#this is going off of stories from my mom's family in Detroit

[nvara-of-mortains-own]

I'm not quite old enough to have experienced this first hand, but-- in industry towns? I'm relatively sure you DID get that multi generation company loyalty. That was a thing.

You worked for [a company] until you retired, and they took care of you when you did. And your brother and your son and your father did the same thing, because you already knew they'd treat you well

And there was a shocking amount of tribalism and loyalty at play

I'm too young to have experienced this, bc I was born after the reagan vs unions cage match

Was listening to a thing on King Charles and his political views, his traditionalist anti-modernist political views weren't too interesting in themselves but they did address the issue of "disenchantment," that unlike classic kings and churches the modern world of companies and markets seems very disenchanting, and for him that's why we need to RETVRN.

But this does hit on one of my recurring thoughts, why are companies so disenchanting? "They are abusive and exploitative" you say, well I've got news for you about kings, churches, and families, being abusive does not stop people from being enchanted. This is one those things that I think we don't even consider that anyone could be enchanted with them so we don't think to ask why we are not. (I should say that this does happen a bit at the consumer end but not at the employee end)

There's a simple answer and that's "time," these aren't old enough. Maybe in the year 2200 the people will crave a return to the traditional values of Amazon.com.

Never felt satisfied with that though, and the other answer I've had is that, unlike church, family, and king, a fundamental part of how corporations work is firing. You can be cut loose from a family or excommunicated from a church, but this is not core to how those institutions work.

Don't really know if this even makes sense to wonder about, but I return to it every once in a while

[ladylooch]

Omg I must see how timo and Liv make up? And what role Emma and Luca (maybe even lio) play in the making up. Maybe like something really big and/or exciting happens in Liv’s life and it makes her wish she had her dad around and Timo finds out and wishing he was there for the important moment. And of course starts to like Luca:))

A/N: This one got loooong. Our sweet girl liv 🥺💜

Liv cannot believe the email that she is seeing. 

She is going to be a published author! Her first publication is going to be a whole freaking book! She lays back, kicking her feet up in the air. She grabs her phone, rolling onto her stomach as she listens to the FaceTime jingle connect to her mom back home.

“Hello Livy.” Emma murmurs into the phone. It is late, Liv realizes now.

“Oh I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

“No, dad and I were sitting by the lake. How are you?” Liv tries not to let her smile falter at the mention of her still estranged father.

It’s been months since the summer night Liv left home. In October, Emma had come to parents weekend on her own. Timo flew over with her, but spent all his time with Lio, giving Liv distance. Other than a few, brief moments together at Lio & Luca’s game, Liv continues to keep her dad at an arm’s length. 

“I am great. I have news.” She wiggles her shoulders. Emma perks, face expectantly glistening at her daughter. “I’m going to be a published author. My professor submitted my short story collection to a small company in Chicago. They want to do a full, 100+ page collection and publish it!”

“YES!” Emma cheers, jumping up and down. “Of course you are baby! I am so proud of you!” Emma’s eyes drift above the phone, then dart quickly back down to the screen. “So what are the next steps?”

Liv fills her mom in. This is the early stages, but because it is a shorter collection, it can be printed and released within the next 3 months. Right after Liv’s birthday is their target date. As Liv speaks, her mom moves into her office, closing the pocket door behind her.

“How wonderful! Oh, I knew you would reach your goal well before you were done with school.”

“Mama.” Liv chuckles. She is Liv’s biggest fan. The two women chat a little longer before Liv needs to head out to her next class. Before she goes, her mom has one final question.

“Is it okay with you if I tell daddy?” Emma asks, nervously. Liv nods. Despite everything, she wants him to know. 

It’s a grueling couple of months. Liv has to learn quickly to balance a long-distance relationship, several rounds of edits and her school work. Several times, she is crying to Luca on the phone that maybe she can’t do this. Maybe she should back out of the book. Luca talks her through every wave of uncertainty. 

“You can do this, baby. Don’t worry about us right now. We are solid. Worry about you and your dreams. I’ll see you when I can, okay?”

The problem is, Liv wants to see Luca. And her mom. She really needs a hug from her mom right now.

The night of the book launch, her publisher hosts a party in her honor. It just so happens to coincide with Luca’s schedule, and an off-day when the Wild are playing in Detroit. A quick flight gets him in Liv’s arms for the first time in months, where she refuses to let go of him. Lio is playing in Chicago the next night. It all perfectly came together for her big day.

For once, she is the main focus of the family.

But when her family walks in to the event space, beaming at her, Liv’s heart cracks in her chest. Discouraged tears rush into her eyes as she hugs her mom. Liv knows Timo came with her mom and younger brothers, but he is not here tonight. No one asked if he was invited; they all assumed it would be this way. Liv did too. But now that this is all happening, it feels wrong. Wrong in her heart. Wrong in her soul. Wrong in every rush of aliveness in her being.

She needs her dad.

“We are so proud of you!” Emma squeezes her tight again. “This is only the beginning. Anything you want is within your reach. I know it.” Emma squeezes her hand, then steps aside for hugs from the boys. 

Once those squeezes are done, including the half asses ones from the twins, Liv grabs her mom’s forearm. 

“Mama, can we talk?”

“Of course.” The two women leave the boys to talk shop aka hockey. “What’s up?” Liv swallows hard, looking into her mom’s brown eyes. 

“Ah… What is daddy doing right now?” Emma straightens, pausing to read every flicker of Liv’s face. 

“Um, he’s… at the hotel.” 

“The four seasons?”

“Yes.” 

“What room?”

“419.”

“Okay. I’ll be back.”

“Okay.” Emma whispers in awe. She thinks about warning Timo briefly, but ultimately, this is not her place.

Liv’s teeth chatter the entire ride to the hotel in the passenger seat of Luca’s rental car. His hand on her thigh is the only thing preventing her from clattering off the seat to the floor mats. She keeps trying to pull in deep, calming breaths. When Luca pulls into the valet, he pauses, putting the car in park.

“Do you want me to come in?”

“No.. well.. yes.. No.” She shakes her head, unclipping her seatbelt. The valet opens her door. She swallows hard. “Could you just wait in the lobby?”

“Yes. Whatever you need, babe.”

“Thank you.” She whispers.

They walk hand in hand to the elevators. Liv’s fingers reluctantly leave his.

“I’m right here.” Luca reminds her as the doors close, separating them. When they steel presses together, her anxious expression looks back at her. She had her make up professionally done. She looks so much like her mom, so beautiful and elegant. The doors open and she walks to the left. Their room is in the corner, at the end of the hall. Before she can talk herself out of it, she knocks. 

“Baby, did you forget your… purse.” Timo asks, holding up her mom’s black bag. Timo freezes when he realizes she is not Emma. He is dressed to the 9s in his best, blue suit. A shiny black bowtie is perfectly arranged at the opening of his neck. His loafers are shined, ankles exposed, and hair perfectly slicked into place. He looks dressed for the exact kind of event she came from.

“Um, no, but we can bring that to her.” Liv blurts. She can hear her blood pounding through her body.

“Hi Liv.” Timo says. 

“Hi.”

“What… ah… are you doing here? Did mama send you for her purse?” His eyebrows pull together in confusion. “I could have brought it. But I thought maybe I’m on a certain black list. Wouldn’t be the first time.” He adds a half-hearted chuckle. Liv folds her bottom lip into her mouth.

“No, I don’t think mama knows she forgot her purse.”

“Oh. Well here.” Timo awkwardly extends the YSL shoulder bag out by it’s gold chain. Liv tentatively takes it, letting it rest in her hands in front of her. They stare at each other, not quite believing they are breathing the same air. Liv has darker hair than before. She always loses her summer highlights in the winter. Her brown hair is deep and rich like her mom’s. She’s so beautiful; Timo can’t believe she’s half him. “So, why are you here?”

“I was having a great night tonight. At least I thought I was. But then mama and the boys walked in without you and, I felt so.” She pauses, licking her dry lips and swallowing to ease the static in her throat. “So incomplete.” Timo’s eyes drop to the floor. “I don’t want this night to happen without you. It won’t mean as much. Everyone important is in that room, except for you.”

“Sweetheart, if mama told you I was sad earlier and you feel like you have to invite me, you don’t. I don’t deserve to be there.”

“I am not here because of mama. I know we have a lot to talk about, but I really want you there with us. Will you come back with me?”

“Yes.” The rush of air from Timo is immense. He sucks in a shaky breath after, trying like hell not to break down into sobs. “Of course. Thank you. Liv, this means.. so much to me.” Timo turns to go back into the room. “I’ll grab my wallet and we can go.”

“Okay. You should know Luca is downstairs. He brought me here.”

“Okay. That’s great.” Timo nods, searching under his clothes, trying to find his wallet. “Here it is.” Timo chuckles. “Your mom still insists I need a chain on this but… yuck.” He shake his head.

“Not fashionable at all.” Liv smiles, knowing her dad’s preferences all revolve around the season’s hottest trends coming out of Italy. Timo puts it in the inner pocket of his suit jacket as he looks at his daughter.

“Livy I am so proud of you. And I love you so much.”

“Do you?” Liv whispers. Timo’s face shatters, cheeks tight with emotion. 

“Yes. Every day of your existence. I used to cry at the mere thought of you in my arms when you were in mama.” Liv knows this. She’s seen the videos her mom took of him wiping his wet cheeks. “Although I know I have not gone about this the best, every thing I’ve done has been with your best interest in mind… keeping you safe too. But you are grown up now. You’re way smarter than me and it’s your life. I respect that.” 

“Daddy, Luca and I are in love.” Liv says as she steps towards him, putting herself into his arms.

“I know, hon. Mama told me.” Timo responds. “Heard about your birthday too… The celebration you always deserve.” He trails off. “Sorry I missed another one.” 

“You’ll come over next year?” 

“Of course. Wouldn’t miss it.” Liv rests her cheek on his chest, closing her eyes as he hugs her close.

“Are those the cuff links I gave you?” She wonders after they separate.

“Yeah.” Timo chuckles, bringing his wrist up for her to see. 

“Remember when I thought those were just my initials?” She grins, looking up at him.

“Yeah…. Your mom and I couldn’t think past L I guess. Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay, you kept me as the only girl and that seems better.” 

“Our perfect girl.” Timo murmurs. “Let’s go. I wanna tell everyone all about you being my daughter.” 

Timo and Liv head down to the lobby where Luca waits for them. He grins wide when he sees the two Meiers walking towards him. Liv is so happy. Her arm is laced through Timo’s and they laugh about Emma forgetting her purse and still not realizing it. Timo’s smile stays even when he sees Luca. 

“Are we ready to go back?” Luca asks. 

“Yeah. We are all here now.”

“Hi, I’m Timo, Liv’s dad. It’s nice to meet you.” Timo grins. Luca laughs, shaking his hand solidly, while going along with it.

“I’ve heard a lot about you. You should know I keep my hands to myself, sir.”

“I’m sure you do.” Timo chuckles. 

“Really?” Liv asks Luca.

“It’s funny. We’re laughing, no?” Luca laces their fingers together then opens the door for Liv so she can walk through first. It takes everything in Luca to not let his eyes drift to the sweet curve of her ass in that dress.

Things with Timo may have calmed, but Luca knows better than to press his luck any further tonight.

Plus, tonight isn’t about any of them, it’s about Liv. And she deserves the best.

[weebsinstash]

God just imagining the Batfams reader being like eh, fuck this and just going superrrrrr underground.

Like waiter/waitress in a two light country town, staying away from electronics and news and anything that could give you away.

And then one day when you’re comfy, keeping to yourself to avoid attachment, you go to a table to take their order and just find them sitting there, all eyes on you.

It would be so much funnier if the darling was ACCIDENTALLY found; like they just stumbled into the diner and is just as shocked as they look up at you.

God damn runaway darlings are my drug i swear to god

So depending on the material, Gotham is either in New Jersey or Illinois (and not to virtue signal but I lowkey find the occasional Chicago/Detroit comparisons really ignorant actually) but anyways you decide, "you know what, not just fuck this Batfamily, fuck GOTHAM, why is it legitimately so awful here" and Metropolis is right next door and is literally no better, so you decide to run away from the entire state, maybe even catching a Boom Tube to another state entirely, because you have certain limitations on how far you can go. You wind up in a nice little rural Kansas town out in the country, luckily you grabbed all your important papers with you when you ran so you can try and pick up where you left off, new bank account, maybe even a new name, trying to make yourself undetectable (which I think would probably be impossible to be undetectable by BATMAN but like for the sake of the story--) and you're just, starting to live your own quiet little life. It's all very peaceful and cottagecore and serene. You start working st a cute diner and all the locals are nice and welcoming in your nice little new home. There's even a nice farmer's market and you meet a sweet old lady and you start seeing her regularly around town and she eventually notices you're just a sweet young adult without any family and invites you over for dinner

And she's fucking Superman's mom and you basically unintentionally walk straight into the Kent household and he is there and wouldn't it be so fucked up if, since they are such close friends, and the Kent's are so welcoming, Bruce is also there like

The duality of you speaking with Supe's mom "oh you have a lovely home, Mrs Kent" "oh no none of that dear just call me Martha" and you suddenly lock eyes with Clark and Bruce at the dinner table and let loose the loudest "FUCK" (and Clark frowns at you bc don't you swear in front of his mama >:( he's a good country boy and you WILL mind your manners in this house young-- )

And maybe Martha excuses herself for a moment or Pa Kent takes her away bc he can tell you have some sort of history with these two and you're just like, instantly cutting your losses, ready to book it out the front door, and i mean, Superman probably stops you. Um HELLO his sweet old mom invited you to dinner and she's already cooked everything to include you? Go sit at that table RIGHT NOW. And you wind up being sat directly next to Bruce and are extremely quiet/awkward the entire evening until it's time for you to go home and, oh great, dinner was extremely uncomfortable for you but it was keeping you from being forced to confront Bruce, and I imagine you barely even leave that house before he's dragging you forward for a hug that practically cracks your ribs. Let's be real he was probably secretly sneaking texts on his phone to inform the rest of the Batfam and maybe some of them are even showing up in Smallville to 1. See what you've been up to and where you've been staying and 2. Help bring you back, obviously

Also like I kinda like to brainstorm innocent things they can be weird and controlling over so like you've got a different haircut and maybe your hair is dyed now and your skins broken out a little since you've been slacking on your routine and don't have that Wayne Money to buy such luxuries anymore and they just like. Hate it lmao. Like imagine if you had long hair that they loved to do shit with and it's just significantly shorter the next time you see them. They're just all going "NOOOO 🥺" and mourning the loss of being able to style and braid your strands and such

Honestly I keep getting fic ideas revolving around hair but since hair length and texture is not always something that can be, uh, completely universal, I kinda felt too guilty to write anything but it's also like, idk, I'm basically writing for fun, what's the harm in like writing a yandere obsessed with my long wavy hair kwim 😅 why not write the chocobros noticing you kinda dress functionally for hiking around with them and encouraging you to get a haircut and it devolves into constantly buying you pretty dresses and fixing you up all the time so youve got the 4 men in black armed to the teeth and like the cute girl in the sundress following them around. Why not write Valentino bullying my ass because I didn't realize I had like some vague semblance of hair texture all this time and insisting I start using curl creams n styling my hair and dragging my ass to his salon. Why not write platonic/controlling Batfam losing it bc you were running errands one day on one of the rare occasions you got time to yourself and randomly decided you wanted a haircut because they never chopped off enough length at home and you walk back in the front door and they're literally looking at you and dropping what's in their hands as they then rush to slather you in like hair oils and hair masks every night. Just sitting on the couch scowling enough for a lifetime as one of them insists on massaging your scalp to stimulate hair growth and still wanting to put little bows n braids and accessories in like. Is the entire point of this blog not to be incredibly self serving and escapist lmao 😂

[maccreadysbaby]

AHHHHHHHHHH I loved single dad logan!!!! I’m hooked on these two and their boys! Wouldn’t be mad if there was another post about them? 👀

Hehehehehe okay 🥰

< prev part

next part >

A CALL TO WAR™︎

Y/n, Logan, McKade, and Elliot were living the good life. It didn’t take long for the boys to warm up to calling both parents mom and dad

after their wedding (which was held in Y/n’s hometown), and a lot of consideration, they decided they would be happier out of the city and somewhere else, like Louisiana where Y/n grew up

something about quiet country nights just seemed like the most peaceful and beautiful place to raise their (almost) teenagers

the boys were twelve when they decided, screw it, they were moving across the country. It was closer to Y/n’s family, closer to where a few of Logan’s relatives and friends had settled down, closer to everything and nothing all at once

surprisingly McKade and Elliot were perfectly alright with it. They’d been having bullying problems at school anyways and were more than happy to leave the crowded city of detroit

so that summer, with a few suitcases of clothes and essentials each, the four of them just drove from the north all the way down to the dirty south

Logan was the worst car ride dj in the world. He only played nineties hits and older because that was what his military friends and father always listened to

totally a dad that puts his hand behind the seat like 🫴 when they stopped to get the boys snacks

they bought a two bedroom farmhouse with a barn out back (for goodness knows what) and the boys were practically ecstatic that they’d have to share a bedroom

it took a while of sleeping on air mattresses and eating out for them to get the house nice and ready, but by the end of the summer, it was the cutest farmhouse y/n had ever stepped foot into

she and Logan got jobs at the same company that allowed them to work remotely from home, which was a huge, huge privilege

they made several traditions in that house

like pancake Saturdays, where Logan and Y/n would wake up the boys early so they could make a pancake assembly line (even though Elliot had turned thirteen and claimed he was too old for chocolate chip smiley faces)

Logan would always flip the pancakes, and accidentally launch one at Y/n’s face. At least one every Saturday without fail

once the boys go back to school, y/n and Logan find time to go on cute dates and spend alone time with each other

they hang out with hesh a lot, because he lives pretty close (not really, like an hour away but he’s willing to drive to see Logan and his family)

he’s definitely the cool single uncle type

McKade and Elliot get so hype to see their Uncle Hesh

Keegan lives farther but still comes around occasionally

Elliot and McKade love to listen to their war stories

y/n and Logan went on a hike once and discovered a quarry on their land and now when Hesh and Keegan come over they all go to the quarry and jump off of the rocks and have campfires there in the summer

McKade and Elliot have lots of friends at school that have chickens and they convinced Logan and y/n they needed some, too! So now they have little chickens in their barn

y/n didn’t really know what to feed them for the first couple of days so she scrambled them eggs and and all three of the boys were just like 👀 cannibalism

everything was going great until one chilly October day, they got a call from the boys’ new middle school that McKade had gotten sick in class

which was normal for most kids, but not McKade. He hadn’t been sick since he was a baby, so neither him nor Y/n had ever dealt with that before

they picked him up from school that day and Y/n was basically a mess because oh my god her twelve year old son was laying across the backseats of their truck in actual agony saying his stomach felt like it was ripping itself apart

Logan was there to calm her down though, probably holding her hand while he drove because he’s supportive like that :,)

y/n had no clue what she was doing but it was okay because Logan was an amazing caretaker

It seriously made her heart melt the first night McKade was sick, she went into his bedroom and Logan was asleep in his bed with him

it was a little unnerving, too, though, because McKade (being thirteen and officially a teenager) thought he was way too old to sleep with people now and the fact that he felt bad enough to want Logan to stay worried her

they thought it was just a stomach bug until day two, when he was still throwing up like every thirty minutes and was crying from the pain

They took him to the ER while Elliot was at school and found out he had to get his appendix removed

and Y/n didn’t take very well to hearing that

but Logan was always by her side, whispering quiet things and reassuring her that he had his taken out at sixteen and he was still a fully functional human being. After all the surgery wasn’t super invasive and tons of people had it done all the time

the only ones that weren’t on board were McKade and Elliot. McKade was terrified and Elliot hated the thought of surgeons cutting his brother open

but with a lot of support from Logan, all three of them got through it with flying colors. McKade recovered fast and y/n was forever grateful for Logan being what kept her grounded

they were living the dream life, with chickens that they loved to raise, two perfect boys that they spend time with, and the perfect farmlife

until it came crashing down again in the worst way possible

One lazy Saturday afternoon, while the boys were at a birthday party a professional looking military man showed up at their house to talk to Logan

y/n didn’t think much of it until he came back inside from the porch with a pale face and dull eyes

”what’s wrong, Logan?” She questioned, drifting up next to him and placing a hand on his arm. She thought someone he knew might’ve died

but when he just stared at the floor and shook his head, she knew it was something worse

”come on, babe, talk to me,”

he couldn’t even lift his eyes to her as he whispered: “the ghosts are being requested for a war in the Middle East. I have to go back.”

at that moment, y/n’s world seemed to shatter

”when are you leaving?”

”they want us in Santa Monica by tuesday,”

for a while, y/n just hugged him and cried. The thought of the love of her life jumping back into a war zone after the gut wrenching stories he hold her made her feel absolutely hopeless

she didn’t notice, but he was crying, too

and when McKade and Elliot got home that night, they had to tell them, which was the most heartbreaking thing she’d ever witnessed. Elliot, because Logan was the only dad he’d ever known, the one he was raised by, and McKade, because he was finally getting used to having a dad again and now he was going to war

they ended up sleeping on the couch that night. Elliot and McKade were just as wrecked as their mother was and Logan was the only one that didn’t cry himself to sleep that night

Y/n had imagined so many variations of her future with Logan, but none of them ever involved four broken hearts and a call to war

[leebrontide]

Secondhand Origin Stories, chapter 5

Here's this week's chapter!

For those of you just joining us, I'm posting a chapter a week of my free near future scifi/low neon cyberpunk YA/NA novel, Secondhand Origin Stories, which has been described as

"-a character driven, compelling story full of family, queerness, corruption, brain altering nanites, secretly teen parenting AIs, and taking aspects of the superhero genre to their very human and rarely-explored natural conclusions."

For content warnings and more, check here:

You can follow along by following #SHOSweekly

Chapter 5

It was hard for Jamie to think about Issac and the flash drive she’d just helped him get back when Opal was in Jamie’s own house. She was so happy the MARTIN system let them up. It would have been humiliating if Opal hadn’t passed the security clearances to get up here after Jamie’d impulsively invited her in.

Jamie owed Opal breakfast, at the least. But what would be good enough? What kind of breakfast did you make someone who had just tried to save your life? Especially when that person was brave and classy and also pretty? Jamie felt a bit at a loss. “Do you like eggs?” she asked. And, because Opal’d already complimented the courtyard before Issac barged in, she added, “There’s a table right over there. We could eat in here, if you want. I can make whatever kind of eggs you want. Let me just put all this down--” OK, so there might have to be some tutorial searches depending on what Opal ordered-- but how hard could cooking an egg get? Jamie could work it out. 

Opal’s smile was bright as the sunrise. As if she was lucky to be here. 

Drew's door opened, distracting Jamie momentarily. Drew stopped, startled, holding a garbage bag. Which was weird-- he should have been notified when someone came up. Come to think of it, it was weird nobody’d come out to see what was going on by now. Issac obviously hadn’t been reacting to a notification.

But if anything, Opal smiled brighter when Drew showed up. Ah. She was a fan of the team. Drew smiled back, with a little confusion. “Hi. What’s going on?”

Yael answered. “This is Opal. We met her downstairs this morning. She just got in from Detroit. She tried to save Jamie from me.” Drew gave xyr a quizzical look. “Misunderstanding. My bad,” Yael added, embarrassed. “Anyways, we promised her breakfast for helping out.”

Jamie could tell something was off by Drew’s face, but he still said, “Nice to meet you,” as he leaned back into his own apartment, to do something-- Jamie couldn’t see what, like switching a light on. “Martin, let everybody know we have a guest.”

What? 

Drew came forward, and offered Opal a handshake with his non-garbage-bag hand. “Always good to meet somebody from my hometown.” Opal looked like she might explode from excitement. Well, she shimmered like Drew. And Drew had helped save everybody from the Detroit line. Probably he’d saved one of Opal’s parents. Opal didn’t look old enough for him to have saved her.

Dad’s door opened from behind Jamie with a bang that made them all jump. Suddenly, after three days missing, there he was.

Mom had said he was recovering from catching Issac, but that didn’t account for what Jamie was seeing. His eyes were bloodshot and piercing. He held himself stiff and looming, with his jaw clenched tight. He walked slowly, as if carefully measuring the space of each step. Opal stepped back away from him. His voice was like gravel. “Who is this.”

Who was Opal? Who was this gigantic stranger with her dad’s face? 

Solomon and Mom showed up from their own doorways, looking more confused and alarmed than Jamie could explain. Thank G-d, Mom was dressed now, although Jamie noticed she kept her hands curled in loose fists, hiding her nails. Opal’s smile was gone-- she was suddenly surrounded by what, to her, were hostile-looking strangers. No, no. Jamie’d brought her up to thank her, not make her feel uncomfortable. 

Drew stepped forward, and he didn’t look like there was a problem anymore. “Nothing to worry about, I just didn’t want anybody to get caught by surprise that we have a guest.” He looked at Opal conspiratorially. “Solomon wears his Sesame Street pajamas around sometimes. I wouldn’t want to embarrass him.”

Mom and Solomon took their cues from Drew, at least. Solomon leaned against his doorway, relaxing. “I’m not ashamed of my Super Grover pajamas.” Opal smiled again. Better.

“I was gonna make eggs,” Jamie added.

Drew addressed Jamie and Yael. “Hey, I think Melissa needs to talk to you two. Don’t worry, I’ll cook something up for your guest. My place is all put back together.”

Opal was obviously thrilled by that. Somehow, though, Jamie’s heart sank. She ignored it. Opal was happy with this outcome, and that was the important thing. Of course she’d rather eat with a superhero than with Jamie. Who could blame her?

Mom, Yael and Solomon all managed a friendly smile and goodbye, with Dad giving a more subdued, mumbled approximation. Jamie managed an awkward smile and a little wave around her salvaged armload, which Opal returned, looking giddy.

Drew's door closed with a little click, the rules about behaving in front of strangers lifted. But before anyone could even start a lecture, Yael made a beeline right for Dad. Opal being altered, with likely super hearing, xe kept it to a whisper. But Yael had a pretty loud whisper. “Neil-- what on Earth have you been doing? Issac’s been waiting for you. Do you have any idea what he must be thinking by now?”

Jamie startled at her dad’s next words. “Fuck off, kid.” 

What? 

Yael recoiled. Solomon bristled, warning in his voice. “Neil.” If it wasn’t for their reactions, she would have thought she’d misheard him. Dad swore sometimes, but never at any of the kids. 

Dad made a face-- it might have been apologetic, but it might just have been a grimace. If Jamie hadn’t been watching him so closely, she would have missed the way he was swaying slightly on his feet. What on earth was wrong with him? Jamie looked at her mom. Mom had said Dad was recovering from catching Issac. Her lips were thin with disapproval, but she didn’t look confused. Was this connected to that? It couldn’t be. Dad was just too tough for that explanation to work.

She wondered how Opal would describe what she’d seen. Would she tell the world that LodeStar was a drunk? He kind of maybe looked drunk? But it was 6 AM, and Jamie wasn’t actually sure what hangovers looked like. Jamie felt a pang of guilt-- she knew nobody wanted to be seen today. She’d just been thinking about how Mom was in hideout mode. But Jamie couldn’t just ignore what Opal had done.

The tense moment started to stretch into something even more uncomfortable, so Jamie chipped in carefully with, “Issac’s up and moving around again.” Dad started to turn towards her, but stopped short of actually looking for her, and looked at the door again. “You just missed him.”

He blinked slowly, several times. “He’s still using that shit tablet for translation, right? I’ll go start him some contacts printing in the lab. Mel, get started on the other damn thing.”

Jamie looked curiously at her mom. 

That was Mom’s lecture face. What? Why?

As Dad got on the elevator, he added, “Solomon, bring her bag to your place? Your sensors are working, and I don’t want to dig through some girl’s bag. That should cover it.”

As the elevator door shut, his words sunk in. “Sensors are working?”

Solomon gathered up Opal’s luggage while Mom shooed them towards Solomon and Yael's apartment.

Jamie and Yael got herded to the couch, Jamie still holding Jenna's things. Yael slouched beside her. Solomon perched on the arm of the couch, parking Opal’s bag by the fireplace, but not otherwise bothering it. Mom paced in front of them for a few moments, hands together, the edges of her fingers pressed against her lips in thought. Jamie’s mind wandered back to Opal. Of all the times for her family to fail completely at being the charming TV interview versions of themselves, it had to be when Opal got here. Jamie sighed to herself.

Mom’s voice was even, careful. “We need…to be focused on security right now.”

“What was Dad talking about, with the sensors?”

Mom took a deep breath. “Something happened to the sensors the day of the attack. We’re still trying to get them all back to operational.”

Jamie added it up in an instant. Issac had taken the sensors down. And they were still partially down? She couldn’t help the challenge rising in her voice, and most of her didn’t even want to. “You mean we’ve been here without security for days and nobody even told us that?”

Mom had the grace to look a little embarrassed. “We didn’t want to worry you kids any more than we had to. And the APB has stepped up their security, and the team are all still here. As long as you don’t go sneaking strangers into the house or leave without telling anyone, it’s fine. I just can’t believe you two thought it was a good idea to approach some altered you’ve never met and then bring them into the house! And now, of all times. Jamie! We were just talking about how we don’t know anything about the motivation behind the attack!” Mom finished, exasperated.

Jamie put down her armfuls of Jenna’s things. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Yael looking reluctantly chastened. But Jamie refused to let this be misrepresented. “How am I supposed to not worry about things when you might be hiding faulty security systems from us?”

Yael interrupted. “And we weren’t sneaking! We didn’t know you weren’t getting security alerts!”

Mom shot back with, “And I suppose you didn’t know you weren’t supposed to be in Jenna’s apartment that morning? I don’t know what’s gotten into you kids--”

Solomon’s door opened, and Dad was there. He didn’t come in; he just stood there, blocking the light from the courtyard. With both her parents finally there and almost listening, she rushed out the words they had refused to hear before.

“It’s the same thing! Secretary Bridgewater's visit and not telling us about the MARTIN system. You expect us to just sit here, totally clueless, while everything goes on around us! Even when it’s got to do with us!”

Mom cut her off. “I expect you to trust us to keep you safe. You know that has always been our top priority. And we can’t--”

Jamie was surprised to find she was standing. “You can’t do that if we don’t cooperate! And we can’t cooperate if you don’t tell us what’s actually going on!” The tears were out now, and her voice was cracking and awful and way too emotional to be taken seriously. This wasn’t how she wanted to be heard, but she couldn’t afford to stop now. She was running out of time. Her face was burning, but more importantly, she was upset enough that her chest was getting tight. “Can you really expect me to trust you to keep us safe with what happened to Issac? We’re not safe. None of us have ever been safe. And I can handle that, even if you can’t face it.”

That did her in. She wasn’t out of words, but she was out of breath to say them with. The air she could get wheezed through her, not enough for what she needed. And with that, her momentum crumbled. All they’d had to do was wait, and let her own frailty silence her. Mom didn’t even have to refute Jamie; her lungs were on her parents’ side. Her body would always remind them that Jamie was frail. That she needed protecting. Jamie looked down to dig her inhaler out of her pants pocket, then sat.

Dad came slowly into the room. Muscles still tight, jaw still clenched. He loomed in front of Jamie. Jamie clenched her own jaw as she took a deep inhale of the steroids she needed. His bloodshot eyes landed on Jamie, and for once, she had his full, undivided attention. His voice was still gravelly, but quieter. “Jamie. What did you do when you saw the jet?” he demanded.

“I tried to get Issac to get away from the window,” she wheezed, as defiantly as she could wheeze.

“You went towards him, didn’t you?” He looked at Yael. “Didn’t she?” Jamie and Yael nodded. Did he expect her to be sorry for that? He couldn’t possibly.

He turned his back to her, looking at Mom. Jamie noticed now that he had something clutched in one of his hands-- she couldn’t make out what it was. “Mel, I know we said we’d wait till she was older.” Jamie wanted to ask what they were waiting for, but talking was still hard. “But she’s right. We can’t expect her to trust our security, now. Not with how we all failed Issac.” Jamie noticed Yael slouch down at that last part. 

Mom stood up. “That is not going to help her in case of terrorists with a jet!”

“But it would be damn useful, in case she runs into more altereds we don’t know. Or if they show up in our damn courtyard. You try to tell me you never snuck out when you were sixteen.”

Jamie flushed again. “I didn’t sneak out! And stop talking about me like I’m not here,” she rasped at her dad’s back.

Solomon spoke up for the first time. “She has a good head on her shoulders. I’d trust her with it. Besides, it shouldn’t all fall on Yael.” He glanced at Jamie, realizing he’d just done exactly what Jamie’d said not to do. “Sorry.”

Jamie shrugged her shoulders in aggravation. 

With Dad’s back to her, she couldn’t see the silent communications between Mom and Dad. A glimmer of grim humor crept into Dad’s voice. “Can’t punish her for our genes.”

Mom stepped around Dad, and when he offered his hand, she carefully took the whatever-it-was from him with an exasperated, grudging noise. “Ugh, Fine. But go lay down. You look awful. God knows what that altered girl is going to tell everyone.” Dad stepped aside, looming silently. Jamie still couldn’t get a read on him. It was really annoying.

Mom knelt down carefully in front of Jamie, with the thing in her hand. Yael gasped. “Is that Jenna’s Bion gauntlet?”

It was. It was Jenna’s dart gauntlet. Mom held it out to Jamie. It was scuffed, but Bion’s logo was still gleaming. She looked at Jamie, studying her face seriously. “I’m only putting up with this because for sixteen years, you’ve proven that you’re constitutionally incapable of not running straight at any and every problem you see. Which is is our fault, either through nature or nurture.” Solomon snorted, but Mom ignored him. “I know you’re tired of being sheltered, and I know you want to help. But honey, you’re not superpowered and your enemies are. Please, if something goes wrong, I want you to use this and then I want you to run away. OK? It’s only tranquilizer darts. You won’t hurt anyone.”

 A weapon. A superhero’s weapon. For Jamie.

She’d had it wrong. She’d had her parents’ attitudes towards her all wrong! Her mouth dropped open in shock.

Everyone was staring at her. Yael seemed out-and-out jealous, though xyr wrist would never fit in Jenna’s gauntlet. Even Issac, gangly as he was, wouldn’t fit. But Jamie could wear this. She could have something of Jenna’s, better than any of the keepsakes she’d salvaged. 

Jamie held up her inhaler and tried a wry smile. “I’m not actually very good at running.”

Mom’s eyes drifted to the inhaler with a weary dismay. She put the gauntlet in Jamie’s other hand, then patted her knee. “Then power-walk. Do whatever you can to be safe.”

“I’d rather be useful than safe.”

Mom sighed. “I know.”

* * *

Capricorn’s apartment was more comfortable-looking than Opal had expected. It was huge, with tall ceilings and an amazing, glittering view of the city skyline, but otherwise it felt like a normal person’s home. A slightly saggy tan leather sectional sofa pointed at a TV screen more up-to-date than the one she’d seen in the wreckage. Beige carpet on the floor. White walls. A jacket flung over a dining chair. A souped-up bike leaning against the wall. There was a big aquarium, with algae done up to look like an elaborate landscape; tiny silvery fish darted through its sky. The scale was unusual, and the material all looked like it was of top quality, but it felt like a place where someone actually lived. Judging by the katana hanging above the TV, someone kind of nerdy. She found herself breathing a little more comfortably. This felt more like reality than the rest of Chicago had, so far. Much as she loved the grandeur and elegance of that amazing greenhouse courtyard, a little pocket of almost-normal felt good right now.

“Sausage and flapjacks OK?”

She refocused on her host. “That would be amazing. Thank you.” He gestured to a blond wooden table and chairs, and she sat as he headed into the kitchen. He was silent for a few minutes, digging through the fridge. Opal took the chance to focus on the fact that she was in Capricorn’s house. He was making her breakfast. Mom was gonna kill her. She’d always had such a crush on Capricorn.

He wasn’t anyone Opal would ever have a crush on, but he was a black, gay superhero, and she felt as giddy about him as she would a crush. He’d been a beacon for her her whole life. He was the hero of the whole Detroit line. Everyone else in the first generation of the Detroit line had been kidnapped, forced into experimentation by a rogue biologist trying to create a system for mass-produced alteration. Even though people had tried it all over the world, and it didn’t work. When you messed with genes without customizing your alterations to the genes the person already had, you just caused more problems. Most people died. Opal guessed that particular evil scientist must have gotten closer than most, given how many did survive, but still-- a ton of people died.

Capricorn was the only one who’d gone in deliberately. He’d risked the alteration, and used his new superpowers to save everybody else. What could possibly be more superheroic than that?

His voice was easy when he piped up from where he was, his head in the fridge. “So. What brings a fellow Detroit altered to Sentinel Plaza so early in the morning?”

“Well, first a train. Then a bus. I still haven’t made it to my cousin’s place yet.” 

He gave an amused huff. “Well, Ms.--?”

“Flynn.”

“Flynn?” He straightened up. “Bet you’re Nick Flynn’s girl, then.”

Opal was touched. She knew her dad’s “trial” had gotten a lot of press, but it was a long time ago, now. It was good to know a hero like Capricorn remembered. She nodded.

He nodded back, opening a package of sausages and starting up the burner. “Staying long?”

Opal licked her lips. Was there something implied in his question? It felt like there was an answer he was expecting. “Maybe. It depends.”

“On?” He threw a couple sausages onto the pan. Yeah, he was definitely expecting some particular answer. 

“Work, mostly. I’ve got a basic job lined up, with my cousin, but…” This time he made a general listening sound, but didn’t say anything else. Waiting for her to elaborate, and say what he was expecting. She let the silence stretch a little longer, but broke eventually. “I was hoping to book an appointment to try out for the Sentinels, actually. Since you’ve been down by one for a while now.”

Her heart was in her throat. She’d only been in the city like an hour, and already almost got shot trying to accomplish this. She felt isolated and over her head enough, she had to keep moving forward. He sighed, and she realized that actually had been the answer he was expecting. He poked a sausage with a fork, then turned to her, leaning his hip on his kitchen counter. “Mm-hmm.” He crossed his arms. “Thought I detected that on you.” His eyes were uncomfortably penetrating. Evaluating. “I’ve seen ones like you before. Sometimes. Sol was one, actually. Long time ago. You got stars in your eyes.”

Her return smile was crooked. “I don’t mind being compared to Helix.”

“He did try to conquer South Dakota that one time.”

“I…hope that’s not the time you’re talking about him acting like me?”

“Mm. Your dad looked like that on the stand. I remember that.”

She flinched, but tried not to show it. “I take after him. But I’m trying to get clearance before I run around saving people.” 

“You really tried to fight Yael?”

“I thought she was Ezekiel! Scared the life out of me.”

He laughed, but it was the kind of laugh you gave when you were laughing at something horrible so you didn’t get crushed by it. Then he leaned his hands on the counter, and hung his head for just a second before coming back up. “OK, Ms Flynn. I’m not going to try to argue with you. I’m just gonna say what I need to say so I can tell myself later I did. Fair?”

“Uh. Fine?”

“Teams hardly ever accept anyone who hasn’t already proven themselves. And I haven’t heard anything about you before.”

“I know. But--”

“But you don’t want to risk getting arrested for vigilantism or supervillainy if the bureau decides not to back your actions.” 

“Yeah. And--”

“And, you’re taking the sane route, asking for a team to back your application to the bureau, using the system that technically exists but has only ever been successfully used four times since it was set up. Three of those times under previous leadership.” He turned back to the pan, poking the sausage. “But you know damn well that that APB has hardly cleared anyone who isn’t white since before you can probably remember. You know that there is not a single currently active black woman superhero in the US. And the ones we had before, well.” He put the sausage on a plate, and looked back at her. “They were all a lot lighter than you, with good hair and college degrees.” He gave her a genuinely sorry look. “I’m sorry. I hate it, but that’s how it is right now.”

Capricorn himself was light. Opal was not. Auntie had told her to get her hair done before coming. Maybe Opal should have listened. Keeping it super short just seemed better, tactically.

He ambled over slowly and put the plate in front of her. “You knew all that already, right?” She looked, but didn’t see anything hard or condemning, or even dismissive about him.

She took a second to find her voice. It shook, but just barely, and the tone was good. “With respect, sir. That’s kind of why I’m here.”

“And I bet you’ve been planning this since you were a little kid.”

“Yes, sir.” As far back as she could remember. Since the first time her daddy showed her Capricorn on TV, and explained to her that they were like that. Like him. 

“Tell me you got a clean record.”

“Not so much as a late library book, and I’ve never had any social media accounts.” In the face of what she was willing to risk to be a hero, the isolation, the loneliness of not being able to go to the parties, laugh at the memes…all the things she’d missed in her life until now…it hardly seemed worth thinking about. She tried not to think about it.

He huffed a small laugh, then sat down in the chair next to her with a sigh. He studied her; she met his eyes. His dropped to the plate. “I forgot the pancakes.” He sat back. “Think I’m going senile.” 

He ran a hand over his face, then looked at her. “I can’t promise you shit. Bridgewater makes the ultimate decisions about who has clearance and who doesn’t. And he hates me. The feeling is mutual.” Opal sat up straighter, her spine unknotting itself. “But the team’s all right, and the closest thing I’ve got to family. Mostly they hate Bridgewater as much as I do, but we’ve got some pull. Melissa’s got political pull I can’t even wrap my head all the way around. And she loves girl supers.”

He shrugged, hands up. “I’ll get you a shot. That’s all I can do. I don’t know if you’re even any good, but I’ll make sure you get a chance. If you can get the team on your side, you stand a chance.”

Opal knew she was glowing as she looked at him. He stood up. “I mean. It’s a chance to get shot at and called names on TV, and you’ll probably end up dying horribly or something. But if that’s what you’re into--”

“That is what I’m into!” Opal assured. “Besides, I already almost got shot today.”

For all his tough talk, this dismayed him. “How’s that?”

“There was a little bit of confusion about me trying to help Jamie. Yael and some APB guards thought I was attacking her.”

The look he gave Opal instantly made her feel less alone. It was the same look you’d give if you’d heard your neighbor’s kid got into it with the police. Which meant Opal had read the situation correctly. “You OK?”

“Yes sir, Yael figured it out and they spoke up for me.”

“If Yael thought you were a danger to Jamie, you’re lucky to still be in one piece.”

“Truthfully, the guns bothered me a lot more.”

He ran his hand over his face again. “Your family know you’re out here?”

“They support me. They know it’s all I ever wanted to do.”

He nodded. “Pretty dedicated to getting a chance to get shot at and called names on television.”

“With respect, sir. I’m pretty tough.”

He sighed. “Yeah, I’ll bet you are.” She strained to hear any sarcasm in his voice, but didn’t find a shred of it. “Eat up, first. I’ll do the pancakes.”

By the time breakfast was over, Opal felt revived. And more than that, she felt excited. Here she was, brand new to the area, and she’d already met the Sentinels, and got a promise of a tryout. She tried to push the scary parts out of her mind. Being threatened was an inherent part of being a superhero. She’d known that.

After breakfast, he told the ceiling to tell the others Opal would be auditioning.

He brought her down a floor via the big fancy elevator, and across to a huge, vaulted-ceiling training room. Unlike the botanical paradise of the courtyard, this was a room that saw hard use. The wood floors were scuffed, there were discarded water bottles here and there, and over the smell of various soaps, it still smelled like sweat. There were all sorts of machines that looked vaguely like weightlifting machines she’d seen, that she imagined had to be custom-made versions capable of giving even Sentinels a workout. 

“Remember,” Capricorn said. “I can’t promise you anything--”

“I’m not asking for a free pass, sir. Just a chance.”

The others showed up faster than she’d expected.

All the Sentinels, plus Yael and the red-haired woman from before, filtered in. Opal tried to use hair, noses, and interactions to piece together a complicated constellation of a family. LodeStar was last-- a little less foreboding, but still not someone Opal was excited to get within grabbing distance of. What was with him? At least seeing him and the red-haired woman together, she could figure out where Jamie and Issac came from. And Helix…was Yael’s dad? Probably? That seemed to make sense. But she’d never heard of Helix raising a kid. And how would Helix and Ezekiel even have…Never mind. Not her business.

She’d known better than to expect them to be like they were on TV. She’d expected a family in pain, and in normal clothes. But it was like 7 AM. Was LodeStar drunk? He didn’t seem too steady on his feet. Opal’d seen angry drunks before, and that was as close a match as she could think of. But it took a lot to make an altered drunk. And if he was drunk, why was he down here? Didn’t this count as work?

Yael bolted forward with a grin before any of the adults could say anything. “You didn’t tell me you wanted a tryout! I would have helped!”

Opal smiled at Yael's Labrador-esque enthusiasm. “I hadn’t actually expected to audition today. Or…actually, I hadn’t expected to even meet anyone today, or I would have worn something less…casual.” She looked around Yael, addressing the team. “I do have a suit and everything. I didn’t mean to show up in sweatpants.”

Neil frowned. He did not seem to want Opal in his house. “And we didn’t expect to audition anyone, today. That’s not really how this works. You’re supposed to prove yourself before being considered.”

Which was exactly the sentence Opal had been afraid of. She looked at Capricorn, but Yael was the one who answered, crossing massive arms over her chest. “So how am I supposed to do that? It’s not as if you’ll let me join you on missions before I get approval.”

Opal’s hope bloomed again as Jamie’s mom raised one wry eyebrow and Helix looked very quietly pleased. So really, her biggest detractor seemed to solidly be LodeStar. 

Just the apparently terrifying leader of the Sentinels. No biggie.

LodeStar was unmoved by Yael's bid. He addressed Opal with tight, formal politeness. “I’m sorry, but this just isn’t a good time. Maybe Drew can write you a recommendation letter. Get you a meeting with another team.”

A quiet voice came from nowhere. “You could at least let her try.” Opal leaned, and realized that Jamie the watercolor girl was here too. Opal hadn’t noticed her amidst all the bigger bodies in the room. 

Capricorn looked at LodeStar seriously. “Don’t make me look like a liar, man. I told her she could try.”

LodeStar's jaw tightened. He gathered himself. “Yael?”

“Yes?”

“Five point bout. Just as an initial screening.”

She saw Capricorn grimace, and his comment about Opal being lucky to be in one piece reverberated through the back of her mind. But never mind that! She was here, and she had her chance, and somehow she’d even managed to rally a few allies! This felt like destiny. She surged with an energy that felt indestructible. 

The padded helmet and gloves Yael and Jamie found her were the smallest ones they had, and they were both too big. They were from when Yael was “a little kid.” So, Opal assumed, when Yael was about five years old. 

Once they were actually in the boxing ring, it sunk in that Opal was supposed to fight the largest person she’d ever seen in her life. In front of an audience. And her entire future was hanging in the balance. 

Opal had never hit anyone before. She knew how to make a fist without breaking her thumb, and she’d seen fights, but she herself hadn’t ever hit anybody. She couldn’t, not while keeping her record pristine. Yael looked completely comfortable and at home in a wide-legged, fist-up posture, and had an eager grin that suddenly made Opal very nervous. 

Opal mimicked the pose as well as she could, but on her it felt awkward, stiff.

She’d made a mistake. She wasn’t even sure where or when, but she’d made a mistake.

Yael's grin dropped off long enough for her to clearly mouth the word “focus” at Opal. And that helped. She still had allies. Yael wasn’t going to actually pound Opal into the floor.

LodeStar called the start. Opal had barely braced herself to try to think of a first move when Yael lunged forward. Yael threw a punch, and Opal moved to protect her head instinctively. 

Opal’s feet were swept out from under her, and the arms that had swung up to protect her head flung out, trying to find balance again.

For the second time today, an unstoppable force hit her square in the chest. Already disconnected from the ground, Opal went flying. 

Her body and her dreams crashed to the ground with identically thunderous bangs. 

It hurt. It hurt down past her ribs. Right up into her soul. Her face was cut; she’d left a streak of her blood on the mat. The air had been shoved out of her lungs, and she struggled to refill them. To un-collapse herself. 

There was complete silence as she pushed herself back up. She looked to her judges. 

LodeStar was unmoved, cynically vindicated. Jamie’s mother was biting her lip, flinching visibly. Helix looked pained. Capricorn looked disappointed, sad. She’d let him down. Let everybody down. 

The only one with a different look was Jamie. Her hands were tangled in the hem of her shirt, gripping tight. She was still watching, still hoping and waiting for Opal to turn it around. Right. Opal wouldn’t give up after a single hit! 

“I’m sorry. I was-- please, let me try again.” 

LodeStar nodded, with a small gesture for her to go back where she’d started. Standing hurt, but being a superhero was supposed to be hard.

She stood in front of Yael again, and now Yael looked worried. She looked over to her family, reluctant. She didn’t want to hurt Opal. But Helix nodded at her, and she dropped into her stance again. Instincts older and more primal than hopes and dreams flared up, telling Opal to get away from this mountain of a human being before she got hurt. Opal ground her feet into the mat, trying to mimic the pose again. She wasn’t going anywhere. 

Opal narrowed her focus, stretched her shoulders back. No holding back. She had to give this absolutely everything she had!

She was going to go in there, hard and fast as possible. She had super reflexes, after all. And adrenaline was singing in her veins.

LodeStar barked his start command. 

A kick to her stomach tore her grounded feet off the mat without hesitation. Opal hadn’t accomplished anything. 

She landed hard again. More blood on the mat. She wasn’t even sure where it’d come from.

She shoved herself back up, half-empty lungs and screaming joints be damned. 

She didn’t wait for permission. She stalked back to her place again. She ignored how desperate Yael looked to get out of this. Yael was kind, but knew Opal couldn’t succeed, couldn’t win if Yael didn’t give her a real fight. Opal had to win fairly.

Opal’s vision blurred, and she ignored it, except to blink and clear the tears out of her eyes so she could see right. She didn’t know if the others could see it, but Yael could. 

Another start command. 

Another crash to the mat. 

LodeStar didn’t wait for her to get up this time. “Halt! God, enough.” He looked at Opal. “Look, Ms. Flynn, you did your best. But I think we’ve seen enough.”

And like that, it was over. All her dreams, dead within hours of arriving in Chicago. 

Opal’s throat worked for a second, struggling against panic, grief, humiliation. “But--”

Jamie’s mom interrupted gently, but offered no argument. “You’re more than welcome to talk to the other teams. Some of them might be in a better place to provide training than we are right now. I’m sorry. But we can’t offer you a position.”

They were all watching her. All disappointed in her. Jamie looked crushed. 

Facing them, there was no helping the tears on her face, or her skin lighting up like a 21-gun funeral salute for her dreams. She tried to keep her lips from trembling too obviously. Tried to salvage what dignity she could, as her voice shook. “Thank you for the opportunity to try. I’m very honored to have met you all.”

Opal stripped off the training gear as quickly as she could, as they all watched her silently. She didn’t look back as she left.

* * *

Yael just wanted to help someone. Just help someone without any guns, or crushed dreams, or illegal nano-tech getting involved. Why was xe so bad at that? 

Neil sighed. “Well, that was awkward as hell.”

Drew looked at to the door. “Poor kid. Hope one of the other teams pick her up. She’s got drive.”

Papa shook his head sadly. “But no skill.”

Drew rarely snapped at anyone, but his voice curdled with some frustrated emotion. “Well, not like she’ll have had any training. She can’t just sign up at the local dojo as an altered.”

Yael started pulling off xyr own gear, more slowly. Melissa sounded resigned. “A month ago, I would have at least wanted to talk about trying her out on a training regime. She seems so driven.”

Neil snapped, “Now is not the time to go auditioning new family members.”

Melissa glared. “That’s exactly what I just said. Don’t get snippy with me.”

No training? That hadn’t even entered Yael’s brain. Well, then of course she didn’t stand a chance! Yael’d been training for this forever. Naturally, someone half a meter smaller and with no training wouldn’t be able to hold their own against xyr. It hadn’t been a fair fight.

Yael’d crushed Opal’s dreams in an unfair fight. Xe had to fix this. But the team had just said they wouldn’t train Opal.

“I could train her,” Yael realized out loud. They turned to look at xyr. “And…she’s a native ASL speaker. She said so, earlier. We could do a trade-- a lesson trade.”

Jamie took to the idea immediately. “Do you think she’d let me join you? I don’t think I have anything to barter--”

Yael raised an eyebrow. “But you have money.” 

Jamie blinked, pulling up a tablet to look up cost information.

Melissa flicked her palms towards the ceiling, exasperated. “We’ll hire a professional tutor if we decide we need one. You two do remember we were just talking about bringing home strangers into a compromised tower.”  

Jamie started to head towards the door. She waved a sleeve-covered forearm in the air. “I’m covered!” Yael hadn’t realized Jamie was wearing Jenna’s gauntlet inside the house. 

Apparently, Melissa and Neil were not pleased by this. Jamie got stopped on her way to the door, but when Yael took a careful step towards it, Papa deliberately looked the other way, giving tacit permission. Yael grinned and sprinted after Opal.

Xe grabbed Opal’s forgotten luggage from xyr apartment before heading out.

A quick scan of the crowd of morning commuters outside revealed a bright pink hoodie with roses on it at about the right height, a good block away. Yael ran after her, carrying the bag above the crowd. People scattered to get out of the way.

Yael waited until xe was close enough not to have to shout. “Opal.”

She startled, whipping around defensively, tensing. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face wet. Yael stopped short, still a couple meters away. “Uhm.” Xe held out the rolling bag. “You forgot this.”

Oh, now Yael had just embarrassed her. Opal closed her eyes for a second, then straightened. Her voice still shook like it wanted to sob. “Thank you.” She held her hands out, and Yael approached, handing the bag over. Her chin was quivering, her whole face on the verge of crumpling, her skin glittering miserable yellows and greens. 

It was too much like what Issac was likely to be facing now. “Can I talk to you? In private?”

Opal sniffed quietly, taking custody of her bag. She studied Yael with a critical eye. But Yael's intentions were good. Opal shook her head slightly. “I don’t have anyplace private here yet.” She looked down, fingers running over her luggage handle. “Not sure I’m even gonna unpack, now.”

Yael looked around-- there was an alley nearby. Xe nodded to it with an awkward smile. “For just a quick moment?”

Another critical look. Again, she decided to trust Yael, and nodded, rolling her luggage towards the alley. Yael went in as far as xe could stand to-- it reeked of garbage and compost. Opal stayed on the side of the alley by the exit, waiting. Her wariness was overshadowed by her continued attempts to not start crying again. It was another fight she was losing.

Yael kept xyr voice low, private. “Will you trade me, in lessons? Signing for fighting? Jamie wants lessons too, but obviously, she’s no fighter. She has some money, though.”

Opal stared at xyr. She hesitated, but Yael could see a seed of hope starting to take root. She bit her lip. “I feel like I have to point out, I’ve never taught ASL before. I just grew up with it.”

Yael shrugged. “And I’ve never taught fighting before. So, that seems fair.”

Opal sniffed again, her shoulders relaxing. “I-- really?” Yael nodded. “Thanks. This is incredibly nice of you.”

Yael's smile weakened. “My brother’s…very…practical. And even faster to learn languages than Jamie or me. This is the best thing I can think to do to show him my support. If I can help another superhero-to-be in the process, even better.”

Opal smiled back, slowly, but honestly. Yael liked her more and more. “Superhero-to-be, huh? You seem a lot more convinced of that than your folks.”

Yael tried to look confident. “You’re brave enough, selfless enough, and driven enough. And I bet you’re strong enough. How much can you lift, anyways?”

She seemed taken aback by the question, but answered. “About…1,155 pounds at my last checkup.”

About what Drew could lift, then, which made sense. He was older, but she was smaller. “There, see? Absolutely strong enough. You just need training.”

The last of the suspicion melted away. “Seriously? Just like that? And you really think they’ll let me try again if I learn to fight better.” She could trust Yael, even after this morning, after she’d seen a long-dead killer in Yael's face. It was more of a relief than it should have been. 

Yael shrugged. “I don’t see why not. And if not the Sentinels, they know every other US-based team. You couldn’t ask for a better networking opportunity. But all of them will need you to know at least a little bit about fighting. It’s not like the old days, anymore.”

Opal raised a thin eyebrow at the last comment, but she definitely felt better. Bright white teeth flashed the widest, realest smile Yael had seen in days, joy overshadowing anything else. “Well…thank you.” 

A few more embarrassingly heartfelt but really gratifying thanks, and Opal was on her way, looking far less weighed down than she had been. At least xe’d been able to help someone.

* * *

The door opened on a room that was more Issac’s home than his own bedroom. Before he could even squint his way into a proper view, he could smell metal, ozone, sterilizing agents, all the little smells that went into printing the machinery they made. This was the lab. It was home. For a second he stopped squinting and closed his eyes. He let some muscles in his shoulders and hands relax. This was the first time since he’d woken up that he’d been able to get them to do so.

He stepped off the elevator, half in a trance. It was-- he opened his eyes-- it was exactly as he’d left it.

Which was all wrong, but exactly what he should have expected. This was a space for innovation and work, and change was as integral to this place as tides to the ocean. These tides were much slower, now that Jenna wasn’t there at all hours tinkering, but they were there all the same. Issac and his mom kept them moving. 

Before he’d even gotten a solid look around the room, he noticed something else. The floor was vibrating. His clothes were vibrating. He tensed again, breath catching. The last time he’d felt a floor vibrate, he’d fallen--

 He looked out the windows, willing his eyes to adjust so he could see past the blaring light. He couldn’t see well, but there was no sign of another big, black jet.

Maybe the floor had always done that. Maybe it was just a byproduct of all the machinery in the place. Even the old microfabricators he’d had to work with as a kid had had built-in vibration stabilization. They’d be worthless otherwise. Maybe he’d just never noticed it before.

The floor continued not to collapse under him. The white blurs outside the window continued not to turn into black aircraft. Weirdly, once he’d mostly assured himself the vibrations weren’t another sign of attack, they were strangely…soothing.

Movement at the corner of his vision caught his attention.

It was Dad, at the far end of the huge, bright room, sitting on a bench and half-crouched in a bizarre pose. He sat in the corner, frozen mid-gesture, watching Issac warily. What the hell? What was he even doing down here?

Issac watched, expecting his dad to say something. But he didn’t. Dad straightened, looking at the table next to him, away from Issac. Whatever he was looking at was obscured from Issac's view by two other tables of stuff in the way.

That stung. A lot. Was this really how this was going to play out? Three days of ignoring Issac, and now this? Was he really not even going to come over here? A lump in Issac's throat made it hard to breathe. Issac tried to focus on being pissed off. This wasn’t Dad’s space. He didn’t belong here.

Issac turned away from the door, hobbling stiffly to his own workstation. He kept his back to his dad. Panicky desperation started to set in. All this over Issac’s missing audio input?

He didn’t want to think about it. He had work to focus on. He hesitated, flash drive clutched in his hand, hand hidden in his pocket. Could he work on this here? He’d kept it in Jenna's space before for good reason. He even had Martin erase the data from his memory after every session they worked on it together. What would his dad do if he knew Issac was working on the same tech the APB had been here complaining about? Issac liked to think his parents would understand. Dad had offered himself up as a lab rat to the government when he was barely older than Issac, and Mom was the one who’d helped Jenna install her first super-prosthetics, way back in the day. They knew the value of experimental tech. But he couldn’t be completely sure what they’d do, now that the APB had gone and made a big deal out of it.

Would Dad think Issac was still capable of finishing his project? If he didn’t, would he leave Issac to flounder through it, or take it away?

What the hell was that vibration?

Text on his tablet caught his attention, scrolling past. His reading speed seemed to be improving, anyway.

MARTIN: Issac, I need you to turn the rest of my sensors back on. It’s been days. You’ve set parameters you know I can’t independently alter. I’m not as able to upgrade or fix myself as you think I am.

He had to read the sentence several times over to understand it. His memory of the day he fell was a little garbled. He did remember this morning, being angry at Martin for telling him not to cry over being afraid he was un-fixable. Martin couldn’t cry-- didn’t have eyes or tear ducts-- but maybe he could be scared by being broken.

MARTIN: Your mother keeps sending technicians from downstairs to try to fix me. I’m afraid they’re going to get too deep into my code. I know you’re upset. I want to be patient but please I

The words abruptly vanished.

DAD: Issac?

Issac’s head snapped up fast enough to make him instantly regret the motion. Nerves up and down his torso shrieked in protest. His eyes snapped shut at the feeling. He opened them again, hesitantly, wondering if he looked guilty or just stupid for startling at printed words.

Dad looked…terrible. Issac wasn’t sure he’d ever seen his dad with bloodshot eyes before. Was he sweating? Issac fought an urge to lean back away from him. This must have really rattled him. 

He seemed to be waiting, expecting something from Issac. Issac looked back down at his tablet, but there weren’t any new words on it. Dad nudged a small box towards him on the worktop.

OK…Issac picked it up. Once it was in his hands, he recognized it as a contact lens case. He opened it, and there was a clear fluid inside. He assumed that there were contacts floating in the ooze somewhere. Dad’s hand reappeared, setting a bracelet on the table. Of course. These would be translation lenses.

Display contacts. They’d bombed in the commercial market, but technically, Mom’s company still made some…for translation.

This was good. This was a genuinely useful gift. Except that reading made his head hurt, and he had no idea how to get them on. The first problem should fix itself in time. The second should be a matter of simple practice. Dad didn’t offer to help, though. He just watched Issac carefully.

Issac nodded minutely, but put the contacts down, hoping Dad wouldn’t ask why. Dad nodded back, clearly not wanting to have this conversation. They stared at each other, and Issac found himself aware of his bruises, stubble, and various odors again.

DAD: How are you doing?

A direct but extremely open-ended question. What could he say to that? Given Dad’s reluctance to even have this conversation, what would be safest? He decided immediately that he couldn’t admit to worrying about his brain. He shouldn’t, anyway. Martin had said so. Just after that, he realized he didn’t want to talk about his hearing loss. And he could hardly tell Dad that he was worried about Martin.

That was when it hit him, what the weird vibrations were. Bass. Dad was blaring his own music in the lab-- he always liked his music really loud. No wonder this vibration felt familiar. Issac’d probably been hearing these old baselines since he was in utero. That was why they felt calming. Dad’s shitty mid-90s alt rock. 

What a stupid thing to miss. He didn’t even like this garbage, but the lump was back in his throat. The noise producing those vibrations had always been a sign that dad was nearby. Jenna was the only person who tolerated him playing this shit so loud. She’d let him crank it up whenever he was down here hanging out, or getting his bionics fixed or tweaked. Issac had helped-- that was his inroad to all the work that’d come after it.

That was years ago, though. Dad got his maintenance done at the bureau, now.

Issac had to play it cool. If he couldn’t help seeming damaged, at least he could try to look like he was taking things well, and he wasn’t about to admit to missing vintage pseudo-punk. He decided a physical complaint was the safest. He almost spoke this time, but decided to stick with typing, rather than put his likely screwed-up voice out in the open. My leg hurts, but less than yesterday. I didn’t have to take anything for it.

Dad almost seemed surprised by the coherency of that answer, but he nodded. 

DAD: Make sure not to let the swelling get out of hand. Your mom will get rid of any leftover pain pills when you’re sure you’re done with them. Give them to her. 

Issac nodded. Dad looked like he desperately wanted to leave this interaction.

They stared at each other. Issac’s frustration dialed up. His dad clearly had nothing to say to him. Didn’t apparently know how to even talk to Issac, now. 

Issac had shared a chess board with his dad and a basketball court with Yael. He was actually pretty used to being unable to keep up. But he was used to being unable to catch up with altereds. Not…normal people. Apparently, LodeStar didn’t know how to deal with having a son this damaged. This different from himself.

Issac hadn’t wanted to know what it would take to make his dad see him as too broken to be relatable. If he’d had had to guess, though, he would have put the bar a lot higher than hearing loss. 

His vision started to blur again, and crying in front of his dad wouldn’t help him look any more functional. 

Issac snapped up the contacts. Shoved them into his other pocket. He avoided looking at his dad, and moved to leave the room. An unyielding metal hand grabbed his arm, and Issac shuddered, sucking in a sharp breath of pain as it hit bruises and jarred deeper tissue. The grip wasn’t tight, but it caught Issac mid-step, utterly, effortlessly immobilizing his arm. 

Issac twisted-- making every fiber and bone of his back scream in protest-- to glare at Dad, who let Issac’s wrist go with the same superhuman reflex speed he’d used to grab it. He drew his hand back, as if Issac's frailty might be contagious. Issac knew his dad hadn’t meant to hurt him, but he hadn’t meant not to hard enough, had he? 

Dad’s miscalculation earned Issac clear passage out of the lab.

[finishinglinepress]

A NEW NOVEL: Remember That One Time? by Larry Joe Campbell

On SALE: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/remember-that-one-time-by-larry-joe-campbell/

Larry Joe Campbell is an actor and writer living in Los Angeles. Some of his credits include According to Jim, Hall Pass, Wedding Crashers, Pacific Rim, The Orville, Mom, Weeds, Euphoria, and can currently be seen on Animal Control on FOX. He also tours around the country with “Jim Belushi and the Board of Comedy.” Remember That One Time is his debut novel. When he is not writing and acting, Larry enjoys coaching high school football, walking, reading and music. Larry Joe has five adult children, Gabriella, Nathan, Madelyn, Maxwell, and Lydia. He has been married to his wife, Peggy, for 27 years.

PRAISE FOR Remember That One Time? by Larry Joe Campbell

“In his debut novel “Remember That One Time” Larry Joe Campbellsucceeds at bringing the reader directly into the path of real life. The mess, the chaos, the humor, the pathos and the love. His main character Max is a fallible man, but as a reader you end up rooting for him to find his way in the world. All the characters in the book jump off the page. And as a Midwesterner who moved to Los Angeles to follow my dream career, so much of this book spoke to me. But I think anyone who reads “Remember That One Time” will relate to it, regardless of their best laid career or life plans. There is a humanity that we all seek within its pages, and though I was reading it for the first time, it helped me remember some times of my own along the way.”

–Jaime Moyer, actor Bob’s Burgers, Modern Family, KC Undercover

“Remember That One Time? is one of those special books that can simultaneously make you re-examine your life choices while wrapping you in a cozy, hometown hug. Just as the lead character of Max does, I found myself drawn into the lives of these colorful (and very recognizable) small town folks. I wanted to know more about their lives and dramas and most of all I cheered Max on as he labored to sort out his own life story.

Larry Joe Campbell is known to so many of us as a big-hearted, hilarious comedian whose expressions and emotions bring his characters roaring to life. And it turns out, he has that exact same talent as a writer. Each person in this story is drawn with more detail than the next, and Larry perfectly captures the feeling of “going home again” and finding yourself an outside observer of all that used to be so familiar. I tore through this book and was sad when it was over – the mark of truly being invested in a story. I hope this is the first of many books from Larry Joe Campbell!”

–Nancy Hayden, writer Detroiters, Ex-Housewife

Please share/repost #flpauthor #preorder #read #comedy #fiction #novel #life #television #TV #actor #acting #film

[jamieroxxartist]

I got an email through my website a couple of nights ago from a man who I painted a painting for, a long time ago:

I have Painted A Lot of paintings. I have been painting professionally since 2001. 24 years now. That's a big chunk of time. Just shy of a quarter of a century.

So way back in 2008 I had my Studio / Gallery in downtown San Diego, CA. It was wild and crazy and I guess my own taste of Warhol's Factory. There was always something zany going on. The thing is along with the fun, sometimes the not-so-fun.

One time we had some plumbing problems. This was bad, because as any business owner will tell you, there always seems to be a lot of mouths to feed and things needed etc. And suddenly I had plumbing issues on top of all of that and I was already stretched pretty thin, cash-wise.

So I called an independent plumber off of craigslist. I figured I might be able to try to work out a payment plan or something. I was hoping.

The Plumber came. He was a super nice man. A Mexican-American Man who I could tell was a hard worker. I grew up in blue-collar Detroit and can tell a hard worker when I see one. He loved all my paintings. We got to talking and I was hoping he would help me out.

I told him my story and he told me his. And boy did he have a story about how he and his wife met when they were kids. We came to a decision that if I would paint that meeting and use that story as inspiration he would get the plumbing sorted for me.

And that is what happened. Here was my inspiration:

From Henry ( www.drainrooterplumbingsd.com ) :

"Not sure if you remember the premise of the story, but this is literally the moment that we met. She was 8 I was 9. I was raised in LA and she was raised in Tijuana Mexico. I went for my summer vacation and met her. I walked in her yard when I saw her sitting on a garden reading books, and I walked towards her, sat for about 30 minutes without saying a word cause she spoke Spanish and I I spoke English (barely understood what she said to me), but we had an awesome summer playing outside as kids. Another summer came and once again played again..., On the 3rd summer, my mom decided to move us south of the border and moved across the street from her. We went to elementary and middle school together and the rest was history.

8 kids, 11 grandkids 1 great grandson

You named our painting "True Love", And it really became. Obviously ups & downs but we're still together.., God has blessed us since we both laid eyes on each other. Thanks again for the painting. PS - A catholic priest actually blessed the painting years ago.."

Now folks I have painted A Lot of paintings over the years. Paintings for Celebrities, Cool Nightclubs, big shows and fancy parties, Album covers, all sorts of things (I even have a couple of paintings in a couple of museums) ... People sometimes ask me what my Favorite Painting is/was and now I have a good one to tell them about and show them. A simple neo-impressionistic Painting of children. The start of a lifetime love affair. That's a heck of a thing. to be in there with my little painting. Which is now one of my Favorites.

One of his Daughters even was inspired to have this incorporated into a back tattoo. I'm pretty sure that this is a first for me and one of my paintings.

I hadn't thought about this in a long time. Then I got an email through my website the other night. A Painting that became a part of an amazing story in this family. And you know as a Painter you really can't ask for more than that!

[detroit-grand-prix]

Wildest Dreams Chapter 24 - Look What You Made Me Do

Chapter summary: The 2021 season begins with mid-winter testing. Bee deals with her rising profile in the motorsport world, and a crash in wet conditions tests a work relationship.

Content warning: N/A

Chapter word count: 4,441

Author's Notes: Here we are, at the beginning of the end. This chapter is kind of lean, but I'm really just trying to transition from 2020 to 2021 here. The 2021 season is as far as I have planned this story. I also probably won't spend a lot of time on each individual race, because there's one in particular that I want to focus on. However, the Bottas/Russell crash in Imola was too ripe of a narrative opportunity to let go, so I had to take it. Here's some articles about the incident if you want to read about it: 1 / 2 / 3 And a video of Toto & George talking about it later on. Oh, the museum exhibit mentioned is real! I was just there a this past spring, it's incredible. There's really nothing about F1 in there (other than a graphic that has an F1 car for a size comparison). I was a little surprised there wasn't anything about Americans who HAVE raced in F1, but it is what it is. But if you're ever in Michigan and get a chance to go to The Henry Ford, I definitely recommend it.

Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir, Southern Governorate, Kingdom of Bahrain March 12, 2021

Bee’s winter break was busy, once again. It never just seemed to be a break. But given how busy the season was, a lot of things got pushed off to the winter break. It had been happening every year since she’d joined the GP3 series.

She spent most of it back in the United States, which was strange for her, but she had a few engagements.

First up was the FIA’s 2020 Prize Giving Gala. It happened, but in a strange virtual format. Bee put in the effort of doing her hair, makeup, and wearing an elegant evening gown (another Christian Siriano dress - she didn’t dress up much, but she did like his dresses a lot), just to sit in an office at the Williams factory and attend an awkward Zoom-based ceremony. She did win Rookie of the Year, which was a surprise to her - she was the only rookie in F1 that season, but anyone across any FIA-sanctioned series was eligible. 

She spent Christmas in Stuttgart with her parents before going to the US for press and media obligations that the Williams PR team had set up. When hearing that Bee would be in the states over the holidays, her aunts wanted to do a big family Christmas together, but Bee put her foot down. It was a terrible idea with the state of the pandemic in the United States. It was enough of a hassle to go to the US for her work obligations, let alone participate in family gatherings. 

She explained in the family group chat that she was grateful that the family wanted to get together because it wasn’t very often that they could, but said that “I’m not going to risk getting sick and ruining my season before it even starts. I’m not going to the US for fun, anyway, it’s for PR stuff, and I probably won’t have much time.” She added that “Lewis says he’s still feeling the effects of it and he was sick weeks ago.” 

Bee’s mom said there was a little bit of behind-the-scenes sour grapes amongst her sisters - they thought Bee was acting like she was too good for the family, but Josephine stuck up for her daughter, saying that it was too big of a risk to her career for now, and nobody should be gathering anyway. 

A museum in Detroit - a rather large one, called The Henry Ford, had announced they were adding her to an upcoming permanent exhibit, which was called “Driven To Win: Racing In America”. The docent that had called her told her that they originally weren’t planning on including much about Formula 1, as it wasn’t an American racing series, but having an American woman achieve some minor degree of success in the series forced them to make a last-minute change. 

She would be featured in the exhibit along with Danica Patrick, who was Bee’s IndyCar counterpart of sorts - the most successful woman in the history of American open-wheel racing, as opposed to Formula 1/European racing. Danica had actually been scheduled to test in Formula 1 in 2008, way before Bee’s time, but the team she was going to test for pulled out of the sport, and eventually Danica decided she was too old to switch racing series. They had requested that she donate any race-worn items from the season to display, which would be added to the museum’s permanent collection. They preferred the gear she was wearing in Monza, as that was where she’d achieved a points finish. She donated a set of her gear - suit, gloves, shoes, fireproofs, and her spare helmet from Monza. They specified race-worn items, but her Monza helmet meant too much to her to give it to a museum. The only place it would be displayed would be on her bookshelf in her apartment.

Finally, pre-season testing came back around, but it was in Bahrain instead of Barcelona. It was strange, in a way, but Bee thought that she wouldn’t miss the relative chill of the Spanish springtime… until she stepped out of the hotel and felt the swell of a 100-degree heat hit her face. 

“Nope, I take it back,” Bee said to George as they got out of the car at the track. “I’ll take Barcelona any day. At least you can put more layers on, you can only take so much off.” 

It was always a little strange coming back after break, it was like the first day of school in a new school year. Bee was always curious to see how things shook out with teams and drivers after silly season. She’d always see moves happening when announcements came across social media, but it was always another matter to see new drivers with their teams.  

This year, there were a few new faces - Haas had hired Mick Schumacher, Michael Schumacher’s son, who had won the previous F2 season. They’d also promoted their reserve driver, Nicholas Latifi, to a regular driver. AlphaTauri had a rookie from Japan named Yuki Tsunoda, also rising up from Formula 2. Renault had been renamed to Alpine, with a new livery and colors, and had hired Fernando Alonso, who had apparently retired in 2018. Sebastian had left Ferrari for what had previously been known as Racing Point, and was now Aston Martin, replacing Sergio Perez, who replaced Alex Albon at Red Bull. Alex Albon was now racing for Red Bull’s DTM team.

Williams debuted the FW43B at testing. It was the first Williams F1 car designed without the actual Williams family at the helm. It had a new, two-toned blue livery with touches of a goldenrod yellow color to pay homage to the team’s past colors. Sir Frank had stepped down, but Claire had agreed to stay on as team principal for one last season to transition the team. 

Bee had driven the car at a shakedown in February, and she was very encouraged by it. The Williams F1 car had come a long way since the FW41 that Bee thought was trying to actively kill her - it was nice to see that the input she and George gave was being taken to heart. The car felt fast, it was easy to drive, responsive - still nothing like the various iterations of Mercedes’ she’d driven during testing sessions, but at least she didn’t feel like the car was trying to kill her anymore.

She had also set a goal for the season. She hasn’t told anybody but Toto about it, because it still sounded far-fetched. It was her goal to be on a podium this year, and she had been doing all she can to make that a reality. There would be more chances this year, too - the F1 schedule had been put back to 22 races again, including the United States Grand Prix.

“Finally,” Bee thought when she saw the Circuit of the Americas on the schedule. “I’ll get to race there, at home.” As much as she considered Germany to be home, she was still an American, and she had the most support from American fans who had discovered the sport through Netflix by far. The docuseries hadn’t hurt the sport’s visibility, but the desire for an American driver for American fans to support very much worked in her favor. And it wasn’t that she didn’t have fans in Europe or Asia, but there were still editorials in British papers and magazines every week from the sport’s old guard who lamented the loss of the Grid Girl and thought that that was the only way someone like her should be allowed on track. Even when they were complimentary of her it seemed like they were putting her down - she remembered seeing a quote in the press from Bernie Ecclestone, the former owner of Formula 1, calling her ascension to Formula 1 a “good PR move” for Williams that had nothing to do with her ability to drive a car. It upset her at first, so early on in her debut season, but now it was just a tired argument. Better to just ignore them. 

She wanted to do well this season overall, but especially wanted to do well in Austin. It would be her first time racing there because F2 and F3 didn’t race there. 

“You know, I’ve never actually been to the United States.” Emilia said when Bee showed her the updated schedule. “Wait… no, I think we took a family trip to New York City when I was young, but I don’t remember it very well”.

“Oh. Texas is completely different. The US is so big that going to different parts of it feels like going to an entirely different country.  That’s what it felt like the first time I went there. I hope you like Mexican food.” Bee said. “It’s amazing there.” 

“I… don’t think I’ve ever tried it. Not that I can remember.”

“Oh, you’re in for a treat, then. We’ll need to ask Danny for recommendations when we go. Sometimes, I think he’s even more American than I am.” 

Paddock restrictions and team bubbles also eased considerably once they’d gotten to Bahrain. She could now, say, go to the Mercedes hospitality area and have breakfast with Susie, who was there for testing. It was almost strange to see her in-person again, it had been so long. They regularly messaged each other and FaceTimed, but Bee missed her. 

“I saw your interview in Vogue,” she said. That was one of the interviews and photoshoots that Bee had gone to do over break. “I loved it. I always love reading your interviews. I save every single one of them, you know. And I loved the outfits they picked for you - you looked amazing.”

“Oh,” Bee said, blushing a little. “I liked a few of them, like that suit they gave me - I loved it, I ended up buying it. Same with that red dress, that was Siriano, so I called him to buy it and he just gave it to me. It’s weird that I’m friendly with a fashion designer, honestly. But some of them just weren’t… me, I guess, like that short top with all of the cutouts? I don’t even remember what designer it was, but it was just uncomfortable. And I’ve never liked wearing high heels, so all of the standing shots were a bit dicey. I kept thinking I was going to roll my ankle.”

“That’s where you and I have always been a little different.” Susie said. “You’re much more of a tomboy than me. I love getting dressed up for shoots and things like that. Not that that’s a bad thing, but I think you’re what people had expected me to be when they heard “female racing driver”, you know? You’re right though, now that I think about it - seeing you in makeup for the gala - you looked fantastic, but it was definitely different.” 

The waitress brought over their breakfasts and set them on the table.  “Thank you,” Bee said to the waitress. “I know. That’s why I don’t bother with it most of the time, even outside of race days. I catch a glimpse of myself and see someone else staring back, it’s unnerving.” 

“Anyway,” Susie said, taking a drink of her coffee. “We haven’t actually talked about racing in a while. How are you feeling about the season?”

“Hm.” Bee said, chewing on her toast. “It’ll be interesting to run a full season, finally. I’m hoping I can get on a podium or two. The car feels good, at least it did at the shakedown. We’ve come far since I started testing for the team. Toto and I talked a bit about my goals and such when we were getting ready to negotiate my contract - I don’t know how much the two of you talk about, well, me, though.”

“We have talked a bit. He told me that you just wanted to be fighting for podiums this year, mostly, which I think you can.”

“Ah. Well, he just asked me what I wanted out of my career after my first year and I told him I think I can compete for podiums this year, but I don’t think I’ll ever be in an earnest running for the championship, unless something happens where I get a Mercedes seat, and I know I’m not first in line for that - George is. And that’s fine. It’s not that I’m not going to try to be as competitive as I can, I just had the misfortune of coming in around the same time as a bunch of drivers who have the potential to be once-in-a-generation. All I really wanted growing up was to get here.”

Susie nodded. “That was my line of thinking when I was testing for Williams. The sport wasn’t ready for a female driver then, it is now. It might be a while until they’re ready for a champion. I think you’ve got the talent, but you’re right - timing wasn’t on your side.”

As they were talking, Bee’s watch chimed. 

“Oh, shit, sorry, I have to go. I’ve got my slot with Netflix soon.” 

“Oh, don’t want to keep them waiting. They’re interviewing me this season, too! Anyway, I’ll catch up with you later - we’ll get dinner one night during race weekend, I promise. It was so good to see you again, Bee.”

They hugged goodbye and Bee half-jogged to the media building that Netflix was set up in. It was a relief to go into the darkened studio, even with the hot, bright lights - it was still cooler than it was outside. 

They asked her some standard questions - what she did over her break, what her goals were for the season - nothing too surprising. It was like this last year, too. There weren’t many narratives that start forming even before testing. The questions would get more specific as the season went on.

She was putting her mask back on and gathering her backpack at the end of the interview, and one of the producers said, “I don’t know if you watched the show or read the reviews, but you were kind of a fan favorite.” Bee laughed. 

“Well, maybe you guys just gave me a good edit.” 

“No, really,” he said. “A lot of the feedback we got on seasons 1 and 2 was that the sport is too much of a… sorry for the term, but sausage-fest, so people really liked seeing a female driver finally make it into the sport last season.”

“Huh.” Bee said. “That’s very different from my experience growing up, but maybe that’s a good sign that things are changing for the better. Anyway, see you guys next race.”

As she walked from the media building back to Williams, she thought about it a little bit, and she had noticed that she seemed to have more followers on Twitter; tags on other sites with her name were more active these days. From her teenage years, she knew there was one barometer of fandom that wasn’t likely to be publicized or tracked by any metric aggregators, but it was a reliable indicator of how popular something, or someone, was. Just a quick look at the fanfiction archive wouldn’t hurt.

Sure enough, there were fanfictions written about her in the Formula 1 RPF (real person fiction) tag. There hadn’t been the last time she’d checked last year, but that was a long time ago. She couldn’t see anything too salacious, but they were there, now. It looked like she was mostly a background character for slash romance pairings between other drivers. There were a few that wrote her in a relationship with George, which made her laugh - no thank you. She liked George, but as one would like their brother. There was one short work, though, that caught her eye - 

“Phoebe Stallard x Emilia Kalbach”, marked as explicit. F/F. There was a story about her being in a relationship with her trainer, and it was spicy, judging by the tags on the work. She felt her face heat. She wanted to look, because she was surprised that she had even managed to register within the group of F1 fans that wrote fanfiction, let alone them knowing who Emilia was. The author had even coined a term for their relationship - “Beemelia”. She said out loud. “Bee-melia.” She wondered if the author knew how close that word was to sounding like it had the French word for honey in it, miel, which was kind of charming. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d ever seen a fanfic written about an F1 driver and their performance coach, but… 

She closed the tab on her phone’s browser before she could think about it any more. 

The rest of the testing period was mostly business as usual - new PR photos, new YouTube segments for the official F1 channels - all of the other things they did before the actual racing took place. 

Williams didn’t look too bad, they were solidly in the middle this year. Red Bull and Ferrari looked amazing, and Mercedes looked like they might be on the back foot, which was worrisome, but a lot could change before the season actually started.

And things did change - two weeks later, they were back in Bahrain again, and Mercedes won the first race. Not by a wide margin - Lewis’ victory only came because Verstappen had overtaken him off the track, and couldn’t get his position back once race control told him to surrender it. Bee very narrowly avoided getting taken out by Nicholas Latifi as he spun out in the third turn of the race, and she and George managed 15th and 14th. She was a bit annoyed - she was hoping to at least be close to a points finish, but it was only the first race. 

Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari, Imola, Emilia-Romagna, Italy April 18th, 2021

The morning Bee woke up on race day and saw the weather in Imola, she had a feeling the race would not be going her way.

“Rain,” she said to Emilia during their warmups, “is the great equalizer in these races. You could have the best car on the grid by a long shot, but if you don’t know how to handle it when it’s like this out, it doesn’t mean a damn thing.” 

“And you don’t like rain, do you?” Emilia said.

“I don’t. I’m not great at it. George is really good at it, but I’m not. I keep meaning to watch his onboards and look at his telemetries to see what he does, though - I need to do that, soon.”

Qualifying, however, had been in dry conditions, and it had gone well enough. George and Bee had both made it into Q2 without much of an issue, which felt like an achievement at this point last season, so she was hopeful. But then the rain came. 

She lined up on the grid, tried to take a few deep breaths, tried to imagine the racing line - she hadn’t raced here in a while, so she was trying to remember qualifying yesterday, and today, it would be about finding the dry line. There were even issues during the formation lap. Fernando Alonso hit the wall at the Tosa turn but managed to drive back and have his mechanics do repairs on-grid before they started. Charles Leclerc spun out, but recovered. 

After getting a poor start, Bee barely managed to avoid Latifi running wide before turn 14. She managed to keep the car away from him, but he spun into the wall, leading to a safety car on the first lap. 

“Jesus,” Bee said. “That was close.”

“Good evasive driving, Phoebe.” Gaetan said. There were more spins and near-misses until the rain stopped and the track started drying. Bee decided to risk it and pitted for slick tires fairly early on, around lap 23, after Gaetan told her that other drivers were changing tires over.

She’d managed to gain a few positions, and as far as Gaetan told her, George was fighting for P9. Things were looking good - she might be able to get into the points as well, especially if there was enough attrition and she managed to keep out of trouble. 

“Red flag, Phoebe, red flag. Return to pit lane. George and Bottas have crashed at Tamburello.” Gaetan said.

“Oh, damn. Is everyone okay?” 

“Yes, both are okay and out of the car. It looks like they’ve had a bit of an argument, though.” 

She didn’t know what Gaetan could’ve meant by that. Bee didn’t bother watching the replays waiting for the restart. She learned that lesson after Bahrain last year. Watching crashes while you’re waiting for a race to restart was a recipe for instant anxiety. 

She got out of the car, chatted with Emilia in the garage, and did their warmups again when they announced a restart time.

After the restart, Bee was able to get lucky with a way better launch and overtake Tsunoda, Perez, and Alonso, putting her in the points again by the time they crossed the checkered flag. It was only one point, but it was better than going home empty-handed with George’s crash. 

She hadn’t given it further thought until a reporter from the Dutch station, Ziggo Sport, asked her something in the press pen - “Congratulations on the points finish again, Phoebe. Now, do you agree with your teammate George Russell’s comments about his crash with Valtteri Bottas?” She should have known it would be a weird question - the Ziggo Sport reporters were always asking something strange.

“I didn’t know he made any comments about it, I’m sorry.” 

The reporter - she didn’t catch his name, but she’d talked to him before - filled her in - apparently George had said that he didn’t know why Valtteri was defending so hard for P9, and said that “Perhaps if it was another driver, he wouldn’t have”, implying that Valtteri knew George was in consideration for the second Mercedes seat and only defended so aggressively because of that.  

“Now, Toto Wollf, yours and George’s boss, since you’re both Mercedes juniors, said that that suggestion was “bullshit”, but we know that George has been tipped as a possible replacement for Bottas after his contract expires this year, do you have a read on that?”

Bee’s stomach dropped. It wasn’t that this was news, she knew that George was always a more serious contender for a seat at Mercedes than she was, and she wasn’t expecting to be considered this year. 

But... she had a long flight back to the UK later that evening with Toto and George, and if George was making comments like that to the press that Toto had to use such choice words for… it probably wouldn’t be a pleasant flight.

“I’m not sure. I didn’t see it happen, and I didn’t watch any replays. As far as I know, the stewards said nobody was at fault and it was just a racing incident, and we certainly had a few of them this race, with these track conditions. That’s all I know, sorry.”

“Good job,” Emma, her press officer, said. “I didn’t think anybody would ask you about that, even someone from Ziggo - what are you going to know about it that they don’t? But you gave a very diplomatic answer.”

“Well, that’s nice, because I might need some diplomacy for my flight home later. I flew here with Toto and George.”

“Oh, no.” Emma said, wincing. “Well, good luck with that. That’s going to be awkward.”

“Maybe Toto will let me sit in the cargo hold. It’ll probably be more comfortable.”

The flight was every bit as awkward as Bee expected it to be. She had gotten to the airport before George, and Toto was nothing but kind to her as she boarded, but there was a distinct shift in his demeanor when George came in.

George wordlessly sat in the seat across from Toto’s, and Bee (who had her headphones on but had nothing playing) thought she would be able to hear a butterfly fart in the cabin, as quiet as it was. The plane wasn’t large, so she could hear everything they were saying. She could see a sliver of Toto’s expression through the gaps in the seat in front of her that George was sitting in - it was stern, hard. She’d seen it before in negotiations, but hadn’t ever had the experience of being exposed to it directly. She had to give George credit at this moment - if it were her in his position, she probably would’ve folded like a card table.

By the time they landed in London, their discussion had finished. Bee tried to catch a glimpse of George’s expression before he deplaned, but he did so in too big of a hurry. Toto turned around to Bee and smiled at her as she gathered up her backpack.

“Sorry about that,” he said, his expression softening again. “I realize that was probably awkward, but it’s settled now.” 

Bee wasn’t really expecting him to acknowledge it, it caught her off-guard. 

“Oh… um. That’s okay. Will I see you before we leave for Portimão?” 

“We’ll see.” He said. “If you wanted to come over for dinner this week, I’m sure Susie would love to see you again.”

“I’d love to. Just let me know.”

She descended the plane’s steps, headed to her car, and drove back to her apartment. 

Bee didn’t have to wait long before the aftermath of Toto and George’s discussion had manifested itself. George posted a tweet on Monday afternoon, acknowledging his role in the incident and apologizing to Valtteri. There was a long article in The Guardian about the incident as well.

Privately, Bee was a little conflicted. The attempted overtake that brought them together probably wasn’t a risk she would take in those conditions, but that’s what set George apart from her - she thought it was a bold move. She didn’t think it was either George or Valtteri’s fault, either - sometimes in racing, things happened. It was a fact of life. 

She had to admit, though - it had been a long time since she’d seen such passion in the sport that wasn’t just competitors being dicks to each other in the press over a rivalry. They both wrote off multi-million dollar cars live on international TV, and had put on a show befitting the act. She couldn’t remember the last time that happened since the height of Lewis and Nico’s rivalry. 

No wonder Toto had been so quick to quench the flames. 

[pocketfulofrogers]

Planes, Trains, and Firetrucks

Pairing: Kelly Severide x Reader

Summary: What’s a polar vortex to a desperate sister trying to get home? With a little determination and the luck of a stranger, you might just be able to pull off a Christmas miracle. 

Notes: So I got drunk with my aunt and uncle on Thanksgiving and watched the only Thanksgiving movie to both exist and be quoted in it’s entirety by my whole family. I woke up with a google note that said ‘Planes, Trains, and Automobiles but make it a love story.’ Kinda wished I had payed more attention to the movie now. 

Pinching the bridge of your nose, you try to reign in your frustration. You had been all over this airport for the last six hours desperately searching for any way to get home. So far, you had only been strung along.

“Is there anything to Chicago at all? I’m just trying to be back for even a portion of Christmas. Seriously, at this point I’d saddle up a horse.”

The woman scrunches her nose as she scrolls through her computer, a sense of defeat looming over you until she smiles quickly. “I found a 5am to Detroit that connects…” She trails off and begins to frown again. “Just canceled.”

“Seriously?!” The word explodes from your mouth unwarranted and much louder than intended and your hand flies to your mouth in embarrassment.

Before you can begin to apologize profusely, you hear the man behind you mumble under his breath. “Probably because of the giant winter storm and white out conditions covering the entire North East.”

You whip your head behind to glare at him, but he’s too focused on his phone to even notice that you had overhead him. Defeated, you turn back around and quietly apologize before grabbing your phone and sulking away, the guy behind you chuckling slightly.

Mom: Your sister just got here, she’s so excited to see you!

Barely managing to suppress your groan, you lean against a nearby pillar to type a response that hopefully won’t break anyone’s hearts.

The man pockets his phone and approaches the counter. “Hi, can I get a hotel voucher?”

“We’re prioritizing vouchers for flying families and couples first.” She smiles.

“Really?” He groans, loud enough to grab your attention and hears your chuckle from what he assumes you think is karmic justice. But when he locks eyes with you, he gets an idea. “That is so kind of you guys!” He exclaims with a smile. “My wife will love that.”

In the middle of trying to explain to your mom that you couldn’t have left any early, chuckles steps up in front of you with a grin, holding up a pamphlet and you narrow your eyes. “Be my wife for a night, cow girl?”

You roll your eyes and walk away from his laughter and fake apologies, not stopping until he calls your name. “This?” You gesture between the two of you. “This is creepy.”

He holds up his hands before sliding the voucher in his dark jean jacket pocket. “They wouldn’t give me the voucher unless I put another name down so I just said you were my wife.” He shrugs his shoulder as if he can’t see the problem. “Now I can’t check in unless you’re there.”

You grab your bag and start walking again. “Not my problem.”

To your dismay, he keeps up with you. “We’ve been running around this place all day, so you have got to be at least a little tired.” You really were. “I let you use my charger.” He did do that, but it doesn’t seem to him that his small act of airport kindness has swayed you. “How about we get some sleep and then I promise I will help get you to Chicago?”

This causes you to pause again and look him up and down, almost hating yourself for even considering it. Those piercing blue eyes didn’t seem to hold any malice, nor did his small smile. He was charming, that much was obvious, but so was Ted Bundy.

You cock a hip to the side. “You could be a serial killer.”

The smirk he flashes makes you a little weak. “So could you.”

“Fine, but we’re stopping for pepper spray.”

**

Each time Kelly closes his eyes and feels his exhaustion begin to pull him under, he hears you curse under your breath. You had been obsessively scouring the internet looking for a hail mary, but each time you hit a wall.

He had given up somewhere between the last car dealership left in a 100-mile radius to endure your guilt trip and the proposition of hitch hiking. Honestly, he was more concerned than surprised when you seemed disappointed at him shooting down the idea.

Despite this budding friendship, you had offered no details of yourself, even when asked. You made another serial killer joke when he asked you why it was so important you get home, but he didn’t miss how guarded you became.

The next time you groan is when he also gives up the idea of any form of rest. Kelly sits up quick enough to see you throw yourself back into the creaky swivel chair.

“Is there a battery pack on you or something?” His voice is gravely, thick with exhaustion and just a hint of frustration.

You wince. “I know, I’m sorry. I just can’t believe that there’s not a single taxi or rental car available.”

“You could just buy a car.” He suggests it as an outlandish joke, but then your eyes light up.

“You’re a genius!”

**

Standing out in the middle of an alleyway, snow coating your hair, you can’t say your not a little nervous. Kelly is stood beside you despite very loudly voicing his opinion on how this was a terrible idea. Actually, that it was maybe the worst idea you’ve ever had.

“If anyone is going to be a serial killer, it’s going to be this guy.” He mumbles another remark, shifting his eyes to check your surroundings again.

You shoot a glare at him, but have to admit he’s probably right.

There wasn’t much in your bank account to spare, especially when you consider the price of a decent car. Craigslist offered one result in your price range within reasonable walking distance and you didn’t really stop to think it out.

Now you were in a barely lit backstreet leaking a smell you’d rather not name.

“You didn’t have to come.” You state, again.

He scoffs. “With your lack of self-preservation and this piece of shit that won’t make it out of the state? I won’t be responsible for you ending up on a milk carton.”

You want to comment that that’s not a thing anymore, but he had stuck by you for the last few hours and that’s more than you can usually expect from a stranger. “Aw, you care.” You reply instead.

**

It smells, terribly, but if you roll the windows down enough, you can hardly even notice. Wearing enough layers to not fell the cold is another story. You had expected Kelly to bail on you, insisting you wouldn’t blame him for running back to the warm comfort of clean sheets that weren’t his own, but again he shook his head.

He slept for the first six hours, grateful that you seemed to be a decent driver, but you tossed and turned in the back for about four before you climb back up front and ask to take over. There was only a little bit of gloating each time you passed through a city and grinned an ‘I told you so’ at him.

He doesn’t tell you, but he finds your giddiness contagious.

You don’t notice, but he keeps watching you whenever you’re not paying attention- intrigued by the woman who is actively going to hell and back just to get home. Matt told him he was insane, but there was something about you that he just couldn’t let go of.

He had watched you give up one of the only plane tickets left to a younger woman. Feeling touched as she cried in your arms. When you bought lunch for an unaccompanied minor and let her use up the entire battery life of your phone to watch a few movies, he knew he had to at least talk to you.

The only opener he had was a charger and it seemed to have been enough to get your trust.

“You know,” He starts, pulling his jacket tighter around him, hoping the rising sun would bring some form of warmth soon. He wasn’t hopeful. “I think I’ve earned a few questions.”

You glance at him and raise a brow. “Fine.”

“Are you always like this?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Your surprise makes you laugh.

“Prickly.” He clarifies.

“I’m not prickly, I’m stressed.” You defend yourself. “How are you not? Aren’t you trying to get home too, to see your family?”

He shrugs. “It’s out of my control, and the only family I have are people I get to see pretty regularly.” He smiles at you. “Guess I’m pretty lucky.”

“Well, it seems I’m definitely not.”

As if on cue, there’s a loud pop from the front of the car and it begins to sputter and smoke. Kelly is quick to calm you down and ease you into pulling off the road in the most soothing voice you think you may have ever heard.

**

Sitting on the side of the road, you only pick up your head from your knees when you hear a loud sigh and the hood slam shut. Kelly wipes the dark grease on his pants and gives you a solemn look.

“It’s toast.”

You let your head fall back onto your knees, not paying much attention to the encouraging words he tries to use to raise your spirits or the almost comforting hand on your shoulder, not even when they both disappear.

It isn’t until he’s grabbing the bags from the worst impulse buy of your life that you decide to check back in. “What are you doing?”

He points back to a semi-truck stopped not far behind with a smirk. “I told you I’m lucky.”

**

Your elbow bumps the trucker again and you pull you arms in closer to your body, try to scoot further away while being mindful of Kelly pressed close to you on your other side. Why you agreed to sit in the middle, you’ll only understand once you figured out why you agreed to this in the first place.

The man seemed nice enough, but it was two hours to the next city and you hadn’t slept in 36 hours.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do when we get there. Maybe find some wifi and look for our next ride?”

Kelly purses his lips. “How about we take an hour?”

“What are we supposed to in Dyersville on Christmas day?”

There’s a sparkle in his eyes when he smiles and shrugs his shoulders.

**

“Alright. This was a good idea.” You mumble around a mouthful of the burger you were trying to not inhale.

Somehow, Kelly had managed to convince a food truck to kick out one more order before packing up to get home. The smell hit you just as your hunger did and it didn’t take long for you to start stuffing your face.

He picks up his drink beside him on the bench and nods. “We needed this.”

“So bad.” You gush. You look around and finally feel like you can breathe again. “Maybe my luck’s turning. It’s a beautiful day, we’re so close, and this just might be the best burger I’ve ever had.”

He starts to laugh, but stops suddenly when he looks past your head. Before he can even react, the man he had been eying grabs your purse and takes off, Kelly quick on his heels. You yell after him, almost taking off too, but then his feet catch a patch of ice.

He goes down, hard and you rush to his side.

“Kelly? Kelly are you okay?” He’s touched by your concern, but he doesn’t have the breath in his lungs to convey it.

“Fine.” He grunts out.

“You folks alright?” A man with peppered hair and a thick grey mustache approaches behind you in a white button up. “We were just fixing our lights outside when we saw what happened. We’ve got two EMTs grabbing their bags if you’ll just stay where you are, son.”

Kelly waves him off, calling him chief, and tries to sit up. “Guy got her bag.”

You shush him and quickly help him up. “There’s nothing in there that can’t be replaced.” You assure him.

“Holy shit, is that Kelly Severide?” A woman calls out from across the street before jogging over. “Can’t wait to let the boys know that the great Lieutenant got played by a kid.”

Kelly chuckles at your confusion as he wipes his dirt covered hands on his jeans. “Gomez, nice to see you again.”

“You know each other?” You ask.

Gomez nods. “Lieutenant Severide here held a rope rescue training, whipped us all into shape. What brings you back here?”

Kelly sighs, adding a voice to the very rough time the last 20 hours had been. “Got snowed in just outside of Seattle. This one,” He points over to you and raises a brow. “Just had to get home and dragged me on and insane trip.”

Your jaw drops. “Dragged? You definitely refused to leave.”

“Only because I whole heartedly believed you’d get yourself killed.” He winks at you and you can’t suppress your smile.    

The chief contemplates for a moment before offering up an old battalion car to get you through the final stretch. Kelly looks to you, smile beaming and makes another comment about his impeccable luck.

**

“So, you’re a firefighter.” You begin when the silence becomes a little too thick. “Is that why you were in Washington?”

Kelly nods. “Small city fire departments don’t have the resources we do. I try to go to a few a year to teach them how to use the stuff they have for difficult rescues.”

“Wow…” You trail off.

“You can’t ask me that question and not answer it for yourself.”

Rolling your eyes, you have to agree. “I was there for an interview. Some doctors there created a revolutionary treatment, and I was able to witness one of the surgeries.”

“Must be important for you to give up your Christmas Eve.”

You shrug. “My sister got really sick a few years ago. She’s okay now, but we weren’t able to see her for a really long time. Doctors saved her life and this could save someone else’s. It’s important information.”

“That’s why you wanted to get back?”

The moment becomes a little too heavy, but you manage a sad smile before you feel compelled to look out the window. “It’s her first Christmas since, it’ll be the first time I’ve seen her.”

He grabs your hand and your attention after a moment of silence and his stare is intense. “We’ll be there soon.” He assures you.

**

12 hours into shift and Matt Casey is as bored as he’s ever been on a Christmas. No calls, no Christmas spirit, and most importantly Christmas dinner was a bust. So, when Severide open his office door, covered in dirt and oil and grime, he was intrigued at least.

“You look like hell.”

Kelly rolls his eyes. “I need to borrow your truck to take Y/N home.”

Casey’s eyes widen. “She’s here?”

Kelly isn’t sure why he seems so excited until he hears him grab almost the entire firehouse to lead them to the floor. To you. Despite his protests, Gabby is positively thrilled. You however, surprisingly, are not overwhelmed by all the greetings and hugs. The environment is so warm and welcoming that you can’t help but slide right into conversations.

“She is gorgeous.” Gabby tries to keep it to a whisper. “Your texts do not do her justice.”

Kelly nods, well aware that just a few words typed while you were focused on the road could never be enough to describe how incredible he believed you to be.

“This isn’t it, right? You’ve got to see her again.” Joe butts his head between Kelly and Gabby. “We already like her.”

**

The drive to your house is quiet, somber. Not a single sound besides tires crunching through packed snow. There’re so many questions you have unanswered based solely on the fact that you don’t know how to ask them. Staring out into the night sky to watch the snow fall is no longer enough to comfort you.

It isn’t until he pulls up and puts the truck in park that you start to feel the pit in your stomach become overwhelming. You’re worried you’ll never see him again. Worried that the past day will be the final one and that thought is terrifying.

“Stay.” You blurt out.

He’s caught off guard by your request, but still smiles. “My family is back at the station and this is too important for you to be worrying about your parents meeting me.”

Your nod acknowledges that he’s right, but your eyes convey your sadness. “Merry Christmas, Kelly.”

“Merry Christmas, Y/N.”

**

“I cannot believe you just let her go!” Matt walks in on Gabby yelling. “You liked that girl, she invited you in, and you left?!” She’s pacing back and forth in front of a freshly showered Kelly. He looks like a puppy in trouble and Matt’s smart enough to know not to butt in.

“That was not a first impression I wanted to make.” He tries to defend himself.

Gabby turns to Matt, exasperated, and he raises his hands.

As if someone were listening to his silent prayers, Capp comes in to tell Kelly that he had a visitor on the floor. His heart began to race, filling with hope that maybe, just maybe…

He rounds the corner and there you are, dressed up with a delicate smile. For a moment he’s breathless, the only thing he wanted to see. He wants to open with something witty, but you beat him to it when you hand him a tupperware container, stepping close enough that he can smell the light layer of perfume you’re wearing.

“This is to thank you for letting me drag you and your luck all over the northern states.”

He laughs. “I believe it was me that refused to leave.”

“And I probably would’ve made the national news for being missing if you hadn’t.” Your smirk makes his heart skip a beat. “You know milk cartons aren’t a thing anymore, right?”

He laughs. “Well, how am I supposed to thank you for pretending to be my wife?” You laugh until you realize he’s being serious. “How about dinner tomorrow night?”

“I would love that.”

When he leans down slowly and presses his lips to yours, you have to laugh at the cheers that erupt from the background.

[snowlessknitter]

The Masked Singer: S7 E7 Running Commentary (Welcome Group 3)

This week, we welcome the final group of five Masks to the competition! One will be eliminated. What you will see below are my initial guesses as to who these celebrities are. As always, I post before seeing any unmaskings, so these are not to be taken as spoilers!

The Prince 🐸 🤴: His commercial is a workout video. We saw a diamond ring, a reference to “Reach and Bend” (R&B?) and a payment plan of installments of $20.06…perhaps he first became famous in 2006 or had his biggest accomplishment in 2006? 2006 was the fifth season of American Idol, and this show has already seen contestants from that season competing on here, namely Chris Daughtry (runner-up of season 2) and Katharine McPhee (who competed with her husband David Foster as “Banana Split” last season). But he also mentioned being part of a team and and “knocking it out of the park”, which makes me think that this is baseball player (which would also explain the diamond ring…as in a baseball diamond). So, did this person appear in the 2006 World Series? That World Series was won by the St. Louis Cardinals, and they defeated the Detroit Tigers. So, that’s why I don’t think it’s either Derek Jeter or Alex Rodriguez, because they were both playing with the New York Yankees at the time. This is a wild guess, but I’m going to go with Albert Pujols for now. The clues seem to fit him the best. This is going to be interesting to see how these clues pan out!

Baby Mammoth 🦣: Silver medal, a matchbook, a megaphone reading “cheer”. Okay, this isn’t Rudy Giuliani. This sounds like an older woman. And probably one that isn’t a professional singer. My mind kept thinking of Abby Lee Miller from Dance Moms. Nancy Kerrigan could be another guess, but this person sounded much older than what I’d think Nancy would be right now.

Queen Cobra 👸 🐍: A rocket ship, seen fighting a pirate, and she was fighting alongside another cobra. We also saw her fighting alongside another cobra. And a picture of Bradley Cooper. And it looks like there are six of them. Could this be a girl group? Or are the other cobras just backing singers? There were also Batman references. My early guess, if this is a group, is En Vogue.

Jack in the Box 📦: Yes, this one is definitely Rudy Giuliani. I can tell by his voice. I’d be shocked if he survives beyond this round. His vocals just aren’t gonna stack up. Four Seasons…as in Four Seasons Landscaping? A gavel (Rudy was a prosecutor before entering politics), and a football with a shamrock on it. This could be a reference to The Irishman, which is based on the true story of a Mafia hitman, and Giuliani first became famous for being a prosecutor in a notable criminal trial involving Mafia crime families.

Space Bunny 👨‍🚀 🐰: I remember hearing him sing during the Sneak Peek special back in February, and I have reason to believe that this is Shaggy. Now, he almost sounded exactly like Harry Belafonte, and both of them have connections to the Caribbean (Belafonte’s family is from The Bahamas, while Shaggy is originally from Jamaica). There was also a reference to North Carolina in the first clue given, and Shaggy had a single called “Oh Carolina”. A bee sting, a red handprint, a flaming basketball. It was this very song I heard him sing in the sneak peek, “Jump in the Line” by Harry Belafonte. The red handprint is a reference to a line in Shaggy’s number one hit “It Wasn’t Me”, which starts off with the lyrics “Honey came in and she caught me red-handed / Creepin’ with the girl next door…”

[crystalstar8]

Knights of the Night (ch 15)

Chapter 15

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

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29139240/chapters/71536491

pairing: Jungkook x oc

genre: vampire au, college au, twilight, romance

word count: 2,459

warnings: blood (obviously), kidnapping, child kidnapping, needles, France

notes: vampires, vampire au, college, college au, so many twilight references, blood, needles, kidnapping, children, homelessness, dance, ballet, flashbacks, romance, slow burn, probably no smut, idk yet tho, France, French things, attempted genocide, inaccurate French history, bisexual main character, @strawberriewithchocolate-blog @mozy-j  @daechwitad-2​ @zobadak​ @fallenstar-7​​​

summary: Catalina starts college in a small town all the way across the country. She doesn’t know anyone and isn’t exactly looking for friends. She just wants to focus on dance. But when she meets fellow dance major, Jimin, and adventurous, fellow freshman, Jungkook, Catalina ends up discovering a whole new side to the small college town; one that is dangerous but oh so enticing…

              Catalina was nervous. She had changed her outfit almost ten times and was already pulling a sweater out of her closet for an eleventh. She eyed her suitcase in the corner of her room. No, don’t open it, you’ll have to repack, she told herself. Her phone buzzed from her bed. It was a text from Jungkook.

JK: I’m on my way

              “Shit,” Catalina mumbled. She looked between the sweater in her hand and the one laying on the floor. The one in her hand was a bit nicer so she pulled that one on. She tucked it into her skirt, then slipped into her ankle boot heels. As she was checking her hair and makeup in the bathroom mirror for the last time, she heard her front door open. Rounding the corner, she saw Jungkook standing in the hallway, tapping the snow off his boots on the rug. Catalina grabbed her coat.

              “You look so cute!” he said as she came over for a hug.

              “I always look cute, what are you talking about?” she said. He grinned, his nose scrunching up and his eyes turning to crescents. He looked good too, in a turtleneck under his peacoat. It was amusing to her, knowing that he still had a few lingering marks on his neck. They had both dealt with enough teasing from their friends over the past few days, they definitely didn’t need Jungkook’s family on that train as well.

              “Ready to go?” he asked. Catalina nodded and followed him out the door, locking up behind her.

              The car ride was short, only a minute or two since they lived a block away from each other. There were two other cars in the driveway, which Jungkook parked behind. As they got out of the car, Jungkook said, “So, my brother is kind of annoying. Just warning you. He’s in law school and he’s a bit of an asshole about it.”

              “Be an asshole about your film major right back to him,” said Catalina, making him laugh.

              “Easy,” he said. “I’ll just start talking about my favorite directors and artsy films.”

              His house was warm and inviting, as it always was, but today, it was cleaner than Catalina’s seen it in a long time. Maybe ever. A small Christmas tree stood in the corner, decorated with mismatched bulbs and ornaments.

              Jungkook’s mom came out of the kitchen, pulling oven mitts off her hands. She saw Catalina and her eyes lit up.

              “Catalina! It’s so good to see you!” she said, pulling her into a hug. “I’m glad you could make it.”

              “Yeah, me too!” Catalina said. “I never get to see you guys, so I’m glad to be able to spend some time with you all.”

              “Of course, you’re always welcome,” she said. “My husband and I are always so busy with work, I feel bad. Anyway, come into the kitchen. The food’s almost ready. Jungkook, go help set the table.”

               Dinner was beautiful, and Catalina had fun listening to Jungkook’s family try to embarrass him by sharing childhood stories. He wasn’t embarrassed though, always laughing with the table and sharing his own details about the experiences. It sounded like the family hiked and camped a lot while the boys were growing up, so there were plenty of adventure stories to go along with that. Catalina asked about his parent’s jobs and they told her about what they do at the hospital during their overnight shifts. They were both nurses, but they also did volunteer work every chance they got. Jungkook’s brother was indeed a bit of an asshole about being a law student, but Jungkook cracked everyone up by talking about his favorite film, “Persepolis”, pronouncing it “Pear-say-po-li”.

               Catalina had a great time, but she didn’t stay too late since her and Jungkook had a flight to catch in the morning. Jungkook dropped her off at home that night, kissing her softly in the car before she got out.

               “I’ll see you in the morning,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at six.”

               “I can’t wait,” she said, pecking his lips once more before getting out of the car. “I love you.”

               “I love you too,” he said.

               It feels so good to say that, Catalina thought as she took the stairs to her apartment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

               The airport was crowded with people rushing to travel for the holidays. Catalina was thrumming with excitement. She hadn’t seen her mom since before her first semester. She had never lived away from her home before, never away from her mom for so long. She couldn’t wait to see her, and to introduce Jungkook to her. They found their flight easily enough in the giant building, and soon enough, they were in the air, en route to Detroit.

               Catalina’s mom was waiting for them at the airport when they landed. As soon as Catalina exited the gates, she ran, giving her mom a long hug.

               “Oooh, dios mio, how I’ve missed you!” her mom said, holding her tight.

               “I missed you too, mom,” said Catalina. She pulled away and looked over at Jungkook. “Mom, this is my boyfriend, Jungkook.”

               “What a cutie you are!” her mother said as she gave Jungkook a hug as well. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

               “It’s nice to meet you too, Mrs. Diaz,” said Jungkook.

               “Ms. Diaz. Or you can just call me Lucía. Come, lets go home,” she said. “This place is too crowded.”

               Catalina sat in the passenger seat of her mom’s car on the way home. It wasn’t a long drive, their house was just outside of the city. During the drive, she wondered if she should reach out to her old friends. They had never once texted or checked up on her while she was away, so maybe it was best to leave them behind.

               The house looked exactly the same as when she last saw it and it gave her a sense of comfort to come back to the familiarity. After Catalina and Jungkook got settled into her old room, her mom called them downstairs to help bake cookies. While baking, Catalina and Jungkook told her all about their classes and professors. After the cookies came out, they had fun decorating them in weird and interesting ways. Jungkook decorated a gingerbread man with red eyes and fangs, which Catalina took a picture of to send to their friends.

               Later in the evening,  Lucía took them all out to dinner at a nice place in downtown Detroit. The restaurant was beautiful; bistro lights dripped from the ceiling, branching out from the twisting paper tree in the center of the dining room. Over dinner, Catalina told her mother about her friends in California, and about their trip to the lodge. Her and Jungkook left out the parts about their friends being vampires.

               “I want to know how the two of you got together,” said Lucía. “She didn’t date much in high school, so this is so exciting to me.”

               “I had a girlfriend in my senior year,” Catalina mumbled. Lucia waved a hand.

               “That doesn’t count,” she said. Catalina glanced at Jungkook, who was frowning after hearing this exchange. Catalina put a hand on his knee under the table and decided not to argue.

               “Well, we met in our French class,” Catalina started. “We became friends and we hung out a lot for the first few months of the semester. I mean, I never really knew I had a crush on him at first, I knew he was attractive, but I only saw him as a friend. Then one day, he kissed me, and we’ve been an item ever since.”

                Lucía had a hand over her heart as she listened.

               “That’s so sweet,” she said. “You two are a beautiful couple and I can see you’re so happy with each other. I’m just…so relieved that you found a nice boy and-“

               “Mom,” Catalina interrupted.

               “I just didn’t want you to fall back into those high school phases you were in,” she said. “I was so worried I would lose you to the wrong kind of people. There’s so many influences online these days and I just wanted you to be successful in life. That kind of lifestyle comes with drugs and-“

               “I’m gonna go to the restroom,” Jungkook said, standing up and giving her shoulder a squeeze.

               “Mom, stop it,” Catalina said. As soon as Jungkook was out of sight, she said, “My boyfriend is bisexual too. And so are some of my other friends at school. They’re all amazing people and I would do anything for them. I don’t like when you say things like this.”

               “Catalina, you know I love you no matter what,” her mother said. “I just want the best for you.”

               “It’s not something anyone can control,” Catalina said. “Whether I fall in love with a man or a woman, I’ve always hoped you could be happy for me no matter what.”

               “I am happy for you,”  Lucía said, reaching over to take Catalina’s hand. “You’re following your dream and you seem so happy with your life right now. I think I need to get used to the idea of my daughter being bisexual, there’s just so many bad connotations that come with that community. At least from when I was growing up.”

               “Things are different now,” Catalina said.

               “I know, I know,”  Lucía said. “I think I just need to get used to this. At the end of the day, I just want you to be safe and happy. I think a man would be able to provide for you better later in life.”

               “You of all people should know that’s not true,” Catalina said. “You raised me alone, and we were always pretty well off.”

                Lucía raised her eyebrows and shrugged. “You got me there.”

               Catalina giggled and squeezed her mom’s hand.

               “I love you, cariña,”  Lucía said. “Just remember that.”

               “I love you too, mom,” said Catalina.

               Jungkook came back and Catalina took his hand as soon as he sat down.

               “I’m sorry if what I said earlier was offensive,”  Lucía said to him.

               “It’s okay,” Jungkook said, flashing a smile.

               “I’m trying, it was just so different when I was young,” she said.

               “It’s really okay,” Jungkook said with a chuckle. “This sounds exactly like the conversation I had with my own mom when I was sixteen.”

                Lucía laughed and the conversation turned to the topic of Jungkook’s family. Dinner went on peacefully. Catalina was glad she got this conversation off her chest. She had been struggling with that topic ever since she came out in high school. It really sounded like her mother was trying to understand, and Catalina couldn’t be more grateful.

               The next day was Christmas Eve. Catalina and Jungkook took a day trip to Frankenmuth, which, as soon as they arrived, they realized was a bad idea. Frankenmuth was packed with people, but the pair still managed to have a good time. They ate dinner at the Bavarian Inn and took a carriage ride around the town. They walked the underground mall and the outdoor shops, but only bought gifts for Lucía, since everything was terribly overpriced. They didn’t even shop for each other, since they both confessed they had already bought each other Christmas gifts a long time ago. Snow covered the ground and everything was wrapped in Christmas lights in the little town. Just walking through the beautiful scenery hand in hand with Jungkook was wonderful. 

               They returned home late that evening, wrapping their gifts in Catalina’s room and going to bed afterwards.

               Christmas morning was pleasant;  Lucía cooked them a big breakfast, then they opened gifts in the living room. Catalina had two gifts from her mom. The first one was a Visa gift card and a heartfelt letter. The second gift was a quilt. Each patch depicted a different cat from t-shirts, towels and linens.

               “You’re grandmother started making this before she passed away,”  Lucía said. “You remember her nickname for you?”

               “Gatita,” Catalina said, tears prickling her eyes.

               “I found it just recently and I decided to finish it for you,”  Lucía said. “Just something to remember her by, something your children can use.”

               Catalina felt a tear run down her cheek. She wiped it away and got up to hug her mom.

               “This is wonderful,” said Catalina. “I love it so much.”

               “I’m glad you like it, cariña,” her mom said, hugging her back tight. “I know I don’t have a lot for you, like when you were a kid, but I didn’t want you to have to lug a bunch of stuff back to California with you.”

               “No mom, it’s perfect,” she said. “This is perfect.”

                Lucía then opened Catalina’s gift, which was a silver bracelet from Frankenmuth. Jungkook had gotten her a handmade scarf and hat set, and she had given him another Visa gift card.

               At some point during the day, Catalina made sure to find time for herself and Jungkook. Lucía went to pick up groceries in the afternoon, which was when Catalina took the opportunity to give Jungkook his gift.

               They were pressed together on the couch, both holding a little gift bag in their hands.

               “You first,” Jungkook said, handing her his bag. She took it and opened it, finding a little box in the bottom. Her heart beat fast as she opened it, revealing a ring with the moon in a glass bubble. She gasped and handed his gift over frantically.

               “Open this right now!” she said, pulling the ring out and putting on her middle finger. He did, his eyes getting wide as he opened the slightly bigger box.

               “No way,” he said, looking up at her.

               “How the hell did this happen?” Catalina asked, holding in giddy laughter. Jungkook pulled the necklace out of the box and put it on. The charm on the chain held the moon in a little glass bubble. The same moon as the one in her ring.

               “We bought each other the same thing,” he said, laughing.

               It was the waxing half-moon from the night they shared their first kiss in the vampire den.

               When Lucía came back home, they immediately showed her their unplanned gifts for each other. She laughed for about ten minutes. She then recruited them to help cook dinner, which was an exciting ordeal. Catalina was happy to learn how to cook all of her favorite dishes.

               The three of them ended up having a beautiful dinner together, bright with laughter and conversation.

               The next few days passed in a blur. They went out, cooked together, played games, and watched movies. Before they knew it, the week was over and it was time for Catalina and Jungkook to travel again for the next leg of their trip. Catalina was reluctant to leave her mom, but she was absolutely filled with anticipation for her stay in the cabin.

[fandom-necromancer]

A little distraction Part 3

This was prompted by @rufina72 as well as two anons and at least one AO3 user. I have to admit I lost track on AO3 because apparently people really enjoy this story line XD Hope you do to!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900, Hannor/Hancon Part 1 link not available   [Part2]   [Part4]   [Part5]   [Read complete on AO3]

‘S-s-so Connor is your brooother?’ They were driving through Detroit’s streets covered by snow slush and salt. It would be a pain to get the hardened dirt from the road off his car later, Richard thought as quiet Christmas music accompanied their drive. ‘Yes. Older by roughly five years’, he answered. ‘We’re very close.’ ‘And he w-w-will be the only one there?’ Again, Richard nodded. ‘Yeah, him and his boyfriend. Guess I have to update that to husband soon, they plan to marry as soon as legislation has caught up with recognising androids as persons in every aspect.’ ‘No other f-f-family?’ Richard frowned, face falling instinctively, before he forced himself to cheer up.

‘Nah. Our father died in a car accident. I was three years old; I don’t remember much of him but photos. Connor knew him more and always said he was a nice guy. Our mother was always at work, too absorbed in her studies. It changed a bit when father died, but still she wasn’t home much. Connor basically was the one raising me, and he blames mom for not being there for me.’ ‘And y-y-you?’ ‘Nah’, he laughed. ‘It was normal for me; I didn’t know anything else. But we both agree that me and him, we are family and she doesn’t belong in that definition. And that we’ll do it better should we ever get kids.’ Gavin nodded slowly. ‘How’s he?’ ‘Caring?’, Richard began, having to think of the right words to express what he felt when thinking of his brother. ‘Overly protective. Overly friendly. It can be annoying at times. But he is honest too and understands boundaries. He never said anything when I had my silent phases, just came to my room and did whatever he did close to me keeping me company. He seems to always know what you need right now and I think that’s his most treasurable attribute.’ ‘Hooope he knows that with meee too, not just you. Wh-wh-what I told you, I won’t tell anyooone else.’

Nines risked a look to the side to Gavin, who had ducked his head in between his shoulders and fidgeted with a button on his shirt. ‘Hey.’ He stopped at a red light and was about to touch the android comfortingly, refraining from it last second as he remembered his reaction to that. ‘Hey, if it gets too much at any point, tell me. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.’ Gavin quickly looked out of the window and nodded, obviously embarrassed.

-

They arrived at a small house draped in tasteful Christmas decoration. Not too much and in exactly the right colours to make it feel cosy, warm and welcoming. Gavin stepped out of the car watching the lights and trying not to think of how he had lifted up the kids so they could help putting them up in their old home. They were fond memories made all the more sour by his loss. He knew his LED was likely red again, alerting the strange human that had picked him up of his  composure slipping, but if Richard noticed, he didn’t say anything, just walking ahead and smiling back at him as an invitation to follow him. Gavin swallowed and hastily walked through the snow to the freed path leading to the door. Nines was already standing there, hand hovering over the doorbell.

‘Richard!’ The door was almost ripped open by someone who looked exactly like the other human, maybe an inch smaller and a lot more expressive. ‘You came!’ ‘I promised, didn’t I?’ Connor hugged the other human and grinned from one ear to the other. ‘Yes of course, but still!’ Only then did he turn to Gavin, who was awkwardly standing half behind Richard and watched them. It was hard to blink away the warning popping up over and over again. Connor moving towards Richard. Threat. Warning. Richard returning his hug, the arm passing through Gavin’s personal space at that. Warning. Threat. Connor turning around. Threat. Run. Gavin didn’t know since when he was stuck in this analysis mode, but he was sick of flinching and glitching at any movement. ‘This must be your plus one?’, he asked Richard with a wink and held out a hand towards Gavin. ‘Hello, I’m Connor.’ Gavin couldn’t suppress taking a step back. ‘I-I-I’m Gaaavin’, he said, cursing his voice box for glitching now out of all times. Connor let his hand fall, but smiled at him, completely ignoring his stutter and hangers. ‘Hello Gavin, nice to meet you! Merry Christmas! Come in, you two! Hank’s getting out the food already!’

They followed Connor in and got rid of their shoes, before entering the living room. Connor instructed them to sit down and hurried into the kitchen to help Hank. When the larger android came to greet them, Gavin dared to relax a bit. He was deviant too, sending a friendly greeting ping to him. He looked gentle, trusting and didn’t have any marks on him. Hank put down plates for Connor and Richard, while Connor came back with two mugs of warmed Thirium for the androids as well as blue tinged cookies. ‘Can you eat?’, Hank asked him then. ‘You are an older model, right?’ Gavin nodded. ‘I am. B-b-but I caaan eat. I g-g-got the upgrade when Kathy- I got the upgrade.’ Hank lifted a brow at the errors and swallowed sentence, but otherwise didn’t mention it. ‘Then I hope they taste, Connor made them. He has no talent.’ ‘Excuse me?’, the human answered, elbowing Hank. Gavin expected damage, but it was a friendly gesture. ‘I can cook great.’ ‘Yeah’, Hank countered. ‘If you count heating up frozen pizza.’ ‘Hey, that’s all I can do, too, so I’ll side with Connor here’, Richard laughed. ‘What’s your verdict, Gavin?’

He looked into the other’s faces, still overwhelmed by it all. Instead of answering, he took one of the cookies and nibbled on the edge. He hadn’t really eaten much since he had gotten the upgrade and his tank didn’t allow for more than one meal anyways. It tasted… sweet. The texture was interestingly grainy and gave in to force easily. Not able to stand being stared at any longer, he just shrugged and said: ‘It tastes good?’ ‘See!’, Connor grinned. ‘Gavin likes it. I can’t be that bad then!’ ‘Or your recipe was good.�� ‘Or he did something wrong and accidentally saved otherwise horrible cookies.’ Connor crossed his arms. ‘Oh, shut up, Nines, try baking something you can’t even try because it’s literal poison for you!’ Richard laughed, and it eased the mood into simpler waters.

They continued talking for a while exchanging about what they had been up to lately. Gavin listened, but was content not to be involved at all, eating the cookies Connor had prepared. He actually liked them a lot and it was quite relaxing to just munch away on them. ‘And? How did you two get to know each other?’ He froze, sharing a look with Richard. ‘Errr…’ ‘Do you know that red light at the corner of that mattress store?’ Connor frowned, then nodded. ‘Yeah, you have to wait ages until you can drive on.’ ‘Somehow timing was perfect, and we saw each other every day when my shift ended.’ He looked over to Gavin and he nodded, thanking him inwardly to not tell them his whole life story. ‘Today I decided to talk to him.’ Connor looked over to Gavin disbelievingly. ‘My brother spoke to you first?’ Gavin huffed. ‘Y-Yes, he did. I-I-I lost my family because of the revolution. Had nowhere to go. He invited me to come with him.’ ‘So you really aren’t more than strangers’, Hank asked. ‘Kind of?’, Gavin shrugged. ‘But Richard seeeems like a nice g-g-guy and I don’t have m-m-much to lose.’ Connor swallowed. ‘I’m sorry to hear that’, he said. ‘You are welcome here any day if you need a place to stay.’ The android ducked his head, blushing. ‘Richard offered that already and I agreed to try it out.’ That shifted their attention towards the man completely.

‘Nines, are you ill? Initiating conversation, bringing someone for dinner and inviting them into your home?’ ‘Fuck off, Connor, seriously. Call it a Christmas miracle.’ Connor shook his head. ‘Would be one hell of one.’ Richard threw him a look and laughed. ‘Connor, just because it’s rare it doesn’t mean it never happens.’ ‘It was awkwaaard as hell too’, Gavin added carefully. ‘Have to admit I thought he was some sort of weirdo first.’ Connor smiled as Nines rested his hand on his arm. ‘Okay, that sounds more like my brother.’

‘Really? A weirdo?’, Richard asked Gavin. ‘I thought aaaaafter our last talk you appreciated h-h-honesty.’ ‘Yeah, okay, but you don’t just tell someone they are a weirdo.’ ‘It’s the truth.’ Richard sighed. ‘I don’t think you are oooone now th-th-th-though’, he added. ‘Thanks, at least there’s that then…’ Richard looked up at Connor. ‘What?’

The other human was grinning at them both and tried to hide it badly. ‘I’m happy, Nines. Really. I’m glad you both are here today. Come on, let’s watch a movie and then presents!’

-

The longer they spent at Connor’s house, the more at ease Gavin felt. No one asked him about his past or why he was malfunctioning all over. It surely was a question that burned in their minds, he could feel it, but they consciously didn’t question him. He was just being accepted as a part of their Christmas celebration as if he hadn’t just been picked up from some scrapyard and put into nice clothing. It felt like he… Like he had been here last year and the year before. Almost like… like he belonged. Like a family. He just had to reach out a hand and take the chance Richard had offered him and all of this would turn from pretend to reality. It was weird thinking about it, especially when every connection to the word family brought up memories of loss and grief about old happiness.

But was it wrong to want this again? To wish for another chance at building new memories? He looked at Richard from the corner of his eyes. The man was completely fixed on the TV in front of them, body relaxed and close to him but far away enough not to impose or cause stress. Gavin swallowed and looked over to Connor and Hank on the other couch under a blanket lying close, Hank holding the human and caressing his hair. He could have this again. This casual comfort, these caring touches, this feeling of safety and belonging. The home he had lost and tried to build for himself in that scrapyard could be his again, if he just allowed to let it happen.

He swallowed and pressed his eyes close to block out the warnings of threat, warning, run, danger. Then he scooted over slowly until he hit Richards warm ribcage. He felt the other shift around his frozen body, then an arm was draped around his shoulders carefully. ‘This too much?’, Nines whispered near inaudibly over the movie running and Gavin shook his head. No, he wanted this, he just had to get over his own barriers. A few minutes later, he tried opening his eyes again and was surprised his systems weren’t bombarding him with errors. Instead, his status box read safe and Richard’s body was marked as friend/ally. Gavin sighed deeply, dropping into the carefree touch completely.

When Richard dared to look down the next time, the android in his arm was smiling just the slightest and his LED was circling somewhere between blue and yellow – the calmest he had seen Gavin so far. By the end of the movie, Gavin wasn’t moving anymore, the LED pulsing slowly. Nines looked over at Hank questioningly and the android nodded. ‘He’s in stasis now.’ ‘Wow’ Richard said with raised brows, looking down on the sleeping android. Connor sat up and threw them their blanket. ‘You can stay the night if you want. Guess I have to call you Tens now’, he joked. Nines huffed and answered deadpan: ‘Do that and I’ll stop talking to you to go back to Nines.’

[>next part]

[septiembrre]

Get to be mine: 4, 8, 9, 12

4. What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

I’ll pick a Ch 2 goodie: 

“So, then what are our other rules for touching?”

His eyes travel down her frame, what’s visible behind the counter at least. “Like if I can touch your—“

“No!” Beth says, exasperated.

Quickly, he backs off, playing faux-chivalrous, “Oh, so you just mean holding hands and whatnot?”

“Yeah.”

Rio’s eyebrows scrunch together and he slowly shakes his head at her in disbelief.

Beth’s voice comes out embarrassingly small. “You don’t want to hold hands?” 

“Yeah, you can hold my hand.” He says it like the most obvious thing in the world. Beth flings her gaze out into the storeroom, willing for some supernatural force to spirit her away.

“Okay.”

“O-kay.”

They’re back to awkwardly nodding in silence. She looks back at him. At this point, eye contact is still really too much for Beth to handle, but she refuses to look away again. 

“You can also touch my--“ Her eyes dart down to her hips. “You know. If you insist.”

Rio’s back to biting his lip. The expression on his face is amused? Pained? Beth can’t quite say.

“‘Kay. You can grab my ass, too.” Beth squawks. “Y’know, so it’s fair.”

She eyes him reproachfully. “Fine. I will.”

Look y’all, I know what show I’m watching!!!  But, can they please have a normal-person conversation about boundaries oh my god. Not that the above is a normal-person conversation. My larger scale point is that this lack of boundary articulation really came to bite Beth in the ass in Chapter 4. 

8. Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

My OC Marjorie is absolutely based off of someone I’ve met in real life who went to law school, hated being an atty and then became a pretty successful romance novelist. IRL Marjorie is in fact the coolest human. 

The grief subplot in the story is also inspired by losing my grandmother last year. It was an expected loss — one my mom and I had anticipated for years — but of course, despite bracing for it, her death was still somehow sudden and her passing really reconfigured the dynamics our family. I wanted to write about exploring the way relationships shift after a family member dies, the way that this part of life is really normal, but also really sucks, and how complicated it is for individual family members to process grief differently. 

Lol, GTBM isn’t that deep or anything, but it is fun to play around in that space for the scenes the OCs are “on screen”. It was really born out of… how do I not make this boring for myself to write? And I hope it’s interesting for people to read!

9. Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

The idea was always that Beth was going to get her hands on a printing press and there would be fake dating. 

My first idea was that Beth would buy the press from a community printing press going out of business and the fic would explore the repercussions of lost community space, Detroit as a location was going to be more of a presence, and Beth navigating to be a responsible business owner while also doing her shady dance with Rio. In that version, Rio was going to be playing up his art heaux-vibe to scoop the press (and he was going to win the bid). It was also going to explore the history of community presses as feminist, queer and POC spaces and ~intersectionality. But navigating that and the crime plot was Too Much. 

I like what I went with — its themes feel more closely aligned with the show. 

I also wrote this excerpt below as the first thing for the fic. I ended up retooling some of it for the first kiss that actually appears in GTBM. 

She turns what she knows what Annie calls her Bambi eyes at him, can’t help but beseech him. She pulls herself flush to his chest and gingerly threads her hand at nape of his neck - like before. 

She can’t read the emotion on his face. His whole body is tense. 

Beth dully notes that this might be what finally gets him to shoot her. 

She follows her fingers as they trace his cheek bone, his jaw, the cleft at his chin, and then his lips, playing her bit. A few inches from his mouth, her gaze darts back up to him and she murmurs. “I’m sorry.”

Like most of their interactions these days, she can’t tell if he’s pissed, bored, or… or if he wants it. 

It makes her pause.

“May I?” Anyone else in the room would think it was a whispered nothing. She’s violated so many of his boundaries and the thought of how much he might not want this makes her feel sick. 

She wants to save their lives. She wants to keep them safe. She wants them to win. She wants them to be a team. 

He eyes her steadily. “Go for it.”

Well. Fuck it. 

She brings her lips to his.

She had only ever kissed him that one afternoon. She had tried to quash the feelings of that day down deep inside her. But, sometimes she would find herself in the middle of a thought and there would be an echo of his lips against hers, a hand tugging at her hips, another gripping at her ass, the firm heat of him pressing against. 

 On days when she was alone, her husband at work, left unsatisfied, she touched herself thinking about what it would be like to kiss Rio again. She had imagined something furious, angry, biting, nothing quite so soft. 

12: What do you like least about this fic?

I’m getting in my head about making sure that it’s “good”. 

I’m writing GTBM to:

1. Become a better writer. 

2. To get the experience of taking a daydream and fleshing it out into an absurd, lovely fanfic novel. 

3. To have fun while hanging out in my house during the pandemic. 

4. To keep myself busy and my partner company as she slogs through 70+ hour workweeks. 

However, because I am spending so much time with this story, I am also putting a lot of pressure on myself to create some sort of idealized, “perfect” fic. I want people to like it. I want it to be 100% clever. But, this is the first time I’m tried long format and engaged with writing a meatier plot, multiple arcs, and utilizing a cast of characters — it’s not going to be perfect but it’s still a worthwhile endeavor. 

But I spend a lot of time thinking: Is this good enough? The question is healthy to a certain degree — editing is a necessary skill. But, I have a hard time remembering it’s not going to be perfect and it doesn’t need to be perfect. 

[marawritingstuff]

ASHES

Gwen twisted her finger in her short black hair.  Normally, she loved the 500-mile drive from St. Louis to Detroit, the fields filled with horses and cows. Except on holidays, few cars cluttered the highway until she got close to the city.  She cherished her visits to her Aunt Ann with her oversized sweaters and non-stop cups of tea.    Aunt Ann wasn’t her destination today.

           Four hours on the road signaled the half-way point.   She pulled her rusty Camry into a rest stop.   Time to get, yuk, vending machine burning coffee to keep her awake for the rest of the ride.    Gwen even missed her boring job of entering columns of useless data, anything but visiting someone she was supposed to call “father.”   She downed the rest of her coffee and made her way back to the car.

           It had been more than twenty years since she had seen her father, and that was merely a glance across the room at her cousin’s graduation.    The situation was a dire one now.   The diagnosis of Stage IV lung cancer left only one outcome.   He squandered his life on two or maybe three packs of cigarettes a day.    Was it the guilt from what he did?   No, Gwen thought to herself, the man she knew felt no guilt.

           Dang.  She almost missed her exit.   Bringing her thoughts back to the present, she turned off the interstate and made her way to the medical center.   Due to all the problems with Aunt Ann, she was very familiar with Henry Ford Hospital, so it didn’t take her long to find the information desk and the bored volunteer behind it.

           “What room is James Harper in, please,” Gwen inquired.

           “OH! Are you family?”

           “Yes, I’m his daughter,” Gwen said, sighing to herself.

“He is in intensive care, room 201,” the flustered volunteer proclaimed.  “You will

need to stop at the desk at the ICU to gain access.  Do you need directions, I can . . .”?

           “No, I know my way,” Gwen said, already making her way down the hallway.

As instructed, Gwen checked in at the ICU and strolled to her father’s room.  She felt like covering her nose from the antiseptic smell of the hospital but thought twice.

           As she entered the room, she saw a thin figure laying on the bed hooked up to five or six machines. She supposed the purpose was to keep him alive.  She stifled a laugh when she caught sight of the thin frame in the bed, never remembering him under 300 lbs.  Though it disgusted her, Gwen sat in the chair next to her father.

           Within minutes, a nurse came bounding in.

           “Ms. Harper?”

           “Yes.”

           “A doctor will be in to speak with you in a few minutes,” she said, her body shaking at every word.   If the staff only knew how she really felt.

           “Thank you.”

           She continued to look at her father.   She wondered if he could hear her.  The relevancy was immaterial.   There were no more chances for confrontations.

           “O.k., asshole, the time has come. Forty-years later for you to pay.  No last rites for you. I may have only been five, but I know everything that happened that day.”

Gwen was transported back to her five-year-old self. On that snow bound day when

everything changed.  Six feet of oppressive snow trapped Gwen’s family in their tiny three

bedroom home.  The portrait of her family was the usual one; nine-year-old brother Luke watching tv, Dad eating a sandwich on the couch, mom outside working, and Gwen in the corner trying not to make noise.  Hours passed when Mom came in, tears streaming down her face.

           “What’s wrong with you,” Gwen’s father bellowed, his face scrunched up.

           “I can’t shovel anymore.  My back and my hands hurt so much.”

           “The driveway isn’t uncovered yet.”

           Gwen’s mom started to ball.   Gwen didn’t think she would ever stop.

           “Fine.   Give me that stupid shovel and I’ll do it myself.”

           Gwen’s father stomped out of the house.   Luke and Gwen ran to the window waiting for the emanate eruption.      As her father started shoveling, Gwen noticed a strange black figure coming down from the sky.  

           “Luke do you see,” pointing to the figure.

           “Stop making up stuff again, stupid head.”

           This was not the first time Gwen had seen things that others had not. Before she had time to consider the figure further, her mother let out an ear-piercing screech.  Their gaze turned to their father, now laying on the hard ice.  None of them wasted time getting to his side.

           The deep groaning.  Their mother’s scream. Her brother’s crying. These would be imprinted on Gwen’s memory forever.  But above all was the black figure descending upon them.   As it came closer Gwen recognized the shaped as a coal black angel, with wings spanning twice the size of the already seven-foot body.

           “I need to speak to your father, little one, “it said to Gwen, in a voice that shook the child.

           “I’m too scared.”

           “Shut up Gwen, we are all scared,” her mother screeched.

           “I’m talking to the black angel.  He wants to talk to Dad.”

           “Not your stupidness, now,” her mother said, tears running like a river.

           Gwen’s father’s eyes grew large.  It was then that Gwen knew he could see the angel, too.  

           “YOU’RE DEATH AREN’T YOU,” he cried.

           The black angel looked at Gwen and repeated:

           “He can’t hear me.  You have to talk for me.”

           “WHAT, I CAN’T HEAR YOU,” Gwen’s father squealed again.

           “I can hear him, Dad,” Gwen said, shaking, waiting for her father’s response.

           “Well, tell me fool.”

           “You are going to die now.”

           Gwen repeated the angel’s words and her father burst out in tears.

           “But you can sacrifice two for one.”

           Gwen tried her best to repeat again, though she didn’t understand the word “sacrifice.”     “I don’t understand,” her father said through the tears.

           “Choose two to take your place.”

           Gwen barely finished when her father began to shout out.

           “Take the girl and my wife.”

           Her mother, who had thought her husband was hallucinating, jumped in.

           “Take me where,” she began to ask.

           However, before she finished her thought, the angel swiped her mother into his large black wings and held her tight on one side.

           The angel reached for Gwen.

           “I never wanted that stupid child anyway,” her father said.

           “Do you truly want to make a sacrifice,” the angel said, and Gwen repeated.

           “YES.  YES,” My father shouted.

           The angel turned away from Gwen and swiped up her brother in its other wing.

           “What are you doing, take the girl,” her father shouted.

           “Only something you care about can be a sacrifice.”

           Gwen repeated to her father.

           Before he could say anything more, the angel closed his wings, and what once was Gwen’s mother and brother turned into ashes.  The black angel skyrocketed into the air, back where it came from.

           My father got unto his knees.  Perfectly fine but sobbing uncontrollably.  

           “My boy, it took my boy, and left me the little bitch.”

           The story simply became that Luke and her mother were lost in the storm.   For some reason, the police never really questioned the ludicrous explanation.   It became apparent that her father had no interest in taking care of Gwen and she spent the rest of her juvenile years living with aunt Ann.

             Now she was here, watching him die.  

           “Help me,” he whimpered.

           “Help you what,” Gwen asked.

           Gwen turned her head to the end of the bed already knowing what she would find. The black angel.

           “Hello, old friend,” Gwen whispered.

           This time she only got a nod.

           “Sorry, old man, there is no help for you this time.”

           Gwen slunk back into the chair and waited.  And waited.  Deep into the night, an unidentified doctor came in and told her some sob story about them doing “everything possible.”  

           Then it happened.   He began gagging.  All the machines seemed to go quiet.   The nurses came in, giving their apologies.   Then asking what she wanted to do with her “father.”

           “Burn it,” Gwen declared, winking her eye at the soaring Black Angel.

[shewritestheblues]

the Elevator Bae - 13

Chapter Thirteen

Erik Stevens x Black OC (Phoenix) 

A/N: This series is almost to its end. I will be ending with Chapter 15. Thank You so much to everyone who has read and shared this story. I adore all of you soooooo much :)

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

How did two months go by so fast? Tour was coming to an end and It was bittersweet for Phoenix. She was able to finally see just how many people enjoyed her music and travel alongside one of her greatest friends but she missed Luna. She missed Erik? That’s been the confusing part. She didn’t really miss him but seeing how he’s been with Luna has warmed her heart. He’s been sending her videos and pictures daily. His bright smile seems to light up her world when she FaceTimes him to see Luna.

The closer she’s been getting to the last performing date, the more her anxiety has been surfacing. Since Erik’s been back, it was dropping Luna off because she had rehearsals and meetings and then tour. (A week during tour, Erik flew in to Detroit for Phoenix to have Luna while she visited family and he was on his way back to LA.) Their only interactions have been for Luna and they were good with that. She was good with that. There wasn’t any time for anything else. But soon, the tour will be over and she’ll be taking some time from work. Will things change? Have they already started to change?

Phoenix knew she was sure that this is what she wanted. For them to only focus on their daughter. All of these thoughts were swimming through her pool of a mind. Currently sitting in her hotel room, reading the comments under Erik’s latest IG upload weren’t helping. He just posted a picture of him and Luna while they were out. He had taken her shopping with him and snapped a picture of them in the dressing room mirror. It was the cutest picture. Luna looked unbothered while looking at the phone through the mirror. This kid had so many moods to be new here. Phoenix’s mom joked that Luna’s been here before.

Phoenix found herself smiling at the caption.

‘Luna ain’t having it with you hoes today.’

Erik’s captions were always… very Erik. And the comments full of women that Phoenix assumed were from Erik’s past or women who dreamed of being a part of his future.

‘She’s beautiful Erik.’

‘I still can’t believe Erik Stevens is somebody’s daddy.’

‘Lol, she’s so cute. Does she need a brother?’

‘Damn E. You make beautiful babies.’

‘Call me, E. 😘’

Phoenix wasn’t jealous. He was single. This was her decision. But sometimes, she hoped he would post something about her. Well, you know, because she is Luna’s mother of course. Maybe a shoutout?

No, no. She caught herself. She didn’t actually need that. Everyone following Erik knew who Luna’s mother was. Phoenix was fine. She. Was. Fine. These feelings? These thoughts? They will pass. So, she exited the app. It was time for rest and rest is definitely what Phoenix needed.

—————

Everything was… okay! Phoenix had worked herself up and things between her and Erik were good. They had the perfect schedule since she’s been back home. Erik would have Luna every other weekend. He’d come over to spend time with her during his ‘off days.’ They’d joke like old times. Even Ava had warmed back up to Erik. Of course things could never be what they used to be but this was a good start to making their situation feel somewhat normal.

“So tell me Phoenix, how has your transition back home been?” Dr. McKee wasted no time. She was eager to hear how Phoenix had been managing on her own.

Phoenix didn’t go back to therapy right away when she came back home. She figured she would take some time to test the waters and see if she would handle things with the methods she’s learned.

Releasing a deep breath, “Everything is good.” Phoenix finally says. “I’m happy.”

A genuine smile grew onto Dr. McKee’s face. “That’s amazing Phoenix. I’m honestly so proud of you.”

“Thanks. I’m proud of myself too.”

“So,” Dr. McKee paused, “What made you want to come in today?”

“I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m supposed to be using this time off to relax but I can’t. I feel like I should be doing something. Too much down time makes me think and when I think, I overthink. When I overthink, I get antsy. Then I feel anxious. Which only leads to a panic attack. I just don’t know what to do with this energy.” Phoenix stops herself to take a deep, calculated breath.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Did I make the right choice— No! I know that I did but…” Phoenix trails off.

“But what?”

“Luna loves him so much. The way she lights up when she sees him. She deserves to be that happy every day. I want her to feel what I feel. I’m happy.”

“Sounds like you’re trying to convince someone of that.”

The way Phoenix rolled her neck, she felt offended. How dare her own therapist insult her like this? Phoenix was happy! She didn’t have to convince anyone. She rolled her eyes at the idea. The nerve of this highly educated woman.

“I’m not trying to upset you Phoenix. I’m just trying to understand.”

“So are you saying I don’t make any sense right now?” Phoenix snapped back.

Cool, calm and collected, Dr. McKee blinks, “I’m not saying that at all. You make perfect sense. I just want you to share as much as you can so we can get to the root of what brought you here today.”

Phoenix closed her eyes and chewed on her lip. She internally chastised herself for being snappy. “It’s just,” she slowly began, “the way he looks at me with those puppy dog eyes. Even when he’s laughing, his eyes are saying something else. Like… he’s trying to slowly drown me. When he looks at me, his eyes linger like they’re trying to get me to catch on to something.”

Phoenix opens her eyes and focuses on the floor. “I’m not changing my mind. He’s always been a smooth operator but unfortunately for him, I know that. He doesn’t get to come around and make me feel guilty for choosing what’s right for my baby.” Phoenix paused. “Our baby.” She whispered that last part.

Dr. McKee takes some notes. She opens her mouth to speak but Phoenix beats her to it.

“I understand. I really do. Erik wants to give Luna the family experience. I want that for her too. But the family we’ve all created for her is fine.”

“I agree, Phoenix. So many of us get caught up in the idea of a traditional family. But family is whoever loves you unconditionally. From what I know, you, Erik, Coby, Ava and the entire tribe you guys have around you love Luna beyond this world. That’s more than enough. You’re a great mom. Great moms make tough decisions every day, but great moms also know each decision is for the greater good of their family.”

Phoenix smiles. It feels good to hear that someone sees you and your hard work and the sacrifices for what they are. Dr. McKee was right. They may not be the traditional family, but Luna is still surrounded by a loving tribe that is unique to her.

“But,” Dr. McKee continues, “you can’t attach yourself to Erik and what he may be feeling about this. You’ve made yourself clear what you wanted. You’re happy and Luna’s happy. There’s no need to ruffle anymore feathers here.”

Dr. McKee turns to her laptop and begins typing away on her keyboard. After a few clicks, she turns to Phoenix again.

“I’ve emailed you a list of things that could help you during your free time. I want you relax and enjoy this time off as best as you can before it’s time to get back to work. You deserve it.”

“I’m going to my best.”

—————

Phoenix wasn’t in a rush to leave the parking lot of Dr. McKee’s office after her session. She sat in her car going over the list in her email.

Ways to Relax Your Brain:

-Workout.

-Take an art class.

-Plant a Garden.

-Read some good books.

-Get out in Nature.

Phoenix wasn’t gifted with a green thumb, so gardening was out of the question. She works out pretty consistently, but it hasn’t worked out with calming her thoughts so that one is scratched off. Art class felt like work and books? She’s read every book that resides in Coby’s house. She was tired of reading. Looks like getting out in Nature would be worth a shot.

She’s always loved the beach but she couldn’t remember the last time she’s been to a beach.

—————

Phoenix found herself in a very familiar spot. A picnic table on the beach, watching the beach goers enjoy themselves. The waves look beautiful as they rolled in onto the sand. The sounds of splashing seemed more soothing than Phoenix ever realized. Time seemed to be passing so slow. Everything in the world has come to a calming pause. Her mind wasn’t racing. Her heart wasn’t pounding. Tranquility was all Phoenix could come up with to describe this feeling. She had no worries, no fears, no anxiety.

The sounds of an ice cream truck moving through the parking lot near her, caught her ear. The thought of eating something sweet without her infant bullying her into sharing seemed like a great win. She stood from her seat and seemingly floated to the truck.

“Hello, what can I get you?” the older man inside the truck said with a contagious smile.

“Um,” she tapped her chin with her index finger, “I’ll go with chocolate on a waffle cone.”

“Coming up.”

Moments later, Phoenix exchanges her money for the ice cream cone and travels back to her spot at the picnic table. She picked up where she left off admiring all that surrounds her. She ate her ice cream with a pleased smile pinching at her cheeks.

The small vibration of her phone pulled her from her trance. Erik is facetiming her. She assumed he was calling to see Luna so she swiped to answer the call.

“Hey, E. I’m not with Luna right now.”

“That’s cool. I called to talk to you.”

“Oh, um, okay. What’s up?” This made her suspicious.

“The Outreach Center will be opening this Friday. We’re doing a whole big thing and uh, I wanted to invite you if you aren’t busy. Shuri told me that if I didn’t call you right now, she would never talk to me again.”

Phoenix was mid bite into her cone and almost dropped it from laughter. “Well, you know I have nothing to do. Tell Shuri that me and Luna will be there.”

“Alright.” Erik paused, eyeing Phoenix’s background through the phone. “Aye! You’re at the beach?”

“Yeah. I just needed a moment. Needed to get out of the house, I guess.”

“Everything’s alright?” His words were soft, genuine.

“Yeah, yeah. Everything is good.”

Erik didn’t believe her. He could tell something was bothering her but he didn’t want to push her. That wasn’t his place. Well not anymore at least.

“Well you know, no matter what, you can always come to me.”

“Yeah, E. I know.”

“Alright, I have some shit to get done before Friday. I’ll let you get back to your me time. I’ll text the details later.”

“K…”

“Kiss my baby for me when you get back home please.”

“I will.”

The call ends and Phoenix is frozen. Erik calls her while she’s sitting in the very spot he’d taken her when he needed to clear his mind. This use to be their spot. Her peace was broken then. Erik was everywhere. Even when he wasn’t there. She looked around and threw in the towel. Her time here was up. She finished her ice cream cone on her walk back to her car. She was ready to get back home to get her daughter.

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

The week had flown by. Phoenix was just sitting on Dr. McKee’s couch. She was just at the beach. But now, it was opening day for the Outreach Center. Phoenix couldn’t understand why she was feeling so nervous. She had this gut feeling that something was off. Her and Erik were good. She loved T’Challa, Shuri and Queen Mother and they all adored her. She wrecked her brain trying to come up with an answer.

Phoenix called her mom. She would understand and maybe help her with her feelings.

“Something just doesn’t feel right, Ma.” Phoenix props the phone up on her dresser while she gets Luna dressed.

“That’s your intuition, baby. If you feel like something ain’t right, it’s because something ain’t right.”

“But I don't know what it is. It’s driving insane.”

“The only way to find out is to go and face whatever it is.”

Phoenix finishes dressing Luna. She places her in her bouncer in front of the phone so that Luna can see her grandmother on FaceTime.

“Hey baby girl.” Phoenix’s mom dotes on the bouncing baby. “You’re looking more and more like your grandma everyday.”

Phoenix cuts her eye at the phone. “She looks like her dad.”

Phoenix catches her mom rolling her eyes.

“You can’t hate him forever, Ma. He’s going to be around for a long time.”

“I don’t hate him. I just think he’s stupid. Maybe if he pays for a round trip for me to go to Wakanda, I’ll forgive him.”

“Mom!”

“Those are my terms Phoenix and I ain’t changing them. Ain’t that right Lulu? Tell your stupid ass daddy to send me to Wakanda.”

“Alright Luna,” Phoenix picks Luna up, “Your grandma is on all bullshit today.”

“Hey! What your mouth around my grandbaby.”

In disbelief, Phoenix looks at the camera, “But you just said a bad word.”

“Ass isn’t a bad word.”

“Okay, ma. Whatever you say. We have to go so I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Alright. I love you.”

“Love you too.”

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

Phoenix was roaming the large, empty halls of the Outreach Center. She had been inside multiple times while dropping off Luna to Erik or picking her up. She had checked Erik’s office, looking for him but he was nowhere to be found. She was making her way back outside when she sees Shuri. 

“Shuri!” Phoenix stops her, “Have you seen Erik?”

“Philly! I’m so happy you’re here.” She pulls Phoenix into a tight hug. Phoenix embraces her back and their body’s rock. “I missed you. Hey Lulu.” Shuri adds pinching Luna’s chubby cheeks.

“I told you that you can over whenever.” Phoenix adjusts Luna on her hip. Luna was getting heavier every day.

Before Shuri could respond, she looks up and sees Erik walking straight toward them. “Oh there’s the little T-Rex.” She points in the direction of Erik.

When Phoenix turns around, Erik is walking with that famous dip. His dreads are back into a ponytail and he’s sporting a navy blue suit that’s tailored to perfection. He’s always had great style. The smile on Phoenix’s face slowly began to drop when she noticed the tall, curvy, well dressed woman walking alongside Erik. That uneasy feeling she felt when she was home crept up from her stomach and settled in her chest. She tried to control her breathing before it picked up. She wouldn’t allow herself to get worked up before knowing what was going on.

“There you are. Philly was looking for you.” Shuri says. She turns to Phoenix, “Come find me later. We have so much to catch up on.” Shuri walks off.

Phoenix isn’t sure what she’s supposed to do. She awkwardly stands there looking around to avoid looking at the woman standing next to Erik.

“Hey, Phoenix,” Erik grabs her attention and motions to the mystery woman. “This is Alicia. Alicia, this is Phoenix.”

Alicia sticks her hand out and shakes Phoenix’s hand. “Oh my goodness, you’re Phoenix? I’ve heard so much about you. Hey Lulu.” Alicia rubs her thumb on Luna’s arm.

Lulu? The only people who calls her Lulu are people who are close to her. It’s obvious that this woman has been around Luna a great deal.

“Oh…Hm. It’s nice to meet you.”

Her eyes bounce between Alicia and Erik a few times before they lock in with Erik’s. She can’t read him. These are not the same eyes he usually looks at her with. He licks his lips. This woman isn’t just a random woman that Erik decided to introduce to her. Something was up between the two of them.

Luna throws her body backwards trying to get to her dad. Erik scoops her up with one quick motion, taking her from Phoenix. He peppers kisses all over her cheeks before checking his watch. “We’re gonna miss the opening ceremony. We should get outside.”

“You guys go ahead.” Alicia says, “I have to use the lady’s room. I’ll catch up.”

“Okay. You know where to find me.” Erik says with a smirk. Alicia places a hand on his arm and walks off toward the restroom.

Erik and Phoenix began the journey outside to watch T’Challa give the opening ceremony speech. As they approached the big door that led out, Phoenix looked to Erik. “She seems nice.”

“She is.” Erik tries to bite back his smile.

“Good. You need someone nice.”

Erik stops walking. He was stunned by her words. How did she manage to put those pieces together? His words got caught and he struggled with a response. Phoenix picked up on his struggles.

“She called Luna, Lulu. That told me everything, Erik.”

He caught on. “I wanted to tell you before now, but I didn’t really know how.”

“It’s fine. As long as she makes you happy, there’s nothing to talk about. Things may not have worked out with us but I can see that you’re a better man. Someone should get to experience that.”

Phoenix doesn’t stick around to hear how he may react. She walks ahead leaving him and Luna and goes outside. Erik stood there processing her words. Alicia catches up to him. She could see that something had shaken him up.

“Erik, is everything okay?” her eyes searched him for any kind of answer. “Did something happen with Phoenix?”

He finally looks at her, “No, nothing happened. She just, uh, she thinks you’re nice.” A single dimple appearing.

A small smile forms on Alicia’s face. “So does this mean that I’m Phoenix approved?”

They laugh. He steps closer to her and plants a kiss on her lips. Alicia’s face goes red. “Not in front of Luna.” she plays.

Erik opens the door for them and they walk out just in time as T’Challa takes the stage.

As the day progressed, Erik was talking to so many people. He found himself explaining different parts of the Outreach Center over and over but he didn’t complain. Alicia stayed by his side, mingling while Luna bounced around between the two of them and Queen Mother. It wasn’t until T’Challa pulled Erik aside to ask where Phoenix was that Erik realized that he hadn’t seen her since their exchange. His eyes searched through the crowd hoping to see her somewhere. To his disappointment, she was nowhere to be found.

He texted her.

Erik: Hey, Philly. Where did you go?

Time passed and he never received a text back.

Phoenix’s thumbs hovered over her keyboard but she just couldn’t find it in her to say anything back. When Erik didn’t come outside for the ceremony right after her, she snuck out and left. Luna was in good hands and she just couldn’t stick around. She meant what she said. She really did see Erk for the better man that he had become. He was an amazing person and even more amazing father. It wouldn’t be fair for her to want him to not move on. Again, she reminded herself that this was best.

“Philly. Come get your glass.” Mica yelled from the kitchen.

When Phoenix got back home, she told Ava what had happened and Ava called Mica and Camren over for girl talk and wine. They were all between their third and fourth cups. Hours had gone by and Phoenix still couldn’t text Erik back. She just says “fuck it,” and tossed her phone on the couch and heads into the kitchen for her refill.

When Phoenix gets a hold of her assigned wine glass, she downs it in seconds. Her friends watch on in shock.

“Damn Philly, calm down.” Camren says.

“I’m grown, Camren. You don’t have to tell me how to drink some weak ass wine.”

Mica clutches her pearls. This isn’t like Phoenix at all.

“What’s wrong with you?” Ava asks. “Is this about Erik?”

Phoenix throws daggers at Ava with her heavy eyes. “Everything ain’t about Erik. I’m good.”

“You’re not acting good.” Mica adds.

Phoenix begins filling her glass up again. “Well since yall just know me so well, how am I acting if I’m not acting like I’m good?”

Ava snatches Phoenix’s glass. “You’re acting like you’re trying to drink your problems away.”

“I don’t have any problems to drink away. If I did, I’d be killing off something way stronger than wine.” she reaches for her glass but Ava pulls away.

“It’s obvious that this Erik shit is bothering you, sis.” Ava says.

Camren and Mica both nod in agreement.

Phoenix slams her hands down on the island counter. “Yo, fuck Erik. I don’t give a shit about what that man is doing. He’s moved on. He’s happy. I’m happy. Why are y’all holding on to this shit?”

“You’re holding on to it.” Ava yells. She’s fed up with Phoenix’s rudeness.

The gloss appearing over Phoenix’s eyes alerted her friends that she was struggling to hold back her tears. Ava reaches for her but Phoenix pulls away. She looks off at nothing when a few tears escape and flow down her cheeks. Her lips shake and she wraps her arms around herself.

“I don’t get why you’re torturing yourself. You clearly still love him.” Mica says.

“Yes!,” she aggressively wipes tears from her cheeks, “I still fucking love him, but this love ain’t mean shit. He doesn’t get to do this. He can’t just pop back up after all of this and have his life back like nothing happened.

“So,” Camren hesitates for a moment. “You’re punishing him?”

“I’m protecting myself.”

Ava steps closer to Phoenix in a nurturing way. “No, you are punishing him and yourself. Look at you. I hate what his stupid ass did just as much as you. But she’s right. We’re right. You're torturing yourself while trying to prove a point.”

“No I’m not!”

“You keep saying that he can’t do this.” Mica joins in again. “That he can’t just come back. But you can’t just pretend like you don’t care. It’s not fair to either of you.”

Phoenix doesn’t respond. She’s listening but she wishes that she wasn’t. They were right and she wishes they weren’t.

Camren breaks the silence. “We’re not trying to hurt your feelings Philly or piss you off in any way, but you can’t be hurt that he’s moving on when you’re the one that told him to.”

Mica interrupts, “So, either you can move on too or tell him how you really feel.”

The group of women notices Phoenix’s lack of responses. She’s in shut down mode. They didn’t want that but they couldn’t sit back and not tell their friend the truth about herself. Phoenix finally gets her hands on her abandoned glass of wine on the counter and downs it before silently walking away from her friends. She goes upstairs to her room. They give each other knowing looks. They would give her some time and they’ll go up to console her. Moments pass and they all suddenly hear the front door slam, scaring them. When the women rush to the door, they barely catch Phoenix just as she is nearing the end of the driveway.

Ava runs out toward the reversing car but Phoenix quickly shifts the car into drive and drives off.

“Fuck!” Ava yells. “We have to get Coby.”

[brokenjardaantech]

captain allen appreciation week 2020 day 1 + 7: vacation + acceptance

notes:

i combined day 1 & 7 as they happen to be the theme of the same story. it's also a prequel to a fic that i haven't written a word yet.

a little bit background since i think things can be confusing:

allen's full name is Louis White Allen. his dad's french and his mom american, though he's raised in alaska. his sister, anna allen, is a commissioned officer in the air force. the siblings speaks both english and french fluently.

sara ryder replaces elijah kamski as the inventor of androids.

this fic is set in september 2038, about a month after connor was first deployed at the phillips' hostage situation.

tags: griefing, family issues, brief mentions of childhood neglect and parentification

ao3 link if that’s what you prefer

-----

To this day, Lou's heart hammers when he sees a call from the military. Last time he received one was ten years ago, and he ended up with more questions than answers, answers that he knows he and his father very likely will not get in their lifetime. Staring at his phone vibrating on the coffee table, Lou debates whether to induce his cats' wrath - one sleeping on his lap and the other he hasn't stopped petting since they finished dinner - by standing up and interrupting their naps. It's not like he's at his full mobility anyways; his cybernetics still needs about half an hour to sync with his nervous system properly and to download the newest software. Whoever the fuck is in charge of calling the family of a soldier who went AWOL in Göttingen can wait.

It seems that the universe has other plans, as the air suddenly becomes charged with static and the phone launches itself towards Lou's chest. The tip of his fingers are numb, a common occurrence after his and his sister's unexplainable outbursts, but he manages to catch the phone before it hits his chest or, heaven forbids, his cat, who is startled awake and promptly returns to sleep after her favourite bed has no intention to move.

He accepts the call. 'Allen speaking. I don't think I have family members in the military anymore.'

'I don't know how many of yours are with us,' the voice from the other end lacks the robotic quality of an android's, so it seems the military is still using humans to contact family members, 'but this concerns your mother, Commander Deborah White. You're the only next of kin we can reach, Mister Allen.'

Lou does sigh. Just as he thinks he can leave her behind after all these years... 'What about her?' Not that he feels strongly that she was gone, as she wasn't quite there for her family to begin with, but something about a Commander going missing on the flagship of a fleet always sits wrong with him; as poor of a mother Deborah White was, a woman with her service record didn't deserve to simply vanish. 'I thought she went MIA more than twenty years ago.'

'She was until a few hours ago. I wish I can break it to you more gently but... we found her. Her remains, at least.'

The beat of his heart suddenly becomes too overwhelming. The air swells with the familiar buzz of static, and it takes all of Lou's self-control to not break everything in the living room with a shattering hazard. There is also the urge to hang up, to pretend that this is just one of those weird dreams he never can remember the details of, because he doesn't need to be burdened with a closure; he wasn't close enough to her to want that, he tells himself. Knowing that she's gone is enough. However, 'How?' is what he says in the end. He closes his eyes, free hand buried in his cat's fur, trying to convince himself that he is doing this for his father.

'Your mother's bones were found in a sealed compartment in the USS Blue Ridge when we were scrapping her. She must've been sitting there for years. Her skull indicates that -'

'Thanks, but I don't think I need to know that,' Lou swallows, willing himself to not think of the implication of an intact skull. It would've been a horrible way to die, sitting in cold seawater for days, feeling her skin rot away before dying of starvation; he'd rather her snap her neck upon impact and go painlessly. 'Anything more?'

'Yes. How would you like to deal with the body?'

Something tickles Lou's chin. When he opens his eyes, he finds the third cat trying to squeeze himself onto his already-occupied lap and purring as if having sensed the human's distress and wanting to soothe him. He recalls how his mother joked that she would probably die at sea and his father's reluctant acceptance of the entire affair; Papa's resignation after he received the news, saying, 'At least she got what she wanted.'

'She spent most of her life at sea,' he replies. No need to rub salt on his father's wounds. 'Let her rest there as well.'

'Very well. If you wish to, a memorial will be held in two months' time. Families of other deceased will attend. You may find support there.'

Support my ass, Lou thinks. It's been twenty-something fucking years. Yet, for some reason, he still promises that he'll consider going before hanging up. His finger hovers over his father's contact afterwards, but remembering that it's midnight in France and that he has a month worth of leave accumulated, he opens his browser instead and starts searching for plane tickets.

----

A month later, Lou finds himself in the commune of Gâvres with a large backpack on his shoulder and missing his cats very dearly. They aren't even his cats, technically; his neighbours keep them as outdoor cats, and Lou, unable to stand the thought of them suffering out in the winter cold of Detroit, took them in, and now they spend more time at his than at their original owners'. Having dropped them off at Hank's - that man takes better care of his pet (now pets) than himself - Lou isn't worried - he doubts his neighbours will even notice that their cats are gone. Emotions are terrible things, however, and the purpose of this trip alone makes it different from all the time he has visited his father before. At least he hasn't just recovered from nearly dying from implant rejection this time.

'Louis?'

Lou turns when he hears his father's voice and the awkward weight reminds him that he hasn't taken off his backpack yet and has been standing in the living room of his father's house staring at nothing for the past few minutes. Not waiting for his son to take it off, Papa Allen crosses the room and embraces Lou, sweat and all. 'How are you?' he asks in French, and when Lou answers truthfully in the same language, 'I missed you,' somehow everything in the world goes right again. Fuck the deviant crisis, fuck the android-infested America that makes his nerves buzz every single waking moment, fuck absent mothers still managing to make a comeback years after she died. He's just Louis Allen, absolutely not a SWAT captain, not the only survivor of the Blast, not the pioneer/guinea pig of CyberLife's groundbreaking cybernetics technology.

He has to let go of his father. 'I hope it's okay. What I did with Mom.'

Papa sighs. 'How about you take off that thing first,' indicating the backpack, 'and settle down for now.'

So Lou walks up the stairs and deposits his backpack in the room designated as his, and, catching sight of the other bed in the room, his legs suddenly feel weak, and he lowers himself, trembling, onto his mattress. Smart, fearless Anna, whose brain always runs - ran - a lot faster than the rest of the world.

Who graduated top of her class and as the Valedictorian of the academy, and subsequently disappeared without a trace.

His left leg twitches. The feeling of something foreign using his body returns, and when he leans forward - with a difficulty that wasn't there before - to take off his sock, it reveals white and grey chassis. A stark reminder that he owes her his life two times over despite her being the younger sibling.

‘How come I’m still alive?’ was the first question he asked after he regained his voice. ‘Ryder threw a fucking building on me.’

‘I dug you out, Lulu,’ replied Anna. ‘Freaky glowy telekinesis finally has its use. I was hungry for hours afterwards.’

At that moment, Lou made the mistake of looking down and seeing his pure white leg. ‘What the hell happened to my leg?’

‘CyberLife’s newest tech.’ As if to demonstrate how he should use his new leg, she gave his feet a poke, and Lou nearly screamed from the sensation. He did not expect to feel anything at all, but apart from the looks, the leg felt...real. ‘Fucking building crushed half your pelvis, your entire left leg and a rib. It’s already minced when I uncovered you, so they need to rebuild everything from scratch. I asked them to add something that can help you control the telekinesis better as well, so we’ll need to test it out later. No more randomly exploding shit. And before you ask, yes, your junk’s unharmed.’

Lou’s coma-addled brain struggled to process the influx of information, and all he got was, ‘I should’ve died.’

Anna hit the break to what seemed to be the beginning of a technical jargon-filled rant. ‘Well yes,’ she gestured just like the meme, ‘but you lived.’

‘No one survives after being crushed by a building, Anna,’ he said, voice rising. Then he asked in French since English felt too raw, ‘Exactly how much tech is in me right now? And how long was I out for? Why did CyberLife choose me?’

She looked away.

‘Anna?’

‘I don’t fucking know, okay?’ she replied in the same language. ‘You were on the brink of death when I dug you out, and there Ryder was, offering to save your life for no cost. You were in a medically-induced coma for one month and was out for reconstruction for another. It took your body two weeks to get used to the cybernetics and...here you are.’

‘Ryder offered,’ Lou said slowly, ‘to save me? As in Sara Ryder?’

‘Yes.’

‘Anna, she was the one who threw the building on me!’

‘I know. One more reason to let her save you.’

‘But you did it anyway.’

‘I did.’

‘Even though you know it’ll probably come back to bite our asses.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘You know the answer, Lulu.’

And Lou has stopped denying that he does a few years ago. Anna joined the Air Force to fly, to be closer to the sky, but he knows that it wasn’t enough; from the way she turned her eyes towards the aurora when they were young, the attention she paid towards all news related to space observation and exploration, to the talks about leaving the wasteland that is known as earth behind and finding a new home in the cosmos - Anna belongs to the abyss of space. The military was simply a stepping stone towards something greater, a greatness that she must be working towards somewhere on this god-forsaken piece of rock.

The place where Lou’s flesh meets his implants aches in anticipation of the storm that will no doubt force them to remain indoors for days. Grinding his teeth in the numbing pain, he uses his hands to put his non-functional left leg onto the bed and lies down sideways with his back towards his sister’s bed, his phone buzzing in his pocket to notify him of an unexpected software error that may take hours to fix. Switching on do-not-disturb, he shoves the offending piece of technology underneath his pillow and loses his fight against jet lag and pain.

----

Lou wakes up cold and hungry. He is covered by a blanket that wasn't there when he fell asleep, so his father must have checked on him when he realized that his son was doing more than putting down his luggage, and the dark sky outside the window almost brings him back again before it flashes.

Then the booming thunder reminds him that it isn't dusk at all.

He successfully rolls over on his other side, which means that his cybernetics are functional once more. Kicking the blanket away, he sits up and grimaces at the taste of his mouth.

He feels better after his regular morning rituals, though the lack of three furry friends harassing him and brushing against his feet is something that he'll need to get used to, and his father is cooking lunch when he reaches the kitchen.

'Morning, Louis,' Papa says as he hands the pan over to his son. 'What did they drag you through to have you sleep for so long?'

Lou is glad that he can use concentrating on not burning his food as an excuse to buy himself a minute. Should he tell his father the truth, or should he avoid talking about work just like many people do during their vacation? 'Things are getting bad in Detroit,' he decides in the end as going on a vacation at one's father's house isn't exactly normal either. 'Androids are breaking their programming and starts having their own thoughts. CyberLife's trying to cover it up, but I've dealt with enough violent deviants - that's what they're calling those androids - to know it's gonna be a problem real soon if they don't solve it now.' A pause to think of how to continue. 'I'm glad you're not in America anymore.'

'It must be exhausting,' is his father's reply, and that's all Lou needs to realize that his father has no idea what he's talking about. Then again, the man moved back to France before androids were a thing, and although they kept in frequent contact, Lou never talked much about his work; the police getting reformed means that SWAT is deployed only when peace is not the option - that means seeing people get hurt or die constantly. Androids aren't really a thing in Europe, so his father never experienced the 'androids taking over everything and making everyone lose their jobs' shit. He won't understand.

'That's why I'm here.'

They lapse into silence as Lou finishes cooking and empties the content of the pan onto two plates. Never one for formality, Papa brings them to the living room, sitting at the corner of a couch while Lou retrieves his plate and fork and curls onto the window sill. At this proximity, he can feel the raindrops hitting the glass as if he is standing in the rain.

Papa clears his throat. 'About your mother, Louis.'

Lou tears his eyes away from the raindrop he's betting on to win. He hastily shoved some eggs into his mouth to buy himself some time to mentally prepare for the conversation. 'What now?'

What he actually says isn't what Lou expected. 'I'm glad about what you did with your mother's body.'

'Her skeleton, you mean,' he replies. 'What's left of it anyways. I don't think they found the whole set.'

'Still,' Papa isn't looking at him. 'That's what she would've wanted. And by I'm glad - I'm not opposed to it.'

'That's it?' Lou turns back towards the rain. 'That wasn't your reaction when they told you that she was MIA.'

'I was young - younger - back then,' a sigh. 'It wasn't fair to you. Or to Anna. Especially to Anna. I'm sorry.'

No it wasn't, Lou wants to say, but - 'I've made peace with it a long time ago. Mom, me and Anna, Alaska; that was all you knew. I... I don't blame you for it.'

He has to close his eyes and press his forehead against the glass. He considers switching to German to further detach his emotions, but then he realizes that nearly everything has fled his mind from disuse. Why does he think spending his vacation with his father right after they discovered that his mother might have died painfully a good idea?

'That's what I thought I'd react when you called me, you know?' Papa says. 'I thought I'd break down. Then I realized that I've moved on and... that's it. Hard not to after more than twenty years.' Even with his vision gone, Lou can still feel his father's gaze on him. 'You've done that for your mother. Have you, for Anna? It's been ten years.'

'Have you, Papa?' Lou asks instead of answering even though he knows his answer. 'Can you stand the thought of your daughter gone as well?'

'After your mother?' the father feeds himself a mouthful of food and swallows. 'Kind of have to.'

'Of course you did. I raised her, not you.'

That is the last thing he says to his father before the storm goes away.

----

Emotionally exhausted, Lou goes to sleep early despite waking up not ten hours ago.

He knows he’s dreaming as soon as he opens the door and discovers his childhood living room behind it. The room is dark, so the lights must have been switched off, and even though it feels like he has smacked his hand all over the wall it’s on, he still can’t find the switch. It does bring him closer to the window, outside where a storm is going on at full force and paints everything white, and although he knows that what he is seeing isn’t real, he dreads the upcoming and necessary shovelling.

The world is suddenly lit up from behind him, followed by the voice of Neil deGrasse Tyson and the clicks of a keyboard. When Lou turns, Anna is there sitting in front of the couch, her brother's homework scattered in a semi-circle around her, and an old, bulky laptop snug between her crossed legs. It should have been a normal day in their house in Anchorage had Anna been a child but not an adult, which is the form Dream Anna is appearing in - she is younger than him by nearly eight years.

‘Where’s the light switch?’ Lou asks, looking around for good measure. ‘As much as you enjoy Cosmos, a documentary about space isn’t sufficient lighting.’

‘Relax,’ says Anna. ‘Eye problems aren’t in our genes.’ Then, waving at the papers around her, ‘Everything’s done. Your teachers didn’t suspect a thing,’ she gets younger and younger following each syllable until her age makes sense, ‘but you asked me to do it on a separate piece of paper, so I did. Feel free to copy directly if you wish.’

That is when Lou realizes that she’s playing games on the notebook, something that looks like a simplified version of Temple Run but set in space. ‘No thanks,’ he says. ‘I’d like to keep the creases on my brain.’ Then he notices that his sister didn’t really answer his question, so he asks again, ‘How am I supposed to switch on the lights?’

‘With your phone,’ is the matter-of-fact reply. ‘Don’t tell me you uninstalled the fucking app for cat pictures.’

‘For one last time, Anna, I don’t download cat pictures.’ And it hits him. ‘Wait, phone? The house isn’t automated when you’re at this age.’

‘Is it?’

Anna stands up and stalks closer to her brother, and she grows and grows and grows until they’re off the same height and she looks... older, how she should look like if she’s alive she’s still here. She is now Major Anna White Allen of the United States Air Force, dressed smartly in her dress uniform except for her cap, which she holds in her right hand. Their surroundings have also changed to that of the Phillips' penthouse terrace, harsh wind whipping around them.

'You aren't real,' Lou breathes, feeling light-headed. ‘You - you’re gone. Just like Mom.’

‘Open your eyes, then. End this early if you want to. Forget that this ever happened. I don’t mind.’

It is followed by a terrifying moment of wakefulness, the images blurring and then regaining clarity as he stays asleep. ‘And Papa wants me to let you go,’ he says with a sad chuckle.

‘Why?’

‘We found what’s left Mom. How long do we need to wait to find what’s left of you?’

‘Why are you talking like I’m dead?’

‘Cause you probably are, like Mom?’

‘I know you think we’re alike,’ an eye roll, ‘but we’re different.’

‘Say you’re not dead. Where the hell are you?’

‘Does it matter?’

A blink. They’re floating in space, Anna dressed in some form of armor, and Lou in normal clothes. He attempts to draw a breath and wakes up choking and crying, the dream completely forgotten save for the faint image of Anna falling towards earth and getting burnt to crisps.

----

A few days later, Lou finds himself walking on the beach with his father. The sky is cloudy and the wind is strong, so it is cool even though it’s September and Lou grew up in Alaska. They started throwing questions back and forth ten minutes into their walk, some of them silly and simple and give them a good laugh, but the others -

‘Answer me honestly, Louis. Do you think Anna’s dead?’

It is easy. ‘No.’

‘Where do you think she is, then?’

Lou’s face suddenly becomes too hot to bear. ‘Does it matter?’

‘If it affects you, yes.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it. She wouldn’t want us to speculate.’

‘But she’s not here, is she? Maybe you’ll feel better after you say it out loud.’

Lou sighs, oh how the turntables… ‘In space, probably.’

‘You’d think we’ll hear about that.’

‘Secret space programs exist, Papa.’

‘Not in America.’

‘I never said it’s an American program,’ Lou says as he kicks a rock away. ‘Do you know what they said when I received the first call from the Air Force? They asked me if Anna has ties with other space agencies even though she’s never been in NASA; she just talked about other countries’ space programs so much that they suspected her having ties with them.’

‘Hmm.’

‘What does that even mean?’

‘You know you won’t see her again, right?’

Lou halts his steps. Anna? Gone forever? ‘Does it matter?’

Papa sighs. ‘You’re in denial, Louis. You didn’t do this with your mother.’

How dare he - ‘Of course I didn’t, she was barely there!’ he has to put a few steps between them. ‘I raised Anna! How do you think that’s even comparable?’

‘I simply don’t want you to live in uncertainty for the rest of your life.’

‘You just don’t know your daughter,’ he counters. ‘She told me she’ll come back.’

‘You know -’

‘You don’t know shit!’

He runs. His lungs and legs are strained when he gets home, his father’s home, but he doesn't stop at that. He packs his stuff (not that there’s much to put back into his backpack), jumps into his rental car, and is back in Brest before he knows what he’s doing. His return flight is next week, so he has a lot of time to kill.

In the end, he takes a trip around the country alone, going to places he both never had time for and, if he’s been there before, misses dearly. He may have forgotten what they’ve talked about, but he remembers Anna visiting him often. The images flee his mind whenever he tries to recall them, but he doesn’t think they’re talking on earth, and he always wishes that he at least remembers some of it.

A few months later, he’ll learn that his speculations are closer to the truth than he thinks. A few months later, Louis Allen will prove his father wrong.

But he doesn’t know that yet. Therefore, after collecting the cats from Hank and unpacking his luggage, he takes all of Anna’s things and puts them into a box, telling himself that it is the first step towards admitting that maybe, it’s a big fucking maybe, he will never see his sister again.