#we literally have a no phone call policy it’s all supposed to be done over email

[elysiumcalled]

My work phone (it’s on my laptop so if im not at my desk for any reason then good luck getting a hold of me) has rung 4 times in the past 5 minutes and I’m just sitting listening to it ring bc looll ain’t nothing that important

[doctorstethoscope]

The Right Chapter 24 || Aaron Hotchner x Fem Reader

Happy Saturday my loves! A little fluff/angst double whammy for your afternoon :) 

contains: grouchy aaron, food mention, description of anxiety, canon-typical description of murder

wordcount: 2.4k

“I seem to remember you being the one lecturing me about the bureau’s generous sick leave policy not all that long ago,” You told Aaron as you gently shoved him back into bed three days after he’d broken his leg. 

“I also recall that in that situation, you were the one who was injured,” Aaron grumbles, and you roll your eyes. 

“Yes, and you stayed home to take care of me. Now, I’m returning the favor,” you reminded him. 

“I’m not going to get a brain bleed, I just need the leg to heal. You don’t need to stay with me all day while I sit in bed.” He argues.

“You’re right, but I think we both know that if I wasn’t here, you wouldn’t stay in bed, and seeing as how you can’t get as far as the bathroom without my help, that might present a problem.” You chastise him. “I’m not coming home to you bleeding out in the hallway because you fell over and couldn’t help yourself.”

“You make me sound like I’m eighty years old.” he scoffed. 

“Well, if you agree to wear a life alert, maybe I’ll go back to work.” You said, throwing your head against the pillows. There’s a few moments of silence, punctuated by Aaron’s deep sigh. 

“I’m glad you’re here. Sorry I’m being grumpy.” He apologized. “I just don’t want you to have to take care of me.” 

“You’re injured and in pain. You’re allowed to be grumpy,” you told him. “And I plan on taking care of you for the rest of my life, so you should start to get used to it.”

“Can I hold you for a little while? You don’t have to go near my leg,” he says, knowing you’ve been extra-gentle to avoid his injury since you’ve been home together. “You could put your head on my chest and I could just… hold you,” Aaron asks shyly, and your heart melts. 

“Of course, baby.” you say, snuggling your torso in close, leaning your head against his pec and resisting the urge to toss your legs over his. “See? Sick leave isn’t all that bad,” you tease him.

“No, I suppose not,” he smiles, rubbing an arm up and down your back.

“Jack is so excited to have you home.” You comment.

“Not that it matters, I can’t even take him to the park or ride a bike with him.” Aaron grouses. 

“Aaron, he’s over the moon just to have time to spend with you. He could sit here in bed with you watching Toy Story on a loop for the next six weeks and I’m sure he’d tell you it was the best month and a half of his life.” 

“A month and a half… I’m gonna go crazy.” Aarom remarks, more to himself than to you. 

“You’re gonna have to take up a hobby. Maybe knitting,” you snort, and Aaron smiles. 

“Yeah, or braiding or something,” he agrees offhandedly.

“Braiding?” You ask. 

“Oh, I mean, or maybe I could get back into Chess, finally get good enough to beat Spencer--” 

“No, no, back up, what made you bring up braiding?” 

“Uh… it’s just… something I’ve been thinking about in case we ever, you know, made a decision, and felt like maybe---” 

“Aaron, spit it out,” you laughed. 

“Just… if we had kids, or a daughter, I would want to be able to do her hair. Because if you’re not home, I don’t want to be the dad that doesn’t know how to do his daughter’s hair.” He confesses, the embarrassment clear in his tone. You place a kiss to his chest. 

“You are a good man, Aaron Hotchner.” 

“I’m glad you think so, anyways.”

“Alright, you’re getting grumpy and self-deprecating, which is a bad combo. You need a nap.” You instruct him teasingly. 

“You’ll be here when I wake up?” He asks, tightening his hold on you just slightly. 

“Of course, love. You go ahead and rest. I’m not going anywhere.”

You went back to work a little over a week later, when Aaron was mostly off of his pain meds, and able to get himself around the apartment without any assistance. You were still staying there when you weren’t on a case, and found yourself grateful that you’d decided to sign a month-to-month lease-- you weren’t sure what the point was of keeping up the pretense of separate places anymore. But, then again, with Aaron injured, now probably wasn’t the best time for a move. You're working through a few scenarios in your head when Spencer interrupts your train of thought. 

“How’s Hotch feeling?” He asks as you and the rest of the team board the jet to head home after a case. 

“He’s doing better,” you tell him. “The pain isn’t bothering him as much and he’s getting a little bit of his range of motion back. I’m still trying my best to keep him in bed, but I’m sure you can imagine how well that’s going,” you tell him with a smile. 

“Well, tell him I can’t wait to have him back. I hate all this paperwork,” Morgan cuts in with a playful chuckle, and you shove at his shoulder. 

“I’m trying to keep him home, Derek. Besides, we all know that Spencer is doing most of the paperwork for you,” you called him out, and Emily and JJ laughed.

“He’s just so fast,” Morgan defends himself, and now everyone is laughing. 

“We do want him back,” Emily tells you. “But not until he’s good and ready. And then, you know, maybe even a few weeks after that. Wouldn’t kill him to take a vacation.” 

“I’m not so sure about that,” JJ smirks. 

“Please, he’s already itching to get back to work. I think he’d leave me if I asked for a vacation.” You tell Emily.

“No, if you asked for a vacation he’d buy a plane ticket in an instant. And he’d bring his work phone and his computer to the beach and try to solve a murder from underneath a palm tree,” Morgan argued playfully. 

“Sometimes when we take a case somewhere warm, I stand in the parking lot for five minutes and face the sun. And if you close your eyes, it’s almost like a vacation.” You say. 

“Weren’t you literally taken hostage the last time you did that?” Spencer asks, and you roll your eyes goodnaturedly. 

“Well, there goes my tropical getaway,” you tease. 

With Morgan as acting unit chief, paperwork deadlines are considerably more flexible, which is to say nonexistent. Strauss would probably have a field day when she went to review the case file, but that wasn’t your problem. And, quite frankly, as you rushed to your car to get home to your boys, you couldn’t care less. 

When you swing the door open, you interrupt a very spirited game of Connect Four between Jack and Aaron. You notice that Aaron has at least three opportunities to make a winning move, all of which he ignores in favor of allowing Jack to push his chips in at random. 

“You’re home!” Jack exclaims when he sees you, scrambling across the living room and wordlessly commanding to be held by you. 

You hoist him up onto your hip, not without difficulty. He was getting big, and it made you a little sad. It strikes you that you won’t be able to do this forever, wrap him up in your arms and make him feel small and safe and secure. You squeeze him tighter. “Were you good for your daddy while I was gone?” 

“Uh-huh.” He nods, pulling back to look at you and running the collar of your shirt in between his thumb and forefinger absentmindedly. 

“And was Daddy good? He stayed off of his booboo leg?” You asked the only Hotchner who would give you a truthful answer. 

“Daddy was good.” Jack confirms, and you narrow your eyes skeptically. 

“Did he bribe you to say that? Ice cream for breakfast, or a new comic book?” You ask. 

“No. We watched Toy Story and I learned checkers. I had cereal for breakfast, not ice cream.” He tells you, and you relent. 

“Sounds like you had a lot of fun, bug.” You say, putting him down and crossing the living room to sit next to Aaron on the couch, who leaned over to press a kiss to the top of your head and placed a hand in your lap. 

“I did. But I missed you.” Jack tells you, climbing onto the couch next to you. 

“He’s not the only one,” Aaron whispers, pressing another kiss to your hair. 

“I missed you both, very very much,” you tell them, snuggling closer into Aaron and placing a hand in Jack’s hair. 

“We had pasta for dinner. I saved you a plate,” Aaron tells you. 

“Thank you, baby.” You tell him. “But, I’m pretty sure it’s past somebody’s bedtime…” You mention, and Jack pouts immediately. 

“I told him he could stay up until you got home, but he promised he wasn’t going to fight when it was time for bed, right buddy?” Aaron reminds his son. 

“Come on, sweet boy. I’ll tuck you in,” You tell him, pecking Aaron’s lips briefly before scooping Jack up off of the sofa and bringing him to his bed, tucking him in with extra stories and kisses to make up for the nights you missed while you were gone. 

When you come back into the kitchen, Aaron has heated up the leftover pasta and is waiting for you at the counter. 

“You didn’t have to get up, I would have done that,” you tell Aaron, knowing full well that he’d never actually listen.

“How was the case?” He asks as you settle in and start to eat. 

“It wasn’t too bad. We got the guy to surrender without hurting any of the hostages. A few of them were in pretty rough shape, but they should all recover.” you tell him in between bites. 

“And the team? Everyone’s doing okay?” 

“We’re all good, babe. JJ’s getting really good at the geographic profile, but I think it annoys her to stay at the station when we’re all out.” 

“She’s pregnant. It’s not worth the risk,” Aaron reminds you. 

“I know, honey, but it’s still annoying. It’s kind of like when you break your leg and you’re not allowed to go to work but you still have to hear all about it from your girlfriend,” you point out, and he smirks at you. 

“Morgan’s doing okay? The field agents aren’t giving him any trouble?” 

“Morgan can handle himself just fine against any cocky field agent. You don’t need to worry about us, sweetheart. We’re okay. You trained us up good,” you smiled at him, and he blushed, rolling his eyes at you. “We want you back, but we want you back healthy,” you tell him.

“Well, the doctor cleared me to start PT in two weeks. So hopefully I’ll be back sooner rather than later,” Aaron tells you. 

“That's great news! So the cast is coming off soon?” You ask. 

“Yeah, he wants to see me again to take it off and give me the final go-ahead for PT.”

“And you’re gonna take it easy at PT, because you know you can’t rush recovery, right?” You remind him. 

“Yes, mom,” he teases you with a smile. 

“It’s my turn to fret over you. Karma’s a bitch,” you smile at him as you get up to take his plate to the dishwasher. As you do so, his phone rings. 

“Hotchner,” he says into the receiver. “Woah, woah. Slow down, please. Are you okay?” Aaron says, and you turn around immediately, concerned. “Garcia, hold on. I’m going to put you on speaker. Yeah, she’s home. She’s here with me.” Aaron says, his eyes flicking over to you as he pulls the phone away from his ear and adjusts the volume. 

“Okay, so, I have been keeping an eye on Josh’s arrest record, awaiting his arraignment and his court dates so that we could throw a big ‘Josh is in prison for life party,’” she tells you, spitting out information a mile a minute. “There hadn’t been any movement for a few days, and I couldn’t figure out why, but I decided to check one more time before I went to bed tonight, and Josh’s dealer posted bail for him four days ago.”

“What?” You say. You heard her, heard every word she said in perfect clarity. But there had to be a mistake, right?

“Garcia, what do you have on the dealer? What has Josh been doing for the past four days?” Aaron asks, and you hear him, but you also… don’t. Everything sounds like you have cotton stuck inside your ears, or like you’re underwater. This couldn’t really be happening, could it?

“That’s a trigger,” you mumble quietly, and you think that Aaron doesn’t hear you, he’s so focused on his conversation with Garcia that you try hopelessly to follow. He turns to you, after a moment, tucking his phone back into his pocket. 

“What did you say, doll?”  He asks you. 

“That’s a trigger. You know, how we say that serial killers have triggers that make them start killing people. This is probably a trigger to start killing,” you say, staring at a spot of dirt on the tile. Jack must have tracked it on his cleats, and Aaron couldn’t mop with his injury. You should really clean that. You needed to get the dirt off the floor. Mop, mop, where did Aaron keep the mop? You pulled it out of the closet and were headed for the stain when you felt Aaron’s hands come to rest on your shoulders, blocking your path. 

“Hon, what are you doing?’ He asks, trying to make eye contact with you, which you avoided. 

“The floor needs to be mopped.” You answer, emotionless. 

“Why don’t you come sit down, the floor can wait,” he says, trying to guide you towards the sofa. 

“Aaron, your knee! Go sit. Go, go. I just need to get the floor clean. Please just go sit and I can fix it. It’s okay. I got it.” You got more and more worked up as you continued to stare at the dirt, watching the stain grow as your vision blurred, as if the dirt were mocking you. 

“Hey, hey hey. Where’d you go, angel? Come back here with me, love. You’re gonna be okay. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.” He says, wrapping his arms around you. 

You’d never wished more that you believed him. 

tagging:  @romanogersendgame @wanniiieeee      @zheezs14      @greeneyedblondie44 @angelic-kisses13  @baumarvel @ssamorganhotchner  @ijustwannaread2k19    @rexit-mo @shmaptainhotchnersmain @qtip-blog @averyhotchner  @the-modernmary @itsmytimetoodream @choppa-style @hotforhotchner11 @infinite-tides @isthatme-thatsme @g-l-pierce @bakugouswh0r3 @ssahotchie @sleepyreaderreads

[skytressmc]

I was threatened by someone over the phone at work today.

So I worked at Gamestop today and about 2 hours into my shift we get a call. I, or course answer and its sounds like maybe a teenager? Anyway they were asking if they could return a game or trade it in. I explained that if the game wasn’t open and still was sealed with the plastic then yeah he could return it and get a refund. But if he opened it then he would have to do a trade in.

So he asks me to look up the game and see how much he would get for trade in credit or cash. So I did and it was like $22.00 for trade in credit and like $17 for cash.

He asked me to repeat the value I told him and I did. Then someone else in the background starts yelling and I hear the teen go “Are you fucking high? I paid $60 bucks for this I literally got it 3 days ago.” I explained that I am sorry but there is nothing I can do. I cannot change the value of the trade in. He and the other person begin screaming and cursing at me. I was also told that if a customer becomes aggressive over the phone to hang up. So I did.

About 10 minutes later, they called again. I answered and then goes “Are you not even gonna let me talk to your manager?” I said that I’m sorry but my manager was in a conference call at the time (and he was) so I said I could write down his name and number and have him call back when he was done. Well that didn’t seem to please the teen because him and the other person went on a rant about how I should be like another employee at another store. I said Im sorry but I can’t do anything its our policy. More swearing and yelling. So hanged up again.

They then called 3 more times but I did not answer. But we have a phone in the back where my manager was and he saw the calls and answered it when they called again and came out looking confused. He put them on hold and I explained what happened. He tried to y’know do customer service, asking him what he could do blah blah blah. I didn’t get to hear the whole conversation cause he was in the back for the most of it but I thought it got figured out cause I didn’t see them try calling back again.

About 15 minutes later, as I was checking a customer out. The phone rang. I was always trained that even when your with a customer, you answer the phone. So I answered without looking at the number. He asks for me and confused I said yes. I realized it was the teen when he started going off on how rude I was. I tried to explain why I hanged up but he kept cutting me off. He then went “You stabbed me in the back. I’m gonna stab you back harder.”

Whether he meant to or not, that was technically threat to do bodily harm. So I hung up. My manager gets out of the call, I tell him what happened and he gives me a look and goes in the back. He then texts me to not answer the phone from that number anymore.

They called 5 mores times after that. I didn’t answer. I was becoming paranoid cause for one, I don’t remember telling them my name. I only answer with “Hi this is [Store] in [Location] how can I help you today?” I never answer work phones with my name. So either my manager mentioned my name when he was talking to them or something. And two, for those who don’t know, a teen shot up where I worked last year killing one person.

Anytime someone walked in I got so scared. I texted my mom all what happened and when I told her I was supposed to close by myself tonight she freaked out and told me to quit and walk out. I didn’t cause I honestly think I was going into a breakdown cause I didn’t know what to do. Finally I sent on my break and my store manager texts me saying how she was sorry that the call happened but they usually never have that kind of problem. I told her right out I was scared to close by myself and she told me to call my other co workers to see if they could cover the rest of my shift. I did but they all said they couldn’t.

She then calls me and says I have nothing to worry about cause its just some dumb kids and that if they did come in I could call security and they would kick them out. The thing is, what if they wanted to make good on that threat and come in with a weapon. How am I gonna call security.

Call with her ends and my other manager comes in and says the teens called another nearby store and said yea its some kids. Like that doesn’t make me feel better, they threatened to hurt me. He then asks if I can cover a shift tomorrow for one of my coworkers that I just called and I said yes cause I thought they were gonna cover the rest of my shift. They weren’t.

Manager comes back and tells him he will close for me cause he can tell Im shaken. So I do and now I’m home unsure what to do. I need the money for bills and with Christmas over I’m not getting many hours. I feel hurt that my managers didn’t take this more seriously. I was honesty and told them how I felt and they knew what they were like as they talked to them too.

As of now my manager texted me asking if I was still gonna come in to cover that shift tomorrow. I said no.

[parcoeurs]

Extremely fascinated by your wag AU tag 👀.

thanks bestie so am i.

okay lmao so this isn't an actual fic that'll ever be written but. i was talking to my friend about it who still hasn't finished dts season 3 unfortunately but it means that i've switched around ages and years etc. i promise this has the potential to be a fun and sexy time but there's just s o much background shit that needs to be discussed. tw for mentions of irl deaths etc:

but pierre & charles meeting when they're 5-6 (which is what i think charles actually says irl but someone said it might've been closer to when they were 10-11? regardless.) and charles' dad passes away when they're 9-10, and jules when they're 13-14 and charles quits racing then. (fyi i know that irl jules passed away first)

he thinks about quitting when his dad passes away but keeps going with help from jules. so when the accident etc happens, it's not even like an active decision he ponders. he just knows there's no way he'll race again.

and pierre's been with him throughout everything, his best friend who he can talk to when he can't bear looking at his own family. so he doesn't understand when pierre tells him he's going to keep racing. when charles had told him he was never going to get into a kart ever again, pierre had nodded, grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight. important to note that they're barely teenagers rn so yes charles feels betrayed that pierre isn't feeling the same things he is and isn't choosing the same future for himself etc.

they have a huge fight, lots of crying, lots of dramatic teenage angst. but it ultimately ends with charles shutting pierre out of his life. which is easier said than done when it's your best friend whose family is super close with yours. but it works because pierre is off racing around the world and charles has done all he can to never have to think about that stuff.

so charles goes to school, is doing uni somewhere in europe. studies something generic like business or maybe if i'm feeling suuuuper indulgent i will have him major in environmental studies like moi <3 pointedly does not come to monaco during grand prix weekend or the week before or the week after.

and then anthoine passes away too. (they're 20-21 now)

they see each other again at the funeral but don't talk, they meet up afterwards. pierre breaking down in charles' arms, clutching at his back, telling him he was right. pierre should've quit, he can't do this anymore either. they haven't said a word to each other in 7 years but charles still knows pierre, and knows that this isn't actually what pierre wants. or what he should do. (charles vaguely knows pierre's in f1 but doesn't know he's with redbull, doesn't know redbull's the top team etc)

"you can still do this, you will," charles tells him.

"not without you again."

so then comes the challenge of mending their relationship while still working through the shared trauma, and the Layers of past trauma. and also just the general awkwardness that comes with a friendship breakup/makeup situation you know! they can't just act like nothing happened but would it be easier that way?

they start texting first, then they play fifa or cod together. (sometimes pierre's british friend lewis joins too.)

slowly slowly slowly, they become friends again and then inseparable too. maybe even closer than they were before and charles only now realizes how much he missed pierre. while pierre still can't believe he has charles back now, it's as good as he let himself imagine.

the part i'm unsure about is if i would want pierre's career trajectory to be the same or not. because i think the demotion adds SUCH a painful but interesting aspect to his ~storyline. but ultimately i think maybe he just doesn't get the second seat immediately. spends more years with toro rosso/alpha tauri before getting "called up" (sorry i have no idea what the proper terminology is haha ignore the nba/nhl terms).

he invites charles to his first race in the red bull and charles says no. immediately. pierre's quiet on the other side of the phone, internally thinking he messed this up somehow. he thought things were going well and he takes this as charles doesn't want to see him. but he knows there's a lot more that's stopping charles and he also knows charles will definitely pull back if pierre asks about the other stuff. so he moves right along, asking charles about school, the weather, and tries not to let it show in his voice that he misses his best friend and needs him too.

"i'm going to try to watch," charles says, after pierre's yawned goodnight through the phone and is waiting for him to hang up. because you know pierre's not going to hang up first.

"what?"

"the race. i'm going to try. goodnight!" mentally charles slams the phone shut but really he just smashes at the red button before shoving it under his bed and looking at his hands trying to get answers for what he just did.

his only relief is that he didn't promise pierre he would watch, just that he would try. couldn't even choke out a, "good luck." (insert long paragraph about charles letting pierre down or thinking he has).

he only watches qualifying. pierre p3. already knows on saturday that there's no way he can watch the actual race.

but on sunday when he's supposed to be going over his notes for his climate change science & policy course (yes.... i did it...) he finds himself with his heart in his mouth refreshing formula1 dot com. watches the random names move up and down while keeping his eyes on 10 - gasly. (starts shaking for a second when he sees pierre's name drop until the IN PIT sign comes up across his name. fellas the thing about triggers is-- anyways.)

the scariest part is that by the time he's scrolled through all of red bull's socials to look at pictures of pierre on the podium (he finished p2 sorry i know this truly does not matter), he's forgotten about the race. the anxiety sits small in the back of his throat, his happiness for pierre is bright and loud in front of him. charles sends him a message, asking him to call whenever he can and adds a blue & red heart emoji which feels like a Big Step. but basically pierre calls and acts like nothing has happened since the last time they talked. mentions the breakfast he had in detail as if he didn’t get a podium in his first race with red bull. finally with a big team. but charles embarrassingly realizes that maybe his text didn't exactly imply in literally any way whatsoever that he knows the results of the race and was trying to congratulate pierre with this call. charles probably feels so embarrassed at this point but somehow still can't manage to say anything about the race until the next day maybe.

maybe texts pierre, good job. or, you were great. or something about him and not the race. or maybe reposts a picture from red bull but not one of pierre in his car, pointedly. only one of him on the podium. and pierre probably reposts it with the squid emoji and/or my favourite sentence in the world, merci petit calamaro.

charles cries when he reads it.

not to be lazy now but [insert 10k words of them building their friendship. meeting up in monaco with both of their families. meeting in milan or london or paris idk where pierre would live. but he flies charles out. not on a private jet because charles flat out refused lol. not because he's an environmentally conscious king he's just too, embarrassed? overwhelmed? by pierre doing Things Like That for him. even though he wants it lol. like when he graduates he's soooo annoyed that pierre couldn't come celebrate immediately because it was race week. but when he comes home his apartment is filled with flowers (roses, his favourite) and balloons and a giant teddy bear as tall as charles. and he DOES post 12 instagram stories to go with the other 30 from his other friends congratulating him. so yeah charles goes through a lot of personal growth and therapy. to the point where he's watching pierre race again, and waiting for him to invite him to a race again!!! do not even think about actual dates i'm fucking begging you but the one he goes to is monza :))))]

ultimately charles' path to understand/accepting/moving on from, his trauma, happens once he has pierre back in his life. it's also encouraged by pierre, but it's also not entirely because of him. not sure how to word that but yeah. these things are happening at the same time but charles still has to go through them by himself.

pierre takes him on romantic dates all around the world and charles doesn't realize that's what they are. fully in his bestie vibes only mood while pining for pierre in a way he doesn't even quite understand. almost a self deprecating, jeez whoever gets to date pierre is going to be so lucky :/

fanpage on ig: met pierre's alleged bf he's so pretty and sweet, i complimented his shoes and he was so nice. charles reading that: i didnt know he was dating someone :( why wouldn't he tell me :( well at least someone complimented my shoes today :(

pierre doesn't necessarily think they're dating, but he does know charles doesn't quite realize what they're doing so he's just waiting for him to come to terms with it.

not to give this au 10 different subplots but yeah that miscommunication plot becomes our prize for surviving through the first part of this.

but yeah at the last race of the year, that pierre wins because i said so? charles finds him before he goes on to the podium, kisses his helmet. says i love you, i'm so proud of you.

THEN, finally, charles does become pierre's wag. we made it kids. we did it joe.

[saltlampsasuke]

Unfortunately, You Are Experiencing Symptoms of Falling in Love

Having your long-term boyfriend cheat on you is pretty bad, but you're lucky enough to have a rich, pro-hero best friend who lets you move in with him until you get a new apartment. Except lockdown happens. And you can't look for a new apartment anymore, and you can't go anywhere anymore, and neither can your best friend, and you think you might be falling a little bit in love with him. Or maybe you've been in love with him all along.

The story of how it takes a nationwide lockdown for you and Bakugou Katsuki to finally get together, part 2!

warnings: Coronavirus mentions

wordcount: 2,009

Here comes part two of my story! Please enjoy it!

The moment Bakugou hung up the phone, you collapsed on your couch. He had told you to pack whatever you wanted to take, but you couldn’t even begin to think about doing that right now. Yes, you had helped pay for the furniture, but you couldn’t bear to look at it now. What had Takumi done on your counter, your chairs, your desk? You had been so full of rage beforehand that the reality of your situation hadn’t truly sunk in yet. Calling Bakugou had used up all of your strength, and now, the emotions that had been stirring inside you finally boiled over as you began to sob.

You laid sprawled across your couch for what seemed like hours, soaking the cushions with your messy sobs as you mourned the wasted time, effort, and love that you had poured into your relationship. You cried until you began to feel drowsy, your eyelids starting to flutter closed, only to spring open when you heard your door slam shut. Had Takumi come back already.

“Oi, dumbass.” Bakugou had arrived. “Where the hell are you?” Realizing he couldn’t see you lying on the couch, you threw up a weak hand in greeting. You could hear the angry stomp of his boots as he walked over to you and sat on the arm of the couch, your body occupying the rest of the space.

“Hey, Bakugou,” you said quietly, your voice still trembling. He looked down at you from his seat, his eyes appearing softer than you had ever seen them.

“Hey, Shitty woman,” he replied cautiously. “You ready to go?” You slowly pushed yourself up off the couch, eyes red and puffy, hair a mess. You could feel Bakugou watching you carefully. He was uncharacteristically quiet, which you appreciated. There wasn’t anything to be said. Your eyes widened slightly as you processed his question. You hadn’t packed anything to take to the apartment. Would he be mad? Would he be willing to wait? Were you even capable of packing anything right now? You shook your head.

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t pack anything. I didn’t do anything after I called you. I just sat here,” you confessed nervously. Bakugou moved so he was standing in front of you, with an unchanging tight frown on his face. The change in position did nothing to calm your nerves. If anything, you were more nervous than you were before. Which was ridiculous. This was Bakugou. Your best friend since high school. He had driven here, to your apartment, calling out of patrol and surely abandoning some fun nighttime plans. He was literally letting you move in with him. He wasn’t going to be mad about your failure to pack. Right? He wasn’t going to change his mind. Right? He put a heavy hand on your shoulder.

“Listen up, because I’m not going to repeat myself. You know I’m bad at this type of shit. Fuck. I mean stuff. You know, the comforting and the making people feel better sh- stuff. I’ve never been good at it. Probably never will be. Honestly, I’m sort of surprised you called me instead of Round Face or someone like that. But I’ll show up. I’ll help you with whatever you need. Hell, if you want to take some time off work that’s fine.” You tried to interrupt him.

“Bakugou, I-“

“Let me finish. I don’t know exactly how you feel right now. Probably not good. And I know I can’t make this better for you. Even heroes can’t fix this shit. Mess. But I’ll help you pick up the pieces. If you need something, I’ll make it happen. So take your time.” Bakugou took a step towards you, and pulled you into his chest for a rare hug. You allowed yourself to relax into him, and for the first time since you walked into your apartment, you felt like you could finally breathe again. How had he known just the right thing to say? You cracked a small smile, and mumbled into his jacket.

“Thank you.” He let go of you gently, a small smile on his face as well.

“C’mon, let’s get in the car. I’ll just give you some stuff from my place. I don’t want to be in this shitty apartment anymore.” You were in complete agreement. There was nothing more you wanted than to leave.

You locked the door easily, and followed Bakugou out to his car. It was sleek and black on the outside, and the inside was full of fancy little dials and gadgets you had never been able to figure out. And you called yourself a support technician. Still, the seats were comfortable, heated and plush, and that was all that mattered. Bakugou had escorted you into the passenger seat, and the sigh of relief you had breathed once the doors had been locked and you had left the parking lot was audible even over the roar of the engine.

“You good?” Bakugou asked quietly. You nodded, then spoke, realizing he was focused on the road and not on you like he had been earlier.

“Better now that we’ve left the building. I don’t ever want to go back there again. I don’t ever want to see him again,” you replied. At the mention of “him”, you saw Bakugou’s hands tighten ever-so-slightly on the steering wheel. He spoke, keeping his eyes on the road.

“Well I can’t promise the first thing, but I’ll see about the second. We are going to have to go back, though. Unless you want to leave all of your stuff behind.” You didn’t want that. Most of the stuff you were more than willing to abandon, too reminiscent of Takumi for your taste, but there were many things back in your former apartment that you loved, and couldn’t bear to part with.

“How long is that bastard supposed to be gone for?”

“He said a few days. That could be anything from two days to two weeks. I couldn’t honestly say.” That was a problem. Running into Takumi again was your worst nightmare. You had said all that you had wanted to say, and now you just wanted a clean break.

“Alright, so we go back tomorrow. You don’t have to do anything tonight, just get used to the place, but tomorrow we’ll grab all of your stuff out of that shithole.” Bakugou turned towards you at a red light. “Is it ok if we ask Shitty hair and everybody to help out?” You nodded.

“Yeah. I’ll have to tell everyone sometime. But just Kirishima, and Sero. Midoriya too, maybe?” You asked carefully, knowing that Bakugou was still sometimes sensitive to mentions of the man blocking his way to the number one spot. Bakugou and Midoriya had made up a long time ago, in high school, and they didn’t fight at all like they used to. Still, you had spent too many nights back at UA in Bakugou’s room, sitting on his bed as he cried quietly over some small perceived mistake, after which he threatened to kill you if you ever told anyone, to not be careful. He had always been, and still sometimes was, afraid that he was a failure. Afraid he wasn’t good enough. He still had a hard time whenever he couldn’t save someone. You had never been able to convince him that you can’t save everyone.

“Why the hell do you want dumbass Deku to help you move stuff? And fucking tape elbows?” You smiled involuntarily again.

“Midoriya is strong, he’ll be helpful. Bakugou. His quirk is tape. I’m moving. He can help seal all the boxes.” You heard a sharp laugh.

“Damn, finally a real use for that dumbass quirk of his. We can call him the fucking moving van hero.” You shook your head, smiling wider.

“You’re terrible, Bakugou. I have no idea why everyone stays friends with you,” you said teasingly. Bakugou’s head turned sharply at your comment.

“The hell do you mean? I’m literally moving you in to my fucking house. And it was your idea to use him for his stupid tape. The real question is why I put up with you!” You knew he wasn’t serious. “And another thing! Isn’t it about time you started calling me Katsuki?” That was a shocker. Bakugou rarely ever let anyone call him by his first name. He would yell at anyone who tried. Yet here he was, all of a sudden demanding you switch, after so long.

“What?” you asked, bewildered and trying to make sense of this sudden demand.

“You’re going to live in my goddamn house, shitty woman! And I’ve known you since high school, it’s fucking weird that you still call me by my last name,” he replied angrily.

“Are you sure it’s ok? You hate when people call you by your first name!”

“I wouldn’t tell you to do it if I didn’t want you to! Just fucking do it!” Bakugou slammed his hands on the steering wheel. Clearly asking this of you had taken him a lot of strength. He was really going to let you use his first name. True, you had always been his closest friend but for some reason that was a line you had never crossed. It was fine for Kirishima to use Bakugou, no, Katsuki’s given name but for some reason it had never seemed right for you to do the same. You showed your bond in other ways. But he was right, you were going to live together. It only made sense.

“Alright.” You paused for a moment, afraid to speak the name. “Katsuki.”

“That’s more fucking like it, shitty woman” Katsuki parked the car outside of his apartment building, after passing through a security checkpoint. His building was so much nicer than yours, befitting the number two hero. You rarely hung out at his house, he wasn’t the type to have friends over that much, more so the type to go over to others or be in public, so you had only actually been inside less than ten times. It was exciting, but you still had questions about the sudden name change policy.

“Wait, if I have to call you Katsuki, you should have to call me something else too,” you stated as you followed behind Katsuki as he walked up to the main doors. He paused, and turned around to face you.

“The fuck you mean? I already use your first name.” You snorted.

“Only when you’re talking about me to someone else. I can’t remember the last time you actually called me by my name. It’s always dumbass, or shitty woman. I want a fun nickname like the ones you give everyone else, like Icy-hot or something! You can’t make me call you Katsuki and not call me something new as well” Your mouth almost slipped into a slight pout.

“Oh, so first I let you move into my house, and now you want a new nickname. What’s next, the fucking moon?” Katsuki grumbled. “I should let you live on the streets for being such a picky brat. You’re just like that dumbass story about that princess who couldn’t fall asleep on all those mattresses because there was a tiny little pea underneath. Maybe I’ll call you princess now, because of how fucking demanding you are.” He opened up the lobby door, letting you inside. You smiled. There was that trademark Bakugou Katsuki bluster. Translation: I’m glad you’re feeling good enough to joke around. You could tell that he was relieved that you were joking around with him again. You knew it would take time to get past Takumi. You had given that man so much, it would take a while. It had been less than two hours since the end of your relationship, and you had barely begun to process your emotions. But maybe it would eventually be ok. But you had Katsuki, your best friend, and the best man you knew. You had time.

“Princess is ok, actually,” you replied.

“Jesus fucking Christ.

[charmingwords23]

Thoughts on the Game Boy Incident. AKA: Proving James’s Innocence

If you’re like me, you’ve been confused at some point by the events of QOTS 2x11. In this episode, Teresa and Kelly Anne are hiding from Camila at Kelly Anne’s family’s cabin. Then, Camila’s men - led by her mole in the police department (Denny) - show up and ambush them. During the chaos, Teresa discovers a tracking device in the Game Boy that was a gift to Tony from James. The implication of this scene is that James tracked the Game Boy and turned over her location to Camila’s sicarios, seemingly to get her killed. 

Again, if you’re like me, you may have found this development confusing considering earlier in the season this man had quite literally shoved his gun toward her, told her to run, and run off into DEA gunfire to spare her. It’s confusing considering earlier in the same episode he had earnestly asked her to come back with him and promised to protect her - knowing that would surely be at odds with Camila’s intentions. It’s confusing considering in the episode after this he intentionally misses his shot at her from close range - something he later tells Guero he did because he would “never hurt her.” 

All these actions are of a man who does NOT want to hurt Teresa. These are actions of a man who has had multiple opportunities to cause her harm, or at the very least, stand by while she’s injured or killed, and has passed on all of them in the name of trying to protect her. 

So then how does it add up that this same man - sandwiched between protective and self-sacrificing events - would give up her location to Camila’s hit men? 

My theory: He didn’t.

It sounds crazy at first. After all, we saw the tracker in the Game Boy! But let’s examine the evidence. Here’s what we know about the context of this event and the inferences we can draw from each:

James gave Teresa the Game Boy and some money for Tony. The money was stolen from Camila’s bag and blamed on the man who worked at the horse race. James says Camila won’t know unless Teresa tells her (2x02). We can conclude from this that the tracker was James’s idea and Camila knew nothing about it; he never told Camila that Tony existed, and Camila didn’t know to ask him about the tracker later in the season or else she would have demanded he activate it as soon as Teresa ran off.

Teresa tells James that Camila framed her and that she’s leaving. James asks her to come back with him and promises to “fix” it and “protect” her. Teresa declines and requests that James not be the one who comes after her. He doesn’t say anything but her name, but as she walks away, he has the opportunity to kill her right there - after all, she’s “betraying” Camila - but he doesn’t take it. (2x11) We can conclude that James doesn’t intend to kill her. After all, this would have been an easy shot and a way to get back into Camila’s good graces.

James meets with Camila in prison. Camila says James should have “drug her back by her teeth” and James deflects and says there are “more immediate threats to deal with.” Camila pushes him to “find Teresa” and he continues to argue that they “don’t have time for that right now.” Camila then makes comments about how some other men will “take care of Teresa,” how James “can’t save her now,” and how he “crossed” Camila already once to protect Teresa and she won’t let it happen again. (2x11) We can conclude from this that even Camila can tell James wouldn’t kill Teresa, even if ordered to, so she’s going to find someone else to get the job done. 

So the lead-up all points to James lacking the desire and the will to hurt or kill Teresa. Now let’s look objectively at the order of events at the cabin:

Camila shares a phone call with her police officer mole, Denny. Denny says the El Lobos brothers (the sicarios) are there. He says James told him he had a “line on” Teresa and now the mole and the Sicarios are waiting for his call to tell them where she is. 

At the Cabin, Agent Loya from the DEA and his partner show up. His partner is (coincidentally?) the woman who is having an affair with Denny. 

While Teresa and Loya talk, Denny and the sicarios show up and instigate a firefight. 

In the midst of the firefight, the Game Boy James had given to Tony breaks and Teresa finds a small tracking device chip hidden inside it. 

This seems pretty damning at first glance. It seems James really has sold her out despite spending so much time leading up to this demonstrating the opposite. But what comes next? Do the subsequent episodes show that he has, indeed, changed course and is now prepared to kill her because of her betrayal of Camila? Nope.

When James comes face to face with her again, guns drawn, he initially lowers his first. (2x12)

James tells Teresa that he and Camila had trusted her, and Teresa asks him “Is that why you put a tracking device on Tony’s toy? Because of trust?” He doesn’t respond - only asks again where Camila is. He never denies adding the tracking device, but that’s a different accusation than using that device to turn her location over to Camila. (2x12)

He stands 15 feet away from her and fires off a sloppy shot in her direction. (2x12) 

James admits to Guero that he missed that shot intentionally and that he would never hurt Teresa. (2x13) This seems a pretty big turnaround for a guy who allegedly gave her location to assassins two episodes ago, no? 

And then perhaps the most confusing piece of this situation to reconcile is the brief argument James and Teresa have about it in 3x02.

Teresa: “Camila was trying to kill me and you betrayed me.” / James: “I didn’t betray you. I was protecting you.” 

Teresa: “I don’t trust you.” / James: “You don’t trust me? You’re only alive because of me.” 

Teresa: “You put a tracking device in Tony’s Game Boy and sent sicarios after me. Do you not remember that?” / James, with furrowed eyebrows: “I tried to make Camila let you go. That’s why I wasn’t at the cabin. She didn’t trust me to kill you.”

Teresa: “Why should I believe you?” / James: “Since the first day we met, I’ve been trying to keep you alive. And whether you want to believe it or not, I’m still trying to.” 

Through all this, a few questions come to mind:

WHY would James say he’s been trying to keep her alive since the first day they met if he was the one who knowingly gave her location to sicarios (literal hit men)? 

WHY would James go from protecting her, to trying to get her killed, to protecting her again in the span of one episode? 

WHY was Denny, the mole from the police department, even relevant to the scene at the cabin? What purpose did he have, and why not just have the sicarios taking their orders directly from Camila? Why would he be the middleman? 

The theory then is this: James did NOT give Teresa’s location to Denny and the sicarios.

James instead spent this episode (off screen) stalling and obstructing. Denny and the sicarios found out where Teresa was because the DEA found her, and the police officer either got that information from his capacity in law enforcement or from his connection to the DEA agent who was Loya’s partner. The sicarios showed up at the cabin not because James told them where to go, but because Denny found the location himself.

Let’s revisit some of that evidence:

Denny said James had a “line on” Teresa and was supposed to call back to let them know her location. If James had tracked the Game Boy, it wouldn’t take more than a minute or two to look up her location and then send that information to the sicarios. Why would this step possibly take so long that it would require James to spend so much time following her trail, tracking her down, communicating regularly with Denny to let him know his progress, etc.? Unless he was purposely stalling. 

Why was Denny even there? Story-wise, he served no purpose and the story could have and would have been exactly the same if James and/or Camila were communicating with the sicario brothers directly. Unless...his presence was vital because he is the only one who could have gotten Teresa’s location from someone other than James: the DEA. 

James specifically says “I didn’t betray you” in 3x02. When confronted with the Game Boy offense, he never admits to giving up her location. He says he tried to make Camila let her go, he tried to protect her, and he wasn’t at the cabin because Camila knew he wouldn’t kill her. This is consistent with his scene with Camila in the prison in 2x11. In fact, James likely has no idea that she thinks he tracked the Game Boy to her - he knows Denny found her, and he would have little reason to think she assumed something else. His face scrunches up for a moment when she brings up the Game Boy - like he’s confused about why she’s even mentioning that. Would he really claim he hadn’t betrayed her if he had given up her location from the tracker in Tony’s Game Boy? I don’t think so - that break in logic just doesn’t add up. 

The only question remaining then is why did he put a tracker in the Game Boy at all? We may never know, but I would assume he did it as an insurance policy like the master of chess he is. Maybe it was insurance because he didn’t fully trust Teresa in the early days and wanted to have something on her as leverage (I have my doubts considering he never told Camila, alluding to the conclusion that even then, he wasn’t trying to hurt her nor use this against her) or maybe it was insurance so he would have a way to find Tony (and/or Teresa) if there was ever trouble and he was needed.

This show has an insane pattern of trying to paint James as suspicious and then ultimately proving that he was innocent all along and had remained loyal to Teresa. They did it at the end of season 2 when they revealed he had purposely missed his shot at her in 2x12, they did it in season 3 when they made him look like a mole and then revealed the mole as Kelly Anne, and they even squeezed it in again at the end of season 3 when they wanted to make him look shady and like he was going back to working for Camila before revealing he was really turning himself over to the CIA to spare Teresa. Framing James as betraying Teresa and giving her location to assassins only to later reveal it was never him who did that would be very on brand. 

So in conclusion: James did put a tracker in Tony’s Game Boy, but he did not give that location to Camila or the sicarios. Instead, Denny found that location from his capacity in law enforcement and/or his relationship with the DEA agent. Teresa assumed James’s tracker led the sicarios to her, and James assumed Teresa knew it was Denny who led them there, not him, and has no idea she thinks he is directly responsible for tracking her and sending the hit men. Everything either of them has said or done in reference to this situation supports these conclusions.  

Here’s hoping this is addressed in season 5! Imagine how easily it will fit in… Tony has recently been killed, James has recently returned from whatever he was doing with the CIA, and both will surely come up in conversation. Teresa will be determining if James is trustworthy after everything; imagine this situation is brought to light as the final, definitive proof that since the first day they met, he’s been trying to keep her alive. It can be the final nail in the coffin of the “James is suspicious” narrative and we can put the “can we trust him?” arc to rest. Season 5, please deliver! 

[realityhelixcreates]

Dance of the Spheres Chapter 4: Venusian Vogue

Chapters: 4/?

Fandom:  Marvel Cinematic Universe

Rating: PG 13

Warnings: drugging, kidnapping, forced marriage

Characters: Loki(Marvel),

Additional Tags:  Loki Goes Overboard, But When Doesn’t Loki go Overboard, Mature Reader, Disabled Reader, Political Intrigue

Summary:  

Images of broken light Which dance before me like a million eyes They call me on and on across the universe.                   Across the Universe-The Beatles

“I am Loki.”

“I asked for a bride.”

The declarations smashed into you like fists and took your breath with them.

There was a ring on your finger. Silvery, plain, simple. Why hadn't you noticed it before?

This was clearly Loki. Sunken eyes, and onyx hair, and refined bones. Exactly like the pictures. Why hadn't you noticed?

Too many things all at once. Too much. A fearful whine escaped your teeth, as you tugged on the ring. It didn't budge.

“You're supposed to be dead.” You whispered.

His face fell the instant you spoke.

“You know. I sometimes think that myself. Yet somehow I remain. Take it as a reassurance: you will not lose me to battle, or accident. I will never leave you. I suppose that is something that new brides must worry about, especially human ones. You may put that fear to rest.”

“That's not what I'm-” You clamped your mouth shut. You were in a bad position, worse than you'd ever been, maybe. You were completely alone here; you could contact no one for help. You weren't even sure where exactly 'here' was-no one knew where Asgard was located.

You were trapped in a room with a madman. A prince among his own people, who had proven himself capable of the mass murder of humans like you. Yet claiming you were his bride.

No one would come to your aid.

Did anyone even know you were missing?

You glanced at the ring once more. Its twin rested proudly on his own left hand. What choice did you have?

You had to play along. At least until you found some way out of this. Stay on the madman's good side, as much as that was possible.

“Why me?” You asked, fighting down your panic. Just gather information for now. “I'm literally nobody.”

“I don't understand either.” He sat down on the bed, just a little closer to you than arms length. “This was supposed to be a chance at reconciliation. I willingly gave myself up in a symbolic act of unity. Sacrificed my own freedom.”

You side-eyed him hard. Gave up his freedom? In what capacity? He wasn't the one kidnapped and married without any knowledge or choice!

“This isn't an uncommon arrangement.” He continued. “Your species has done this since time immemorial. From kings all the way down to commoners, uniting families, uniting fortunes, uniting entire lands. Surely your...leader...understood what was to be gained. Yes, I did a terrible thing to your people, but this should have forged a new alliance. A promise that not only would I not do such a thing again, but that my formidable prowess would be for your people, rather than against them. Was this not enough? This should have opened the way for trade, for treaties...And you! Why do such a thing to you? One of his own people?”

“Oh, I'm not his.” You said. “I voted against him. I march in protests against his shitty policies. I oppose him in any way I can. I'd say 'maybe that's why', but it really can't be. I'm nowhere near important or influential enough for the government to pay any attention to me. They're too busy trying to kill me through austerity. Or through the cops.”

Loki's face darkened. “I should find that officer and flay him. Make you a bodice of his skin.”

He'd been reaching for your shoulder, but you flinched away.

“Okay see? That right there? That's why people might not want to ally with you.” You pointed out.

“He shouldn't have hurt you.”

“That's true. That doesn't mean you can use my pain as an excuse to rampage on Earth!”

“I shan't!” He protested. “Never again, I promise you that.”

But how good was the promise of government? Politician or hereditary ruler, it was all the same. How good was the word of a murderer? How many promises had he already broken?

“How do you feel?” He asked. “You seem...lively. Whatever you were drugged with, is it having a lasting effect?”

“I'm a little disoriented, but I'm awake.” You said. “The food and water helped.”

“Yes. About that. Ah. Would you like to see your rooms? I've been anticipating your arrival-well, someone's arrival-for some months now, and I've had chambers created that befit your new station.”

The big unknown outside. Beyond this room was nothing but uncertainty. But you would be the first human being to see this new Asgard. You told yourself it was a perk.

“Um...” You mumbled. “My clothes...” You weren't going out there in a flimsy hospital gown, that was for sure.

“Being cleaned and mended.” Loki informed you. “I have a simple gown that I believe should fit you. Here.” Wit a sweeping gesture, he produced a voluminous, forest green garment out of seemingly nowhere.

You scooted away. “How did you do that?” You demanded.

“Magic, of course.” He said. “You...don't know about the magic...?”

You shook your head and took the robe from him. It felt real enough, smooth and soft, with fur trim and pin tucks. This was simple?

“What do you know about me, my dear?” He asked.

“Not much. Just what...turn around!” Sheepishly, he turned his back so you could change. “Just what was on the news. And the approximately three million conspiracy websites that popped up afterwards. You might be shocked by how many people think you were an inside job.”

“A what?”

“That's not even counting all the cults. You and Thor really got the radicalization machine cranking them out. White supremacists, nationalists, doomsday cults...thanks a lot. Not as if we didn't have enough problems cleaning up the mess you left behind.”

“That...was not my intention. Were you...?”

“I was not part of any cults. I was also not part of the celebration of your death, either.”

The news broadcast had interrupted every television, lit up every phone. A tired and battle-worn Thor, looking not one inch the hero the world knew him to be, as he towered over the reporter. He gave only a short statement: His brother Loki was dead, perished in honorable battle, in an effort to protect the galaxy from an ancient enemy.

People had trusted him. They'd seen the destruction that enemy had caused, in their quest to destroy everything. The odd teleportation anomalies in England that had dominated youtube for a long time. The leaves in your bathroom, the foreign plants in the park. Exotic, even alien creatures being spotted.

People threw parties at the news of Loki's demise. You'd gone out, gotten yourself exactly one drink, and then stayed home for the weekend. It didn't seem right, not after seeing Thor so hollowed out. You didn't really get on with celebrating the death of your enemies anyway, only the success of your causes.

“Oh. Well. Thank you.”

“But yeah, all I really know is that you attacked us out of the blue, and brought an army with you. You caused billions in damages and cost hundreds of lives. Thousands more lost everything. The economic blow is still with us, and led to some of the problems I've been marching against. And then you died. Except not, obviously. Was Thor lying to us?”

“No. He truly believed me dead. I did too, until I woke up. So you know nothing of me. I feared that might be the case. I am no warlord, not truly. I am the foremost sorcerer of Asgard. My magic has many applications, one of which is that I am rarely found without what I need.”

“So magic is real?” Why not? Aliens were real. Gods were apparently real.

“Yes, very. When times were...better, I used to tutor younger students. I might go back to doing that, once we are more established. Once we are safe.”

Safe? From what? Was whatever it was that had destroyed Asgard still out there? Thor had said otherwise, before the radio silence, but he had also thought that Loki was dead, and he was wrong about that, so...

“May I look now, dear?”

“Oh...yeah. I'm dressed.” The gown did fit, though mostly because it was a shapeless, oversized thing that was closed around you with ties. Still, it was luxurious, and made you feel like you were actually pretty-as long as no one looked at you too closely. Was this what a princess wore? You shouldn't allow yourself to get too used to it. As soon as you found a way out, you were out.

“Delightful. Even such a simple gown enhances your beauty. Will you come with me, dear? Let me show you our grand achievements.”

You didn't really want to be exposed to the people of Asgard, but this room was no safer than anywhere else right now. Loki hovered, and you stood, and managed a few wobbly steps before you overbalanced. He caught you instantly.

“Don't worry.” He murmured. “I'm here.”

As if that wasn't the problem in the first place.

“So, while you were carrying me off...I mean, when you, uh, received me, did you notice a cane lying around?” You asked. “I had one. Did the guys who brought me give it to you?”

“I'm afraid not.” He said apologetically. “They seemed strangely eager to quit the area.”

“Yeah, well. They had just committed a felony.” You griped. “They probably had orders to disappear. And they probably didn't want to hang around and witness what a warlord was gonna do to me.”

He winced. “I promise you, that's not what I really am.”

“Sorry.”

He held out his arm for you. “I don't have your cane, but I can support you. We will have another cane made for you. There should have been an Artificer and an apprentice Healer in here at some point, to measure you for a new prosthetic.”

“Uh, there were. I, uh, kinda told them to piss off.”

“Ah. I suppose I cannot blame you, now that I know of your situation. But they are here at your service, as is all of Asgard.”

He helped you limp along, somehow maintaining his dignified stride, even as you wobbled along like a penguin. The hallways were as bland and labyrinthine as a human hospital, if somewhat more softly lit. Again the light source was obscured behind thin panes of cloudy crystal, which diffused the light, giving everything a comforting, if slightly mysterious atmosphere, which the general emptiness of the area only enhanced.

There were few people here, but for some reason, you had been placed in a room far within the hospital complex. Maybe they wanted to hide you away, so that no one knew you were here until they were ready to introduce you to Asgard. Or until they were certain you were going to survive. It might cause a scandal if the prince's bride just up and died upon arrival.

Or perhaps it was to protect you. There were plenty of reasons why a human bride might not be accepted by the Asgardian populace; everything from nationalism, to someone wanting to make a bid for that crown themselves.

There were still no windows to be seen, and everything was made of stone, just like in the hospital room. Out here, in the halls and waiting rooms, the desks, chairs, and tables all seemed to be joined to the walls and floor, as if the whole place had been carved from a single, solid piece, like the rock-cut architecture of the fabled city of Petra. Here again were the creamy grays and oranges lining the walls, though a smooth black also made an appearance.

Eventually, you came to what must have been a foyer, with a high ceiling, complex stone mosaics, and huge, gorgeously carved double doors, but still no windows.

“We will be going outside now.” Loki said. “This facility is within the palace complex, and is not far from your special chambers, but we will have to cross a few halls and courtyards. There are plenty of places to sit, so if you need a rest, simply say so.”

He opened the doors for you, and you stepped out into a world of stone.

Everything was stone, stone or metal. Before you was a wide open courtyard, clearly unfinished, but spacious. At regular intervals were stone towers supporting open pillared hallways in a multiple storied, vaguely Roman courtyard style. The towers shot up, and up, and up...you climbed them with your gaze, following them to the heights to which they had to buttress each other with thin struts of stone, higher still, where they joined with an impossibly high ceiling.

There was a roof over the courtyard, so tall that your couldn't fathom how it had been built. Beyond the courtyards stacked walkways-six full stories-you could see the tips of other towers, lined with lights, merging with this high rise ceiling. Was the entire palace built under this massive shelter?

Clearly the sun did not reach into the palace. To offset this, the crystal-paned, inset lights were everywhere, creating complex patterns that mimicked the intricate knotted carvings that chased up the towers and pillars. The corbels glared down at you, fierce masks of bearded men, wolves, dragons and birds, lights in their eyes.

Combined, it was not as bright as sunlight, but not dim either. The softness of the glow made shadows diffuse, made the stone look soft and fake, and even shimmery in places, like the set pieces in eighties fantasy movies. If not for the pain in your bruises, you'd have thought the dreamy atmosphere was just that, and that you were about to wake up from this absurd dream any moment now.

But the pain was there, and denied that simple, hopeful wish. And Loki was there, gently urging you forward like he was a real gentleman, instead of a heinous war criminal. There were a few other people out here as well; walking the courtyards pillared halls, resting on stone benches, carving hollows into the ground.

There was no soil here. All stone. As you crossed the courtyard, you noticed black, and gray, and cloudy crystal inlaid into the ground in a shape reminiscent of a compass rose, decorated with silvery wire knotwork in bird and serpent shapes.

There were troughs and niches being carved into the ground that looked to you like they were meant to be flower beds...eventually. You had seen no dirt here yet, no grass or growing things at all. Maybe once you finally got outside. But for now, it felt as if you had left a building, only to exit into another building, that was in turn, within another building.

It was a bit suffocating.

Loki led you across several courtyards, each with a different pattern inlaid into their bare floor, and through vaulted hallways that still contained no windows. Many of these hallways intersected in large, circular domes, and few of them had any distinctive markings. Soon you were completely lost. With any luck, you would be able to get your hands on some paper, and create a map-otherwise, any escape attempts would be doomed from the word go.

But maybe that was the point.

Your staggering steps echoed down a particularly tall and wide hallway, almost completely devoid of people. You were almost at the end of your physical capabilities, and while there were places to sit, you felt like you must be close to your destination. You really wanted to be in a room whose dimensions you could be certain of. A space you could comprehend.

Loki brought you to a stop in front of a pair of carved wooden doors. As the first piece of architecture you had seen here that was something other than stone, you found them more beautiful than anything you'd seen all day. They were something almost normal, almost like something you would have at home. If you were insanely rich, or your dad was a carpenter or something. They were a warm terra-cotta color, carved with a dizzying array of knotwork, framed with blackened, riveted iron. The handles were iron serpents.

“We imported some things from your homeland. This redwood lumber is one such thing. From what I hear, these trees are emblematic of your country.”

“Er...” How to politely say, 'not really, even though most people who live there do know what a redwood is'. They weren't very important to anyone who didn't live near where they grew. They weren't what you would call 'quintessentially American'. There wasn't anything you could really call that. The place was just too damn big.

“We couldn't bring too much, not yet anyway.” He continued. “It is expensive, unfortunately, and we only have one ship. It can only carry so much, and it takes about three days to transport. Things are moving slowly, but our construction projects are moving along speedily. There's little else to do right now, save build.”

He opened the doors for you, and led you into a fairy tale.

[tk-productions]

Mystic Sisters- Ch.19 Trader

Masterlist🌙🌹

Hikari’s pov

It was a few days later and we were still in Yokohama. Yua went to get breakfast from the convenient store while I packed up the rest of my stuff. After Yua’s dream a few days ago we thought it was best to find out what this castle was that we kept seeing. We were headed to Yokosuka. It might bold a clue to us and powers. I tried contacting Saki but I couldn’t get a hold of her. When I last talked to her, that's where she told us to go. We still haven't heard from anyone. It had been days and our parents still haven't called. They probably don’t care at this point. I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and braided my hair into two braids. Akio's hat still laid on the counter.

"Well since I still have it and it's cold I might as well wear it" I grinned and slipped the hat over my head. I don’t know why I was obsessed with him and his hat. Did I really just say that? That I was obsessed with him? According to Yua I was but I wouldn’t call it that.

"Im back!" Yua yelled. She was sitting the food on the little table we had in the room.

"Are you done packing?" she asked, sitting my food in front of me. I nodded unwrapping my onigiri. “I brought some more water since someone drank a gallon of water by herself.”

“I’ve been thirsty. Leave me alone.” We quickly ate so we could catch our train. Knowing how long it takes Yua we still might be late.

“When we get there I'll try contacting Saki again.” I told her once we got to the train surprisingly on time.

“If she doesn't answer we’ll stay in Yokosuka until we can reach her.”

Luckily it was only a 30 minute train ride and the train wasn't too packed. I shivered feeling a cold breeze. The same way I felt When Akio was around. I looked at Yua to see if she noticed too but she was too busy listening to music on her phone. Once we got off I felt another cold breeze. Quickly turning around I expected to see Akio like usual but he wasn't there. No one was.

"What's up?" Yua asked after I turned back around.

"Nothing let's go.” I told her grabbing my suitcase walking past her. I swear I felt him around. After dropping off our stuff at the hotel we went to a local ramen shop for lunch. As we walled back I heard my name being called. "Saki?" I said stopping in the tracks.

"Hikari I can't get to you guys right now. I'll come find you just not now. There's something going on. Mom and d-."

"Saki!" I called out, I called her name a few times but she didn't answer. Mom and dad? What was she gonna say?

"She sounded like someone or something was after her. She tried to tell me something but got cut off like last time. "I told Yua who was now standing in front of me.

"We'll just go back to the hotel or go to our grandparents since dad made it obvious he doesn't want us home.” She told me. I nodded grabbing her hand. I looked past my sister staring off into the distance. I could feel him nearly. This time I knew he was here. But where?

"What's wrong? she asked, grabbing my cheeks forcing me to look at her.

"He's here"I said blankly.

"Well Akio was right. You were easy to find."

Yua quickly turned around and Akio and his friend were there.So he was here earlier.

For a second I could have sworn he smiled at me but when I looked closer he still had the same blank look on his face. Akio and I stared at each other, not breaking eye contact until Yua spoke up.

"How the hell did you find us? We're not even in Tokyo any more.”

“Just because you left Tokyo doesn’t mean we couldn't find you.” The older boy pointed at the hat I was wearing. “That belongs to my brother little girl.”

I sucked in my breath and was shocked. “Excuse me I am not little!” I said stomping my feet.

Akio smirked at my reaction. The other boy looked at me and then at Akio. “I guess she’s your type.”

Akio looked insulted. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? What are you tryna say Riyoshi?”

“Oh nothing, don't get all butt hurt now.”

“So your names Riyoshi?” Yua questioned.

“That Princess is none of your business.” Riyoshi told Yua “However you should be worried about your boyfriend though I left a pretty big scar on his face.”

“Try his whole body.” Akio chimed in, chuckling. “Don’t downplay it man you nearly killed that guy.”

“Yea but he can die later he’s not our mission.”

“Y'all are really too handsome for this shit. What’s so important about us?”

Riyoshi seemed to find that amusing while Akio just stood there.

“Well isn’t this a nice surprise .” Says an unknown guy walking up.

“And you are?” Yua asked

“My name is --

“Irrelevant. We're busy, go away.” Yua snapped.

“Right we don't need anymore weirdo’s here.” I said.

“You little bitches. First off my name is Levi.” Levi was definitely triggered.

“Who are you calling weird?” Akio and Riyoshi said in unison.

I ignored them and looked at my sister. “This is getting bad very fast. Let's get the hell out of here.”

“You really think we have a chance there's three of them. Stay put!”

“Looks like they can communicate by just looking at each other. Interesting.”

“It’s called telepathy dumb ass.” Riyoshi shot at Levi.

I decided it was time to shoot some fire and make a break for it since they obviously weren't paying attention at the moment.

“Yua throw that car and i'll blow it up, decent distraction don’t you think?”

“We're sister’s for a reason. Let's do it on 3.”

“1” I started.

“2” Yua followed.

“3!” We said aloud. Catching the boy's attention but the plan was already in effect.

Yua used her powers and tossed a car in their direction and I shot a fireball at it causing it to explode. Yua grabbed my hand and we ran as fast as we could and I was happy because I still had my hat. He shouldn’t have given it to me, it's mine now.

We made it to a nearby ally before Riyoshi literally jumped off of a building and landed in front if us with Akio right behind him. “Damn not gonna lie that was a little hot.” Riyoshi said basically giving my sister the eye.

“Wow you're trying to kidnap us and you're flirting at the same time. You and my sister are made for each other.”

“Hikari now is not the time to promote my antics.” Yua snapped.

“I thought it was pretty funny.” Riyoshi answered.

“What is happening right now?” I asked very confused.

“What’s happening is these idiots have betrayed the VHA.”

“The fuck are you talking about?” Riyoshi said darkly.

“Oh yea when your little brother here saved his little girlfriend I caught it all on camera and showed it to Amelia.” Levi said with a big smirk on his face. “Long story short your public enemy number one now. Both of you. Amelia was so hurt when she watched the video. She couldn’t believe that two boys she practically raised would turn on her and choose to side with the enemy. You know her policy on loyalty right? Since you betrayed her everyone at the VHA will be coming after you. You two aren't welcome back. You're at the top of the blacklist. ” Levi said walking closer to the boys patted me on my shoulder. “Nice job brat you just got your friends here killed.”

Before I or Levi could react Levi was flying backwards as Akio kicked him with the utmost force. Yua and I jumped both our eyes turning white in shock.

It didn’t stop their as Riyoshi grabbed Akio by the back of his collar pulling him back so he could face him. “Seriously Akio?”

“I swear my body moved on it’s own.” Akio explained.

Suddenly 6 more guys showed up and we were surrounded but luckily we knew how to fight. Yua and I got into defensive positions back to back.

Riyoshi Pov

“Well since we were considered traders anyway might as well help them fight. But I will deal with you later.” I said to Akio, giving him the deadliest glare I had. It worked. He looked like he saw a ghost. Since the VHA turned on us we would have to run. Getting caught and brought back to Amelia would be worse than being on the blacklist. Amelia kept a list of people that have wronged her or weren’t loyal to the VHA. If you were to get caught after being blacklisted then she would make your life hell. Because of an incident that happened before Amelia started putting kill chips in us so that way if someone turned on the VHA the other members would kill that person on sight.

I didn’t have my wooden bullets but I had regular one’s and they definitely would work on halflings. Quickly loading my gun I saw Akio pull out his sword and I knew he was serious about this girl right then and there.

“Go do your thing i’ll cover for you.” I told Akio and he took off slicing two of the guys in seconds. He didn’t need my help but I heard a squeal. It was Yua turning my attention to her. She was ok but Hikari was struggling and her goal was to protect her sister. One of the boys came charging at them. Hikari waved her hands in front of her causing the boy to turn into ice. He stood there frozen until Yua ran up to him punching him causing his body to shatter into pieces. While Akio went for Levi I ended up doing three headshots killing them instantly since they weren't worth my energy.

“Aghhhh.” I looked up to see Levi running for his life and Akio chasing him with his sword like a mad man.

“Akio!” he stopped and looked at me confused “Leave him be. Let's go. More members will be here any second!” I then looked towards the girls who were standing around catching their breath.“ You too since you're the ones who got us in this mess.” I walked away Akio right behind me. The girls are reluctant but they followed nonetheless.

“This is Bullshit.” I said to myself as I tried to think of my next step on how to approach this crazy ass situation.  

[loveerran]

This happened two days ago, and I’ve been sitting on this post since. I thought I might not send it out. I didn’t do well with this, but who knows - maybe it will make you feel awesome about the way you handle relationships in your life :)

Content warnings for a conversation that included gay and trans bashing, conversion therapy, etc.

So I talked to my Dad tonight and it was maybe my worst conversation with him ever. I am not out to him at all. Thank goodness.

He’s almost certainly going to vote for Trump, and his opener was about how Biden was making it illegal for parents to get their kids into conversion therapy (20 states ban it) and that was another reason to vote against Biden. That was the opener. And more than usually so, he won’t stop, he’s just going and going and building and building and I’m literally feeling attacked. And I’m pushing back and it just makes him argue more. And he definitely went all transphobic on names for school kids and gay teachers normalizing homosexuality and secret combinations of gayness and you name it. I am not even going to write a couple of the things he said.

It’s been like 15 or 20 minutes since I got off the phone and I think I didn’t realize how bad it really felt. My wife was like wow and she didn’t even hear his side.

And this is the thing that kills me. Midway in, when I probably should have just told him off and hung up, I’m reeling and so I… I don’t even know. I jump on team MAGA and I’m like ‘Yeah them gays’ and then trying to throw in the thing where the Church doesn’t even support conversion therapy, and there is a new trans policy in the church where we even call ‘them’ by the name ‘they’ want (and I know I said ‘them’ at this point), and now I’m like, on the team but arguing it from the Church’s policy perspective and he doesn’t want to disagree with that (he didn’t even know there was a trans policy), and I tell him no man puts on a dress to sneak into a women’s bathroom to assault women, and just on and on, but still on team red. And then he calms down and all of a sudden it’s like I’m talking to my Dad again. This super kind guy who I have seen totally bend over backwards to help other people, who married a woman of color, who has done more hours of pure service work than I can count and who I remember as just a very kind person to people who could never return the favor and how that made him feel good about himself. Either he is just getting into a bad part of older age or he is being radicalized by the content he consumes, but it’s scary.

And it was just awful. And my wife even said she doesn’t ever want to hear me doing the team red ‘them’ thing again - ever - and was like ‘WTF’?

And apparently I thought I was an adult, but also apparently I am not.

So why is this hard?? ‘Dad, you’re wrong, and what you’re saying is offensive and un-Christlike and contrary to current Church policies and teachings to boot’. And then when he hardens up and thinks we, his kids, are all out to get him and his precious set of conspiracy-theory truths, and how we are fools who are going to damage the whole world through our foolishness, I say ‘Oh well’ and hang up.

And instead I feel like crap and I am depressed and it feels like I’m this little kid who’s trying to make peace and doing it all wrong and I just felt so attacked and it completely rolled me, and now I don’t even know how I’m supposed to talk to him again. Years ago, we talked a few times a month and it was good. And now I keep not calling back and not calling back and not calling back, and I don’t know when I’m ever going to call him again now.

I feel hurt and kind of dirty and kind of depressed. I’m going to take a shower and hope this all didn’t actually happen. Maybe you’ve had that feeling. Remind me to never criticize anyone, ever, for how they interact with a parent or loved one though. And I will wake up tomorrow, and this will have happened, and I have no idea what I do next.

[cometcrystal]

work saga updates cause i haven’t posted abt any of this yet and a lot has happened

cause i know at least one of you reads this shit. will be split into 3 parts

mute money incident 

i was the vault custodian that week and i was gonna take up mute money that day. mute is short for Mutilated and it means money that’s too gross/beat up to give out to customers, but is still real money and full enough to accept in deposits n shit. in the vault, we put them in straps marked with highlighters, so we know which ones to ship out to the feds

i was gonna do it the way another teller had done it before: gather enough bills to sell a full strap, with the mute money inside, and mark it with a highlighter and just sell that to the vault

head teller (im gonna say HT to keep it easier) says that’s wrong and i shouldn’t do it that way. according to her im apparently supposed to have each teller sell each individual bill they have to the vault and then i swap it out, swap it out for a good bill that’s inside an already- mute strap (cause they’re never 100% full of mute money), and bring it back (i.e. five 1s, three 5s, etc).

note i am still tense w her from smth she had done the previous evening

so im like Ok I Guess and start writing down how much each person is getting rid of on a piece of scrap paper. which makes sense right? cause if i’m gonna be bringing it back, i need to know how much to GIVE back.

HT sees this, takes my paper and crumples it and throws it away without asking me, and tells me i need to count it. i am upset and i said i WAS counting it and that’s why i had the paper. but apparently i have to hand count it every single time

also im apparently not supposed to give any back to the other tellers and im supposed to sell it back to my box when ??? like.

im trying to sort out this misunderstanding with her and truthfully arguing a bit because she is treating me like a child! and she looks at me and goes “do you want to learn or not. do you take this job seriously. because this is how we do this, and if you don’t want to learn, i’ll call [retail op specialist] and we can find someone else.”

so im abt to go inside the vault and shes like abt to come with me to help SWAP THE BILLS OUT and i was like i think i got it.

so i go in there alone and have to take a second and lean my head on the counter bc i am abt to start crying from how upset angry and insulted i am. she was just 100% talking to me like i was 5 years old and being EXTREMELY fucking condescending to me about the whole thing instead of just... explaining it. i have never once cried at work and i dont cry often in general. but she had nearly pushed me to that point.

when i go back out HT says “see that wasn’t so hard was it” in this I Told You So voice

so abt 20 minutes later i call her into the then-empty manager’s office so i can sit down with her and talk. because i am a petty person but im not abt to lose my job so i wanted to clear shit up w her.

TLDR i said its not that i don’t want to learn, it’s that the way you talk to me is condescending and it makes me feel like you think i’m stupid. and she said sorry and that she would try not to talk like that anymore, she was just frustrated cause she felt like i was arguing with her. so! i assume shit is cleared up

apparently, the next day, when the girl i learned the original mute money technique from came to work? HT pulled her aside and talked to her abt it and told her that we wouldn’t do it like that anymore here. and apparently! this bitch told her “apparently dott just doesn’t want to learn”! after i had that WHOLE conversation with her because i was trying to be a fucking adult! so i guess shit ISN’T cleared up!

and the funny part??? last week was HT’s rotation week so she was gone for the entirety of our new manager’s first week. and the other teller talked w the manager (MN for short) abt mute money and u know what she said????

SHE SAID JUST SELLING IT IN FULL STRAPS WAS THE EASIEST WAY SO THAT’S HOW WE’D DO IT. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

new manager

she officially started monday of last week, but had stopped by friday to get her keys and to introduce herself

HT is EXTREMELY angry that she didn’t get the position and she doesn’t hide it very well. and i like. i get it she’s been here for 10 years but also. just bc you’ve been here 10 years doesn’t mean 1. you have desk experience needed to be a good manager 2. you have the personality to be a good manager

anyway. MN is AMAZING and i love her. in her first WEEK, we got her putting her foot down but doing it in a considerate way, which is WAY more than could be said for our previous one, and is DEFINITELY something we need with HT. she’s very intelligent and i have very high hopes for her.

for one thing, TLDR we were cashing checks for ppl that weren’t there and had sent someone on their behalf, and we had apparently done that for a very long time but i never felt good about that. MN shut that down REAL quick as soon as she saw it happening, and the customers were all chill about it! literally the only issue is gonna be HT being upset that we’re changing that

the other big thing is its own section

Oh You’re GONNA Deposit It

so this one guy comes thru friday before last wanting to deposit a check into his business acct. let’s say his name is john doe, and the check’s made out to jack smith. jack has NOTHING to do with this account; he’s just one of john’s customers.

obviously we can’t fucking do this bc the check is made out to a completely unrelated person and not the business

i explain this to john doe and he immediately gets angry. hes like “oh youre GONNA deposit it.” with venom in his voice @ me. and i repeated myself. and he said “IS HT THERE??”

he’s asking for her because HT babies all these damn customers!! they’re spoiled as shit because she bends all these rules for them and then both of them, customer and HT, get angry when policy is cited at them

i was like ok! i’ll be right back! and i showed it to HT. and she goes over to talk to him. and even SHE tells him “we’re not supposed to do this” so she’s like “we’ll do it this one time because it’s a small check and you’ve been here forever, but we CAN’T do it again.”

SO EVEN HT HAS TOLD HIM THIS.

next friday, john doe calls in and says he has another check made out to jack smith that he’s gonna deposit. and if there’s any issue with it, he’ll close all his accounts out. like. ok lol

so he comes by and i do his first deposit for his personal bc it’s fine and then i pick up the business deposit and sure enough. another jack smith check, this time bigger.

so i don’t even talk to him, MN comes over to do that. she tells him the same thing i told him the previous week. he 100% straight up starts YELLING at her. not just raising his voice, YELLING. i can’t remember the exact convo but she hands the deposit back bc hes telling her to give it back and he speeds off

abt 30min later we get a call from someone at the call center just wanting to know the situation bc apparently he called them abt it and they told him the same damn thing we told him LMFAOOOO

so then an hour after THAT i pick up the phone and it’s him! he sounds calm and collected. he very politely asks for his account info because he’s gonna get stuff together to close all of his accounts and he’s gonna come by to do that. im like ok sir

he never comes by that day so idk if he changed his mind or if he’s planning to do it this week

the moral of this whole story is! this entire week is going to be extremely entertaining because HT’s reactions to all that MN has done so far (ALL GOOD THINGS!) is going to be extremely funny and vindicating! shes gonna be like “I’M GONE FOR A WEEK AND YOU LOST [COMPANY THAT’S BANKED HERE FOR 30+ YEARS]???” YEAH BECAUSE HE WAS BEING A MASSIVE CHODE GOOD RIDDANCE

[wickednerdery]

Title: The Guest Author: @wickednerdery Fandom: The Night Manager Pairing/character: Jonathan Pine/OC Rating: Teen Summary: “Damn son, you fine as Hell!” Notes: This is something that’s been bouncing in my brain for, like, almost a year (on-and-off)…still not sure I have more than snapshots, but it finally came out onto paper just now lol!

Previous Chapter

They return in the same silence they left, comfortably shared, then depart into their own worlds once more. Kay focuses on running her hotel, Pine on being its guest. They exchange looks on occasion, smiles when they both see Mrs Regan, but otherwise make no contact. The days drift on lazily, peacefully.

Jonathan makes his way out for lunch in the town square when he hears fast, sloppy, feet approaching. He turns to see a girl near the same age as Danny with a large, nervous, smile.

“Hi.”

“Hello.” He waits, seeing her sway in attempts to build up courage.

“I’m May.”

“I’m Jonathan.” Smile turns up corners of his lips. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, May.”

“You’re tall.”

He stifles his laugh so as to not embarrass her. “Thank you.” He continues to wait.

“Umm…can you, uh…help me get the beach ball?”

“The beach ball?”

“Yeah, I was, we were, kicking it outside and it, well, you know, got stuck.”

“Where?”

“On the grill-house, where they cook the pool food. I think it’s...” she shrugs. “I don’t know, caught on the gutter or something.”

“Ah, yes, well, I can certainly try.” Even he has to climb on a nearby barrel to get atop the shed that serves as grill-house, but he’s able to find the ball instantly. As he goes to collect it, pinned between gutter and smokestack, he sees a small sack tucked in the shadows.

“Did you find it?” May calls out when he goes silent too long.

“...Yeah...” He tosses the ball off the roof to her. “I’m just...thinking maybe I can fix what it got snagged on.”

“Is something broken? Should I tell my mom?”

“No, no.” God no! “Let me just...clean a bit of debris real quick. Then your mom won’t have to do it herself.”

“Okay.” May squeezes ball, testing its inflation level. “Weird...”

Pine crouches, taking sack and opening it. “What’s weird?”

“Mom just cleaned the gutters yesterday.”

“Mmm...” Jonathan pulls out two passports. One real is real, the other a passable, though not great, fake. He reads the original: Ricardo Jiménez. Then the fake: Ricardo Hernandez. It’s not a stretch to consider this who the men were looking for.

“Mr Jonathan, are you okay? Are you stuck too?”

He shoves the passports back into the sack, returns sack to its hiding spot, with a small laugh. “No, I’m all right, May.” He heads down, from roof to barrel to ground. “I just wanted to be sure. Hardly point in leaving a job half done, is there?”

“You sound like my mom.” It’s not an insult, but not quite a compliment either. “She says you have to finish what you start.”

“Does she now?”

“Yup!” May bounces ball off her knees with her steps. “Hey, can you...not tell my mom about the ball thing? I already got dinged for forgetting to lock the pool. At this rate I’ll never get my own phone.”

Jonathan smiles down at her. “Your secret’s safe with me, May.”

“Thanks, Mr Jonathan!” Any hope of speaking longer with the girl is dashed as she runs to her friends triumphantly displaying the ball to them.

**

He selects a hole-in-the-wall for lunch, somewhere he can collect his thoughts without distractions from touristing crowds. It’s full of locals, most taking sandwiches to-go, as they grab a quick meal. Some give him a glance, recognizing an outsider, but most don’t bother. Most are too busy to get back to work...lunch is a busy time, robust in customers.

Pine reviews what he knows. He knows two men were aggressively looking for one of Kay’s male guests, suggesting he was dangerous to her. That helping him could pose a legal risk to her. Given what he found today, it’s not a stretch to assume Ricardo is the man they were looking for. It’s also not a stretch that think Kay is, in fact, not just protecting, but helping, the man. The question remains...why?

Is Kay being played? Threatened into helping? Or is she in on whatever it is that makes Ricardo a wanted man? The little he knows of the woman makes it unlikely she’s gullible enough to be conned. She’s strong, yes, but her daughter could be a weak point, a lever for Ricardo to pull. He’d like to think she’s not in on it, but he’s no longer in the habit of trusting others...not even single mother’s running coastal inns. If he just had a bit more information, maybe he could sort through it all better.

Pine pulls out his mobile, scrolls contacts, pauses at Angela’s entry. But then what? Burr’s British intelligence, not American, and he’s supposed to be out of the business. The life. What does he say? Yes, I’m reentering the world, but would you mind terribly tracking down a man who may or may not be involved in illegal activities at my hotel in the States? Also, look up the woman managing the hotel, if you could, please? “Bloody idiot,” he mutters to himself, stuffing phone back into pocket and collecting things for the receptacle.

“Fuck yo!” The woman exclaims as she bounces off his chest.

“Terribly sorry, are you all right?”

She’s rubs her forehead. “Ya’ll never look for them bitty girls, do you?” Looking up, frown goes to grin. “Damn son, you fine as Hell!”

Jonathan nearly snorts a laugh at what may well be the most American way someone’s complimented him. “Thank you.” It comes out automatically, instinctual politeness kicking.

“How ‘bout a few drinks on me? Literally, if you play your cards right.” She shrugs. “If I play my cards right, am I right?” He goes to speak, but she carries on. “No, no, don’t break my heart, just pretend I didn’t say it at all. How about a Coke though? One for the road, so I can tell my cuz I bought a hottie Brit a drink instead of blowing my shot all over him.”

“I’m afraid I’ve already had a pop, thank you though.”

“Damn.” She tries another tactic. “Well, I’ll be at Squall’s End, if you change your mind. Nice little bar. Gotta in with the owner, so I can slide you a freebie, if you’re up for it, Shakespeare.”

Interest truly piqued, he smiles. “How about I buy you a drink here and we go up there together?”

“Really?” Grin brightens, then fades to wariness. “Wait, you staying there?”

“Precisely.”

“Ah, shit...” the woman shakes her head. “Nope nope, sorry, my cousin’s gotta strict ‘no hittin’ on the guests’ policy for my ass.”

“Your cousin is the manager, Kay, then?”

“Oooo, already on a nickname basis with her, huh? She must like you, but then she’s seen you...heard that devastating voice of yours...” The woman fakes a swoon, then carries on. “I’m Qi. But it’s with a q, instead of c-h, because my parents wanted to ensure a hundred people mispronounced my name before I entered first grade. So...Who’re you, Shakespeare?”

“Jonathan. Jonathan Ashland.”

“Parents didn’t even have the decency of naming you something like Neville or Mortimer...Lucky devil.” Qi takes a deep breath, then lifts brows. “I still want that cola, Jonathan, but now it’s a ‘friend, size-up-the-guest’, cola instead of a come-on cola.”

“Of course.” 

...Perhaps Qi has some answers for Pine, she’s certainly open and chatty enough.

“Okay, get me my soda and prepare for interrogation, Mr Darcy.”

“Darcy?”

“Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy, Pride and Prejudice, keep up, Sherlock!”

Another one out and, this time, with a surprise new character, haha! Not sure if Qi will be around a lot or just a little bit  - I do know WHY she’s here though - but she’s already making me laugh, LOL!! She’s younger than Kay, obviously way bolder and flirtier, but she’d just say she speaks the truth, haha! I’m hope May came out okay...she’s nervous and I don’t generally write kids so they’re not really my strong suit to start, lol! And I should have a masterlist for this tale soon, so yay, lol!

(Gifs found on Google, adjusted by me!)

Tagging Who Might Care: @lady-crowned-with-stars​ @holykryptonitekitten​ @ultrarebelheart​ @chibiyanai​ @beccaliciooouuusss​​​ @michellearel1​​​ @sweetfictionalworld​ @lukeevansandjdmobession​ @lokilvrr​ @rizzo87​ @alexakeyloveloki​ @wintertink​ @moonfaery​ @annievvv7​ @creedslove​ @wadeyouwitch​ @cassadius​ @tarithenurse​​ @kellatron55​​ @coppercorn-and-cauldron​​ @iwasbusybeingdead​​

[ranger-kellyn]

here, have an excerpt from some vaguely modern royalty phaesporia au where diantha is a princess and cynthia is her bodyguard i’ll probably never actually write~

           The air in the gardens was cool and wet.  A thin fog had begun to form around the edges of the stream that wound its way through the estate, a small shimmer now and then from fireflies that had strayed in from the fields.  

           Despite the tangible atmosphere around her, all Diantha could feel was Cynthia’s eyes on her back, and the pain in her feet from a night filled with dancing and socializing with people she had no desire to dance with.

           “Princess.”

           In the middle of the courtyard, they came to a stop at the circular terrace, her heels no longer clicking against the bluestone.  Around them, the rhododendron bushes swayed under the dim lampposts and moonlight, their bright pink flowers finally in full bloom. 

           “What?” she asked, the bitterness of her tone like bile in the back of her throat.  She wasn’t ready to face her just yet.

           “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or are we just going to end the night like this? Me escorting you home fuming, and leaving without knowing what I did wrong?” Cynthia asked, her voice far enough back to tell Diantha there was a good bit of distance between them.

           She sighed, her shoulders slumping, causing an audible jungle from her necklace.  “It wasn’t you, Cynthia.”

           “Then what?  Was it someone else? You know I can and will get between you and someone who is giving you a bad time,” she said, her footsteps moving across the terrace.

           She shook her head.  “It doesn’t matter, Cynthia.”  She had already resided herself that nothing could be done about the situation, and that it was stupid and childish to dwell on it any further.

           “Was it that damn Cordovan Chancellor? I will literally go back to that stupid party and kick his ass if–“

           She turned, her heels screeching against the bluestone. “Because causing an international scene and having you, at the bare minimum, taken away from me, would absolutely make me feel better!”

           Cynthia said nothing in response to the outburst, only allowing her to continue.

           “It wasn’t him upsetting me, and it wasn’t you!  Except it was–is? I just– I didn’t want to be there in the first place.  I’ve always hates these sort of events.  I hate having to stroke egos and be dainty and sweet– the prim and proper princess my parents expect me to be.  I hate having to dance with men who only know how to step on my feet and put their hands where they’re not supposed to.” At that point, even she wasn’t entirely sure of where she was going with any of it.  Really, the only thing she was trying to do was avoid the point entirely. The real reason she had been upset all evening.  

           A sharp pain shot up her leg, and in a split-second decision, she stood on one foot, intent on ripping the heel off.  “And I hate these fucking shoes!” She yelled, falling on her rear with a hard thump against the bluestone.

           Ripping the shoes ankle strap from its clasp, she pulled the shoe off, throwing it far into the gardens.  

           Cynthia was on her knees in front of her by the time she started reaching for the other shoe.  

           “Diantha,” she said softly, slowing her of undoing the ankle clasp.

           Whether it was the use of her name rather than title, or resigning herself to getting it over with, she said, “Worst of all: the only reason I’m throwing an absolute fit here in the gardens like some child is because I’m mad I didn’t get to dance with you.” She tossed the shoe off to the side, watching it land against the base of the rhododendron.  

           They said nothing for some time, the only thing breaking the silence between them being the gentle stream, and a distant group of Murkrow, cackling away into the night.  

           Pulling her knees up to her person, she tried to tuck her dress in a way that would still be decent, but quickly decided she didn’t care, too emotionally drained to worry over it.  

           “I wanted to dance with you, too.”

           It was the quiet admission that finally got Diantha to look up again.  “I hate these rules and expectations.  I just…” she shook her head, reaching up to pull her braid around, fingers making quick work of undoing it.  “I just want to be free to dance with whoever I want to, and not worry what my parents or the media are going to say.  Not worry about causing some sort of scandal over nothing.”

           It wasn’t as though she was having an extramarital affair like her two older cousins had.  It wasn’t as though she was trying to disrupt the marriage of another like her uncle had.  It wasn’t as though she was trying to influence bad policy like her own father would.

           Instead, she simply dared to be the stubborn princess who fell for her bodyguard.  Fell for her in a way that went beyond the physical interest they had expressed.  The sex was great, but the thought of simply getting to hold her hand in public, never have to dance with anyone other than her at a dumb party, or to never have to deal with a potential suitor ever again, was far better.  

           Cynthia moved to stand, silently extending a hand out to her.  

           She took it, fully expecting to be led to her room where they would part for the night, and not speak about it ever again.  She would cry it out to Gardevoir, packing away all of those feelings until her next inevitable meltdown.  

           Instead of letting go to lead her away, Cynthia put her free hand on her waist, pulling her close.  “Dance with me?”

           Tension fell slowly from her body, a soft laugh escaping her.  “Here?”

           “Here in the back gardens, fireflies as our witness,” she said, a softness in her tone Diantha wasn’t entirely familiar with at that point.

           “We don’t exactly have any music,” she said, more amused than anything.  

           Keeping one hand on her waist, Cynthia retrieved her phone from her pocket, flicking through it for a few seconds before a soft instrumental melody began to play.  

           “Can’t say I know what’s going to be on this playlist,” she said, turning the volume up before putting it in her back pocket.  “But it said instrumental, so…” She shrugged.

           “You’re terribly sweet when you want to be, my dear.”

           Then nothing.  Cynthia froze, and there was no dancing; no movement.  Only her looking off to the side, absolutely embarrassed.

           Even under the dim lighting, Diantha noticed a tinge of color across her face.  “You don’t know how to dance, do you?” she asked, her grin in her voice.

           Cynthia shook her head.  “I knew that when I offered, and yet– I think I know the steps of a basic waltz, but can’t say I’ve ever had any dance lessons.”

           Adjusting their hands, Diantha took the lead.  “Then tonight can be your first lesson.”

           And so they danced, clumsily; too much looking down at feet and laughing at missteps.  Just when Cynthia was sure she had it, she would mess up which foot was next, but it never failed to get a laugh from Diantha.  

           Somewhere in the middle of it all, the music changed from instrumental, to an advertisement, and for a second, Diantha had never laughed more genuinely in her presence than that moment.  

           “Cynthia Jenness!  You’re paid the royal guard wage, and you won’t even pay for premium on some music app?”

           She brought them to a halt.  “That’s an ten dollars,” she defended.

           Diantha’s stance didn’t change.  “Again, royal guard wage.  I know how much you’re paid to guard me.”

           She shrugged, pulling her close again.  “That company will probably –I don’t know– go punch puppies if I give them ten extra dollars.  Do you want me to be responsible for even one puppy punch?”

           The absurdity of it all kept her laughing.  Letting go of her hands, she wrapped her arms around Cynthia, resting her head on her collar.  “And you call me dramatic.”

           “Anything to see you smile again.”

           Another soft admission that Diantha wasn’t entirely sure what to do with.  Of course, she knew Cynthia had the ability to be gentle and soft, but more often than not, she was cool, calm, and assertive.  A force of nature to be reckoned with.  Ever since she was appointed as her bodyguard, Diantha never once feared for her own safety, and in bed, well.  Still a force of nature that Diantha loved every second of.

           Pulling away, Diantha looked up at her.  The moon was now high in the sky, Cynthia’s grey eyes silver under glow.  The music had resumed as soft, low melody.  

           “Can I kiss you?” she asked.

           Cynthia laughed low.  “You don’t ever have to ask,” she said, leaning in.

           “I still like to…”

[void-knights]

Hygge : Chapter One

Pairing: Loki / Original Character,

Chapter Rating: Teen

Tags: Slow Burn, Romance, LGBT Themes, Oc has ADHD, injury mention, Standard Tragic past, Mentions of Loki's past toture, Mentions of past child abuse (OC), Sickness, Near Death, Body Dysphoria, Gender Dysphoria, Prosthesis, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Extremis 616, Starboost Armour, Strangers to Friends, Friends to Lovers, Loki cooks, Loki teaches,

A/N: Right hello! I need to WARN YOU.

This fiction deals with an OFC that eventually realises that they is Genderfluid, using all the pronouns, but is assigned female at birth (AFAB). There will be mentions of body AND gender dysphoria due to a tragic childhood™  under the care of her biological mother/grandparents that occurred before she was in the care of Tony Stark. I do not go into graphic detail with the abuse, but it is mentioned.

This is a slow burn fic planned out to be a LONG story so the OC and Loki will not get together until a little into the story. Instead, I wanted to focus on building their friendship at first. Eventually (if all goes to plan) I intend to have the OC identify as Genderfluid, but unlike Loki the OC won't have magic and therefore will always be female in terms of physical sex.

While this might seem like a bit of a spoiler I like to forewarn people about these things as they can be potential triggers!

Anyway I got the idea of a character in Iron-Man style armour, and then I thought it would be fun to just have a Stark OC. I've got the timeline lined up so the ages to allign with canon. Masterlist | AO3 Link |

The avengers weren’t sure what they should do with Loki, Odin in his infinite wisdom had ‘bestowed’ his younger son upon them in a long-winded speech that left Barton spacing out, Tony disinterested and distracted and Bruce trying to work out how such an old man seemed so strong.

Only Natasha and Steve were paying attention by the end, the TL; DR was that Odin didn’t want to deal with Loki, so now he was the avenger's problem.

Nick Fury suggested locking him up, only to retract the idea a few minutes later, Loki was dammed persuasive, he could seduce any guard sent to keep him under lock and key. They did not know the full extent of his magical abilities and while he was bound (somehow, Odin didn’t bother explaining what they had done to Loki and merely assumed the Avengers wouldn’t care to know the finer points) they didn’t know the limits of the binding.

Thor claimed his brother could shapeshift, so a prison would need to be airtight otherwise a snake or spider could happily slip out. Then there was the issue that he was a god with god strength and probably the second smartest person in the room, or maybe the smartest, but Tony wasn’t about to admit that to the god.

All in all Odin had left them with a mess and the only support came in the form of a confused, angry and betrayed Thor. Which was never good.

This was compounded by the inescapable feeling that they only had half the story, why did Loki invade Earth? Tony had theories, theories that would make Clint punch him, but he couldn’t shake a feeling that something was off about the god of mischief.

Thor would agree, or not. Their relationship was never explained, it turned out communication was not a gift the gods of Asgard possessed much to the chagrin of the Avengers.

So this was the plan, Loki was to stay locked up in the tower, well only on certain floors. He would share a floor with Thor, where he would have his own bedroom with en-suite bathroom, but Fury was rather insistent that Loki shouldn’t be made too comfortable.

Tony was starting to wish he had never gotten involved he would make a poor jailer. He wasn’t responsible enough, Jarvis as amazing as he was would be worse, Loki had tricks, he could trick Jarvis.

It was a fucking mess, made much worse by not having the facts nor support to keep Loki. What were they supposed to do with the god? He was going to outlive them all, did Odin expect them to pass Loki off to other people? To keep him locked away for the rest of his life?

He would rather face the Chitauri again, or Vanko and Hammer or even Stane. Loki was more dangerous than all of them combined and what made it worse was the fact that Soleil was also living in the tower now.

He shouldn’t have suggested she live here, Fuck, he needed a drink or a whole bottle. The billionaire found Natasha and Bruce already at the bar, her with Vodka and Bruce with something fruity looking.

Tony settled for whisky and wondered what the fuck he was supposed to do now.

Loki was still chained up when Soleil walked onto the floor, the god recognised the human mortal from his research leading up to the invasion. He had gathered information on mortals who may pose a threat to his plans and worked to see them brought together (in brief moments of clarity before once again the mind stone seized control of him), Stark’s life was short as it was (by Asgardian standards) was quite fascinating.

Naturally Loki looked into every aspect of the potential avengers lives seeking weaknesses that would bring the avengers to him. The easiest targets were family, friends, loved ones who could be exploited as they had few or no protections. Soleil quite literally was the weakest link in the Stark equation.

Though he had come to realise she could have been a great asset to him should he have had need of an engineer with a deep and vested interest in space. Rather odd that SHIELD would have such detailed files on Soleil, almost as if they had been considering her as an alternative to her father and Iron-Man. Though what use such a fragile human would be was beyond the god.

She hadn’t noticed him, to busy tapping away on a screen and wrinkling her brow at something that vexed her. He watched her as she grabbed herself a bottle of water, she was halfway back to the elevator when she finally paused and turned to him.

“You look like shit,” she said after a moments pause looking him up and down as he remained trapped and bound.

He’d be offended if he had the energy, he felt like shit, months, years? Trapped in the clutches of Thanos and his black order, leading the invasion, not resting or sleeping in weeks, months, his meals just enough to keep him alive but never satisfied, he could not even recall if the paste he had been given (and reluctantly eaten after too long starving) had even had a taste to it.

“As you mortals say, that is pot calling the kettle black,” he attempted to sound above her, casual to the point of nonchalance.

“Yeah but I have an excuse for looking like shit, what’s your excuse?” she asked him sipping her water, he tried not to look hopeful that she might share something with him. Even lukewarm tap water would be bliss compared to whatever liquids the Black Order had supplied him with.

“The beast you call Hulk,” Which was partly true.

“Ooo, that explains the hole in the floor,” she cringed, “How the fuck are you still in one piece?”

“I am a god,” he reminded her.

“I had just assumed that was all a lie, you know psychological tactics?” She paused thinking it over, “Make us believe the gods are real, and you’re one of them, so you can claim dominion over us.”

“That would be a fair assumption to make,” he said leaning his forearms on his knees, “But I can assure you that I am in fact one of your gods.”

“Well you’re not my god, I don’t worship you or any gods,” she shrugged.

“We had noticed the loss of faith from mortals,” Loki nodded.

“Blame the Abrahamic religions, as soon as they went mainstream you pagan lot were more or less kicked to the curb,” she answered, before he could ask what she meant she asked, “So are you hungry? You look like you’re hungry.”

“I am in no risk of starving Stark,” he insisted.

“How’d you know I was a Stark?” she asked him suspicion finally creeping in, for someone who was supposed to be one of Midgard’s greatest minds she was rather stupid.

“SHIELD have files on you,” he said her lack of surprise told him all he needed to know, “That and you resemble your father.”

She brought a gloved hand to her jaw, “It’s the chin isn’t it?” she asked taking a couple of steps towards him, a glass and metal table separated them as she set her glass bottle down upon his surface.

“The general area yes, and you share his eyes,” he confirmed now that he could see her up close he could see the partial heterochromia, showing chocolate-brown flecks in each soft brown eye. She shared his jaw, lip and chin shape and brow colour, her hair was tucked up inside a hat, and he thought that her ears might resemble her father as well.

“But that doesn’t answer my question, never mind I’ll assume you’re hungry, what do gods eat?” she asked.

“You would feed your enemy?” he asked surprised by this, Asgard had a policy of giving their prisoners food, but basic food, food that would keep their enemies alive and nothing more. He was able to empathise with those trapped forever in those dungeons now.

“Yes because I have basic human decency,” she said shifting her weight mostly onto her left leg, “So food, what do you eat? Can you eat earth food being an alien and all that?”

“Of course I can,” now that she had brought the matter up he wondered if he could, there were some things that an Asgardian was told to avoid eating on Vanaheim and Alfheim, not that he was biologically Asgardian.

“Well if you die of an allergic reaction please don’t haunt me,” she said pulling out another device, a phone, a smartphone he recalled one of the scientists under his command using a similar device.

While she typed out whatever it was she needed Loki observed her. She was atypical in her physical body, her clothes hung from her, not because they were ill-fitting but because of sudden loss of weight. They were designed for a woman larger than what she was now, despite her rather cheerful demeanour she looked quite exhausted. She looked how he felt.

The leather right sleeve to her jacket shifted in a most bizarre manner, he watched as a small(ish) serpent poked its head out resting contently on the back of her hand. It flicked it’s slick tongue out at the air scenting Loki, she could taste him, she knew he was there.

“I think it’s safe to just get a range of food,” She said slipping her phone back into her pocket she rose her fist to her eye level, “You doin’ okay?” she asked the snake who slid back into the sleeve. “She’s shy,” she said to Loki who had not asked.

“You carry a snake on your person?” he asked curios, he could not imagine anyone in Asgard doing that. Snakes were dangerous creatures, not pets. Humans however seemed to ignore that rule quite often.

“Yeah she’s my ESA, but I make sure she’s some place warm, otherwise she’ll get ill,” Soleil explained.

“ESA?” he asked.

“Emotional support animal,” Soleil said which did not really answer Loki’s question, she needed the support of an animal for her emotional state? “They are animals to help calm and relax people. I wanted a cat, but dad says a dog would have required to much training and looking after, so he got me Macbeth.”

“How does a snake provide emotional support?” he had to ask, the concept baffled him.

“She’s a reassuring presence when the world is overwhelming,” Soleil answered.

To the god it was still a strange concept, but his curiosity got the better of him, “May I see her then?” he asked.

“Um, sure?” Soleil gently shook her arm, Macbeth got the message, as loathed as she was to leave the warmth of the jacket she was all too happy to slither her way around Soleil’s shoulders until she was hanging lazily.

Gently lifting the snake off her shoulders she set the snake down on the sofa, wise to keep a distance from the god of mischief who remained shackled and bound. Macbeth lifted herself up fascinated by this new thing, this god in her home, she stared at Loki curious to know why he was here.

⸢You are not human⸥ said the snake curios to know what he was, he smelled familiar, like kin yet was clearly more than that, more human, more than human.

⸢No I am not⸥ he answered utterly amused when the snake did a double take, stunned that the god would be capable of speaking her language. He detected the barest hint of offence on her next words.

⸢Then you are a lie, a false thing, I do not like false things⸥ the snake replied studying him closely, ⸢You are a danger to my human⸥

⸢I am a great danger to many a human, yours however has done nothing to earn my anger⸥ Loki replied, the smart little snake thought on this for a while.

⸢You claim that now. But my human has a way of frustrating the surrounding humans, they are so easily brought to anger⸥ came the serpent's response as she finally slithered her way over to him.

⸢There are many creatures brought to anger easily⸥ Loki responded lifting the snake up into the air to prove his point the snake hissed angrily.

⸢Unhand me liar, I shall not be handled by the likes of you!⸥ the snake protested with a rather loud hiss.

Up close, she was a rather pretty thing a mixture of soft pastel colours with the blackest eyes he had seen on a snake. A thick uneven stripe of orange and lavender ran the length of her spine and top of her head. Her belly was an off-white, her most dominate colour a rather fetching shade of yellow. She was indeed a strange patterned creature but lovely to look at.

⸢But you are so pretty, I think I may keep you⸥ he teased the snake who managed to throw him such a filthy look that it took him by surprise.

⸢You, are unworthy of me liar⸥ she snapped back.

⸢I am a good little serpent, far beyond your mortal caregiver⸥ he pointed out.

⸢Indeed? You must be the god of pomposity to say such things⸥ the snake complained turning her head away from Loki, ⸢My human is good and kind even as the sickness weakness her, you cannot compare to such a charitable and loving being⸥

⸢For something so small you certainly have a rather inflated sense of ego⸥ he said lifting her up to eye level, she turned her head away from him.

⸢Says the creature that wreaks of despair, I might be small, god of pomposity but at least I know happiness⸥ he’d never been tempted to toss a snake out of a window before tonight.

Soleil shifted on her feet confused, “Are you talking to her?”

“Of course, I am a god,” he answered petting the snake who recoiled deeply offended by his touch.

⸢How dare you touch me!!⸥ she hissed in discontent before slipping herself free from Loki’s hands and slithering back to Soleil who collected her up into her arms. ⸢You are unworthy pomposity, be gone!⸥

“That is a rather charming pet you have mortal,” Loki answered deigning to ignore the snake and her uppity attitude, “Though she might be pretty she has a rather terrible attitude.”

Soleil looked at Macbeth who looked at her, “Riiight she has the terrible attitude,” smugly the snake turned back to him beaming brightly.

⸢See my mortal understands, she shall not be easily swayed by a false serpent⸥ the snake happily slithered her way back up Soleil's sleeve.

“I have never before laid my eyes on a serpent with such markings and colours, is that typical of Midgardian serpents?” Loki asked leaning back on the sofa which had become uncomfortable thanks to being pinned down in one fixed spot.

“Uh, well ball pythons are kinda common I suppose, they are docile in nature,” Loki did not believe that for a second, “So they’ve been bred as pets for a while, some breeders try to create unique colour and pattern styles. Morphs. Macbeth is a Banana Cinnamon Blade Clown Ball Python for instance.”

Loki knew what each of those words meant individually but strung together like that they may as well have been pure nonsense.

His disbelief or confusion must have been evident on his face because she instantly launched into the details of snake breeding, how morphs came about, what each word meant and the genetic factors that went into selecting the right snakes to breed together to create the perfect offspring.

Trust humans to meddle in things that needed no intervention, he thought as she went into detail to explain a subject he had long since lost any interest in. She was passionate about her pet, about snakes in general, and so she babbled making her obsession quite evident.

It was no wonder her dammed pet was so smug, she probably praised it at every opportunity, it’s inflated sense of self coming from an overindulgence of love and flattery.

“Bee,” Jarvis cut her off saving Loki the indignity of having to amuse her babbling for longer, “The food has been placed in the elevator, do you require assistance in moving it?”

“I’m not that weak, Jarv,” she grumbled half stomping her way across the floor towards the elevator. Loki could feel the AI’s eye roll somehow.

It took her some time to set out the food given the ridiculous quantity that she had purchased. He did not recognise half of what was laid out but to Loki none of that mattered, all he could do was feel his mouth water at the prospect of finally having food that did not taste of grit and nothing.

“So we got Korean, Indian, Italian, Greek, American, Japanese, Ethiopian, Thai, Arabic, Mexican, Balkan, Caribbean, Chinese and Jamaican,”

“Bee,” Jarvis said.

“Yeah I over ordered,” she grumbled slipping her phone back into her pocket, but she hadn’t known what a god might like to eat.

It didn’t seem to matter, Loki was already tucking into a container of whatever was nearest to him.

He almost wept in pure bliss as he devoured the Tokushima ramen without haste, even the strangeness of a raw egg in a soup alongside pork belly and noodles (which he had never had in life) did not slow him down. The god did not slow down even as Tony Stark, Steve Rogers and Thor walked onto the floor slightly confused.

Jarvis had alerted them there would be food and that Soleil was apparently friendly with Loki. Jarvis had been somewhat right, Soleil was keeping a great distance between herself and the god, but she had ordered him a lot of food. Enough food to feed an army in fact.

“I don’t know what gods eat,” she immediately said as defence before her dad could ask, she did the same thing whenever he caught her doing something she wasn’t supposed to be doing. “So I got whatever, if he dies of an allergic reaction you’re not allowed to blame me.”

“You’d be doing us a favour Bee,” her dad joked, she grinned a little unsure while Loki finally slowed down. That was good, just watching him devour container after container was giving her indigestion.

“We do not suffer the aliments of mortals little Stark-”

“Little stark?” Soleil whispered at Steve and Tony both of them grinned sympathetically.

“-This is quite the feast,” Thor beamed at her and all of a sudden she could see what Jane Foster might see in the glorious blonde bastard, though if she had to go for a blonde she’d still choose Captain America.

The avengers and Soleil watched as Thor easily sat himself down beside Loki acting as though nothing was wrong, even Loki was a little on edge about that, Steve and Tony shared a look™ one that suggested they were in on something. Something Soleil was not allowed to be part of.

Thor without hesitation (must be a god thing) dug into the food complimenting Soleil as though she had laboured over the meals, she hadn’t.

“What is this?” Thor asked as the others finally settled, Tony made sure Soleil was one super solider and a father apart from the god of mischief.

“Curried goat,” Soleil answered taking the carton of Tom Kha soup for herself.

The look of betrayal startled her as he was torn between heaving his stomach into the nearest container or eating what was a delicious meal. Loki being the sympathetic brother he was grinned from ear to ear watching Thor have an internal meltdown.

They did not eat goats on Asgard due to Thor’s love of them, they were scared in some strange way. Loki suspected interest in eating them was already so minimal that Odin had no issue outlawing their slaughter and consumption.

“Are you okay Thor?” Steve had to ask as Thor gingerly put the container down.

“Yes Captain, I… find I cannot in good conscience eat a goat,” Thor said picking up another container and studying it.

“That’s chicken,” Tony reassured him passing a box that contained a triple cheeseburger with plenty of onions, “Try this it might suit you.” Thor immediately approved of the burger, it wasn’t easy to go wrong with a good burger.

Though the company was unwanted Loki found a sense of comfort in the noise and activity, listening in as Thor and Steve asked questions about the food for the Starks to answer. If the Starks did not know then Jarvis would provide information, Loki cared not about the province of food or what it contained, food was food and this was the best food he had tasted in a dreadfully long time.

He listened into the varying conversations, Soleil debated baseball with Steve, apparently he took offence at the LA Dodgers, none of this made sense to Loki, what made even less sense was Hockey, even the Captain did not seem to understand her love of Hockey.

The older Stark chimed in once in a while or talked at length to Thor about various things, places the god should see since he would be spending time on Midgard and perhaps the acquisition of a phone – communication device. Loki knew how that would end, Thor had never been great at keeping in touch.

The four talked at length about everything and anything, Loki was more fascinated by the Korean barbecue than what was considered the best dessert.

According to Steve Rogers you could not beat a good apple pie with a dollop of thick cream or ice cream. The older Stark insisted on Tiramisu which combined alcohol and coffee. Whereas the younger Stark insisted that New York style cheesecake was the best dessert, though ice cream (of any type) was a close second.

He noticed that Rogers was rather experimental with his choice of food, wishing to try everything at least once. Thor ate whatever had the most meat, Stark knew what he liked and stuck to that while his daughter seemed filled by the small tub of soup she had half-eaten.

“Jane has mentioned you little Stark,” Soleil did not appreciate Thor’s new nickname for her.

“Okay?”

“You are an engineer?” Thor asked.

“Yup, my main focus is space, aerospace engineering if you will, but I am not confined to one area of study,” She said setting her half-eaten carton down.

“Jane had mentioned that you are attempting to colonise your moon?”

“Me personally no, but I wanna find a way to make the moon liveable, so we can continue our research,” she said taking a long sip of water.

The floodgates were opened up and Thor could only sit uncomfortably as she prattled on about her designs on space, how they might once again reach the moon and this time stay there. She had ideas with regard to terraforming, to establishing a liveable base, not just on the moon but Mars as well. They would be the first destinations in this new space race she dreamt up.

Loki recognised the blank look on Thor’s face, he had long since lost interest and Soleil quickly realised. Twiddling her fingers she fell silent, ashamed even, this made Loki frown. Her father wrapped an arm around her whispering something, she perked up a little.

Thor turned to Steve to start an entirely new conversation, which made Soleil wince. Tony reassured her all was well and rubbed her arm, only to annoy Macbeth who popped her head out to see who it was that was rubbing her.

“Sorry my scaly grandbaby,” Tony grinned at the indignant snake.

⸢Oh another one, what is this one the god of the farm?⸥ the snake complained looking a surprised Thor over.

⸢I am the god of thunder, serpent⸥

⸢I stand corrected oh great and powerful goat fucker⸥

“I do not recommend getting into an argument with it, it thinks anything other than the younger Stark is beneath it,” Loki said trying a slice of pizza, he found the combination sweeter than expected.

“So they’re both Dolittle’s?” Tony asked Soleil who shrugged she didn’t get it either, but apparently they could understand Macbeth in some way. She certainly reacted to whatever they said back to her.

“I don’t get it either,” she admitted.

“So she doesn't like me?” Tony asked Loki while Thor continued to glare at Macbeth, the snake in return glared back at Thor (somehow).

⸢You may tell him that I enjoy his company, the red machine is most comfortable for resting on and he is a delight for a human being!⸥

“She thinks your armour makes the perfect place to rest,” Loki translated.

“Well it’s good to know I’m useful for something,” Tony grinned rubbing the snakes chin as she leaned up to him.

⸢You did not tell him that I enjoy his company nor that he is a delight tell him, tell him!⸥ Macbeth snapped at Loki

⸢It must have slipped my mind dull scales⸥ Loki grinned.

⸢Pompous false serpent⸥ she complained slithering her way onto Tony’s shoulder, Steve wasn’t as sure about the snake, but Tony was used to her by now.

“She’s tame and a pest if you let her loose in a workshop but tame,” Tony assured Steve who still wasn’t sure meanwhile Macbeth curled herself up on top of Tony’s head, she liked to feel tall.

“She’s inquisitive not a pest,” Soleil insisted gently cooing at Macbeth wondering how it was that the gods communicated with her.

“She likes to nap in places she shouldn’t,” Macbeth was not pleased by this, it wasn’t her fault she found nice warm places to rest in his workshop. She slithered her way back to Soleil deeply offended, Tony rolled his eyes.

“Well maybe you shouldn’t leave your workshop unlocked,” Soleil argued as the serpent coiled herself around her right arm once again.

“Dum-E likes to roam the house, you know this Bee,” Tony argued, yes she did know, she had spent a childhood learning to know when Dum-E was out and about. She loved him, she really did but Dum-E was not built to handle fragile things, especially fragile children.

“Yes but should he be trusted to roam the house?” Soleil asked grinning when he failed to find a suitable answer. Everyone knew it wasn’t a good idea, Dum-E lived up to his name and while he was adorable he vastly overestimated his own skill and abilities.

Tony blinked several times, nope a reasonable argument still failed him, there was no good reason why Dum-E should be unleashed within the house, “So Point Break, what’s this about coffee and pop tarts?”

Thor lit up with a glorious and adorable smile, “My lady Jane introduced me to such wonderful refreshments.”

“And you were worried about feeding them actual food,” Tony whispered to Soleil who grinned to herself, “Well Point Break we do have coffee-”

“-Dad you can’t feed Thor your coffee,” Soleil protested as her dad made his way over to the coffee machine.

“What’s the worst that can happen?” Tony joked.

“It comes with a health warning!”

“It’s not that bad,”

“By buying it you accept all the dangers that coffee presents, you have to sign legally binding documents on the website, you can’t give it to an alien!” Tony wasn’t seeing the issue, those aliens were gods, “It literally killed three people last year.”

“You shouldn’t have said that,” Loki muttered at the exact same time Thor lit up, “Let me test this coffee!”

Soleil buried her face in her hands, Steve offered her a spring roll in consolation, she took it, to exhausted to care that she was full up. Trust her dad to find the one alien that would enable his terrible habits. Fuck this was going to be a long year.

The avengers (well Tony, Steve and Thor) discussed what they should do with Loki, the god of mischief had no say and Odin had decided to leave it in their hands. The obvious answer would be to lock him up, lock him away where he could cause no harm.

There was no place suitable on Midgard that the avengers were aware of, Loki knew of several places but would rather not assist any further attempts at incarceration. He watched them struggle amongst themselves to come up with the ideal solution.

“I can’t keep him here,” Tony protested to Thor who insisted this was the best place, “I have staff and my kid to consider.”

“You have a goat here?” Thor asked.

“Soo, allspeak translates things literally?” Tony asked perplexed, Loki rolled his eyes, no it didn’t, Thor had simply mistaken the context of the word which would have supplied the answer.

“Kid is slang for child, he’s talking about his daughter Soleil,” Steve told Thor who stood there just realising what Soleil was to Tony, “You didn’t know?”

“The big fella showed up in the middle of this mess, I don’t think he got the briefings,” Tony reasoned, “Sol’s my kid, child, offspring whatever you wanna say, point is while Bumblebee’s here I’m not hosting Loki.”

“Loki shall not harm your daughter Stark,” Thor half lied, in truth he might harm Soleil, Loki had done a lot worse in his past though usually that was for the sake of Asgard or the protection of his family.

“Look all you have to do is sneeze at my kid and boom, in hospital,” Tony argued.

“Your daughter is that fragile?” Thor wondered if it were an age thing, Darcy looked to be of a similar age and seemed hale.

“Yep kid’s a medical wonder, impossibility even, so unless I have proof that Loki can’t hurt my kid you’ll have to have him live somewhere else,”

“Why not call SHIELD?” Steve offered, Thor considered this, but Tony had the most peculiar expression one that made Loki take note.

Tony shuffled on his feet, “I’m not saying that… look Loki took out quite a few SHIELD agents, Phil included, everyone loved Phil. I’m not sayin’ he’d approve out loud, but I’m sure Fury would be willing to turn a blind eye if anyone… took advantage of Loki’s situation.”

To Tony’s surprise Steve agreed, “What other options do we have? Thor are there any other territories, realms or worlds that would take Loki?”

“The majority of the nine realms are overseen by Asgard, they would not be willing to risk Odin’s ire by inviting Loki – even as a captive – amongst their numbers,” Thor reasoned.

“Why do I get the feeling when you say overseen what you really mean is-” Steve elbowed Tony in the ribs to get him to shut up.

“Can’t you build a containment around a single floor in the tower?” Steve proposed.

“Yeah and then what happens, he tricks Jarvis or someone else to let him out. Hell Bee would let him out if meant she could learn some weird alien shit, or fuck, she’d let him out to… you said Puente Antiguo?” he turned to Thor.

“Yes?” the god of thunder blinked confused. “I landed there, it so happened that Jane Foster and Agent Phil were also there.”

“Riiiight, well fuck,” Tony ran a hand through his hair, “If he stays here… how much do you two know about engineering?”

“The sciences were Loki’s subjects not mine,” Thor answered.

“We can’t keep him here,” Tony insisted to Steve who was just as confused as everyone else.

“Tony the tower is the best option-” Steve was about to argue, but Tony was adamant against the idea.

“-No it’s not because if Bee finds out-”

“-If Bee finds out what?” Soleil asked, Tony jumped curing Natasha (back when she was Natalie) for teaching Soleil how to be sneaky.

“I do not see why Puente Antiguo is so important to my brothers confinement,” Thor frowned not understanding what was going on at all.

“Did you say Puente Antiguo?” Soleil rounded on a surprised Thor, he did not understand.

“Is this some mythical town I should visit?” Steve asked it had been mentioned a lot in five minuted.

“No, no Bee he didn’t, he said-” Tony tried to correct not realising Thor did not like to be called a liar.

“-Do not make me a liar Stark,” Thor threatened.

“Yeah Dad how dare you make the most venerable god of thunder out to be a liar, honestly have you no shame?” Soleil said placing her hands on her hips, Thor nodded in complete agreement.

Loki rolled his eyes at how quickly Thor soaked up the praise and attention, it was honestly embarrassing how easily the fool could be manipulated and it had taken a mortal one afternoon to discover this weakness.

“Puente Antiguo was where I met my Lady Jane, Darcy, Selvig and your beloved Agent Son of Coul,��

“You mean Coulson, he’s American, we don’t use Patronymic or Matronymic surnames. At least not in the way you’re probably thinking of them,” Soleil corrected, “He was just Coulson, His father was probably not named Coul. Like how I am Stark and not Anthonysdóttir.”

“I see,” Thor muttered, “That explains the oddity of Jane’s family name.”

“Yep so if you and Jane married on Earth, and she decided to take your name, just as an example off the top of my head-” Tony and Steve finally caught on, she was buttering up the god of Thunder, and he was eating it up, “-She would be Jane Odinson, which I suppose would be awkward in Asgard but normal here.”

“That does seem odd?” Thor admitted hating how it sounded, it made her sound his like his sister.

“So you met in Puente Antiguo, I once read it’s romantic to get married where you met your love, but a desert town seems… inappropriate for a wedding to a god, especially with it still in need of repair.”

“Yes, the destroyer created so much damage when it walked through the town,” Thor turned to Loki who sat back utterly amused that Thor had so easily fallen into Soleil’s trap, of course Thor read his amusement wrong.

“The destroyer?” Soleil asked.

“Yes, The Destroyer Automaton is a weapon and guardian of Asgard, it was sent by Loki to kill me,” Thor glared at Loki again, “I wonder if it is still where we left it?”

“You really think SHIELD would have left something called the destroyer alone after what we saw with the tesseract?” Steve asked not understanding Soleil’s interest.

“How dangerous is this thing?” Tony asked.

“It levelled a town Tony, it’s dangerous,” Steve reasoned.

“Hush that’s not important, so the destroyer was sent by Loki to what attack you? Did you defeat it battle then?” She asked.

“Yes, with my godhood and power restored I used my strength and lightning to best the destroyer in combat,” Thor proudly announced.

“That’s sooo amazing,” Loki rolled his eyes the falseness wet unnoticed by Thor, “So like, it’s no longer functioning?”

“No, I knew I could not best it if I attacked the body, so I attacked it’s core it’s power source, rendering it inoperable,” Thor answered.

“Amazing,” Soleil continued, “So, any random idiot can command it?”

Thor laughed at the jab at Loki, Loki just sat deeply disappointed in his brother who allowed his ego to be bolstered like this, “No, it can only be commanded by the king of Asgard.”

“Loki was king?” Tony asked.

“What Asgard’s never had a queen?” Soleil asked.

“How do you go from being King to invader?” Steve asked.

“Expansion of the empire?” Tony proposed, “One land beneath the Asgardian sun and all that.”

“So what, you get named ruler of Asgard, and you’re in automatic control of its weapons? How does that work?”

“Through the Odinforce, Gungier acts as a tool to harness this power and through the Odinforce any ruler can command the destroyer,” Thor answered wondering why she was asking this, “Why do you ask little stark?”

“But I imagine Steel or iron would easily break under the strength of Mjölnir right? So how did the destroyer withstand your combined might?”

It was hilarious how quickly Thor turned from suspicious to eager to explain just how incredible he was.

“The metal from which the destroyer and my Mjölnir is forged is known as Uru, it can only be forged in the megastructure that surrounds Nidavellir. The dwarves harness the power of their sun Nidavellir to forge Uru, they are the only race capable of such a feat,”

“Only because they guard their secrets like paranoid dragons,” Loki muttered.

“Dwarves?” Steve asked.

“Did he say megastructure surrounding a sun?” Tony asked

Soleil vibrated, actually vibrated.

“Soo how does someone get into Nidavellir?” Soleil asked.

“With charm and plenty of gold,” Loki answered

“I can get gold,” Soleil whispered loudly, “How much gold do you-”

“-Bumblebee I know all this is very exciting,” Her dad began to steer her away from the gods, “But this can wait until tomorrow when you’ve had your ten hours now go, sleep.”

“Ugh fine, oh,” She pulled out a piece of paper from her jacket pocket and read out loud, “Pepper says pick up the fucking phone, or she’s leaving you for a man called Seamus.”

“Shit,” he’d forgotten to call Pepper to reassure her he wasn’t dead, he still made sure to push Soleil out toward the Elevator, “Stick him on your floor for now Point Break.”

“My Floor?” Thor asked.

“Oh, oh right, you all have your own floor Jarvis will send you to the correct ones,” that was that. The Starks were gone.

“Why do I feel manipulated?” Thor asked.

“You are catching on much faster these days' brother,” Loki grinned.

Steve sighed, he wasn’t getting paid enough to deal with this bullshit.

[eldri-sv]

26 - Aizawa

Kaori Shinsou has always been fascinated by people’s minds. She is one of the best students in her Criminal Psychology course at U.A. and - being the lucky girl she is - her professor is not only one handsome dude, but is also working on the case of the serial killer Stain - a case that has been going on for years. As she is about to become Professor Aizawa’s TA during the next term, a lot of other interesting cases start popping up all over the country…

Deep down we both knew it was trouble by design

(Cage The Elephant - Too Late To Say Goodbye)

Shouta Aizawa gave Tsukauchi a long hard look. He really couldn't believe this man sometimes. Sure, he was doing his job well and all, but he just kept having terrible ideas, like waking him up in the middle of the night with a phone call, just so he could head out to a crime scene and have a look at it, when he could just gather the same information from a well-made report. (Sometimes Aizawa suspected he didn't trust people with writing good reports, but that was a story for another day.) Or that thing he just suggested about Kaori Shinsou.

"Are you being serious right now?" Aizawa asked him, pretty sure that he was trying to play some sort of prank on him.

"Of course! I've seen her work on two different cases now and she has been brilliant. Would be a shame to let her waste away at the Hosu City department. Or have her go back to Tartarus next term." Tsukauchi replied. Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath.

"Look, I get it. She's really good at this and by all means, she should get to work in a higher ranking job. But Tsukauchi, have you looked at her? That girl has been doing night shift after night shift in Hosu, then she goes to university and then straight back to work. I've seen her asleep in the damn library, Tsukauchi! She needs a fucking break." he explained. Tsukauchi nodded quickly.

"Of course, of course, I'm not saying she should come here and intern with us right away. I'll have to look at a ton of paperwork for that anyway, and obviously she'd have to agree to it. We'd give her some time off, especially during exams. But she'd be able to work on high profile cases, instead of some teenagers burning stuff in trash cans. Think about it." Tsukauchi said.

Of course he was right. He had a very valid point. It would be a shame to waste Shinsou's talent when it came to criminal psychology with her staying in the Hosu City department. She would have much more room to grow if she was interning with and working for the National Police Department.

But Shinsou already had no idea what a healthy work-life balance meant. Aizawa knew she didn't, because he was the same. And while he loved his job as a teacher and part-time criminal psychologist for the National Police Department, he also knew that it sucked getting that little sleep and being under the kind of high pressure that these kinds of cases brought with them.

"I mean, in the end it will be her decision. But I don't think it's a good idea. She's overworking herself as it is. There were several times during the last few weeks when she just collapsed from exhaustion. This already isn't healthy for her. Now imagine Shinsou getting to work for a much bigger organization - she'd work herself to death because she felt she had to." Aizawa replied.

"Sounds like someone I know." Tsukauchi told him with a smile.

"Exactly. And that's why I know she'd get much more stressed than she already is. I know I am stressing myself more than is good for me."

"Well, have you considered that the two of you would be working together? Which means you would both technically have a smaller workload and that benefits both you and her. Plus, that way you can still have an eye on her and make sure she gets some time off, if that's so important to you." Tsukauchi said.

Aizawa had to admit he hadn't thought about that. It could possibly even convince him. But there was no way he'd admit that to Tsukauchi. Thinking about it, he quite liked the idea of being able to work with Shinsou. After all, he had been itching to show her some of the confidential files on the Stain case, just to be able to get her perspective. Aizawa didn't like working closely with people, but he could imagine working with Kaori Shinsou. He sighed. Tsukauchi had already won.

"Well, go and suggest it to her. I still don't think it's the best idea, but in the end it is her decision. And I agree, it would be nice to get her somewhere higher up than the Hosu Department." Aizawa finally said. Tsukauchi gave him a knowing smile and got up from his chair in the school cafeteria.

"Sounds good to me, then. I'll get the paperwork in order and then I can hopefully see her about it sometime next week. I'd like to get her on for interviewing Stain by any means." Tsukauchi replied.

"That would be a good idea, she's been following that case since forever. She's obsessed with it. Anyway, get your paperwork done and then see if she wants to do it or not." Aizawa mumbled.

He still didn't quite feel alright with that decision, but there was nothing he could do either way. Tsukauchi had come to him to test the waters and see what he had to say about her academic abilities. And those were as good as they could possibly be. He had nothing bad to say about Shinsou.

"Oh yeah, before I leave. The two of you might want to be a little more discreet with... whatever it is that's going on between you." Tsukauchi said and winked at him. Aizawa gave him a confused look.

"What?" he asked, not expecting to hear anything like that. Of course he had heard of the stupid rumours, but he had never paid them much mind. To him they were just that - stupid rumours.

"I don't know if there is anything going on between you and Shinsou, but there are rumours. And it is quite obvious that you are... fond of her." Tsukauchi replied. Aizawa was completely dumbfounded by this. He had never expected anyone to bring this up to his actual face. Yes, he was fond of Shinsou. He liked her, there was no point denying it. And there was also no point denying that she was an attractive young woman. But there was absolutely nothing going on.

"I don't know what you're thinking, but there is really nothing going on..." Aizawa started, but Tsukauchi interrupted him.

"Look, I really don't care. I'm just saying this as a friend. People get certain impressions, that's all I'm saying."

And with that Tsukauchi left. Aizawa had no idea how to react to any of that. He had always thought that all those rumours were somewhat ridiculous. There was absolutely no substance to this. But now Tsukauchi had him second-guessing himself. What if there was anything inappropriate between them?

It wasn't like anything they'd do would be illegal, but it would surely be against school policy if they were having an affair of any sort. Especially as long as Shinsou was in his course. An image got conjured up in his mind of Kaori Shinsou in one of her short skirts and her knee socks on, sitting on the heavy oak desk in his office, leaning back, legs spread wide, looking at him with those lascivious eyes and...

Fuck. Where the hell did that come from? Aizawa was trying to tell himself that it was only because of what Tsukauchi had insinuated that he had just been thinking about that, but somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that he definitely had a thing for Shinsou - he had just been suppressing it, because... well, because he was her professor and she was his student.

This was bad. This was beyond bad. How the hell did he not notice how far he let all this get? Those little mind games where he intentionally wouldn't call on her for ages during class, just to see her essentially fighting for his attention, the way she'd almost grow in her seat every time he gave her any sort of praise - hell, him taking her on as a teacher's assistant.

None of that was helping in any way. Maybe he just had to find a way to at least publicly distance himself from her. Try not asking her to stay after class so many goddamn times. That would be a start. Aizawa sighed and took a sip from his half-empty cup of coffee. It had gotten cold. Of course.

"Morning, prof!" he heard a cheerful voice say behind him. Speaking of the devil. He turned in his chair and saw Kaori Shinsou standing there, a lunch tray in her hands, obviously on the way over to her friends.

"What do you want, Shinsou?" he asked, feeling a headache coming on. He was in no mood to deal with this right now.

"Just happened to pass by on my way. I saw Tsukauchi talk to you and you looked kind of shaken. Is everything okay?" she replied innocently. Good God, this was getting worse and worse. Aizawa gave her a glare.

"It's none of your concern." he said coldly, trying to implement the rules he had just set for himself. Shinsou looked like she was taken aback a little and then she just shrugged and gave him a smile.

"Okay." she replied and continued in her way. That smile literally broke Aizawa's heart. It wasn't easily noticeable, but it was absolutely a fake smile. He kept telling himself that all of this was for the best. He really wanted to keep his job and he didn't want to force Shinsou to transfer courses either.

He had no idea how he was supposed to work with her, if she decided to transfer from the Hosu department to the nationwide department. He tried to remember how he was treating the rest of his students, but somehow it didn't seem to translate in any way to Shinsou. She was smart, dedicated and... really fucking hot.

There. He said it. He thought his student was hot. And really, there was nothing wrong about it. She was 22, there were really only 8 years between them. The only thing that was a problem was U.A.'s policy on that. And that's why he had to cut the bullshit and stop being obvious about it.

Aizawa took a deep breath and took another sip from his coffee. With the shock of his new realization he had completely forgotten that it had become cold and disgusting. He grimaced, as he remembered. Only thirty minutes left until his Criminal Psychology class. With Kaori Shinsou in it. Fuck.

He was so used to talking to her about her assignments after class or to have a small chat in the classroom just before the course started. He was used to watching her write down immaculate notes, her sticking her pencil into her hair and forgetting about it for ages, her sitting up more and more when he wasn't calling on her on purpose. This whole thing would be harder than he thought.

With a sigh he got up to get rid of his coffee and hole himself up in the staff room. He didn't really want to talk to anyone right now, not after he had had this weird epiphany. His mind flashed the image of Shinsou's sad eyes at him reacting so coldly before him. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Fuck, this really would be hard.

[anexplanationofunfortunateevents]

the advisor’s book, the fixer’s confession, and the lawyer’s firing

The Traitor-in-Chief was hoping we’d talk about the racist incitement he tried to unleash at his Nuremberg Rally in Tulsa. This was, of course, dangerous and evil despite its pathetic failure, so instead of rewarding him for it, let’s go over this weekend’s reminders of his authoritarian escalations, his gluttonous corruption, and the glaring illegitimacy he is failing to hide.

The Advisor’s Book

John Bolton, the mustacioed Dr. Strangelove who served as Trump’s third national security advisor, has started leaking copies of his book, out this week. Unsurprisingly, the book contains a lot of damning evidence of Trump’s attempts to extort foreign countries into helping him steal the 2020 election, which Bolton pompously refused to provide during Trump’s impeachment. This included the shakedown of the Ukrainian president which got Trump impeached. It turns out Trump was also desperately trying to get Chinese President Xi to help him, either by announcing bullshit investigations into former Vice President Biden’s family (we knew about this) or by dramatically increasing American imports to kind of goose the economy in a way that might help Trump in the election.

Trump, naturally, has responded by having the Department of Justice sue to stop the book’s publication and threatening to have Bolton thrown in jail.

We shouldn’t get numb to the existential small-d democratic nightmare of Trump’s sabotaging American foreign policy interests for his own political benefit. Yes, we’ve been living with it all along, and you’re probably tired of hearing or saying how bad it is. It’s still really bad! But the China piece of it is, you know, relevant to current events. Bolton left the administration in the fall of 2019, so he wouldn’t have any information on the COVID crisis, but there’s no reason to believe that Trump stopped trying to get on Xi’s good side. All those spectacular failures to get the pandemic under control when we had a chance six months ago, and even some of the more bizarre decisions since then, have to be reconsidered in light of this:

The virus made it out of Wuhan to terrorize the world in large part because the Chinese Communist Party blew its early response.

Trump was trying to butter up President Xi because Trump wants to use the CCP to make himself look good.

While underplaying the virus, Trump praised the CCP’s response with a bunch of lies.

Break out your red string and corkboard if you want, but I think we’ve cracked the shit out of this case.

The Fixer’s Confession

Remember six thousand years ago when the Mueller report about the joint Trump campaign-Russian government’s criminal sabotage of the 2016 election came out? And there was SO MUCH stuff that was SO BAD, it was hard for people to remember that it wasn’t even close to the whole story? Well, we just got another look under the redactions, and WOOOO it is as bad as you already knew it was! When they agreed to plead guilty and cooperate, Trump campaign staffer Rick Gates, campaign manager Paul Manafort, and attorney Michael Cohen confirmed that former Trump campaign official and current convicted felon Roger Stone helped Wikileaks plan the strategic releases of emails stolen by Russian intelligence and then called Donald Trump and told him all about it.

Again, this is and always has been the opposite of complicated. HE DID IT AT A PRESS CONFERENCE. HE ASKED RUSSIA FOR MORE EMAILS AND MORE EMAILS APPEARED.

THIS WAS LITERALLY ON C-SPAN.

The excuse that the Very Serious People in the Republican party, political press, and cosplay-leftist-contrarian industrial complex  is that nobody knew about some secret communication where known Russian assets plotted out some aspect of the attack with the Trump campaign. There hadn’t been one particular phone call where Trump and whoever was on speakerphone with him heard about what the FSB was planning to do before they did it. EXCEPT THAT DEFINITELY HAPPENED. The issue, for the 132513798415th time, is not that we are unsure what happened, but that we are unsure what to do about it. The Mueller team, despite being cautious to a fault, were so sure it happened that they put it in their final report. Apply Occam’s razor to Trump-Russia and the rational conclusion is the worst case scenario.

Of course, the reason that this didn’t come out earlier is that Attorney General William Barr has turned the Department of Justice into a fully-owned Trump subsidiary, so that he could hide exactly this kind of smoking gun for Donald Trump.

The Lawyer’s Firing

Around ten PM on a Friday night, the attorney general’s office announced that United States attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman – that’s the lead federal prosecutor in Manhattan – had resigned, and his duties would be taken over by a reliable Trump flunky who already has a different government job. By midnight, Berman announced that he had done no such thing, he had no intention of leaving his job, and that the SDNY would continue to work on its cases as usual. (That last one is supposed to go without saying.)

You can get into the weeds on the back-and-forth of the following 48 hours, but the upshot of it is that Berman will be replaced by an SDNY career professional who …. seems reliably skeptical of Barr.

We don’t necessarily know why this sloppy, panicked attempt to decapitate the SDNY went down when it did. But OH MY GOD, we know why the fuck it happened.

These three headlines from the past few days are all part of the same story. Trump is actively trying to get foreign autocrats to help him cheat his way through the 2020 election, because he does not believe he can win a free and fair election. This is, unusually for him, a completely reasonable belief based on empirical evidence: he knows how much cheating he had to do last time. Whether it’s because of that cheating specifically or the general mobster bullshit he’s been into for his entire adult life, he’s desperate to gut legal oversight of his crimes and cheating, which is why he’s hired an attorney general who will help him cheat and cover up crimes.

All of this can only work if we agree to get distracted by nonsense. They are going to try absolutely everything they can think of to delegitimize their opponents and hide their own malevolence. You do not have to help them.

[paradisobound]

World’s Greatest First Love: Chapter 10

Summary: Dan Howell wanted a clean break from his father’s publishing company. It was why he applied for a different company in London: to stop the ridicule of his coworkers for riding on his ‘daddy’s coat tails’. But he wasn’t expecting to suddenly be going from a literature editor, to a graphic novel editor. And he certainly wasn’t expecting to come face first with his first love who broke his heart from when he was a teenager: who just happens to be his new editor-in-chief.

Based on the Anime and Manga “The World’s Greatest First Love: The Case of Ritsu Onodera” aka Sekai-Ichi Hatsukoi

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 2.9k (this chapter)

Warnings: None

Beta Read by: @phanandpenguins

Updates Every Tuesday 12pm EST and Saturday at 1pm EST

READ ON AO3

Returning back from the Isle of Man almost felt as if the entire trip never happened. Dan didn’t figure that it would warrant such a dramatic change in his life but he really felt like sleeping with Phil might have been a turning point. Except, it definitely wasn’t.

He goes back to Onyx for his shift the following day and naturally, he’s not shocked to see a mound of paperwork at his desk that was either faxed to him or given to him from the printers or sales department.

Dan finds two new manuscripts, both for different authors, a form for the second printing of his book, and a few other miscellaneous forms and papers that he has no idea what they are from first glance. He lets out a sigh and plops down in his seat, rubbing his hands in his hair.

They always say going back to work after a vacation was difficult, and Dan is definitely not in disagreement with that at all.

He fishes his laptop out of his bag and opens it up to begin working on unread emails and other various things now that he has a ton of work to do. He buckles down and focuses in, trying to get as much done as possible.

It’s only an hour into his shift when his cell phone begins to ring out of his coat that’s draped over his chair. He reaches behind him and goes to grab it to see who it is. Maybe it’s an author of his? That’s got to be it.

But when he pulls his phone out of his pocket, the name “Annie” appears on his screen with a picture of her and he feels a bit sick.

Should he answer it or should he leave it? He looks around the room quickly as if he’s looking for an out for the situation. But the sound of his ringtone is annoying him and surely everyone else so he quickly hits answer and puts the phone up to his ear.

“Hello?”

“You didn’t answer my call the other day.”

The airiness of her voice still catches Dan off guard.

He quickly stands up from his chair and rushes out of the office towards the breakroom. He steps inside and is glad to see no one else is in there. He takes a seat on one of the couches.

“I wasn’t expecting you to ever call again,” Dan says truthfully.

“I’m back from Italy,” Annie says. “I want to see you again.”

There is a pause because Dan doesn’t know what to tell her anymore. Back when they were together, he could have any conversation with her without an issue. But she left for Italy when they were on bad terms and Dan considered the relationship ended at that point, he figured she did too.

But something is nagging in the back of his head that she was still thinking otherwise.

“I stopped by your dad’s company but they said that you left and were working somewhere else,” Annie says, her voice cutting through his thoughts.

“Oh, yeah. I switched companies a few months ago,” Dan says, his words a bit clipped, a bit short.

“Where do you work now?” Annie says, a bit out of breath and that’s when Dan can hear the sound of the busy London streets in the background.

“Are...are you walking?” Dan asks.

“Yeah, I’m going to come and see you, is that an issue?”

“Yes!” Dan cries out. “You can’t come and visit me at my job, Annie.”

He can almost hear her stop in her tracks as she processes what he just said. She huffs and then lets out a sigh.

“Do you still live in the same flat at least?” She asks, sounding exasperated.

“No.”

“So you’ve literally like...left everything behind then.”

Dan leans back on the couch and rubs his hand over his face.

“So you’re not even going to give me your new address then?” Annie asks. “Dan, you’re my fiance, I need to know where you are.”

“Annie…”

“Look, okay. I know the details got a bit stretched as time passed between us but we can meet up later and talk about this all.”

Dan sighs because he knows that she is right. He agrees eventually and then ends the call just as the door to the breakroom opens and Phil walks inside, a couple pound coins in his hand. He walks over to the vending machine and without making eye-contact with Dan, says, “There is a strict company policy that we use our cell phones for work related conversations when we’re on the clock. So no more private calls during your shift or else we’re both going to get into trouble.”

“How did you know it wasn’t work related?” Dan asks, because he doesn’t particularly like the idea of Phil eavesdropping on his conversation. No matter how many lines or boundaries they may have crossed.

“If it was work related, you wouldn’t have rushed out of the office so no one else could hear you,” Phil says, grabbing whatever he got out of the machine and walking back out of the room.

Dan has no idea what any of that was, but it leaves a bittersweet taste in his mouth.

***

Phil gets on the tube right after Dan has a seat on one of the empty benches. He rushes on and Dan sees the sigh of relief that comes out of Phil’s chest when the doors close narrowly behind him and the train starts and barrels forward. He walks forward and takes the empty seat next to Dan.

“Didn’t think I was going to make the last train,” Phil says, completely out of breath.

“They normally hold the final train for a bit longer.”

Phil stares at him and laughs and shakes his head. Dan’s not sure why.

Then he sees the bag Phil is holding in his hands and notices there is something in it. Phil picks it up and holds it up to Dan, “Come over to mine for a few drinks to unwind after the long day.”

“I can’t tonight,” Dan says, because he knows Annie is waiting for him at his flat. Even though he told her not to wait for him, he knows that she is.

“Why not?” Phil asks.

“I...I’m tired.”

“Exactly why we should unwind,” Phil presses, scooting closer to Dan.

The train suddenly slows to a hard stop and the passengers get thrown around as the lights flicker off and murmurs begin to be whispered between everyone. Dan feels his heartbeat pick up speed and he turns to Phil.

Phil looks at him and just as Dan opens his mouth to ask what Phil thinks happened, but Phil leans forward and presses their lips together. Dan has half a mind to protest and push back because they’re on a public train but Phil pulls away not long after initiating it.

Dan just stares at him and then the lights flicker back on and Dan feels a sense of comfort in his chest. He finds himself leaning over and resting his head on Phil’s shoulder, taking a deep breath and letting it go through his nose.

It’s just a few more stops until their own and when they get off, they walk together down the street. It’s so late that most of the area is void of people except for a few stragglers. Their shoulders are bumping against each other and Dan doesn’t think Phil’s ever walked this close to him before. There is something cozy about it.

Just as he thinks that, Phil’s hand comes into contact with his own and they connect, palm to palm. Dan can feel how warm Phil’s hand is against his own and he blushes as he looks down and sees their hands swinging, intertwined.

He knows that they shouldn’t be holding hands in public, but it’s night and no one is around so he figures that it really can’t hurt them.

They walk all the way to their apartment building like that, and just as soon as they reach the door, Dan sees her, standing outside with a cigarette in between her fingers, the smoke coiling through the night air.

He drops Phil’s hand like it just hurt him and he stops in his tracks, “Annie?”

He knows that she was supposed to be meeting up with him here but the shock still sets in seeing her. It’s been nearly a year since they last saw each other. He hates to admit it, but he actually had forgotten mostly what she looked like.

So to see her standing there, her shoulder length hair sitting behind her ears and her button down shirt tucked into her black jeans with a long peacoat covering her arms, Dan feels like he’s seeing a stranger in his view.

“Where have you been? Thought you said you got out of work around 9?” She says.

Dan is well aware that it’s past nine, but he couldn’t help that. Some days he has to stay later to get his work done and today is definitely one of those days since it was the day back from holiday.

“I do but I had to stay later,” He says, walking up to her, leaving Phil standing behind him.

Phil follows him and is suddenly standing behind him. Annie motions to Phil and Dan turns and quickly introduces him, “Oh, Annie, this is Phil. Phil, this is Annie.”

Phil reaches his hand out to shake it and says a quick nice to meet you before he turns to Dan and says that he’s heading inside.

Dan doesn’t say anything else, he just smiles and nods and watches as Phil walks away. He turns back to Annie and she’s staring at him, tapping off the ash from the end of her cigarette.

“Who is that?” She asks.

“I already introduced you,” Dan says, rolling his eyes.

She lifts the cigarette to her mouth and Dan notices that she’s wearing the thin band that he gave her. His heart sinks a bit further down into his stomach.

She rolls her eyes, “Don’t get cheeky with me, Howell. That’s not what I asked. Why were you holding hands with him?”

Dan doesn’t know what to say to her because he doesn’t fully have an answer. He and Phil haven’t spoken to each other about what their relationship actually was.

Annie shakes her head, “Nevermind. I brought you a gift.”

“A gift?”

Annie nods and then throws her cigarette on the ground and stomps it out with her foot. She digs into the bag on her shoulder and pulls out a small box and hands it to him.

“New Year's gift,” She says with a smile.

Dan thanks her and then it goes silent between them again. He’s not sure what else he can say. He honestly thought he was never going to see her again.

“You know,” Dan says, deciding to rip the plaster off. “We’re not engaged anymore.”

Annie looks at him and gives him a sad smile, “I know, Howell. But a girl can dream that she didn’t fuck everything up, right?” She lets out a cough and straightens herself up a bit. “I know you’re in love with someone else,” She says. “It’s okay, mate. Didn’t expect you to take me back after all of this...just...kind of hoped maybe you would.”

“It’s not...I’m sorry, Annie.”

She nods her head and flashes him another smile before she says, “I need to go. I’ve called a cab and they’re probably wondering where I am.”

She barreled past him and he watched as she walked away. He felt a weight lift from his chest, but then another one settled. He looked up towards the top of the building and saw the light of Phil’s flat glow through the curtains. He takes a deep breath and steps into the building, making his way up.

He knocks on Phil’s door, waiting for Phil to open it up. But no one comes. Dan stands puzzled on the other side, waiting longer for someone to come but it’s clear no one is. Did Phil fall asleep?

He knocks again and this time, he hears footsteps coming and the door opens. Phil stands on the other side, staring at him.

“Hi,” Dan says. “Still open for some drinking?”

Phil lets out a small breath and then says, “I don’t know, Dan…”

Dan swallows down the lump in his throat and bites his lip, “Then let me at least explain who she is.”

“She’s your girlfriend,” Phil says with no hesitation. “I get why you were so hesitant about doing anything with me now.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Dan says. “Please, let me explain.”

Phil steps aside and opens the door wider and Dan walks in, leaving his shoes behind next to Phil’s on the rug beside the door. They make their way into Phil’s living room and they sit down.

“She was my fiance,” Dan says, needing to just get everything all out into the open now. “We met when we were in America. She was in the same class as me and we hit it off. When I moved back to the UK, she moved here too to go to university in Scotland. We decided to date because I thought why not. I was still getting over you and everyone told me that I needed to get myself out there again, so I went for it.”

Dan looks up from his hands to see Phil staring at him, stone faced. Dan can’t read how he’s feeling but he can see that he’s listening and that’s enough for him to continue.

“We were never the most compatible couple. She was way more outgoing than me and so we found the balance to be really hard and we separated for a long time,” He pauses to gather his thoughts. “We reconnected a few years later and got back together and for some reason, my mind told me that she was going to be the only person I could potentially love again...after you. So I proposed and she accepted.”

“Why did you propose to someone if you didn’t want to be with them?” Phil asks and Dan looks at him.

“I don’t know,” Dan says. “Truthfully, I really do not know.”

“That’s a bit daft, don’t you think?”

Dan shakes his head and ignores Phil to get the rest of his story out.

“One day, we got into an argument and I called off the engagement. But she didn’t think I was actually calling it off but I was. We argued more and then I woke up one morning and she was gone. All I had was a text telling me she was leaving to go and find herself. I found out two weeks later she was in Capri...in Italy.”

Phil crosses his arms over his chest and sits quiet for a moment and so Dan adds, “This was the first time I’ve seen her since she’s left.”

Phil lets out a scoff and Dan feels his cheeks heat up in anger.

“Wha--”

“You’re so dense you don’t even see the irony in this entire situation,” Phil says. “Who does she sound like, Dan?”

Dan sits in silence, collecting his thoughts as he realizes...Annie was exactly like him. He did the exact same thing...but to Phil. He looks up and opens and closes his mouth a few times.

Phil just shakes his head and stands up, walking away from the couch. Dan finds himself going after him, he pushes off, and bounds forward, grabbing Phil’s arm, “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to see Damien.”

The color drains from Dan’s face as he lets go of Phil’s arm, “Why?”

“Because Damien asked me to come over for drinks and I am.”

Phil walks further towards the door and Dan chases after him again. When Phil begins to slip his foot into his shoe, Dan reaches for his arm again, “Don’t…” Phil spins around and comes face to face with Dan and Dan finds himself pleading, “Don’t go to Damien. Please, Phil…”

“Dan...you had a fiance and I never even knew about it.”

“I didn’t love her,” Dan says, and he knows the words hurt. He shouldn’t be saying them but they slip out. “I didn’t love her because I’ve only loved one person in my life.”

Their eyes meet and Dan feels his eyesight blur as tears come to the waterline and he struggles to hold them back. Phil reaches up and puts his hand on Dan’s cheek, stroking the skin with his thumb.

Phil leans in and connects their lips and Dan reaches up, putting his arms around Phil’s neck for stability. He melts into the kiss, letting himself cling to Phil as he struggles to hold back his emotions.

Phil pulls back and looks Dan in the eyes as Dan sinks into seas of blue, “I want to know everything about you from the last ten years,” He says, his voice soft. “Don’t leave anything out. I want to know everything.”

Dan nods and connects their lips again as he whispers, “okay.”

As they make their way into the bedroom, and fall onto Phil’s bed, Dan lays beneath him. He keeps his hands as steady as they can be on Phil’s jaw, holding them both grounded. Their kisses are fevered and Dan can feel Phil undoing the button of his pants, opening them up to the cool air of the room.

Phil breaks the kiss, leaning down to kiss and suck at Dan’s neck. Dan closes his eyes and lets out a moan. No one will ever have this effect on him, only Phil.

And one day, he might even admit that to Phil.