#they all fall to the might of the junkie with a power fist

[yoddel]

I've been playing Fallout New Vegas and I admit the challenges get rather not challenging if you dedicate yourself to the way of combat drugs, but I am having a lot of fun.

Compression meant motion blur looked trash, but with a zoomed in view showing it off one can imagine the full image as intended.

[orleans-jester]

Do you know how hard it is to Dance and Skateboard? Maybe if it was choreographed and you were Tony fucking Hawk but not really having much control over it? It was pretty damn difficult. Ellie tried her best to fashion something, be innovative - tie a bandana that was left behind here around her face like a kerchief to cover her mouth as much as possible, who knew what still might be in the air. And then came the duct tape.

Holding her backpack with the couple of things that she brought from home for what she assumed was a short stay at the crib. Strapping it in well so that it wouldn’t fall off if she started to dance. And then duct taping her leg into her sneaker and then the sneaker onto the skateboard. Just the one. The other, she’d need to propel herself but man, please let this be smooth sailing. Please oh please oh please.

Since her mouth was covered, her main source of her powers, she got her handy dandy knife. The one that she never returned to the Foulfellows. If they ever figured out it was missing, they didn’t ask her about it. Tucked it into the waistband of her pants in case this did go all dancing zombie invasion. What a weird world they live in that she even had to worry about such things.

Nothing more to distract herself with. All survival mode. Headphones on. Beastie Boys’s Fight for your Right playing because if she was going to dance, she might as well pick the soundtrack, and awkwardly made her way outside, securing the bandana tighter, breathing through the fabric. Awkward because she was stuck on the skateboard while making her way down the stairs and across the sidewalk. Across the street, a junkie was tra-la-laing, out of his damn mind.

She got the wiggles. But it could have been a lot worse. She was no dancer. She never took a class in her life. She just moved with music and that was more of a hand and top of body thing. Her toes were tapping and the foot that she was using to kick off kept wanting to tap against the ground but she tried to use that to her advantage, figure out some sort of timing. She was making progress.

She made it past Funkytown. The lights that were on inside, streaming from the windows, the shadows behind the curtains gave her some relief. Alright, there was still life in there. Awesome. It wasn’t entirely out of her way but she was glad she made the little detour. And then on and on to the portal. She couldn’t find it in herself to go past the bakery. She didn’t want to see. She wasn’t ready for that. She was avoiding it as much as possible.

She knew she was getting closer to the portal when she saw a small hoard of people. Most of them had already made it to Skull Rock, or were closer to it, so these must be the people that Babyface was throwing out. For her. Made her tongue feel a little dry just realizing how many people that he had thrown through, sentenced to death, just to try to figure out if it was safe for him to get to her, or for her to get to him. Sweet and sour, this was. But at least she had gotten here. And these were Halloweentown kids so they probably weren’t exactly innocent.

The portal was so close. She could see it. She could see him behind it. With her shoulders still shimmying, her hands do a weird sort of macarena thing, she shouted for his attention. “Shit - shit - shit - shit - incoming!”

Crash

Impact was made. She stumbled inside of the portal, the skateboard slipping underneath her, making her fall and cling onto Babyface, bringing them both down with an oof. She didn’t notice the bruise on her elbow from falling, no, what she noticed was that she could move her arms on her own, not against her will. She sat up quickly and fist pumped. “YES. I’m not dancing!”

[theblackbirdsgemimagines]

May I request for the Leona, Vil, Azul and our boy Jack getting stuck in their MC's world and their experience? (MC is with them)

Oh sweet Jesus akdhakdhsk FORGIVE ME OF MY RATHER CYNICAL OUTLOOK ON OUR LIL BLUE PLANET 😬 I think it’s understandable to be more cynical than ever in this Hell Year, lolll

Send these poor, sweet babies back home, they deserve better than to be stuck here of all places 😅 ESPECIALLY JACK AAAAAA SAVE THE BABY 💔

Ok, not even going to play with you... Vil would thrive, lol.

Just give him time enough to stop panicking over all his lost clothes, magic, etc., and find new things that works for him and his detailed self-care routine, and whatever he chooses to do, he will make Fat Stacks in.

He’s the male version of Belle Delphine, here ajdhakdhsj

He appears anywhere, on tv with some company to continue his performer career he had back home, or on youtube/instagram, and he is almost immediately just as famous here as he was in Wonderland.

Can we really blame anyone, tho? Look at him.

And there’s no Neige here!

Also, ‘my’ Vil is definitely the one that knows there are many different ways to be beautiful~. He may be a bit more blunt to his friends if he thinks they’re not quite hitting the usual mark their talents place them in. But that’s only because he cares about them, and wants everyone to see their best, as he does~. He’s an absolutely encouraging sweetheart to anyone else/a beginner at whatever their passion is, though~. And either way, he’s your best cheerleader~.

Of course he still just doesn’t feel himself without his magic, or ability to do potions. I don’t think he’d find the witchcraft in our world would suit him very well.

If he was really stuck for good, of course he’d make the best of it. But if he could go home, especially if you wanted to go back with him, he’d jump at the chance. And always be on the lookout for the chance.

But that being said, I think, aside from all the world’s problems, of course, he’d find it interesting just how similar, and vastly different, things are here.

He donates Ass Loads to so many charities, like honestly.

Rich boy knows his privilege, and lets others ride off his advantages as much as he can. 💜

He becomes friends with James Charles. You know he does.

You can’t be truly fully beautiful if you’re not also lovely on the inside, too, after all~!

Rip Rook wherver he is, he is lost without his Queen 😔

Gosh, in direct contrast to Vil, Leona probably suffers the most over here?? Jahdkshdj

I know they based his sleep habits off a irl lion, but that also sounds just a Tad Bit like possible depression to me (along with a lot of the other ways he’s behaved so far, lol).

Get this sweetheart to some therapy, maybe?? Help him get a lil energy boost at least to help him feel better 💛

He’s going to HATE the work pace people have to maintain just to eat here, 100%.

He enjoys the entertainment the most, though~. Video games, things you can watch online, all those sorts of things~. Might like a few of our sports, too~.

Poor bby struggles with having to work, though, please help him 💔

At least he doesn’t have to live under being Forever Prince, here, and doesn’t have to worry about turning anything he touches to sand. And the lions in the zoos are pretty cool to go see~!

He’d probably love it if he could go to Africa and see what our “Afterglow Savannah” looks like here~. Meet the lions that are in the wild~.

I imagine he and Jack would both lose the ears for human ones, and the tails, too. (😢💔) So he probably feels weird seeing himself like that, and might miss his tail. Especially if it helped him with balance. Give him some time to adjust to it~. There’s these neat new tails people made for cosplay, that can move around on their own, if he’d like one to help him not miss his old one so much~!

I had to really think about what the heck he’d even do for a job, cause he’s so grumpy to everyone, retail’s just OUT, lol. And I don’t think he’d be that great at something like youtube, either ajdhsjjd

It’s hard for him to not just lay around all lazy, rather than think of stuff to do for it/actually get up and go do it. Let alone all the meetings, and interacting with fans, and the like.

So maybe actually being one of the zookeepers would be a good fit for him~. He’d be obligated to actually go, and he’d get to be around lots of different animals~. Might help him feel more at home, too~. I think he’d be pretty good at it, and the animals would probably be drawn to him~ 💛

He’d also absolutely challenge the authority here (or anywhere else that has appalling governments, especially if they’re not run by women). The state of things, and the way women and minorities are treated by white men around the world, and men in general, would absolutely appall him. He so drunk on that respecc women juice, he just can’t wrap his head around what the hell the problem is with those rich assholes in power. Put him in power, and he’ll ruthlessly show them what-for! ALL the others behind him would be women! Good grief, humans!

All in all, he doesn’t mind it here, but would also prefer to be home, where he can sleep more, and Ruggie can run around for him most of the time, lol

Besides, that allowed him to spend more time with you~! 💛

(LOOKIT THAT HAPPY BOY SMILE!!! I’M DEAD 💞💞💞)

Oh, Jack. Sweet, sweet Jack.

He absolutely becomes a personal trainer as a job, here. 1000%. He lives that Exercise Junkie Lifestyle, there’s just no doubt about it.

He’s VERY encouraging to his students, though~! Build up that beef, guys, he has total faith in you~! 🤍🤍

He absolutely loooooooves going anywhere to see wolves. He’d probably really love the wooded mountains in Europe, if you ended up there, or in Oregon/Washington if you ended up here in America~. Definitely Canada, or Alaska, too~! Just give him huge trees, snowy winters, and nearby mountains, and he feels right at home~.

Idk if he’d miss his magic a whole heck of a lot, tbh?? But he WOULD miss his friends and family! It’s just not quite the same here, though he thinks it’s beautiful and interesting to see where you came from~. 🤍

He’s a good boy 😭

Also appalled with the state of so many rulers and governings both in your home, and around most of the world, lol.

He can’t stand seeing so many people suffer like that! How can they possibly live the life that’s the most healthy and happy for them to live, disabled, chronically ill, or not, if they’re suffering under an iron fist all the time?!

He CAN’T stand for it. You won’t stop him till he sees good change starting to finally happen. Especially if you live here! There’s no way he can just sit around and have you be subjected to that!

HE’S A GOOD BOY 😭

You gotta calm him down a lot and remind him there are others just as good and kind as he is, fighting to change things too 🤍

God help people if he gets here anytime within 2020-2021. He’s sucker punching nearly everyone he sees without a mask.

He’s also sucker punching every nazi he sees, too.

My goodness, please show him the movie Wolf Children! He’ll hide the fact he’s crying multiple times through it, but it’s one of his favorite movies here~.

If you do manage to go back to Wonderland, please try to bring a copy of it with you. It’s the one thing he’ll miss most, and keep asking to watch with you again, before remembering it doesn’t exist there. 😭

He also misses his tail and ears a lot. Losing all of that + his senses would be very a very awkward adjustment for him, and he wouldn’t really like it poor bby 💔 Give him lots of hugs to compensate U-U 🤍

His favorite thing to do with you would probably be to go hiking, and stay in a little cabin in the woods, for a week or two~. Somewhere in one of the previously mentioned places~.

(I couldn’t find a chibi gif of Azul to use, rip 😭)

Azul is just straight up becoming a mafia boss, probably wkdhakdjjs.

He’s the ‘good’ kind, though. He’s learned his lesson since his overblot, and he won’t outright kill people for not paying him back, or introduce drugs, or anything like that.

He’ll help people obtain what they want as legally as possible... But that doesn’t mean he still won’t be sly as hell about it, haha~.

He’ll protect loyal/good customers and the areas they live in, too~. In fact, he’d probably reDUCE crime from doing so.

He just learns all the dirty ins and outs of everything about how things run here. And as much as he’ll fight for change as the others would, because there’s no way any of that is an acceptable way for you to live, he’ll work dirty in order to take advantage of the system, to do so. What better way, right? Make the dominos fall from the inside out.

He’s a good business man, he knows doing so would also benefit him, too.

He’s like Bruce Wayne if Bruce Wayne was a rich mafia leader jeehskdje

Need health benefits to work for him? Covered. Need above-average pay to actually afford your bills and other stuff? Covered. Need education to do a job for him? They’ll train you.

He’s also practically a Gordon Ramsey, tbh. Lots of his bars will pop up across the world, if he stays here long enough, lol. But they’ll all help a good number of people, in doing so~.

He also donates as much as he can, too. If he’s gonna become even a fraction as rich as Jeff Bozos, he’s ending world hunger and homelessness every year.

And boy oh BOY will he swindle the rich akdhakdhwj

He will whip them so hard, they won’t know what the hell hit them.

He may have been under restrictions at the college, but he sure as hell isn’t here. Watch out as he spreads his tentacles wings.

And, of course, he adores being anywhere near the coast. Doesn’t matter what part of the world you’re in, he just needs to be by the sea.

All the polution absolutely breaks his sweet little heart, and that’s one of the first things on his list to fix. Dealing with trash back home was much easier... you could just zap it all away at big trash fields. But you don’t have that luxury here.

Being that he doesn’t really like his ocotpus form (bbyyyyyy 😢💔), he probably doesn’t mind the permanent legs. At least he doesn’t have to constantly take a potion to keep them, anymore.

But it’s still awkward to get used to. And he can’t stand that he can’t breathe underwater anymore, or go too far down without dying from the pressure.

He’ll dive as often as he can~. And loves to dive, or snorkle, or just swim~, with you, if you want to join him~.

He does miss his home, if only for the beauty and familiarity it had, despite a lot of bad memories around it. But there’s no doubt he’d thrive here, in a way only he could~.

He totally believes your own version of mermaids exists, and gets excited over anything that could prove it to be true 😅

Plus, he’s just obsessed with how marine life works here in general~. If he can juggle being a freakin maffia boss, and a marine biologist just out of the pure love for it, I have no doubt he’d do it~.

Humans most likely evolved from creatures in the water?? That’s amazing~! So the ocean feels like a distant memory of a second home~! He’d love to bond over that, the romantic~ 💜

[lurafita]

SIM Tony / Peter, part three

Read part one here

Read part two here

Tumblr is fucking with me right now. I’m not getting notifications from some of my posts. I hope this won’t happen with this one as well.

This chapter is a little different. It will likely seem a little confusing and kind of all over the place. I assure you, this is not because I wrote it while being drunk. :-)

The chapter is supposed be reflect on Peter mental and emotional state after rejecting Tony, and right now, Peter isn’t in a good place. There is a lot of self-loathing, as well as self-destructive behaviour.

As always, this wasn’t beta read, I’m not a nativ english speaker, and there might be mistakes or typos in this. Please point any you may find out to me, so I can correct them.

SIM!Tony/Peter

Part 3

24 muggings, 18 instances of battery, 11 cases of domestic violence, 7 attempted rapes, 5 house fires, 3 attempted kidnappings.

It had been a busy 6 days for Spiderman.

6 days since Peter had fled from the man he loved. The man who returned those feelings. The man who wanted to spend his life with him.

And Peter had run.

Like a coward.

6 days of almost non-stop heroism. 6 days of being Spiderman. 6 days of being someone who caught the bad guys, who protected the defenseless, who saved people!

It was such a fucking farce.

6 days of trying desperately to not be Peter Parker. Because Peter Parker was a fucking mess. Because Peter Parker couldn't deal with his fucking feelings and his fucking paranoia and his fucking life. Because Peter Parker was so scared that he was gonna lose someone else he loved, that he kept running away from them.

Just as he had done with Tony.

Aunt May had been easier.

He had moved into student housing together with Harry (before his then best friend had become a mutated, homicidal maniac), when he had started college. Slowly reducing their time together during his time as a student. First cutting down on the weekends he would visit her, then encouraging to go for that job she wanted (which included better working conditions and pay, but was based in California.)

Helping her move, promising to call often (which he did) and visit as much as he could (which he didn't).

He missed her every day, but at least she was safe. Safe from being collateral damage in Peter Parker's fucked up life.

Like Gwen, and MJ, and Harry, and Eddie.

Like Dr. Conners and Dr. Octaviuos and Captain Stacey.

Like uncle Ben.

And Peter should have fucking learned from all of this. He should have known to keep away from people. Keep his distance. Keep them safe.

But no.

No.

Because Peter was a selfish little prick and he just had to make friends, right?

Turning away from the people in his civilian life, had led him to forge deeper connections with the people in his hero life.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Spiderman and the Avengers had worked together a lot over the years. As had Spiderman and the Defenders.

And Peter just had to let himself grow attached, hadn't he?

Just had to insert himself into the two groups more an more. Talk them into team outings and movie nights and shared patrols.

Take off his mask and entrust them with his secret identity.

Endanger them.

And then take things even further and fall in love!

Selfish fucking moron!

But Tony was... he was just... everything.

Funny and smart and handsome and brave and sarcastic and kind.

Narcissistic and confident and charming and sexy.

But also shy, unsure and insecure.

Tony had his vices, and his flaws. Just like everyone else did. But Peter had fallen for the man anyway. He had fallen fast, hard, and completely in love with Anthony Edward Stark, Iron Man.

And for some crazy, ludicrous, abnormal reason, Tony returned those feelings.

Tony Stark, the man who could have anyone, wanted Peter Parker.

Selfish, cowardly, broken Peter Parker.

And how had Peter reacted to that?

By pretty much throwing Tony's love on the floor and trampling all over it on his way out the door.

Running away.

Coward!

6 days since he had last spoken to the genius. 6 days since he had even seen the man. 6 days of hiding behind his mask and swinging around in his suit and obsessively looking for anyone who might need his help.

As if it could balance out all the lives he had destroyed. As if it could erase the pain he had caused Tony.

6 days of running away from life as Peter Parker.

He had barely slept and hardly eaten anything. (He only took care to keep himself well hydrated. Though most of what he drank was some form of liquid caffeine, to keep himself awake)

Hadn't bothered to take care of the various injuries he had acquired.

The other heroes he came across were getting worried.

First Matt after Peter had been out as Spiderman for a full 18 hours, and just yesterday Steve. They had taken him aside, told him to go home. Rest up and take a break.

They shouldn't bother.

He deserved this.

The exhaustion and the hunger and the pain.

He deserved it all for being a fucking, useless mess who always ended up hurting the people he loved.

His knuckles were stinging and bloody as he drove his fist into the brick wall once more. His healing factor stretched thin after almost a week without proper rest and nourishment.

Good. This is your punishment. You deserve this.

He had no time for self-pity (he didn't deserve any, anyway)

It had been all over the news. A sudden power failure at the raft. Security systems crashing. Suspected cyber attack.

Two of the prisoners had escaped. Conners and Octavious. The Lizard and Doc Ock.

And as if that wasn't enough, Peter had overheard Steve on the phone with the director of Shield (after the good Captain had unsuccessfully tried to convince Spidey to take a break).

Venom was gone from the containment unit.

Three of his worst enemies were on the loose.

He had doubled his efforts since he had heard of it. No quick pit stops in his apartment. No short rests on the rooftops. Peter hadn't slept at all in the last 64 hours.

He still hadn't found them. No one had found them.

Eddie Brock was under 24 hour observation to make sure the symbiote couldn't attach itself to it's preferred host. (Another life that Peter had destroyed. Due to his bond with Venom, Eddie had been reduced to little more than the likes of a junkie. In a constant state of withdrawal, driven mad by his need for reunion with the alien. He would probably have to live out the rest of his life in the mental institution he currently resided in)

All your fault!

The Avengers and the Defenders likewise had been spotted all over New York, trying to find and recapture the escaped villains before they could cause any damage. They constantly tried to flag Spidey down, get him somewhere safe, or at least make him stay close to them. Everyone know that Conners, Octavious and Venom would be out for Peter's blood.

(The only one Peter hadn't seen since the news broke out was Iron Man, and he didn't know what to think about that)

Maybe he doesn't care about you anymore. Good! He shouldn't! They are your villains and therefore your problem! The other heroes shouldn't have to clean up your mess!

6 days since he had last been at work.

He was probably fired. He didn't care. He could hardly think straight.

He was exhausted and starving and in pain.

You deserve this.

Three of his most dangerous enemies were somewhere in the city, planning who knows what, and every hero in New York had to waste their time and energy looking for them.

All your fault! Always such a burden on everyone.

Tony probably hated him.

He should! He deserves so much better than you!

He was on his last two cartridges of webfluid, having depleted his whole supply swinging through the city, looking for any trace of the Lizard and Ock. He should go back. Make more webfluid. He would need it in the fight against the two villains. (Three, if Venom got a hold of Eddie.)

Peter needed to be prepared for this. But he couldn't stop now. He had to find and apprehend them, before they could hurt anyone! He couldn't stop, couldn't take a break.

You don't deserve a break.

He had to keep going.

He was so exhausted.

He still hadn't found them.

Everything hurt.

Where could they be?

Tony hated him.

You deserve this.

You deserve this.

You deserve this!

Danger!!!

His spidey-sense screamed and he veered left in his swing at the very last second, narrowly avoiding his former best friend on his deadly glider.

How could Peter have forgotten about Harry, The Green Goblin?

__________________________________________________________

to be continued. As always, people who comment on any part, are automatically added to the tag list. If you don’t want to be tagged, but still want to comment, just write ‘no tag, please’, or contact me via messaging. If I have forgotten to tag someone, please tell me so that I can update my list.

Tagging:

@kittycake574 @sthefystarkersworld @starkerparkerpony @momobaby227 @tsxpp @deliciousflapbanditfarm @gay-gym-rats @unicornpower5301 @bbalienbae @valiantthewriter

[split-n-splice]

"Her reputation going sour was no secret." – a line of interest from Ch1 of The Devil Wears a Suit and Tie. ;3 Just throwin’ that out there. Also! A definite nod to the cupcakery here, because headcanon: those recipes were taken from Drakken’s cookbook. Also headcanon: Drakken likes baking, fite me. This makes sense to me since Ron likes baking, and since Drakken’s shown interest in recipes.

Edited by @gogofordrakgo ♥ (ohlawd thnx for putting up w/ me)

[Chapter Guide]

7. Enabler – 4

As his first day alone in more than two weeks wore on, Dr. Drakken became increasingly aware he was off his game.

He haphazardly wrapped up the order of power staves and shipped them off to free up his schedule. Even left with a surplus of free time on his hands, left in the total privacy of his lab with no one to hover and no distracting upgrades to personalized combat gear to win himself brownie points, he made very little headway on his drones.

He managed to get one robot up and running, so to speak, but commands that seemed so simple like stand and walk just didn’t compute. Yet the buggy self-aware machine managed to rise on its own accord and point to the unassembled duplicates strewn about in a thousand different pieces on his worktable. Worst of all, the bare-bones robot began chanting, “sisters, sisters, sisters,” incessantly until something Drakken said or did caused its head to snap his direction. Preservation activated and an artificial fight or flight drive tripped, unfortunately geared toward fight. The skeletal droid abruptly announced him a threat to the sisters and lurched into action. Lucky for him, there was still a plug to pull.

He could have used some assistance in disabling the mutinous drone, but he managed on his own, as he always had. He shut down the project for the day to tend to a swollen lip received in the collision of steel knuckles and his face.

Back in his quarters, he couldn’t help casting glances to the phone, itching to dial – to dial someone. Anyone. He knew exactly who he wanted to ring up and give an earful to, but he clenched his fists and stamped a foot and grunted to himself as he stalked away from the landline. He had a headache and didn’t need to deal with her attitude now anyway.

Solitude was still disheartening. If he had expected a call from the runaway that evening to update him of her progress or lack thereof, or even to say goodnight or make small talk or anything at all, then he was sorely disappointed.

Drakken knew she wouldn’t have approved – in fact he was certain she would have been furious with him if she’d known – but he’d taken the liberty of sending out henchmen to gather intel on the superhuman. Granted, he’d lost those resourceful fellows, who’d only just returned from the assignment with their haul a day before getting the axe.

As Drakken lugged the overflowing box out of the storage room the next day, he reasoned with himself that he deserved to know who he’d been harboring, especially if he planned to continue to do so. He’d been just a little too wary to touch the box before, lest she pop up behind him to catch him red handed.

He deposited it on his coffee table and locked the door to his quarters for good measure, just in case the woman returned and came barging in at an especially undesirable time.

An abundance of manila folders stuffed with news articles topped the box, and if the men hadn’t already been fired, Drakken might have tipped whoever was responsible for courteously ordering the articles by date, even if he’d nearly scattered them as he unthinkingly tossed them aside while rummaging. VHS and cassette tapes at the bottom of the box made up the other half of the heft. Infiltrating a Global Justice base to steal her official records had been asking too much of the henchman, but an excess of media coverage to expose her would have to be good enough.

With the Bebe bots a bust and a woman who wasn’t even present distracting him still, Drakken settled in to squander his day reading what the sacked henchmen had scrounged up. He could spend an entire week reviewing her hero streak, reading the articles and watching the news reports or listening to interviews on tape, but he elected to skim through the past the four years worth of clippings, pulling out a folder from the bottom of the stack to begin.

A few nights ago, at three in the morning, he had been woken by the girl slamming his “front” door and stalking to his kitchen, the green embers glittering over her skin burning off perspiration and nearly setting her pajamas ablaze. She forwent a glass and drank straight from the faucet before hanging over his sink to hold her head under the stream of water, cursing about a comet. She’d looked just a little too unstable for him to hazard questioning her then, and had returned to his room to let her raid his kitchen for a midnight snack in peace.

So Dr. Drakken wasn’t altogether surprised when the earliest scant news coverage regarded a chip off a comet that had struck down in the suburbs of Go City. It had come so fast and so sudden that there had only been a couple blurry shots of the meteorite’s decent and recovery to accompany the articles. That it hadn’t left a bigger crater or caused fatalities was a mystery, but there was no mention of five quarantined adolescents caught up in the catastrophe either, so a cover-up wasn’t improbable.

Within the year, a trio of teenagers in uniform were garnering admiration of the general populace with their heroic feats. Front-page photos of a distantly familiar girl with her hair still short and boyish beside defeated villains bound up and posed with like trophies, frequently smiling smugly for the camera, should have been enough to make any villain in his right mind reconsider taking her in. Drakken wanted to believe he knew her better than that – that she wasn’t the vigilante she claimed she never wanted to be, and that there was no chance she might be on her way back to his lair with her teammates to hand his ass to him at any moment – but it wasn’t so easy.

Guiltily, he came realize that maybe she hadn’t been pulling his leg about her piloting capability after all when he found a clipping from last fall, featuring a photograph of a far more recognizable woman in uniform along with two young men like her in front of a jet as colorful as their suits, which had been generously donated to them by Global Justice. The Go Tower constructed in the bay a year earlier served as a monument and a base, and Dr. Drakken would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little envious that some superhuman youths had it all handed to them on a silver platter just for swearing an oath to use their gifts for good.

The set of gloves he’d fashioned paled in comparison to the extravagant gifts from Global Justice and Go City. Clearly, giving her things was no way to win her allegiance, because the girl’s hero career had been short-lived. She’d served little more than three years. If she’d only abided by their rules, she could have been living it up, yet she’d formally quit her team months ago.

As of this year, there was a marked change in the tone of the headers. There was less and less praise to be found, until there was next to none at all. If he’d been hoping to find reassurance she was genuinely a bad seed, he got it, though snooping made him feel worse with each article he skimmed over.

Nasty gossip sprung up like weeds. Disbelief and speculation aplenty could be found in clippings from newspapers and magazines as to why she’d abandoned her occupation as a beloved hero. The supply of libel following her resignation was endless. If he had to guess, serving under Global Justice had kept such publications suppressed before, but she’d lost that perk when she put her foot down on doing their bidding.

Blasting scandalous, one popular rumor circulated that she’d withdrawn because she was a typical case of irresponsible teen pregnancy, such negligence marking her unfit to be a role model any longer. That she was still occasionally seen in uniform despite her quitting should have proven she wasn’t expecting – but instead it inspired ridicule and controversy over endangerment and abortion. There was no wining on that front without a good lawyer, which he doubted the girl behind the mask could afford without Global Justice’s charity.

That lost traction when the former hero lashed out at a news reporter on live television. Written accounts played it off as if it had been unprovoked, but Dr. Drakken found a tape on the incident at the bottom of the box that proved otherwise. He was hesitant to hit play on the copy of the broadcast. The masked young woman trying to escape a bombardment of questions was hard to watch as she was confronted by the press with the matter of substance abuse, among other things, all because marijuana was said to be smelled on her clothes. Once detox was mentioned, the cornered superhuman – disheveled and fresh out of an unsanctioned battle – lost her cool and attacked the reporter outright. It was all caught on camera until she was swept away screaming profanities by her gorilla of a brother.

Less than a month later, paparazzi spotted her outside of her hero attire, a familiar ponytail and mismatched boots enough to give her away. It was bad enough she was recognized without her uniform and mask, but she was caught smoking with some punks on a school campus. The snapshot was fuzzy, and there was no way to distinguish what was probably only a cigarette from anything else, but nevertheless it brought an impending graduation into question.

It did not help when some wacked-out addict, an unreliable source if there ever was one, came forward claiming to have taught her the art of cooking meth. The junkie was later found battered and left on the steps of a rehab center. Her signature plasma burns left on the man sparked ever more gossip as to her changing demeanor and bad habits.

On the hero scene, Shego had been golden – but after quitting, the press wasted no time in tarnishing her reputation. Her worsening temper and foul mouth didn’t help the backlash. Her name had been drug through the mud over the past six months, with only a few gems of praise from faithful groupies to be found among the stack of slander.

Dr. Drakken wouldn’t be surprised if it was all true, even the conspiracy theories mixed in about her being from another planet.

"This is why I don't like the hero scene. Everyone knows everything," she’d told him the night he’d found her wandering down a highway in the dark. He hadn’t had much to lose that night when he went with a gut feeling and sprung the proposition on the downtrodden young woman, but whether or not it was the right decision remained to be seen.

Given the stress of the media hounding her every move, both on and off duty, and the family turmoil he’d witnessed from a distance, Dr. Drakken had to bottle his pity for how discontent the runaway must have been to actually jump in a car with an utter stranger and just go.

Before the guilt of prying could get to him too badly, he called it quits and stuffed everything back into the box, double-checking the VCR to be sure he didn’t forget anything she might find later. She’d made it explicitly clear she didn’t want him digging into her past. Even if the box contained publicly available media – for the most part – going through it left a bad taste in his mouth, as if he’d been reading her diary.

Despite the evidence he had that she was indeed a bad apple with a slim chance of returning to her old life, it still felt unwise to put everything on the line for an ex-hero that could easily thwart his plans from the inside. Drakken sat back and shut his eyes, straining to take her words to heart no matter how difficult it was to do so.

“Trust her,” he snorted. “Trust her to what? Bring her brothers to my doorstep?”

But then, he supposed she could have done that already. If she’d wanted to stop him before he could become a major threat, she could have cornered him back in Go City, when she had her team close by to back her up. And even once she was in the lair, she’d had ample time to call in the hounds, and plenty of opportunity to hack into his computers to uncover any master plans, yet she hadn’t busted him yet.

Drakken slumped with his head thrown back over the spine of the couch, stewing a short while on how trustworthy this new partner of his really was, before tuning in to Go City broadcasts to watch the news. She’d only been gone about thirty hours, but he still waited with the bleak expectation to hear some breaking news announcement of her return to the metropolis, anticipating it to be a reason to rejoice. None came, but it still served to worry him.

Leaving the television on, he gave it just a little longer as his stomach drew him toward his kitchen. He’d never had breakfast. He wasn’t even sure if he’d had dinner yesterday. The phone drew his eye though, and he forcibly looked away from it and to the fridge as he took inventory. It was getting a tad late to start on any lab projects, and he could still taste a sore reminder of yesterday’s mishap on his lip.

A check through his cookbook and he found himself gravitating back toward the phone once again. He grudgingly made a call, although it wasn’t the number his fingers itched to dial, and greeted his mother with a weary, “Hello,” and waited for the next half hour for the woman’s exuberance to die down enough to get a word in edgewise.

“That one?” chirped his mother. “Honey, are you feeling alright?”

Drakken blinked and sucked on his split lip. “Relatively speaking,” he slipped. He fished out his notebook and spread it open, eager to get the call over with. “Um. The market will be closing soon,” he lied. “So can I get that recipe?”

“Only if you call me later to tell me how they turn out,” the woman haggled haughtily.

“I’ve made devil’s food before, mother,” he sighed, drumming his pen on the pad. He noticed the pages of memos on the recent gloves and flipped to a fresh page with a small snort.

“Not with my recipe, you haven’t,” chided the woman, and proceeded to let him in on the family secrets in detail. Word for word, he copied down the recipe she knew by heart, running the instructions and ingredients by her once before thanking his mother and heading out the door.

By midnight, a sweet tooth had been satisfied, but sitting alone at the counter with a warm devil’s food muffin drizzled with chocolate ganache just brought his awareness to a weird sort of cavity he wasn’t unfamiliar with but had been successful in ignoring for years – until now, apparently.

He decided he’d have to tell his mother about the muffins tomorrow. It was late, and if he dared pick up the phone now, he might dial the wrong number accidentally on purpose.

The third day alone wasn’t any more productive than the last, but at least he didn’t spend it holed up in his quarters gorging on muffins. True, he’d slept through his alarm, but he gave himself the excuse that it was Sunday, and he’d spent the latter half of his night lying wide awake staring at his ceiling in a vain effort to get some shut eye.

He could tell himself all he wanted that fresh air would do him some good, but it was a lie. Testing out a back-burner product on new targets the henchmen had been tasked to whip up did little to improve his mood. The vaporizing rifle prototype did its job fine, obliterating the targets, though the sight was off and it really needed work to fix an issue of kickback that just about dislocated his shoulder.

Other than taking down a couple memos to be sure he did that, he didn’t make any progress to speak of on his projects. The random destruction of dummies and henchmen fearing they’d be the next targets did little to inspire him and get his head back in the game.

He knew exactly who to blame for it, too. Little ol’ her was a troublesome woman. Though he wasn’t sure if he was worried for her wellbeing – maybe a little, but maybe not – he was certainly stressed enough worrying about the potential consequences letting her go could have. The thorn in his side wasn’t even here and she had him more distracted and frazzled than ever.

Drakken shoved the elaborate rifle into the hands of the henchman on standby and ordered him to return the contraption to the closet, but the henchman didn’t march off immediately, and instead asked something as daringly out of line and ludicrous as, “Rough breakup?” Which sent Drakken reeling as if he’d been cut, and he vehemently ordered the goon to get a move on if he didn’t want to be booted along with the rest.

He ate another damn muffin for lunch, knowing damn well the sweet confection wouldn’t improve his bitter mood.

When the phone rang, he was all too quick to dive for it. Answering was a mistake, and he struggled with the balance of taking bites of savory chocolate and holding a conversation with his nosy mother. She accused him of being upset and went through a list of every likely reason why, and he denied every possibility. If the nagging didn’t alleviate the loneliness somewhat, he would have hung up.

“It’s a girl, isn’t it?” his mother finally guessed, and Drakken had to bite his tongue and hold the phone out lest she hear his weary groan. No matter how wildly far off the mark she was, it was an inevitable question she always fired off at some point – only this time, maybe for the first time in history, she was actually right. Sort of. But he sure wasn’t going to admit that.

“No, mother,” he droned. “It’s just been a rough week,” he assured her for the umpteenth time. It really hadn’t been. Slaving over unique gloves had actually been quite rewarding, the worst part of the week being the part where his car got hijacked and he was left worrying if the new recruit would be friend or foe when she came back, if she came back at all.

After the phone call, he eyed the plate of delectable muffins sitting out on the counter, and decided it best to stow the remaining half dozen of them in the refrigerator out of sight before he could make himself sick.

The next day, Drakken was drilling it into his own head that he didn’t miss having anyone to hover, breathe down his neck, or criticize him as he tinkered with the fine inner workings of a robot brain. If he could only get the droids up and running like half-operational human beings, the Bebes would theoretically fill the human need for company. And even if they didn’t, he still had three organic subordinates – the henchmen – to fall back on. He didn’t need a snarky girl leaning on him and giving him sass trying to get his goat.

His lip was curled at the very thought of someone breaching his personal bubble uninvited when suddenly his subject booted up. It took him a second of staring back at the robot before the Bebe blinked mechanically and he leapt back. What really scared the bejeebers out of him was the fact the android hadn’t even been plugged in to a power source. Before she could fully start up, he reached into the Bebe’s cranium to pull out the CPU to put her to sleep for a nice long while until he was ready to deal with self-aware robots sporting hyperactive preservation drives again. The other two dormant severed heads received the same treatment just to be on the safe side.

His heart was still thudding from the first surprise when he received another unwelcomed jolt.

The room flashed red and a bone-rattling siren buzzed to announce a threat. Either someone had sounded the alarm, something had been tripped, or something malfunctioned. Whatever the case, he was in too much of a foul mood to be pleased by the uncharacteristically swift response of two of his henchmen cutting through the lab with their staves ready.

False alarms were more common than not at this point. There must have been one at least once a month for the past year since establishing his Nevada lair.

Dr. Drakken cast aside his tools and replaced his goggles with his eyeglasses, ready to storm out after the goons to find out what the hullaballoo was all about. It was probably just another unfortunate raccoon stuck in the fence.

Before he could take three steps from his work station, a henchman’s voice crackling over the intercom made him jump once more. “Dr. Drakken, sir, you’re needed outside,” came the urgent summon, and Drakken heard a thunderous snarl booming before the intercom clicked off.

It certainly didn’t sound like snared wildlife.

The insistent siren alone induced a dreadfully unwanted adrenaline rush, urging him to hurry and shut the alarm off at the lab desk. Even without the blaring system that had left his ears ringing, he swore he could still feel a rumble under his feet, and cast a nervous glance upwards at the stalactites holding steady before he exited the lab.

He all but ran down to the garage. The second he opened the door and stomped out from the foyer, he heard the rumble of a jet engine dying down to a whine, and if he didn’t associate the sound with military, he might not be so concerned of the trouble that could be brewing.

The thought that he should have brought a weapon with him was fleeting.

Before he could make it outside to search the sky for the source of the rumble, his jaw dropped.

He wasn’t anticipating a jet to come rolling out of the dark and into the half-lit hangar, the wingspan barely making it through the broad garage door. The flashy new sky beast sported multicolored streaks and bolts, and as it came to a stop in the middle of the scrap-filled warehouse, it dawned on Drakken exactly where it had come from. He’d seen that jet before in a photograph just the other day.

As his men rushed in after the aircraft in the hot wake of the engines, their electrified rods raised in defense, Drakken stormed toward it, his livid glare locked on the single figure onboard.

The top popped and rose with a hiss to reveal the pilot, whose hands were held up in peace for a moment to give the henchmen pause before the intruder pulled off the helmet and mask. The aloof subordinate stood up in the cockpit, shook out her hair, and shot an outrageously smug smirk to Dr. Drakken.

++X++

Shego slid down from the body of the aircraft and didn’t have a chance to appreciate solid ground or even utter a greeting before Dr. Drakken reached her, and she could only stare in a surprised stupor as he raised a hand at her.

Next she was wide-eyed in shock and reaching up for the sting across her cheek. It hadn’t hurt, but it didn’t change the fact he’d slapped her. She was taken aback for a moment. “What was that?” she blurted, turning a sneer back to him. “You hit like a baby!” Honestly, her baby brothers had whopped her worse than that.

And what was that he’d said about the next man to lay a hand on her?

She could get him back later, she decided, because she was pleased to be back regardless of his indiscernible sputtering and tantrum. Though she couldn’t pretend to understand what had his panties in a twist. She’d kept her word, hadn’t she?

What she could do was chortle when the fuming man made a grab for her before he could calm down enough to think twice. It was hard to hold him at fault when he was a villain and had likely conditioned himself to act out, assuming he wasn’t already violent by nature, but she wouldn’t hesitate to teach him not to take out that temper on her if he pushed his luck any further.

Curious if he would however, she let him catch her roughly by the arm. But Drakken faltered once he had her – it was clear he hadn’t expected it to be that easy, or maybe some sense caught up to him – and his moment of surprise made it easy for her to pull her arm away.

Catching him off guard, she slipped behind his back. Her hands snuck up his suit jacket to find the back pockets of his trousers, making him jump. His yelp wasn’t particularly masculine.

“Yoink,” she chirped, making off with his wallet as the startled man swung around.

Shego impishly remained two steps ahead of Dr. Drakken in pursuit of her, purely for the sake of egging him on although he was clearly riled up enough. She stole a gander at his driver’s license as she shuffled backwards. “Andrew?” she snorted. He sputtered something with a note of embarrassment and lunged for it. She jumped back, plucked a twenty from the wallet, and finally surrendered it.

Drakken roughly snatched his wallet back from her outstretched hand, still practically shaking in his tantrum, a funny shade of purple creeping over his face. The indignant doctor barked her name furiously and lurched toward her again, but she leapt back out of reach for good measure.

“Missed me, missed me,” she sang childishly, skipping back and smiling wryly at the hotheaded man.

He wasn’t calming down, none too pleased to be played with. Before she could knock it off on her own accord, Dr. Drakken gnashed his teeth and finally exploded something coherent, “SEIZE HER!”

To which Shego cocked a brow, and before she knew it, she was being restrained and shoved to her knees by a pair of henchmen, her arms twisted and secured behind her back. She knew she could still get the better of them, but she chose not to fight it as she watched suspiciously, once again curious to see just what Dr. Drakken thought he was going to do. She was done playing now though. Did he really think she would accept being slapped and manhandled, just like that? With him glaring as harshly as he was, she had half a mind to spit plasma at him when he stalked up to her.

The mad scientist opened his mouth and raised a finger to lay into her verbally when she sighed heavily and relaxed against the henchmen’s clutches. “Okay,” she began. “So I lost your car, but I got the jet, didn’t I?”

Drakken’s purple-faced humiliation and anger ebbed as he threw a glance back, and his rigid shoulders slumped. She could see his temper cooling he studied the aircraft parked in his garage. She’d stayed true to her word, but it seemed like he was only just now registering that she had in fact brought him a jet.

“Where did you get it?” he quizzed suspiciously as he turned back to eyeball her. Just about anyone else would have received plasma to the face for eyeing her body, but Shego had the funny feeling he was looking less at her figure and more at her pristine new uniform she’d stolen from the Go Tower – although the nature of his stare made it only slightly less unnerving.

“Just something from home,” she said flippantly, fixing a wry smile on her face.

“You stole tech from Global Justice,” he uttered.

“Not really, I mean – it was a gift,” she grumbled, casting her eyes down. That didn’t change the fact that big brother monitored its usage.

Drakken must have realized that, because his eyes shot wide in dismay an instant before the anger from moments ago boiled back to the surface. “They can track it here!” he gasped in alarm as he whirled on the threat in his lair.

Shego, on the other hand, lacked the same fear. The fact she remained unbothered seemed to enough to distress him.

“Cool the engines, Dr. D,” she called nonchalantly before he could fret over how to get a beacon out of his lair. “I squashed a few bugs, snipped a few wires. Give me some credit. I’m not just another stupid thug here.” He looked back to her as she nodded back to the henchmen holding her to make a point, but it hardly calmed him.

She tried to add a smile and a cheery on top, “Oh, and – it can hover. It’s a hover jet. Far out, right?” She was really quite proud of herself, and couldn’t help beaming as she patiently waited to be commended. An order for her release would be nice, at least.

Dr. Drakken stepped back from her and ran a hand down his face. He held it over his mouth and stifled a whine, and Shego noticed he looked almost pained as he glanced back to the stolen mass of technology. “Release her,” he grunted to his men with a dismissive wave, and stalked away to go inspect the aircraft. As Shego crept up carefully behind him, she heard him muttering incredulously to himself, “I can use this. I can really use this.”

“So, uh,” she started, and he flashed a glower back at her over his shoulder. She smiled sheepishly. “Does this make up for taking off and losing your car?” She decided, maybe, he didn’t need to know yet that she’s driven it off a pier and sank it in the ocean in the heat of the moment whilst fleeing the police earlier. She hoped there hadn’t been anything important in it.

Dr. Drakken surveyed her, his brow creased and his expression that of indecision as he considered the loss of his car in return for the multi-million-dollar aircraft. He settled for giving Shego’s shoulder a ginger pat. “I think I’ll keep you,” he said finally.

[dogbearinggifts]

Little Tyrants, Chapter Two: Worth the Whiskey

Rating: Teen and up

Summary: When Vanya was four, Reginald Hargreeves visited her cell. But not to take her powers away. Just to let her know he could. Just to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that her powers were a privilege he could rescind should she ever choose not to fall in line.

Years later, the old man is dead—and the last sibling Vanya wants to see has reappeared in the Academy courtyard.

This work is also available on AO3.

Prologue  Chapter One 

Author’s note: Sorry this chapter took so long, everyone. I’d hoped to update more frequently, but life intervened and…well, here we are. If you’d like to read the asks that inspired this story, you can find them here and here, as well as under the tags “vanya keeps her powers au” and “five returns as a kid au.” 

This chapter title is adapted from Cole Swindell’s song “Ain’t Worth the Whiskey.” 

***********

“You okay here?” 

“Yeah.” 

Luther opened his arms slightly, and Five slid to the floor. Klaus had never considered, in the sixteen years he’d been missing, just how small Five was. Not that the fact itself had eluded him—old pictures resurfaced in tabloids or narrative magazines from time to time, proving they’d all been a hell of a lot shorter back when they were still in Dad’s clutches—but it hadn’t struck him as something worth noticing when he’d stumbled into the courtyard. Now, watching him glance around in bewilderment beside a twin nearly twice his height, Klaus couldn’t think about much else. 

“Where’s Mom?” Luther asked. “Thought you were gonna get her.” 

“I—” The rest of Diego’s retort collapsed when he saw who was—and wasn’t—in the kitchen. “Shit. Mom!” 

They’d lost Allison somewhere between the courtyard and the kitchen, when she’d announced her intent to get some towels. Luther had carried Five in, cradled in his arms lest walking worsen whatever condition led him to collapse in the courtyard. Diego jogged out of the kitchen, retracing their steps through the corridor in search of the one who could provide some guidance. Klaus stood by the sink and racked his brain for something, anything he could say. 

Five wasn’t wearing his Academy uniform. Not unexpected—he’d never been fond of those starched collars and plaid sweater vests—but he’d always joked about replacing that uniform with everything from jeans and a T-shirt to a tuxedo paired with evening gloves and a billowing cape. Maybe it was the leftover high or the cognac haze clouding his thoughts, but Klaus couldn’t conjure a single reason why Five might have paired scuffed boots and a heavy jacket with sturdy jeans and a pair of aviator-style goggles around his neck.

“You, uh, you need anything?” Luther asked. 

Five shrugged. To say he had always smiled before his disappearance would be a misstatement. He’d frowned. He’d grouched. He’d cried for the minute or two it took to realize he’d been seen, the second or two it took for his face to twist and for him to slink off down the hall. But there had always been a glimmer of mischief behind those eyes, a flicker within his expression. Whether harsh with fury or gentle with laughter, Klaus couldn’t recall a time when that light had gone out. 

Until now. 

“Klaus, could you get him some water?” 

Somewhere toward the back of his mind, a flicker of irritation sparked to life. Luther had come up with the idea. Luther knew what he wanted done. Luther could get the damn water himself. But the annoyance was dim to begin with, and died with another glance at Five dripping rainwater onto the tile. Without a word, Klaus went to the cupboard and retrieved a glass. 

Allison brushed past before the glass was completely full; and by the time he turned around, Five was reaching for a towel from the stack Allison carried. She plucked one and shook it out as though to dry him off herself; then, with a small and apologetic smile, she placed it in Five’s hands. Klaus set the glass on the table, fought again for something to say, gave up and snagged a towel instead. 

He needed another drink. 

He couldn’t carry Five up to his room or calm him with four small words. He couldn’t run a few tests and determine what had happened and what Five needed to recover, and he wasn’t the one headed off to corral the one who could chart a course for the healing process. Getting a glass from the cupboard and filling it with water was about the extent of Klaus’ contributions, and he’d done that already. No one would notice if he headed upstairs and went to town on the liquor cabinet. Allison might say something if he popped a pill or two right then and there, but she wouldn’t cause a scene. It would be expected from him. 

The longer he watched Five sip from the glass he’d poured, the more he needed to leave. The longer he watched, the less he wanted to leave. 

“Where’s Vanya?” 

That was from Luther, naturally. Klaus couldn’t say when or how he’d forgotten Vanya’s feelings toward her family, but maybe the Moon erased memories. “Where do you think she is?” 

“I don’t know, Klaus. That’s why I asked.” 

Klaus hadn’t seen her separate from their group, wasn’t sure if she’d split off before or after Allison had gone off for towels, but the relative peace in the kitchen should have been enough to let Luther know her absence was not to be questioned. “Well, if we’re lucky, maybe she’ll just stay…wherever the hell she is. Oh! You think we could camp out down here? Roast some marshmallows, sing a couple songs? O Vanya, please stay away from us….” 

Impromptu performances like that tended to earn flat looks and rolled eyes from  most of his siblings, and threats from Vanya, but he’d hoped it might raise at least a small smile from Five. No dice. Five looked down into his glass, holding it in both hands, without so much as a hint of a smile or a chuckle. 

Nice going. Allison didn’t say it. She didn’t need to, with the amount of impatience and contempt she crammed into that one glance. He’d messed up, said exactly the wrong thing at just the wrong time, and there was no recovering, no going back. 

Of course, he’d known as much before that look of hers. No need to drive it home with the glare of death. 

“Well, fine.” Klaus stepped forward, opening a cupboard. A canister of rolled oats was the first thing he saw, and so a canister of rolled oats was what he grabbed. “If you fine folks don’t appreciate good performance art like an audience with sense, I shall take my leave.” 

Giving his coat the most dramatic swish he could manage, Klaus strode out the door. 

*********

If liquor preference was a personality trait, then Dad’s taste was one of his few redeeming qualities. 

Like most objects in the Academy, Dad’s alcohol supply was less an amassing of ingredients and more of a collection. Port and sherry shared a shelf with more varieties of red wine than Vanya cared to count, more types of white than she wanted to taste. Not that she opposed wine on principle, but the sight of so many bottles and so many shades, each promising a different flavor and composition and all the other things wine junkies raved about, brought a twinge of embarrassment when she remembered the five-gallon box she’d purchased because it was red and she’d bought white last time. 

But then, nobody could tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine anyway. She wasn’t unrefined. Just honest. 

Vanya turned from the wines and toward those promising a shorter path toward inebriation. A half-empty bottle of tequila and a nearly full bottle of mezcal sat a few inches from peppermint schnapps and two different types of rum. Closer to her sat scotches and bourbons nestled beside the whiskeys. 

Every label bore the name of a place she knew. Scotland. Jalisco. Kentucky. Each name conjured up a different image, borrowed from a different mission with a different objective and outcome. Dad had sent her and she’d gone in, done what the situation demanded of her, and left with snatches of scenery she liked and memories she didn’t. Each city had its own personality, but there came a point when they blended into each other, leaving her uncertain whether El Paso or Tucson had the hotel with a mosaic tile entrance, or if it was Paris or Amsterdam with the houses she liked. Glances through the sort of books ordinary people kept on their coffee tables cleared a few things up, but there were better things to do than relive what only Dad would call the glory days. 

Behind the Canadian whiskeys, and between those boasting an origin in Tennessee, was a single bottle announcing itself as Wyoming Whiskey in no-nonsense letters. After a moment’s study, Vanya poured herself a glass. If she was going to try and erode unwanted memories old and new, a drink from a place she’d never visited seemed the best way to start. 

Footsteps approached sometime after the end of the first drink and the beginning of the second. Vanya downed the rest in a few quick swallows. If it was Diego coming to tell her off for not being there for Five, she’d need to steel herself; if it was Five himself, she’d need to clear her glass for another pour. 

Klaus rounded a corner, skirt swishing about his ankles as he came to a halt. It had been some months since she’d seen him, and then out in the open and at a distance. Perhaps that was why he seemed thinner than she remembered, collarbone protruding above his bare chest, feathered cuffs dangling over too-slender wrists. He’d tucked an open canister of rolled oats into the crook of one arm; a few oats slipped from his clenched fist and fluttered to the floor. He let out a laugh when he saw her, as though she’d made a joke. As though he were happy to see her. 

Vanya added twice the recommended amount to her glass. 

“Well, well, well.” He let his handful of oats fall back into the canister and sauntered forward—she couldn’t tell if he was staggering or not—and set the oats on the counter. “And here I thought I was the only one breaking into Dear Old Dad’s liquor cabinet.” 

Vanya sniffed. Klaus’ presence demanded she down the whole glass in one swallow, pain be damned, but she settled for a sip. “I’m not breaking into anything. It’s right out in the open.” 

Klaus had a way of moving like a slinky, swaying one direction only to fold himself around a corner and past whatever obstructed his path. In one stride, maybe two, he was behind the bar, hand on a bottle of bourbon. “Amazing there’s anything left.” 

“Yeah, with you around.” 

Within seconds, Klaus’ glass held more bourbon than it should have. Not quite as much as hers—but if he’d had to cope with someone like him, he’d have ditched the glass and drank straight from the bottle. “Oh, right, ‘cause I’m the one who ran up here to get drunk soon as everybody was in the house.” 

“And you were completely sober when I got here.” 

There was that laugh again, the infuriating giggle that made her want to send a bottle of vodka crashing onto his head. “You really think I’m gonna do a family reunion without a little help?” He took a swallow of bourbon. “Figured you’d get it.” 

Vanya’s fingers tightened on the glass. She wasn’t like him. This world he’d constructed in his head, where she was just a shadow of what he was—it was a fantasy. He spent his days wandering the streets or bouncing from rehab to rehab. She worked, and the money she brought in went toward her apartment, her clothes, her food. She spent her days coaching kids through basic chords, cooking and cleaning, playing in the city’s orchestra. She wouldn’t have earned first chair if she’d devoted what remained of her life to the next fix. 

A high, sharp noise commanded her attention. Looking took only a second, but by the time she did, the glass had cracked beneath her fingers, webs of spindly lines spreading out and up. Another side effect of Klaus’ presence. 

“I think you should leave now.” 

Klaus downed half his liquor in one swallow, planting the glass firmly on the counter. A few drops came close to splashing out, but the counter remained dry. “I think you need another drink, if you’re just gonna get your panties in a twist over everything.” 

He was needling her, poking her skin over and over until he found what caused the most pain. For what, she couldn't say. Perhaps he was so enamored with Five’s return that he simply could not comprehend why she hadn’t followed to the kitchen to wait on him hand and foot. Perhaps he was still angry over her last refusal to let him crash at her place. That had been years ago, but Klaus was just the sort to hold a grudge for that long. 

She could lash back, with words or force. A few sharp retorts already came to mind, but they might not land the way they should. Klaus’ quest to rid himself of powers Dad had never thought to take from him had apparently robbed him of his faculties, if his incessant giggling was any indication, and there was little point in an insult that slid off like water from a tarp. The Academy had never been a noisy place, but what few sounds there were—air rushing through the vents, the creaking of old boards—already tempted her. 

And Klaus remained, with no trace of fear. 

“I’ve had kind of a rough day,” she said, setting the cracked glass in the sink slowly and deliberately, so as not to throw it the way she longed to. 

Klaus’s mouth formed a round O of mock surprise and he clapped his hands to his cheeks. “Me too! Weird, huh? Us both having the worst day ever at the same time?” 

Vanya clenched her teeth. He was like the cockroaches at a place she’d lived, one of the few complexes she was grateful to be blacklisted from. Lay out traps and they’d skirt around them. Stomp on them and they’d avoid your boot. Spray them with Raid and they’d roll onto their backs long enough, only long enough, to make you think you’d won. Long enough to make their swift return all the more infuriating. “I don’t want to break anything worse than a glass, is all I’m saying.” 

“Why? Afraid the cops might come? Afraid they might send you to—” He put a hand to his mouth, covering a gasp too melodramatic to be genuine, and looked to left and right before continuing in a stage whisper. “Therapy?” 

Vanya felt the cracks in her discarded glass spread and splinter before she ever heard it. She wanted to let it shatter—no, she wanted to make it shatter, send a hundred jagged shards exploding out from the sink to embed themselves in the wall, the counter, Klaus’ skin; to strike other bottles like bullets and send their contents cascading. 

“You don’t understand.” 

“No! I mean, Sitting on a comfy couch for a whole hour while some lady in an ugly-ass pantsuit listens to your problems?” He shook his head in mock amazement, adding more bourbon to his glass. “It’s a miracle we’re at Dad’s funeral. You should’ve just—” 

He blew a raspberry, pointing his thumb to the floor. 

Another crack spread through the glass, and another. He didn’t see. Didn’t know the humiliation of walking into that office, week after week. Couldn’t comprehend the misery of hearing mistakes inflated and exaggerated, balled up and thrown back in her face whenever she tried to explain herself. He couldn’t know the recurring sting of walking past her favorite coffee shop—a place that had once pulled her into an embrace of scents both earthy and sweet—knowing that the police would be called if she so much as crossed the street to reminisce from the wrong side of the window. If anyone under the Academy roof spared an ounce of sympathy for her, it should have been him. He, at least, knew what it was to have his faults paraded before police and judges and dismissed with no regard for what it was to be in his shoes. 

She should have known that was too much to ask of him. 

The glass was all but destroyed now; there was little point in leaving it whole. The sink would absorb most of the damage, and while a few shards would fly out, Klaus had learned to dodge. He knew what he faced if he failed to. He couldn’t call the police without risking his own skin. 

Yet a part of her, a small part of her, whispered that he just might be insane enough to try. 

The canister flew across the room to smack against a formation of bottles, knocking them over with a crash. Liquor spilled over the counter and onto the floor, sweeping up oats in the flow. Vanya turned on her heel, not giving Klaus the satisfaction of one last grin. 

********

“That could’ve gone better.” 

“Yeah, you think?” Klaus downed the rest of his bourbon and regarded the bottles still standing. The accidental cocktail Vanya had created with her little tantrum wouldn’t be tasty—especially not with oats floating in it and faint remnants of floor cleaner offering a different kind of intoxication—but all of those liquors together would get him drunk faster than anything he could mix on his own. 

Well. Drunker. 

Klaus didn’t sway as he straightened and headed for the tequila. He wasn’t quite to that point, though he sensed its approach. 

“Seriously?” 

“Hey, you try dealing with Vanya sober.” He opened the bottle, raising his voice in a mocking imitation of Vanya’s. “Oh, look at me, I wreck some coffee shop and have to not go to prison, everyone needs to be sad for me.” 

“Oh, you mean like my entire life? And afterlife, so far?” 

“So far?” Klaus grinned, raising both eyebrows. “What are you not telling me, Ben?” 

Ben rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.” 

“No, I don’t.” He poured a shot of tequila and tossed it down. “If there’s drunkenness after death, you really need to tell me. This could change everything.” 

“You really think I’d tell you something like that?” 

“Some brother you are.” 

“Said the guy who left Five to come get shitfaced.” 

The sting was sharp, as if Ben had slapped him across the cheek. Klaus poured another shot and downed it without breaking eye contact, but when he set the glass down he had to look away. He tried for some remark glib enough to set Ben on a different course, but nothing came to mind in time. 

“Bet you can still catch up with him.” 

It wasn’t the first time the thought had occurred to Klaus, but he hadn’t allowed it to take root in his mind with this level of clarity. Go back to the kitchen, or track Five to wherever the others had brought him. Apologize for whatever it was he’d said wrong—more than one thing, probably, though he could only think of the one. See if Five wanted to go flip off Dad’s urn for a while. Let Five watch him stagger down the stairs, sway in the door, smell the alcohol on his breath. The others, Diego and Luther and Allison—they might not understand, but they expected it. They’d seen it before. 

A part of him whispered that Five would see it sooner or later, that maybe he’d already extrapolated from those moments he’d caught Klaus at the bar when they were kids, those times he’d given Klaus the cover he needed to sneak out for his next fix. It didn’t matter, or wouldn’t matter. Sobriety was little more than a punchline around him, and it was only a matter of time before Five saw the joke. 

He straightened, swallowed the last of the tequila in his glass, fished for a cigarette in his pocket and lit it. He took a long drag, closing his eyes as he exhaled. It wasn’t’ the first time he’d smoked in the Academy, not by far, but usually Dad or Pogo would come barreling around the corner seconds after his lighter clicked on. This time, there was only silence. Blissful, smoke-filled silence. He leaned against the island, allowing each breath to carry off more of Vanya’s lingering presence.

He wasn’t sure how long it was before the edge of the counter began digging into his back, before the floor began to press against his feet through the thin soles of his shoes, before the weight of the items in his coat reminded him of where he could be and what he could be getting. A pang of guilt accompanied the last thought, regardless of the facts. He wasn’t needed at the Academy. He’d probably sent Five into a tailspin with whatever it was he’d said. The memorial service seemed to have been forgotten for the time being; even if he were missing when it began, his absence wouldn’t be lamented or questioned too heavily. The more he considered it, the more he itched for what those items would buy him. 

He’d be leaving Five again. Leaving him not in the kitchen, but there in the Academy while he was off elsewhere in the city; but Five wouldn’t be alone. Might not even notice he was gone. 

“Klaus?” 

Five’s voice was too soft, too uncertain, but it still gave Klaus a start and he nearly dropped his cigarette. 

“Christ on a cracker,” he breathed, glancing down at the floor. Still a safe enough distance from the spilled alcohol that a lit cigarette wouldn’t send a puddle of flame racing up the cabinets, but closer than he would have liked. He sucked in a breath and turned to Five, plastering on a smile. “What’re you doing up here?” 

Five didn’t answer. He’d changed into his pajamas—which were drier than what he’d been wearing, and in better shape, but Klaus could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen any of his siblings wearing pajamas in the middle of the day. In each instance, they’d been sick enough to get out of training, sick enough to remain in their rooms instead of joining the rest of the family for silent meals and Dad’s droning records. Five was still walking on his own two feet, his skin lacking the pallor it had held on those days; but Klaus didn’t recall him being so thin when he’d left. 

How long had he stood just out of sight? 

“Dad’s not here, is he.” 

There were two answers: the tactful one, and the direct one. The tactful one was more up Allison’s alley, requiring more gentle words and roundabout phrasings than Klaus had in his arsenal. It was probably more akin to what Five needed, closer to what he’d like to hear, but Klaus had already stalled long enough. 

“Died a little over a week ago.” 

Five nodded slowly. If there was any surprise in his expression, Klaus couldn’t see it. “He…he probably would’ve walked out when I showed up, huh?” 

And done a lot more than that, Klaus thought, but didn’t say as much. Five must have known he’d have been hauled off to one of those rooms everyone hated, held there until he’d divulged every secret he’d brought back with him, had Dad occupied the Academy. “We can go flip off his urn for a while, if you want.” 

Five didn’t smile, or even meet Klaus’ gaze. He’d said the wrong thing again. Made a joke when Five needed something else, something Allison or Luther or even Diego would be better suited to offer. Something Klaus couldn’t muster, not even when it was needed. Especially not when it was needed. 

“Where’s Ben?” 

If Ben’s remark had been a slap, Five’s question was like a punch to the gut. He had to say something, anything, but the words wouldn’t form and he couldn’t muster even an I don’t know or a Why do you ask? He could only struggle, through the fog and the emotions that one question dredged up, to say anything at all. 

Five dropped his gaze, biting his lip. He didn’t sink to the floor or look for a place to sit down. He didn’t let out a cry or suck in a breath. Klaus watched him crumple all the same. 

“Hey, it—” He started forward, barely remembering to put out his cigarette before Five fell into his arms. 

Maybe he should have expected it. Over a decade stood between him and Ben’s death. No one would say he’d used them well, and if pressed he wouldn’t disagree; but he’d still had them. Ten years to let the dust settle and the blood dry. Ten years to accept that Ben’s clothes no longer occupied the closet, that no one would set a place for him whenever they were allowed back into the Academy. Ten years of hearing his voice, watching him roll his eyes and try in vain to block access to his stash, of being the only one to know he would never really go away. For all Five knew, Ben’s face should have been among those who greeted him upon his return. 

He returned the hug awkwardly, too awkwardly, running a hand along Five’s back. Tears shook his bony frame, and Klaus wanted to kick himself for not hunting down Allison to answer that question. “It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.” 

“How?” 

Ben no longer leaned against the bar. He had a way of doing that, of stepping around while your back was turned to show up in the last place you wanted to see him. This time, though, Klaus didn’t mind the sight of him, the look he got—or the clear instructions it carried. 

“I mean, it’s not like he’s gone.” 

Five pulled away, and the hope in his eyes made Klaus want to shrivel up and disappear. 

Ben smiled a bit, raising a hand in greeting. “Hey, Five.” 

“He says hi.” 

*******

Vanya should have brought the whiskey along.

Her anger hadn’t quite burned away when she reached the top of the stairs, but it had calmed enough for her thoughts to turn to things other than Klaus’ exaggerated smiles and mocking words; and they turned to that bottle on the counter. She should have grabbed it before storming off—or if not that bottle specifically, then another close to it. Something strong, something she could keep all to herself. Something that would get her to the memorial service in one piece.

If her siblings still planned on holding a service. 

She found her old bedroom less by intent and more by muscle memory, and it hadn’t changed much from the day she’d left. The furniture was gone, shuttled off to her first apartment and then the next; as were her clothes, which had been added to over the years. It would have been an empty room, devoid of the personality she’d lent it, but there were small signs, little memories here and there. A length of blue ribbon she’d once worn to a press briefing snaked across the floor. The green hair tie she’d thought had been lost in the move lay in one corner, grey with dust. Along the wall adjacent to her window Vanya could just make out little patches where the drywall was ever so slightly uneven, marking the places where, in retaliation for being sent to her room, she’d driven holes into her wall to spell out an obscene message. Dad had barged in before she’d finished the first word. 

She ran a hand along the windowsill, catching dust on her fingertips. It wasn’t surprising that Dad’s memorial service had stalled—in the back of her mind, she’d expected Diego or Klaus to delay it somehow, though she hadn’t written off Allison as a potential culprit—but she hadn’t thought it would stall indefinitely. Yet here she was, waiting for her siblings to stop doting on Five long enough to put their dead father to rest. 

Vanya looked to the wall again. For a moment she considered finishing the word, leaving it as a parting gift for whenever she was allowed to walk out of the Academy without Dad’s unread will hanging over her head. But then, it would’ve been just like Dad to turn something about willful destruction of childhood bedroom into a condition. 

She closed the door behind her and stepped into the hall, seeing no one, but Five’s room stood open. Maybe someone had been there in minutes past; maybe Mom had left it open for whatever reason. Vanya couldn’t say and couldn’t bring herself to care. He’d be moving back into it soon—but then, once the memorial service was over and done with, she’d be back in her own apartment, away from that room and its occupant. 

A short walk took her back down to the entryway and then the common room, but that wasn’t where the voices led her. One she recognized as Klaus, the other as Five—but the cheer in Klaus’ voice seemed more genuine now, the simmering resentment she’d caught now missing. 

“So I’m just there in my book fort, minding my own business, and the librarian walks over and she’s all ‘Sir, you need to put these on a cart.’ And I’m all ‘Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to just build a new one instead of putting this whole thing on a cart?’” 

“Maybe she just wanted you to put the books away?” 

“That’s what Ben said, but I dunno. That fort was awesome.” 

Ben. Her breath caught. Asking her to name a favorite sibling was like asking her to name a favorite toothache, but some toothaches hurt less than others. Some could be almost pleasant, when they wanted to be. 

And some left a different sort of pain when they went away. 

“What books did you use?” 

“What books did I—Five. I built a fort. Out of books. Had turrets, a moat and everything. That’s all you need to know.” 

Rather than pressing Klaus for more details, Five turned his gaze to the armchair. “What’d he use, Ben? You remember?” 

Klaus rolled his eyes and began listing off titles, but Vanya barely heard them past the pounding of her own heart. Ben wasn’t there—or at least, he wasn’t where Klaus could see him, and that was by design. The ghosts he alone could see, the ghosts he alone could command, were evidently far more frightening than the poisons he forced into his system and the people and laws he trampled to get them. The substances he favored were still there. His powers were gone—and here he was, playing the medium. Speaking for the dead when the dead no longer spoke to him. Using Ben as a prop to tell an asinine story about himself. 

“Don’t.” 

Allison’s voice was soft, but Vanya stopped in her tracks. Her sister sat on the stairs, just out of the light cast from the sitting room. 

“Are you hearing this?” 

Allison bowed her head for a few seconds. When she raised it, there was sorrow in her eyes—but also a glint of steel Vanya had rarely seen outside of particularly nasty missions. 

“Don’t take this from him.” 

“Take what? A lie?” 

Allison stood, mouth tight. She took a few steps forward, but didn’t come close to bridging the gap between them. 

“I don’t care what it is.” Her voice had grown softer, scarcely rising above a whisper, but no less stern for it. “You’re going to let him have this.” 

A stab of fear went through her. Allison hadn’t referenced those four words, but the threat was there, carried on a tone addressing her as a child. A child who needed to be put in her place. “Or what?” 

She didn’t answer, but the glare she leveled on her way into the common room was enough. 

************

Chapter One 

[theperksofbeingbarbie]

The Empath (Pt 4/?)

Summary: The gang goes to Leonard Peabody’s house and finds the aftermath of Vanya’s freak out. Reader and Diego attempt to have a heart to heart. Reader adds in their two cents regarding the imprisonment of Vanya. 

Set during Changes

Pairing: Diego x Reader; Platonic!Klaus x Reader

Warnings: Language? It’s pretty light in this one honestly. 

Word Count: 1,826

Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6

A/N: This follows the show pretty damn close, honestly. I just really really wanted to use reader’s power against Luther. Low key hoping to find a reason to use it again... Let me know what you think! I’m thinking of just one last part but we’ll see how the cookie crumbles, I guess. Also, who is excited for Game of Thrones???? If Arya and Gendry become canon in the next six weeks, I will abandon everything else to scream about it jsyk. 

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“It’s not exactly what I was expecting.” 

“The understatement of the year.” 

You crouched beside the body, looking at all of the tools sticking out from Leonard Peabody’s body. “Those are really nice sewing scissors,” you commented sadly, wishing you could take them without the police trying to track down a missing murder weapon. 

“No sign of Vanya.” 

“Let’s get out of here before the cops come,” Diego said as he turned to leave, you and Klaus following obediently. 

Five shook his head. “In a minute.” He sighed as he walked closer to Leonard’s head, pulling something from his pocket. You all turned around to see Five pull the bandage off his eye. 

Diego gagged, covering his mouth. “C’mon, Five, what are you-” You rubbed Diego’s back soothingly as he was forced to look away. 

“Ugh, wow,” Klaus mumbled, a bit of interest in his tone as he bent over to see Five slip the glass eye into Leonard’s head. 

Five got excited as he pulled back to see how it matched the other eye. “Same eye color, same pupil size!” He turned to look at the others. “Guys, this is it! The eye I’ve been carrying around for decades it’s--” He turned back with a sigh. “It’s found it’s rightful home.” Five quickly pushed it back out of Leonard’s eye socket. 

“We got the guy we needed to kill to stop the apocalypse,” Diego realized. 

“Yay!” Klaus dragged out softly, an edge of sarcasm in his voice. “C’mon, let’s go.” He turned to leave, Diego grabbing him by the back of his vest. 

“Can it really be that easy?” you asked, staring down at the body. All this work for one guy stabbed to death with anything sharp in the house?

“No,” Five agreed, standing up to stand in the middle of the triangle, pulling out the note from his other pocket. “This is the note I received from the Commission. The one that says ‘Protect Harold Jenkins’, aka Leonard Peabody. But who killed him? Who did this?” 

“I have a crazy idea,” Klaus began, waving his hand. 

“We need to find Vanya,” you continued, years together causing a connection. Five phased out of the room before you could finish. 

Klaus nodded, completing the thought, “And ask her what happened.” He shrugged as if it were really a crazy idea. 

Diego seemed to consider that for a moment, nodding in agreement. “If Vanya got away from this asshole, she might be headed back to the Academy.” 

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

Everyone seemed to sigh as they convened at the top of the stairs. “No sign of Vanya,” Five announced. 

“She’s not in any of the rooms,” Diego confirmed. 

“I got nothing downstairs.” 

“Or outside,” you agreed, shoving your hands in your pockets. 

“Well, I’m out.” Diego patted your shoulder as he passed by to go to his room. Everyone turned to watch him walk away.  

“Where the hell are you going?” Five demanded. “Vanya is still out there and so are Hazel and Cha Cha.” 

Diego stopped, turning back to look at the group. “I know. I’m gonna get my things and then I’m outta here. I got some unfinished business with those fools.” He didn’t want to hear anymore about it, turning to leave. 

You huffed, shaking your head. You could feel Diego’s pain, the deep rooted heart break since you had met him, but you hadn’t had a chance to ask about it. You decided to go after him, standing in the door of his childhood bedroom. “Are you gonna tell me about her?” 

Diego didn’t look up as he threw stuff in a black duffle bag. “Can’t figure it out?” 

“I can feel the pain, I can tell it’s grief.” You crossed your arms, leaning against the door frame. “I’m gonna guess lost love. Doesn’t mean I know the details.” 

Diego stopped, looking down at the contents of his bag without truly looking at them. “Eudora Patch,” he conceded. You could feel the rage start to overtake the grief as he continued to silently recreate the scene in his mind. “I told her- She finally did things my way and got killed.” 

“Diego-” 

“It’s my fault she’s dead and I have to make it right.” 

You made the rest of the way into his room, gently grabbing his arm to get him to look at you. “It’s not your fault, Diego,” you said firmly, rubbing your thumb soothingly over his bicep. “Revenge isn’t going to help you sleep at night. You need to work through the pain and get past it.”  

Diego’s eyes searched yours and for a brief moment you thought he might calm down, when he pulled his arm from your hand to zip the bag shut. “You and Klaus are two peas in a pod.” He pushed past you to leave the room. 

“Because we’ve felt that pain, and anger, and grief and tried to get through it.” 

“Yeah, by becoming junkies. I’ll pass,” Diego spat bitterly. 

You set your jaw, nostrils flaring a bit at his comment. You knew that you didn’t handle your power and feelings in a healthy way and it became a problem you still struggled with every day. It was always a moment in your history that only brought shame when you thought of it, and it being used negatively against you? It fucking hurt. Rolling your eyes you pushed past him to find Klaus. 

“[Y-],” Diego called when he saw how upset his comment made you. 

“Have fun killing those assholes, De. Hope it helps,” you said over your shoulder with a sarcastic wave, sparks jumping off your fingers. 

Diego huffed as he watched you leave, turning to go down the stairs. 

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

You were with Grace in the kitchen as a way to distract yourself from your fight with Diego when the house started to shake. You managed to find Klaus when it died down and followed him into an old elevator. You took a deep breath to try to steady yourself, more and stronger emotions filling you the lower you went. Klaus rubbed your back when he noticed you getting overwhelmed. “You don’t have to do this,” he whispered, kissing your temple when you just shook your head. 

“You locked up our sister because you think she has powers,” Diego said, the group watching Vanya melt down after waking up. 

You closed and opened your fists in an attempt to use up some of the energy that filled every inch of your being. 

“No,” Luther corrected, “I know she does. Pogo told me.” He shook his head a bit. “He’s always known and so did Dad.” 

Diego took a step forward toward the door, leaning his hand on it. “Why would they hide this from us? I mean, am I the only one in this family that didn’t know this place existed?” 

Klaus shook his head, bringing his hands to his lips. “He hid so much from us,” he whispered. 

“He hid it because he was afraid....” Luther took a few steps forward with a sigh. “Of her.” 

Klaus rolled his eyes. “Oh, that’s ridiculous!” 

Luther huffed. “Is it? Dad’s lied about everything else, why is this so far-fetched?” 

You felt the pent up buzzing energy of fear soften to sadness, but it was still making you feel like you would never know stillness again. 

“If you’re right, maybe she’s the one who killed Peabody?” Diego suggested, finally looking back at his brother. 

“And cut Allison’s throat.” 

“Whoa, no. Let’s....” Klaus threw his hands up, clenching them into fists as he tried to gather his thoughts. “I ju-- I’m sorry, let’s go back, alright? This is Vanya we’re talking about.” He motioned to the crying girl on the other side of the window. “Our sister. The one who always cried when we stepped on ants as kids.” 

Luther nodded solemnly. “Yeah, I know. I know it’s difficult to accept--”

“It’s not difficult to accept!” Klaus shouted, turning back to look at Luther. “It’s impossible to accept.” 

Diego also turned. “No, he’s right. Look, we can’t keep her locked up without proof.” 

Luther recoiled at that, a confused grimace on his face. “Wh-What more proof do you need?”

“Why don’t we just open the door and ask her?” Klaus suggested, gesturing broadly to the wheel that locked the door. He reached over but was quickly pulled back by Luther. 

“No. She’s not going anywhere!” 

“Even if you’re right, she needs our help,” Diego reasoned, pointing at the still screaming Vanya. “And we can’t do that if she’s locked in a cage!” 

You finally decided you had to step in, unable to deal with the fighting and pure fear that coursed through your veins. “She’s fucking terrified, Luther! You’re not even giving her a chance to deal with it!”

“It must be scary, suddenly having a power you never thought you had! Discovering things you never thought you could do!” Klaus agreed.

You tried to get past the man in front of you, using Vanya’s fear to send out a pulse to send Luther back. You heard Klaus and Diego stumble and end up against the walls but Luther only got sent back a step, pushing you back hard by your chest. You felt Diego catch you to keep you from falling, holding your hand to steady you. You pulled out of his grasp, still annoyed with what he said earlier. 

“Look, if even half of what Pogo told me is true, then she is not just a danger to us.” 

There was a pause as everyone heard steps approaching. Turning, you saw it was Allison. 

Luther sighed, “Allison, what are you doing down here? You should be in bed.” 

Allison took her pen and paper, writing ‘Let her go’ before holding it up to Luther.

“I can’t do that. She hurt you.” 

Allison glared at her brother for a moment before turning the page to write something else. ‘My fault’ the page read. 

“I’m sorry, but she’s staying put,” Luther replied dejectedly. Allison quickly walked forward to push past Luther but was stopped, though his touch was much more gentle than what he used on you. “Just until we know what we’re dealing with.” Allison tried going to the other side of Luther but was still stopped. 

Diego gently pushed you to turn around, but you moved to the other side of the room to be by Klaus. Holding his hand, you turned to see Allison hit Luther over and over. Klaus just pulled you along with him, back to the elevator.

“She stays put.” Luther pushed Allison back down the hall. “C’mon, you need your rest.” 

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

You laid on Klaus’ bed reading a discarded book you found in the library as he played patty cake with the air across from him. You glanced over every so often to see if you could catch another glimpse of the lost brother, but it never came. You sighed as you turned the page, still thinking about Diego when you heard a loud creaking noise, followed by a crash. “What the hell?” 

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Tag List: @misspygmypie @mischiefnevermanaged94 @stars-cant-be-broken Send me an ask or reply if you wanna be added to the tag list! 

[winsister91]

Breaking A Promise

Part Seven - Your Best Shot

Summary: Not the reunion Y/N had in mind

Characters: Dean x reader, Demon!Dean, Crowley, Sam

Warnings: Language, canon-typical violence, slight dubcon, angst, themes of addiction

Word Count: 1912

A/N: My poor babies! Why am I doing this to myself? Quick thanks to you for the amazing support and notes on this series! It’s encouraged me to keep going as I was so close to abandoning this series at one point! I love you all! @sofreddie gets super special thanks for being wonderful and my rock <3

Series Masterlist Full Masterlist

~ Series and forever tags are open! ~

(italics are flashbacks)

“Hey there Sweetheart!” Dean cheered upon entering the bunker.

You leapt up from your seat, turning with wide eyes as Dean winked at you from up on the balcony.

“Been looking for me?” he smiled.

“Son of a bitch! Get your ass down here Winchester!” you demanded with threatening narrowed eyes.

He jauntily sauntered down to you, that cocky smile never leaving his face. No sooner had his feet left the bottom step you were on him. A full blown tackle hug. You scrunched his jacket in your hands and held on tight. A wash of relief waved through you as you inhaled his familiar scent of leather and gun smoke.

“Miss me?” he teased, his arms around your waist gripping you just as tight.

“Why!” you thumped his chest in time with your words, “Didn’t! You! Call!?”

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly, he was aware he had been away for hours with no word, “My phone got bust up. Damn touch screen won’t work.” He brought out his phone and showed it to you. Sure enough, the screen was smashed to hell and didn’t respond to any friction. I looked like a stronger impact than a simple drop. More like something had collided with it, hit it.

“How did that happen?” you questioned, taking a closer look at the device in his palm. You noticed Dean’s hand was cut up, bruised and bloody around the knuckles, “What the hell Dean? What happened?”

“It’s nothing,” he shrugged dismissively, slipping the bloodied hand into his jacket pocket, “Don’t worry about it.”

“You went looking for Metatron again didn’t you?” you shoved him back, “Alone? Dean, you gotta let me and Sammy help you with this.”

“It’s fine, I got this,” he argued, trying to come off reassuring, “I’ll always come back to you.”

“I don’t doubt that…” you sighed, brushing your hand down his cheek, “Doesn’t stop me worrying though.”

“Come here,” Dean commanded, pulling you back into his arms, “You don’t ever have to worry about me. Like I said, I’ll always come back you. That’s a promise, hell, a guarantee!”

“Fine,” you narrowed your eyes but couldn’t hold back your smile, “I’m holding you to that.”

Dean winked, his smile returning before he leaned down to kiss you.

°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。°。

“Hey there Sweetheart,” Dean chuckled, his green eyes flitting to black, “Been looking for me?”

“N-no,” you stutter, the black eyes filling you with a new level of panic you’d never felt before, “Get out of him you son of a bitch!!”

“I’m afraid it’s all me baby,” he raised his arms up in a victorious display, “Got myself an upgrade!”

“What?” you gasp, mortified, “H-how?” “The mark can do wonderful things,” came a new voice. Crowley’s. He stepped out of the shadows and leered down at you.

“Should’ve known,” you chuckle and shake your head, “When the shit’s going down, expect your dumb fucking face to be in the picture somewhere.”

“That’s rich,” The King of Hell scoffs, “If it wasn’t for my intervention, your precious Dean here would be stone cold dead.”

“I’d take that over him being one of you sick sons of bitches!” you spit.

“See,” Dean intervenes, folding his arms and pointing a finger at you, “That’s what’s interesting here. From what I understand, I’m not the only one in this room that’s gone darkside in recent months.”

Crowley throws something in front of you. Your backpack, full of Harper’s vials.

“Shit…” you mumble, “D-Dean just listen to me. I can explain.”

“No need,” he sneers, crouching down in front of you so he can look at you face to face, “I had a pretty crazy ass dream that told me all I needed to know, it reeked of you and your fucking disgusting junkie habit.”

“Y-you saw my dream?”

“And then! My good pal Crowley here picks up on an old demon blood tracking spell that broke through his seals. That’s some powerful shit Y/N.”

“I did it for you Dean,” you clench your eyes tight, holding back the tears threatening to seep through, “I needed to find you.”

“You couldn’t just let shit be!” Dean barks in your face, “Just like that damned son of a bitch brother of mine! You think I don’t know he’s been driving around, sticking his nose in where it isn’t wanted? You both make me sick.”

His words cut into you like a hot knife directly into your heart. This can’t be real. This isn’t Dean. Not my Dean...

“I told you a long time ago Dean,” you hiss, anger bubbling in your guts, “You really don’t wanna mess with me.”

“Cute,” he laughs, opening his arms out again, “Give it your best shot.”

You grimace as you try with all your might to will your binds to break, but nothing was happening. You were too weak, every ounce of energy in you drained.

“Of course,” Dean sings with a patronising back note, “You lost a lot of blood in that crash back there. I thought it was pretty lame set up to be honest.”

“Fuck you,” you growl, your eyes flashing purple but quickly fizzling away like a bulb going out.

“Naaw, you outta juice?” Dean coos, patting you on the head like a sick dog.

You struggle, pulling again at the ropes holding down. A primal red hot rage taking over your senses. You wanted to kill him. This wasn’t Dean, you couldn’t tolerate this vile version of him to be wandering around and tarnishing all the good he had done for the world. Your stomach churned just looking at that cocky smile now. The smile you once adored, the smile that used to make your heart flutter.

“Crowley,” Dean turns to his apparent new best friend, “Would you do me the honours?”

Crowley smiles, stepping towards your backpack. You scowl at him, trying with all your might to just make the bastard crumble to dust before you. Hopeless of course. You needed more blood. Just a drop to give you that rush of power. Make you strong again. The King of Hell makes sure to flash a toothy condescending smile at you, before clicking his fingers, and your bag of hope bursting into a plume of flames.

“No!!” you scream desperately, the ropes holding you tight in place and preventing you from lashing out.

“Just a sad little junkie,” Dean shakes his head, stepping back towards you and clutching at your chin tightly, “It’s quite sad really, maybe I should have given you a fair chance to fight back… or I could just kill you have done with it.”

“Then just fucking do it,” you whisper, spitting in his face.

“You were always feisty,” he smiles, wiping your saliva off his cheek, “One more taste of those fine lips...for old times sake.”

He forces his lips onto yours. Every fibre of your being resisting and more rage clouding your brain. He still had that old faithful taste of whiskey about him, it almost felt nostalgic. While he forced his tongue into your mouth, something struck you. A sense. You could practically hear the blood pumping through his veins. Raw demon blood wasn’t as strong, but it could be just enough.

“Fucking son of a bitch!!” Dean bellows as you bite hard into his lip, the irony taste of his blood soaking into your palate.

He shoves you back, the chair falling backwards and crashing you into the ground. You gasp, unable to feel any sense of pain from the fall. Your pupils dilate as you swallow the blood and it slips down your throat. This was different. Harper’s blood potion always felt hot. The first taste comparable to molten lava, mellowing down to comfortable inviting warmth after numerous sips. This was the opposite. Like drinking dry ice. It shot a sharp pain straight to your temple like chronic brain freeze. You wanted to get it out and it wanted out. Your limbs involuntarily quivering as power courses through you.

Is this the mark?

The world around you was in slow motion. Looking up, you could see a snarling Dean marching towards you, the First Blade gripped tightly in his fist. His eyes black as the night’s sky as he honed in to end you. You weren’t letting that happen. A simple thought and the ropes tying you down fizzled to nothing. A force lifted you up gracefully as you hovered a couple of inches off the ground.

“I did warn you,” you chirp, your voice carrying an almost ungodly echo as Dean momentarily stopped and hesitated in his tracks.

“Well,” Crowley raises his brow as he watches the scene unfold, “I’m out.”

You titter to yourself as the King of Hell snaps his fingers and vanishes. Then you turn back to Dean.

“Some friend you got there,” you joke, making him snarl like a rabid animal, “C’mon Dean, give it your best shot.”

The corner of Dean’s lips twitch slightly, like he enjoyed the challenge. He raises his hand and throws the first blade at you, aiming for your torso. You laugh at the pitiful attempt, casually waving your hand up and the blade stopping an inch or so in front of it. With a swish of your wrist you send the blade flying back towards him. It slices into his shoulder, the momentum carrying him back and he collides into the wall behind. Before he could react, you were there, hand clasped tightly around his throat while you laugh.

“Thought you said you had an upgrade?” you taunt, “Pretty pathetic if you ask me.”

Dean chuckles, almost childishly. You narrow your eyes, his reaction igniting more rage within you. He doesn’t say a word, rapidly grabbing the blade lodged in his shoulder and ramming it into your side. You wail in pain, letting him go and dropping to the floor as you watch your own blood spill to the ground.

“You’ll have to try harder than that Sweetheart,” he said joyfully.

“Dean!” came a new voice, “Stop this.”

Your sight becomes foggy as you look in the direction of the voice. Sam. He has a gun pointed at his brother and the demon blade in his other free hand.

“Both of you,” the younger Winchester continues, “stop this.”

“Get out of here Sammy boy,” Dean warns, “Or I’m killing one extra person today.”

“No Dean,” Sam stands his ground stubbornly, “Come back with me, I can help you. You too Y/N. You did what you set out to do, you found him, we can end all this now.”

“Sam…” you gasped, rolling onto your back as the pain intensified. You could feel something rumbling within you. More power. Too much power. The wound from the First Blade had set off some kind of reaction, and you were terrified of it.

“Dean...” you whined breathlessly, “Get out... please.”

The brothers narrowed their eyes at you in bewilderment, neither of them so much as taking a step.

“LEAVE!!” you scream. Your voice was shrill and sharp like the scream of a banshee. Your eyes burst with purple light as you feel control escaping you, “NOW!!”

You have no idea if they comply. A piercing ring filled your mind, and all you could see was that purple light. You couldn’t hear yourself screaming from the imaginable pain that overwhelms you. Then suddenly there was relief. Release. All the pressure of the pain and power exploding out. Then darkness.

Tags! Forever Posse: @sofreddie @chelsea072498 @ria132love @untitled39887 @chicagolove88 @akshi8278 @sis-tafics @younoeatcheeseyounobefat @mandilion76 @teamfreewill92 @supernaturalmagicfolk @emoryhemsworth @musicistobeheard-blog @pheonyxstorm @mrswhozeewhatsis @turnttover @itspronouncedsatanbitch @the--real-wombat @xagateophobiax @samisimportant @jensen-gal @castiel11235 @waiting-to-find-myshadows

Breaking A Promise Squad: @arikas5744 @lessons-of-red @spnaddict11283 @lemonchapstick

Crossed out means Tumblr won’t let me tag you :(

[cryptic-chrysalis]

I'm not as user-friendly as I used to be, at least that's how it must have seemed in drunken dreams that proved to be illusory with hindsight 20/20 through a pair of goggles made of empty glasses on a table set for supper with the twelve apostles, none of whom thought twice of paying five or seven dollars for a bottled water since it's only overpriced until it's turned to wine by Dionysus metamorphosed into Christ performing miracles like David Blaine outwitting the Goliath of the human mind with optical illusions which have been aligned like wires meant to trip the vision, glitches in a system once in mint condition, only to become the victim of decisions ordering the decommission of the old equipment since it's rickety enough to catch a virus from a sick magician smuggling more tricks beneath his hat than could have fit inside a secret bag that never leaves the triple-fingered grasp of an elusive cartoon cat who finds himself in funny fixes, often subject to the sinister designs of counterfeiters unabashedly attempting to convert the trend to cash by courting crowds of young believers so devout that they would not be out of place as extras on the set of yet another Sister Act, with habits so impressive that they might as well have monkeys on their backs like junkies working on another set of track marks, but if being square is hip I guess I'd rather be a tesseract and wrinkle up the fabric of the cosmos just to ditch the beaten path, becoming master of the alchemy to forge the golden keys to immortality with legendary lines that linger longer than the cancer cells of Henrietta Lacks by moving forward faster than a VHS since I have never been the kind to hit rewind before I drop it in the slot unless I think I have a shot at reaching eastern ports by sailing a westward course, on honeymoon alone inside a hearse emblazoned with the proclamation that I've recently divorced, although I had to form a rival church to process all the paperwork and make myself the temporary pope of an unholy land controlled by warring factions in a mediocre karaoke battle of the bands, a perfect recipe to bake a batch of piping hot disasters more explosive than a load of Roman candles lit by plastic soldiers waiting for the birthday boy to blow the fallout far away and make a wish upon a shooting asteroid requesting that the sin of Sodom be destroyed selectively in ways that won't affect the rest, provided they profess a faith in following instructions that have been engraved on tablets made of DNA, a set of ten commandments coded cryptically in chains of ones and zeroes like a reinterpretation of an ancient language spoken by the innocent creator of a universe with only one dimension, prior to the birth of color through the prism which admits the spectrum, stretching in an exponential pattern like a shockwave of unstoppable expansion getting out of hand and leading to a state of total anarchy, devoid of gods and rulers meant to measure out the debt and keep the edge as straight as kids with X's on their fists who revel in the pit, presenting minor threats as side effects of the intent to minimize the risk of being thoroughly lobotomized in ways that don't require any picks designed for chipping ice to be inserted blindly in the frontal lobe that lies behind the sockets of the eyes, creating teenage nightmares like the bloody brides of Frankenstein depicted on the cover of another album mindlessly indulging in the kind of lines against which parents have to be advised with labels introduced in 1985 and still in use to warn against the gore abhorred by Tipper and the references to sex that might engender unexpected consequences when your daughter's high on meth and thinks she wants to moonlight as a stripper, causing an apocalyptic lifting of the veils as the hemlines rise so far above horizons drawn precisely by the architects of etiquette who engineer the trends, exerting efforts meant to influence the overall direction of a war of currents, causing Thomas Edison and General Electric to denounce the work of Westinghouse and Tesla in an escalating series of attempts to stifle and suppress the shocking incandescence of the cleansing flame that melts away the layers of the flesh, exposing naked cells to gamma rays that emanate directly from a brazenly uncovered face belonging to a maker met unwillingly by those afraid to shake the hand of God in case the heavens tremble, threatening an avalanche of angry angels traveling more rapidly than animated birds, approaching at an angle that could never be construed as right, not when the nature of the shape is more isosceles, but still it somehow manages to earn a title calling it sublime because the ratio of side to base is golden as an egg between the legs of the enchanted goose who laid it, fully formed and finely fabricated with a fancy filigree that could have been handmade by master craftsmen of the house of Fabergé for patrons born into the Russian aristocracy, an institution soon to be the target of a mutiny by rebels sent to usher in a union of republics seen as socialist by those who hesitate to call it communism, faces fresh as well-intentioned students off to college for a law degree with prospects that look promising right up until the stocks begin to fall and the economy collapses like the function of a wave that washes up in Indonesia when an earthquake shakes the ocean floor, awakening the demon of the deep, a monster never known to be a heavy sleeper, the colossus feeding on the wettest dreams of all the power-hungry number junkies hoping to become the next big thing until they're broke and on the street, because the buildings that rise high enough to scrape the bottom of the sky are easy targets for a lightning strike that comes completely by surprise, as though the finger of divinity, emerging through the fog of false infinity, could bridge the gap and touch the mind in ways that seem entirely indecent, a conception made immaculate by ignorance regarding the mechanics of the quantum leap that must be made to generate a whole new state of being in a way that's not unlike the flipping of a switch, a shift which almost seems like witchcraft, digitally skipping over spaces vast enough to make the difference separating total emptiness from solid substance, forming the foundations of a program destined to evolve toward futuristic new frontiers that make the feat of self-awareness seem as elementary as phonics meant to hook the reader who has already become successful as a novelist, autonomously functioning with levels of intelligence transcending the tradition of exception rooted in the basic claim that works of artifice can never hold a candle to the handiwork of Nature even though she's gone demented in a way that shows her age, a crazy scientist who leaves the floodgates open when she goes to bed, retiring just after lighting fires bright enough to heat debates that aggravate the conflagration kindled into being by the first invigorating spark that rendered Plato's cave ablaze to make the shadows that can only be mistaken for reality when there's no other way to see that might betray the true dimensionality of forests never seen because the trees are always falling silent, smothered in a vacuum deemed unnatural by text in black and white suggesting artlessly that darkness can be absolute, although in truth there's only relativity, and all of my relations say Mitakuye Oyasin echoed by the sound of rain which dances with a childlike abandon on the roof without the need for moccasins or cowboy boots, absorbed into the consciousness that's bodiless and able to embrace a form that comes before the humblest of birthday suits, attire worn by embryos in utero who have to look their best when walking down the carpet painted red by vessels filled with blood like grapes which must be crushed to formulate the sacrifice allowing them to make their big debut, emerging on the scene of what it means to be a human, tainted by the sin of true originality inherent in the act of going lucid while refusing to release the sand of dreaming from between the fingers, stopping up the hourglass that eats away at all the finest figures just in time to extricate the parasite from vital information closely guarded by the temple knights who hide it like a world-destroying virus, locked up tight inside the tiny spaces riddling the hearts and minds of anyone affected by the entropy of bodily decay, because the key of life is safest in the pocket of a lost Osiris, shielded from desire's evil eye by virtue of the simple fact that it's been taken from beneath the mat and buried in the most unlikely place where only fools will ever find it.

2/21/17

[rainbowrites]

Deep Space Mutant

hi @ihamtmus!!

OKAY, I'm super late but let's do this thing!! Thanks to @wellntruly, who is a GEM and helped come up with a ton of these and was just super fun to scream about this with

little background: most everyone has powers, it's very House of M although since this is a Star Trek universe they make a BIG DEAL out of ~equality~ between powered and non-powered people. Still, life is harder for you if you're non-powered or have weak powers, especially in terms of employment. Would you hire a non-powered bodyguard if you could get one that could shoot fire? I didn’t think so. It’s one of those undercurrents of society that DS9 addresses, and everyone else pretends doesn’t exist. Unsurprisingly, most colonists (and Maquis) are non-powered or have weak/not ‘useful’ powers as they willingly risk that danger to create a world for themselves where they’re not the ‘lesser’. 

And not every planet/species has the same style of powers that we're used to in our mutant comics, where everyone has different powers. Some are like Changelings, where everyone has the same powers. Some have symbiotic powers, like the Trill who have individual powers and then the symbiont all have the same power - which is the ability to retain and pass on memories and powers from previous hosts.

ANYONE ON TO THE GOOD STUFF (readmore below!)

Sisko has The Voice. When he speaks, everyone listens. It's more of a telepathic power, that compels everyone within hearing distance to listen to him. It doesn't force them to actually do what he says, but they have to at least listen to what he says. It's near impossible to interrupt him, and even a whisper is enough to get everyone around him craning to listen. He mostly finds this embarrassing or annoying at first, since it means no muttering under his breath and his superiors are always a little pissed since whenever he says anything everyone stops listening to them and tunes in exclusively to channel Sisko. The Bajorans are ALL OVER IT though. For so long, they were kept oppressed and silent by the Cardassians. Now the Prophets have sent them an Emissary that CANNOT be ignored - the Bajorans will be listened to at last! This power is definitely not inspired by the beautiful chocolate velvet that is Avery Brook's voice, what voice fetish, I don't have a voice fetish, YOU HAVE A THING FOR HIS VOICE DON'T LIE WE ALL DO.

Kira has flame powers, connected to her body. She literally has sparks flying from her eyes when she's enraged, and can punch a flaming fist into your stomach. She can't really spread the fire outside of her body, but that's what a blaster is for. She doesn't need to use her powers to kick your ass. When she was young, she thought that if she got fatally shot she would use the last of her strength to self-immolate in the hopes of burning some Cardassians to death. She has some control issues, but over the course of the series learns to be gentle with herself and her powers - lighting candles with the tips of her fingers and turning herself into a glowing pillar of warmth.

Miles tells everyone that he can talk to machines, but it's no big deal. He doesn't do anything that any good engineer couldn't do. In reality, he connects with systems like no one else can dream of. It's more than just communication, the machines themselves fall in love with him and jump to his every word to try to make him happy. It gets very boring though, every problem bending over backwards to fix themselves. It's why DS9 is so interesting, it's the first time that machines have fought back against him, argued and dragged their feet rather than eagerly work with him. Of course he doesn't realize that this is because Cardassian computer systems are justlike Cardassians themselves, and show their love via intense argument. He doesn't realize for a LONG time that all that petulant breaking and constant backtalk is really just Cardassian for TAKE ME NOW YOU HOT PIECE OF ENGINEER.

Here is a story about Julian: when he was 6 years old, he still wasn't showing any sign of powers. He couldn't read, he could barely write his name, but his parents clung to the idea that his powers would elevate him beyond needing those things. They worried constantly that their own weak powers (she glows very slightly in the dark, he has enough heat powers to fry an egg on his chest if he concentrates) might have doomed their son to mediocrity. Then the doctors tell them, very gently, that their son was among the tiny percentage born without an x-gene. The next day, they start looking into augmentation. If genetics couldn't make their son great as their dreams, then they would use science to do the job instead.

So Julian has super-smarts, and incredibly reflexes to go along with them. But somehow they are always...incomplete, in some weird way. Because they are artificial. He doesn't understand them innately, like a native speaker. He's FLUENT, because he's STUDIED, but there's always something just a little off. However he's CONSTANTLY talking up his smarts and Miles wants to fucking kill him at first because 'yeah okay GOD super smarts are a good power to have, shut UP about them you fucking show off I'm not constantly talking to your tricorder am I?'not realizing that Julian is hella over compensating and also would LOVE Miles to talk to his tricorder all the time. His brain is so weird, sliced and diced and reconnected until the wave length it sends out gives every telepath a headache which Miles thinks is HILARIOUS. 'your real mutant power is ANNOYING EVERYONE.'

It is not lost on Julian that he immediately attaches to Miles, rather than any other officer on the station. Keiko jokes that all machines fall in love with him, and Julian just gives her a very strained smile and agrees softly. When he tells Miles what he is, that he's unnatural, he says that of course Miles is his best friend - Miles has plenty of practice speaking to machines. And Miles is just like 'listen buddy even the cardassian machines aren't as annoying as you are, only a REAL PERSON could be as much a pain in my ass as you are. and that's from the HEART'

Garak keeps his powers a secret. Also a secret? Whether or not he even HAS them. Julian is absolutely FASCINATED, and adores hearing all the stories Garak spins about them using his, quote. 'rare gift for obfuscation':

my powers stimulate nerve endings. I could make Bajorans scream with pain without ever touching them

when I was young I discovered I could disappear into the shadows. Elim had the same type of power, which is why we were known as the sons of Tain, who could disappear in plain sight

haven't you noticed my clothes are exceptional? cloth listens to me as raptly as you do

oh my dear Doctor, my power? I told you everything. It was all true. especially the lies.

It;'s a different power every time and we never ever find out what his real powers are, or if he even HAS ANY. He might be baseline, for all anyone of them know

Jadzia is, to quote Tarra, "the actual cool version of Apocalypse". As I said earlier, Trills are born with a vast array of potential powers (plus a small percentage with none just like on Earth) and the symbionts are much the same as they are in the show, except they don't just pass down memories/personality but also the powers of their previous hosts - though the powers are weakened in transition. The Trills chosen for joining though are only chosen by those with really strong powers and incredible control though, since if those powers are gonna be saved forever through the symbiont you want them to be GOOD ones and if they're gonna be weakened you want them to be as strong as possible to start out with. For example, Curzon had super strength that he used to impress the Klingons and gain their respect; it's something Jadzia uses frequently to help her withstand some incredibly violent Klingon sex. Emony controlled water with incredible precision, able to control each drop just as she controlled her gymnast muscles, and used them often in her routines as water whips in rhythmic gymnastic style; Jadzia mostly uses it to flick water in people's faces when she's feeling mischievous, which is most of the time. Audrid was famous for her amazing flying powers, able to zoom around like a rocket, which is actually why Tobin, adrenaline junkie and first Trill to join Starfleet, joined the program: to get those flight powers and zoom around without a shuttle. He ends up disappointed at their weakness, though he still loves flying without a shuttle, and it's what pushes him to test drive new experimental engines - he will fly like he an remember!! - and what eventually kills him. CAN YOU TELL I'VE THOUGHT WAY TOO MUCH ABOUT THIS???

Jadzia herself had touch telepathy, able to know everyone with a hug. She has a ton of control though, and usually just skims the surface of people's thoughts. It's one reason she's super good at flirting - she knows IMMEDIATELY if someone's attracted to her. It's a rough power on DS9 though; that station saw a lot of misery and pain, and it shares that pain with her every chance it gets.

Ezri had very very weak powers, which is one reason she never even considered trying to get joined. She can technically smell emotions, but she has a really bad sense of smell. She would have to get REALLY close to smell something, and she's not alway gauranteed to recognize it. Like, do you realize how many emotions people generally feel?? It makes for a very weird, confusing blend! Fear is of course, the easiest to smell. She can smell fear!! Kinda. If she's close to you. And you're not wearing perfume. It's a pretty terrible power, and one that she really doesn't use very often. Fun fact: Garak liberally douses himself in cologne every time he might run into her. Un-fun fact: when she's trying to treat him he calls her  'a poor imitation of a betazoid, trying to be a poor imitation of Jadzia'

The Dax powers are technically weakened, but since she had such shit powers in the first place it's yet another thing to get totally overwhelmed by. like oH MAN NOW I SUDDENLY KNOW JUST HOW MUCH THAT THE GUY I BRUSHED IN THE HALLWAY NEEDS TO POOP, THANKS JADZIA'S TOUCH TELEPATHY. OH SHIT THERE GOES THE TABLE EDGE DAMMIT IT CURZON'S SUPER STRENGTH. WELP NOW I'M FLOATING HOW DO I TURN OFF AUDRID'S FLIGHT POWERS

Worf is basically the living embodiment of no. Non-physical powers don't work on him, he can't be affected by telepathy or illusions or anything like that. If someone has super-strength or stretchy powers they can use them against him, but whenever anyone tries to trick him he can just be like 'I see you giggling and waving your fingers. You look ridiculous and are doing nothing.' He's too straight forward to be tricked! It's the first thing that really intrigues Jadzia, he's the first person she can't just know with a touch. She has to work hard to get to know him, work doubly hard because his personality can be just as closed off as his powers, and eventually that desire to know him develops into love. He's the one person who could keep a secret from her if she wanted to know it, but he never would. THEY'RE REALLY CUTE.

Rom has magnetic powers, but really really shitty ones. He mostly just accidentally gets cutlery stuck to him. He does use his powers sometime to turn little bits of machinery that can't normally be reached - something he thinks of as pretty whatever but is actually SUPER USEFUL. Miles gives him a big clap on the shoulder and is super proud of him when he finds out, and Rom nearly dies of joy right then and there.

Quark IS Drinks Space Nine. He can look at you and tell exactly what your blood alcohol content is and how alcohol would affect you. It means that he can keep his patrons at a pleasant buzz all night, or can tip someone into sloppy drunk if they're winning too much at tongo. Despite how much shit the bar goes through, it almost never has to deal with rowdy drunks, and that's because of Quark's ability to keep everyone at that pleasantly tipsy state all night.

Nog is an awkward tree fog, with literal sticky fingers. It's very useful for stealing little things when he's young, but becomes HORRIFICALLY EMBARRASSING when he grows up and joins Starfleet, especially at first. Some people get sweaty hands when they get nervous but he just gets EXTRA STICKY HANDS. Like, picture him frantically trying to shake off the PADD he was just handed with his first assignment while Sisko's back is turned and then being like EVERYTHING IS FINE SIR AHAHAHA I JUST.... REALLY LIKE THIS PADD when he turns back

Jake has stretchy powers because come on have you SEEN Cirroc Lofton??? I almost can't believe that guy DIDN'T have stretchy powers. He's no Mr. Fantastic, but he can drape himself across all the furniture in the room in Peak Teen fashion. It also makes for some baseball shenanigans. He uses it a lot to tease his dad by being taller than him, at least until he ACTUALLY GETS THERE. It's a bit tiring for him to hold a stretch though, which is why when he first hits his growth spurt his dad is like 'hey watch out son, you'll strain something keeping yourself so tall for so long.' Jake tries to tell him that no, he's just naturally growing, and Ben is just like 'LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU, I KNOW YOU'RE JUST USING YOUR POWERS, YOU'RE NOT ACTUALLY TALLER THAN ME, YOU'RE STILL MY BABY'

Keiko has growing powers. She's heard all the jokes, a botanist with growing powers? How obvious. It's mostly really annoying though, since when she discovers something new and gets excited she can accidentally spark some intense growth spurts and totally mess up her data. She loves making flowers bloom for Molly and Kirayoshi.

[fanfic-screenplays]

Batman Rebirth Part 3

EXT: GOTHAM ALLEY - DAY - MOMENTS LATER

The CAR SCREECHES to a halt, haphazardly across the alley, blocking it.

Doors of the CAR swing open. Thugs wearing clown masks and dirty suits clamber out. These are JOKERZ, criminals inspired by the Joker.

                TERRY:        Oi! What do you think you're doing?        !

One of the JOKERZ turns towards TERRY, reaching into THEIR pocket.

                JOKERZ 1:        Who do you think you're talking to,        man?

                TERRY:        Some wannabe Joker...

JOKERZ 1 shoves TERRY to the ground. Pulling out a REVOLVER and points it at TERRY.

                JOKERZ 1:        Get out of here!

TERRY very slowly gets to HIS feet, raising HIS hands.

                JOKERZ 1:        Go on, get...

DANA grabs TERRY arms, pulling HIM backwards - up the alley. HOLDING on with both hands, digging in, DRAGGING him away.

JOKERZ 1 watches... keeping the revolver trained on them as they walk away.

                JOKERZ 1        That's it man... walk away...

EXT: JOKERZ CAR - DAY.

JOKERZ 2 wonders around the car and yanks opens the trunk, revealing tatty open boxes filled with small bags containing various amounts of a green powder - all with a scrawled V on them. This is Venom.

EXT: GOTHAM ALLEY - DAY DONE

TERRY stops, turns - watching, yearning to step in.

DANA pulls at him, begging HIM not to...

                DANA:        Terry, Please let's go!

EXT: JOKERZ CAR - DAY.

JOKERZ3 raises THEIR phone to THEIR lips, holding it like a microphone.

                JOKERZ 3:            (Voice coming out of the             car speakers)        Citizens of Gotham, round up!

EXT: GOTHAM ALLEY - DAY

Every JUNKIE in the alley slowly stands and shuffles towards the car. Almost zombie like...

TERRY stops, watching the JUNKIES stumble THEIR way towards the JOKERZ.

                DANA:        Terry, please don't get involved...

                TERRY:        Dana...I have to...

                DANA:        Why?!

TERRY pulls himself away from DANA and slowly starts to walk towards the JOKERZ.

                TERRY:        They just get away with it! No one        does anything!...

DANA watches TERRY walk away...

                DANA:            (Shouting after him)        They are going to kill you!

EXT: JOKERZ CAR - DAY.

JOKERZ 3 turns, watching TERRY approach...

                JOKERZ 3:            (Through the cars speakers)        Guys, look at this, the no-fun boy        came back!

JOKERZ 1 looks up, pointing his revolver at TERRY.

                JOKERZ 1:        Stop!

TERRY  stops... just inches from the barrel of the gun...

                TERRY:        What now?

                JOKERZ 1:        Now you do want your nice lady        friend said...

JOKERZ 1 jabs TERRY with the barrel of the revolver.

                JOKERZ 1:        And walk away... Or...

JOKERZ 1 aims the revolver at DANA...

                JOKERZ 1        I can just blow her away.

TERRY's fists ball up - anger flares...

                JOKERZ 1        I mean, you clearly don't listen to ��      her anyway.

TERRY DIVES for the revolver. THEY GRABBLE over it. TERRY struggling to pull it away...

...HE SMACKS JOKERZ 1 across the face. JOKERZ1 stumbles back, hitting the pavement hard, dropping the gun.

TERRY grabs the gun,turns - THROWING it away.

                DANA:            (O.S)        Look out!

EXT: JOKERZ CAR - DAY

JOKERZ 1 launches THEMSELVES at TERRY...

TERRY turns at the last minute, JOKERZ 1 punches TERRY across the face, knocking HIM back...

...TERRY leaps at JOKERZ 1, pinning THEM against the car. PUNCHING over and over...

...JOKERZ 1 struggles, fighting to break free, throwing feeble punches...

...JOKERZ 1 stops struggling...

...TERRY lets go, JOKERZ 1 crashes to the ground...

TERRY turns back, looking for DANA.

EXT: GOTHAM ALLEY - DAY - MOMENTS LATER

TERRY turns, seeing the rest of the JOKERZ sprawled across the alley.

TERRY sighs - weary, raising HIS fists.

The JOKERZ charge!

INT: BOXING GYM -DAY

The same club where TERRY had his fight. It's covered in the remains of the fight, with bottles and general rubbish strewn everywhere.

MAX is lounging in the middle of the ring, working away on HER tablet - working out the profit from the fight.

The door to the Gym swings open, SMACKING the wall behind it. TERRY limb's in. BRUISED and BATTERED from the fight with the Jokerz.

MAX JUMPS at the NOISE, looking up - seeing TERRY. SHE runs across to HIM, concerned at the state of HIM.

                MAXINE:        Terry, what happened to you?

TERRY STUMBLES - grabbing MAX. SHE holds on, lowering TERRY into the nearest chair.

                TERRY:        Got into a fight with some        Jokerz...

MAX leaves TERRY, RUNNING across to the ring. SHE reaches under - pulling out the FIRST AID KIT.

MAX turns back, moving across to TERRY.

                MAXINE:        Guessing police had to stop in        again...

MAX sits next to TERRY, the first aid kit on HER lap.

                TERRY:        Actually the bouncers from the        Iceberg helped out...

MAX starts to search through the first aid kit - looking for plasters and antibiotics.

                MAXINE:        I'm going to have to tell Dana...        There's no way I can keep patching        you up!

MAX pulls out two spray cans. One a plaster, the other a antibiotic. MAX sets them aside.

                MAXINE:        Right, lean forward.

TERRY leans, showing MAX the cuts on HIS face. MAX gets to work. Spraying the antibiotic spray across the cuts.

                TERRY:        She was there...

                MAXINE        She's OK?

TERRY GRIMACES in pain.

                TERRY:        Yeah... She's fine... Pissed at me        though...

MAX stops spraying and switches over to the plaster spray.

                MAXINE        Not surprised... You need to look        after yourself, otherwise you might        lose her...

MAX sprays the plaster across the wound. It's a foam which slowly hardens across the cut as MAX sprays it.

                MAXINE:        Terry, I keep saying this... but        this is not your fight.

                TERRY:        Max... Come on... You've seen the        world outside, we can't sit by and        do nothing... It's getting worse        and worse out there.

MAX angrily throws the cans back into the first aid kit. They CLANG as they hit the kit. MAX SLAMS the box shut with a loud SNAP - clearly not the first time TERRY's done this.

                MAXINE:        The police can sort this city.        They've done it before!

                TERRY:        Yeah...twenty years ago. Ever since        that night when HE disappeared, its        been getting worse.

                MAXINE:        What do you mean by HE?... You        don't seriously believe in the        Batman, do you?

                TERRY:        Something must have different back        then. Dad said that people could        walk the street and feel safe.        Something needs to happen now...

                MAXINE:        You know that's just a legend, even        if it wasn't, he's not coming back.

                TERRY:        Yeah well.. Something needs to        happen to this city. It's gone to        hell...

INT: NOONAN'S BAR: NIGHT

It's a classic dive bar. With lit up neon posters being the only source of light. The bar's full of PEOPLE having a good time - LOUD MUSIC, the LOW MURMUR of conversation.

WARREN is sat on a stool at the bar, halfway through after work drinks. One empty beer infront of him. WARREN's drinking his next one, he's about halfway through.

The door to the bar slides open. WARREN turns towards it, looking through the crowd for...

HARRY walks in. WARREN stands and sticks his hand up above the crowd - grabbing HARRY's attention.

HARRY sees it and weaves through the crowd.

INT: NOONAN'S BAR: - MOMENTS LATER

HARRY slides onto the stool next to WARREN.

                HARRY:        Glad you could make it.

                WARREN:        Yeah, we needed to talk about        today...

The robotic barkeep TRUNDLES over, hereafter known as ROBOKEEP. ROBOKEEP's has an almost MR Gutsy appearance.

                ROBOKEEP:            (Has a stereotypical posh             British voice)        Drink Sir?

                HARRY:        Bud please Alfred.

                ROBOKEEP:        Yes Sir.

One of ROBOKEEP's arms reaches under the counter, pulls out a beer. Another arm swings round and opens the bottle.

ROBOKEEP slides it in-front of HARRY.

HARRY leans close to WARREN, making sure that no one can overhear.

                HARRY:        Powers gave you restricted file        access right?

WARREN leans in...

                WARREN:        Yeah, for Blight's DNA sequence        why?

                HARRY:        So you must have access to Bane and        the Venom files as well?

                WARREN        Again... Why?

                HARRY        I think the only way to stop Powers        is to expose all of it...

                WARREN:        What about us? Do you want to        expose us as well?!

                HARRY:        Calm down... Look, Blight's meant        to be for the D.O.D right. If we go        to them then I think they should        protect us.

                WARREN:        What about MY family. What do you        think Power's will do to them?!

HARRY sighs...

                HARRY:        I know, but do you have any better        ideas?

WARREN stares into HIS glass - thinking. HE downs the drink. Standing.

                WARREN:        No...no... Really can't say that I        do.

WARREN pulls on HIS coat.

                WARREN        I'll get the files, then we can        talk...

WARREN heads out, weaving through the crowd to the exit.

EXT: GOTHAM STREET - NIGHT

It's raining heavily. Puddles have formed everywhere.  The puddles reflect back the lights and advertising billboards. PEOPLE are bustling about, making their way home.

WARREN dashes along - dodging puddles, heading towards the monorail station at the end of the street.

Behind WARREN, an heavy set MAN steps out of the shadows. Wearing a black trenchcoat with a hood covering his face. No way to tell who it is.

The MAN follows WARREN... Rapidly getting closer and closer, shoving ANYONE in HIS way aside. PEOPLE hit the floor, turn, stare, point.

EXT: GOTHAM STREET - NIGHT - CONTINUOUS

The MAN shoves SOMEONE. SOMEONE falls against the MAN. Pulling the hood down. REVEALING that it's VIXX stalking WARREN.

VIXX THROWS THEM to the ground. Looking around for WARREN.

VIXX'S augmented arm TRANSFORMS into a MINIGUN...

Vixx see's WARREN. Raises the minigun. Pointing it at WARREN.

The barrel starts to SPIN... Getting LOUDER and LOUDER!

WARREN glances behind, looking for the source of the noise... HE sees VIXX - PANICS, turning. Running for HIS life!

HE shoves anyone in HIS way, trying to get through the crowd - heading for the nearest exit.

VIXX does not move. Keeping WARREN in the sights.

The minigun FIRES, mowing PEOPLE down - collapsing onto the floor.

WARREN's hit - multiple times. WARREN  writhes and collapses to the ground, face down.

EXT: GOTHAM STREET - NIGHT - LATER

The firing has stopped. All around PEOPLE are lying on the floor. Slowly bleeding out...

We hear a POLICE SIREN getting closer and closer.

VIXX slowly walks to WARREN's body. The minigun transforming as HE walks - stepping over bodies.

VIXX kicks it, waiting to see if WARREN moves. WARREN lays there - lifeless.

VIXX pulls up his hood. A veil drops down over his face, TRANSFORMING VIXX's facial features as it does so. HE is now completely unrecognisable, looking like someone else.

VIXX turns and walks away. Straight past a POLICE CAR which has just SCREECHED to a halt a few metres away.

INT: BOXING GYM.

It has still not been cleaned or tidied up. Covered in remnants from the fight the night before.

TERRY and NELSON are in the ring - in casual clothes. TERRY's face is still bruised and battered. NELSON's pristeen, got a perfect appearance - clearly a rich snob. HE's TERRY'S arch nemesis in their group of friends.

THEY are sparring, circling each other, looking for a moment to strike.

MAX casually watches from TERRY's corner.

                NELSON:        You know what Terry?

MAX's phone RINGS out, SHE pulls it out of HER pocket. Heads off to a quiet corner, away from the fight.

                TERRY:        I'm sure you're going to to tell        me...

NELSON throws a sloppy punch at TERRY. TERRY ducks under the swing.

                NELSON:        Why is Dana with you? Of all        people, she picks someone who can't        afford their own home...

TERRY moves back, putting some space between them.

NELSON attempts to hit TERRY. TERRY easily avoids it - getting angrier and angrier.

                NELSON        I mean, she must know that you're        going to spend your whole life        paying off your debt to Powers.

TERRY snaps! HE's had enough - throwing PUNCH after PUNCH at NELSON...

NELSON blocks them, one after the after. SMACKING TERRY across the face.

TERRY stumbles back.

                NELSON:        Don't be surprised if she got a        better offer...

TERRY SUDDENLY turns and throws a heavy punch into NELSON's gut. NELSON steps back, folded over.

TERRY punches NELSON to the ground.

NELSON cowers as TERRY stands over him - fists raised, ready to beat NELSON to a pulp.

                TERRY:        Don't ever talk about her like that        ever again!

                NELSON        OK OK, Jesus!

INT: BOXING GYM - MOMENTS LATER

MAXINE runs over, still on the phone.

                MAXINE:            (Panicked)        TERRY!

TERRY turns, leaving NELSON on the floor - not bothering to help HIM up.

                TERRY:        What?!

MAXINE holds out the phone.

                MAXINE:            (Concerned)        You need to take this... It's about        Warren.

TERRY ducks under the robes - making his way to MAX.

                TERRY:        What happened?

                MAXINE:        Terry... Please just speak to your        mother.

TERRY takes the phone from HER - confused about what's going on.

                TERRY:        Mum, What's wrong?

                MARY:            (V.O)        Terry... It's Warren... He's...        been shot.

EXT: GOTHAM POLICE DEPARTMENT PRECINCT - NIGHT

The precinct is an old roughed up brownstone building. Heavily reinforced, ready for a riot.

TERRY CHARGES up the stairs, DIVING through the double doors into...

[thrashermaxey]

20 Fantasy Hockey Thoughts

Every Sunday, we'll share 20 Fantasy Thoughts from our writers at DobberHockey. These thoughts are curated from the past week's "Daily Ramblings".

Writers: Michael Clifford, Ian Gooding, Cam Robinson, and Dobber

  1. Micheal Ferland has been a wrecking ball in Carolina. For example, last Sunday, he scored, added eight hits, and even had four faceoff wins, to help out those leagues that count that. Boy was I wrong about this guy. I had him trending the opposite way in the Guide. I should have read it better – the Hurricanes wanted sandpaper, they have a hard-working coach. So, of course they would give Ferland top billing. I miffed this one, just a poor read. Seems so obvious now. (oct15)

  2. After years of being a source of many dominant fantasy hockey teams, the Red Wings don’t have much for fantasy owners to get excited about anymore. But one early sleeper from the Wings is rookie blueliner Dennis Cholowski, who leads the team in both power-play minutes and total minutes (21:48/GP). Cholowski scored a goal and added an assist while taking five shots on Saturday to give him five points in six games, including four power-play points. He could easily hit a rookie wall at some point, but he’s owned in just seven percent of Yahoo leagues. That’s surprisingly low ownership for a player earning first-unit power-play minutes, even if it is for a likely lottery-bound team. (oct20)

  3. In case you hadn’t noticed, Anders Nilsson just recently enjoyed a three-game run, all wins, where he posted a 1.67 GAA and .943 SV%. Yes, I was as surprised as you are. Do remember, though, that after last season, he backstopped Sweden to a World Hockey Championship.

A long-term question is whether Nilsson will unseat Jacob Markstrom as the de facto number one in Van City. I’d say that Nilsson would need more consistency than we’re used to with him before I would proclaim that he will be the guy two months from now. He could also easily force a timeshare with Markstrom, which might be the more likely scenario here. The Canucks are playing well right now, but their defense is the envy of no team. So, over an entire season, I still wouldn’t consider either Nilsson or Markstrom to be a must-own. (oct17)

  4. It’s finally happened, folks. Evgeni Kuznetsov is a superstar. We’ve been as patient as any sane human could ever hope for. Four years of KHL action that had Caps fans and fantasy junkies salivating at the prospect of him tearing it up in the Nation’s Capitol. It took nearly 100 games to push near the point-per-game mark, then a quick backslide and now, now it is here!

Sure, it’s only been six weeks, but all the magical ingredients are coming together. He’s 26-years-old and still in his statistical prime. He’s clicking on a heeeealthy 16.7 percent of his shots, all the while eating up the entirety of all-situations deployment next to the best finisher of all-time (Alex Ovechkin).

Speaking of time-on-ice, he’s getting a lot of it. Through seven games, he’s played 20:57. That’s more than three minutes above the mark he set last season – which represented a career-high at the time. His time-on-ice total places him firmly in the top 10 for forwards to begin the season. With over four minutes of that coming on the man-advantage, you can’t ask for better deployment. The scary thing is, he hasn’t even begun filling his apple basket by feeding Ovi for the patented one-timer. Of Kuzya’s six power-play points, four of them have been goals. That rate will dip, but the PPA’s should more than make up for it. He’s also shooting more than ever before, averaging 3.43 per game. His previous career-high was 2.35.

Last year, we had an unseasonable number of high-end scorers. Nine players cusped the 90-point threshold. Will anyone be surprised if Kuznetsov breaks that milestone this season? I don’t know about you, but I snuck a little preseason coin on him grabbing the Hart Trophy. At 82-1 odds I would’ve been stupid not to, right? Right? Right. (oct19)

  5. Jeff Skinner entered Saturday afternoon’s game against LA with just one goal in his first seven games as a Sabre, mainly playing on a line with rookie Casey Mittelstadt and veteran Kyle Okposo. But on Saturday, Skinner found himself on a line with Jack Eichel and Jason Pominville and produced exactly what the Sabres hoped he would when they acquired him from Carolina, scoring three goals in a 5-1 win. In fact, his entire line combined for nine points in this game. Eichel recorded three assists, while Pominville scored a goal and added two assists.

Eichel’s previous linemates, Sam Reinhart and Conor Sheary, found themselves centered by Vladimir Sobotka, which is obviously a significant downgrade from Eichel. Reinhart has yet to score a goal in eight games, while both Reinhart and Sheary have been held without points in their last three games. Obviously, lines are constantly in a state of flux, but as an owner of both Reinhart and Sheary in separate leagues, I’m not thrilled about the deployment at least in the short term. (oct20)

  6. Here's some more good news for Sabres' fans, they're not in the basement! It might not sound like much but for a team with such a storied history in the cellar, their 4-4 start must be considered a step forward. What's even more heartening is the play of their prospects in AHL Rochester. Victor Olofsson and his ridiculous release crossed over from the SHL this fall and has been terrorizing goaltenders in the AHL early and often. The 23-year-old led the SHL in goals last season and is leading the AHL in points (14) and sits tied for third in goals (5).

Fellow Swede and SHL import, Lawrence Pilut is second among AHL blueliners in points with 10 in six games. The most relieving start has to be from former eighth overall pick, Alex Nylander. The Sabres top pick from 2016 has struggled in two teenaged seasons in the American League. But, so far in 2018-19, he has produced eight points in eight games and looks ready to really knock the door down for a NHL gig. He hasn't been a passenger either. Of his eight total points, seven have been primary and five have come at even-strength. It's just him and Olli Juolevi who haven't cracked the NHL from the top 10 in 2016. The race is on to see who gets the call first. (oct19)

  7. Ryan Suter has seven points in eight games. He looks none the worse after that nasty ankle break last spring. He’s playing over 25 minutes a contest, which is likely a better place for the 33-year-old than 27-29 range he’s lived in in the past. He may not be flashy, but Suter is as consistent as they come. He's played at or above a 40-point pace in eight consecutive years and nine of his 13 career seasons. (oct19)

  8. Roope Hintz got a turn on the Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin line Friday. Hintz always been an interesting talent. He found good success in the Finnish Liiga but none more than his playoff run in 2016-17 with HIFK. He led the league in scoring that spring and that helped catapult him to a 20-goal rookie season in the American League last year. He's a young player to watch. The change-up was the result of an Alexander Radulov lower-body injury. Something to keep an eye on. (oct19)

  9. Elias Lindholm sure looks like he's found his forever home. The talented Swedish forward has toyed with fantasy owners for years. He had the lofty draft slot, the silky skills and the promise of more production to come. However, over the course of his five NHL seasons, he'd never broke the 50-point barrier. That mark is certainly in danger this season.

A goal and an assist in Calgary's 5-3 loss Nashville on Friday brings him up to five goals eight points in seven games. That's all well and good, but what I like to see is the insanely juicy deployment. Lindholm is locked onto to Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan at even-strength and on the top power-play unit. He's skating over 19 minutes a night with 4:41 coming on the man-advantage. You can't ask for much better than that. The shooting percent is ridiculous (35%) and due for a fistful of a market correction, but this a player who has always appeared to have 60-plus point upside and he's trending nicely towards that this season.

Things haven't been as rosy for the other major forward addition in Calgary. James Neal has just two points in seven contests.  With the Flames putting the Mikael Backlund-led  3M line back together, Neal is struggling to find much offense next to Sam Bennett and Mark Jankowski/Derek Ryan. The second unit power-play deployment isn't helping much either. To make matters worse, he has just 11 shots in seven games, five of which came in game two of the season. It's time to cut ties if you haven't already. (oct19)

  10. The Predators have placed Pekka Rinne on injured reserve, which makes Juuse Saros a must-add if he’s still available in your league (47 percent owned in Yahoo leagues at the time of this writing). Saros has played in four games this season, and all have resulted in wins.

If Saros is still unowned in your league, I can’t stress enough how you need to go add him now. Go directly to the waiver wire. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. And even when Rinne returns, you should try to find a way to retain Saros given the Preds’ status as one of the league’s top teams. Remember that Rinne is on the final year of his contract, so a phase-in could be in the works. Even if Saros is pushed to the bench when Rinne returns, owning a strong backup is in many ways better for your fantasy team than owning a weak starter. (oct20)

  11. How quickly things can change. In a recent Ramblings, I mentioned the solid play of Semyon Varlamov. Since then, coach Jared Bednar has decided to turn to Philipp Grubauer not once, but twice. Grubauer made Bednar’s decision look smart on Saturday, making 42 saves in a 3-1 win. This is shaping up to be an all-out competition in the Colorado net, with both goalies playing extremely well. Despite facing an average of 35 shots per game (one of the highest in the league), the Avalanche hold one of the league’s highest team save percentages. (oct20)

  12. Has Keith Kinkaid earned the starting job for good? Even though Cory Schneider has the larger paycheque with the longer term, this job could be Kinkaid’s to lose. Either way, Kinkaid is the perfect third goalie to own right now. (oct17)

  13. I mentioned that you should probably hold Kevin Shattenkirk in spite of his healthy scratch last week because of his 50-plus point upside on the blueline, but I’m not going to tell you to do the same with Brandon Saad. Unless you play in a very deep league, Saad is most likely replaceable given the number of available forward scoring options. Saad could very well become fantasy relevant again at some point, but it’s been a calendar year since he’s been able to produce at a 50-point pace. (oct17)

  14. If you own Pavel Buchnevich and are wondering whether to drop him, it appears that his scratch this past week isn’t due to a lack of scoring. Buchnevich has scored two goals and added an assist in his six games, which isn’t drop-worthy on its own. In fact, Buchnevich could rebound from this and become a more complete player who competes harder, assuming the coach’s message gets through. If you’re in a league where every game played matters and there’s an equal or better option, then make the move. Otherwise, I’d be fine with holding here.

On a side note, if you’re a Shattenkirk and/or Buchnevich owner, you’ll know by now that coach David Quinn doesn’t care about your fantasy team. I say that facetiously, though. Sarcasm doesn’t translate well over the internet sometimes. (oct17)

  15. When the Erik Karlsson trade was announced, the first thing that popped in my head was how this was going to affect the power play. For years, Brent Burns had been the focal point, ripping shots at will. That helped push him over 300 shots per season for three years. My assumption had been that Karlsson would be a facilitator on the PP with Burns retaining his shot-ripping role.

It hasn’t quite worked that way. And there is cause for concern here. Burns’s shot rate on the PP is his lowest in a decade, about 25 percent lower than last year, and he’s lost about three minutes per game at five-on-five (which I did not anticipate). The latter could lead to a loss of six or seven points alone. Unless that production is made up on the power play, this could be a very down year from what we had been expecting from him. (oct16)

  16. In an effort to maximize the odds that Jake Allen will pan out, the Blues put all their eggs into that basket. To give him confidence and remove any competition for his job. But now, we’re seeing the downside to that. Chad Johnson has been decent but is not going to bail this team out the way Carter Hutton did last year. It’s Allen or bust. Mike Yeo could be the first coach fired this year. (oct15)

  17. I have this ‘breakout’ vibe on Jakob Silfverberg, a la Josh Bailey (last year) or Brad Marchand (three years ago). That’s how good he’s been looking. That’s why it’s such a shame that he left last Sunday’s contest with an upper-body injury in the third. Back in August, I mused that Silfverberg was the perfect Bailey/Marchand situation template: Has more offensive talent than he’s shown, has solidified his production window in around that 50-point range, and it’s now at the point where we don’t expect more (just as it was with Marchand and Bailey). And then ‘whoa’, he gets 65 points out of the blue. So far Silf has seven points in six games so let’s hope he returns soon. (oct15)

  18. I talked about Silfverberg and the Bailey breakouts but Kyle Palmieri is also a suitable candidate. He’s 27 and we have very firm expectations for him and what he can do, as it’s been very stable and reliable in that range. He also plays with Taylor Hall, which can’t hurt. The big Devils’ line (Palmieri, Hall, Nico Hischier) is also the first PP unit. (oct15)

  19. It was a real shame seeing Elias Pettersson go down like that last week. As far as players go, and my early impressions at that point in the season, it’s Pettersson and Auston Matthews. Pettersson is an elite player and I had no idea just how elite until watching two of his games in the NHL. I feel like he’s gonna do what Mathew Barzal did last season, production-wise. It would be a shame if this injury has any long-term implications on his health (i.e. susceptibility to concussion). (oct15)

  20. Matthews has been on another planet. You don’t need me to tell you that. But it’s as if adding John Tavares on another line has freed things up for Matthews to the point where he’s just toying with the poor suckers that the opposition trots out there to try to stop him. I had always considered him a Patrick Kane-type of talent, but now I wonder if he’s a Sidney Crosby-type of generational talent. I don’t use that label very easily. (oct15)

Have a good week, folks!!

    from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-home/20-fantasy-hockey-thoughts/20-fantasy-hockey-thoughts-46/