#this video makes me sick I have to keep it in its own folder away from other videos to protect me

[fullmoon-fulllife]

uploading the full 12/1 ryoji event for my own sanity

[whump-a-la-mode]

Villainsicle | Part 10

Okay so I know I said I was going to write backstory. But hear me out. I forgot.

On this episode: Will Medic ever make a good choice. Will Villain ever get comfort? Like, ever? Probably not!

Taglist:

@whatwhumpcomments

@sola-whumping

@professional-idiocy

@trappedgoose-in-a-writblr-room

@literally-just-kirby​

@teachunks

CW//Superhero whump, villain whumpee, conditioned whumpee, drugging, dehumanization, restraints, muzzles, choke chains, collars, pet whump (kinda), conditioning, forced sedation, just an absolutely unhealthy amount of caffeine

Medic watched as Villain calmed.

They sat on a chair, a simple plastic one, near their patient’s bedside as the various scattered monitors reported on the situation. On the left, the heart rate monitor diligently beeped as a nervous, rapid heartbeat turned to one far more steady. On the other side of the room, the breathing monitor reported much of the same-- shallow breaths grew deeper, slower.

The doctor kept their gaze fixed on those displays until their readings were to their liking. Until they were certain that their patient was asleep.

They glanced over to the bed, in the center of the room. Its occupant’s skin was nearly pale enough to blend in with the white sheets on which they lay. Ever so slightly, they twitched in their sleep, struggling unconsciously against the padded restraints securing their wrists to the bed frame. Such a measure was likely unnecessary, but it meant that Medic had one less concern. Their already-weakened patient wouldn’t be going anywhere, not anytime soon.

With a sigh, they braced their hands against their thighs and stood.

They hadn’t been especially concerned about Villain’s escape in the first place. The captive had learnt their lesson from their earlier escape attempts, certainly, and their weakened, nervous state didn’t hurt. Besides, the base was built as a maze. Any escape attempt wouldn’t go very far.

This wasn’t about that, though.

Medic took one last glance at the monitors before pushing open the steel door to the room, not so much as bothering to lock it. It was late--far past midnight, at this point. Far past the hour at which the others retired to their quarters. The only other waking souls in the building would be the few scattered guards, and perhaps Leader, pacing in their office.

That wouldn’t be a problem, though.

Ensuring that their footsteps stayed quiet, Medic moved through the labyrinthine halls. They passed their quarters, and Leader’s office, moving further and further into the base’s core. They did not stop until turning down a barren hallway, at which point they at last halted, before a door marked with little more than a simple plate.

“Lab,” it was labelled.

It had been too long since they’d been able to visit. In the early days of the resistance, it was where they had spent nearly every last second of their time. Now, there were far too many injuries to treat. Far too many reports to make. They hardly had time to sleep, much less time to return to their old stomping ground.

Medic slid a key into the lock, and entered.

The room was barren. Other than the thin layer of dust that seemed to coat every surface, it was immaculately clean. Every last device had been put away, secured in the various meticulously labelled cupboards. The only object remaining on the tables was a computer-- a simple laptop.

The only thing Medic had taken with them.

They sat at a chair before the computer, prying it open. Some of the dust had even managed to sip in beneath the device’s lid, coating the screen and keyboard. A quick swipe of the hand sent it, flying off into the air.

The laptop groaned for a moment, fighting to start up. When, at last, it did so, a familiar screensaver illuminated Medic’s face.

“Property of Organization. Unauthorized Use Is Unlawful.”

It was almost nostalgic.

They entered their password, smiling as the desktop appeared before them, scattered with folders and files and memos. Selecting the right one was almost muscle memory.

Again, the computer whirred, struggling to remember the contents of the old file. After a few seconds of waiting, at last, the video sprung onto the screen.

Medic had no concern about Villain’s escape. No, they knew such a thing was impossible. This was why they had waited for them to fall asleep. So they wouldn’t see this.

It was going to be a long night, they knew that. The black coffee they had drank would ensure Medic would be awake for all of it-- the Secobarbital they had mixed in Villain’s food would ensure the exact opposite.

The video was old, its file having been passed between far too many computers and flashdrives. The quality was starting to fray around the edges.

Medic couldn’t care less.

They pressed play, and after a moment of digital whining, the first video began.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Counselor looked up as, with a thud, a cup was placed on the table in front of them. The smell of coffee overwhelmed their senses a moment later.

“It’s decaf.” Hero’s voice came. “You look like you could use the sleep.”

“Thank you.” Counselor smiled, picking up the still-scorching coffee and taking a sip, even as it threatened to burn their tongue. It was black, without a hint of sugar or milk-- not the way they usually took it, but right now, they could hardly care less.

Hero sat down across the table from them, a can of Sprite in hand, in place of his own coffee. Sweat glued their bangs to their forehead.

“You okay?” They raised a brow at Counselor.

“Hm? Oh. Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired.” They tried at another smile, though this one came off far weaker. “Where have you been? I’ve hardly seen you.”

“Leader’s had me off on missions. Four in a row. I’d be lying if I said I’m not tired, too.”

“You just got back from one?” Counselor guessed, raising a brow.

“How did you know?”

“You look like you just ran a marathon.”

“Oh.” Hero laughed. “Yeah... I guess. What, uh, what are you up to? Leader said you’ve been sitting here for like, three hours.”

“You talked to them?”

“Yeah? Is... there something up with that?”

Counselor shook their head.

“No. I’m just- I’m sorry. I’m just tired.”

“Maybe, then... It’s time to put the folders down and get some rest.”

Hero’s gaze turned to the manila yellow folders spread out in front of Counselor-- some marked with coffee stains on the edges.

“What’s in those, anyways?”

“Uh..” Counselor flipped through the folders; closing some, sliding them about, shifting papers between them, before finally flipping one of the folders around so that it faced Hero. “It’s about Villain.”

With those words, they flushed. They’d hardly been able to think about anything else but their captive, recently, and they had to admit that it was verging on becoming an obsession.

Hero pulled the folder closer, opening it and examining the papers within. There were hardly any. Most consisted of printed-out screenshots of security camera footage, or transcripts of radio communications, or emails.

“Leader isn’t really the record-keeping type.” Counselor began. “I think you know that. We have some stuff, though. Most of it is just kinda random, stuff we used once and then shoved in a box somewhere. This is all the records I’ve been able to find, about them. About Villain. We’ve only seen them a couple times, though... There’s not all too much to go off of.”

Hero furrowed their brow.

“Have you been able to find anything in these? I don’t, I mean I don’t want to be rude, but-- Counselor, these kind of all look like crap. There’s nothing here,”

Counselor flushed again, chuckling under their breath.

“I know. That’s the thing.” They dragged the folder back towards themself, flipping it back around. “I know we don’t really keep records, but, I thought there’d be something to go off of.”

“Is there something you’re... looking for?”

“I guess.” They closed the folder, putting it atop the rest of the manila files. “I mean, what do we know about them? Really. That’s not a rhetorical question.”

“Uhh...” Hero looked as though a light bulb had gone off above their head. “You have a good point. I mean... their name is Villain. They control technology. Uhh, they had people with them? Sometimes? Like, two of them.”

“And that’s it.” Counselor sighed. “We don’t know where they came from. We don’t know who they work for.”

“Do you...” Hero lowered their voice. “Do you think they work for Supervillain?”

“I guess it’s possible.” They dipped their head. “That’s the problem. We have no way of knowing. We don’t really know anything about them. I don’t... I don’t know how I’m supposed to help them. If I don’t know anything about them.”

“Help them?”

Counselor shook their head.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I- Help them with what?”

Counselor bit the inside of their cheek.

“They’re sick. Or something like that. There’s something wrong with them. They collapsed, the other day. Leader has given Medic full medical custody-- permission to do whatever they think is necessary. I want to help but... I don’t know how to help someone who may as well be a ghost.”

They’d expected a sympathetic nod, or some quiet words. They hadn’t expected Hero to push their chair back from the table.

“Well,” Hero began, “Who would know? Where do we start?”

“I-” The words woke Counselor up more than any coffee ever could. “I guess Villain would know. Unless they’re some kind of amnesiac, they’ve got to know their own past, right?”

“Right.”

“And then... Leader? Maybe? They seem to act so weird around Villain. Maybe they know something we don’t?”

“Makes sense to me. How about I talk to Leader, and you talk to Villain?”

“Well,” Counselor widened their eyes, averting their gaze, “I don’t know if Villain... I don’t know if they trust me. I don’t think they do. I can try, but...”

“Well, you won’t gain their trust by sitting here.” Hero raised a brow. “I’ll talk to Leader. You earn Villain’s trust. Okay?”

“Okay, uh, okay!”

The two stood at the same time. Counselor turned to leave, ignoring their coffee, but was stopped by Hero’s words:

“We’ll go do that, after you get some sleep.”

By the way they spoke it, Counselor knew that the demand was nonnegotiable.

“Fine.” They sighed. “Tomorrow, then?”

“Tomorrow. Sleep well, Counselor.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The video began.

Medic couldn’t say they recognized the person the screen depicted-- they had probably seen them before, once or twice, but their name eluded them.

They stood, straight-backed and grinning, in a room made of white tile on floor, walls, and ceiling. Their attire was confident-- they wore no armor or guards of any kind.

The only equipment they had was a leash.

The strip of leather attached to a collar-- one made of metal links, chained together, with inwards-facing spikes around the whole circumference. The choke chain was looped around the neck of a far less confident looking person, their jaw gritted against a muzzle and their eyes practically blazing with raging flame. The fact that their arms were tightly bound behind their back did not stop their attempts at struggling-- they yanked and growled against their bindings, despite wincing every time the spikes of the collar tore at their flesh.

“Hello.” The presenter smiled, as if they didn’t notice the grappling of their captive. Medic’s Latin skills were somewhat rusty, but they could still understand the speech, for the most part. “And welcome. If you’re watching this, then you have very likely found yourself assigned as a new handler for our Assets program.

Now, I understand that there has been considerable confusion regarding this program.”

The prisoner attempted to trip the presenter. A quick tug on the sharpened collar around their neck quickly stopped the attempt. Throughout, the presenter did not so much as break eye contact with the camera.

“The Asset program is a new endeavor. So far, we have had considerable success with various test cases. As such, Supervillain has advised that we expand our efforts.

As you are probably aware, the process of creating an Enhanced person is very complicated, and does not always work as planned. Unfortunately, not all those who go through the program end up being entirely themselves, or entirely loyal to Organization. Before, this was not a problem. However, now that we have lost the capability of creating new Enhanced, at least for the time being, we must work with what we have.”

With the hand that did not hold the leash, the presenter grabbed directly at their captive’s collar-- on the outside, where there were no spikes. They dragged them closer by their neck, until they were looking at the camera. The prisoner whined in pain against their muzzle, clearly struggling to breathe.

“Some of these Enhanced turn to our side easily, with enough incentive. Others, unfortunately, are far more stubborn. They are the focus of the Asset program.

Through the program, these unusable prisoners can be turned into valuable soldiers. Several victories have already been attributed to them.

I understand that this likely seems like quite the daunting task. But, in all truth, an Asset can be trained as easily as any dog. Through this video series, I will demonstrate how this can be done.”

With a smile, the presenter moved towards the camera.

“I’ll talk to you again in the next video. Bye!”

The video froze, and after a moment of whirring, another video appeared in its place. Medic clicked play.

[pinktwingirl]

Loki Series Rewrite (AKA Loki Series but with Squirrel Girl): Ep 1

Hey guys! Long story short, I wasn’t a fan of the Loki series, so I decided to make my own rewrite (including my favorite Marvel character, Squirrel Girl!) These are basically a collection of scenes that I would’ve either added or rewritten to improve the show. Btw, this is a continuation of my Endgame rewrite where Loki comes back to life after dying in Infinity War, so the Loki in this version is modern-day Loki, not 2012 Loki. Also, the whole Loki x Sylvie self-cest thing made me VEEERRRRY UNCOMFY, so I got rid of it. Their relationship is purely platonic in this. Anyways, enjoy! (This work is in screenplay format.)

INT. TVA - DAY

We pan through the TVA and see agents at work, checking timelines and watching training videos. We see various TVA posters warning about variants and "protecting the sacred timeline."

We then cut to RAVONNA RENSLAYER in her office. She is at her desk, sorting through files. Suddenly, an agent bursts in.

AGENT

Ma'am, we have a situation.

Ravonna follows the agent to a computer, where we see a timeline branching off from the main one.

AGENT

Is this the variant we've been searching for?

Ravonna glances at the computer and nods.

RAVONNA

About damn time...

EXT. CHICAGO BAR, 1986 - NIGHT

We see a woman with long, black hair and a green dress chatting with a man in a bar. The song "Devil Woman" by Cliff Richard is playing in the background.

MAN

Can I interest you in another drink, beautiful?

The woman lets out a flirty laugh and blushes.

WOMAN

Oh, you're too kind.

The man turns to the bartender.

MAN

Hey, can you get my girl here a...

(He turns to the woman.)

What can I get you, honey?

WOMAN

Surprise me.

The man turns back to the bartender.

MAN

You heard her.

The woman has a devilish smirk on her face as she watches them. The man turns back to her as the bartender starts mixing a drink.

MAN

You know, I feel selfish. I've been talking so much about myself, but I still don't know a thing about you.

WOMAN

Well... what do you want to know?

Suddenly, another man approaches them.

MAN #2

Hey, what do you think you're doing with my date?!

MAN

Your date? She's mine, asshole!

MAN #2

I caught her first!

(He turns to the woman.)

I'm sorry, honey, is this guy bothering you?

MAN

Bothering her?! You listen here, shithead-

He grabs the other man and they begin to wrestle with each other.

WOMAN

(Playfully)

Oh no, please don't fight over me...

As the men grow more violent, a bit of green magic shoots out of the woman's hand, causing the first man's wallet to fly into her grasp. She slips by the men, undetected as the bartender tries to break them up. Outside the bar, the woman walks off. With a smirk, she shifts into LOKI, now in his male form. He unveils the tesseract with magic and disappears.

INT. THE BENATAR - NIGHT

Loki reappears in the Guardians' ship, where Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy are waiting for him. Loki smirks.

LOKI

Another successful venture.

THOR

Did they fight?

LOKI

Like bilgesnipe.

Thor bursts into laughter, and Loki hands Rocket the wallet.

LOKI

I also got the wallet, as requested. Although, I don't think Midgardian currency will have much value on the far side of the galaxy.

ROCKET

Who cares about the money? I just wanted the wallet.

(He dumps out the dollar bills and admires the wallet.)

This is nice leather...

LOKI

Anyone else have any travel requests?

QUILL

Oh, I got a whole bunch.

NEBULA

Quit acting like children. An infinity stone is not a toy to be played with.

LOKI

Oh, please. The tesseract and I go far back. If anyone can control it, I can.

ROCKET

You know, I'm starting to think you've just gotten sick of being around us, and now you're just looking for an excuse to get away.

LOKI

I will neither confirm nor deny that.

THOR

By that, he means "yes."

ROCKET

That's pretty rude of you, grease weasel.

Loki scowls at him.

DRAX

Can you travel to Kylos? I would greatly enjoy having some trego fruit again.

LOKI

Certainly.

The tesseract starts to glow in his hands.

INT. TVA - DAY

The agent and Ravonna are still at the computer.

AGENT

He's using the stone again. He's going to time-jump.

RAVONNA

Block it. Intercept him.

The agent presses a button.

EXT. MONGOLIA - DAY

Loki crash lands in the Gobi Desert and wakes up, looking utterly confused as a group of villagers approach him.

VILLAGER

(in Mongolian)

Who are you? Why have you come to our home?

Loki raises an eyebrow and opens his mouth to respond. Suddenly, a portal opens and several TVA agents enter. They lean down to examine the tesseract, and Loki abruptly rushes over to them.

LOKI

Don't touch that!

The agents ready their prune sticks. Suddenly, HUNTER B-15 opens a portal and enters.

HUNTER B-15

It appears to be a standard sequence violation.

(She checks her tem-pad)

Branch is growing at a stable rate and slope. Variant identified.

LOKI

I beg your pardon?

HUNTER B-15

On behalf of the Time Variance Authority, I hereby arrest you for crimes against the sacred timeline. Hands up.

The agents activate their prune sticks.

HUNTER B-15

You're coming with us.

LOKI

I'm sorry, who's "us"?

Hunter B-15 activates her own prune stick.

HUNTER B-15

Last chance, variant.

Loki chuckles.

LOKI

Look, I don't know who the hell you seem to think you are... But if you don't mind, this is actually your last chance.

(Beat)

Now get out of my way.

Before he can attack, Hunter B-15 strikes him with her stick.

INT. TVA COURTROOM - DAY

Ravonna pounds her gavel.

RAVONNA

Next case, please!

Hunter B-15 forces Loki onto the stand.

RAVONNA

"Laufeyson"... Variant L1130, aka "Loki Laufeyson"...

LOKI

I prefer "Odinson," thank you.

After a pause, Ravonna shrugs.

RAVONNA

Very well...

(She crosses out "Laufeyson" on his case file and writes in "Odinson.")

Loki Odinson, you are charged with sequence violation 7-20-89. How do you plead?

Loki chuckles.

LOKI

Madam, a god doesn't plead. Look, this has been a very enjoyable pantomime, but I'd like to go home now.

RAVONNA

Are you guilty or not guilty, sir?

Loki smirks.

LOKI

Guilty of being the god of mischief, yes. Guilty of finding all of this incredibly tedious, yes. Guilty of a... "crime"... against the "sacred timeline"? Absolutely not, you have the wrong person.

RAVONNA

Oh, really? And who should we have?

LOKI

Well, in my defense, the only reason I ever came in possession of the tesseract is because the Avengers traveled back in time.

Mobius enters the courtroom.

RAVONNA

We're not here to talk about the Avengers. What they did was supposed to happen; you reviving yourself with the tesseract and running around time, causing chaos was not.

Loki laughs.

LOKI

I'm sorry - not supposed to happen according to whom?

RAVONNA

The timekeepers.

INT. TIME THEATER - DAY

Mobius is showing Loki clips of his life and trying to dig deeper into his psyche.

MOBIUS

You know, trying to kill all the frost giants, invading Earth, I don't see anything very mischievous about this...

He plays a clip of the bifrost nearly destroying Jotunheim. A family of frost giants runs in fear as the land is destroyed. A little girl screams as her father is vaporized by the blast. Loki is visibly uncomfortable.

MOBIUS

Look at that. Did you enjoy doing that?

LOKI

Enough of your games. You've made your point.

Ignoring him, Mobius plays the clip of him telling Kurse where to go.

MOBIUS

And then, you tried tricking the dark elves into finding Thor, but instead, you sent them right to Frigga.

Loki tenses when he sees Frigga fighting Malekith.

LOKI

I don't want to watch this.

He winces, trying to keep himself together, as he watches Malekith stab Frigga.

MOBIUS

Well, you're going to watch it. Because that's your life, that's the consequences of your actions, and that is the proper flow of time! Now, why don't you tell me, do you enjoy hurting people?

LOKI

I don't have to play your games-

MOBIUS

Do you enjoy killing?

LOKI

I'll kill you.

MOBIUS

What, like you did your mother?

Enraged, Loki tosses a chair at him. Mobius dodges it, and it flies through the hologram of Frigga's dead body. Loki lunges at Mobius, but he uses the time twister to send him back on the ground. Loki growls in pain.

MOBIUS

Sorry, the time twister just loops you, not the furniture. You weren't born to be king, Loki. You were born to cause pain and suffering and death. That's how it is, that's how it was, and that's how it always will be. All so that others can achieve their best versions of themselves.

LOKI

(Voice cracking)

That's not true. You're lying.

MOBIUS

It is true. Your life ended after Thanos snapped your neck, because you fulfilled your purpose of assembling the Avengers to destroy you. Your purpose was never to become a hero. You're a villain, and that will never change as long as the sacred timeline runs its course.

INT. TIME THEATER - DAY

After Loki escapes and returns to the time theater on his own, he finds a folder of papers on the table. He opens it and reads the first file. It reads "LOKI ODINSON - MAIN OBJECTIVES: MURDER, LIE, MANIPULATE. LIFE PURPOSE: CATALYST FOR THE AVENGERS. OBJECTIVE FULFILLED. LIFE TERMINATED. END OF FILE.

Horrified, Loki stares at the file as tears run down his face. After a moment, he starts laughing as Hunter B-15 enters.

HUNTER B-15

Something funny?

After a pause, Loki shakes his head.

LOKI

Glorious purpose...

INT. TIME THEATER - DAY

Loki is talking with Mobius after being apprehended again.

LOKI

I will admit, the TVA is... formidable. Even an infinity stone is useless here.

(Beat)

You're not going to let me return to my own timeline, are you?

(Beat)

MOBIUS

Normally, no, we wouldn't. But... if you help us... maybe the timekeepers might be willing to make an exception. A rogue variant's been killing our minutemen.

LOKI

And you need the god of mischief to help you stop him?

MOBIUS

That's right.

LOKI

Why me?

MOBIUS

The variant we're hunting is... you.

Have some actual Lady Loki yay! 

So yeah, the purpose of this episode was mainly to re-establish the show within the continuity of my version of Endgame. Squirrel Girl comes in next episode!

@drawntothedarkside Here’s your tag!

[syntheticpoetry]

The Ghosts That We Knew

See my original post on the origins of this story here!

Summary: Blaine Anderson is no stranger to hospitals and has been volunteering on the pediatric unit of Lima General Hospital for years when Kurt Hummel comes along.  After Blaine is attacked at his school's Sadie Hawkins Dance, he has his best friend Kurt to help him deal with the aftermath. And when Kurt becomes the target of the McKinley football team's bullying campaign, he can count on Blaine to have his back.

AU where Blaine transfers to McKinley instead of Dalton. Set during season 1.A story of two best friends finding courage to face their bullies and discovering love along the way.

Author’s Note: Blaine has a reason he has been in an out of the hospital since childhood that will be revealed, but if you are overly cautious of the level of angst surrounding it I can assure you it's nothing heartbreaking/super serious. It's actually quite common.  I cannot thank @esperantoauthor​ enough for beta reading this for me and really helping me whip it into shape!

AO3 Link || FFN Link

Chapter 1: Of Viral Videos and Disney Princes

The last time that Kurt Hummel remembers being in a hospital, he told his mother that he loved her for the last time.  

That was six years ago.  

As he walks through the lobby, towards the directory by the elevators, he keeps his gaze fixed forward, careful not to spare a glance at the waiting area to his right.  He spent so many months in that waiting room.  Entire seasons, multiple holidays spent watching people receive good news and bad news, with his father stoic and silent beside him as his mother underwent procedure after procedure.  Until it was their turn to be the family that received bad news.  The doctor sounded sincere as he said a lot of big words Kurt could not quite understand at the time, but he understood the look on his father’s face.  He took to studying the ugly designs on the carpet to distract from the tight clench in his father’s jaw, the way he kept himself so still and barely blinked through the entire explanation— Kurt knew, even at eight years old, what it was like to use up all of your willpower to hold yourself together for the sake of someone else.  To this day, he cannot look at paisley print without thinking back to that awful day.

Kurt scans the directory before punching the up button to call the elevator and folds his arms across his chest, tapping his foot as he awaits its arrival.  When he first heard about the volunteer program on the pediatric unit he was naturally hesitant to return to the place that held some of his worst memories.  He had been on the fence about it all summer, torn between the desire to give back to the hospital staff that had gone above and beyond in their attempts to cure his mother’s cancer and wanting to put as much distance as possible between himself and the place where they finally had to say goodbye to each other.

Until he saw that YouTube video.  

A curly-haired boy with big doe eyes and an unwavering grin, guitar in hand, leading a Disney themed sing-along with a group of elementary school age kids.  The warmth that spread through Kurt’s chest was almost overwhelming as he watched the boy march around the room performing Hakuna Matata with the parade of children trailing behind, mimicking him raucously and off-key.  It was the first time Kurt had really smiled in a long time.

So he had decided to look into the program.  Mostly because witnessing the boundless energy of pure joy from each child singing along in that video elicited memories of countless nights of living room performances with his own father, both of them puffy-eyed and exhausted but still managing to find the stamina to sing at the top of their lungs, using the furniture as stage props.  They were two lost souls attempting to cling to each other through tidal waves of insurmountable grief, and those nights together— well, those nights wereeverything to Kurt.  He had never felt closer to his father than when they were both breathless and laughing their way through the most eclectic collection of songs imaginable, hugging each other tightly at the end of each performance.  

And if Kurt happened to run into the boy from the video along the way, well, that would certainly just be an added bonus. Kurt did have eyes after all.  And there was no denying the boy’s natural charm or the air of confidence with which he carried himself.  

Truth be told, entering yet another school year with no friends was beginning to take its toll on Kurt and the possibility of finding camaraderie with a cute boy who seemingly shared similar interests was certainly enticing.

Ding!

The doors slide open before him revealing an empty elevator.  Kurt steps in and presses the button for the fourth floor.  He thinks about that video and jumping on armchairs and couches in his living room with his father for the entire ride up.

***

He has to be buzzed in to enter the unit, which he thinks is strange.  But the woman who greets him, a young nurse with bright green eyes and deep auburn hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, explains it is the protocol for all pediatric units in order to prevent children from wandering away or being kidnapped.  There are security bracelets around each patient’s ankle that trigger an alarm if they are taken past a bright yellow line painted on the floor.

“Who would kidnap sick kids from a hospital?” Kurt asks, looking absolutely horrified.

“You would be surprised at how common it is.  Parents fighting over custody, usually.”

He nods and guesses that makes sense, but the thought is still deeply unsettling.

The hallways are empty as she leads him to a room behind the nurse’s station.  The unit is certainly much different from the one his mother had been on.  The walls are covered in murals of different cartoon characters and scenes from popular storybooks.  While the nurse punches in a code, Kurt studies a painting of Rapunzel in a high stone tower, golden plaited hair strung over the edge of the window for a handsome prince at the bottom. The door buzzes and she holds it open for him.  “I’ll let my supervisor know you’re here.”

Kurt thanks her and takes a seat at one of the tables to wait.  On the far wall he spots a bulletin board covered in an overabundance of overlapping photos, hand-drawn pictures and a variety of cards both homemade and store-bought.  He casts a quick glance towards the door before crossing the room to investigate.  He cannot help but smile as he scans over the collection of memories, reminiscing back to his own pile of hand drawn cards for the staff on the oncology unit.  

Then something catches his eye.  

It’s the curly haired boy from the video.  He’s standing, guitar in hand with the strap over his shoulder, in the center of a group photo, surrounded by children of varying ages and the unit staff.  His outfit is different from the one in the video though.  He’s wearing baggy sweatpants and a printed T-shirt, only the edges of the otherwise obscured design visible from behind the guitar over his torso.  In the video he had certainly seemed more, well, put together, to say the least.  He had worn light grey slacks and a navy polo shirt accented with a white bow tie, which Kurt could not help but notice because he could count on one hand the amount of teenage boys he had ever seen wearing bow ties in the state of Ohio, himself included.  

Kurt wonders how often he comes by to visit and volunteer.  Maybe there is a chance they will be able to meet after all.

The faint beeping of the key code and jiggling of the door handle to his left draws his attention and he turns in time to see an older woman with ashy blonde hair and huge round glasses that take up half of her face walk in.  Her scrub top is printed with different Winnie the Pooh characters.  She smiles and approaches him, extending her hand.  “Hi, you must be Kurt.  I’m Jeannie; we spoke on the phone last week.”

“Oh! Yes,” Kurt shakes her hand.  “Nice to meet you.”

“Shall we?” She gestures to a table and Kurt takes a seat opposite her.  “So we just have to get some paperwork in order and then we can take a little tour around the unit so you can meet the kids.”

“Okay.”

“This is your first time volunteering, right?” She opens a Manila folder and begins rifling through a large stack of papers.

“Yes.”

“What drew you to it?”

Kurt steals a glance towards the bulletin board, lips curling up into a half-smile.  “I heard about it through my school a few months back, but honestly? I spent a lot of time visiting my mom in this hospital when I was a kid and when me and my dad would get home he would always try to cheer me up.  We put on a lot of concerts for my stuffed animals in our living room.  And I mean… like a lot .”  

Her eyes are soft as she listens, a piece of paper held loosely between both hands just inches off of the table, almost forgotten, and gives him an empathetic smile.

“I saw that video of the Disney sing-along online and I just really wanted to be a part of it, helping kids, especially with music, because it’s really helped me through some tough times.”

“Well,” She straightens up and slides the paper across the table towards him, “I think the kids will really love having you around.  Do you play any instruments?”

“Never missed a piano lesson,” Kurt says, grinning.  “But mostly, I love to sing.”

The paperwork consists of a lot of signatures.  Kurt is not to discuss any of the patients or their health conditions with others in order to maintain privacy regulations, not to post anything to social media without permission, and just a lot of general information about the hospital’s protocols such as what to do in the event of emergency scenarios (of which there are many ).  By the end of it, Kurt has a pretty sizable stack of papers to take home with him and a dull cramp in his wrist.  

“I know it seems like a lot of information, but nothing you have to memorise.  You’ll always be with other staff members who will guide you through every step of the way.”

Kurt releases a nervous laugh, “Okay, good.  I can save my highlighters for school work then.”

***

Jeannie leads the way to the playroom which, she explains, is a safe space for all the children on the unit that remains open every day until 7 p.m.  No medications or treatments are allowed to be administered to a child in the playroom, they must be brought out first.  There are about ten kids inside, ranging from toddlers to older teens, all of whom have seemingly gravitated towards splitting into their own little cliques based on ages.  As soon as they enter the room two of the younger kids, a boy and girl no older than three or four, look up from a mountain of blocks and start crying.  Kurt casts an alarmed glance at Jeannie.

“It’s okay, you can keep playing.” Jeannie kneels down and stacks a loose block onto their small tower.  “Everyone, this is Kurt, he’s going to be coming by to help out and spend some time with all of you.” She stands up and backs away from the two toddlers with the blocks to stand beside Kurt again.  

“It’s the uniform,” she says quietly to him.  “Some get scared when they see us come into a room cause it usually means it’s time for medicine or treatments.”

“Hi, Kurt!” A small girl with bronze skin, a round face, and long thick black hair comes over and takes his hand.  “I’m Melanie! You wanna come draw with me?”

She does not wait for an answer before she starts tugging on his hand and walking back towards a small rectangular table covered with construction paper and crayons.  She climbs into one of two plastic blue chairs which are far too tiny for Kurt to fit in, so he sits on the floor beside the table, crossing his legs.  Melanie slides a piece of yellow construction paper towards him and pushes a pile of crayons into the middle for them to share.

“Did you draw all of these?” Kurt picks up a red crayon and starts sketching.

“Yes! My daddy brought my big brother to visit and we draw together,” she says, shading in what looks like a sunflower with a purple crayon.

“They’re very beautiful; I like that one a lot.” Kurt taps the one she is currently working on.  “I’ve never seen a purple sunflower before.”

“I’m gonna invent them one day,” she says matter-of-factly.  Kurt smiles and returns to his sketch of a new outfit design that has been floating around his mind for the past week.  

“Woah!”

Kurt begins to lift his head up to locate where the voice has come from when he spots movement beside his left elbow.  To say the boy is small would be an understatement.  He is tiny .  A pale, skinny little thing dressed in Batman pajamas that look two sizes too big on him.  He has wide, bright blue eyes and is wearing a charcoal grey beanie.  Clutched between his toothpick arms is a stuffed rabbit with drooping ears the size of its entire body.  

“Hello,” Kurt says as the boy leans forward to peer at his drawing.

“You can draw,” the boy says, clutching his rabbit closer.  

“Would you like to draw with us?”

“Can’t draw,” he says.

“Oh, I bet that’s not true,” Kurt says and holds out the crayon to him.  “Everyone can draw.”

The boy looks at the crayon then up to Kurt and shakes his head shyly before raising the bunny up to his chin, hugging it tightly.

“What’s your name?” Kurt asks.

“Jason,” he says quietly.

“Well, would you like to watch me and Melanie draw?”

“I’m really good.” Melanie looks up at him.  “You can sit next to me, I’ll show you.”

Kurt spends the next hour drawing with Melanie while Jason continues to peek curiously between them.  The other kids begin to trickle out of the room, some led by nurses, some by visiting family members.  Pretty soon, only the three of them are left until Jason’s mother comes in to collect him.  Before he leaves, Kurt holds out a piece of paper to him.

“Something tells me you like Batman,” Kurt says as Jason’s eyes widen at the image of a child-sized Batman with bright blue eyes.  “How about next time you can draw me?”

“Okay.” Jason grins, slipping the picture between his stuffed bunny and his chest to hold it there safely.  “But you’re gonna look like a potato.  I really can’t draw.”

It is the most Kurt has heard him speak all afternoon.  Something about the way he talks contradicts the way he looks. Kurt wonders how old he actually is; the boy looks smaller than most five year olds he’s seen but definitely talks like an older child.  Kurt makes a mental note to find out next time.  “Deal.  I can’t wait to see it.”

Jason’s mom gives Kurt a parting smile before she shepherds her son away.  Soon after, Melanie’s nurse comes to collect her as well, leaving only Kurt and Jeannie in the empty playroom.

“That went well,” she says.  “You’re a natural with them.”

Kurt beams back at her, a sense of pride swelling in his chest.  

After his dad comes to pick him up, Kurt spends the entire car ride home filling him in on the events of the day, excluding Jason and Melanie’s names.  He goes to bed that night with his mind already buzzing with activities for the next visit.

***

Kurt starts volunteering two days a week after school and over the course of the next month, he becomes very familiar with some of the regular kids on the unit.  Jason, he discovers, is actually nine years old, has leukemia and is in his final round of chemotherapy by the first week in October.  Melanie has sickle cell anemia and had been hospitalized for something called ‘sickle cell crisis’— she had gone home two weeks after they first met, but Kurt learns that she usually returns frequently for the same problem.  There’s a teenage boy not much older than Kurt is, but taller and skinnier with jet black hair and sad eyes, named Julian who has cystic fibrosis— he usually keeps to himself, oftentimes choosing to sit in the back corner of the playroom and silently watch everyone else.  

The rest have been a whirlwind of faces and names with a variety of issues such as pneumonia, appendicitis, broken bones and asthma attacks.  There have also been quite a few cases of children who have come in with injuries as a result of abuse at home, more so than Kurt would have imagined actually occurred.  He finds trying to interact and engage with those kids to be the most heartbreaking.

Some of the kids are not as keen to warm up to him as others, keeping to themselves or staying with their families while Kurt leads sing-alongs, painting lessons, hosts movie nights, and reads aloud during story time.  He has developed a steady routine in the five weeks since he began volunteering.  So on the Tuesday during the second week of October he waves hello to the security personnel by the front entrance like he usually does.  He rides up the same elevator and is buzzed into the unit by Rosie, the first nurse he met with the auburn hair.  And with his usual wide smile in place, he strolls into the playroom with a new four-pack of Disney themed puzzles under his arm.  

But when he walks in, the kids are already sitting in a circle, staring up at a boy with loosely gelled curls coiffed into a fluffy side part, bright hazel eyes, and a sapphire acoustic guitar perched on his lap. Kurt is caught completely off guard as he realises, Oh god, it’s him! It’s the guy from the video!

He looks shorter in person than Kurt assumed.  In both the photo on the bulletin board and the video his hair was ungelled and wild.  Kurt vividly remembers his dark curls bouncing as he bopped his head along to the music while impersonating Timon and Pumba for the younger kids.  He’s dressed in another carefully selected outfit though— bright red pants, a black polo and a white bow tie with black polka dots on it.  

“Kurt!” A few of them yell excitedly.    

“Ah, so you’re the famous Kurt I’ve been hearing so much about,” The boy with the guitar says, that same unwavering grin already in place.  “Nice to finally meet you, I’m Blaine.”

[antivirus-mh-au]

Antivirus - Chapter 2

TW: None Chapter 1 here Ao3 link If you like this, please leave a like, reblog, or send me an ask! It encourages me so much.

He blew the smoke from his mouth around the cigarette, the morning sun catching all the particles as they floated into the air. Tim drew the J on top of the fresh carton and dropped the pen onto the dashboard. Pulling the cigarette from his mouth, he drew in a deep breath of fresh air, fresh as you could get at a gas station by a highway. Looking around the parking lot, at the people filing in and out, he shook his head and gave a wry smile. Hard not to be in a good mood when you got some decent sleep for once.

Becca and Lukas were okay. Lukas's leg had been taken care of, and the two had set back off for Idaho, back to the families that loved them. Another success case for Timothy Kane. Another group of people adding to the myth of his existence. Seemed like every month there were more of them. The Operator never tired. The sickness never eased. In fact, it only grew worse.

But like hell was he going to start off a good morning with that depressing shit. He'd gotten paid, gotten rest, and he'd found out where the nearest library was with free internet. He was not going to let a rare moment of peace escape him. He'd lost too much for that.

The library wasn't far away from the gas station he'd refilled at. By the time he pulled into the parking lot, it was open, as were the windows on the front of the building. He spoke briefly to the clerk at the front desk, making sure he understood their internet rules and that it was okay for him to bring in his thermos of coffee, before finding a convenient spot by a power outlet. 

His laptop was getting old, it took a while for it to boot up. As Tim waited, he thumbed through a newspaper. Experts predicting a war with China for the third time in as many years, conflict in the Middle East, the royal family in Britain getting roped into some scandal or another. That was why he didn't read the news much, it was always the same. By the time he got to the comics (never his favorite part of the newspaper), his laptop had finished, and Tim traded the two without a second thought.

He could and did check his email on his phone but he was old-fashioned and preferred to use his laptop when he had the chance. Earlier Becca's mother replied to his report about her daughter returning home, a message he'd saved in a special folder he looked at when he felt particularly shitty. 

Another email was waiting for him now, from a 'Meridith Frederickson'. Another client, looking for her son and his missing best friend. He replied to that one, offering to schedule a Zoom meeting later that same day. By now he knew all too well what happened if he wasn't on top of his cases. 

And of course, he had new messages in the spam folder. Tim glanced over the subjects of the emails without opening any of them. Some didn't have any, but most were vaguely threatening, the kind he usually got from trolls and kids. 'Always watching', 'there's no escape', 'how could you', and on and on and on. People thought they could get a rise out of him by acting like totheark, but none of them even came close to what Brian had been all those years ago. 

Tim glanced at the tab next to his email, frowning. There was no sense in trying to put it off, even if he hated doing it. Everything on that site made him feel worse, and today had been a pretty good day. But if he didn't look, he'd regret it later, falling into a rabbit hole of updates that was guaranteed to fuck him over. So he opened YouTube.

The videos were taken down years ago, the channels involved with Marble Hornets wiped from the website. But that didn't mean they were gone, just hidden away on Google Drives and shock sites. What was on YouTube was... the fandom.

It made his skin crawl thinking about it. People from all over the world were obsessed with what he and Jay had been through. He'd seen hundreds of articles about the videos, from five minute listicles to long analysises about the events and the people involved. He'd seen other things, too, things he'd rather not remember. Like the fanart...

Out of everything, though, it was the YouTube community that unsettled him the most. The passionate, wide eyed college kids. The naive high schoolers. The older people, with their backgrounds in criminal science and forensics and cryptids and God knew what else. They picked over the videos and tweets and codes like vultures at a pile of bones. Like it was just a fictional web series, like people he knew and once liked weren't dead. And they spread the disease. It didn't take all of them, leaving the YouTubers alone, but claiming their followers. It made him sick thinking about all the people he couldn't save, the people who had no one left to try and find them, the people who vanished into Rosswood Park and were never seen again. It made him sick, watching these ignorant people talk about his pain as if they were all insects under microscopes.

But if he didn't pay attention, who knew what might happen. The Operator was watching all of them. One slip up was all it took.

He scrolled through both the front page and his subscriptions. The videos were, in the end, all the same. Speculation, discussion, analyzation. Some of them he could watch later. Others needed his attention now.

Tim’s eyes landed on a video, and his heart clenched. The Neophyte was streaming again.

The still image didn’t show much. Neophyte_Calling didn’t put much work into his channel. It was just a shot of what the streams normally showed, pale, unkempt hands poking free from black robes, resting on an old plastic table. That was what he expected to find once he opened the stream.

And he’d be correct, that was what awaited him once he got the courage to click. The hands twitched and clenched and dug at the table. It wasn’t the hands that were special though, it was what the owner of those hands were saying.

“Autumn after firestorm, the nights don’t listen and the butter is on the corn. Ten days or twenty paces of living guts wrapped around an old man’s neck. The water comes up to your waist but you don’t feel the attitude of denial inside the bastard daughter’s heart. Oh, god, eureka, industry was never so smooth…”

Complete nonsense. The ramblings of a man on some kind of drug, or lost to some unknown mental illness. Despite this, the chat flooded with messages. Donations popped up occasionally, attempts to get the Neophyte’s attention. He didn’t notice. He never noticed. He just kept talking. And he would keep talking until the stream ended on its own, or he passed out on the table.

People called him a prophet. Claimed every word he spoke had a double, or even a triple, meaning. They recorded every word he said and discussed them among themselves, coming up with ‘translations’ for his maddening dialogue. And to be fair, they could have a point. Sometimes, what the Neophyte said did seem to foretell events that happened not long after he spoke them. But the god the Neophyte channeled was not one Tim would ever ask someone to worship.

Silence. The man stopped talking, his fidgeting hands resting flat on the table. Dread filled Tim’s body. Speak of the devil, he was doing this again?

The Neophyte spoke again, his voice deeper now. The words came clumsy from his mouth, uncomfortable, heavy, as if he had never spoken before. The emphasis, the tone, it was all wrong. Tim had no trouble understanding them, however.

“You always fight,” It said through the Neophyte’s mouth. “You always resist. You tire, and exhaust, and fall. You continue to fight despite.”

The robes shifted, the head hidden from the camera’s view tilting.

“Tim,” It said. “You are a grain of sand. I am eternal. I am here. I will always be here. You understand. You continue despite.”

On the side of the screen, the chat surged with messages. It raced so quickly, Tim couldn’t have read any of them even if he tried. He didn’t look away from the livestream. 

“Tim,” It said again. “Enough. You have fought hard. You are getting old. That’s enough. It’s time to come home. To us. To all of us.”

The hair stood up on his arms, on the back of Tim’s neck. He shuddered.

“Like hell,” he whispered, and closed the tab.

But even though he closed the livestream, he could swear he heard the Neophyte, the thing puppeting him, whisper in his mind.

“Coward.”

When 2pm rolled around, Tim was back in his van in the library parking lot. Obviously he couldn’t do a Zoom call inside the quiet space, but their internet reached well past the parking lot. He sat on his bed, now folded up like a couch inside the converted van he lived in. His laptop open before him, the program open and ready. Now he just had to wait for her.

Hard to say what this Meredith Fredrickson would expect a private investigator like him to look like, but Tim did his best to look presentable anyway. Hair combed, beard trimmed, leather jacket kept to the side out of her line of sight - leather jackets weren’t worn by authority figures, and that was what he was trying to be right now. Not anyone could do this job, but who’s to say she knew that? If she didn’t like the way he looked, she could try to find someone else to find her son and his friend. And if she did that, by the time she realized only Tim could help her, it would be too late.

Thinking about it that way made him shudder.

Of course, while he was prepared to deal with what she thought he would look like, he wasn’t as ready for what she herself would look like. As the call began, and Meredith’s face came on screen, Tim hesitated. He looked at her closely again. Had he seen this woman before?

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Fredrickson,” He greeted.

The woman shook her head, her curly brown hair tossing around her slim shoulders.

“Meredith is fine,” she said. “I haven’t been called ‘Mrs’ since my husband died. I changed back to my maiden name - my son’s last name will be his, not mine.”

“Of course,” Tim said. Odd information to include, but people tended to ramble when they were nervous.

He looked at her again, at the frown lines developing around her lips, and the worry and pain in her wide-set eyes. Behind her was a normal looking home, a few windows with pale curtains, a kitchen kept clean from what little he saw. Something was nagging at him. What was it?

“Did you fill out the information packet I requested?” He asked.

Meredith nodded.

“Yes.”

The file appeared, Tim half-listening to her as he opened it.

“I know this is a very strange thing to ask from you,” Meredith said. “But circumstances have changed in a way I really didn’t expect. I know it’s hard to believe that after ten years my son could be alive, but I don’t have any other explanation for…”

She trailed off. Tim didn’t look away from the document she’d sent. The names written on the very first line.

Missing People: Jay Merrick and Alex Kralie

Motherfucker, had he been tricked?

Tim shot the woman a sharp glance, examining her expression in seconds. She was not the first person to ask him to track down Jay and Alex, but she was the first he hadn’t screened out before it got this far. Most people were upfront about their intentions, or were obviously trolling, or he otherwise got weird vibes from them. This Meredith had slipped him by, and wasted his time in the process.

“He is my son,” Meredith said. “I’ve included his birth certificate, since I thought you might not believe me.”

“I don’t need it.” A birth certificate? Those weren’t easy to fake, but Tim was no expert on Photoshop either. 

“I would’ve included Alex’s, too,” Meredith continued. “After all the years he and Jay knew each other, you would’ve thought I’d have it too.” She laughed, and there was pain within it. “But his parents died in a car accident about six years back, and…”

“Wait.” Tim refocused. “Alex and Jay knew each other?”

“Since the first year of middle school,” Meredith said with a nod. “I have a lot of photos of them. You know, Jay went through a phase, where he wore all black, and listened to rock music with singers I couldn’t understand. He got a tattoo of one of the bands on his ankle behind my back. I was so angry...”

She laughed again, and her eyes went distant. Tim stared at her, his mind flashing back to all the conversations he’d had with Jay, things that didn’t go into the videos. Being Alex’s childhood friend, since middle school - the phases he went through as a teen - that damn tattoo he was so embarrassed of. None of these were known by the fandom.

Oh god, this woman was the real deal. Even her face, now that he looked at her, was just like Jay’s. The distant look in her eyes as she thought… Jay got that same expression.

“Meredith,” he said, his voice softer, kinder. “Do you know about Marble Hornets?”

“I can’t bring myself to watch them,” she said. Meredith folded her hands together. “But I know what… what was shown on the videos. I know that they are…” She swallowed. “Considered dead by most people. I was one of them.”

His gut twisted. By most people, including her. “But something… changed.”

“Yes.” She took a deep breath, and moved to wipe her eyes. “I got a package in the mail about a week ago. Inside was a flashdrive and a few printed photos. It had been placed in my mailbox - I don’t know who sent it.”

Oh no, Tim thought. Not this again. Please, don’t play this game with people again.

“What were the photos?” He asked, aware of the sound of his own voice more than anything else.

“I’ve included most of them in the document,” Meredith said. “I… I still can’t believe what I’ve seen, but… But they don’t look like they could’ve been faked.”

Dread pressed down on his shoulders. Dread and something else, some kind of energy buzzing through his nerves. Tim looked at the document, scrolled down, and opened the photos.

Some were blurry, taken from a distance and zoomed in before being printed. Some were clear as glass. It took him several seconds to process what he was seeing, what the subjects of the photos were. Tim blinked, looked again, and his pulse quickened.

Alex, standing on a street corner, gray in his hair, exhaustion on his face. Jay in a dark cloth jacket with a hood, looking over his shoulders. Alex, and Jay, Alex, and Jay, in all the photos, in every single one. The clothes were different, the faces aged, but there was no denying what he was seeing, and like Meredith said, no way to fake what he was looking at.

“Oh my god,” Tim mumbled.

Jay and Alex were alive.

[get-your-fics]

Suburbia - Part Four

Man in Black

Summary: You have the seemingly perfect life, with the perfect house and the perfect husband. But the illusion threatens to be unraveled when you start to have strange but familiar nightmares.

Pairing: Albert Wesker x reader

Series warnings: Smut, dub-con/non-con, breeding kink, sex pollen, blood, violence

PART THREE

“You've been a very bad girl while I was away.”

His heavy boot made a solid thud as he took a step towards you. “Don’t move!” you shouted, pressing yourself against the edge of the desk behind you as much as you could. “Don’t come any closer!”

“Or what? What are you going to do?” he chuckled, but didn’t move. “You wouldn’t want to do anything rash now, dear. You’ll over exert yourself-”

“Don’t talk to me like that,” you cut him off through gritted teeth. “What the fuck is going on?” He didn’t say anything, merely stared at you. You felt like your blood was boiling in your veins. “Answer me!” You slammed your fist down on the desk, your voice bouncing off of the white walls. “I deserve answers!”

“Didn’t you find all your precious answers in those files?” He gestured to the manila folders scattered across the desk. It looked like a hurricane had blown through it. “I have to say, I’m surprised you caught on. But, you always were too smart for your own good.”

“Where are we?” you asked.

“We’re in an underground testing facility. Umbrella ran simulations here in order to sell the T-virus to government agencies worldwide,” he said. “Right now, we’re in a simulation of a suburban neighborhood. I thought it would be effective to replace your memory with artificial memories we concocted and place you here, that it would make you more compliant with the project.” He shrugged. “Unfortunately, the memory erasure had some unforeseen side effects. Hence the nightmares.”

“So you were just going to treat me like a pet?” you spat. “You thought it was okay to keep me locked up in this cage and breed me like a dog? That you could turn me into your little trophy housewife, have me cook and clean for you with the wool pulled over my eyes and get away with it?”

“Cage?” He laughed as if you had meant what you had said to be amusing. “Look around you, (Y/N).” He spun around in a circle, his arms spread wide. “This is hardly a cage. I was going to let you live obliviously in domestic bliss. I was offering you another chance at a good life, the kind of life that’s been extinct since the world ended.”

“You’re the one who ripped that chance away from me, from everyone, in the first place!” You pointed your finger accusingly at him.

“You act like I’m some kind of monster.” He pressed his gloved hand to his chest in mock offense. “Tell me, was I ever mean to you? Did I ever hurt you? Didn’t I always keep you fed and happy and content? Was I ever anything but the nice, dutiful, caring husband to you?”

You shook your head. “None of that matters. I was living a lie.”

“You can choose to see it that way, if you wish,” he said. “I was doing you a favor, (Y/N). Things for you could’ve been much worse.” He gestured to the computer, the paused video still displayed on its screen. “Well, you’ve seen the footage.”

You glanced at the video over your shoulder before looking back at him. “Was any of it real?” Your mind conjured up memories of coffee dates, of fancy restaurant dinners, of him getting down on one knee and popping the question, of him kissing you on your wedding day as you stared at him. But they were all fake, artificial memories implanted into your brain. They were hazy and lackluster, but all the emotion was still there. And even with all this new information, that didn’t make it just disappear. “Was it all pretend?”

“You mean do I love you?” You stared down at your bare feet. The fact that part of you still hoped this man loved you revolted you to the core. “I have respect for you, (Y/N). Love is trivial in comparison. You are the future - the superior evolution of mankind. You are the only one worthy of carrying my child.” His words made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. “With our combined genetics, we could improve upon the human race. Think of the things we could accomplish if we worked together.”

“I will never work with you.” You shook your head. “You just want to create monsters. You destroyed humanity out of greed. You kill people.”

He quirked a brow. “And you don’t?”

“I kill people because I have to,” you argued.

“You kill because it’s in your blood,” he said. “You see the weak and you eradicate them, making way for the exceptional species.”

“You’re sick,” you sneered. “You’re so obsessed with your perverted, demented version of saving the world, you don’t realize you’re ruining it. You don’t care about me or anyone else. You only care about yourself.”

He tutted disapprovingly. “Such harsh words, little bird.”

In an instant, you smacked his cheek with a resounding slap. His face fell to the side, his sunglasses sliding off his nose and breaking on impact with the tile. You could already see a red handprint spreading across his cheek. “Don’t call me that,” you hissed.

He looked back at you, and you gasped. His eyes - they were a bright, violent red. Every other time you had seen them, they were a clear, sky blue. But now, his pupils were black slits in the middle of each eyeball like a snake’s.

“You don’t want to do this, (Y/N),” he threatened. A golden tendril of hair had escaped his perfectly coiffed hairdo and now hung loose down his forehead. “We can forget this ever happened. We can go on living a perfect, normal life, and you can pretend like you’re none the wiser.”

“I would never agree to live in this house with you, Wesker.” You gripped the edge of the desk. You couldn’t trust him. The second you were no longer of use to him, he would throw you away like a worn-out toy.

“Then I will be forced to take you in. We’ll wipe your memory again and start fresh. And this time we’ll make sure to flesh out the details.” His lips curled into a sinister smirk. “Or maybe it’ll be back to the holding cell. Now why don’t you make it as easy as possible for yourself and come willingly?”

You readied yourself. “I’m not going down without a fight.”

He rose to his full height and cracked his knuckles. “Suit yourself.”

You threw a punch at him. He dodged your fist and latched onto your arm. He used your momentum against you and flipped you over his shoulder onto the metal table behind him. You slid off of it and landed on the ground, the wind knocked out of you.

He walked around the table and strode towards you effortlessly. Once he was within reach, you kicked at his kneecaps. He stumbled back, giving you enough time to leap to your feet. You swung at him again. He moved out of the way, but you learned from your mistake and brought your other hand up to connect with his jaw. He recovered quickly and pushed his heavy boot into your stomach.

You were knocked backwards, sending several test tubes crashing to the floor. You picked up a shard of a flask and stabbed it into his neck as he came towards you. He barely batted an eye. He plucked it out as if he was brushing off dust, unfazed by the blood dribbling out of the puncture wound in his neck.

He charged at you again, this time armed with the broken piece of glass. You ducked just in time as he thrust it at you, narrowly avoiding his hit. You retaliated with a blow to his side. He jabbed the glass into your hand as you did so. You let out a blood curdling scream as it sunk through your flesh. You gripped it and ripped it out with a yelp, discarding the fragmented pieces to the floor. You watched as the wound ceased leaking blood and closed itself up all on its own.

Wesker swiped at your ankles, and you dropped to the ground. You cried out as bits of glass scratched at and protruded from your skin. They crunched under his boots as he stopped in front of you. He buried a hand in your hair and dragged you off the floor. He hauled you off of the ground, your toes barely brushing the tile. You wrapped your hands around his in an attempt to lessen the pressure on your scalp and flailed your legs to kick at him desperately.

“Maybe we should have some fun first.” He pressed you back against the wall and slipped his hand under your nightgown. “One last go around for old times sake.”

His hand crept closer towards your clothed core, and you brought your leg up to knee him in the crotch. He let go of you with a grunt. You landed on your feet and regained your balance enough to kick him in the chest. He flew backwards, ending up on the other side of the room. You came at him with fists flying and teeth bared. You landed a few successful punches before he grabbed both your arms and pushed you back.

He wrapped his fingers around your throat and lifted you up. He slammed your back against the wall and tightened his hold on you. He stared at you with pure rage and fury in his glowing, red eyes. He squeezed until gray dots started to form over your vision, and you felt your lungs start to deflate as the oxygen left them.

“Just... do it...” you choked out.

His unwavering stare faltered, and his expression softened. His eyes faded to a warm amber, and the hard, straight line of his mouth twisted into a frown. He loosened his grip on you and slowly set you back down on the ground.

You spat out blood and looked up at him. “You do love me.” You flashed him a lopsided smirk.

He blinked, and his eyes turned red again. “Don’t be foolish,” he scoffed. “You’re more valuable to us alive.”

But something in the way he had looked at you told you otherwise. “Well, the only way you’ll take me in is if you kill me.”

You broke from his grip and roundhouse kicked him in the face. He staggered back, and you approached him again, fists raised. You threw a punch, but he caught your arm, twisting it. “Have you given up yet?” He threw you to the ground. His expression was stone cold and stoic. “We can do this forever, and you’ll never get anywhere.”

You slowly started to push yourself up again, but he stepped his boot-clad foot in the middle of your back, keeping you down. You knew you were both equally matched and could go at this for hours to no avail. But you also knew that he had a weakness you didn’t.

You spotted a green test tube that had rolled under the desk. You reached for it, stretching your arm as much as you possibly could. Your fingertips just barely brushed the glass. Wesker got out a syringe and uncapped it. He bent down so he was at your level as you got the tube within your grasp. Just as he was about to sedate you, you reached behind yourself and injected it into his neck before he could do anything.

He let out an angered growl and backed away from you. The syringe slipped from his grip and clattered to the ground. He grappled for the metal table to steady himself, pressing a hand against where you had injected him. He panted and fell to his knees, his skin turning sallow and pale as his T-virus levels fluctuated.

You rolled onto your back and noticed a handgun duct taped to the bottom of the desk. You tore it off and rose from the ground. You cocked the gun and aimed it at him.

He looked up at you and cracked a grin. “You won’t make it out of here alive. Even if you do, there’s nowhere to go.”

“It’s worth a shot,” you replied, and then you pulled the trigger.

The blast echoed as the gun went off. He looked down as blood seeped out of the bullet hole right where his heart was. He clutched his chest, blood running through the gaps in his fingers, and slumped back against the wall. His ragged breaths grew soft and shallow with each passing second. His arm dropped to his side, and his head lolled as he went silent.

You lowered the gun and stood still. Your heart pounding against your rib cage and your blood rushing in your veins were the only sounds in the now quiet room. You hesitantly padded across the tile towards him. You stopped right in front of him and poked at him with your toe. His body remained limp. His eyes were once again amber, blank and void with nothing behind them as he stared off into space. And this time he wouldn’t be getting up.

You felt something wet hit your cheek and swiped at it. You couldn’t stop the onslaught of tears from coming, and before you knew it, you were full on sobbing. You fell to your knees in front of him and lowered your head, clawing at your chest as if your heart wanted to burst out. You blamed it on the fake memories, that you were designed to react this way, but you knew deep down part of you had wanted to continue to live with him in ignorant bliss.

You wiped away your tears with the back of your hand. Your face was red and splotchy, your eyes bloodshot and swollen from crying. Your nightgown was tattered and practically hung off of your body in shreds. Every bone and muscle in your body ached. You imagined you resembled the way you had appeared in the video, tortured and battle-worn.

Suddenly, there was a sharp prick in your neck. You furrowed your brows as a buzzing filled your ears and something foreign pumped through your veins. The world spun around you, and everything felt like it was moving in slow motion. You teetered forward and collapsed on top of Wesker’s cold, dead corpse. The position you were in allowed you to see behind you, and the last thing you saw were men wearing thick, plated armor and gas masks moving towards you with their guns raised before everything went black.

-

You slowly came to. You were lying on an examination table in a room with beige walls that smelled like bleach. You were wearing a hospital gown and hooked up to some sort of machine with a screen.

“Hey, sweetheart,” you heard a voice whisper to you. You looked up to see a face hovering above you, and when you focused in on it, you recognized it as your husband’s. “You passed out once you got on the table. Don’t worry, the doc says it’s perfectly normal,” he placated you.

You looked down at your body and noticed something off: there was, barely perceivable but visible none the less, the start of a growing bump along your abdomen. You must be about two or three months along. No, in fact, you knew you were - you could remember the day you had told him about the two little lines that had shown up on the test and how he had smiled at you with all the love in the world.

“Congratulations, little bird. It’s a girl.” He placed a protective hand over your stomach. A wide grin spread across his face, bordering on wolfish. “The first of many.”

EPILOGUE

[justlightlysedated]

part one

Maria goes to see Michael two days after her conversation with Alex.

Mostly she goes with the intention to offer her condolences, after leaving Liz asleep in her bed with Rosa to keep her company.

Maria is still reeling a little bit from the fact that Isobel Evans was an alien who was possessed by the serial killer, who was also an alien and the late Noah Bracken, and killed Rosa ten years ago, and that Max Evans was also an alien who brought her back in exchange for his own life.

But a big part of her goes to get confirmation or denial over her suspicions, because while Liz and Rosa hadn’t said anything, Michael was really close to both Isobel and Max, and if he was an alien as well, if he had known that Rosa had been framed to cover up the evidence of murder, she doesn’t know exactly what she would do, but she does know that in the grand scheme of things, finding out about his marriage to Alex is the last thing she’s thinking about when she parks the truck right by the office in Sanders’ Lot, to give her a few more minutes to think about how she wants to approach this.

She walks around the bus and her boot steps on something that crinkles and she looks down to see a wrinkled and dirty piece of paper. She leans down and picks it up, since it looks official, and her heart jumps to her throat when she reads the words Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.

She swallows hard and looks up to see Michael sitting down in one of his lawn chairs in front of the fire pit, looking into the flames like they hold all of the answers to the questions he wants to ask. 

He doesn’t seem to notice that she’s there. She exhales a little shakily when she sees all of the pieces of paper, which she guesses are the divorce papers, strewn around the ground, leading from where he’s sitting to the empty space right next to his truck where she can just barely make out fresh tire tracks.

She walks over to him, carefully, avoiding the papers in her path, the one she picked up clenched in her fists, and it’s not until she’s standing behind the chair opposite of him that she notices that he’s wearing a thin golden chain, that she’d noticed before, but not recently, and his fingers are clenched around the pendant, and it doesn’t really take her long to realize that it’s not a pendant hanging from that chain.

She clears her throat, and Michael startles, looking up at her and his eyes go even wider in shock when he realizes that she’s the one standing there, like he really wasn’t expecting her.

He immediately tucks the necklace beneath his shirt, and Maria feels like balling up the paper in her hands and throwing it in his face.

“Hey, DeLuca,” he drawls, slow and thick, standing up, and giving her that smirk, the one that always makes her stomach flutter. 

“Need me to fix something for ya?” he asks, the smirk accompanied by a head tilt and a raised eyebrow as he drags his eyes down from her face to the rest of her.

It makes her feel both hot and cold, and there is a sick feeling in her stomach that only gets worse, when his whole posture tenses up and shuts down as he sees the paper in her hands and realizes what it is.

“Were you ever going to tell me the truth or were you just going to keep avoiding me until you could come up with the perfect lie?” she asks, and the tension in Michael snaps and he just drops back into his chair with a sigh, dragging a hand through his hair.

He doesn't respond, but the fact that he doesn't look at her, but instead stares moodily at the fire, tells her more than enough.

She lets out a frustrated breath and crushes the paper in her hands into one fist. She feels like she's shaking with the amount of emotions that want to burst out of her, hurt and pain and anger and humiliation.

"Okay," she says, and he looks up at the sound of her voice, the way it's nearly shaking with her emotions. "So you weren't going to tell me that you're married, that you didn't know if you were still married when you slept with me in Texas, that you knew you were still married when you came into my closed bar and kissed me like you needed me!"

Michael's gaze is on her intent, and Maria has never felt so seen by him, and of course, it's because she's in a roundabout way talking about Alex.

She sees him move his hand to his chest, where she suspects the ring is hanging, pressed right against his warm skin, probably inscribed with the same message Alex's own had, but with different initials.

"Fine," she says. "Alex already told me the truth for you. But that's not the only thing you've been keeping a secret from me."

Michael's eyes go a little wide, and she can see that he's scared, practically terrified, but also, she can just make out, beneath the tangle of emotions shining in his eyes, the grief and the pain.

And she wishes that Alex had never told her anything, that she had never picked up the paper from the dirt, or seen the way he was holding on to his ring like it was the only thing he had left, because she wants to be there for him, wants to be the shoulder he cries on, wants him to hold her tight, like she's the only thing that he has left, but she can't.

She can't.

She can't push through all the lies and be comforting.

She inhales deeply.

"Funny story," she starts. "Guess who is sleeping in my bed? Liz, after yelling and then crying her eyes out about Max, and a ghost, who died ten years ago, who I grieved, who I was still grieving, who was killed by the same person who drugged me, and brought back to life by Max Evans, who's an alien, along with his sister."

Michael's eyes go a little wider and he gapes at her, like he can't  believe what she is saying, and then, he seems to go tense all over and his eyes dart over her shoulder and stay there.

She thinks that it's because he can't look at her in the eyes. She's too incensed to hear the car door slamming shut.

"And you know, it's not that difficult of a leap to realize that you are one too, and for one singular second, I actually wanted to believe that you weren't, that you would've told me, because, you hate secrets, but I guess that that only applies to Alex, huh?"

He swallows hard and looks away from her.

"You promised me you wouldn't tell anyone about Texas, and not even a day later, he walks into my bar knowing it. So tell me. Does Alex know that you're an alien?"

"Yes," she hears Alex says from behind her, and she jumps and feels her heart stop and start in her chest before it starts pounding loudly. "I know. But don't think that's so special. He didn't tell me either."

Maria looks at Michael, whose entire focus is on Alex, and she exhales roughly and turns around.

Alex at least has the decency to look at her in the eyes.

"How long have you known?" She asks, honestly curious.

"For months," he responds, raising an eyebrow at her, like to say that it had only taken him a few weeks of being back in Roswell to figure it out when she hadn't in the ten years he's been gone.

"And you didn't think that was something you should've told me, when you told me that you were married?" 

"No," he responds immediately. "That wasn't my secret to tell."

Maria scoffs at that, and turns back to Michael, who is still looking at Alex, almost like he hadn't expected him to come back.

Before she can say anything, he's speaking after being silent for the entire time that she was talking to him.

"What are you doing here? Forget something in your rush to leave?"

His voice is caustic, and right on the edge of hostile, but there is something more genuine in the way that he's staring at Alex that wasn't there when he had been talking to her.

Alex doesn't even bristle. He takes a step around Maria and the chair she’s standing behind and stops right next to Michael, holding out a manila folder towards him.

Michael just stares at it for one full second before he looks up to Alex’s face, an eyebrow raised in question.

“It’s all the information I could find dealing with anastasis in the Caulfield files,” he says and it sounds almost like he’s speaking in code, but its’ a code that Michael seemingly understands because he grabs the folder and opens it up immediately.

Alex just stands and waits for Michael to read, hands jammed into his pockets as he stares at Michael, and Maria can just make out his expression, something fond and exasperated.

“Caulfield?” she asks, and Alex’s eyes flicker over to her once, before Michael makes a low noise that she’s never heard before, almost a cautious type of excitement.

Alex turns back to Michael who looks up to face him at the same time.

"This could actually work," he says and his voice sounds awed, and he's looking at Alex like he's done something wonderful.

Alex nods his head once, "I have the video footage, but I didn't think that you would want to-"

Michael stands up at that, the move placing him firmly in Alex's personal space.

Alex doesn't back away.

"Is she-?" Michael starts and then cuts himself off, and there is so much anguish on his face that Maria feels an ache deep in her chest.

She wonders who he is the she that he's talking about.

Alex drags his hands out of his pockets and his arms are barely aloft, before Michael is crashing into him, fingers wrapping tightly in the collar of his shirt as he pushes into Alex's embrace while also making an attempt to keep him back, almost like he's powerless to crumble in front of him, like he wants the comfort but doesn't know how to accept it.

Alex catches him easily, fingers wrapping tightly right above his elbows, clenching the fabric of his jacket as he keeps Michael steady.

Michael gasp, a noise that sounds more like a sob, and he drops his forehead to Alex, who pushes in close, pressing the bridge of his nose against Michael's forehead.

He says something too low for Maria to hear, but Michael's fingers tighten on his jacket, a low whining noise escaping from the back of his throat.

They sway in place with the push and pull of their embrace.

Maria feels like they've forgotten all about her, and she takes the moment to get the feelings of helpless anger under control as she stares at Alex comforting Michael, because that was supposed to be her. 

She was supposed to be the one that he came to when he needed someone to hold on to. She was supposed to be the one to hold him steady, like he held her steady. She was supposed to be the one that he needed. He had chosen her. She was supposed to be the one.

But watching this, the way that Alex keeps him close, the way that Michael keeps pushing in close, the way they fit together like jagged broken pieces that had been worn away at the edges until they only fit with each other, she realizes that he hadn't chosen her at all.

She had thought that what was happening between them was something real, and maybe it could've been, but the facts were that Alex had already given Michael the choice to make, and Michael had already made it when he hadn't filed the divorce papers, and all of that had nothing at all to do with her.

Maria unclenches her hands and lets the crumpled paper fall to the floor.

She stares at them for a second longer, watching as Michael moves, leaning his forehead to Alex's and opens his wet eyes slowly, tears staining his cheeks, and the way that he looks at Alex, sends a bolt right through her chest.

She raises a hand to her mouth muffling the sob that wants to fall out, and turns around, heading back to her truck. 

Her eyes dart to the rearview mirror as she leaves the junkyard, and she spots them, still leaning against each other, neither of them taking notice that she's not there anymore.

She shakes her head, laughing a little self deprecating, and pushes down hard on the gas, kicking up a storm of dust as she leaves.

[alj4890]

Halloween Prompt

(Thomas x Amanda) (Maxwel x Nadia) with the prompt of visiting a haunted house  as requested by Anonymous.

(Thomas Hunt x oc*Amanda) (Maxwell Beaumont x Nadia Park) taken from And Then I Met You storyline.

A/N Sorry Nonnie! Been sitting in my drafts folder while being sick. Finally added the ending just in time for Halloween. 

@lxaah11​ @alleksa16​ @penguininapinktuxedo​ @blackcoffee85​ @stopforamoment​ @hopefulmoonobject​   @krsnlove​   @annekebbphotography​ @gibbles82​  @cora-nova​ @bella-ca​  @hopelessromantic1352​ . @sunflowergirl05​ @desiree-0816​ @greywitchyshots​ @lilyofchoices​ @emceesynonymroll​ @dr-nancy-house​ @aworldoffandoms​ @ab1901​ @pixieferry​ @lolablackwrites​ @flyawayboo​ @i-bloody-love-drake-walker​ . @trappedinfandoms​

Masterlist

Don't Let Go

"I think this will be our first Halloween not spent in Cordonia." Maxwell remarked while carving a pumpkin.

Amanda looked up from hers and thought back. "I think you're right."

"Damien's mom has invited Nadia and me to some kind of costume party. Apparently it is a pretty big deal in the Nazario household." Maxwell dropped some pumpkin guts into the trashcan set between them.

"When are Kai and Damien flying in?" She asked.

"A few days before the party." Maxwell glanced up at her. "What are you and Thomas planning to do for Halloween?"

Amanda shrugged her shoulders. "We haven't really discussed it. Most likely stay in. Thomas doesn't strike me as a Halloween enthusiast."

"Huh." Maxwell's brow puckered a moment before devoting his attention to his pumpkin.

Amanda paused. "Huh what?"

"Nothing. I thought I remembered reading somewhere that he loved haunted mazes and houses." Maxwell explained. He looked up at Amanda freezing. The terror flickered in her eyes. "You haven't told him yet, have you?"

She audibly swallowed. "No and I don't intend to ever tell him."

"Amanda, he loves you. He won't think less of you simply because you--"

"Don't say it!" She hissed, shame flooding over her. "I don't want to talk about it."

"But, you--"

"No!" She bitterly interrupted again. "In a few days this blasted holiday will be over and I can relax. Let's just enjoy everything else autumn."

Maxwell's lips parted as if he were about to argue some more then relented when Thomas joined them outside.

He leaned down and kissed Amanda's cheek before sitting next to her. "How's the carving going?"

"Good." Amanda smiled and turned hers around. The scene of a cornfield on a moonlit night was starting to come through. "These patterns Nadia drew up are perfect. I can hardly carve a triangle straight much less anything this intricate on my own."

Maxwell whipped his around, revealing a haunted graveyard. "My wife is literally the best artist on the planet."

"Aww!" Nadia came running up. She kissed Maxwell and plopped down beside him. "Thanks sweetie."

"How are the party decorations going, blossom?" He asked after another kiss.

"Good. Damien and Kai have decided to join us tomorrow to finish decorating. Mrs. Nazario has gone Halloween crazy with all her ideas. I can hardly keep up with her." Nadia studied Maxwell's work and smiled with approval. "I could use a breather from party planning. How about we do something tonight?"

"About that, I have a surprise for us." Thomas announced.

"You do?" Amanda asked, smiling at the excitement on their friends' faces.

He held up a large envelope. "Our plans are in here."

"May I?" Nadia asked, her smile growing with each second.

He handed it over to her when he noticed Amanda's hands were covered in pumpkin.

Nadia ripped the paper and pulled out four lanyards. Her eyes widened. "Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights!"

Amanda stared in disbelief. Thomas chuckled at her and Maxwell's shock. "We will have the VIP treatment tonight so we can enjoy all ten houses or mazes as they call them."

"That's awesome!" Maxwell exclaimed a little louder than usual in an attempt to divert attention from Amanda's silence. "I've always wanted to go after watching all those videos on YouTube."

Nadia squeezed his arm in a hug. "You will protect me right?"

He grinned. "I dare a ghoul to get near you."

Thomas gently rubbed Amanda's leg. "Are you surprised?"

She nodded. "Very." She cleared her throat and forced a bright smile. "It should be...something."

He chuckled and pressed another kiss to her lips. "Make sure you all wear something comfortable to walk in. I've got a few things I need to finish up before we leave."

Nadia jumped up and told them she was going to take a much needed nap if she was going to scream the night away. Once both spouses were gone the two best friends fell into silence.

Amanda's head hit the table with a thud. "Why? Why did he decide on not only one haunted house but ten?!"

Maxwell quickly wiped his hands on a towel before touching her shoulder. "You have to tell him. There is no way you can get through this by pretending. It's not just ten houses. There are also multiple scare zones you walk through to get to each one."

Amanda's head shot up. "Kill me. I will write a letter exonerating you from the crime. Choose your favorite weapon." She gestured to the different knives between them.

Maxwell rolled his eyes. "Why won't you tell him?"

"Because it is a ridiculous phobia!" She argued. "I know none of it is real. I've known it since childhood. I should be able to come face to face with a mask and not have it happen!"

Maxwell rubbed his hands over his face. "The last time you tried to prove that you no longer had the fear, you nearly passed out from hyperventilating on us and that was a single encounter! You are going to have numerous ones tonight."

Amanda wiped her hands off and shoved away from the table. "I am not revealing it to Thomas. You saw how happy he was. I am not ruining this for him. I don't want to take something he loves away."

Maxwell groaned and dropped his head back dramatically. "Why do you have to be so stubborn? You know you are more important to Thomas than a billion haunted houses. He's going to be upset if you purposely make yourself miserable for him."

"I can't tell him." She mumbled. "Just help me keep it secret. Please." She lifted her eyes to his understanding blue and gave the look he had never been able to refuse.

He covered his face. "Not the eyes!"

She bit back a smile when he promised her. He picked up the garbage can and followed her back into the house. "I don't know how we will keep this a secret, but I will try."

_____________

Amanda could already feel her phobia trying to rear its ugly head as they walked through the entrance. Fog machines had been working overtime to give the place an eerie sense of foreboding. Screams, chainsaw sounds, and growls filled the air.

She had a plan in place. Keep looking down and hold onto Thomas as if he was a lifeline. She could make it through a few hours. She had to. There was no way she was going to allow this phobia that had not only caused her to give up trick or treating at the age of eight to even to this day being unable to walk among costumes cause her to ruin this night.

Thomas smiled softly at her. He thought it was sweet how demonstrative in her affection she was being tonight. Her arms were wrapped around his waist and she had her head pressed against him.

Amanda had lost feeling in her fingers already from gripping his belt loops so tightly. She hoped he still had feeling below the waist because she might need him to carry her limp from fainting body out of here.

Then the creatures came out of the fog.

"It's the first scare zone." Maxwell announced, mostly for Amanda's benefit.

She audibly swallowed and tried to look away. Thomas tugged her toward one of the scare actors. "Extradionary. Look at the amount of detail the makeup artist put into this. He truly looks like a drowned sailor returning to the surface."

The creature leaned down toward Amanda's face and stared into her eyes. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't speak. It finally moved off when she did not respond in any fashion.

Maxwell elbowed her to get her breathing before she passed out. She gasped and mouthed her thanks to him.

Nadia squealed when another drowned sailor came up with a gleaming hook covered in blood. He chased her and Maxwell for a few feet.

"Please. Please. Please." Amanda barely pleaded. "Don't come up to--" she buried her face in Thomas's side and kept her eyes closed.

He chuckled while watching the gait of the actor. "He even moves like one would think a long lost drowned, decaying victim would. They have truly outdone themselves this year with the training."

"Yes, they have." Amanda's voice cracked.

Maxwell and Nadia came back and discussed with Thomas what they should see and do.

"We could get something to eat first." Maxwell held the brochure up to a dim light. "They have mini pumpkin doughnuts, babe."

Nadia's eyes lit with interest. "Definitely after we do a few of the houses."

_____________

Thomas draped his arm around Amanda's shoulders when she tightened her grip on him. They were slowly approaching the first stop for the night. She closed her eyes and moved behind him. She had never been as grateful as she was right now that he was a good bit taller than her. He blocked what they were approaching, she then only had to worry about the sides and back.

He gripped her clammy hands and moved her in front of him. "I don't want to lose you." He whispered in her ear. He softly kissed her neck as they crossed the threshold.

Her eyes flew open. There was no one in front of her. She could see everything. Her heart began to race while her breathing became more labored. She knew something somewhere was going to jump out at her. She studied the atmosphere and managed to ask a question.

"Is...is this a hospital?"

"Looks authentic, doesn't it? Nothing to make one more fearful than being misdiagnosed with insanity." Thomas replied.

"It's a psychiatric hospital?!" Her throat was closing up. She was going to have crazy mask wielding people coming at her.

Thomas jumped with her first blood curdling scream when a deranged orderly appeared out of a dark corridor. He had no idea she could scream like that. There were sound effect technicians that would metaphorically kill to capture that type of horror.

If she had not been nudged forward, she was certain she would have fallen to the ground. When the third jump scare happened with a woman in a straitjacket, Amanda moved quickly behind Thomas. She closed her eyes and pressed her face into his back. Her hands clutched the other as they met around his front.

"Are you alright?" Thomas asked, his voice laced with concern.

"Just keep walking." She managed to say while her breaths became louder. She knew by the flashing lights and screams that something truly horrific was occuring. After what felt like an eternity, she opened her eyes and immediately let out a curse word she never used. They had reached the hospital's morgue where body bags wiggled on bloody slabs.

Thomas whipped his head around in surprise when he heard the word she practically yelled out. They had to maneuver through the tables to exit. One of the bodies sat up and reached for Amanda. Her terrified scream caused the scare actor to pause in surprise.

Amanda began to breathe a little easier when they stepped outside. She assumed it was over. There was one final scare by a doctor covered in blood popping out of the bushes.

She stumbled in shock and fell backwards, hitting Maxwell on the way down.

Thomas quickly knelt down by her. "Are you hurt?" He gently cupped her face, trying to see what if anything was causing her pain.

She debated for a few seconds lying and saying she was in a great deal of pain. He would insist on taking her home and she would be free of this date night. Amanda looked into his eyes and shook her head. "I'm fine." She stood up and brushed her bottom. "Maxwell helped break my fall."

"What else are best friends for?" He teased.

Thomas frowned some when he noticed her keeping her eyes downcast. She quickly edged around the mental patients wandering about. He caught up to her and took her hand. The grip she placed on it caused him to wince.

They were soon walking through a Killer Klowns from Outer Space scare zone. Creepy, distorted clowns ran about, causing screams and laughter.

"I hate clowns." Nadia muttered hiding her face against Maxwell's shoulder. She clutched him tight and let out a few yelps when one scare actor continued to try and get screams out of her.

Amanda closed her eyes as her breathing became more labored. She tried to ignore the noise and chaos. She let go of Thomas's hand to link her arm with his.

He observed her silently while a puzzling frown formed. By the fourth house, he knew something was definitely wrong.

"I say after we do this next one, we get us a treat." Nadia announced. "Pumpkin doughnuts and those waffles from Stranger Things are calling to me."

This house went as the others had. Thomas tried to keep Amanda in front of him so that she wouldn't miss anything and he could hold her. Within minutes of walking, she would duck behind him and keep her face against his back.

Once free and at the half way point of the night, Amanda sagged against Thomas.

"You two go on ahead." He said to Maxwell and Nadia. "There is a set piece I want a closer look at. Amanda and I will catch up to you in a few minutes."

Once the couple disappeared in the fog, Thomas pulled his wife to a deserted spot in the shadows.

She looked up at him and tried to smile. "What was it you wanted to see?"

"I wanted a private moment with you. What is wrong?" He asked.

"Nothing." She quickly replied. "Why?"

"You have barely spoken two words together. You either stare at the ground or have your eyes closed." His frown became fierce. "So I ask again, what is wrong?"

"Nothing." She repeated. She had to get him to stop questioning her and move them out of this area. They were currently in a Walking Dead scare zone. The last thing she needed popping out with her trapped between a building and her husband was a zombie. She could hardly look directly at them on tv. How would she be if she came face to face with one?

"Amanda--" Thomas began.

She let out a breathless scream at what was lumbering behind him. Her breath caught and she started coughing to try and breathe.

Thomas looked over his shoulder before patting her back.

Blackness ebbed around her vision as she struggled against the mental block that was causing her to think her throat was closing up. She sucked in air and coughed out gasps.

Thomas became alarmed listening to her. "Amanda!" He grabbed her before she hit the ground. Her eyes were wide in terror at the number of zombies coming out of the fog around them.

"Let's go." She pulled on his shirt and tried to make her dead legs move. "Please."

Thomas walked her quickly out of the scare zone. They bumped into Nadia and Maxwell, loaded down with sweets.

"We got you the chocolate Stranger Things shake." Nadia pressed it into Amanda's trembling hands. "Look at the little Mind Flayer. How cute is he?"

"Thank you." She quickly looked away from Thomas and took a sip. "It's good."

"Pumpkin doughnut?" Maxwell held the bag out to the couple.

"Amanda," Thomas gently began again. "What is--"

"Yes, please." She quickly stuck her hand and pulled a warm miniature doughnut out. She took a bite and sighed. "These are fantastic."

Maxwell looked down into the bag and cocked an eyebrow. "They must be haunted because there are only two of the dozen left."

Nadia held out the stack of waffles to him. "You know my weaknesses are sweets and you."

Maxwell pressed a kiss to her lips that were coated in cinnamon and sugar. "Good save."

She laughed and offered to get more doughnuts. She glanced at the other couple and stilled. "What's wrong?"

"That is what I am attempting to find out!" Thomas exclaimed. His eyes zeroed in on the silent communication going on between Amanda and Maxwell.

"Maxwell," Thomas said in a deadly serious tone. "Perhaps you can shed some light on this."

Maxwell' blue eyes grew large and he took a cautious step back. His pleading glance collided with Amanda's. She dropped her head in her hands.

"Fine!" She exclaimed. "I suffer with a type of Masklophobia."

"With what?" Thomas asked. He gently brushed her hair over her shoulder before tipping her face up.

"It is a phobia of Halloween masks, costumes, and mascots." She explained. "When I am around them my heart races and my breathing is affected. Panic attacks and sometimes fainting occur." She shamefully covered her face again. "I know it is ridiculous! None of this is real! I've always known it wasn't. A few years ago I made Maxwell paint his face and put a mask on in front of me hoping seeing the steps would break this idiotic mindset. And I still panicked and passed out."

Thomas wrapped his arms around her. "Why didn't you tell me? I would have never made you come to this."

"Thank you! That's what I told her and begged her to do." Maxwell exclaimed.

"I didn't want to ruin it for you, for any of you." Amanda looked at the three of them. "I will be fine if I can keep my eyes closed."

"I'm not going to make you finish the last houses." Thomas looked into her eyes and sighed at the tears building. "You and I can find a restaurant to sit in while Maxwell and Nadia go on. Then--"

"No!" Amanda shook her head and swiped at the stray tears. "I want you to enjoy them. You love this and--"

"And I would rather spend the evening with you." He interrupted while caressing her cheek.

Nadia audibly sighed. "That is so sweet."

Thomas ignored her commentary. "Come on. We--"

"Are going to finish the houses!" Amanda stood up. "Just hold onto me and don't let go. As long as my eyes are closed and you have me, I think I will be fine." She slipped her hand in his warm grasp and lifted pleading eyes to his. "Please. Let me do this for you."

Thomas tried to look away. Maxwell leaned over and shook his head. "Might as well give in, Thomas. Amanda has always been too stubborn."

Thomas ran a hand down his jaw. "The moment you feel your panic rise you tell me so we can get out. Is that clear?"

Amanda's tense shoulders eased and she nodded. "I will."

He grunted in reluctant approval and wrapped his arm around her. "Let's see what is around the corner."

As they approached the next house, she moved behind him and closed her eyes.

Nadia stood behind her and gently patted her shoulder. "Don't worry. Maxwell and I are right behind you. I dare anyone to try anything."

Amanda reached behind her and squeezed Nadia's hand. "Thank you. You don't know what that means to me."

Nadia beamed and stuck close to her, making Maxwell grin at her protective spirit coming out. He slipped his arms around his wife and kissed her when she looked up at him. She smiled and focused on the monsters starting to pop up.

They managed to finish everything with little to no trouble. Amanda continued to keep her eyes closed with each place and focused on slowly breathing in and out. Her face buried within either Thomas's back or side helped keep her calm or as calm as one could be knowing your worst fears were parading around you.

They made it home and talked about all they had seen. Amanda listened quietly to the excited chatter and laughter. Maxwell and Nadia parted from them and went to the newly built guesthouse out back.

Thomas locked the backdoor and then came up behind Amanda as she finished the dishes. She paused when his lips touched her neck. Each lingering kiss made her skin tingle.

"Promise me that you won't keep something like that secret from me again." He whispered in her ear. "Do you think I wouldn't understand?

She sighed and turned in his arms. "It wasn't that. I didn't want to disappoint you or keep you from enjoying something you clearly enjoy."

"I'm never disappointed with you." He pressed a kiss to her lips.

Her eyebrow lifted in frustrated doubt. "Yes, because everyone wants to walk with their spouse plastered against them."

His lips curved. "I might have come up with the idea of going just for that very reason. As much as I hated discovering that I had planned the worst night possible for you, it was nice to discover that you turned to me to keep you safe."

She shook her head with a laugh. "Did you truly enjoy yourself tonight?"

Thomas nodded before taking her hands. "I did and I promise not to make you do this again." He lifted her hands to his lips.

"Thank you." She captured his lips in a tender kiss. Her lips lifted in a teasing smile against his. "Would you like to watch a scary movie?

"Haven't you been tormented enough for one night?" He asked.

"I could press close against you each time I get scared." She nipped at his earlobe. "And not being to watch the scenes with the masked killer would most likely cause me to entertain myself in other ways."

He stilled for a moment. "I will go find us a horror moive."

[tacitwhisky]

Fifty Shades of Snow

Jon x Sansa | AO3 Link | Sansa doesn’t know how to deal with how much she likes rough sex. And especially not how much she likes it with Jon

The first time is in an abandoned hall of Sansa’s parents house during a cocktail party, the sound of music and tinkling laughter in the other room faint, light flickering under the door on the far side of the hall as Jon pins her hands over her head, his dark eyes watching as she pants and groans and squirms against his fingers inside her, wanting more, needing more, whimpering for more, and when she peaks it’s arching on those fingers.

Only then does Jon kiss her, hard and bruising, tongue shoved in her mouth, drinks the groan his fingers rip from her as she comes again and again and again.

---

The first time Sansa’s mind is warm and fuzzy and she giggles as she nearly trips on her four inch heels and Jon has to reach out to grab her elbow as they walk down the dark of the hallway. “You’re drunk,” he says with a faint grin, lips twitching, “Sansa you’re so drunk right now.”

Sansa rolls her eyes and pulls away, nearly tripping again. She rights herself and sips at her gin and coke, gives Jon a withering look over the rim of the glass. Growing up she’d never given him a second look mostly because she’d never given him a first. It’s hard not to now though, not to notice how effortlessly handsome he is in his black slacks and jacket, the top few buttons of his clean white shirt dress shirt undone. Stubble shadows his jaw, so unlike Joffrey’s clean cheeks, and maybe that and the fact she actually is a little tipsy is why she says, “I watched the video on your laptop.”

“What video?” Jon quirks an eyebrow. “And when were you on my laptop?”

“I needed Arya’s flight information and you don’t have a password on it.” She drains the gin and coke and gives Jon another withering look. “Which is incredibly dumb. It’s the twenty first century. And you know which video. The one you forgot to put in your porn folder.”

Jon’s eyes dip in a slow blink, and Sansa finds herself strangely disappointed by his lack of reaction. “You are drunk,” he says.

“So?” Sansa leans back against the wall, tilts her chin up in a silent challenge. “Is that what you’re into? Tying girls up? Is that what gets you off?”

Jon blinks again, still maddeningly unreactive. “What do you care?”

Sansa shrugs carelessly, like she doesn’t. “I don’t. I just thought you were better than that. I thought you were a good guy.”

Somehow without moving Jon’s eyes are suddenly different, unreadable, pools of black even in the flickering light leaking out from the door at the end of the hall. “No you didn’t,” he says softly.

Sansa bites the inside of her cheek and looks down the hall, the words ringing truer than she likes. From the first moment Robb first dragged Jon back home with him like some stray off the street Sansa had always been the least enthusiastic of her siblings in welcoming him. It wasn’t that she disliked Jon exactly, but they’d never been close: her life cotillions with Margaery and summer houses with Jeyne and family vacations in the south of France that didn’t have a place for her brother’s brooding charity case friend.

Sansa shifts against the wall, well aware of what it does to the dress she’s wearing, how the slinky material will drape over her legs. She has good legs she knows, long and tapered and smooth, the only perk of being taller in heels than most men. Joffrey had hated that, had always made her wear flats so she didn’t embarrass him, made her feel tall and ungainly. Not that it was the only thing he’d made her feel freakish for, not the only thing that had made his lip curl in that sneering way of his when he called her slut or whore or bitch.

Isn’t that why you stayed with him so long, though? Because he knew just how little you were worth? A voice deep in Sansa whispers. Or was it because you wanted to be treated like that, needed to be treated like that, craved being treated like that.

Shame wells sharp and sick in Sansa’s stomach, and she lifts her chin higher. “You still haven’t answered. Is that what you’re into, Jon? Tying girls up and making them beg for your dick? Calling them names and making their mascara runs?” She giggles, not sure why’s she taunting him or what she hopes to accomplish, whether she wants Jon to step closer or walk away. “God, how tiny must your dick be if that’s what it takes to get it hard, Jon. I watched the whole thing, you know, the part where he slapped her at the end and told her to thank him. It was gross.”

Jon tilts his head to the side, and Sansa bites her tongue. It had just slipped out, tongue loose with gin, and there’s no taking it back now. I watched the whole thing. She jerks her head away. “It’s gross,” she mutters to the empty hall, “disgusting.”

Silence stretches between them, the only sound the tinkle of conversation and music at the far end of the hall. Sansa keeps her gaze firmly on the flicker of light under the door, refusing to look at Jon. Since she’s been old enough to know what it it Sansa’s known all porn is disgusting and degrading to women, the kind of thing a girl who had been raised right would never glance at much less watch. It’s gross that Jon watches it at all, much less the specific video he had, but Sansa’s heart is beating faster than it should, thumping painfully in her chest, her cheeks flushed and burning, and she doesn’t know why: doesn’t know what she’s waiting for.

She isn’t drunk, not really, but she wishes she was. It would make it easier: easier not to hate herself for how her skin prickles at the thought of Jon grabbing her like the man in the video and pushing her against the wall, shove her legs apart, snarl in her ear to be a good little slut for him. If she was drunk in the morning she could blame it on the alcohol, pretend she’d given into what he wanted and not what made her toss and turn in the dark the night before until she’d eventually given in and slipped a hand between her legs to find herself already wet.

And just as Sansa’s made up her mind she’s going to walk away, to chalk it all up to too much gin and pretend this never happened, Jon steps forward. His cologne is faint as he takes the empty glass from her and carefully places it on a side table before reaching up and fisting his fingers in the back of her hair. She shudders, a bone deep shiver that makes her knees weak as he pulls her head back, careless of how she’s taller than him, of how she’s wearing a dress that costs more than his rent, of how she’s senator Ned Stark’s little girl who men have always lusted after but been too scared to touch like this. His breath whispers against her exposed throat, a wolf before its kill, as he says soft and dangerous, “tell me to stop.”

She doesn’t.

---

The second time’s a month later in the apartment she shares with Margaery. Margaery’s out on a date with the latest hedge fund manager she has wrapped around her little finger, their place empty for the night, and Sansa’s a quarter of the way through a bottle of wine before she breaks down and texts Jon: come over.

She pours and downs another glass, and just as she’s sure Jon’s not going to text back, that he must’ve gone to sleep early, her phone chirps. Why?

Sansa chews her bottom lip. They don’t text. Not really. Not unless it’s a groupchat with the rest of her siblings or an emergency. I’m bored, she eventually taps out like this isn’t strange, like they’re friends, like she has any right to his attention. Come save me.

A long moment, then three jumping dots before he texts back. I’m on a date.

Trust Jon-eternally-fucking-single-Snow to be on a date tonight of all nights. What’s her name? Sansa texts back, and tells herself she doesn’t care even a little.

Val.

Going to get lucky?

Maybe. I like her.

Who says she likes you?

Me.

Simple. Short. Confident. Sansa chews her lip, hating everything about herself in that moment, wishing she could just put her phone down and walk away like she should. But her skin is flushed and cheeks hot, and a restless energy tingling through her arms and legs.

Just come over, she eventually taps out. Margaery’s out and I’m all on my own.

It’s the most she can say. The most she can ask. The most the darling daughter of senator Ned Stark can text without shattering the image she’s so carefully crafted for herself of the perfect young woman who's the apple of society’s eye. That girl had been raised right. Had been raised by her mother to be strong and confident. That girl might dress up in lingerie on a special occasion for a long time boyfriend, might try a pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs to appease him, might even giggle while getting spanked a few times.

But that girl doesn’t crave more, doesn’t crave being hurt or helpless or shown her place in the most degrading ways possible, doesn’t crave the sharp edge of panic as a belt is cinched tight around her windpipe. Doesn’t have an endless well of shame and self loathing when she thinks of what she wants, of what she’d let men do to her. That girl doesn’t play with herself every night for the last month at the idea of Jon pushing her to her knees and fisting his fingers in her hair, doesn’t arch and pant and groan against her mattress at the thought of him looping his belt around her throat, doesn’t bite her tongue to keep from moaning loud enough to wake Margaery at the thought of him snarling in her ear what a dumb little slut she is as he shoves into her from behind.

Sansa stares at her phone, heart thumping against her ribcage as seconds slip by without an answer. Then, finally, three jumping dots.

Give me a half hour.

---

The second time Jon slides his belt off and loops it around her wrists, cinches them tight behind her back and throws her onto her bed. She whimpers and pushes back, hating the layers of clothes between her and the hardness in his jeans, but his calloused hand closes around the back of her neck in a grip that makes her shudder, helpless as a kitten grabbed by the scruff of its neck. He shoves her cheek into the mattress and with his other hand pushes her legs apart.

And then he takes his time. His grip on the back of her neck keeps her pinned and helpless as his fingers rub agonizingly slow circles around her clit. He slides one finger and then another into her until she’s rocking her hips back with each thrust of his fingers, moaning into the mattress words she’d never admit to in the light of day, that she’ll do whatever he wants, that she’ll be his good little slut, his good little whore, that he can do whatever he wants to her, just let her have it, please, use her, own her, hurt her, please Jon, please-

Only when her words have turned to wordless groans does she hear his zipper rasp down. His hand fists in the back of her hair and he yanks her up, arches her against him. His other hand follows the curve of her hips and waist and ribs, fingertips whispering maddeningly light as he traces and invisible line. “You’re being such a good girl for me, Sansa,” he murmurs, words soft and dangerous, voice shivering against her skin, “aren’t you?”

Sansa nods frantically. She rocks back on the hard shape of him against her ass, the heat of him, unable to do more than let out a wordless, mewling whine. She needs him in her, filling her, needs it more than she’s ever needed anything in her life, needs him to reduce her to a single keening need.

His hand unclenches from her hair and he wraps it around her throat, sound dimming and pulse pounding in her ears as he tightens his fingers, pulls her tight against the hard lines of his body behind her, presses his lips to the curve of her ear, voice just as soft and dangerous and skin tingling as before. “Don’t come until I tell you.”

---

Afterwards Jon slips his belt from her wrists and draws her to him, strangely gentle, as though she were a half drowned kitten. It doesn’t make any sense after what he’s just done to her, the way he was just shoving into her, but instinctively Sansa curls into him, into the warmth of his chest and safety of his arms. Joffrey had never held her after they had sex, always sneered at how clingy she was, lip curling back if she tried to lay her head on his chest or curl up beside him. The memory should make her shrink away from Jon now, fill her with a bone deep shame, but the instinct is faraway and fuzzy and it’s hard for Sansa to think about anything but the feel of his chest, his arms tight around her, the musk of him in her nose, the gentle sift of his fingers through her hair, hard for her to want anything but for this warm safe moment to never end.

But it does, snapping in two like brittle ice as Margaery’s keys jangle at the door. Sansa’s heart leaps into her throat and she pushes away from Jon, scrambles out of bed and frantically gathers their clothes from the floor and shoves his towards him, hisses at him to get dressed.

Something passes over Jon’s face as he takes his clothes from her, some emotion Sansa can’t place, something almost bitter. But just as soon as it’s there it’s gone and Sansa leans out from her door frame, smiles at Margaery, and asks her how her date went just like she has a hundred times, light and breezy and with a faint air of disinterest because senator Stark’s daughter didn’t date around like Margaery Tyrell, didn’t fill trashy tabloids with her sexual exploits.

The look that flashed over Jon’s face stays with Sansa as Margaery rolls her eyes and chats for a minute before saying she’s heading to bed. She doesn’t understand the look, doesn’t understand Jon. But she understands Sansa Stark. The senator’s daughter, the socialite, the confident young woman who she’s so carefully and painstakingly crafted. And that girl didn’t ache to be used. Hurt. Abused. Not by Jon Snow.

And if her heart throbs in her throat when she glances at Jon still out of sight on her bed, an ache like a day old bruise she doesn’t understand, she’ll simply bury that in the dark empty place inside her she shoves down everything that girl isn’t.

[theoncequeen-blog]

Don't leave us in darkness

Smoke came from the Jedi Temple, the ancient monument a site of massacre. This stress couldn't be good for the baby Padmé thought anxiously, but pushed it aside for the time being. She had to focus on Anakin, what she would do if he was who Obi-Wan said he was.

Her Ani, a Dark Sith Lord? She wished with every fibre of her being that it was not true. The sweet little boy from Tattooine was long gone, but the man who replaced him was surely no Sith Lord.

Unconsciously Padmé's hand drifted to her stomach. The younglings in the temple, gone. They were the embodiment of hope and purity itself, as all children are. Padmé hoped with all her heart that it wasn't true, that Anakin hadn't taken innocent lives that belonged to beautiful children who had yet to live. That the shrouded figure in the holovideo wasn't him, even though it looked like him.

He couldn't have.

He would never.

"Threepio!" Padmé called, already springing into action. She swiftly walked to her wardrobe and grabbed a change of clothes.

"Yes mistress Padmé?" The protocol droid asked, glad to be of some use. He disliked seeing the Senator upset, and she had been upset for a while now. Jedi business, he assumed. That was what he dubbed any problems that involved Master Anakin.

"Will you prepare my ship? We're going on a quick trip." She said decidedly, already picking up a blaster that was hidden under the table. The day of diplomatic negotiations was long gone, it would seem. Just in case, she thought, placing it on top of her pile of clothes.

C-3P0 began to babble but Padmé cut him off.

"Set the course for Mustafar."

The two met each other's eyes for a moment, before Threepio blinked in shock and nodded. For once, he knew this wasn't a time for words.

He trotted off and Padmé took a moment for herself. She sat down on Anakin's side of the bed heavily. She placed her free hand on the bedsheet, running it over the smooth silk. Padmé only noticed she was crying when the tears dropped on her nightgown. She wiped the tears away but they kept falling, too quick for her to brush them all away.

The holovid that Obi-Wan had shown her refused to leave her mind. The shrouded figure, the younglings and their fear. Their screams, oh force, their screams. They weren't seasoned warriors unlike their mentors, they were children.

Dead children now, Padmé thought.

Would he do the same to their children if it meant saving her?

An intense feeling of sickness pervaded her stomach and she ran to the fresher, vomiting up everything that had been in her stomach.

Padmé sat beside the toilet for minutes until she felt she could move without getting sick again. She wished the door would open to reveal a friend, someone who could advise her on what to do. This decision wasn't one she could make lightly, her children's welfare depended on her survival. But hundreds, possibly thousands...millions? more depended on her bringing Anakin back.

Threepio knocked on the fresher door and heard the Senator respond with an "I'll be there in a moment!". He may have only been a droid, but he could hear her sniffles from behind the door. Sighing quietly he resigned himself to a long wait. A moment was never simply a moment with the Senator.

Padmé stared in the mirror at her bloodshot eyes and pale face. A far cry from the seemingly flawless Queen she used to be.

Whatever happened next, the only thing she could do was what her conscience dictated.

She splashed some water on her face and quickly got changed. Then she exited the room and met Threepio at the door, ready to knock again.

"Mistress Padmé, there you are. Your ship is ready, but Captain Typho wishes to accompany you." He stated.

"I'll handle him. You go ahead without me and wait on the ship. I have to do something." She responded wearily, putting her blaster in its holster on her leg.

Padmé watched Threepio leave the room once more and made her way over to her nightstand. She opened the bottom drawer and lifted out the secret compartment in it. Inside lay a holorecorder she used to record messages in the event of something bad happening her. Messages to her friends and family, ones she had compiled over the years. Each sorted into a folder that could be only be opened by the person to whom it pertained, providing they knew the password. She had made arrangements for it to be found should she ever die without closure for those she left behind. Recently she had started recording messages for her unborn child, because of Ani's premonitions.

Padmé's gut had been nagging at her ever since she decided to go to Mustafar, telling her she might not come back, so with trembling hands, the former Queen of Naboo turned on and set up the recorder for what felt like a final time. The light flashed indicating it had started recording.

"I'm going to Mustafar to talk to Ani. I saw... I saw a recording of someone killing younglings, and Obi-Wan, he said-" At this point Padmé's throat closed up and she felt tears welling up once more. She took a deep, steadying breath. Clearing her throat she began once more.

"I think Obi-Wan was right, Ani's changed and it's not for the better. I don't want to believe that the person in the holovideo was him, and I won't, not unless he tells me it was. Maybe not even then."

Padmé heard a knock on her door and knew her time was up, it was undoubtedly Captain Typho asking why she was preparing her ship at such an odd time in the morning.

"I think it's time for me to go. If the worst comes to pass, know that I love each of you with every piece of my being. Hopefully this message will never been seen and I can delete it when I come back with Ani, but I don't think things will be that simple. They never are." She uttered the final sentence softly and turned off the recording.

Padmé sent the video to every folder and placed the holorecorder in her pocket. She would entrust it to Artoo later, she decided. She then greeted an impatient Captain Typho. He accompanied her to her ship but she eventually managed to brush him off with a reassurance that Threepio would look after her.

With a little difficulty Padmé climbed aboard her ship and into the cockpit.

She was not as sharp as she usually was (her mind was otherwise preoccupied), or she would have noticed a cloaked Obi-Wan following her and stowing himself away onboard.

With a heavy heart, Padmé took off. She turned autopilot off, preferring to have something to concentrate on instead of worrying. It would only drive her insane.

It was only a few hours to the volcanic system of Mustafar. This was to be the longest trip of Padmé's life, despite not being the longest in terms of time.

After all too long, Padmé entered the Mustafar system. There weren't many places to land, so Padmé chose the closest one which also was next to a control centre of some sort.

She sat there for a moment, at a loss as to what to do. There was always some predetermined plan when entering a possibly hostile situation, but how could a person prepare to accuse their husband of mass murder? Her head fell into her hand and a solitary tear fell from the young woman. She wiped it away, promising herself there would be no more tears until after this was over.

A figure emerged from a close by building and it was unmistakably Anakin. He ran to greet her. Despite herself, Padmé's heart swelled at the sight of her husband. Abandoning Threepio and his chatter, she met her husband close to the entrance of her ship.

They embraced tightly and Padmé relaxed for the first time all day, Anakin's gentle touch letting her know that everything would be alright.

"I saw your ship." Anakin said quietly, resting his head atop hers. His Angel muttered his name and withdrew from him a small bit.

"I was so worried about you! Obi-Wan told me terrible things." She said tearfully, her brown eyes staring intently into his own, trying to determine his thoughts. She touched Anakin's face to reassure herself that he was still here with her.

Something in Anakin's face shifted, his features hardened when he asked: "What things?"

"He said that you turned to the dark side...that you killed younglings." She cried, hardly able to say the sentence, let alone think about it.

"Obi-Wan is trying to turn you against me." Her husband stated, his eyes flashing yellow for a moment. Padmé stilled against him, wondering it it was a trick of the light.

Still she continued, saying "He cares about us, he knows...He wants to help you." She ignored his repetition of the word "us" and the fury that it contained.

"Anakin, all I want is your love."

Her voice cracked slightly when she said it, but he didn't notice.

"Love won't save you Padmé. Only my new powers can do that." He ignored the small shudder she made when he finished his sentence.

"At what cost? You're a good person, don't do this!" She exclaimed, wanting to reach for his hand but something stopped her.

"I won't lose you the way I lost my mother. I am becoming more powerful than any Jedi has ever dreamed of and I'm doing it for you. To protect you."

Oh Force, did he actually...

"Come away with me. Help me raise our child, leave everything else behind while we still can." One last plead, but Padmé didn't know that. She ran her hands over his hair, nearly stumbling over her words as they fell from her mouth.

Anakin began speaking, but Padmé could only hear the blood rushing in her ears. She heard snippets, "Peace to the Republic", "Overthrow" and then the worst of all. Padmé's mind honed in on his proclamation: "We can rule the galaxy, make things the way we want them to be."

In that one moment, Padmé's mind went blank. Did he even know what she stood for? That she was for democracy as much as she was for life itself; that millions of people on her home planet alone depended on her to keep democracy in order and in turn ensure their safety? That she knew an empire was not in the best interests of anyone save Palpatine?

"I don't believe what I'm hearing....Obi-Wan was right, you've changed." She gasped. The love of Anakin's life took a step away from him.

Had he killed the younglings?

"I don't want to hear anymore about Obi-Wan. The Jedi turned against me. Don't you turn against me." He growled and ignored her slack face of horror.

Was that a threat? she wondered.

"I don't know you anymore. Anakin, you're breaking my heart. You're going down a path I can't follow!" She cried, fully meaning every word. She wouldn't follow him into this darkness. She could see his eyes now, startlingly yellow. The colour of a Sith. Still, she pushed onwards. This was her fault, these deaths were her fault and the blood was on her hands. She would bring her husband back to the light. He of all people was never pure, but once upon a time, on a planet far away he had been determined to do the right thing to help the strangers who had shown him even a little kindness. Surely he of all people understood that the empire was evidently to be little more than disguised slavery and exploitation of basic rights?

"Because of Obi-Wan?" Anakin questioned, staring at her intently.

"Because of what you've done, what you plan to do! Stop, stop now. Come back! I love you." She cried, on the border of hysteria.

"LIAR!" Her husband roared, his eyes fixated on a point behind her.

She whirled to see Obi-Wan standing at the top of the descending ramp. Her eyes widened, how dare he?

""No!" Padmé cried, utterly shocked at Obi-Wan's betrayal.

"You're with him, you brought him here to kill me." She whirled back to Anakin, desperate to convince him that she would never, even in a million lives betray him, much less plot his demise. But instead, she found her husband's hand outstretched and clenching the air around him.

But it wasn't the air around him that he was constricting, Padmé realised as her throat tightened and she couldn't inhale. Her heart clenched painfully as if it were her that that was being crushed and not her airway. The young woman's hands went to her neck, trying to loosen the invisible grip upon her. Eyes pleading with her husband, she whispered his name once more, to release her for the sake of her children if not for her herself. Her lungs burned painfully as they begged for air she couldn't give. She felt a weak kick from the child in her stomach, reminding her she had to live. But her vision was going black around the edges, and it seemed so much easier to slip into the abyss that beckoned her.

She heard a faint cry from Obi-Wan and was dimly aware of her legs falling from underneath her. As she fell, both to the ground and into unconsciousness, she cradled her stomach with her hands to protect her child. Her last glimpse was of Anakin, his face contorted with rage, yellow eyes burning.

This was not the man she loved.

Padmé woke up, acutely aware of a fierce pain in her throat and a worse one in her head. She opened her eyes to see Obi-Wan beside her, his face contorted with worry.

"Obi-Wan, where's Anakin? Is he alright?" She whispered, before feeling her body go limp and falling unconscious once more.

She awoke once more on an operating table. Not aware of what she was doing, she let out a cry of pure anguish, not from the physical pain but one that surrounded her. It was like thousands of lights were being extinguished and she knew that the lights were lives. How she knew, she didn't know, but she knew all the same.

She cried out, seeing Obi-Wan standing outside the room. His eyes met hers in a sorrowful gaze and in that moment she knew that Ani was dead.

Whether it be in terms of life or as the man she once knew, she wasn't sure. They were equally painful.

She didn't resent Obi-Wan for what he did, it was almost as painful for him as it would have been for her to do it herself.

She let out a cry at the feeling of her baby making it's way out, it felt like she was ripping in half. She heeded the instructions of the midwife droid as best she could through her pained state, and after blood and sweat and many tears, she welcomed her baby into the world. Relief filled her, she had defied Anakin's premonition and survived. But the droid informed her that the child was one of two. Twins.

Padmé's mouth opened in a soundless howl as she delivered her second child into the world.

She was barely aware of naming them, but she went with the names she and Anakin had chosen.

A boy and a girl. Luke and Leia.

The former queen was conscious of something tugging her away from her life. Agonisingly slowly, her vision faded and the blackness beckoned her. She fought it tooth and nail but it was insistent. She felt her lungs stop taking air in, felt herself die. Somewhere in the darkness, she couldn't tell how long it took, she felt a spark, two sparks and her mind recognised them. Family, her mind called them, family.

With a jolt of recognition Padmé pushed death away with a mighty shove and a mental scream of defiance. Nothing would take her away from her children, not now and most certainly not until it was her time.

She cried as she held them, tears streaming down her face as she sobbed reassurances to them that she would always take care of them.

As she walked to the conference centre, she refused to lean against Obi-Wan. Weakness was not tolerable, she had faced worse than this before and managed to walk unhindered. As she walked she gazed at the two children she held so close to both her body and her heart already. Obi-Wan held a door open for her and she sat herself down to his right, opposite Bail.

"Padmé, you of all people have to understand that sacrifices must be made." Obi-Wan sighed in exasperation, knowing his attempts were futile but trying nonetheless.

"Sacrifice? Don't act as if you're the only one making sacrifices Kenobi. My whole life I have sacrificed. I will not negotiate this." In her words a regal tone could be heard, reminding them exactly who she was and what life she had lived.

"They are my children, and since your Jedi Order is partly to blame for the loss of my husband, I will do my utmost best to prevent the same from happening to my children. They will grow up in a home with their mother, they will love and be loved."

"Senator Amidala, allowing your emotions to cloud your judgement you are." Yoda warned.

"These children are borne of my flesh and my blood. I will not compromise their happiness by keeping them away from the little family they have! I don't care if I have to spend my whole life on the run to protect them. I will reinstate the republic singlehandedly if I must. But do not attempt to take my children away from me for you know as well as I that I am a force not to be reckoned with."

Yoda acquiesced with very little grace and stood back from the Queen.

"A rebellion you wish to create?" He asked, face pensive. He sensed something stirring inside the Senator, an uprising.

"I've already started it would seem." She replied, allowing herself a wry grin. After all, what was the Delegation of Two Thousand if not a rebellion against the powers Palpatine held?

She met Bail's eyes, a silent agreement passing between the two ot them.

She had brought her planet to salvation when she was just a mere girl. Now she was a woman, what was to say she couldn't do the same for the Republic? (as long as she had the right contacts of course)

And contacts she had.

[gusenitsaa]

The King is Dead

     Long Live the King 

For my ever growing collection of @icecubelotr44 inspired the darling affair adjacent fan fiction fan fiction and the whump bingo prompt 'don't let them see you cry'. So you know... fluff obviously. Jones brothers mostly CS/ miliam established but not the focus; (hello, on brand)

Liam Jones; founder and captain of JR Solutions and far reaching pain in the ass of criminal organizations far and wide… was dead. So went the rumors. A game; obviously, and one that worried him for the sake of his own skin more than for Liam's.

It was a ploy. It had to be. And a bloody good one at that. He'd been in deep cover thousands of miles from home for weeks. He'd thought it was going well, thought he would be home by…

It wasn't true.

He kept his face a careful mask as another toast was called across the room.

"The king is dead!"

Long live the King

The frivolity was so obviously a trap that he wondered how they even thought it would work. Any wet behind the ears agent would know better than to show his cards now. Playing this kind of game meant someone knew JR Solutions had infiltrated their ranks. Thankfully their intelligence had been correct and they did not know his face or he'd already be dead.

Deep cover is the worst. It's long, it's stressful. It's dangerous.

He rarely did deep cover anymore. It wasn't safe within a thousand miles of headquarters. Too much risk of someone knowing him. Foreign ops were still an option though, thanks primarily to Will Scarlet's careful diligence in keeping every trace of Liam Jones' little brother's face off of the internet. But Liam needed the best for this one and he was still the best.

He hadn't actually seen the latest intelligence yet. An intercepted transmission for one Killian Jones that had set off a wave of celebration and an undercurrent of suspicion through the organization simultaneously. The letter was making its rounds and by careful indifference it had yet to reach him. But the news had spread like wildfire and the higher ups were watching the spread with a barely hidden scrutiny.

A copy of the letter was pressed into his hands finally and he pasted a look of mild interest on his features. He could feel the heat of eyes on him as he scanned. Anything more than a cursory glance would raise suspicions but from the first a sudden panic seized him.

"Forgive me for doing this in a letter Killian. You have a way with words I've never shared and I do not trust myself to do this properly if I have to see the look on your face while I speak. If anyone could talk me out of death itself it would be you, little brother. I hope you know that, whatever happens, I tried to stay. If I've failed, I wanted to give you the one last conversation that I so desperately needed when I thought I'd lost you.

I don't know what will become of me. Perhaps I will beat the odds and I can give you this letter with my own hand when my days are done and your children are long grown. If not, at least I hope it was useful. That my death could provide some small measure of safety for you and Emma and your beautiful-"

The letter went on. Killian could not. The letter vanished from his hand and on to the next gawker who let out a whoop of delight and began a mocking dramatic reading of something that Killian hadn't read yet. His eyes slipped cautiously to his boss' face. He was still being watched.

Could it be true?

His mind raced and he could hear his heartbeat in his ears, drowning out the dramatic reading from the asshole on the table.

How?

Liam wasn't in the field. Liam was behind a damn desk. Liam wasn't supposed to-

Even if he was, he forced himself to consider the possibility logically. Would Scarlet really release this, risk exposing him like this. To risk his very life to beckon him home? Why? His stomach twisted painfully. Yes. If his family was in danger. What else could force Liam to yield his life but a threat to his family. If it wasn't Killian it had to be- And Killian hadn't been there to protect them, to protect him, because he'd needed a few more days. To what? Suddenly the whole operation felt hollow. Liam was gone.

Killian took a shallow breath, the panic making him feel like he might be sick. He was going to get himself killed if he couldn't control himself.

He wanted to run.

He wanted to abandon everything. The progress he'd made, the intel he'd gathered, the chance of eliminating position number 3 on their top ten most wanted list. What the hell did it matter now-

He swallowed hard turning his face away from the higher ups watching him with the facade of attention to the mocker still on top of the table.

He still couldn't hear the words.

There are many things Liam Jones is not proud of.

The encrypted file on his computer, chief among them. A full color recording of the time he'd failed Killian so spectacularly as his commanding officer and as his brother. The video had been livestreamed straight into ops and watching his little brother's apparent murder had broken something inside him so thoroughly that it never quite healed, even after Killian stumbled into his office weeks later beaten and exhausted but alive.

Since that day Killian had deleted the file dozens of times, and destroyed several copies on flashdrives. He'd caught Liam watching it at 3am more nights than either of them wanted to think about, after too many drinks from a home bar that used to be for show. He'd never find them all. Liam needed that video. Needed that reminder of how much was at stake. Needed the reminder of how much Killian could survive.

It was a lie. He didnt need the reminder. he knew every moment, could see it behind closed eyelids on the bad nights. He remembered the horror and the grief and the guilt. Most of all he remembered the shock.

They lived with the possibility. In their line of work it was impossible not to know the statistics. But Killian was different. Killian was a survivor. Killian always came home. Liam always brought him home.

Emma trusted that.

Most days she didn't even ask when Killian was coming home. She just watched him too carefully at dinner, atuned to his moods. If he wasn't worried, she wasn't worried.

But he was always worried. He'd just learned to hide it better since Alice had come along.

He'd had his share of close calls himself, even if they were fewer since he'd given up field work years ago. But it nagged at him. The desperate need to talk to Killian just one more time, after...there was one more file on his computer that Liam considered a necessary evil. Letters to his family. "In the event of my death-" ran the first, a practical sort of letter addressed to Will Scarlet. Scarlet was the only one, as it happened, who had already seen his letter, as he'd set up the simple executable file that would handle distribution of the contents of that digital folder."

They sat, forgotten in a corner of his hard drive, largely ignored since the raw weeks following Killian's return. Until the data breech.

The breech that Scarlet had deemed a non-essential compromise. personal files only, motive of digital attack pending investigation.

It took hours for Scarlet to even determine if any files had been accessed and once he'd discovered it he'd deemed the breech one of non-critical scope. After all, the scope of the breech was so targeted, so tiny. So innane. One single personal folder on Liam's hard drive, of no intelligence value whatsoever.

Unless of course its being used to ferret out someone in deep cover.

Which is how he ended up here. In his office, waiting for a call. he had no way of reaching Killian right now, he was in too deep, but surely Killian would call for early extraction?

The minutes blurred together into hours.

It isn't true.

The hours to days

It isn't true.

It isn't true.

It became his mantra. The only way he could get through the next moment was a pointed and conscious complete refusal to accept the contents of the letter. Because if it was true he had to get out. And if he tried to get out right now he would never make it. He knew it. The entire organization was on high alert, waiting for someone to bolt.

It isn't true.

Despite the way the wording felt so much like Liam it tugged at his heart. Who the hell would know Liam well enough to forge that-

No.

It isn't true.

Do your job. Complete your assignment. Get to the extraction point. Just a few more days.

Killian didn't call for early extraction.

Milah texted him at 4 am when he didn't come home, telling him that he owed her big time for making her be the one to tell Emma. He'd forgotten. He was busy. Wearing a groove in the carpet of his office, plotting out every possible trajectory. Very few of them with much possibility of a happy ending.

Why didn't Killian call for an early extraction?

There was a pounding on his door which made him jump, some part of him entirely certain that it was Killian in his doorway, just as he'd been once before when- he looked up.

Emma.

He swiped his card to release the security door, wondering in passing how she'd gotten past the one on the ground floor. For her own safety more than anything else she didn't have access-

His train of thought was cut off by the door flying open.

"Where is he?"

"I don't know."

"Is it true? He's compromised?"

"Possibly."

"Possibly?" Emma's complexion turned a shade or two redder. "Liam tell me what the hell is going on or I swear to-"

"I don't know." Liam spat back suddenly and Emma stepped back as though he'd struck her. "I don't..." Liam repeated quieter, "I don't know, Emma."

"What happened?"

"Someone got into the server, accessed my personal files. Took only one. The breach was so small Scarlet didn't even think they got anything until."

"What did they get?"

"I wrote him a letter. My goodbyes, should anything... happen to me unexpectedly. It was encrypted but-"

"He thinks you're dead."

Liam swallowed hard. "It's worse than that."

Emma sank down onto the couch her head in one hand. "How. How could it be worse than that?"

"They're looking for him. There's no other reason for such a targeted breach."

"So get him out!" Emma cried. "Bring him home. That's what you do."

"Don't you think if I could have I-" he swallowed hard. "Scheduled extraction is in five days. Unless he contacts us I can't reach him."

4 days 14 hours and 37 minutes.

Not that he was counting.

It had been 4 days 14 hours and ...38 minutes since someone had pressed a letter into his hand and his world had crumbled around him. He'd existed in a haze from that moment, locking every emotion in a trunk somewhere in the back of his mind. Relying on automation and training to get him through. Only daring to question himself in the dead of night when the dark hid his face from the gaze of the criminals around him and he could risk a moment of weakness to wonder.

Should he have run?

It haunted his every moment. The needling doubt underneath every repeated It's not true that was the only thing keeping him sane. No further transmissions. No attempt to contact him, that he could tell. Not that his bosses would be likely to let such a transmission through. They were still waiting for someone to crack.

4 days 14 hours and 39 minutes.

Extraction was mere hours away and he didn't know how the hell he was going to get out now. Now when the entire organization was on high alert, waiting for someone to do exactly what he was going to do in the next few hours. Focus on the logistics. It's what Liam would-

It's not true.

Most of what he'd gathered was encrypted on several usb drives, stashed in several predetermined locations. A cautionary measure against extraction going sideways. He'd renamed each drive isittrue. In case they retrieved the drive before he could get out. A plea that Scarlett find some way to get a message to him. No message came.

He wasn't truly expecting one. but still it needled at the back of his mind. Was there no message because it had been intercepted. Because they had yet to retrieve the intel. Because it was true and they didn't want him distracted. Hell if Liam was gone would anyone even be there to ex-

It's not true.

Focus damnit.

"You're a cold bastard." the voice of one of his sub-lieutenants rang out and it was all Killian could do not to jump or curse, or both. He glanced back to see the glint of a weapon trained on him from a shadowed alcove. He had a tail. Damn it he was better than this.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Killian growled, forcing steel and a yet unfamiliar accent into his tone.

"My job. Same as you."

"Look, man-"

"Save it. We both know who you are. Goodbye Killian Jones." Killian dropped like a stone the instant before the sound of two weapon shots near deafened him. Heat then ice tore through his shoulder and his tail collapsed unmoving, Killian's bullet in his heart. More would come.

"Bloody buggering he-" Killian grumbled, finally dropping the accent he'd been using for the last seven weeks as his hand raised to his shoulder coming away red. He pulled the flannel overshirt he was wearing off one shoulder, and with a muffled groan lifted his arm slightly to wrap his left shoulder as best he could.

Get to exfil. Get to Liam- Please. He finally let himself beg. Please don't be true.

He ran.

Four blocks from exfil.

He shouldn't have been able to run. The blood draining out of him at every step left him pale and winded and the corners of his vision were already a bit blurry. But knowing that the third most wanted man on their wall of infamy was no more than three minutes behind you does wonders for inspiring physical endurance. If he passed out he died. That was all there was to it. If he got to the extraction point he might have a chance in hell. If he passed out it was over. They'd put a bullet in his head before he even woke and a man doesn't get so lucky as to survive that twice.

Three blocks.

He could hear the reving of car engines down the street. His boss' sub lieutenants searching for him most likely. He'd managed to stem the flow of blood enough to not leave a bloody trail from the man he'd killed but not for long. He'd bought himself minutes probably. Someone would come across the trail of red and then it was over.

Two blocks.

If you pass out you're dead. If you pass out you're dead. If you pass out-

"Who has eyes on Hook?" Liam demanded over the radio.

"Negative, grid 1"

"Negative, grid 2"

"Negative, grid 3"

On and on. Negative negative negative. Killian was late. Killian was seven minutes late for exfil and Liam wanted to knock down every bloody door in this entire damn neighborhood until he found-"

BANG! BANG! Two shot in the distance and Liam's stomach sank. No.

"Where was that?" He demanded.

"North, boss."

"Sounded like it came from the East to me-"

Damn these tall buildings that echoed and damn these people who were so used to the sound of guns firing they didn't so much as flinch to give Liam and his people a hint- "Eyes peeled," he called, "Someone get me eyes on Hook now!"

The minutes ticked by, the radio silent, no one wanting to fill the air with chatter at a time like this.

"Man down, grid seven!" Finally rang out over the radio. "I repeat, man down. I need backup. I've got eyes on him, Captain but-" more gunshots over the radio and over the air waves.

Liam cursed again, checking his weapon unnecessarily and slamming open the door to the van. No one even tried to stop him. Grid seven that was- before he'd even had time to move there was the sound of more weapon fire and Liam ran towards it as the civilians finally realized something abnormal was happening, impeding his progress with an exodus in the other direction.

His man was pinned down behind a dumpster and two cars were at the far end of the alley doors open for cover half a dozen men strewing the alley with covering fire. Killian was down in the middle of all of it, terrifyingly pale, his entire left side soaked in scarlet from shoulder to boot. He took one step towards Killian without thinking only to be pulled back as a bullet whizzed by where he'd been only a moment before.

"Hood?" he demanded over the radio, "Where the devil are you and yours?"

"In position in 45 seconds, Captain."

"Make it 30."

"Copy."

"For what must have been hours Liam waited, eyes fixed on the still body on his brother in that alley just beyond his reach. 4 shots. 4 thuds. And panic broke over the enemy ranks. Liam burst from behind the dumpster, grabbed Killian under both shoulders (sorry, Killian) and dragged him behind cover. His left hand was sticky with cold blood. With one man under each shoulder they dragged Killian from the alley and shoved him unceremoniously into the waiting van.

"Killian?" Liam lost his balance when the van pealed out of its spot, just catching himself as they raced towards medical aid and air transport. "Hold on, little brother," Liam whispered, "nearly out. Just hold on-"

If you pass out you're dead.

It was the last thing he remembered thinking before everything went dark and the first when he woke up, abruptly realizing that somehow he wasn't. His eyelids were heavy with exhaustion and the familiar weight of drugs. He fought the heaviness and managed to slit open one eye. Grey metal, the whirring of fans. He'd been captured. His eyes closed again and he forced them open once more, searching for something, anything to aid his esc-

"Killian?"

Liam?

The next time he managed to get an eye open Liam's face was hovering over him.

"Li'm?"

"Aye, little brother. I'm alright. We're alright. I'm taking you home."

He wanted to reply. To say something, hit his brother senseless for putting him through that. To hug him and then perhaps hit him again. He passed out instead.

When he woke the walls were brighter, the weight of exhaustion and of the drugs less overwhelming. The sound which he now realized in retrospect belonged to a helicopter, not a giant fan, was gone.

Liam. Liam had been here. He shot up, agony lancing through his shoulder and down his arm making him cry out. Moments later there was a pressure at his side, "Relax, little brother, I've got you."

"Git." Killian murmured, his mouth barely managing to form the words. His eyes blurred and tears slipped down his cheeks as Liam shifted to support him. Killian slumped against him, exhausted and not caring in the slightest that tears were now freely flowing down his cheeks. He'd blame it on the drugs later, he decided, turning and burying his face into Liam's shoulder. "You utter git."

"I'm sorry, Killian," Liam murmured, voice slightly muffled and thick. "I'm so sorry."

"You're alright? You weren't-"

"I was never in any danger. It was a ploy. One that you showed remarkable resilience against."

"Tell that to the tail that I was too distracted to notice," Killian commented. "Emma?"

"Fine. Still back home. Probably pissed as all hell by our detour."

"Detour?" Killian looked around, suddenly surprised. "Where the devil are we?"

"Somewhere in west Germany," Liam commented, "I'm not entirely certain."

"Germany? How-? What do you mean you're not certain?"

"You coded twice in the air, Killian. I was a little distracted."

"Ah," Killian replied... "sorry." Liam chuckled dryly and tightened his grip. "When can we go home?"

"Did you not hear what I just said? Your heart stopped. Twice. I'm quite certain that requires a certain level of recuperation time, even from you."

Killian moped, his eyebrows furrowing and one corner of his lip turning in his characteristic pout.

"You're going to make the nurses' lives hell aren't you?"

Killian nodded cheerfully and Liam sighed. "I'll get your discharge papers."

"Liam-" Killian interrupted, before he made it more than a step away from the bedside.

"Hmm?"

"You're going to delete that damn letter. Because if I ever have to read about your death being useful again... I will find a way to bring you back and punch you myself."

Liam's lips thinned into a terse line and he looked as though he might argue for a moment. then he paused, tousling his brother's hair in a fond gesture he hadn't gotten away with since they were kids. True to form Killian glared at him, shaking his tangled and too long hair out. "I mean it, Liam."

"I know you do, little brother," he paused for a moment, contemplative. "I love you too, Killian."

[serpentjulian]

Discoveries || Julian Self Para

Where: Sunnyside Trailer Park

When: December 16, day

Warnings: Descriptions of strangling

Word Count: 1,292

Julian had stayed put at the library as long as he could manage but he was going stir-crazy in the library and there weren’t enough Pokestops around for him to justify staying there for much longer without going outside. He was going to lose his streak if he didn’t catch something soon.

It was fine. He’d be in and out before Santana or Roman or god forbid Darius could notice he was gone. Besides, there were only so many places in the library where he could hide from Hooks, and he was getting a bad feeling that the other Serpent was going to corner him soon if he didn’t get out of there. It’d been two years but he really would rather die than be alone with Hooks ever again.

It had taken some careful timing to make sure everyone keeping an eye on him was occupied before he made his careful escape from the basement, and then darted out of the library’s front doors.

He did a little fist pump and happy dance once the fresh air hit him, and then pulled his phone back out, loading the app up.

“Alright, alright. Come on, Shiny Charmander, pull through,” he said, pulling his hood over his head — he wasn’t completely careless — and starting to walk, eyes glued to his phone.

He idly caught a few Pidgeys and Natus as he walked, not really paying attention to where he was going but his feet automatically carried him back towards the trailer park.

He spun a Pokestop once he got to the park, and then grinned as one of his 5 km eggs hatched into a Treecko. Leaving had really been worth it.

He finally looked up from his phone and realized abruptly how far he’d wandered. Oh no...Santana’s gonna fry me up for dinner.

Of all the places he could’ve gone, the trailer park was one of the stupidest. He was lucky he hadn’t already been ambushed or something. But I mean...I’m already here...I might as well look around and grab some stuff from my trailer.

He adjusted his hood over his head and began walking through the park, still flicking his eyes back to his phone to make sure he didn’t miss anything that might’ve popped up in the game.

He narrowed his eyes when a new silhouette appeared in his ‘nearby Pokemon’ box. A Dragonite!!!

He mashed his finger onto the silhouette, waiting for its location to pop up on the map, before he took off after it, his attempts to be stealthy momentarily slipping his mind.

His foot hooked on something and he went flying, landing on the ground with a hard thud, his phone bouncing out of his hand, but he scrambled to grab it, flipping it around.

“Oh my god, oh my god.” Not only was his screen still intact but the Dragonite had appeared.

He hit it, and then squealed when he realized it was green instead of orange and a shiny, and then frantically threw a few Ultra Balls, finally snagging the beast on his fifth throw. He let out the breath he was holding, and then slowly sat up.

He slipped his phone into his pocket and finally looked around at where he was. He’d wound up on the part of the trailer park that had gotten the brunt of the Northside’s rage. What he’d thought was just a rough patch of dirt and grass was actually rubble and ash.

He got up, brushing some ash off his jeans. Well...now that he was here, he might as well look around, right? That couldn’t hurt.

He kicked around some of the rubble, unearthing a scorched mug, a surprisingly hardy book, and a couple other knickknacks that had survived the blaze, before he stumbled upon a box.

It’d been locked but clearly its security measures hadn’t survived the fire.

He picked it up, curious, and opened it, tilting his head to the side when all it contained was a small flash drive.

He looked around again, making sure the trailer park was still a ghost town, before he quickly pocketed the drive, dropping the box and then scurrying away from the rubble and towards his own trailer. He needed his laptop.

Julian’s laptop was a busted old thing. He’d gotten it from a thrift store after it had passed through probably five or six previous owners. But it had gotten him through high school and it would get him through the flash drive’s mystery.

He opened his trailer door, and slipped inside, shutting and locking it behind him. Ah, home sweet home.

He dug his laptop out from under his pillow, and then booted it up, tapping his fingers on his knee impatiently as he waited.

A few moments later, it was up and running. He slipped the drive into the USB slot and waited for it to load.

He opened the folder once it popped up, and frowned. The only thing on it was a video file.

He double clicked, and held his breath as the video player loaded up.

The footage was kind of fuzzy, but it cleared up in a second. There was a battered looking girl tied up in a chair, a strip of duct tape covering her mouth, What am I looking at?

He stiffened, squinting. The video wasn’t HQ or anything, but the Smythe family had been in the paper for weeks. It was hard not to recognize their deceased daughter, Sebrina.

An imposing man entered. Julian nearly dropped his laptop when he recognized Adrien Smythe.

He suddenly really didn’t want to finish watching, but he had to. He had to be sure that the bad feeling in the pit of his stomach wasn’t unwarranted. 

The video didn’t have any sound, but the Smythe patriarch said something to his daughter before he crouched in front of her, wrapping his large hands around her throat and squeezing viciously.

Julian felt sick. The poor girl was thrashing, trying to free herself from her bonds and get away from the man.

He didn’t understand what would — why would....and the strangling....it was slow. It was deliberate. Julian wanted to throw up, suddenly wishing he’d just shoot her and be done with it.

A few more minutes passed and Sebrina’s fight slowly faded from her body. She eventually slumped, her head falling forward, but Adrien Smythe didn’t let go of his daughter’s airways for a few moments longer.

He finally stepped back, surveying her for a moment, before he called out something. Julian didn’t know who he was talking to until two men in Serpent jackets entered the frame.

Bruce Anderson and slimy, little Geico. Julian didn’t like him very much either. He hung around Hooks a little too closely for Julian to ever really trust him.

Julian realized his fingers were shaking, but he had to watch the video through to the end. 

Bruce pulled out a knife and sliced through Sebrina’s bonds easily. Her body fell forward, onto the ground. He tucked the knife away again and he and Geico picked the girl up, balancing her body between the two of them.

Smythe seemed to instruct them to do something, and then the three of them walked out of the frame.

The video cut a few seconds later.

Julian let out a breath, and scooted back from his laptop. His nausea finally got the best of him, and he had to rush to the bathroom to hurl.

When he was done, he went back to his laptop. He ejected the flash drive and pocketed it again, before pulling out his phone.

Darius and Santana needed to know about this. And someone needed to get Sebastian Smythe away from his father fast.

[cooperjones2020]

Second City, chp. 9

Summary: Sometimes she worries she’s settling — for a smaller job, a smaller city, a smaller life than she’d promised herself — but that was before she found out Jughead Jones lives in Chicago. That was before she found out the final secret of Jason Blossom’s murder.

ao3–>http://archiveofourown.org/works/11409360/chapters/26199753

Second City one / two / three / four / five / six / seven / eight (ao3)

Nobodies Nobody Knows one / two / three / four / five (ao3)

In which Betty finds out where the bodies are buried

It’s almost impressive how the universe has decided to screw with her. It’s also just sick. She realizes, looking at the date stamp on the printout, that it has been 12 years to the day since Jughead left her, one year and seventeen days after Jason’s death.

She feels him enter the room behind her. And (she might be imagining it, but) she feels the air pressure change when he realizes what she’s holding.

“Betty—”

“What is this, Jughead?”

She turns and he’s leaning against the doorway, wearing only the towel from earlier wrapped around his waist. His arms are crossed so tightly the tattoo on his chest bulges and she can see all the veins in his forearms.

“Security footage.” She glares at him and he sighs, his whole body sagging, before scrubbing his hands over his face.

“You remember the tape?”

“Of fucking course I remember the tape.”

“Well it didn’t show…all of it. Hal was there.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

She tosses all the photos but the one back onto the desk and moves to push past him, but he grabs her arm. “Where are you going?”

“To get dressed.”

“What?” For just a second, he squeezes her wrist so tightly it hurts. Then he drops it like a hot coal.

“You are going to tell me what this is. But I’m not talking about it while we’re both practically naked.”

She rushes to the kitchen and shoves her jeans back on her body, dropping her bra in the tote still sitting on a chair. When she returns, Jughead’s bedroom door is closed, so she sits on the couch and pulls her hair up into a tight little ponytail on the top of her head.

When he comes back out, he drops his beanie on the coffee table and sits in the armchair to her right. He pulls a comb out of his pocket and proceeds to brush his hair. He does all this while staring at the wall over her shoulder.

She waits silently. Eventually he lets out a deep exhale and stands, throwing the comb down on top of the beanie. He disappears down the hallway and comes back with two mugs, a chemex, and an electric kettle. He leaves and returns with spoons, a jug of milk, and a roll of paper towels.

She lets him fiddle with his props a while. When he’s folded a paper towel into a square and set a steaming mug of coffee—prepared the way she still likes it, only with milk—on top, she lays the photo down on the coffee table between them and says, “What was he doing there, Jughead?”

“I don't know. I've been trying to find out.”

She thinks of the laptop, the notebook, the manuscript. “And you were what? Going to write about it?”

Out of the swirling vortex of emotions her mind is currently unable to process, anger emerges and she clings to it like a buoy. Except for the moment he grabbed her wrist, he has been so calm. She wants a rise out of him. She wants some indication he’s feeling even an iota of what she does. This situation is so unbearably familiar.

“Yes! No. I don’t know.” His hand clenches around the handle of his mug. She watches the tendons pop out then fade again. “I’ve definitely thought about writing about it.”

“And you weren’t going to tell me?” The look he gives her would be funny if they were in any circumstances but the current ones.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we haven’t exactly been on speaking terms the past dozen years.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Your father’s!”

“What?” Anger gives way to an anxiety that bubbles in her stomach and claws its way up her esophagus. For the first time in a long time, she has difficulty keeping her hands from balling into fists. She snatches up the paper towel Jughead had placed her coffee cup on and commences shredding it into smaller and smaller pieces.

“I’ve been trying to find out what he was doing there—what he knew—since it happened and—”

“What do you mean since it happened?”

He looks confused at her interruption. “Oh. No, not it as in Jason. It as in us. Since my dad’s trial. Do you remember Viper? He started bartending at the Wyrm the fall after we broke up. Told me there was another camera that Keller fucking missed. Helped me and the lawyer pull the footage.”

“Wait the lawyer? What about Mary?”

“She couldn’t represent FP. She doesn’t do criminal law and her bar license had lapsed in New York. The Serpents had their own lawyer, anyway.”

“Okay. But why was my dad there? What does this have to do with us?”

“Can we maybe just focus on the Jason Blossom murder plot for now?”

“Fuck no. You’re not wiggling your way out of this anymore. What. Is. It.”

Jughead stares at her for a moment and at first she can’t tell if he’s angry or annoyed or what. She sees his jaw working back and forth. But then she watches the decision to tell her wash over his face. She couldn’t tell you the moment, couldn’t tell you what individual feature change made it happen, but it’s as if a mask he put on in the parking lot of Pop’s twelve years ago finally comes off. Every plane of his face is etched in pain but the flint in his eyes tells her his fury simmers under the surface.

“You know how Southside got out of school a week before Riverdale that year? Well, one day I was hanging around the Wyrm waiting for it to be time to pick you up from school and your dad showed up. He said—” Jughead laughs but the sound is sharp, bitter. “God, I remember it exactly. He said, ‘Your relationship with my daughter has gone on long enough, don’t you think?’” His eyes cut to hers.

“He told you to break up with me? And you listened to him?”

“Actually, he threatened.” A roaring noise fills her ears and she becomes aware that she’s breathing way too fast. Jughead is staring at her as if he’s either expecting her to start crying or to explode. Thankfully, he doesn’t try to touch her. She’s sure if he did she would cry, she wouldn’t be able to stop the panic tears she’s only barely restraining now. He just waits a minute for her to get herself under control, then picks up the photo.

“He WHAT.”

“Well, he did try bribing me first.”

“What the hell did he trying bribing you with?”

“Nothing I wanted. So he showed up again later that summer. I asked you once how far your dad would go to protect Polly. To protect you. And I found out. Betty, he said — he told me he was there, that night, at the Worm. The night Clifford Blossom shot Jason. He said he was willing to testify that FP was an accomplice. That he didn’t just clean it up but that he helped Daddy Blossom plan it. It would have meant fifteen years, Betts.” His voice cracks on her name.

They argue their way around his apartment. In the kitchen, he gets her a glass of ice then turns to wash the dishes they’d just created. When his back is turned, she pulls out a cube and moves to stand next to the trash so it won’t make a mess as it melts. He tells her about finding the video too late. Two months after she’d stopped calling him. He tells her about the night Sheriff Keller brought her dad in for questioning. He tells her her parents own a stake in the Whyte Wyrm. That that’s why Hal said he was there. That Keller bought his story. That Hal smirked and nodded at him as he left the station. Like they were in cahoots. Like they had a deal.

When they leave the kitchen, she moves her bags with them, if only to keep having something to do with her hands. Then she stands outside the bathroom while he replenishes the store of toilet paper under the sink from the closet. While he refills the hand soap, he tells her about FP’s trial. About her dad’s testimony. He tells her and she hates that she’s not surprised she didn’t know any of this was happening.

He leads her back into the spare bedroom. He gets down on his knees while she tries not to stare at the photos she’d tossed so haphazardly across the desk. They seem indecent now. Like crime scene photos. Which they sort of are. Only the crime isn’t just Jason Blossom’s shot and leaking body, it’s this moment and that moment and all the moments in between in which she wondered what she did wrong.

What she did was be born to the wrong parents. And FP paid for it. Jellybean paid for it. Jughead paid for it.

He slides a banker’s box out from under the desk and sits with his legs spread around it as he lifts off the lid. She drops down beside him. He hands her a manila file folder off the top. It’s FP’s record. Tampering with evidence. Obstruction of justice. Mishandling a body. Perjury. Five years.

They’re details she already knows but it’s as if she’s had the outline sketch and now he’s suddenly filled in the color. “You didn’t put any of this in the book.”

“What? No, no I didn’t.”

“That’s a pretty fucking important thing to leave out, don’t you think? You wrote about everything else. You wrote about Clifford Blossom’s suicide. You even put some of the trial stuff in the afterword. You wrote about…” But her voice cracks and she can finally feel the tears coming, so she stops. She blinks quickly to keep them from falling.

“I didn’t want you to find out that way. I didn’t want you to find out at all, but definitely not that way.”

“So you lost your father so I wouldn’t have to lose mine?”

“I was losing him anyway. FP was guilty, Betty. Keller’s a dick but he was right. FP did let the Serpents kidnap Jason. He did tamper with the evidence. Hell, he tried to toss the body. And I knew I’d get him back if I kept my mouth shut. You couldn’t un-know this. I always knew who FP was. I always knew he wasn’t a good guy. If you knew, you’d lose Hal forever.”

“But I still did. Don’t you get it? I still lost him. I’d already lost him. I lost him when he sent away my sister. And I lost you.”

Betty fights to control her voice, her hands, her tears. The whole time, Jughead keeps his head down, looking at the file on her lap. She didn’t need him to protect her from who her parents were.

“I wouldn’t have judged you for picking FP over me, Juggie. I would have told you to.”

“I know that. But I didn’t want you to have to. It wasn’t a choice you could make for me. It—and the guilt—were mine. I couldn’t let you absolve me of them. By the time the trial was over, you hated me. I hated myself. And I had no cell phone and I was being babysat every fucking second of the day. For months I thought of nothing but coming after you and telling you what I’d done. But then when everything kept coming up roses for your dad—If there was even a chance he could come up with some evidence, they could always try FP again. It’d be a new charge. I couldn’t risk calling his bluff.”

“So you let him bully you. You let me believe you didn’t love me anymore. You let me give up on us.”

“What did you want me to do, Elizabeth?”

In some small corner in the back of her mind, Betty has been marvelling at how incredible this conversation is. She can still hear the picnickers on the boulevard outside. Shafts of sunlight and laughter swing between the billowing curtains. But inside, in the shadows of his apartment, Jughead is quietly and methodically dismantling everything she’s known about her life. Except for the occasional cracks, everything has been measured, calm. Now, though, now his anger begins to bleed through.

“You should have told me.”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference! I still would have had to choose.”

“But I deserved to know! It would have made a difference to my life. My dad was the guilty one, Jughead.”

“He was your father.”

“He was guilty. How can you stand there and defend him?” Her anger is feeding on his and all she wants is to whip them both into a storm that will purge them of a dozen years of hurt and anger and betrayal and longing. But he’s right. She can’t un-know. And again, he manages to put the lid back on.

“I’m not. God, believe me I’m not. But I have had a bit more time to process this than you. I hate him. I will always hate him. But I can’t blame him for doing everything in his power to protect you, even though he thought he had to protect you from me. I would have done the same.”

She’s suddenly aware that the wooden floor has been digging into her knees. She shifts and draws them up against her, massaging out the lines the floor has cut. Now, though, they both lean against the wall, nearly shoulder to shoulder.

“You were right.”

“What?”

“I told myself it was for your own good. To protect you. That it was inevitable anyway so I was just setting you free. But that wasn’t it. I don’t know if I was more afraid of taking your dad’s offer or rejecting it. It didn’t matter, I was afraid of screwing up. So I let him choose for me.”

It’s what she’s always known, but somehow it hurts more to hear the words aloud. Somehow the explanation hurts more than the excuse.

“But don’t you get it? I had to. I had to do it, Betty. Even if you’d known. If Hal had come after us. Me. If he’d come after FP and you knew—you would have tried to stop it. We would have done stupid things to try to stop it. This wasn’t just breaking into convents and finding abandoned cars. I couldn’t get through it if I had to be worrying about you every second of the day too.”

“And that’s it, isn’t it?” she says quietly. She’s been fighting it off, but the pain swamps her then. It whooshes through her. Concussive. Massive and totalizing in its intensity. She stands and staggers back into the living room.

“What?”

When he follows her, she continues, “You know, there are a million reasons it didn’t work out with Hunter, but one of them was that no matter what I did or what I achieved, he always treated me like I was something fragile, something to be protected. You didn’t. Or I thought you didn’t, but I guess I was wrong. So I just need a minute—” She squeezes her eyes shut and wills herself, once again, not to cry. Not over him. Not where he can see. But it would take more than a minute to fit the broken pieces of her heart back together again.

He remains in the doorway to the spare bedroom, as if the liminal space, somewhere in between knowledge and memory, past and present, truth and fiction, will somehow protect him.

“When I was deciding to call off my engagement, I thought about all the men I’ve loved in my life. Hunter. Archie. My dad. Kevin. Even Reggie and I were pretty close friends at one point. And I realized, even Archie and Hunter, I loved them like I loved Kevin. Like I loved Reggie. I thought maybe the butterflies and the fireworks were just because we were in high school, that real life, that grown up love didn’t look like that. I thought maybe I didn’t get to have it. But that’s not true. What’s true is that apparently I’ve never been in love with anyone since you. And even you didn’t know me well enough or care about me enough to know that I didn’t need you to protect me. I just needed you to be honest with me. To pick me. To trust me. You should have told me.”

“God, Betty.“

“I have to go.”

“What? Betts, no—”

But she’s already out the door.

[sweetredcherryblossomtree]

Moving in with your bf should be fun, great, wonderful. 

Except I haven’t actually had any time with just him in this apartment. And he keeps going over to his friend’s place which is 30 min away and he may not even come back tonight because he is “sick” but he’ll probably just pass out instead. Which is whatever, you know? This place needs to be unpacked but my mom and my sister are still here. And my mom JUST remembered that she needed my birth certificate to validate my health insurance except it was due either yesterday or today but funny enough, I can’t find it??? It is in a gray folder that I clearly remember someone asking if it was important to pack and me saying “yeah” but I don’t remember who the person was? If it was Zach, it’d be in one of his boxes, if it was my mom, it would be in one of mine. Except my mom is a ditz and I don’t know if it’s from age or her medication but it’s getting to me. My mom and my sister are also barely helping me unpack or even find my stupid birth certificate. I’m half convinced that I don’t even have it here honestly. Like, they’ll just come and watch me unpack and I’ll drop hints that help would be cool but nah. My sister may help for a minute but then she’ll get bored and then take a nap in MY bed ((:

And I can’t say or do anything because they are both paying hundreds of dollars for me which is horrifying. Like my mom is saying it’s all for my birthday which I honestly forgot was a thing because I’ve been so stressed. I had a job interview on my birthday and I FORGOT ABOUT IT AND DIDN’T GO. It was for one of my all time favorite stores too so I’m just SCREAMING. 

Oz also ate part of the carpet in the sunroom which is....fucking fantastic. The lights in my bathroom also are shitty so applying my make up is a challenge because the color saturation is so off?? AND THERE ARE BOXES EVERYWHERE BUT NO ONE WILL HELP ME UNPACK???? Like Zach got pissed off that my mom wasn’t helping me but he isn’t really either and it’s his place too??? Also, I’m sketched out that we won’t pay the rent on time (ITS DUE TOMORROW??) I have my half but I can’t afford Zach’s half also so like, this isn’t fucking working out already or something? Like wtf. Idk. I’m just angry. I love my mom and my sister but my mom get’s annoying to deal with after 2 days because she doesn’t understand my need to be alone. So she’ll just find me, sit beside me and talk about things she talks about all the time or stuff that is just...stupid. Like she believes everything she reads on her online christian sites and it’s annoying because she won’t believe me when I say none of it is fact for the most part?? And she’ll try to have these conversations with me while I’m listening to a video or music or even trying to sleep and I just can’t handle this. 

On the brightside, while this place isn’t as pretty as Wilmington, it’s pretty neat. Everything is conveniently nearby. I mean everything. Our apartment is like in the best location ever. This city is also giant and all my favorite stores in the world are concentrated in one area and I love it. Plus the mountains are two hours away and it’s already pretty hilly here too. Downtown is beautiful. And there is so much to do here? And aside from some minor things, our apartment is fucking amazing. It’s newly renovated and pretty and there is so much space. I have my own room and huge closet and my own bathroom and so much cabinet space! Oz even has his own room technically and I’m going to train him to be free roam so hopefully he’ll be fully cage free within a year or two. Also, there is valet trash pick up??? AT YOUR FRONT DOOR??? You just leave your trash outside at a certain time of the night and then IT VANISHES by the morning??? HOW WONDERFUL IS THAT??? I HATE TAKING OUT THE TRASH THIS IS SUCH A WONDERFUL THING FOR THIS PLACE TO OFFER. We have huge windows and while it is very shady,there still is enough sunlight to please me. Everything is so nice? Compared to my old piece of shit apartment?

Also, we bought hay for Oz when we got here but it was walmart hay because it was the only store open and I had a terrible allergic reaction to it. Like I was so miserable and even claritin wouldn’t clear it up but I switched him to a new type of hay and he likes it and I’m not allergic to it???? IT IS A MIRACLE. It’s just harder to get in bulk but I’ll figure that out! But I just want my mom and sister to leave (((: I am so done with them. It’s not even funny. And I’m kind of upset because this place is still a clusterfuck but Zach wants us to go visit his mom on Tuesday??? TOMORROW??? For like 2 days???? And have his friend come over and feed Oz but like this place isn’t fit in any way. And he hasn’t started applying for jobs?? I started 3 weeks ago but he hasn’t even made his resume and I’m just...screaming. I love Zach, I do, but I’m still screaming. 

[sunbrights]

fic: by the claw of dragon (2/7)

fandom: danganronpa characters/pairings: natsumi kuzuryuu, fuyuhiko kuzuryuu, peko pekoyama + 77th class ensemble, et al. kuzupeko. character tags will be updated on AO3 with plot-relevant characters as chapters are posted. rating: m summary: The Kuzuryuu Clan stands on the precipice of the greatest era of its history. Kuzuryuu Natsumi promises to be the strongest leader the clan has ever seen, the Overlord of the South born again. That Hopes’s Peak Academy would select her for it’s 77th class was assumed, not hoped for.

To the younger Kuzuryuu son, everything is as it’s meant to be.

One class turns into three, and then five. Natsumi still thinks she got the better end of the deal, but she has to hand it to Yukizome: the classes aren’t terrible. They’re still useless, but at least they aren’t boring.

One day Souda and Nanami push all the desks to the sides of the room so that they can set up a video game tournament, and the whole class gets riled up over some stupid game where cartoon characters fight each other. Natsumi lingers in the back with Peko, and watches Nanami wipe the floor with them round after round after round.

“Kuzuryuu-san.” She’s texting when Nanami turns around in her seat. When she looks up, Nanami has one of the controllers held out toward her. “Do you want to play this round?”

Souda mutters, “What, seriously? Her? But she’s—” and Natsumi throws him a glare that makes him choke on the rest of it.

“What? Are you boring yourselves already?” Nanami smiles when she snatches the controller from her hand. “Fine, fine. Give it here. I’ll show you how it’s done.”

“So…. That means we need two more players.” Nanami looks up at the rest of the room. Natsumi focuses on selecting a character. She can’t decide between the pink blobby thing and the one that looks like a giant, ugly dragon. “Who else wants to play?”

The room meets her with silence.

Peko makes to step forward, but Natsumi pins her back to her place against the wall with a look. Having her be the only one to volunteer would be worse than no one volunteering at all.

She can feel Nanami looking at her.

“Well,” she says, “We could play one-on-one, but….”

“What the hell! You guys are holdin’ up the game!” Owari shoulders through the crowd and falls cross-legged onto the cushion next to Natsumi. “Gimme that, I’ll play again.”

“Then I shall play as well!” Sonia descends onto the last empty seat, and pushes her sleeves up to her elbows. “Be prepared, everyone— this game is about to ‘get lit’!”

Natsumi ends up picking the pink blob.

Owari decimates her.

“Bullshit!” she shouts, the fourth time Owari’s character flings hers off the screen. The rest of the class has crowded the TV to watch; someone in the back whistles as her blob flies into the distance and disappears. “That move is cheap and you know it!”

“It’s actually a pretty sophisticated technique,” Nanami says. Her fingers don’t break rhythm on the buttons as she talks; she’s ahead of all of them by at least three lives. “It’s difficult to control, but once you master it, it’s extremely powerful and reliable.”

“Shut up!”

“Hear that, Kuzuryuu? I’m a master.” Owari elbows into her space, and Natsumi elbows back. At this point she may as well be smashing her entire hand against all the buttons, for all the good they’re doing her. “Now c’mere so I can knock you out of this once and for all!”

“Shut up!”

“Do not feel bad, Kuzuryuu-san,” Sonia says. “I was eliminated ages ago. At the very least, you will get third place!”

“Shut up!”

It doesn’t last long at all. Her blob has barely respawned before it’s being flung again to the other side of the map, and all it takes is a few fumbled button presses for her last life to go down the drain.

Owari whoops. Natsumi throws her controller on the ground. The rest of the class leans away from the TV to wait for the round to finish; anyone versus Nanami is interesting to nobody.

“Aw, man.”

“What, were you seriously rooting for Natsumi?”

“I mean, kinda, yeah. She’s totally right about that move, it’s a frickin’ nightmare.”

“Can we kick this dumb-dumb out yet? I’m getting sick and tired of her always winning. She’s just pressing the same buttons over and over again!”

“She’s not winning, though.”

“Losing to Chiaki-chan basically is winning to the rest of us!”

“Let us play one more round. A ‘redemption round,’ if you will,” Sonia says, after Nanami has beaten Owari into a pulp, and the final tally screen is up to tell them how much worse they are in comparison. “Kuzuryuu-san and myself versus Nanami-san and Owari-san, for honor!”

Nanami starts to say something about rotating classmates and giving others fair turns, but Owari drowns her out. “You’re on!” she crows, and bullies her way over to swap seats with Sonia. “You and me, Nanami, let’s do this!”

Sonia settles into the seat next to Natsumi, and offers her discarded controller back. “What do you say, Kuzuryuu-san? Shall we teach them who is ‘boss’ and who is not? A true ‘Coming Back Special’!”

Natsumi rolls her eyes. “Jeez, if you’re gonna talk like that, you might as well not talk, Sonia-san.” She snatches the controller, and their classmates swoop in to crowd the TV again. “I just want to get this idiot to shut up.”

“Eat it, Kuzuryuu! You’re goin’ down!”

It goes about as well as any of them expected.

*

The irony of going to class on a daily basis is that now she has to do all her actual work on her own time. But the plan is simple enough, once she puts all the pieces together. It might be basic, but that’s only because she perfected the strategy years ago, and it hasn’t let her down since. She knows what she does, and she does it well.

She lays it out for Fuyuhiko the next time they talk, step by step.

“‘Novoselic’?” he echoes, when she’s finished. “Bullshit. That’s not a real place.”

“If things didn’t exist just because you didn’t know about them, then Aunt Miyū was a ghost until last year.“

“Will you give that a fucking rest already?”

“Look it up!”

“I am looking it up.”

She sits through watching him search for all the info she knows already. (She drums her nails against the body of her laptop when it takes too long. He snaps, “Cut it out,” and she starts tapping the microphone directly instead.) The fourth time he sighs like the computer is a personal imposition on him, she gives up.

“What’s your problem now?”

“I can’t find it on the goddamn map is the problem!”

Natsumi groans into her hands. “No, stupid, that’s the point.” The distance is such a massive pain in the ass; this would be so much easier if he were just here with her. “Whatever! Look it up on your own time. Just listen to me. The country is miniscule, okay? Like, beyond tiny. Most people don’t even know it exists, and most map makers just totally skip over it. But their military is loaded. Every single person learns how to use military-grade weapons as a regular part of school.”

She watches for his reaction, but he’s focused on another page on his computer. She reaches for the folder on the shelf above her head, the one with all her notes and printouts. He hasn’t interrupted her yet, and she doesn’t intend to give him the chance.

“Think about it. Who’s going to notice if there’s a few extra crates of handguns going through a place like that? If we had a waypoint for Europe, we can ship directly from there. Cut down on the trip for anything coming in or out. Man it with our own people.“

“And if there’s a monarchy to validate it,” Fuyuhiko finishes, “who’s going to think twice about it?” He must have switched back to the video chat, because he focuses again on the camera. “You think you got an in with the princess?”

“All politicians are the same,” Natsumi says. “Whether they’re a princess or some greasy local stooge. They all want the same things. They’re all afraid of the same things.” She leans back in her chair. “I can get her to say yes.”

“If you say so.” He squints down and to the right— at his desk, or maybe his phone— and then he says, “By the way. Niijima’s old lady’s in the hospital again.”

Natsumi hums. “How many times is that?”

“Three. He’s a fuckin’ mess, you should’ve seen him in here earlier. Couldn’t keep anything straight. I don’t think he’s slept in days.”

She can hear it in his voice. He’s fishing, trying to wheedle something out of her. It’s never worked; she doesn’t know why he still tries. “Spit it out already. What are you trying to say?”

He bristles. “I’m saying maybe it’s about time we take Niijima off that route. Let one of the other three take point. They can handle it.”

“What for? His mom isn’t the one making the drops, is she?”

“Shut up. I’m being serious,” he says. She resists the urge to roll her eyes. “He’s going to fuck it up for the rest of them if he goes. I was surprised he figured out how to tie his shoes this morning. If it’s not this drop, it’ll be another one.”

“I’m being serious too,” she snaps. “We’re not running a charity. He’s been slipping for months, he needs to start earning his keep. If he can’t do that, he’s gonna have to deal with the consequences.”

Fuyuhiko glares somewhere past the camera. He’s gritting his teeth when he says, “Fine.”

“If somebody fucks up, tell me.” Natsumi gathers her papers back together in a pile. “Until then, I’ve gotta focus on this.”

“Fine,” he says again, clipped. “I gotta go.”

The screen goes blank, and Natsumi doesn’t resist the urge this time.

*

As it turns out, Sonia’s schedule is easy to tap into. She usually eats lunch either in a huddle with some of the other girls in their class, or with Tanaka. It makes getting her alone annoying, but not impossible: Tanaka is always late to lunch (he insists on visiting his animals first, every single day) and Koizumi is the lynchpin of her little entourage. There are days when she goes somewhere else for lunch, and on those days the rest of them take ages to get their act together.

All Natsumi has to do is show up.

It’s a few minutes before lunch on a Tuesday, and Natsumi lets her tray clatter against the table where Sonia is reading. She doesn’t jump or flinch; she just looks up, one finger gently against the inner spine of her book to keep her place. “Sonia-san! Mind if me and Peko-chan sit here today?”

Natsumi’s already sitting by the time Sonia gets through saying, “No, not at all. There is plenty of room for the both of you.” Peko slides onto the bench next to her, and Sonia smiles up at her, too. “Good afternoon, Pekoyama-san.”

Peko only nods.

Sonia doesn’t seem bothered. She sets her book aside, picture perfect politeness. “I must admit, I am a little surprised,” she says. “I thought you and Pekoyama-san preferred to eat together just the two of you.”

Natsumi shrugs. “Yukizome-sensei says we should be ‘branching out.’” She manages half air-quotes, one handed. “So, we thought, why not, you know? Not all of you are completely terrible, I guess.”

“Well, I am honored to be the first,” Sonia says, and she really does seem it, chest puffed up and shoulders straight. “But I think you will find that everyone is very agreeable, if you give them a chance.”

Natsumi eats instead of answering. She tries not to let her curiosity get the better of her, but she can’t help it; she doesn’t actually know where Koizumi goes, on days like this. “Speaking of everyone,” she says, swallowing, “where the heck are they today? Don’t you normally eat with Koizumi-san and her little friends?”

“Ah. On Tuesdays and Thursdays Koizumi-san goes to the West building to eat lunch with a friend of hers in the Reserve Course. Sometimes the others are… delayed, in her absence.”

A friend in the Reserve Course. Peko looks at her, but Natsumi only bobs her head. “Ohhh, I get it. That’s how it is, huh.”

Sonia is quiet for a moment. She hasn’t started to eat yet, but she fidgets with her chopsticks. “Forgive me for saying so, Kuzuryuu-san, but I cannot help but notice… there is a certain amount of animosity between the two of you, is there not?”

Natsumi focuses on stirring her food. “With who, Koizumi-san? Pfft.” Her chopsticks clatter around the edges of her bowl. “That’s all in good fun, you know? We went to middle school together.”

“I see. With you and Pekoyama-san?”

“No,” Peko says. She doesn’t say anything else. Sonia looks at Natsumi instead.

“Me and Peko-chan didn’t go to the same school then,” Natsumi fills in. “We were home schooled for a while, but after that my parents decided to send me to a regular middle school.”

“Fascinating! I myself had never attended a quote normal unquote school before Hope’s Peak Academy.” Sonia doesn’t even attempt the air-quotes. “Did you find it difficult to acclimate to the change?”

Natsumi remembers the first day of middle school, how it had been the first time she could remember without Peko behind her left shoulder. Her teacher had been spineless, and the other girls in her class had gotten upset when he let her cut class and talk back without so much as a reprimand. None of them had known to watch their step or their mouths, not at first.

(She’d learned how to teach them the lesson on her own.)

“Nah,” she says. “It was a breeze.”

“Oh.” Sonia looks down at her tray. Natsumi slurps her lunch and lets her stew. “I must admit… I am having more difficulty acclimating than I anticipated, myself. There is so much I do not know already, and some days I feel I may never catch up. Perhaps if I had started in the school system earlier, I would not be having as much trouble as I am now.”

Natsumi doesn’t look at her. She eats, and thinks about how her middle school teacher, white faced and stammering. “You can tell yourself that if you want, but that’s not how it works,” she says. “You could’ve gone to preschool if you wanted and it would’ve been the same. Probably worse. You should be glad you started out here.”

“How so?”

“You’re a princess. Out there, that’s all you are.” She shrugs. “At least in here it’s the same for most of us. You don’t have to try so hard when everybody else is just as weird as you.”

“I see.” Sonia smiles. “I believe I understand. Thank you for the advice, Kuzuryuu-san. I wonder—”

Peko’s phone buzzes on the table. She lays her hand over it to quiet it, and it buzzes again. She pulls it into her lap instead. “Apologies. I did not mean to interrupt.”

“Oh, no, no need to worry, Pekoyama-san—”

Natsumi cranes her neck over to peer at the screen. “Who’s that?”

“Fuyuhiko-sama,” Peko answers. “Would you like to hear the message, young mistress?”

“Pass,” Natsumi says. She grins around her chopsticks. “He can text whatever he wants. I’m not his babysitter.”

Sonia pats her mouth between bites with a cloth napkin. Natsumi doesn’t even know where she found a cloth napkin. “Is that a member of your organization, Kuzuryuu-san?”

“My little brother.”

Sonia inhales sharply. Her napkin gets crushed in her fist. “Brother! I see.” She scans the dining hall: left, then right, then back over her shoulder. Then she leans in on both elbows, her voice low and expression intense. “Kuzuryuu-san. May I ask you a personal question?”

Natsumi chews. “I guess.”

“I have watched a great many television dramas that delve into the life and culture of the yakuza in modern day Japan. There is always a great struggle for power, rife with deceit and violence and betrayal. It is most dramatic!” She’s talking so fast Natsumi can barely keep up, and she’s leaning so far across the table her hair might fall in her food if she weren’t a princess. “Tell me, did you struggle within your family to achieve the position you have now?”

Natsumi has to screw her face up to keep from laughing. “I beat my brother at being born, I guess. And I usually beat him at pachinko, does that count?”

Sonia’s face falls. “I see.” She settles back in her seat, and pokes at the remaining rice in her bowl. “I know this is an improper thing to say, but… I must admit to some disappointment.”

“You shouldn’t watch trash like that,” Natsumi tells her. “I can guarantee I have at least five stories that are way better than anything else you’ve watched.”

“Really?!” Sonia grips the edge of the table with both hands. She nearly bounces in her seat. “Please do share! I would be fascinated to hear of your experiences, Kuzuryuu-san.”

Natsumi starts with the time she and Peko had been kidnapped and stranded in the mountains, and Sonia hangs on every word.

*

They eat together every Tuesday after that. It turns out to not be unbearable; Sonia is simultaneously everything Natsumi understands a princess to be, and everything she understands a princess to not be. She tells Natsumi about Novoselic’s labyrinthine traditions, and Natsumi tells her about the last fist fight that broke out in one of her family’s casinos.

It’s going well— which, Natsumi reminds herself, is all that matters.

Sonia leans across the gap between their desks one day, during afternoon homeroom. “Will you and Pekoyama-san be going to the dojo again after class today?”

“Probably! Peko-chan’s gotta get those reps in.” Natsumi tips her head back. “Right, Peko-chan?”

“Yes.”

“Why? You wanna come watch?”

“Well… yes and no,” Sonia says. “I have ‘reps’ of my own I must get in, actually. I have read that while most modern yakuza do not carry firearms on their person, many are still trained in their use, especially those in senior positions. Is that accurate to your experience, Kuzuryuu-san?”

“I know how to shoot,” Natsumi says.

(She’d gotten her first gun on her thirteenth birthday, a slim white revolver with gold plating around the chamber. Her father had taken her out to the compound’s practice range that same day; he’d knelt with her and shown her how to hold it, how to stand, how to bend her elbows just enough to absorb the force of the shot.

“Be patient, but don’t hesitate,” he’d said, big hands on both her shoulders. “When you have your target, take it.”

She’d screamed the first time she pulled the trigger. The gun had jumped in her hands, sudden and hot and violent, and her arms had ached all over afterwards, like she’d just spent an hour doing handstands. Her father had made her take the shot again, over and over, until she learned not to be afraid.)

“Excellent!” Sonia is delighted in a way only a princess can be, hands clasping instead of clapping. “I am afraid that since arriving in Japan I have been inexcusably lazy in practicing my marksmanship. I was hoping you might want to practice with me, Kuzuryuu-san.”

“You want to have a shootout,” Natsumi repeats. “With me?”

“‘Hells’ yes! It would be a fascinating comparison of our relative skillsets, do you not agree? Plus I believe it would be a— ‘bomb-ass’ good time!”

It’s been months since Natsumi practiced last, too. Students are allowed to bring whatever tools they consider necessary to furthering their talent, including personal weapons, but Natsumi had left her revolver at home when she left for school. (“There’s no need for her to carry another weapon when she already has one with her,” her father had said.)

“Okay,” she says, and Sonia’s face lights up. “But if I win, you never get to say ‘bomb-ass’ again.”

“And if I win, I may say ‘bomb-ass’ as many times as I like from now on without complaint. Agreed?”

Natsumi clasps her hand. “Done.”

When class lets out, they have to detour to the weapons cages; the school keeps practice weapons of all kinds in the dojo, but unlimited access is restricted only to students whose talents require the use of them. Any other students require approval

Sonia marches straight up to the supervisor without a single inch of guile or hesitation. “Hello. My name is Sonia Nevermind, and my associate is Kuzuryuu Natsumi.” She bends into a shallow, formal bow. “We would like to borrow two firearms for practice purposes, please.”

The supervisor is a skinny senior with glasses, a student volunteer. He references a small tablet behind his desk. “The Ultimate Yakuza—” Natsumi smiles at him from over Sonia’s shoulder. He can’t look at her for longer than a second or two. “And, uh, the Ultimate Princess.” He frowns. “Is markmanship really part of your curriculum?”

“We are young women poised to become proud and powerful leaders in our respective societies,” Sonia tells him, grave and, Natsumi thinks, entirely serious. “How would this not be part of our curriculum?”

“I— I mean, I guess, but the weapons are really intended for the athletes…”

Natsumi lays her palm flat on the counter. “Gee, Sonia-san, it almost sounds like this guy is trying to tell us what our talents are for,” she says. “But that can’t be right. I mean, they’re our talents, right?” She tilts her head at him. “What would he know about it?”

“Right.” His adam’s apple bobs uncomfortably. “No, right. You’re right.” The door to the cage buzzes, and Sonia swings it open with a smile. “Just, uh, keep them in the shooting range, and make sure to sign them back in when you’re finished.”

Natsumi had only seen the cage containing the swords, knives, and other bladed weapons before, because that’s the cage Peko has access to. The firearms cage is a veritable arsenal; Natsumi steps back to snap a picture with her phone to send to Rin later.

She chooses a sleek, lightweight pistol, the closest equivalent she can find to her revolver. Sonia chooses a massive bolt-action battle rifle. “An excellent choice, Kuzuryuu-san!” she says, when she slings the wide strap over her shoulder. “It is truly ‘adorbs af.’ Here, you must not forget these, either.” She hangs a pair of brightly-colored ear muffs around Natsumi’s neck. “Safety is of the utmost importance.”

They take their positions at the far end of the shooting range. They must look out of place, still in school uniforms; some of the other students give them sidelong glances. Natsumi glowers back until they look away.

Sonia pounds her rifle against the floor. “These are the rules, should you choose to accept: you take a shot, and I must duplicate it. Then I take a shot, and you must duplicate mine. We go back and forth until one of us fails or we both run out of bullets.”

Natsumi cocks her pistol. She lifts both arms, elbows bent just enough, and sends a bullet straight into the heart of the target. “Okay,” she says. “You’re on.”

“Excellent.” Sonia hefts the butt of her rifle against her shoulder, and barely takes a moment to steady the barrel. Her shot flies straight down the center, a perfect match. “Now! How about a true challenge, hm?”

They go back and forth, shot for shot. Sonia throws plastic rings into the air and shoots through them. Natsumi ricochets her bullet off of the broad side of a training dummy. None of it is at the level of the Ultimate students the guns were actually intended for, but for once that doesn’t matter.

Sonia drops to her belly for her final shot, the body of her rifle flush against her cheek. She aims high, and when she pulls the trigger the bullet bounces off the top edge of the target and shatters just one of the clay pigeon targets in storage behind it.

“That’s garbage!” Natsumi shouts. Other students around them glare. “That was all luck. No way that counts!”

“That is how we do in Novoselic, Kuzuryuu-san!” Sonia pumps her fist, her cheeks flushed. “Do you forfeit?”

Natsumi drops to the floor. “Hell no. What do I look like, huh?”

Her bullet finds its target. Sonia nearly explodes with delight when it does, which for her boils down to shouting “Amazing!” when the pigeon shatters.

“It looks like we are at a draw,” Sonia says, when Natsumi is back on her feet. She bows, her fist over her heart. “Excellent shooting, Kuzuryuu-san. You are a formidable opponent!”

Natsumi doesn’t bow in return. She rolls her eyes when Sonia isn’t looking, instead. “Yeah, yeah. You’re not bad either, I guess.”

They drop the guns back off together. (On the way they agree a draw means that Sonia can keep saying whatever she likes, and that Natsumi can keep complaining about it.) The skinny supervisor is still there, and his palms are sweating when Natsumi turns the pistol back over to him. The whole desk shudders when Sonia drops her rifle onto it.

“What do you think, Kuzuryuu-san?” Sonia asks, on the way back. “Shall we have celebratory ‘frozen yo’ in wake of our competition?”

“I need to wait for Peko-chan,” Natsumi answers. She’s missed enough of Peko’s training already. She doesn’t need to sway Sonia enough to miss the rest of it, and froyo makes her stomach hurt, anyway.

Sonia doesn’t seem offended. She only nods. “Yes. Of course. I shall leave you to it.” She dips into another, shallow bow. “Thank you for joining me, Kuzuryuu-san. It is always more enjoyable to practice with a partner. Perhaps we may practice again sometime?”

Natsumi could use the practice here and there, and she’s always liked target shooting besides. There’s no reason to say no. “Yeah, okay,” she says. “Why not?”

Sonia leaves, with a wave and a nearly literal spring in her step, and Natsumi slips back into the dojo. It’s mostly emptied out by now, save for Peko, still pacing through her forms. She must have started them as a cooldown, but Natsumi came in too late to follow them from the beginning. Peko is moving sure-footed and fast; Natsumi can’t read the transitions.

Natsumi sits by the lockers to wait. (The notification light of Peko’s phone blinks from underneath her pile of clothes.) She watches for long minutes, but she still can’t find a seam between anything.

“Hey,” she says eventually, only because there’s no one else in the room. “Peko?”

Peko doesn’t acknowledge her out loud, but her head does tilt in her direction. Her movements get longer and slower, until Natsumi recognizes the form in its final stage. (Gohon-me.)

Natsumi nods, and pulls out her phone to start tapping through her texts. Peko’s pace swings up back to normal.

*

There are times when Yukizome disappears, for up to an hour at a time. It’s never when it counts— she’s always on time for class or after-school review sessions— but sometimes during lunch, or breaks, or before the school day starts, someone will look for her and not be able to find her.

(Hanamura had insisted that she was out having clandestine meetings with some faculty member from the Reserve Course, and Mioda had shouted for a while about how she was definitely, definitely a secret agent.)

What’s important is that 1-B is empty sometimes during lunch, and that she and Peko can have free reign of it if they feel like it. It’s quiet, and private, and closer than either of their dorm rooms if they need to talk during the day without anyone else shoving their nose in.

Also, Sonia keeps wanting to eat with them any time they’re in the dining hall, and it’s starting to get inconvenient.

Peko brings lunch. They turn the chairs around so they can sit together at the same desk, and she sets places for the both of them. “Have you decided on a time to make our proposal?”

“No,” Natsumi says. “We’ve got a couple weeks. And I want to make sure we time it right.” There are two deadlines to think about: first, the deadline from the new contracts (of which there are now fourteen), and after that, the school’s practical exam. They’re close enough together that by the time the practical exam rolls around the deals will be finalized and polished, but recent enough for consideration. It’s a perfect arrangement.

She just has to get Sonia to say yes.

“We’re not going without a backup plan, either,” Natsumi goes on. “I’m not wasting a bunch of time doing damage control when she says no the first time.” She bends over the front of Yukizome’s desk and pops the drawer open. Yukizome had spent an entire class earlier in the week going over the practical exams: what to expect, how long they would have, where the judges were being selected from. It’d been the most bored Natsumi had been in weeks, but it also meant— “Here we go.” It’s buried under grading scales and flyers for student performances, but she finds it: one of the temporary student schedules for the exams.

The schedule is still rough, but this close to the exams it must be in its final stages. Natsumi’s is tentatively scheduled for day three; Sonia’s is for day five. “Hmm.” Natsumi drums her fingers against the desk. “Hey, Peko. What d’you think a practical exam for a princess is like?”

Peko turns in her seat to answer, but before she can, Natsumi’s phone buzzes in her pocket. A few seconds later, so does Peko’s.

fuyu-chan 12:33 niijima got picked up by the cops

fuyu-chan 12:33 not gonna say I fucking told you so but

fuyu-chan 12:33 I fucking told you so

Natsumi feels her stomach bottom out. The drops on that route had been going off without a hitch for months, even with all the things Fuyuhiko had said he was worried about. She types with one hand and tries not to crush the exam schedule in the other.

me 12:34 are you kidding me? why are we even wasting money on the cops over there???

me 12:34 what the FUCK happened

When she looks up, Peko is frowning down at her phone. “What?” Natsumi demands. “Did he tell you something about Niijima he didn’t tell me?”

“No,” Peko says, and dims her phone without responding to the message. “It’s— unrelated. What happened to Niijima-kun?”

“He’s a moron, that’s what happened to him.”

fuyu-chan 12:34 turns out everyone else on that route has been covering for him

fuyu-chan 12:34 on his own he’s a fucking mess

fuyu-chan 12:35 the cops aren’t going to look the other way when he’s got the goods hanging out of his goddamn coat pocket like an amateur

She doesn’t have time for this. She wants to throw her phone or scream or make the drive all the way back to the compound just so she can punch them all in the jaw.

“Natsumi.”

Koizumi is watching her from the doorway. She has a lunch box hugged against her chest, wrapped in cute pink cloth with a rabbit design on it.

Peko stands, but Natsumi holds her hand up. (Peko doesn’t need to be told to hang back, but there’s no harm in letting Koizumi draw her own conclusions.) “Hi, Koizumi-san.” She mimes checking her phone. Fuyuhiko’s message glows back up at her, unanswered. “Wow, you’re late today, huh? Better hurry. If you keep disappointing Satou-san like this, she’ll never put in a good word for you with the Reserve Course.”

“Cut it out. What are you doing in here?”

Natsumi pulls herself up to sit on the edge of Yukizome’s desk. “Me? I dunno.” She flares the exam schedule in front of her face again. “Maybe I wanted to go somewhere quiet for lunch. Maybe I wanted to soak in all the good class memories. Maybe I wanted to ask Yukizome-sensei something.” She stares at Koizumi over the edge of the page. “Who says it’s any of your business?”

“I’m not going to just ignore it when you’re obviously up to something,” Koizumi snaps back. She grabs at the schedule, and nearly twists it out of Natsumi’s grip. “These are our classmates. Is there seriously no one who’s off-limits to you?���

Natsumi slaps her hand away. Koizumi loses her grip on her lunch box, and it tumbles out of her arms; rice and cooked vegetables spill out when it cracks against the floor. The sound reverberates back out into the hall, but any students who care enough to peer inside turn their heads away when Natsumi glares back out at them.

The silence is thick. “So what if there isn’t?” Natsumi says, just for the satisfaction of snapping it in two. She slaps what’s left of the temporary schedule back on Yukizome’s desk and leans into Koizumi’s space. “What are you gonna do about it?”

Koizumi turns her face away first. The room is silent again when she crouches to gather her lunch back up. “You know,” she says finally, “I used to think that you’d changed. That something must have happened to make you this way.” She reties the knot, even with the fabric lopsided and stained, and glares. “Now I understand. You just became the person you always were, deep down.”

“Good,” Natsumi says. “It’s about time you figured it out. We’re not in middle school anymore, you know? Who knows what would’ve happened if you didn’t?” She leans forward, and sunlight from the windows throws her shadow in a sharp line across the floor. She drops the airy lilt of her voice. “Try it again. See what happens.”

Koizumi doesn’t say anything else. She takes her lunch and leaves— but she’s not quick enough to keep Natsumi from seeing the way her confidence withers, the way her eyes get big and the tips of her fingers turn white when she clutches the box back against her chest.

She thinks she walked out brave, but Koizumi always thinks she knows better than everyone else. She doesn’t know anything.

Natsumi leans back over to put the schedule back where she found it. “Peko.”

“Yes.”

“I changed my mind. We’re going to see Sonia tonight, after dinner. I’ve got what I need.”

“Yes, young mistress.”

Natsumi steps over what’s left of the mess of rice and vegetables on the floor, and taps out her response to Fuyuhiko.

me 12:42 send someone to get him. make whatever deal they want

me 12:42 i’ll handle him

[falke-scribblings]

Nick was the one bedridden - but Judy thought she might be sick anyway.

His breathing was shallow and rhythmic, like he was focusing on keeping it steady. Every so often he would stop, long enough to swallow hard - and it was making her own stomach swim.

"I'm sorry about the smell, sweetheart."

"It's not your fault," he said. "Stop worrying about me. You need to eat, too."

It was mild, as scents went. Appetizing, even. They'd been slicing up chives and green peppers to go in the night's salad, until Nick had had to stop and crawl into bed. Judy had put everything in the fridge, but her apartment still smelled of their missed dinner.

She'd only ever had migraines a couple of times. And scents had never been the thing to make them worse. For her it was sound. But she remembered enough of the experiences to know that the cresting headache was singularly, ferociously painful - and that the nausea that came with it was just as bad, in its own way.

And she hazarded that was what they were both worried about right now: him that he might be sick, and her - that he might be sick. It was bad enough that she tended to hear everything, but it would be even worse because it would be Nick suffering through it. She didn't want to listen to that.

But she could hardly leave him to something so uncomfortable and frightening himself. Not when there was something she still might do for him. And there had to be something.

Now he was squeezing her paws like she was an anchor, so hard his own were shaking. The tension went all the way through his shoulders and neck.

She'd killed all the lights, but she couldn't do anything about the bright evening cityscape out the window. Her neighbors were blessedly absent for the night, but now that she and Nick were being quiet, every little sound jumped out at her.

She'd put a cool cloth over his eyes as a blindfold, too. But that was about everything she could do to help. It was too late for painkillers; he said it had come on too fast.

All that was left was to sit here and hold his paws, and rack her brain for the stresses that might have triggered this. They never brought paperwork home if they could help it, so that probably wasn't it. Were they getting enough sleep? How much water had Nick been drinking?

"Your bed smells like you," he said, out of nowhere.

"Sorry."

"No, it's good." Nick's chest rose and fell in a deep breath. "That's about the one thing that doesn't make me want to puke right now, so thank you."

"Shhh." He was slowly relaxing under her efforts. She put a careful paw against his neck and felt his pulse faster than usual. He swallowed. "You're doing okay. How's your cloth?"

"Good."

"Are you too hot? Too cold?"

"Fine."

"I could make a warm compress. There's more towels in the bathroom."

"Uh-uh." Nick grimaced under his blindfold, and breathed hard through his nose. Judy heard his legs sliding up under the thin sheet. "Is the trash can there?"

Oh, Nick. Now her own stomach turned. It took more guts than she wanted, to stay where she was. "Right here. Do you need it, sweetheart?"

"No, it's-" He let his head drop further back against the pillow. "It's okay." He swallowed again. "I just need time."

His paws were curling into fists again. Judy unstuck her own claws from the bedsheets and set about chasing the tension away, minute by slow minute, and got Nick to relax again.

This was so frustrating. Judy fixed things. She addressed problems until they weren't problems anymore. But Nick was trapped in his own head with the pain, and there was only so much she could do. She had made him as comfortable as she could. She had stayed with him, she hoped through the worst of it. Sympathy felt like a poor substitute for getting closer to him, but she couldn't risk it while just about everything made the pain and nausea worse.

Eventually Nick's breathing evened out - not deep, not slow, but it sounded less mechanical now. Hopefully he was dozing.

And if he really was asleep, she ought to leave him to it. Get out of his fur. She could go and think up some other way to help. She had the medical training; maybe she was missing something.

Or maybe there was someone with even more expertise who might have some ideas.

Judy crossed to the door, taking care to step over the creakiest plank on the left side of the entrance. There was no way to cut out the yellow light spilling in from the hallway, so she squeezed through the door as fast as she could, with one last glance back at Nick. He wasn't reacting to the brightness. That was good, probably.

She got some distance from her door, so she was closer to the stairs at the end of the hallway, and pulled out her phone.

"Jude!" Her sister Sharon answered the video call on the third ring. There were lots of filing cabinets and computer screens behind her. Judy hoped she hadn't interrupted something important at the hospital - but then, Sharon wouldn't have answered unless she had the time. "What's up?"

"Nick is sick." She slid down to sit against the wooden banisters. "Help. You're the best nurse I know."

"Oh no. What is it?"

"A migraine. Headache, nausea, everything." Judy outlined what happened and the help she'd tried to give him.

Sharon had propped her phone up so she could tap at a computer on her desk. "They're not common?"

"No. He says they're a once-every-few-years kind of thing."

"Best thing he can do in that case is get painkillers and water ASAP." Sharon shrugged and gave Judy a sad smile. "Sucks that it came on so fast. Is he sleeping?"

"I hope so." Judy looked back toward her apartment. "I left him alone."

"He'll be fine, Jude." Sharon tilted her head at the camera.

"I've just never seen him laid out like this, without being able to do anything about it. I know how these things feel. I'm getting secondpaw nausea here."

"You did a lot," Sharon said. "And you're letting him rest. Sometimes that's the best thing you can do. Nick will appreciate that."

"Yeah."

"And you can always give him a big hug afterward."

Leave it to Sharon to cheer her up a bit. Judy nodded. "Sorry to call you up just to vent."

"It's fine. Beats this paperwork."

"You, too, huh?"

Sharon angled her camera to show a stack of manila folders in the out bin. "No escaping it."

"I'll let you get back to it, then," Judy said. At least she and Nick didn't have any of that to worry about tonight. She would have done it so he didn't have to, and that would have bugged him.

"Give Nick my sympathies." Sharon waved. "I'll come say hello when I can. There's a conference I'm supposed to attend in a couple of months."

"Keep me posted," Judy said.

And so she puttered, to give Nick as much time as she could. No, there was no paperwork. And there was nothing to do in the garden this time of year.

She wound up in the little lobby downstairs. Mammals came and went. Mrs. Reagan waved from her apartment door, on her own way in for dinner. Judy could smell whatever it was, and it seemed her stomach was finally settled enough to growl. She hadn't eaten since breakfast, now. But she had to wait it out, for Nick's sake. Some things were more important than dinner.

So she dragged it out for almost an hour and a half, sitting on an oversize chair and paging through idle nothing on her phone until her battery ran down.

Nick was still asleep when she came back, right where she'd left him. At least he was breathing more deeply.

She curled up on his couch - about as close as she could get to him without disturbing him - and settled in to wait.

---

The stress had pulled on her, apparently, because Judy didn't stir again until there was weight sinking onto the cushion beside her. She raised her head and blinked in the dark of the nighttime apartment.

Nick was wrapped in her comforter. He'd pulled it off her bed and over his head like a hood. He smiled at her, but his eyes were still a little dull with pain. His movements were slow and careful.

"Nick." She pushed under his chin. "Are you feeling better?"

"Getting there." Nick's whisper was hoarse; he cleared his throat and tried again. "Head is just splitting instead of overwhelming. I'm glad it's dark out now."

Judy wished, for maybe the first time ever, that she was sized to be big spoon. She wanted to wrap around Nick and keep him safe right now, but all she could ever get was one of his paws. It would have to do.

"Stomach okay?"

"Mostly," he said.

"Do you want something to eat? We missed dinner."

He moved his head against her. "You didn't eat?"

She looked up at him. "I wasn't going to do that to you. You needed time."

He grumbled and pulled her closer. "Carrots..."

"I couldn't make you sick," Judy persisted. "I couldn't make it worse." She didn't know if he'd noticed the way she'd reacted, when his nausea had peaked. But that had been bugging her, too. "And call me selfish, but I can't listen to other mammals be sick, either."

Nick sighed and rearranged his muzzle over her head. "You and me both. Okay. Thanks, I guess."

"I can bring us breakfast tomorrow," she said. "Do you want bagels? Or Moe's does smoothies and juices, too."

"Don't worry about me right now," he murmured, and eased further back against the couch cushions. "I kind of want to get over this before I think about it anyway."

She did let him go eventually, because she did too worry about him: Now that he was feeling better she wanted to get at least something in him, even if it was just water.

Nick accepted the glass and sipped at it. Judy kept an ear on him and made their bed while he drank. He'd pulled the comforter, so she straightened the pillows and sheets so they would be ready. The couch wasn't bad, but she wanted Nick to get the best sleep possible.

They climbed into bed and Judy shimmied higher against him, so her snout lay over the top of his instead of in the hollow of his neck where she usually slept. He'd said her presence in the bed had helped before. Maybe this would help, too.

It meant his tired eyes were closer than usual, where he was watching her. Judy planted a gentle kiss between them as he closed them.

"I'm sorry I freaked out this whole time."

"Mm." He was already drifting. "I hadn't noticed."

He really was too good to her. Judy settled down around him, careful not to shift their shared pillow while she did it.

Yes, he still needed his rest. And yes, she could give him that, no matter how hungry she got. Nick was right. She should just leave it for when he was feeling better.

Now she just hoped her stomach wouldn't start growling.