie and hope their deliverance was masterful enough to secure them a chance in life. 

Revolution demanded heads with no form or ceremonies. It craved for flesh like a vulture circling the dead. Cruel and forceful, justice was tainted blood-red and had a metallic taste that seemed to linger in your nostrils no matter how hard you breathed in clean air after leaving the scene.

Captives got executed. As simple as it was unrelenting. Sometimes it was a straightforward decapitation. Others, a disgraceful hanging. But at the worst of times, a public execution asked for the breaking wheel, and with the breaking of the bones came the most inhumane cheers from the crowd that turned into a mob ignorant of the fact that it could be them instead of the condemned ones – that it could still be them, the next day or the day after that.

No one was safe. Jamie hadn’t come at the apothecary because he was held in prison.

His public walks with Annalise. His house close to Champs-Élysées. Working in a prosperous wineshop. His refusal to kill the little boy at the Comte’s manor house.  

Jamie was going to die.

They would kill him without batting an eyelash because Jamie was not a person anymore. He represented everything they hated and they would make an example out of him. 

Jamie wouldn’t look at her with that lopsided smile of his again. He wouldn’t laugh again, or kiss her, or hold her in his arms. No one would whisper in her curls or call her Sassenach with such tenderness and love. She would lose him because this was the Revolution and it was as unfair as just. Because this was men’s excuse for cruelty. 

“Lass? Lass?” Claire’s unfocused eyes found Murtagh’s again and she regretfully realized that he was as lost as she. 

“What are we going to do?” she asked, wishing the man to give her a plan, to help her out of that deadlock and force her to act. “We need to do something, quick. I can’t lose him, I can’t.”

“I tried to see him, but they didna let me. Maybe if you go…”

She grabbed his hand and walked to the door but Murtagh planted his heels on the floor, jolting her back. 

“What?” she demanded, impatient and irritated.

“If they see you there, wanting to visit him, you risk being tracked down here as a collaborator.”

“People trust me here,” Claire replied, setting her jaw. 

“And we thought they trusted Jamie, but look where he is now. I won’t risk ye getting hurt, lass. He wouldna forgive me that.”

“Won’t,” she corrected him, and when she noticed his confused face, explained herself. “He won’t forgive you. He’s not dead and he’s not going to die as long as it’s in my power.”

“I dinna ken what’s in our power, but ye’re not coming back here if you visit the lad at La Force.” 

Claire thought about it for a long moment. “No, I’m coming back,” she said at last. “If I won’t, it will be like signing off my own sentence, admitting I’m guilty. I’ll come back and I’ll find a way to get him out.”

Murtagh didn’t seem to agree but had apparently decided not to insist on his objection for the moment. They left the room less than a minute later. Fergus was playing around the corner and ran to Claire the moment he spotted her and Murtagh.

“Milady! Murtagh told me that Milord is fine!”

A quick glance at Murtagh, and Claire tried to seem as unaffected by the news as she could be. “Right,” she said and coughed to clear her throat. “I’m going to meet him now, seeing as he missed our rendezvous.”

“Can I come with you?” the boy pleaded. “Please? I want to see him too.” 

“Next time, mon chou. I need you to… to…”

“Keep an eye open for anything out of place around here,” Murtagh supplied and Claire silently thanked him for his quick thinking. There wasn’t much to keep the boy away apart from his sense of duty.

“If the sun sets and I’m not back, come to Murtagh’s house,” she directed. “Carefully.”

“Oui,” Fergus nodded seriously. “Like a shadow.” He grinned, proud of his skill. “Will you tell Milord I took good care of you?”

Murtagh chuckled despite the graveness of their situation. Claire promised Fergus that she would and ruffled the boy’s riotous curls, so much like her own. With a last stifling hug that would embarrass any boy if it came from a parent but left Fergus only squeezing back, Claire whispered, “À Bientôt, love,” and left the neighbourhood following Murtagh’s steps.

Chapter 17

[thebatnook]

Red-sugar heart

M. Morris Cuevas

It’s 5 am and the world is still. The barest hint of sunrise through my window, growing slowly over the bag of sweets, almost empty, next to my pen holder. My eyes are gritty and the words on the page are a blurred painting of hieroglyphs. I’m supposed to be studying, have been for the past hour, but whatever rush I got from the last dregs of the coffee pot is quickly fading. 

I reach for another sweet, maybe the sugar will keep me awake, a candy heart, that I hold up to the light to examine, anything to not study. It’s rosy pink, and I squint at the inscription. Blue bird. Cute nickname. I throw it in my mouth. Looking back at the textbook. The French Revolution began on the 14th of July, 1789, the day revolutionaries stormed the prison of Bastille. 

I frown at the sentence. Looking back at my notes. Yes, right, already wrote that down. I tap my pen against the paper, crunching down another heart. Some fiddling later, I look back on the text. The French Revolution began-. My head falls onto the table, and I groan in frustration. This is not working. The time reads 5:30. Meh, late enough, my roommates won’t be that annoyed if I crash around in the kitchen, not if it is to prepare the elixir of mortals, coffee. 

Grabbing, the empty coffee mug, slamming the textbook shut. And why not, another candy. 

It’s a orange one this time. With a little extra bump. It’s light enough to read the inscription. Watch out. What? My body freezes, and in the same second, a loud thwack against the window. The coffee cup falls on the floor, an empty crash. And I stare in shocked numbness as  the blue feathers of a bird zip away from the glass. 

My limbs are locked into place, mind blank, until some primal thing kicks in, an zap of electricity, and I am scrambling on the floor to find that candy heart. I find it next to an old shirt, it falls from my fingers too many times as I get the candy under the lamp light. It’s love, it reads, in that slightly red tint. 

I huff in annoyance, I know it is the same one, the tiny bump is still there, but why would it say anything else other than the usual cheesy messages? I leave it there on the desk, picking up the coffee mug, frowning even more at the new chip on the edge. 

A step away from the door, I hesitate, hand still on the doorknob. This has to be in my mind. The lack of sleep caught up to me. The bird was nothing but a coincidence. But what if it’s not. What if the things actually tell the future. What if it is actually magic. 

I spin back, two skipped steps to stand in front of the desk again, looking for the rest of the candies. 

The bag is almost empty, a stripped thing in red and pinks, tearing easily as I spill the rest of the hearts onto the desk. A dozen or so tiny colorful candies, a light tang of sugar around them. 

One by one I read them, heart rate speeding up with each one I look over. Most of them are blank, and the ones with text have the standard phrases. Love me, text me, true love, kiss. Nothing unusual. What luck, I think, bitter taste in my mouth, not everything can be like a dream. 

I sigh, my body sagging, my arms dragging down, as if each weighed a ton. I blink at the candies again, one last search. 

And then is when I see a clump of three, arranged in a straight line, Roommate, awake, fall, they read. Blue, pink, pink. And just as a finish reading the last one there is the shrill beeping of Amanda’s alarm, followed by a muffled thump and the followed string of muttered curses. 

I whip my head back, but the words are gone. It can’t be a coincidence. Right? 

Maybe it’s not in my head. But I must be sure. Another glance at the clock. 5:37. I have to get going, don’t want to be late. 

But I need to know. Which is why the candies that are left are now buried in my pocket, as I pour the coffee grains into the machine. Just as Amanda wanders into the kitchen. 

“Morning Taylor.” she says, the bloom of a new bruise on her elbow. 

“Ouch.” I gesture towards it. 

“Not the worst, I just fell from the bed.” 

I nod along, fingers playing with the candies. The itch to try again like a mosquito in my ear. 

Amanda goes around the kitchen, preparing her breakfast. I just lounge on the single stool, watching as condensation builds up on the coffee pot. 

“Are you having anything?” she says, platting scrambled eggs. 

“In a second.” 

The curiosity is too much.  I wait for her to turn, and take out the candies, scattering them on the counter. 

Orange, blue, pink. Roommate, pan, burn. Sirens go off in my head, whipping my gaze up from the message to see Amanda, just as the still hot pan slips through her hands, right onto her feet. 

“Ah!” The pan clatters to the ground, Amanda hopping back, cursing and wincing. 

“Oh no, no, no.” I rush forward, helping her to the stool. 

“Ice, do we have ice?” she says, teeth still gritted, examining the reddened batch of skin, a half moon indent. 

“Frozen corn.” I pass it to her, my own hands shaking a bit. Glancing at  the candy hearts out of the corner of my eyes, the message long gone. 

Amanda hisses, pressing the bag on the burn. The redness is fading, but the swelling is just beginning. 

“Can you walk?” Guilt crawls over my shoulders. 

“Don’t think so.” she said, with another wince. I had to look away, an uncomfortable feeling growing in my gut. 

“I’ll help you to the infirmary.” I said, moving away abruptly. Head stubbornly turned away from the counter. 

I leave Amanda there, with a newly bandaged foot. One of her friends found us, and promised to help her back. So I was free, backpack over my shoulder, heading to the first class, any hope of studying squandered. How could I. Not knowing that the candies actually worked. The very things I now carried, underneath all the textbooks. I don’t even know why I put them there. 

Morbid curiosity maybe. Or so nobody else could see them. Or maybe I just didn’t want anyone to know this. Nobody would believe me anyway, I told myself, as I slid into my seat in class. Nobody had to know. 

As the day went on the urge to take out the candies became stronger, a burning curiosity. And they were right there, I just needed to reach into my backpack. I stole glances at it more times than I can count, while pretending to take notes. I wasn’t paying attention to the lecturer anyway, words a garbled radio static in the corner of my mind. 

Just a quick check, I repeat to myself, walking away from the classroom. I will only take a minute. I find an empty picnic table, still wet from last night's rain. I don’t care, even if my jeans are soaked through in seconds. My focus is only on the candies, excitement growing like weeds in my head. 

It's just so I know how to react, I mumble, digging up the candies. Letting them fall like pennies onto the tabletop. Eyes scanning wildly for anything, anything at all. 

Yes. I almost jump from the thrill. There, there; in the middle. Undergrad, glass. My face immediately falls, the outside chill catching up to me. Oh no. 

I don’t even have time to look up, when the crash breaks through the building besides me. A guy runs out moments later, clenching his hand. Blood dripping down his forearm. 

Everybody stares at him in stunned silence. My eyes are glued to the tiny dots of red on the sidewalk. 

Slowly, gripping the edge of the table to stop my hands from shaking, I look back at the back at the candies. Innocent and colorful. Confetti against the dark surface. 

Ok, ok. I let out a shaky breath. The words were gone, of course, and the sight of the blank hearts sits wrongly with me, my jaw tight, teeth grinding against each other. As if they were mocking me, there was never anything here, you are making it all up. Just making it all up for what?

I throw them again with more force than necessary, some falling onto the floor and breaking into dust. I ignore them. Eyes glued to the message. Girl, football.

I don’t even look up, only hearing the hit, and the crunch. As the football collided with a girl's face, right against her nose, blood no doubt pooling above her lips. 

The stern voice of a professor cuts through  the mix, footsteps approaching.My heart falls to the ground.  I have to look up, panic building in my limbs. But he wasn’t walking towards me, scolding the people playing instead, voice muffled from the distance. 

I turn back quickly, cursing myself because in that second I looked away, the words had changed. No trace of the previous image. I ball my hands up into fists, suppressing the urge to scream at the things. 

A shaky breath in, then out. I force myself to relax. A fake smile on my face. One more try, and this time I would not look away, no matter what. 

The things stopped rolling, and the new words appearing on the ones closest to me. Creating a tunnel vision on them. But my blood chilled once I read them, eyes rising in horror, seeing the professor crumple to the ground, hand to his chest.

 Professor, heart attack. They said. Gone now. Not that it mattered now. With everyone swarming around the fallen man, the distant swell of sirens shocking me out of my frozen state. 

I scooped up the hearts. These things didn’t predict the future. These things caused disasters. I made them that. Dangerous. Nobody should touch these. Least of all me. 

My hands were shaking as I tried to shove all of them into a paper water cone. People were side eyeing me. Some just stared at me with a knowing grin. 

I didn’t pay them any attention, finally twisting the cone closed, and bumbling my way to the nearest trash can, hesitating for only a moment before throwing the candies in. 

Relief washed over me. Like a fresh morning breeze, each step away lighter than the last. Until something fell out of my pocket. A pink candy heart. Love me, written in dark red ink. 

People walked past me, leaving me in a small insulated pocket. Staring at the heart. Love me. 

Anger burned through the fear, and with a crunch beneath my shoe it was gone. Dust on the damp cement. A breathless laugh escaped my lips, as I walked away. Never buying candy hearts again, I vow, repressing a shudder. Never again.  

(Originally from Instagram @thebatnook)

[crimsonblackrose]

Because Big Bus didn’t open until 9:30am but most museums opened at 9am I decided rather than start my trip off at the Louvre like I had planned I would go to the Palace of Versailles. (This was also done because you can’t just go to the Louvre, you have to make an online reservation, even if you have a Museum Pass.)

Generally from downtown Paris to The Palace of Versailles it would take 1 hour and 2 minutes on the RER C line. However due to the strike this option was not available. So I took a bus to Gare Montparnasse and booked a ticket to Viroflay, only to realize at my transfer in Viroflay that my map had picked the wrong Versailles, at which point I took the bus. It probably took me over 2 hours just to get there. Due to the strikes and the rotation of which lines were running and which weren’t I highly suggest double checking everything on Citymapper. Again I hope everything is resolved by the time this post goes up, but just in case Citymapper gave me multiple routes while Google maps gave me one that I couldn’t use. Oh also, the Paris Pass public transit card didn’t go to Versailles. The Palace of Versailles is in zone 4. Which meant I had to keep buying public transit passes and wasting money when I got lost.

The first thing I did at the Palace was go through security and open my bag and show them what was in it before following people up to the gates and taking pictures. Beyond this was check-in where I scanned and started the 48 hour clock on my museum pass and was told that the palace of Versailles has a free audio guide. I highly suggest getting it if you’re not on a tour. Usually when I’m somewhere I don’t bother with audio guides but if you’ve got the time the audio guide is not only free but informative. And since I was by myself it was really nice to be able to pop into a room, look around while listening and duck to the next room, bypassing large tour groups. I’m sure the tour groups were getting a lot of unique information and any questions they had answered but I was able to get a tour and take pictures and take on the palace of Versailles at my own pace.

The palace was huge. And I was running on a pain aux chocolat, noisette, and a partially crushed croissant I’d bought at a bakery I got in Viroflay to make sure I had enough change for the bus. I stopped for a snack at the Versaille Angelina around 2pm. They had two options a side for snacks and a side for meals. Because I wanted to keep moving I decided to go down the snack route. I got a baguette sandwich and Angelina’s famous chocolat chaud. (A super thick hot chocolate). I will do an individual post on the chain Angelina’s later.

Note that there is not a lot of seating available in the snack section of the Versailles Angelina. If you are a large group and don’t see any available I suggest maybe looking at the menu again and trying the restaurant. When I arrived I was able to grab a seat by myself but in the interval it took me to start my sandwich the place filled up including all the available spaces at my own table.

There were two parts to Versailles that I managed to visit. Pre-Angelina I explored the palace itself. Post-Angelina I explored the gardens.  It took most of the day. If I had gotten their earlier, maybe not, it is possible to make Versailles a half day trip, but to give yourself time and to not stress yourself out because of how immense the grounds and everything is I highly suggest giving yourself a full day. That way if you end early then hooray you have surprise time to do something else. And if you don’t, then you prepared yourself for that.

The Palace of Versailles was home to the French monarchy for about 107 years. It lasted from Louis XIII to the French Revolution. Before, the area of Versailles, was a favored hunting ground of the previous kings, until once upon a time one decided to buy land in the area and build a small lodge. Later, after a barely avoided coup, a king decided to make it into a château. After awhile as kings came and passed Louis the XIV expanded it and hired André Le Nôtre to create the immense gardens.

The palace is symmetrical with one wing belong to the king and the other to the queen. The king’s area, much to my surprise was decked out with Roman gods. I had forgotten that Apollo was one of the few gods to not get a name change when adopted by the Romans and kept getting thrown when the audio guide would jump from saying “this room is designed with paintings of Apollo, while the next room had paintings of Mars” (Greek: Ares).

Louis XIV viewed Apollo as his own personal symbol, believing himself to be similar in many ways to the sun god. Each room was intensely decorated. Even if a lot of the actual decor from the time didn’t survive due to various wars and the revolution. The stunning art that remains though, the intricate sculptures and paintings that line every available part of the ceilings and most of the walls is due to Petite Academie, a collection of artists that the royal painter, Charles Le Brun was in charge of. The sculptures in the gardens and on the fountains are also due to him, which means I have him to thank for laughing for a good ten minutes outside one fountain in the garden.

In 1682 it became the kings primary residence and much later after some various changes and wars in 1783 it became the site of the Paris peace treaties where the U.K. signed that it recognized the United States independence. After the French Revolution and the fall of the monarchy, everything within the palace was either sent to the Louvre or sold at auction. All symbols of the monarchy (the fleur de lis) was removed (i.e. chiseled off the walls) and in 1793 it was opened for tours, while other rooms were used as a small art museum, storage and an art school.

Several French leaders thought about living in Versailles but the cost to repair the palace was generally too great to actually accomplish the goal. The 1830 French Revolution brought about a different idea. Louis-Philippe began in 1833 to change Versailles into a French Museum. He created the Galerie des Batailles (Hall of Battles) which is an immense hallway my audio guide called the Hall of Princess. Each side of the wall is filled with enormous paintings showcasing the important battles of France. It’s like a walk through history occasionally peppered with busts and statues of important people. Since then various governments have used it as a base and the current French government meets there for special occasions. It’s seen lots of treaties signed, from the aforementioned one that granted the United States independence to the treaty of Versailles which ended World War I. Many of these are signed in the stunning hall of mirrors.

The hall of mirrors is filled with beautiful chandeliers with one wall of mirrors that reflect the light and show the gardens in their beautiful glory. But also, if you go, a thing I learned early on in France, is to always look up. The ceilings are absolutely intricate and stunning with paintings and sculptures on every available inch. I have never had such a strong desire to just lay on the floor for awhile. But I figured people would look at me weird or security would yell at me so I didn’t.

After wandering the immense palace I headed out to the garden. The gardens are immense. I went with a goal to make it down to the Apollo fountain and back, which seemed like an easy goal but the large groves of trees which had a spooky air to them in winter was very alluring.

The garden is open earlier than the palace, opening at 8am, so one could technically visit the garden first then go back to the palace which is probably a very smart idea. The first thing you run into when you enter the garden is Parterre d’Eau which are two reflective pools surrounded by little maze like grasses with various statues. Down a set of stairs was my favorite fountain.

It’s called the Latona Fountain. There is no audio guide for the gardens which means you don’t get any of the history or stories for what all of the main sights are. Actually make sure you drop off the audio guide before you leave the buildings because they set off an alarm if you leave the building with it.

I found the Latona Fountain funny because from my angle I could see a bunch of regular looking people with their arms outreached above them and then one super buff frog man also reaching above him. Since I didn’t know any history. I just couldn’t stop laughing at the one buff frog man in a relatively normal fountain. But it turns out it’s based off a story, the Metamorphosis of Ovid. (Not to be confused with Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis) Apparently in this story the peasants of Lycia insulted Latona (Leto) and it angered Jupiter (Zeus) and so he turned them all into frogs. It seems it really depends on the angle in which you look at it. All six humanoid figures are suppose to be mid transformation into frogs. Just the one I saw was much more frog-like then the others and I found it delightful and confusing.

About halfway through the gardens is the Grand Canal. I didn’t make it that far, utterly exhausted by the point I made it to the Chariot of Apollo which is a large fountain right before the Grand Canal.

Among the tree groves there are various other fountains and spots to visit. However due to winter a lot of them were covered and locked up. Which was a pain since they were such a hike from one another.

I really think during other seasons the gardens must be absolutely stunning. But wear proper shoes and prepare for a lot of walking.

By the time I left the gardens I was in need of another break. Within the gardens themselves there are various places to take a break as well as places to buy a snack but I wanted, at that point, to be out of the gardens and on my way out. So I stopped only because it was on the way out, at Ore, which was having tea time.

Originally I thought stopping for high tea sounded wonderful. Though really all I wanted was water. I’d finished off my water bottle early on in the palace and hadn’t found anywhere to refill it or buy a new one.

The high tea being offered was called La Reine Marie’s Tea Time €35. It seemed like it included too much. And I wasn’t really willing to spend €35. I wanted something smaller and found Marie-Antoinette’s delight with a section called Versailles. I assumed, incorrectly that everything under the header for Versailles was a tea set. It was not. Each item below that header was €10. What I should’ve got was a sorbet or ice cream which was €7. But instead I decided to just pick something random and went with the Versailles delight and a green mint tea.

The Versailles delight was flaky with a thick sweet filling that had a slight nutty taste. I would’ve expected it to be mind blowing seeing as I had gotten flaky pastries about 30 minutes away for about €1.50.  But I also was still within the grounds of Versailles which allows people to hike up the prices, and it was a seemingly high class restaurant. (or do all restaurants in France feel high class????)

The pastry really was good. I just am super glad it fell apart so easily and that I was cutting myself small bite size pieces because there was what seemed like a fancy pastry weight in it. Also shortly after digging the pastry weight out and triple checking it wasn’t some fancy prize that I could eat without breaking my teeth I found a hair. Kinda ruined the lavish vibe the restaurant was giving off. That coupled with having to ask multiple times for water, the whole reason I went in in the first place.

There is a lot to Versailles, and I know I didn’t see all of it. I don’t think I even scratched half of the grounds. It’s busiest from April 1st through October 31st. During which time the palace itself is open from Tuesday through Sunday from 9am until 6:30pm and is closed on Mondays. During the off season from November 1st through March 31st the palace is open from 9am to 5:30pm.

The gardens are open every day from 8am to 8:30pm (busy season) and 8am until 6pm (slow/off season). The park, which I don’t think I saw opens at 7am during busy season and also closes at 8:30pm. During slow/off season the park has the same hours as the garden.

Another area I didn’t get to see was the Marie Antoinette Estate and  Palace of Trianon. These, unlike the gardens, but like the main building are closed on Mondays. They also don’t open until much later at noon for both busy and slow times of year. During the busy time they close at 6:30pm. During the slow time of year they close at 5:30pm.

Other things to note is that there is a high chance that they’ll stop letting you in up to an hour before they close so make sure you are there early. It’s so big that I would try to make sure I got there at least several hours before closing.

There are also various fountain shows and performances, depending on the time of year. None were happening though while I visited.

The Palace of Versailles/ Château de Versailles Because Big Bus didn't open until 9:30am but most museums opened at 9am I decided rather than start my trip off at the Louvre like I had planned I would go to the Palace of Versailles.

[detroit-become-dumpster]

class 4 errors

He cursed himself under his breath. Probably this was just some ridiculous fancy social-programming-algorithm-whatchamacallit-thing, just a code designed to manipulate humans into giving Connor (and by extension, Cyberlife) whatever he wanted. Probably it wasn’t real at all. But fuck if Hank wasn’t falling for it anyway. 

(Or, Connor deviates after the revolution. Hank has a hangover. This seems like a great time to reconcile.)

***

The good news was, Connor had failed. 

At least, that’s what it sounded like to Hank--he was pretty sure he’d heard that Markus’ demonstration was successful, and that the president had ordered the withdrawal of the troops, and that Big Official Talks™ would be starting up soon about establishing androids as living beings in their own right. But quite frankly, Hank had drowned so much of the evening in whiskey that he very well could have imagined all of it. He certainly wasn’t paying attention to the nervous chatter filling the bar, definitely wasn’t listening to the radio playing in the taxi, absolutely didn’t switch on his own TV first thing after stumbling into his house and digging up another bottle later that night. (Or maybe it was early the next morning. Hard to tell through the haze. The numbers on the clock wouldn’t stop swimming.) At any rate, if Markus had succeeded, then that could only mean that Connor had not. And that was a good thing, wasn’t it?

(I'll be deactivated, Connor had said, and analyzed to find out why I failed. And he’d looked--shit, he’d looked just like a star pupil who was startled to find a B on his report card instead of an A. He’d just looked like a disappointed kid.

Or a scared kid, maybe.

Fuck. Hank really should have followed him from the roof.)

Grimacing, Hank scrubbed his hand over his face, clenching sandpaper-rough eyes against the late morning sun that threatened to peek at him from behind the blinds. It was too early to be thinking about all of this. It was too early to be thinking, period. Yet despite all his attempts to smother everything, here he was, sprawled on the armchair where he’d passed out, thinking. Stray memories and half-made connections and intrusive nonsense stuck in his brain like a needle in the groove of an old worn record, his thoughts uselessly tripping on the same damn notes over and over again until he could go crazy from it all, the what ifs and the maybes and the if onlys screaming for attention over the click of a loaded barrel and the screech of tires on an icy road and drone-televised footage of massive junkyards, no, graveyards, piled sky-high with the bones of the plastic dead, all of it braiding together inextricably with the beep of a hospital monitor and that too-sweet funeral-parlor-flowers smell and the dull thud of dirt on a coffin and—

(But he hadn’t seen any familiar faces in any of the footage, neither amongst the living nor the dead—was that a good sign, or a very, very bad one?

Hank really, really should have followed him from the roof. Just to make sure.)

Pain hammered in his head along with all of the unwanted thoughts, pushing out waves of nausea with every sluggish pulse. He should just go back to sleep. It might not solve any of the problems hammering away in his brain but at least maybe he could snooze through the worst of what promised to be another nasty hangover. It wasn’t like he had anywhere to be, after all. Definitely didn’t have anything better to do.

(The old pistol hiding in his bedside drawer might have argued otherwise, but in order to find out for sure, Hank would have to go get it, which would require him to get up, which would require moving, which would require effort, and basically, fuck that. The pistol and its sole lonely bullet would still be there whenever he decided to move again. Assuming he did decide to move. Maybe he would be lucky and the couch would magically swallow him whole somehow. Or something. Fuck.)

Hank had just settled perfectly into his well-worn sweet spot in the armchair when the doorbell buzzed. He huffed irritatedly. Probably it was girl scouts or church folks or political canvassers or something; he didn’t know and he didn’t care. He ignored it.

A few moments passed in blissful liquid silence. Then the doorbell buzzed again.

Nose wrinkled in aggravation, Hank threw his arm over his eyes, answering the doorbell with stubborn silence. After a couple more seconds, the doorbell buzzed again, insistently this time.

Hank scowled. “Go away!” he half-yelled, half-slurred, but all that netted him was another goddamn buzz of the doorbell, and fuck, had that noise always vibrated his teeth like this? “Fuck off!” he shouted. 

The doorbell buzzed again, one long, unbroken, god-awful shrieking screech so piercing and shrill Hank was almost tempted to retrieve his pistol just to make the fucking noise stop.

“Jesus Christ,” he snapped, heaving himself off the chair and stomping toward the front door with tightly-balled fists. “Can’t you take a goddamn hint? Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying.” Whiskey-numbed fingers fumbled with the lock before Hank managed to wrestle it open, throwing the door wide so he could give this asshole a piece of his mind. “So why don’t you just--”

He stopped. He saw. He stared.

Connor stood in front of him.

Squinting against the too-bright daylight, feeling the cold from very far away, Hank wondered, briefly, if he could be hallucinating, if maybe those old Disney cartoons were actually onto something whenever their characters stumbled into a bucket of alcohol and saw nothing but pink elephants for hours afterward. That would make more sense than this. It would certainly make more sense than the unwanted feelings welling up at the sight of Connor, the distrust choking his throat and the anger hot in his gut and the guilt tightening his chest and what the hell was all that about? Shouldn’t he be relieved to see this stupid plastic prick standing here, alive and apparently well? Shouldn’t he be happy?

“--fuck off,” he finished with a snarl.

For a split-second he could have sworn he saw a flash of red at Connor’s temple. With a hesitant step forward, Connor opened his mouth, but he must have swallowed whatever he was going to say, because the next thing Hank knew, Connor was stepping back again, nodding. “I understand, Lieutenant,” he said. “I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

Looking for all the world like a puppy that just got kicked, Connor turned to leave. Guilt rose along with Hank’s blood pressure, thundering in his ears. He cursed himself under his breath. Probably this was just some ridiculous fancy social-programming-algorithm-whatchamacallit-thing, just a code designed to manipulate humans into giving Connor (and by extension, Cyberlife) whatever he wanted. Probably it wasn’t real at all. But fuck if Hank wasn’t falling for it anyway.

“So what--that’s it?” he snapped. “You’re just gonna leave? What’d you even bother coming here for?”

Half-turned away, Connor didn’t meet his eyes when he replied--that was a first, Hank realized with a start. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right,” he replied quietly.

“Never been better,” Hank bit back, even as he internally kicked himself.

Once again, Connor opened his mouth to speak, like he might argue, but he didn’t. He just made his way off the porch, and if he didn’t know any better, Hank might have thought his shoulders were slumped, his posture resigned, and was he shivering? That just pissed Hank off even more.

“Why d’you ask?” he called after Connor. “That part of your mission, now?”

Connor froze. “I don’t have a mission anymore, Lieutenant.”

“Good,” replied Hank with as much nastiness as he could muster. Connor turned back to look at him, and if Hank thought he spotted confusion flashing across his face, or maybe hurt. Which was a stupid thing for Hank to think, because Connor clearly didn’t feel anything, because if he did, Hank wouldn’t have caught him on that roof last night, ready to assassinate someone that was just asking, peacefully, for the same basic rights that all sentient beings deserve.

(Except Connor didn’t do it, did he? Hank asked him to stop, and he did. And now here Connor was. Checking on him. Trying to connect with him.

Well, fuck.)

“Because...y’know,” Hank continued grudgingly, despite himself, crossing his arms over his chest. “Your previous mission seemed pretty hellbent on the whole death-and-destruction angle, and all.”

“Yes,” said Connor, softly. “I didn’t see it that way at the time, but—”

“But what? You had some sort of robo-epiphany or something?”

“Something like that, I suppose.”

“You suppose,” echoed Hank, scoffing.

Connor grew very, very quiet. “I really believed I was doing the right thing, until I realized I wasn’t. It was...difficult, coming to terms with that, but it’s the truth.” His mouth twisted in discomfort. “I just wish I’d figured it out sooner.”

He smiled at Hank, a slight thing that didn’t quite reach his eyes--not like one of those unsettling false android smiles, though, all polygonal lines and uncanny-valley-creepiness. No. It was wholly human, and entirely sad.

And there it was again, flooding through Hank like so much radioactive bullshit. Guilt. A metric fuckton of it.

“I wanted to tell you that you were right, and I’m sorry,” Connor told him. “And I wanted to make sure you weren’t--that you didn’t--”

His eyes flickered back toward the house, past the open door, and Hank wondered if he was imagining a body sprawled on the floor, an empty liquor bottle and a decidedly not-empty pistol dropped next to it. He shifted his weight uncomfortably, suddenly very aware of what he probably looked like right now, the bloodshot eyes, the rat’s-nest hair, the alcohol fumes practically exuding from him in little squiggly cartoon waves. And here was the world’s fanciest murderbot, standing on his porch, shivering in the winter cold, checking in with Hank, talking to him as if his feelings mattered, as if Hank was worth any kind of a damn anymore. Didn’t make sense. But then, Hank supposed, feelings often don’t.

He sighed. Fuck, but he was tired. “Look, Connor--”

“I’m sorry, Hank,” Connor blurted out, shaking his head. “I don’t--I don’t know what else to say. I’m not really even sure why I came here. I just felt like I should.” He approached, steps tentative, hands rubbing up and down his arms, like he was trying to stay warm. “I mean, I really did want to make sure you were okay. And it felt like I should apologize--and I know I don’t deserve forgiveness, not from you or anyone else, so I’m not asking for that, but, the thing is, I realized I was on the wrong side, and--I don’t know, I guess I thought I should tell you that I know that now, and I wanted to say thank you, for being patient--well, relatively speaking--well, thank you for being there, anyway, and for stopping me up on the roof, and--”

Hank raised a bemused eyebrow as Connor continued to stammer his way through whatever-the-hell-this-was. He couldn’t imagine Connor ever word-vomiting like this, before. If it really was just some fancy social protocol somehow, it was pretty damn convincing. Or maybe--just maybe--it turned out the kid had deviated after all.

At any rate it loosened something in Hank’s chest, just a little bit. It felt weirdly like relief.

His glance drawn to movement over Connor’s shoulder--just Ms. Ghibbett across the street, squeezing her needle-nose and blinking owl’s-eyes through her living-room-drapes, as if no one could spot her spying--Hank huffed impatiently. It wasn’t as if he particularly cared that the nosy old bat was watching them, but he wasn’t in the mood to give her a show, either. That was absolutely the only reason it occurred to Hank that maybe they should take this indoors; it had nothing to do with the wind biting through his old DPD sweatshirt, or Connor’s increasingly violent shivering.

Hank heaved a heavy sigh. He was getting soft in his old age. Downright sentimental.

“C’mon,” he said, cutting off Connor mid-babble as he grabbed him by the arm, pulling him through the door. “We can do this inside.”

“I don’t want to impose,” Connor replied through chattering teeth, but he didn’t resist.

“Yeah, well, it’s a little late for that, isn’t it?” Hank grumbled. “Besides, it’s cold as balls out here. You’re not gonna let an old man freeze to death, are you?”

“Death by exposure at 39.3 degrees Fahrenheit takes significantly longer than five minutes, Lieutenant. And 53 years is hardly considered elderly, although a midlife crisis isn’t out of the question.”

“On second thought, maybe I’ll let you freeze after all,” said Hank, rolling his eyes as he shut the door behind them.

 ***

 “This isn’t necessary,” Connor insisted, but the sentiment was weak at best; it wasn’t like he had done anything to move from his spot on the couch, after all, nor had he done anything to shrug off the old afghan Hank had tossed over his shoulders, and he certainly hadn’t done anything to discourage a certain St. Bernard from settling in next to him, begging for attention. “I don’t require any external heat sources. I can just temporarily deactivate my temperature sensors.”

Busy with the coffee pot, Hank watched Connor out of the corner of his eye as he idly pet Sumo, his gaze loose and unfocused, distant. When Sumo laid his head in Connor’s lap, though, his focus immediately shifted; glancing down, he reached with both hands to scratch the dog behind the ears, smiling fondly. It was probably the happiest expression Hank had seen on him yet.

He could still feel it, his anger from before, simmering and potent beneath the surface. But something about seeing Connor like this--ah, shit. As much as Hank hated to admit it, it rattled the bones of his deep-buried old paternal instincts, sentiments he’d believed to be long dead. He couldn’t say exhuming such a thing was all that comfortable. At the same time, it was almost a comfort to learn that those instincts weren’t completely dead, after all.

“So why haven’t you, yet?” Hank asked, voice gruff. “Turned off the sensors, I mean.”

The smile vanished like it was never there. “It’s not important.”

“Sure. You know punishing yourself isn’t gonna solve anything, right?”

Connor snapped to attention, staring at him. Leaning against the kitchen counter, hands wrapped around his hot coffee mug, Hank shrugged, ignoring the twinge of nausea that spiked through him. God, he felt like shit. “Take it from someone who knows firsthand,” he said wryly.

Whining at the sudden loss of attention, Sumo snuffled at Connor’s hands. Connor halfheartedly scratched the top of his head, the motion slow, now, reluctant. “You don’t need to worry about me, Lieutenant.”

“Eh, I ain’t worried,” Hank lied. “Just know what it’s like, is all.”

“You shouldn’t be kind to me, either.”

“Think that’s the first time anyone’s ever accused me of being too nice,” Hank chuckled. “Sorry, I guess?”

“And you shouldn’t be apologizing to me. I’m the one who’s supposed to be apologizing to you.”

Uncomfortable, Hank rubbed at the back of his neck. “You already did that.”

“It’s not enough,” Connor insisted, shaking his head. “I was cruel to you, Hank. I tried to use your son against you.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Hank replied flatly. “I was there.”

Connor stared down at his hands, frozen in Sumo’s fur. “I did so much harm,” he said, the words stilted, painful, like he was wrenching them out of himself. “I was a bad partner, I was a bad friend. I hunted my own kind. I hurt people. I hurt people when all they wanted was to be free.” His hands trembled and his LED swirled yellow and suddenly Hank thought of Cole, that time he got in trouble for getting into a scuffle with another preschooler; he remembered picking him up from school, how he told him off, how Cole shrank into himself afterward, flooded with a five-year-old’s deep and heavy sense of shame. The memory and the hurt were still so fresh that they ached. “They just wanted to be free, Hank. They just wanted to be treated like people. Who can argue with that? What kind of person tries to stop that? What kind of monster--?”

“Hey, hey, no need to get dramatic,” said Hank, frowning. “You weren’t a monster. You were just following your program, or your directive, or whatever. Right?”

“It doesn’t matter if I was a monster or a machine. That doesn’t change what I did, or how it affected people. It doesn’t make up for my mistakes and it doesn’t make anyone’s hurt go away.”

“Aw, c’mon, kid--”

“Hundreds of people are dead because of me,” Connor spat out. The light at his temple glowed red now. “Hundreds of my people, dead, because I was stupid enough to--I was just so stupid, Hank.”

“This about the Jericho raid?” Hank asked, eyes narrowed.

Connor fell silent.

“Did you tell anyone besides me that you were headed there?”

“No.”

“Did you tell anyone where it was?”

“No,” Connor repeated, sharply this time.

“All right. So it sounds to me like you went there alone, just looking for Markus, but Perkins and his crew, they tracked you, executed the raid on the freighter without your knowledge or input. Am I right?”

Wordlessly, eyes fixed on the carpet, Connor nodded.

With a grunt, Hank slouched his way over to the living room, easing into his armchair. “Cool. So tell me, you’re basically a hyper-intelligent living computer, right? Google on legs, or whatever?”

Connor blinked. “What has that got to do with anything?”

“Just seems like you’d be smart enough to see that what happened to Jericho isn’t your fault, is all.”

The light at Connor’s temple stuttered yellow. “It is, though. I--”

“I don’t see how it could be. Not like Perkins asked your permission to follow you or use your intel.”

“But that’s just it. I should have known I was being followed,” Connor insisted. “The FBI never would have found Jericho, if it wasn’t for me.”

“Maybe. Or maybe they would’ve, and it just would’ve taken a few extra minutes. Humanity did manage to get some shit figured out before androids came along, believe it or not--”

“For goodness’ sake, Hank, would you please stop?” Connor half-shouted, his voice ringing out in the quiet house. “You shouldn’t be comforting me. You should be angry at me, you should hate me!”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m still plenty angry,” Hank replied calmly. “But, and I hate to break this to you, kid: you don’t get to decide who I hate.”

Connor shook his head. “No, no, your reaction outside was the proper one. You should have turned me away. You should have slammed the door in my face. But now you’re being kind and I don’t understand. It doesn’t make sense--”

“Well, tough shit!” Hank snorted. “You don’t have to understand. All you gotta know is I ain’t interested in hearing you beat yourself up over something that wasn’t really your fault. I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and trust me, it doesn’t help anyone.”

“The situations are hardly comparable, Lieutenant--”

“Fact is, you didn’t want the deviants dead,” Hank continued. “Throughout this whole thing, that was your deal. You said it over and over. I need them alive. Maybe that was just your program talking, so you could take ‘em back to Cyberlife and dissect ‘em, do your analysis, whatever. Or maybe there was some part of you that knew that killing the deviants was wrong, despite what all your algorithms said. Either way, I never saw you opt for violence except as a last resort, not until I found you on that rooftop. And even then,” he went on, as Connor tried to interrupt, “even then, the only reason you were there in the first place was because that’s what you’d been programmed to do. Hell, that’s what you were created for. Yeah? But you broke out of that, Connor. You broke your mold and decided what you wanted to do, who you wanted to be. You planned to harm Markus, sure, but then you ultimately decided not to. You made the decision to go from being a machine to being a person. Isn’t that right?”

“It’s not that simple--”

“Yes, it is,” Hank said, his voice sharp. “It really is that simple, son. Sometimes things are.”

Falling silent, Connor averted his gaze from Hank, watching Sumo instead as he drooled in his lap. His LED blinked yellow again, but he didn’t argue.

“So, yeah. To sum up, you weren’t really interested in hurting folks in the first place, that fucking prick Perkins followed you and acted without your consent, you decided not to hurt Markus despite your orders, and I think it’s safe to assume you’ll keep deciding not to hurt people,” Hank counted off. “I’m not saying you’re perfect, but all you can do is own up to the shit you did, let go of the shit you didn’t. And, y’know, where you can, you try and do what you can to make up for the shit you did do. Right?”

Connor hesitated.

“What?”

“It just seems too easy, to be honest.”

Hank chuckled. “Trust me. It’s anything but.”

Connor nodded. Silence stretched between them as he considered, staring down at his hands nestled in Sumo’s fur, his LED alternating between yellow and blue. Hank sipped at his now-cold coffee and winced. It tasted like jet fuel.

“All right,” Connor said, after a few moments.

“All right...?”

“All right,” Connor repeated, with a tone of finality. “I don’t know if I can trust myself on matters like these. But...I trust you, Lieutenant.”

That thought warmed Hank more than he wanted to admit. “Good,” he said, grinning. “That means you learned something. And next time, you’ll do better.”

“Yes, but…”

Hank arched an expectant eyebrow.

Connor swallowed. “How can I make up for it? How can I ever possibly make it up, to the people I hurt?”

“Hell if I know,” said Hank. “That’s the hard part. Probably you start out by apologizing, then asking them what you can do to help, finding out what they need, giving them space if they ask for it. And then you don’t do the bad thing anymore. I don’t know. That sounds like something healthy people do. All I know is, you drown yourself in regret and despair, you don’t help anybody. Not yourself, not anybody else. You got that?”

“Got it,” Connor replied, nodding.

Then, a few seconds later, hesitant, “...I’m sorry for what I said up on the rooftop, Hank. What can I do to make it up to you?”

Hank glanced over to see Connor looking up at him, a small smile crossing his face. (He thought of Cole again, grinning up him, hope for his father’s approval evident in his bright young eyes. Fuck, that hurt.)

“Well, for starters, you can fix my fucking window,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “And after that, you can cool your jets on the whole brooding-and-wallowing-in-guilt thing. Okay?”

Something loosened in Connor’s posture, and he relaxed a little, his smile deepening. “Okay.”

 ***

 The good news was, Connor did not fail to replace the window.

And the other good news, Hank thought as he watched Connor work, was that even if he did, it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. Inconvenient, sure. Pricey, probably. Drafty, definitely. But failing is something that humans do, something that people do, and more often than not, they’re permitted to pick themselves up off the ground, brush the dust from their jackets, and try again--or maybe they realize that they were trying the wrong thing all along, or maybe they can even try something new. That, Hank decided, was a chance that Connor deserved.

Maybe they both did.

[fandom-collective-writers]

Jonah x Mousse "Take it Off"

Thanks @ikemen-revolution-talk-box for this request! I had fun writing for Jonah and Mousse! ^_^ This nearly had no nsfw. As I was writing, it turned into a fluff scenario, but the smut made it. It slide its way in there for a moment!

Smut under the cut!

Perfectly polished boots squeaked as he strode down the sparkling hallway of the 3rd floor of the Civic Center. The path was cleared for the important army officer, ducking out of his way with bowed heads. A scowl marred his porcelain features. Jonah cradled the documents against his chest with one arm, eyes boring into the chestnut brown door just ahead.

Without so much as a knock, he barged in.

The tenant of the room slept soundly behind the desk, his cheek resting atop a large stack of unfinished paperwork from his all-night working session. The demanding workload had gotten out of hand with both armies delivering important diplomatic letters directly to him.

Jonah nearly hurled the soaked file at the man. A massive storm had rolled in from east, catching him in the middle of Central Quarter without so much as an umbrella. The torrential rains left none of him dry. Still, he firmly shut the door, turning the heavy lock. Should he decide to lecture the diplomat before him, there would be no interruptions.

Just as Jonah intended to smack Mousse awake, he froze mid-motion, amber eyes widening.

The crackling of the fireplace nearly covered up the sound.

A second faint snore, his nose crinkling up and down. He exhaled and it came again. Jonah’s name fell from his lips ever so softly.

Soft enough to melt the anger off his entire body. Conflicted, Jonah disposed of the wet papers on the edge of the desk. What could this lazy man possibly be dreaming of? A frustrated sigh filled the room and Jonah leaned over to get a closer look at Mousse’s sleeping features. No matter how hard he studied, the answer never came.

There was no time to recover.

Jonah stared down into the emerald green eye blinking sleepily at him. Reeling back, he spun on his heel hiding away his flushed cheeks. He raised a hand to his mouth, coughing awkwardly. “I see you’re sleeping on the job again,” Jonah could hardly muster his usual sharp tone.

Mousse groaned, wishing for a few more hours of rest. His chair squeaked as he shifted as upright as possible, shoulders still slumped. “You’re here early…”

“It’s 3 in the afternoon.”

“Oh.” Mousse swung his head up to stare at the clock. The hands blended together. The longer he stared, the less sense it made. He was still tired. “Why were you watching me sleep?” He accused the Queen of Hearts.

Turning his nose up, Jonah couldn’t bring himself to turn around, lest his cheeks still hold a pink tint. “I was not watching. Simply checking if you were still alive with how unseemly you passed out on the desk. For god’s sake, have some self-respect.” This was a workplace.

The chair smacked the wall, Mousse wobbling with one leg asleep. He forced his body to move, leaning heavily on the desk as he moved. Papers slid off, an entire bowl of mints spilled noisily. If it killed him, he was going to smack the judgmental expression off his face.

Mousse put too much pressure on his tingling leg, his balance shifting forward.

The Queen of Hearts narrowly missed catching the sleepy mouse before he hit the edge of the desk. Jonah gave a soft tsk and easily assisted him in standing again. The attempt to pry Mousse off him failed, the man having gone limp.

“Why are you wet?” Mousse complained yet didn’t remove his smooshed cheek from the Queen’s chest. The cool cloth rubbed uncomfortable against his skin. This hadn’t been the soft material he had been seeking as a good pillow. “Take it off.”

Jonah entangled his slender fingers into Mousse’s hair, giving a soft tug. “What are you babbling about?”

“You heard me. Take. It. Off. You’ll catch cold and won’t that be a pain.” Mousse reluctantly pulled away, fumbling at the buttons of the soaked uniform. He blinked to clear his hazy vision.

The jacket slumped against the floor.

Next the pink button up fell somewhere behind the desk.

Jonah grabbed Mousse’s hand tightly when his belt buckle became the next target. “That’s quite unnecessary,” Jonah commanded, batting away each attempt to unclasp it.

“Isn’t this why you locked the door?” Mousse asked, sinking to one knee. Green eyes met the shaking amber ones with a curious gaze. He prodded a finger against the tight fabric of the military pants, earning a sharp glare of warning.

Jonah found himself trapped by the brave mouse. He cursed silently. It had been that soft voice. Whispering his name with such reverence. At a loss for words, he clenched his teeth, eyes locked on the man tugging down the soaked pants. “I locked the door so I could—” His protest hung in his throat.

Mousse slid his tongue across the tip of Jonah’s hard cock, testing how long the Queen could deny the way he was feeling. For him to be so sensitive, it couldn’t have started at this moment. Mousse pondered to himself, it must have been while he’d been sleeping. “So you could?” He mused, tossing a sleepy smirk up at him.

That attitude could have brought Jonah to murder. Gripping the loose locks of hair on the top of his head, Jonah jerked Mousse forward. “Open your mouth and stop talking,” he ordered, desperate to stop the aching he felt.

Jonah wasted no seconds, slipping his cock into the awaiting mouth. “Since you don’t wish to work properly, I’ll put you to good use.”

Mousse dug his fingers into Jonah’s thighs, bobbing his head down and up his length slowly. His soft gagging signaled the limit that he could take in, more than the last time. He reveled in the curses and tightened grip on his hair as signs that his work was pleasurable.

The Queen had already begun to unravel, thrusting his hips forward to his own pace. He held Mousse in place, enjoying immeasurably the sight of his cock sliding down the man’s throat.

Movements became sloppy.

Jonah’s head fell back, eyes closed as pleasure washed over him. His hot cum spilling into Mousse’s mouth. His chest rose and fell with heavy breaths.

Mousse licked up every bit, leaving no trace of the act that had been committed. He flopped down onto his side, scooting just a bit closer to the fire. That was enough work for the day. The shuffling behind him gave away the Queen’s plan. Tilting his head back, Mousse yawned. “Won’t you stay until your clothes have dried?”

A moment of contemplation passed, but Jonah sighed. “I can spare a moment to allow that. It would be quite unseemly to return to headquarters so unkempt.” He said the words, though neither believed them. He settled behind Mousse, propping himself up on his elbow to stare down at him.

Already half-asleep, Mousse couldn’t hold his eyes open. His soft muttering barely audible. “I’ll just dream of you again.”

The proud Queen of Hearts felt a wave of warmth pass over him once again, yet he could hardly feel the heat from the fireplace. Jonah tenderly brushed a strand of Mousse’s hair from his face. “Sleep well, little mouse.”

[jamrockshuffles]

Deviated Paths: Jericho Part 2

Chapter 2: Hank

Previous: 1 

Next: 3

Get ready for some Hank & Connor hurt/comfort. Dad!Hank is best Hank imo.

For the first time in his short existence, Connor had no objective. His life had always been filled with prompts and commands, small guidance to lead him through life and to help him complete his mission. Now, it was just a blank screen. Even his warning signals had gone away. He felt the cold metal of Jericho under his hands and the blinding hot stares of the other androids in the room on his back. Had he deviated? They got what they wanted in the end, there was no way that he could go back to Cyberlife and tell them about Jericho nor was there any way for him to rejoin the police force for the remainder of the deviancy cases.

He was a deviant now, no matter how much he didn’t want to be. Connor turned and looked at the faces of the androids that had done this to him. Without saying anything, he grabbed his beanie off of the floor and tugged it back onto his head, securing it low down to where it covered where his LED should have been. Shakily, he pushed himself up off of the floor, swaying as he stood on his feet. Everything felt off-kilter like somebody had gone in and ripped around in his wires. The others were looking at him expectantly.

Like deviating had somehow changed him in a drastic way. Perhaps it had, because before he was thinking he said, “they’re going to attack Jericho.”

---

Connor used their confusion and panic to slip out the back and away from the ship. He didn’t owe them anything, and he had done his best to warn them of the attack. If they were smart, they would take this time to evacuate and probably destroy the ship. It was safer to relocate somewhere else that didn’t have their name painted on the side like a flashing beacon anyway.

He didn’t know what to do next. Checking the HUD again, and there were still no messages. Cyberlife hadn’t tried to contact him. Granted, they wouldn’t really be able to then but still. Did they know he had gone deviant yet? Amanda or one of the others would have probably tried to message him about his progress by now. Or, they would be doing so shortly. Maybe they thought that he was going to die when the attacks happened…

Was that what they had planned?

All that Connor knew was that he felt a bone-deep tiredness and needed to sleep go into stasis mode. There weren’t many places he could go to do this, but he bet that he could probably go and see the Lieutenant.

Winter as a deviant was a lot harsher than winter as a machine. It was very unpleasant and made Connor’s movements sluggish. Still no objectives, but there was a new warning across his HUD.

「Warning: LOW TEMPERATURES, SEEK WARMTH」

「Warning: LOW POWER, AUTOMATIC STASIS IN 00:03:40:10」

He had around four hours until his body naturally shut down and would force him to go into stasis. How much power had he drained? Checking his status, it showed that he had around a 4% charge. His distress and his processors running rapidly had almost completely depleted his stored energy. What would have happened if he had gone into stasis before telling Markus and the others about the attack? They all surely would have died at that point, and the rebellion would have been finished. Either way, Cyberlife would have won and Connor would have been killed in the process.

It was an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. No matter the circumstances, if he hadn’t deviated and told them about the attack, both himself and the entirety of the android revolution would have been destroyed in one fell swoop. It was a bit surreal. The consequences of his actions were unintentionally saving his life, and the lives of all the other androids on the ship, if they had bothered to evacuate. Who was on the boat exactly? He hadn’t had the time to scan all of the faces. Were they all non-violent, as Markus claimed to be? Is that why he had never heard of them before?

Connor didn’t have time to think about that right now though. He needed to get to the Lieutenant's house unless he wanted to go into unprompted stasis on the cold streets of Detroit. His body would fully shut down if that happened.

---

Connor had the automated taxi drop him off about three blocks from the Lieutenant's. He wanted to make it harder for them to track his movements (though, since he deviated his trackers should be useless). Besides, he had warmed up a bit in the taxi so his biocomponents weren’t at a critical level anymore. He also had about two and a half hours until he went into unprompted stasis.

Connor was trying to think of things to say on the walk over to Lieutenant Anderson’s house. How was he supposed to explain what happened? He would surely have questions for the android. This new emotion, which he cataloged away, made him feel like maybe he should try to find somewhere else to go into stasis. That wasn’t really an option, though, as it was late and he couldn’t risk shutting down outside. He could maybe tell him that he’ll talk to him after he rests for a while? Connor knew that the Lieutenant had a charging station at his house, just in case Connor had to charge. He also understood that he probably wasn’t very fond of having that charging station, since he had a negative view on androids.

The porch light was off when Connor approached the house. It didn’t surprise him though, as his internal clocks read that it was 1:43am. Lieutenant Anderson may not even be awake, so if Connor wakes him up he may be grouchy and not let the android inside. A message popped up, stating that if Connor woke up the Lieutenant that he had about a 64% chance of being let inside, but if he just found the spare key and let himself in, that jumped up to a 93% chance of being able to stay inside for the night. So, Connor scanned the surrounding area calculating where the spare key would be hidden. He didn’t want to just bust through the man’s window again. Connor didn’t think he would enjoy a repeat performance.

A quick scan showed that the key was hidden behind a loose brick on the side of the house. Not as obvious a hiding place as a false rock, but it was easy enough to wriggle out and grab the silver key. Connor put the brick back and put the key in the lock. When he entered the house, he noticed immediately how much warmer it was than the outside. A rush of relief fell over him. He quickly locked the door back and put the key on the kitchen table. Then, he grabbed the charger from the corner, plugged it in, and moved over to the couch to curl up. Sumo ‘boofed’ softly at him, following him onto the couch and curling up in his lap. After plugging in, Connor let himself enter stasis naturally and sagged against the couch.

That was the way that Lieutenant Anderson found him a few hours later. Connor was startled out of stasis when Hank let out a loud shout.

“What the hell Connor? What’re you doing on my couch?” Connor blinked up at him, his systems taking a few seconds to come back online. It showed that he went from 4% charge to around 35% charge, so it was enough to keep him going for a while.

“Oh, hello Lieutenant Anderson. I was running low on charge, so I came by to charge. Sorry if it was a shock to see me, but you were the closest place and my biocomponents were going to be damaged out in the cold.” Hank looked puzzled. He knew that the android usually went to Cyberlife to charge, or stayed at one of the police stations charging ports overnight. Yes, he had bought the charger for Connor to use, but he didn’t think he was in critical enough condition to have to use it.

“I’m not sure how you got into my house, but seeing as there’s no broken glass I guess you used the spare key. You must have been in pretty rough shape to come directly here since the police and Cyberlife have much better chargers than I do.” Connor drew in a sharp breath. He wanted to try to hide his deviancy from the Lieutenant, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to. It would be fairly obvious that he was a deviant, and it’s not like he could hide it forever. Cyberlife would come knocking when they realized that he was still online. Then they would kill and disassemble him to study his deviancy like they had wanted to do to Markus.

“I-I can’t go back to Cyberlife,” Connor stuttered, “I’m not of..use to them anymore.” As a deviant, was he of use to anybody anymore? Emotions and not knowing what to do were really confusing.

“What do you mean you can’t go back? Did you fail your mission or something?” Hank asked, sitting down on the couch next to Connor. He felt like the android was going to want to talk this out, whatever had happened.

“I wasn’t able to capture Markus. He..compromised me. Now, Cyberlife is going to kill me if they get a hold of me.” Connor was trying to stay strong but he felt like he was going to collapse again. His model wasn’t made to handle such intense feelings. They just got in the way of the mission. They served no purpose to him.

“Kill? Connor, I don’t think they’re going to kill you for making a mistake. I mean, you’ve failed a few missions in the past and you’ve been alright.” Hank was concerned. Connor could read that his stress level had gone up by 3% since the last thing that Connor had said. Connor suddenly felt another wave of panic hit him, and he let out a small sob.

“H-hank, they made me deviate.” Hank was shocked. First, Connor had called him Hank to his face, something the Lieutenant had been trying to get him to do for a little while now. Secondly, they ‘forced’ him to deviate? He wasn’t aware that could occur. He knew that androids deviated under intense stress and bad situations, but he had always known it of being of their own free will.

“Connor, it’s okay,” Hank said, putting his arm around the android, pulling him into his side. He used to do this when Cole was upset. “What happened, son?”

At that point, Connor wished he could interface with Hank. It would be so much easier, and Connor wouldn’t have to go through it again. He let out a shuddering breath, before explaining what had happened. From his arrival to Jericho to the pen knife to compromising the mission by telling them about the attack, and ending with him on the couch. He didn’t voice his concerns about Cyberlife planning to kill him from the very beginning, because he didn’t want to think about them right then.

Hank’s face changed from passive to enraged by the end of the story. “That’s total bullshit. I’m going to kill Markus personally, that’s not something that you do to another living being.”

“Lieutenant, please,” Connor said, “I didn’t like it, but he was trying to protect his people. They couldn’t kill me, and they couldn’t just wipe my memory.” Connor wasn’t sure if he would ever trust or like Markus after that, but deep down he did understand that even if it wasn’t fair, he was their enemy at the time. Hank killing Markus wouldn’t do anything to solve his problems.

“He’s still a bastard,” Hank said, “and he better never get near you again or I will end him.” He stroked Connor’s hair. He couldn’t imagine the turmoil that Connor must be going through. He had shown signs of deviancy since they first met: ignoring orders, his coin trick, his excessive amounts of empathy; and Hank may have been trying to nudge Connor in that general direction, but it should have been his own choice, not forced upon him like that. All of that on top of the fact that Cyberlife would probably hunt down Connor now. Hank had to try to keep him safe.

“It’s going to be okay Connor, we’ll figure something out,” Hank reassured him, “I know you said your power was low, what are you at now?”

“I’m at 34% charged,” Connor said.

“Okay, why don’t you go back into stasis for a while until you’re fully charged. Then, we’ll come up with something.” Hank gave Connor a small smile. Connor nodded, laying back down on the couch. Hank brought a quilt for the android, but when he got back Connor was already in stasis. So, Hank tucked the blanket around him and left him there to charge while he came up with a semblance of a solution to their issue.

[mangocheesecakeicecream]

Everyone is familiar with the sorts of jobs whose purpose is difficult to discern: HR consultants, PR researchers, communications coordinators, financial strategists, logistics managers. The list is endless. In 2015, YouGov, a polling agency, asked Britons whether they believed their job made a “meaningful contribution to the world.” More than a third—37 percent—believed it did not. (Only 50 percent said that it did; 13 percent were uncertain.) A more recent poll conducted in the Netherlands found that 40 percent of Dutch workers felt their job had no good reason to exist. Our society values work. We expect a job to serve a purpose and to have a larger meaning. For workers who have internalized this value system, there is little that is more demoralizing than waking up five days a week to perform a task that one believes is a waste of time. It’s not obvious, however, why having a pointless job makes people quite so miserable. After all, a large portion of the workforce is being paid—often very good money—to do nothing. They might consider themselves 
fortunate. Instead, many feel worth-less and depressed. In 1901, the German psychologist Karl Groos discovered that infants express extraordinary happiness when they first discover their ability to cause predictable effects in the world. For example, they might scribble with a pencil by randomly moving their arms and hands. When they realize that they can achieve the same result by retracing the same pattern, they respond with expressions of utter joy. Groos called this “the pleasure at being the cause,” and suggested that it was the basis for play. Before Groos, most Western political philosophers, economists, and social scientists assumed that humans seek power out of either a desire for conquest and domination or a practical need to guarantee physical gratification and reproductive success. Groos’s insight had powerful implications for our understanding of the formation of the self, and of human motivation more generally. Children come to see that they exist as distinct individuals who are separate from the world around them by observing that they can cause something to happen, and happen again. Crucially, the realization brings a delight, the pleasure at being the cause, that is the very foundation of our being. Experiments have shown that if a child is allowed to experience this delight but then is suddenly denied it, he will become enraged, refuse to engage, or even withdraw from the world entirely. The psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Francis Broucek suspected that such traumatic experiences can cause many mental health issues later in life. Groos’s research led him to devise a theory of play as make-believe: Adults invent games and diversions for the same reason that an infant delights in his ability to move a pencil. We wish to exercise our powers as an end in themselves. This, Groos suggested, is what freedom is—the ability to make things up for the sake of being able to do so. The make-believe aspect of the work is precisely what performers of bullshit jobs find the most infuriating. Just about anyone in a supervised wage-labor job finds it maddening to pretend to be busy. Working is meant to serve a purpose—if make-believe play is an expression of human freedom, then make-believe work imposed by others represents a total lack of freedom. It’s unsurprising, then, that the first historical occurrence of the notion that some people ought to be working at all times, or that work should be made up to fill their time even in the absence of things that need 
doing, concerns workers who are
 not free: prisoners and slaves. Historically, human work patterns have taken the form of intense bursts of energy followed by rest. Farming, for instance, is generally an all-hands-on-deck mobilization around planting and harvest, with the off-seasons occupied by minor projects. Large projects such as building a house or preparing for a feast tend to take the same form. This is typical of how human beings have always worked. There is no reason to believe that acting otherwise would result in greater efficiency or productivity. Often it has precisely the opposite effect. One reason that work was historically irregular is because it was largely unsupervised. This is true of medieval feudalism and of most labor arrangements until relatively recent times, even if the relationship between worker and boss was strikingly unequal. If those at the bottom produced what was required of them, those at the top couldn’t be bothered to know how the time was spent.  Most societies throughout history would never have imagined that a person’s time could belong to his employer. But today it is considered perfectly natural for free citizens of democratic countries to rent out a third or more of their day. “I’m not paying you to lounge around,” reprimands the modern boss, with the outrage of a man who feels he’s being robbed. How did we get here? By the fourteenth century, the common understanding of what time was had changed; it became a grid against which work was measured, rather than the work itself being the measure. Clock towers funded by local merchant guilds were erected throughout Europe. These same merchants placed human skulls on their desks as memento mori, to remind themselves that they should make quick use of their time. The proliferation of domestic clocks and pocket watches that coincided with the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century allowed for a similar attitude toward time to spread among the middle class. Time came to be widely seen as a finite property to be budgeted and spent, much like money. And these new time-telling devices allowed a worker’s time to be chopped up into uniform units that could be bought and sold. Factories started to require workers to punch the time clock upon entering and leaving. The change was moral as well as technological. One began to speak of spending time rather than just passing it, and also of wasting time, killing time, saving time, losing time, racing against time, and so forth. Over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, an episodic style of working was increasingly treated as a social problem. Methodist preachers exhorted “the husbandry of time”; time management became the essence of morality. The poor were blamed for spending their time recklessly, for being as irresponsible with their time as they were with their money. Workers protesting oppressive conditions, meanwhile, adopted the same notions of time. Many of the first factories didn’t allow workers to bring in their own timepieces, because the owner played fast and loose with the factory clock. Labor activists negotiated higher hourly rates, demanded fixed-hour contracts, overtime, time and a half, twelve- and then eight-hour work shifts. The act of demanding “free time,” though understandable, reinforced the notion that a worker’s
time really did belong to the 
person who had bought it. The idea that workers have a moral obligation to allow their working time to be dictated has become so normalized that members of the public feel indignant if they see, say, transit workers lounging on the job. Thus busywork was invented: to ameliorate the supposed problem of workers not having enough to do to fill an eight-hour day. Take the experience of a woman named Wendy, who sent me a long history of pointless jobs she had worked: “As a receptionist for a small trade magazine, I was often given tasks to perform while waiting for the phone to ring. Once, one of the ad- sales people dumped thousands of paper clips on my desk and asked me to sort them by color. She then used them interchangeably. “Another example: my grandmother lived independently in an apartment in New York City into her early nineties, but she did need some help. We hired a very nice woman to live with her, help her do shopping and laundry, and keep an eye out in case she fell or needed help. So, if all went well, there was nothing for this woman to do. This drove my grandmother crazy. ‘She’s just sitting there!’ she would complain. Ultimately, the woman quit.” This sense of obligation is common across the world. Ramadan, for example, is a young Egyptian engineer working for a public enterprise in Cairo. The company needed a team of engineers to come in every morning and check whether the air conditioners were working, then hang around in case something broke. Of course, management couldn’t admit that; instead, the firm invented forms, drills, and box-­ticking rituals calculated to keep the team busy for eight hours a day. “I discovered immediately that I hadn’t been hired as an engineer at all but really as some kind of technical bureaucrat,” Ramadan explained. “All we do here is paperwork, filling out checklists and forms.” Fortunately, Ramadan gradually figured out which ones nobody would notice if he ignored and used the time to indulge a growing interest in film and literature. Still, the process left him feeling hollow. “Going every workday to a job that I considered pointless was psychologically exhausting and left me depressed.” The end result, however exasperating, doesn’t seem all that bad, especially since Ramadan had figured out how to game the system. Why couldn’t he see it, then, as stealing back time that he’d sold to the corporation? Why did the pretense and lack of purpose grind him down? A bullshit job—where one is treated as if one were usefully employed and forced to play along with the pretense—is inherently demoralizing because it is a game of make-­believe not of one’s own making. Of course the soul cries out. It is an assault on the very foundations of self. A human being unable to have a meaningful impact on the world ceases to exist.

David Graeber 

[someonefromthere]

Hey! I saw that you were taking requests and I was wondering if you could do a gavin x rk900 carnival “date”? Like it was originally an investigation but they get sidetracked. Bonus points for a ferris wheel kiss 😘

Hey, buddy, I’m sorry it took so long, but everything fell on me this month and there’s so little time before the school starts that I honestly don’t know how I’m gonna make it all work. Anyway, writing this fic was a great, great fun and I just couldn’t stop occasionally adding a little pieces here and there, it was even rewritten once! But I can proudly post it now and hope I delivered - I changed it from an investigation to a stakeout, because it matched better. Hope you enjoy!

Once more time, a huge thank you for @pointeful for helping me with the facts about travelling carnivals - I live in Europe and have never been to that kind of park, and she was there for me when I asked for her help - go check her out!

The fic on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15787071

It turned out Nines actually liked things. It occurred to him some time after the red wall had fallen and his mind had cleared. The thought didn’t hit him all of a sudden, in any poetic way, no. The revelation slowly creeped its way to him, encircling the lines of his code until his awareness hugged it back, and he understood. Deviants were capable of liking. He was too.

Crucial as it was, it was also simple. He liked the way a new loose tee shirt wrapped itself around his broad shoulders and hung freely from them, giving him a feeling of comfort. He liked windy days when a breeze would tousle his hair, and a soft sunrise light falling through the windows. He liked yellow and sunflowers, liked a floral shirt he once saw a little boy wearing, liked the sound of dogs breathing and droplets reaching metal window sills calmly. There were moments when he had to decide – did he like a body warmer more than a coat? Which brand of cologne should he purchase? Did he really felt like going on a walk or did he prefer staying inside? – but some of these preferences came up easily.He liked the smell of Gavin’s usual black coffee and the texture of a paper cup in his hand. He liked the scar on the bridge of his partner’s nose, the stormy grey of his eyes and the small smile the man would give him when he did or said something funny. It soothed him to find the familiar silhouette amongst the others, unknown, when they were on an investigation and the warm presence beside him when they sat in a car on a stakeout. He didn’t understand what it meant to be so strongly affected by these tiny things, but he liked it anyway. It made him feel more human.(Oh, if only CyberLife could see him now, the better Connor, the chance to save humanity, with his code full of feelings he couldn’t comprehend.)One of the things his memory held and shielded from the destructive world was the light on Gavin’s face as they entered a funfair that was supposed to be an area of the stakeout – the appointed place of a red ice dealer and his client. The carnival was full of children and their parents, and teenagers probably having their dates, and elders that came here to retrace their youth memories, and androids that recently discovered the idea of fun. Nines’ internal clock projected a few minutes after eight p.m., and the sky was deep dark by now, yet the crowds occupying the amusement park were still thick, not that the android minded.(He liked people. He liked to be among them.)Nines slipped his hands into the pockets of his lemon body warmer and glanced around, letting his lucid eyes linger on the swift attractions and colorful stalls. He tried not to scan everything around – Gavin didn’t really like it – and just concentrate on simply watching, but a couple notes and conclusions made their way to his vision. Most of these attractions weren’t safe. They were wobbly and set up in a rush, their structure weak. His calculations showed a relatively high probability of an accident, and as he had analyzed each one that happened to be in his area of sight, he decided not to let Gavin on any of them. (He didn’t like the thought of his partner getting hurt. The aspect of not liking was yet mostly unfamiliar, a brand new thing.)“We could have some fun before he arrives,” the android heard Gavin say and when his gaze floated to the man, he saw him looking around with a smile. A faint and not quite full, but it was there, drawing graceful wrinkles around Gavin’s lips and nose. Making Nines want to compliment on them. “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he replied instead, brow furrowed. Obviously it wasn’t what he thought – it would be nice to spend more easy time with his partner, learn about his likes, but he also knew it wouldn’t be good for the stakeout. He’d get distracted, which was an effortless thing around Gavin. The man looked at him with an unimpressed expression on his face. “Do you have any updates on the suspect?”And although Nines knew what it gave rise to, he answered honestly. “No. Connor remains silent.” Truth it was, the connection with his predecessor stayed quiet and calm, no comments from RK800 sailing through it. Gavin nodded. “We don’t know when he’ll be here. It could be in ten minutes, or an hour. Come on. Maybe androids don’t get bored, but I surely do,” he mumbled and once again his eyes searched the rows of rides and mini-games booths. RK900 sighed and rolled his eyes – a manner he got after Lieutenant Anderson thanks to all those hours spent in his and Connor’s company – and waited patiently to see if Gavin was a fan of these sketchy roller-coasters and their cousins. Thankfully, he was not.He chose the closest mini-game – half-hidden under a striped, material roof, but illuminated by a set of star-shaped lights that gave the stall somewhat warm and magic look. A man that apparently owned it was somewhere in his forties and wore a joyful smile on his wrinkled face as he instructed a teenage boy with a blonde girl standing beside him how to play. Gavin rummaged through his back pockets in search of his wallet and Nines seized the opportunity to take a closer look at the game itself, his gaze immediately flying to the booth’s wall.Against it, three separate constructions made of milk jars stood, probably set to be targets of whatever game the man offered. They were situated quite neatly as for a human, so the short glass towers looked rather stable and placed within two meters from where the counter was, they seemed to be fair goals. It shouldn’t be difficult to throw off all nine jars that made up for one structure at once.As he finished his analysis, the teenager threw his first ball, the four others laying on the spot in front of him. He hit only one jar, smashing the adjacent two down with it, but the rest remained untouched. The situation repeated until almost the entire tower fell – one piece still standing proudly, seemingly laughing at the kid’s face, but he walked away satisfied nonetheless; the girl received a plush giraffe and gave him a peck in return. “Three, please,” Gavin said to the man and handed him a banknote. Nines eyed his partner, then the target. He should make it, if the calculations were correct.He did. Used all three balls to reach the goal, but the tower came down with a noise and the fair-haired man passed Gavin an elastic keychain with a sound sensor that activated a flashlight upon a whistle as a prize. Gavin snorted, lifting it and pretending to stick it to Nines’ arm. “I’m gonna glue it to you, so I won’t lose you,” he joked and the man behind the counter laughed loudly, looking at the android before bending down to pick the glass from the floor.“I’m gonna buy a chip and use GPS, so you won’t be able to run away,” Nines bit back, earning a noisy burst of laugh from the booth owner who accidentally hit the wall with his head and a shocked look from Gavin. Shocked and betrayed, he could describe it.Gavin shook his head, but said nothing, amusement playing around the corners of his lips. He pointed at Nines when the man appeared in their sight again. “Wonders of technology, huh?”The owner looked surprised, his gaze winging towards Nines’ temple as if to try and spot his LED; he didn’t though. It was long gone, making the android appear much more human than before which helped him in job-related activities.“Didn’t know it was one of them. You know, I think they’re better than most of humans, buddy. It applies to this one, too. You’re lucky.” The wink that followed the sentence made Gavin’s cheeks turn slightly pink for unknown reason.(Nines decided that he liked this color, too, in particular painted on his partner’s body.)“You want to play, pal?”He felt taken-aback by the question, but the man was still looking at him expectantly, waiting for an answer, so the android huffed a quiet yes. It seemed like it was normal for this stranger man to consider an android a living being, so similar to a human, and it made RK900’s artificial heart warm up. He wasn’t there when the revolution started and he barely remembered the end of it, but when he’d grasped his deviancy, he felt proud for his brothers and sisters to have fought their freedom and rights, and acceptance among mankind. “One, three or five?” The man asked. Nines looked at Gavin and saw a challenge in his eyes. Oh, he wouldn’t be himself if he hadn’t take it. “One,” he said, sliding a banknote down the counter, Gavin’s smirk and raised brow in his peripheral. The owner took it, handing him a single plastic ball that quickly ended up wrapped tightly by Nines’ fingers and aimed at a jar placed at the bottom, the one that seemed to hold the entire structure in place. The core. He directed the ball precisely at the opening and–“How did you even do it?” Gavin stared blankly at the spot where a moment ago the tower hovered. Now, the man owning the booth was cleaning up the mess Nines caused, and the android himself glanced proudly at his partner.“Can’t accept the fact that I’m better than you?” He teased, but slouched a bit to find himself on a comfortable level of Gavin’s eyes. The icy-eyed knew the man liked it when his partner wasn’t towering over him like “a fucking Empire State Building’s copy”, as Gavin once told him; besides, it was nice to watch him from close up. The imperfections on his skin were mose visible, the marks and small scars, beauty spots and everything that made him more Gavin, a unique individual Nines was happy to be friends with. (Nines presumably just liked Gavin. It was hard to admit, even for him, but he felt attached to him. The android was curious what would the man’s reaction be if the confession slipped out of his mouth.)Gavin snorted. “I’m all but surprised you reached the target. Should’ve clapped.” But he didn’t. He looked up instead and something in his grey eyes shifted, making Nines’ artificial heart warm up. “You’re great at this,” the fair-haired man commented when all three glass towers came back to life. “Here’s my offer: if you get rid of two more like this, you’ll win the main prize, huh? What do you say?”Nines’ gaze flickered to a shelf he didn’t have time to analyze before – a shelf and a row of hangers that supported a whole collection of toys. They varied in types, colors and sizes, some of them small and colorful such as dolls or pillows, the other bigger and pastel: teddy bears, basketball balls, even tee shirts with text overprints. The android’s attention was immediately struck by the largest teddy in a light hue of lilac that hung low, indicating it was nothing less than heavy. He liked it, the color ever so pretty and the toy itself looking plushy. “I’ll try.”The android wasn’t surprised that he made it with easiness, gathering a not-so-thin crowd around the stall – just a couple of teenagers that tried and failed not to look impressed by Nines’ precision when the next two balls landed perfectly where he sent them. The owner couldn’t be angry anyway, given the fact that Nines made him a great advertisement which caused the teens to play, too. He didn’t seem even a bit unhappy about a disappearance of the best prize his booth offered.Whereas Gavin shot the android the most furious glare he could afford from above the head of the lilac teddy bear he was holding.“What am I supposed to do with this thing?” He didn’t sound resentful – more like playful, though his face was mostly hidden behind the toy and Nines couldn’t make out any of the emotions that probably played on it. He simply smiled in return.

“Take it home. Consider it a gift.”“A gift that I’ll have to fucking drag all around the park, great.”“I think I don’t have to remind you that it was you who wanted to come here and play at first place.”“Robotic bastard.”Nines smirked, glancing around. They stayed in one place, near the previously visited booth, because of the weight and size of the prize – it wasn’t easy to carry him around, really. The teddy was nearly five feet tall which made him almost as tall as Gavin and the human was the one to hold it, so it looked ridiculously, at least to say. “You want to go somewhere else?” Nines asked and brought his gaze back to Gavin with a soft expression on his face. He risked a longer glance, putting down the details about him once again, just like he did those thousands times that never bored him. The crooked curve of the scar and the mole under his right eye, the meadow of freckles on his cheeks, the sharp line of his jaw. Everything that seemed important and unimportant to know; everything. “There was a game when I was younger, I‘m curious if it’s still a thing.”“Want me to search the map?”The android asked the question only out of politeness, already knowing Gavin’s response.“No. Let’s just look for it.”And so they did. Nines liked it better this way, too; it was much more nicer to walk around the carnival in silence than mechanically seek the information in the web like a computer. It made him feel and appear more human if he acted like one which he knew that made Gavin feel better. (He liked the looks his partner would give him after catching him doing some tics, even the nervous ones.)Nines almost felt guilty for letting Gavin carry the teddy bear for the entire walk – it surely didn’t tire him out, but very likely made him uncomfortable to have to peek out over the toy like a five-year-old. Almost. He could recall all the times when his partner was a little shit to him, so the current situation was a kind of revenge, even if he was more civil and wouldn’t sneer at the human the way he did at the beginning of their partnership. (Besides, the android liked that this way he had more possibilities to touch his partner: whether they were passing someone and Gavin didn’t notice them – that’s when Nines’ hand landed on the small of his back – or when he had to guide Gavin on the corners – the fingers around the man’s arm firm but gentle. Nothing able to bruise. Nearly caring.)The game Gavin talked about was still a thing, yes, and it made his face soften, causing the domino effect on Nines who smiled fondly, seeing the enchanting change in his human. The booth supporting the game held a large text consisting of luminous LED letters, each of them shining with a different color, which simply said Dart Game. It was hard for Nines to hold himself from looking it up in the web, but somehow he managed. He brushed his gaze over the stall – its wall was covered in small balloons that formed a colorful mosaic, three or more rows of metal tubes used as hangers for rather not big prizes hovering above it.“It’s simple, you see,” Gavin said, placing the lilac teddy bear on his shoes, careful not to drop it to the dirty ground. The android leaned in closer to him, using the need to hear him better as an excuse. He didn’t though. Gavin continued, “you get a prize of the same color as the balloon you hit. Got it?”“Sure.”Nines folded his arms on his chest, watching an adult man trying to aim at a green balloon placed at an uncomfortable angle. It was a difficult task, much more harder than aiming at a tower of jars if you wanted to actually hit a certain color. He could try it. “You playing?”The android shuffled a bit awkwardly, turning to look at Gavin. “Huh?”“I asked if you want to play.”“You don’t?”“It’s been a long time since I touched a dart, only would’ve made a fool of myself. By the way this,” he patted the teddy’s plushy head, “is enough for one night. But I don’t see why you shouldn’t play.”Nines watched as the man left, a little red-haired girl by his side holding a Minion toy. She looked at Gavin and his teddy curiously and smiled, and then surprisingly Gavin smiled back. Shyly but smiled, lips turned upwards and teeth barely bared. Beautifully. Nines could imagine the Software Instability warning that would’ve appear in his vision now if he was still a machine.“I’ll play.”The owner of the booth was clearly an android – it was hard to tell beside the fact that she had an LED blinking a steady blue on her temple. Nines knew some androids chose to keep theirs as a proud sign of who they were, just like Connor did; he was the one to explain the concept to his younger brother who only seemed confused about it. He didn’t like his own, didn’t like that it reflected his feelings and thoughts, so he got rid of it as soon as he gained consciousness. “Any color in particular you want to hit?” She asked when he lifted a dart, leaning over the counter with her elbow and half-observing Nines from under her long eyelashes. He shrugged. “Yellow. Or red, I guess.”

(Gavin’s favourite color was red. Gavin liked it.)“Make your mind, prick,” Nines heard his partner say quietly and impatiently from behind him. He smirked and aimed, and smoothly moved his hand so the dart made its way to a red balloon, a neighbour of three yellow ones. The android – no, the woman snapped her fingers.“You got it perfectly,” she remarked, grabbing a stool. “Which red thing you want?”Nines sent his gaze over the red section on the hangers, over the teddy bears and material dolls, and balls, and pillows.“That one.”And that way, Gavin ended up with a little Elmo teddy stuffed in the pocket of his leather jacket. “You won it. It’s your prize. You should keep it, why–”“Because I want to,” the android interrupted him as the made their way to a cotton candy stand. His partner shot him a glare to which he responded with a small smile. “I want you to keep it, is it so hard to understand? It’s a gift.”“But–”“No buts. Just shut the fuck up and get your goddamn unhealthy snack.”Gavin averted his gaze, pretending to be offended, but a short snicker escaped his mouth without his consent. It was a pleasant sound, cuter than Nines would admit.(The android liked it. Serenity looked good on his partner.)The lilac teddy bear ended up in Nines’ hands while Gavin’s became busy with a cloud of pink candy-floss of the biggest size. Soon, the colored sugar covered both corners of the man’s lips and his munching lured the android to reach with his fingers and tear a bit of the cotton candy, bringing it to his mouth to analyze.“What the fuck, man,” Gavin muttered, but didn’t even spare him a glance. He got used to it a long time ago, the teasing never ended though. No malice hid behind his words anymore, to Nines’ secret content.The sweet turned out as unhealthy as he initially predicted – overloaded with sugar as it was the only used ingredient, made with high temperature, and also very sweet – Nines couldn’t taste it (he wished he could though), yet his sensors caught the flavor quite fast. He knew that Gavin loved sweetness – he could eat donuts all day long if Nines didn’t intervene, which he rarely did. Consuming sweet food made Gavin happy, and the only thing Nines ever wanted was to see his human partner happy. If it didn’t collide with Gavin’s health, obviously.“Where do you want to go now?”The question made Nines halt and sharply spin his head to look down at Gavin. “What?”“Are your ears bugging or am I too quiet? Shall I fucking shout? Where do you want to go?”“I… I don’t know.” “Do you not find anything here worth attention? Not even a single booth or a roller-coaster? Look around.”The android had a remark about the attractions’ safety on the tip of his tongue, ready to spill it out just for his own sake, but something in the distance caught his eyes at the exact same moment. A huge, lit and moving circle. A ferris wheel, the web in his head whispered helpfully. It was beautiful and looked so magical – much more magical than the mini-game stalls that surrounded them. It didn’t stand out with safety, unfortunately, but if there was something he wanted to try, that was it. “The ferris wheel,” he repeated out loud, watching Gavin’s face change into something fond and sincere, and… Nines couldn’t seize it. It seemed too distant and unfamiliar, too messy for his neat programming. “Then let’s go and make your dreams come true,” the man joked with a slight tilt of his head and a ghost of smile. The wheel looked even more beautiful from close up when Gavin was busy buying them a few rounds and Nines could just stand, his head lifted and eyes focused on the warm lights that decorated the whole attraction. The movement was sluggish and soothing, and it made the android’s Thirium pump somewhat beat slower. “You gonna stand here all night or what?” Gavin asked, making his way to an open bench. The only response he got was a low I’m coming before Nines joined him, taking a seat beside him and placing the teddy on their feet.“If it falls, I will beat the shit out of you,” Gavin threatened with no harm and leaned down to make sure the toy was protected enough; apparently it wasn’t, because he lifted his leg and hooked it around the teddy bear tightly. Nines observed with a sympathetic smile and said nothing, lowering a metal plank that seemed to be used as a kind of protection from downfall. It wasn’t anything near solid – it could easily prevent a child from falling, but it wouldn’t be much of help if a grown man was in danger of it – yet it was better than nothing. The wheel resumed its calm course, sending their bodies into a lazy movement that would’ve send Nines’ LED a peaceful pulsating blue, similar to the one triggered by stasis, if he still had it. Maybe it wouldn’t have, after all – his right thigh was pressed to Gavin’s warm one, spreading something through his artificial skin. Something unknown, but not new. Something good. Distracting. (Nines’ objective was not to get distracted, and yet he found himself enjoying the contact like nothing else in his short deviant life.)“Do you sometimes think about the life you want to live?” Gavin asked when they reached the top and the wheel stopped again, a pair from one of the bottom benches leaving, replaced by another. Nines tore his gaze away from the breathtaking view on the city to look fully at his partner whose face was barely visible in the dim light. He could tell Gavin’s eyes were thoughtful though.“What do you mean?”“Everyone wants a different life than they have. Well, almost everyone. You know, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”“I… I do not want a different life.” It was true, maybe too true for his taste. The wheel jerked to life again. “This is my place. In this precinct, on this position. I very much like what I do for a living and I’m surrounded by people that I’m mostly fond of. I don’t see why I would want to change it.”Gavin watched him for awhile before answering, a bit unsure. “You’re serious.”“Of course I am, Gavin. This is my place. Here. By your side.”It sent a strange jolt through the man who trembled and twitched his hands nervously. It seemed like he couldn’t take his eyes off of the android’s even if he wanted.“You’re better than this, you know that, right? Fowler assigned you to me, but it’s entirely your choice if you want to stay or move on. Nobody will say anything if you do. You’re not fucking tied to me, Nines. It’s not like… It’s not like I will be mad. Do what you want to do.”A crease appeared between the android’s eyes, the frown deepening with each word that fell out of Gavin’s mouth. “Do you want me gone?”“Of course not, Nines,” the man seemed to almost choke on the words, as if he was surprised that his partner would even think of that. “Of course I don’t want you gone. You’re the first person that didn’t dump me. The first partner that didn’t resign after a few months after being partnered with me. I don’t want anything more than to keep doing this, but I don’t want to force you to do the same just because I’m a selfish motherfu–”“When will you stop thinking like that of yourself? You may be rude and overaggressive, but you’re kind and charming when you want to, and you’re a good man, Gavin. You’re worth so much more than you give yourself credit.”It left Gavin speechless. Well, maybe not exactly, because he managed to mutter a very, very quiet bullshit before Nines had enough of his shit and simply said, “I like you.”It was true and painful. It was what triggered the android’s deviancy and what didn’t allow him to not give Gavin all his attention, not that he wanted to stop giving him anything. Nines liked him the most of all people – even more than Connor, actually. He liked him in a way that he couldn’t understand – in a way that maybe wasn’t just liking.Gavin looked at him with sadness and hope in his grey eyes, shifting a bit, not exactly withdrawing – the pressure of his thigh was still perceptible on the android’s leg, thankfully – but turning and ducking his head slightly. “Tell me you’re not joking and I’m not hallucinating, because I don’t think I can handle it if we take it a little further and you want to take it all back.”“I’m serious, Gavin. I like you. I don’t want to leave you unless you tell me to.”“Oh, hell no.”And then he laughed. Honest to God laughed. With his mouth open and teeth bared, eyes squinted, but focused on the android, his entire body trembling with the happy, even if a little bitter sound.Nines thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful.“I like you, too, tin can. Perhaps too much for my own good.”“What does that mean?” Nines eyes him, confused, observing the change in his features; happiness shifted into calmness, calmness into melancholy once again. It hurt.“You trust me, right?”Nines never trusted anyone as much as he trusted his partner. Maybe, if he tried, he could pretend he didn’t and the connection between them wasn’t real, but he didn’t think his pretending would ever look convincing. “I do.”First, a hand on his cheek, gentle and barely-there. It held him steady in one place, yet its force was so small he could easily break the contact if he wanted. He didn’t.Secondly, a hand on his thigh, not close to his knee, still far from his waist. Warm and heavy, laying there seemingly to assure the android that the human was never going anywhere. Thirdly, a little ragged, but soft lips on his own, a pressure telling Nines to tilt his head and adjust to a better angle. His eyes fell shut, his nose bumping slightly against another, soon coming back to rub against it tenderly. Gavin’s skin was rough under the android’s fingers, worn-out from years of hard work and strict lifestyle, but it felt perfect. Everything felt perfect in that moment, in that place.He let his tongue dart inside the man’s mouth, past his teeth to lick at his palate, earning a surprised yelp and a pleased moan mixed into one sound, and suddenly their proximity wasn’t enough. “I wasn’t made to do this. I’m sorry if I’m not good,” Nines whispered, barely moving away. Their lips brushed together when he spoke. “You’re good enough,” was the only response he got before Gavin rushed in to meet him in a slow kiss that sent non-existent goosebumps all over the android’s artificial skin. His sensors felt overloaded, and yet it wasn’t enough. He wanted more.He desired to feel more.The connection between him and Connor twinkled before a message rolled out from the other end.[The suspect’s in there. I shall inform you about his farther moves. Where are you?]Nines hesitated, pulling away to glance at Gavin. His partner watched him with an irritated question in his wide eyes and the android noted that their pupils were dilated.[We’re on the ferris wheel.][On the ferris wheel? Why?][Gavin wanted to have fun and told me to choose.]He mouthed Connor to Gavin, not wanting to break the precious silence that fell over them while the wheel finished its third round. The man rolled his eyes, but his swollen lips stretched out in a fond smile when he watched him.[Ah. OK. Anyway, the suspect’s with a young boy determined to be his oldest son, he’s heading to a roller-coaster in the center. I’ll let you know when he meets with a possible client. Stay tuned.][Thanks, Connor.]Nines dulled the line into the background, far enough to focus entirely on the man in front of him and near enough to hear it open. His fingers grazed Gavin’s hair on the nape of his neck.“We have some time before the suspect does anything notable,” he said in a flirtatious tone, watching as his partner grinned widely, the hand on his thigh moving just a little higher. It stopped low enough to not dare any biting comments, but the warmth definitely didn’t stop spreading.“What are you waiting for, then?”

[randomabiling]

The First Christmas

Another protracted, heavy sigh left the confines of her lips before the delicate edge of her teacup rose. The tepid breakfast blend slipped into her mouth, causing her to grimace. Her bones shuttered, the draft in the room compounded by disappointment in the tea’s temperature. Her fingertips were cold around the flowered porcelain, something she couldn’t ever remember happening before, and she turned her attention to the fireplace. The fading embers taunted with their flickers and pops, becoming more of a memory of fire as the heat died. Where was Simpson to check on her? Violet sighed again. It seemed that was all she did lately, sit around and expel the stale and disgusted air that lay trapped behind her breastbone.

Placing the teacup down, Violet shifted on her sofa, angling her face toward the window. The landscape had been transformed into a tundra with the last storm, looking as unhappy and formidable as she felt. The clock on the mantle ticked, catching her attention. Half past four. It had been three days since she’d received an invitation to Downton for dinner and one day, three hours since any of them had checked in on her.

Violet poked at a scone left on her tray. It seemed to crumble at her touch and she grumbled under her breath, thinking how incompetent Mrs Wallace was, nothing like the staff she had cultivated at Downton. Such a shame. She’d have to speak to Robert about hiring another cook for the Dower House. As soon as she thought it, the idea turned sour in Violet's mind. To have to ask permission to hire one’s staff...was there anything more humiliating?

The truth of her existence still shocked her anew each morning, as she stretched from sleep and opened her eyes to the peeling ceiling of the Dower House master bedroom. She didn’t think of it belonging to her, that specification still reserved for the Princess Amelia room, which had seen the last thirty years of her life unfold, marking the memories in its faded gold wall coverings. This new room, which she’d occupied for just over three months now, was as foreign and cold to her as any she’d stayed in as a guest. Violet couldn’t quite reconcile that she was now the dowager, making the Dower House her home.

She’d always known it would happen of course, her eventual ouster from the day-to-day life at Downton, regulated to the role of bystander while her son and his wife took their place upon her husband’s passing. Knowing it, however, had been like knowing the inevitability of her own death; it was a vague probability that she had never really believed would befall her person. And when it had, when the dirt had grown firm over Patrick’s grave and the half way mark of full morning had passed, and Robert had gently informed her that the renovation of the Dower House was complete, still Violet hadn’t really quite come to terms with her fate. Like a prisoner staring down her execution, Violet had expected a last minute stay, a swift reversal of her punishment and the reinstatement of her life as she’d known it.

That hadn’t happened, of course, and each day’s awakening reiterated what she couldn’t quite allow herself to believe: that she was no longer in charge.

The timid squeak of the door stirred Violet from her pensive mood and she looked up to see Carson hanging back behind Simpson. Violet’s back snapped straight.

“Mr. Carson, your ladyship,” Simpson announced dully and Violet had to purposefully refrain from rolling her eyes.

“Yes, yes,” Violet answered. Immediately, she took note of the way Carson took a tentative step around Simpson, of how white his knuckles were around the bowler hat he held firmly in front of him.

Carson waited, shifting from foot to foot, until Simpson took the hint and slinked out of the drawing room, leaving them alone. Even then, Carson took a moment too long, his mouth moving awkwardly as though chewing the lumpy words that wouldn’t come forth.

“Carson,” Violet prodded. “Is there something you came to tell me?”

His bushy eyebrows rose at her words before diving down, further deepening the worried wrinkles on his forehead and practically touching one another. He squeezed the hat in his hand harder.

“Well, milady, that is to say that, you see…” Violet waited, a small splinter of anxiety jabbing into her ribs. The rest of Carson’s words came out in a rush. “You see, her Ladyship is decorating the Christmas tree, on her own...with the young ladies. On a ladder and all! I’m concerned for the impression it will make on the junior staff.”

The abused hat in Carson’s hands was pulled taught until it resembled a woolen dishcloth. Violet wondered if it would ever recover its shape after such a wringing. She swallowed down the fit of laughter that threatened to burst from her chest. Dear Carson, Violet could always count on him to be more shocked by lapses in protocole than Queen Victoria herself. She stifled the merry impulse, seeing the torment it cost him to come to her, already he was feeling loyalty to his new chatelaine. Violet chose to reply with a simple nod before ringing for Simpson to fetch her coat.

Choosing to walk the path to Downton rather than drive back with the butler, Violet let the fresh December air invigorate her. Upon contemplating Carson’s confession, it was right of him to come to her. The idea of the current Countess of Grantham perched up high and placing ornaments on the tree, seemed almost indecent. The housemaids had always accomplished the task during Violet’s time as Countess. It was preposterous. Leave it to the American to muck up as simple a project as Christmas decorating. Violet shuddered to imagine the arrangements that Cora would have commissioned for the table tops and the mantels.

By the time Violet reached the massive doors to Downton, any comedy she’d found in Carson’s reaction had disappeared, her earlier irritation exacerbated. Violet’s agitated breath hit the chilled air producing a cloudy plume before she pushed on the oak doors and nudged her way in. She noticed the heat first, the density of it instantly warming her chapped face and the numb tips of her fingers. It was the kind of warmth you could taste and Violet marveled that the salon could be brought to such a temperature, with its endless walls and vaulted ceiling. It had never felt so warm during her tenure. Violet tsked at the waste, imaging an entire forest worth of trees disintegrating in the hearths of Downton so that Cora could be kept comfortable. The child was fragile. She’d warned Robert in those early days of their courtship, Cora was not of hearty stock.

Their laughter could be heard before she could see their faces; Cora’s easy giggles, Robert’s deeper chuckle, and then the girls, the high, bell tones of her granddaughters as their happiness rung through the house. Something about the sound of it, of all four of them laughing together tugged hard at her heart. Violet fought to catch her breath, her corset suddenly feeling too tight.

Rounding the corner, she saw them. Mary held a delicate ornament, and though the laughter still played over her lips, her eyes were narrowed in concentration, her hands confident as she lifted the glass bauble and placed it just so on one of the tree’s lower limbs. Edith fidgeted around, the young toddler clearly too excited to settle down. She dashed between Mary and her mother and then to Robert and Violet felt herself briefly get caught up in the child’s wonder. Cora stood atop a low stool, reaching to the higher branches as Robert stayed by her side, his hand held an inch shy of her back, ready to steady her, should she waiver. The tableau was as sentimental and perfect as any Christmas postcard. How happy they looked, the four of them lit up and twinkling like the lights on the tree. Violet took a step back.

“Granny!” Edith shrieked in delight.

Mary’s head snapped up. Cora turned so suddenly she teetered on her ladder. Robert caught her firmly around the waist and held her a moment as the young woman regained her balance before dropping his hands quickly. The happy glow in the room seemed to dull, like someone turning the key on a gas lamp cutting off the fuel. Violet felt herself shrink a little, a reaction that was strange to her usual bulldog self-assurance. Quickly recovering, Violet straightened, a tight smile hurting her face.

Robert spoke first, coming to her and placing a formal peck upon her cheek. “Hello Mama, what a pleasant surprise.”

She couldn’t help herself, the words out before she could try them in her mind. “Well, if I waited for an invitation-”.

Cora deflated further, all signs of pink cheeked joy gone as she gingerly stepped down off of the ladder. Violet opened her mouth to say something, anything that would restore the scene she had unwittingly changed. That had been so very happy, so relaxed and natural. Remorse churned in her belly, a bitter knowledge that she had broken their innocent revelry, that what Robert and Cora presented was the facade they thought she preferred. Even little Mary was learning to reserve her true emotions in her presence.

“Granny! Here!” Violet looked down at Edith, no higher than her knee.

The sweet child held up an ornament. Violet stared at it too long.

“Put it on the tree!” Edith explained with childlike exasperation.

Mary snickered behind her hand as Violet still did not move. Self-consciousness rose up the back of her neck making the room too warm and she carefully plucked the glass angel out of Edith’s chubby fingers. It glittered in the low light. Violet chose an empty branch and wiggled the string over the spiky needles. Releasing the decoration, it twirled revolution or two before settling into its spot. Violet stepped back, an odd bloom of satisfaction filling her chest. She looked up to see Robert had placed his hand at the base of Cora’s back. They both smiled widely at her.

“Well, I’ll leave you all to it.” Violet’s throat was tight, roughing up the words she spoke.

Cora placed a tentative hand on Violet’s arm. “You don’t have to go, Mama.”

Violet nodded her head. “But you see my dear, I do. Mrs Wallace is expecting me for dinner soon, and you know how a cook feels when you’re late to meal time. No, you go ahead and finish your decorating.”

“We can send someone down, tell Mrs Wallace your plan has changed. Stay for dinner, Mama.” Robert said.

“I’m sorry Robert, I simply cannot.” Violet insisted.

Robert shrugged. “If you’re sure.”

Violet received their kisses goodbye and then turned to leave. She’d only taken two steps before the low chatter gained volume once again, Mary and Edith’s voices becoming heady and bubbly. Just like that, her interruption was forgotten as the family of four resumed their activity. Violet rushed through the front door and back out into the cold, swiping hastily at the tear that snuck down her cheek.

[aggresivelyfriendly]

Option B

Blame @the-well-rested-one. Like Shaggy said, it wasn’t me.

Harry’s house is just as gorgeous as the one we have left, and the population of two that inhabit it are much more to my liking. I can barely remember the invite I got to That Party, but I’ll be sure to thank my friend, because this is living the dream, but I know I won’t ever go again. I wonder if Harry will attend another. I look over at his unmasked face and marvel. That jawline is criminal, its stolen my attention all evening. I can’t imagine what else it will abscond with by the time this is through.

He catches me looking and I blush.

“Look at that bloom, love!” he chuckles and approaches where I stand near his kitchen island. His arms circle my hips and grip. I find myself on his marble counter top and my ass would be as icy as it if the heat coming off him between my thighs wasn't akin to an industrial heater. His hand runs up to my neck and he clutches it like an egg. I’m not going anywhere, but the pressure is delicate. He rubs a thumb up my throat and watches my neck as I gulp. “After how good you just treated me, I’m surprised you are capable of blushing. Think it’s about time to return the favor, hmmmm?” he finishes the question with a vibrato against my lips and when I nod eagerly is smears our lips together. The balm I had applied after the abuse I had just inflicted happily upon myself is spread around and I can feel it breach the borders  of my lips and the sense memory of swiping him onto and around those same body parts causes a moan.

Harry takes advantage; the kiss starts deep and wet. His tongue makes a home in my mouth, but it’s not cozy. It’s a messy house party, and his hand has remained clutched to my neck and is squeezing lightly to the sides of my neck. The restricted blood flow is fucking with me, I can’t even think about participating and my volume is unrestricted. When I pull back to gasp, he smirks at me and the power shift from an hour ago is a revolution.  I can feel a pulse and gush. When I blush again, he tilts his head to the side and gives me a curious glance. But rather than asking, he seems to be intent on playing marco polo instead. The hand on my neck migrates down and the way that I fill the palms of his hands seems to work for both of us if the twin groans are any indication. He investigates the twin peaks he’s created, planting his flag on this previously undiscovered country for a time until my groan turns to a mewl and I hear myself begging. My shirt disappears with my skirt and all I can think of is that Versace lyric. I feel like I’m cheating , musically, on my single serving lover,  but Bruno hasn’t a chance.  

The favors he’s doing my nipples are perfect, except they are dry and I am having trouble voicing my frustration. But my lover is smirking, “Need something?”

“Wet them….Can you wet your fingers?”

“I’ll do you one better.” he does me at least a dozen better when he attaches that pout to them, but only after he makes them wet. It’s a delicious preview of what they may look like soon when they are covered in me. His mouth forms a cup around my nipple, I’ve always considered them a little big, but they seem to meet and exceed his expectation if the not so subtle adjustment he gives himself is any indication. The suction seems to be his favorite, but his fingers are plucking at my other peak, he pulls back a minute and I wimper a protest before he chuckles and gets back to work. I wonder what the hold up was, until I get what his intent was when his fingers are shoved unceremoniously into my mouth. I wet them, as he none to gently has suggested and bite as they escape. With wet fingers, he circles one nipple, and mimics the movement with his tongue. He’s looking at me. I’m breathless, speechless already.

“This what you like?”

I nod, and realize I’m only watching the goings on, my hands are gripping the edge of the now warm marble beneath me. I need the ballast, but I remove one hand to run through his silky hair. He’s laughing again, the smug ass, but I realize my neck is still going like a bobble head on a dashboard. I scratch his scalp and laugh at myself with him. He flexes into the caress and I catalog that for later. Hope for a later. His mouth draws down the center of my tummy, and his hand that remains on my chest pushes me back so I’m reclining. There is a second tier to the island I’m on, its completely uncomfortable and I find the cold hardness of it distracting.

But Harry performs a magic trick, and I forget my discomfort, it  makes me wonder where my self preservation has gone. He’s petting my panties and I know they are embarrassingly wet, have been since the head I gave him earlier. He seems to approve and the kisses to my lower abdomen are as wet at my pussy. Both hands circle my thighs and I marvel at their size before he pulls me down. My back is going to hate me tomorrow. I can’t be fucked to care. Or I being fucked to well to care. His fingers are inside of me and he seems to be checking his progress, like an eager student turning to the back of the book. My head falls back, and before I know it, the magician between my legs has used some sleight of hand to get my panties off. Maybe I blacked out. He’s mouthing the round ball of my ankle joint, and who knew that was a thing. His arms are long; the fingers not on my foot are still inside me, driving me crazy with straightforward thrusts. I really want him to turn his palm around, but my words have disappeared behind the veil where my sense has gone. My mouth reengages when he kisses up my leg, stopping at my knee, and continuing up until he is at my hip flexors. He mouths at the meeting between my hips and thigh on both sides before testing my flexibility by bending me in half. My knees meet my chest when his mouth finally finds my vulva. I’m the pucture of wanton anticipation. Naked as the day with a clothed man between my thighs spread out on the clean surface below me. But I’m waiting, and his fingers have disappeared and I’m empty. My head, which feels like its full of lead, lifts up to find him staring at me. I don’t have it in me to feel insecure, I’m to worked up. I just watch him watch me before he leans forward and purses his wet pink lips and blows on my swollen clit. My back jumps off the counter, “Motherfucker,” comes out of my mouth and I feel his shoulders bounce below my thighs. I don’t hear the laugh, because his mouth is busy. He’s licked me top to tail, and I’m so ready to get to the main event, the pulsing little heart of me  I whine out, “No!” when he licks around my clit, but not on it. He continues this for longer than I’d like.

“I can feel those legs twitching,” he smirks.

“Fuck off,” I return and he fills his smiling mouth with my hood and the intake of breath I draw almost chokes me. His work is smooth. He licks up and down, flicks occasionally, until he realizes that I like the broads strokes better. Up and down, like a carousel horse, and my belly undulates to the rhythm. I can see the muscles there constricting and if I had the wherewithal I would wonder why they didn’t do that in belly dancing class. I think I’m saying please, but I might as well have a shell pressed to my ear. Sounds are muffled.

He pulls back to slip his tongue into my opening and the pause is enough for me to realize I have a handful of hair, and I’m pulling, hard. “Sorry.” I say and my hand finds its way to my stomach.

He looks up at me, crocodile eyes above the waterline, and grabs my hand to put it back where it was. I fear for the curls that have sprung up, but obey. He places a hand back on my tum, his mouth back to my center, and three fingers on his opposing hand find their way into my opening. He turns them up in a come hither motion at the moment he seals his mouth over my clit with a bit of suction and proceeds to rub the flat of his tongue up and down until he has to move both of his hands to unclamp my thighs from his ears. He pushes them to the counter.

“Keep em there,” his tone means business but he adds a please. I nod my head again, my neck muscles are gonna be sore at this rate. Every hope I had about how he’d look anointed with my dew is answered. His mouth is gorgeous and wet and a little pink and sets atop a jawline and between cheekbones a sculptor would cut with an exacto. I watch him until his mouth descends. His hand and mouth get back to work, and when a pinky finds its way to my puckered hole, I disobey, my thighs snap up, my back arches, my belly does a samba, and my mouth calls his name.  I quake and quiver on his countertop while he gentles me down. He’s removing his hands and rubbing my thighs, licking lightly until I push his head away. I move to curl up and groan when I realize where I am.

He helps me down and I stretch uncomfortably as I realize the sun is coming up.

He follows my gaze while he rubs the tender spots on my back. “It’s early,” he states. “Do you have to be anywhere?”

I look at the clock, shit. “Yeah, I need to get to work.”

He senses my hurry and helps me locate my clothes, points out a bathroom, and when I come out as presentably as I can, he hands me a coffee cup.

“I never asked your name?” the accent is thicker this am, voice raspier, and his mouth is still wet. I still want it.  I wonder if he’s cleaned himself up at all.

“Um, its Elle.” I leave it at that.

He leans in and kisses me, and I know he hasn’t washed.

“I called you an uber, but I wasn’t sure where to send it.” I take his phone and put in the address.  

He puts it to use when a beautiful orchid arrives later to the desk I work at a record label. I read the card and smile.

“I won’t forget you, or your taste.  

                        Love, H.”

Send your votes my way. Option A or B. Reblog and vote in the tags or message me your vote!

[uss-edsall]

If anyone wants my favourite ‘Christmas’ story, here’s a reading of Frederick Forsyth’s The Shepherd, about an RAF Vampire pilot flying home for Christmas in 1957, suffering a total electrical failure, and being guided in by a Mosquito of WWII vintage... One that isn’t all that it appears, as he tries to figure out who it was to thank him. 

Transcript:

While waiting for control tower to clear me for takeoff, I glanced out through the cockpit canopy at the German countryside, white and crisp beneath the December moon. Behind me lay the boundary fence of the Royal Air Force Base. Far away to my right, the airfield tower stood up like a glowing candle. Inside the tower I knew all was warmth and merriment. The staff waiting only for my departure to close down and head back to the parties in the mess. Within minutes of my going, the lights would die out, leaving only the flickering red station light beating out in Morse code the name of the station: C.E.L.L.E to an unheeding sky. For tonight there would be no wandering aviators to look down and check their bearings. Tonight was Christmas Eve in 1957, and I was a pilot trying to get home for Christmas.

My watch read 10:15 by the dim, blue glow of the control panel where the rows of dials quivered and danced. It was warm and snug inside the cockpit. The heating turned up full to prevent the Perspex icing up. It was like a cocoon, small, and warm and safe, shielding me from the bitter cold outside. From the freezing night that can kill a man inside a minute of use exposed to it at 600 miles per hour.

“Charlie Delta, clear takeoff”. The controller's voice sounding in my headphones woke me. I eased the throttle forward slowly with the left hand, holding the vampire steady down the central line with the right hand. Behind me, the low whine of the goblin engine rose into a scream. The snub-nosed fighter rolled, the lights each side of the runway past till they were flashing and a continuous blur.

As the end of the runway whizzed beneath my feet, I pulled the vampire into a gently climbing turn. Down on my right thigh was strapped the map with my course charted on it in blue ink. But I did not need it. I knew the details by heart. Turn overhead CELLE airfield onto course 265 degrees. Continue climbing to 27,000 feet. On reaching height, maintain course and keep speed at 485 knots. Check in with channel D, the RAF’s North German air control frequency, to let them know you're in their airspace. Then a straight run over the Dutch coast and the North Sea. After 44 minutes flying time, change to channel F, and call Lakenheath control to give you a steer. 14 minutes later, you will be overhead Lakenheath. After that, follow instructions and they'll bring you down on a radio-controlled descent.

66 Minutes flying time with the descent and landing and the vampire had enough fuel for over 80 minutes in the air. From Lakenheath, I knew I could get a lift down to London after midnight. By breakfast time, I’d be in my parents’ home in Kent, celebrating with my own family. The altimeter read 27,000 feet. I eased the nose forward, reduced the throttle setting to give me an air speed of 485 knots, and held her steady on 265 degrees. Somewhere beneath me the Dutch border would be slipping away, and I had been airborne for 21 minutes all well.

The problem started ten minutes out over the North Sea. And it started so quietly that it was several minutes before I realized I had one at all. The first warning I had was when I flicked a glance downward to check my course on the compass, Instead of being rock steady on 265 degrees, the needle was drifting lazily round the clock. I swore a most unseasonal sentiment against the compass and the instrument fitter who should have checked it. Still, it was not too serious. There was a stand by compass; the alcohol kind. When I glanced at it, the needle was swinging wildly too. Apparently, something had jarred the case, which isn't uncommon. In any event, I could call up Lakenheath and a few minutes and they'd give me a G.C.A — a ground-control approach — the second-by-second instructions a well-equipped airfield can give a pilot to bring him home in the worst of weathers.

I glanced at my watch; 34 minutes airborne. Before trying Lakenheath, the correct procedure would be to inform channel D, to which I was tuned, of my little problem so they could advise Lakenheath that I was on my way without a compass. I pressed the transmit button, but instead of the lively crackle of static and the sharp sound of my own voice coming back into my own ears. There was a muffled murmur inside my oxygen mask: my own voice speaking, and going nowhere.

The radio was dead. Fighting down the rising sense of panic, I swallowed and slowly counted to ten. Then I switched the channel F, and tried to raise Lakenheath. But the steady whistle of my own jet engine behind me was my only answer. While I was vainly testing my radio channels, my eyes scanned the instrument panel in front of me. The instruments told their own message. It was no coincidence the compass and the radio had failed together. Both worked off the aircraft's electrical circuits. Somewhere beneath my feet, amid the miles of brightly colored wiring that make up the circuits, there had been a main fuel blowout. The first thing to do in such a case I remembered old Flight Sergeant Norris telling us is to reduce throttle setting to give maximum flight endurance.

We don't want to waste valuable fuel don't we, gentlemen? We might need it later. So we reduce the power settings from 10,000 revolutions per minute to 7,200. That way we will fly a little slower, but we will stay in the air rather longer won't we, gentlemen?

I ease the throttle back and watch the rev counter. It operates on its own generator and so I hadn't lost that at least. I waited until the goblin was turning over at about 7,200 RPM and felt the aircraft slow down. The main instruments in front of a pilot's eye as six including the compass, the five others are the airspeed indicator, the altimeter, the vertical speed indicator, the bank indicator, which tells him if he's turning to left or right, and the slip indicator, which tells him if he's skidding crab wise across the sky. Two of these are electrically operated, and they had gone the same way as my compass. That left me with a three pressure operated instruments: airspeed indicator, altimeter, and vertical speed indicator. I knew how fast I was going, how high I was, and if I were either diving or climbing.

It is perfectly possible to land that aircraft with only these three instruments, judging the rest by those old navigational aids the human eyes. Possible that is in conditions of brilliant weather by daylight and with no cloud in the sky. By night, it is not possible. The only things that show up at night, even on a bright moonlight night, are the lights. These have patterns when seen from the sky. I knew Norwich very well, and if I could identify the great curving bulge of the Norfolk coastline, I could find Norwich, the only major sprawl of lights set 20 miles inland from the coast. Five miles north of the city I knew was the fighter airfield of Mirriam St George, who’s red indicator beacon would be blipping out its Morse identification signal into the night.

I began to let the vampire down slowly toward the oncoming coast. As the fighters slipped toward Norfolk, the sense of loneliness gripped to me tighter and tighter. The night sky, it stratospheric temperature were fixed night and day like at an unchanging minus 56 became in my mind a timeless prison creaking with the cold. Below me lay the worst of them all: the heavy brutality of the North Sea, waiting to swallow me and my plane and bury us in a liquid, black crypt. at 15,000 feet and still diving, I began to realize that a fresh enemy had entered the field far away, to right and left, ahead, and no doubt behind me, the light of the moon reflected on a flat an endless sea of white. The East Anglian fog moved in. There was no question of trying to overfly the fog to westward. Without navigational aids or radio, I'd be lost over a strange, unfamiliar country. Also out of the question was to try to fly back to Holland, I had not the fuel. Relying only on my eyes to guide me, it was a question of landing at Merriam's St. George or dying amid the wreckage of the vampire somewhere in the fog fens. At 10,000 feet, I pulled out of my dive, increasing power slightly to keep airborne, using up more of my precious fuel. Still a creature of my training, I recalled again the instructions of Flight Sergeant Norris: when we are totally lost above unbroken cloud, gentlemen. We must consider the necessity of bailing out of our aircraft must we not? Of course, Sergeant. Unfortunately, the single seat Vampire is notoriously difficult to bail out of. What else, Sergeant? Our first move therefore is to turn our aircraft towards the open sea, away from all areas of intense human habitation. The procedures were well worked out. They did not mention that the chances of a pilot bobbing about on a winter's night in the North Sea were one and a hundred of living more than half an hour. One last procedure, gentlemen, to be used in extreme emergency. That's better, Sergeant Norris. That's what I'm in now.

All aircraft approaching Britain's coast are visible on the radar scanners of early warning system. If therefore we have lost our radio and cannot transmit our emergency, we try to attract the attention of our radar scanners by adopting an odd form of behaviour. We do this by moving out to sea, then flying in small triangles turning left, left, left again. Each leg of the triangle being of a duration of 2 minutes flying time. In this way, we hope to attract attention. When we have been spotted, the air traffic control is informed and he diverts another aircraft to find us. When discovered by the rescue aircraft, we format on him, and he brings us down to the cloud or fog to a safe landing.

Yes, it was the last attempt to save one's life. I recall the details better now. The rescue aircraft which would lead you back to a safe landing, flying wingtip to wingtip was called The Shepherd. I glanced at my watch; 51 minutes airborne. About 30 minutes left of fuel. I pulled the vampire into a left hand turn and began my first leg of the first triangle. Below me, the fog reached back as far as I could see. And ahead toward Norfolk, it was the same. Ten minutes went by; nearly two complete triangles. I had not prayed — not really prayed — for many years. And the habit came hard. Lord, please get me out of this bloody mess.

When I had been airborne for 72 minutes, I knew no one would come. I felt the rage of despair welling up. I began screaming into the dead microphone you bastards. Why don't you look at your radar screens? Why can't somebody see me? So damn drunk you can't do your job properly. The anger subsides. Five minutes later, I knew that I was going to die that night. Strangely, I wasn't even afraid anymore — just enormously sad. It's a bad thing to die at 20 years of age with your life unlived. And the worst thing is not the fact of dying, but the fact of all the things never done. I dropped the left wing of the vampire toward the moon to bring the aircraft onto the final leg of the last triangle. Down below the wing tip, against the sheen of the fog bank, a black shadow crossed the whiteness. It was another aircraft, low against the fog bank, keeping station with me through my turn a mile down with the sky toward the fog.

Being below me, I kept turning wing down to keep it in sight. The other aircraft also kept turning until the two of us had done one complete circle. Only then did I realize why he did not climb to my height and take up station on my wingtip. I eased the throttle back and began to slip down toward him. He kept turning, so did I. At 5,000 feet, I knew I was still going too fast for him. To reduce speed even more, I put out the air brakes, slowing down to 280 knots. Then he was with me, 100 feet off my wing tip. And we straightened out together, rocking as we tried to keep formation. The moon was to my right, and my own shadow masked his shape and form. Even so, I could make out the shimmer of two propellers whirling through the sky ahead of him. Of course, he could not fly at my speed.

I was in a jet fighter; he in a piston-engined aircraft of an earlier generation. He held station alongside me for a few seconds then banked gently to the left. I followed, keeping formation with him for he was, obviously, the shepherd sent up to bring me down. And he had the compass and the radio, not I. For the first time I could see him well. To my surprise, my shepherd was a de Havilland Mosquito, fighter-bomber of World War II vintage. And then I remembered that the meteorological squadron at Gloucester used mosquitoes to help in the preparation of weather forecasts. Inside the cockpit of the mosquito, I could make out against the light of the moon a muffled head of its pilot, and the twin circles of his goggles as he looked out the side window toward me. Carefully, he raised his right hand till I could see it in the window, fingers straight, palm downwards. He jabbed the fingers forward, and down, meaning we are going to descend, format on me. I nodded, and quickly brought up my own left hand so he could see it. Pointing forward to my own control panel with one forefinger, then holding up five splayed fingers. Finally. I drew my hand across my throat. By common agreement, this sign means I have only five minutes fuel left. Then my engine cuts out. I saw the muffled, goggled, oxygen masked head nod in understanding. Then we were heading downward toward the sheet of fog. He pulled out at three hundred feet. The fog was still below us. I could imagine the stream of GCA instructions coming from the radar hut into the earphones of the man flying beside me.

I kept my eyes on him, afraid of losing sight, watching for his every hand signal. Two minutes later, he held up his clenched left fist in the window. Then opened the fist to splay all five fingers against the glass. Please lower your undercarriage. I moved the lever downward and felt the dull thunk as all three wheels went down. In the moonlight, I caught sight of the nose of the mosquito. It had the letters “JK” painted on it, large and black. Probably for call sign “Jig King”. He leveled out just above the fog layers, so low the tendrils of candyfloss were lashing at our fuselages. And we went into a steady circular turn. I glanced at my fuel gauge, it was on zero, flickering feebly. For god’s sake! Hurry up I prayed. I saw his left hand flash that dive signal to me. Then he dipped toward the fog bank. I followed and we were in it. The visibility was down to near zero. No shape, no size, no form, no substance, except that off my left wing tip — now only 40 feet away — was the form of a mosquito flying with absolute certainty towards something I could not see. Only then did I realize he was flying without lights. For a second I was amazed, horrified by my discovery. Then I realized the wisdom of the man. Lights in fog are treacherous, hallucinatory, mesmeric, you can be attracted to them not knowing whether they are 40 or 100 feet away from you. The tendency is to move toward them; for two aircraft in the fog, flying formation that could easily spell disaster. Without warning, the shepherd pointed to a single forefinger at me. Then forward through the windscreen. it meant there you are, fly on, and land. I stared forward through the now streaming windshield, nothing, blackness. Then a streak of paint running underneath my feet; the centerline. Frantically, I closed down the power and held her steady, praying for the vampire to settle. Bang, we touched. Bang, bang, another touch. She was drifting again, inches above the wet, black runway. Bam, bam, bam didy bam, rumble, rumble. She was down, the main wheels had stuck and held.

Slowly the vampire came to a stop. I found both of my hands clenched around the control column, squeezing the brake lever inward. I forget now how many seconds I held them there before I would believe we were stopped. There was no need to turn off the engine. It had finally run out of fuel as the vampire careered down the runway. I shut off the remaining systems, and slowly began to unstrap myself from the seat. As I did so, to my left, through the fog, no more than 50 feet away, the mosquito roared past me. I caught the flash of the pilot's hand in the side window, and then he was gone up into the fog before he could see my answering wave of acknowledgment. But I had already decided to call up Gloucester and thank him personally. I expected the control tower truck to be alongside in seconds, for with an emergency landing — even on Christmas Eve — the fire truck, ambulance, and half a dozen other vehicles were always standing by. Eventually, two headlights came dropping out of the mist and stopped 20 feet away. A voice called hello there.

I stepped out of the cockpit, jumped from the wing to the tarmac, and ran toward the lights. At the wheel of the car was a puffed, bearded face and a handlebar mustache. 

Is that yours? He nodded toward the dim shape of the vampire. 

Yes, I said. Yes, I just landed it. 

Extraordinary! Quite extraordinary! You'd better jump in, I’ll run back. As we moved away from the vampire, I saw that I had stopped 20 feet short of a plowed field at the very end of the runway. You’re damn lucky he shouted. And he seemed to be having trouble with the foot controls. Judging by the smell of whiskey on his breath, that wasn't surprising. Damn lucky I agreed. I ran out of fuel just as I was landing. My radio and all the electrical systems failed nearly 50 minutes to go over the North Sea. He digested the information carefully. No radio? No radio I said; a dead box and all channels. Then how did you find this place? He said. I was guided in I explained patiently. They sent up a shepherd aircraft to bring me down. It was one of the weather aircraft from R.A.F. Gloster. Obviously, he had radio. So we came in here in formation on GCA. Then when I saw the lights of the threshold of the runway I landed myself. 

The man was obviously dense as well as drunk. Extraordinary he said. We don’t have a GCA. We don’t have any navigation equipment at all, not even a beacon. 

Now it's my turn to let the information sink in. This isn't the RAF Merriam St. George? 

No he said. This is RAF Minton. 

I've never heard of it. 

I'm not surprised; we’re not an operational station. Haven't been for years. Minton's a storage depot. He stopped the car and got out. I saw we were standing a few feet from the dim ship of a control tower adjoining a long row of huts, evidently once flight rooms, navigational, and briefing huts. the man returned and climbed shakily back behind the wheel. Just turning the runway lights off he said, and he belched. My mind was whirling. 

Why did you switch them on? I asked. Well, it was the sound of your engine he said. I was in the officers’ mess having a nog, and Old Joe suggested I listen out the window for a second. You sounded damn low, almost as if you're going to come down in a hurry. Thought I might be of some use. Remember they never disconnected the old runway lights when they dismantled the station. So I ran down the control tower and switched them on.

I see I said. But I didn't. Where is RAF Minton exactly? I asked him. 

Five miles in from the coast he said. 

And where's the nearest operational RAF station with all the radio aids, including GCA? He thought for a moment. Must be Merriam St George he said. Mind you I am just as stores Johnny. That was the explanation. My unknown friend in the weather plane had been leading me straight in from the coast of Merriam St. George. By chance, abandoned old storage depot Minton lay right along the in flight path of Merriam’s runway. And this old fool had switched on his lights as well. Result coming in on the last ten mile stretch, I had plucked to my vampire down into the wrong airfield. I was about to tell him not to interfere with modern procedures that he couldn't understand when I choked the words back my fuel had run out halfway down the runway. I'd never have made Merriam ten miles away. I'd have crashed in the field short of the touchdown.

We stopped at the officers’ mess and went in. The place had seen better days. My host the Flight Lieutenant Marx shrugged off a sheepskin coat and threw it over a chair. I'm sorry it's not very hospitable, old boy said Marx, going to the door and shouting for someone called Joe. Not to worry I said, though I could do with a bath and a meal. 

I think me can manage that he said, trying hard to play the genial host. I’ll get Joe to fix up a spare room. God knows we have enough of them. He’ll also rough up a meal. Bacon and eggs do? 

That'll do fine. While I'm waiting, do you mind if I use your phone. He ushered me into the mess secretary's office, and then went off to supervise the steward. My watch told me it was close to midnight. Hell of a way to spend Christmas I thought. Then I recalled how 30 minutes earlier, I had been crying to god for help, and I felt ashamed. After a few minutes the phone was ringing.

RAF Merriam St George. Duty controller air traffic control please I said. 

There was a pause. I'm sorry sir, but I'm afraid there's no flying tonight sir. No one on duty in air traffic control. 

Then give me the station duty officer please. When I got through to him, I explained about the emergency and that his station had been alerted to receive a vampire fighter coming in on emergency landing without radio. 

He listened attentively. I don’t know about that. I don't think we've been operational since we closed down at 5:00 this afternoon, but I'm not on air traffic. I'll get the wing commander. An older voice came on the line. Where are you speaking from? 

RAF Minton, sir. I've just made an emergency landing here. I thought I was heading for your airfield on a ground-controlled approach. 

Well, make up your mind. Were you or weren’t you? You ought to know. I took a deep breath and started at the beginning. You see sir, I was intercepted by the weather plane from Gloucester, and he brought me. But in this fog it must have been on a GCA. No other way to get down. Yet, when I saw the lights of Minton, I landed assuming it to be Merriam St. George. I’m ringing to alert you to stand on your radar and air traffic control crews, sir. They must be waiting for a vampire that's never going to arrive. It's already arrived here at Minton. 

But we shut all the systems down at 5 o'clock. There has been no call for us to turn up. 

But Merriam St. George has a GCA. 

I know we have, but it's been shut down since 5 o'clock.

I asked the next and last question slowly and carefully. Do you know sir, where is the nearest RAF station that maintains 24 hour emergency listening? 

Yes, to the west. To the south. Good night to you. Happy Christmas. I put the phone down. On the fuel I was carrying, not only could I not have made Merriam St. George. It wasn't even open. It began to dawn on me that I didn't really owe my life to the weather pilot from Gloucester, but the bearded, bumbling old, passed over, Flight Lieutenant Marx, who couldn't tell one end of an aircraft from another. Still, the mosquito must be back at Gloucester by now. And he ought to know that despite everything, I was alive.

Gloucester! Said the operator. At this time of night! 

Yes, I replied firmly. Gloucester, even at this time of night. 

The duty meteorologist took the call and I explained the position to him. I am afraid there must be some mistake flying officer he said. It could not have been one of our mosquitoes went out of service three months ago. We now use Canberras. I stared at the telephone in disbelief. Then an idea came to me. 

What happened to them? 

They were scrapped I think or sent off to a museum is more likely. 

Could one of them been sold privately? I asked. 

I suppose it's possible. 

Thank you. Thank you very much, and happy Christmas. I put the phone down and shook my head in bewilderment. What an incredible night. First, I lose my radio and all my instruments. Then I get lost and short of fuel. Then I'm taken in by some moonlighting hair-brain with a passion for veteran aircraft, flying his own mosquito through the night, who happens to spot me, comes within an inch of killing me, and finally a half drunk ground duty officer has the sense to put his runaway lights on in time to save me.

Luck doesn't come in much bigger slices. Flight Lieutenant Marx put his head through the doorway. You're room is ready he said. Number 17 just down the corridor. Joe’s making up a fire, and bath water is heating. If you don't mind I think I'll turn in. Be all right on your own? 

Yes, sure I'll be fine. Many thanks for all your help. I took my helmet and wandered down the corridor. From the doorway of 17 a bar of light shone into the passage. As I entered the room an, elderly man began to rise from his knees in front of the fireplace.

Good evening sir, he said. I'm Joe, sir, the mess steward. Yes Joe, Mr. Marx told me about you. Sorry to cause you so much trouble at this hour of the night. I just dropped in as you might say. 

Yes, Mr. Marx told me. I'll have your room ready directly, soon as this fire burns up it’ll get quite cozy. I ate the plate of sizzling bacon and eggs. The old steward stayed to talk. You been here long, Joe? I asked him. More out of politeness than genuine curiosity. Oh yes sir, nigh on twenty years now. Since just before the war, when the station opened.

He told me of the days where the rooms were crammed with eager young pilots. The dining room noisy, the bar roaring with songs of months and years when the sky above the airfields snarled to the sound of piston engines driving planes the war and bringing them back again. I rose from the table, fished a cigarette from the pocket of my flying suit, lit it, and sauntered around the room. The steward began to tidy up the plates. I halted before an old photograph in a frame standing on a mantel above the crackling fire. I stopped with my cigarette half raised my lips, feeling the room go suddenly cold. 

The photo was old but it was still clear enough. It showed a young man in his early 20s, dressed in flying gear, but not the gray suits and plastic crash helmets of today. He wore thick sheepskin-lined boots, rough Serge trousers and a heavy sheepskin zip up jacket. From his left hand dangled one of the soft leather flying helmets they used to wear with goggles attached instead of the modern pilots’ tinted visor. He stood with legs apart, right hand on hip, a defiant stance. But he was not smiling. It was something sad about his eyes. Behind him stood his aircraft, there was no mistaking the lean, sleek silhouette of the mosquito fighter-bomber. 

I was about to say something to Joe and I felt the gust of cold air in my back. One of the windows had blown open. It took me two strides to cross to where the window swung on its steel frame. To get a better hold I stepped inside the curtain and stared out. Somewhere far away in the fog I thought I heard the snarl of engines. But it was probably just a motorcycle of some farm boy. I closed the window, made sure it was secure, and turned back into the room. 

Who's the pilot, Joe? I nodded toward the lonely photograph on the mantel. 

That's a photo of Mr. John Kavanagh, sir. He was here during the war, sir. An Irish gentleman. Very fine man if I may say so. As a matter of fact, sir, this was his room. 

What squadron was that, Joe? I was still peering at the aircraft in the background. 

Pathfinder's, sir. mosquito's the flew. Very fine pilots all of them, sir. But I believe Mr. Johnny was the best of them all. But then I’m biased, sir. I was his batman you see. 

There was no doubting it. The faint letters on the nose of the mosquito behind the figure in the photo read “JK’. Not “Jig King”, but “Johnny Kavanagh”. The whole thing was clear as day.

Kavanagh had been a fine pilot flying with one of the crack squadrons during the war. After the war, he'd made a pile of money, bought an old mosquito in one of the periodic auctions of obsolescent aircraft, refitted it, and flew it privately whenever he wished. Not a bad way to spend your spare time if you had the money. So he'd been flying back from some trip to Europe, but spotted me turning in triangles above the cloud bank, realized I was stuck, and taken me in tow. Pinpointing his position precisely by crossed radio beacons. Knowing this stretch of the coast by heart, he'd taken a chance on finding his old airfield at Minton, even in the thick fog. It was a hell of a risk. But then I had no fuel left. So it was that or bust. I had no doubt I could trace the man, probably through the Royal Aero Club. 

He was certainly a good pilot I said reflectively, thinking of this evening's performance. 

Oh, the best, sir said Old Joe. They reckon he had eyes like a cat did Mr. Johnny. I recall many's a time the squadron returned. He’d have his mosquito re-fuled and take off again alone, going back over the channel or the North Sea to see if he could find some crippled bomber making for the coast and guide it home. 

I've seen pictures of them I said. And he used to guide them back? I could imagine them in my mind's eye, gaping holes in the body, the wings and the tail creaking and swaying as the pilot sought to hold them steady for home, a wounded or dying crew, and the radio shot to bits.

I turned from the photograph and stubbed my cigarette butt into the ashtray by the bed. 

Quite a man I said, and I meant it. 

Even today, middle-aged, he was a superb flyer. 

Oh yes, sir, quite a man Mr. Johnny. I nodded gravely. 

The old man so obviously worshiped his wartime officer. Well, I said. By the look of it, he's still doing it. 

Now Joe smiled oh, I hardly think so, sir. 

My Johnny went out on his last patrol Christmas Eve 1943, just over 14 years ago tonight. He never come back, sir. 

Went down with his plane somewhere in the North Sea he did. 

Good night, sir. 

Happy Christmas.