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callsignmercy · 2 years ago

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I'm sorry - Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin.

Prompt: Rivals to friends to enemies to friends to lovers in 8.5k words. That’s it. That’s the entire fic.

Words: ~8.5k

Warning: near-death experience, Jake being a dick. Rooster being the best friend we deserve. Phoenix being extra supportive and ready to kick Jake’s ass any moment. Language. Happy ending. Lots of hate before that. Idk anymore.

Note: found a tweet that said « enemies to lovers isn’t enough. I need rivals to friends to enemies to friends again to lovers. » So here’s the whole experience in a Hangman fic for you. I’m currently writing three (3) other fics about Rooster, Iceman and Bob but decided to write an entirely different and super long one about hangman because HANGMAN. but anyway here it is people. This is highly unedited. please don’t copy, repost or translate my work. English is not my first language so apologies for the easy vocabulary and bad grammar. Enjoy!

Y/C/S: Your callsign.

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To say Jake Seresin was getting on your nerves was a euphemism. He was infuriating. Always had to be the best at anything and everything. Being the best in the air wasn’t sufficient for him. Oh no, on the contrary. He had to be the best in class, in the air, even at darts and pool and even had to be the one that drank the most without being actually drunk. What the hell is wrong with him?

You were rivals at Top Gun. Being in the same class as him had its ups and downs. You could actually thank him for being so stubborn and competitive as it gave you will to be better at what you do. And yet he was always better than you. But you didn’t abandon the fight. You didn’t really mind in the end. Being at Top Gun already was an achievement. Even if it meant coming up second in the end.

The thirteen weeks of the program were almost coming to an end and you doubted you could top Hangman before the end but it wasn’t really a big deal for you. Even though it was for him.

“Guess I’ll be winning this after all Y/C/S! Don’t get mad though you did well honey.” He said with a smirk. “Why thanks darling, I’ll be sure to kiss your ass on the way out.” You replied sarcastically. He smiled brightly and you rolled your eyes at him.

You all headed to The Hard Deck at the end of the day to get some fun time together.

You were nursing your beer at the bar, talking with Penny, as you usually did. “So, almost done with Top Gun then?” She asked. “Yup, only one week left and I’m out. I don’t know if I’ll get a new assignment at the end of this though. I kinda want to go back to the warriors, I really liked it back there. Had friends and everything.” “You didn’t make any friends those past twelve weeks?” “Why do you think I’m here every Friday night sitting at the bar and talking to you?” “Ouch.” She replied. “That’s not what I meant, you know it.” You smiled. “I know but come on, none of them are your friends now?” “They’re rivals mostly. Hangman still gives me a run for my money every time we’re in the air.” “You should stop considering them rivals and become a little more friendly, some of them might become more than that?” “If you’re talking about getting in a relationship that’s a hard pass. I’m not jeopardising my future and my potential second place for any of those men. What I am saying, men, they’re still boys. Immature ones on top of that.” “Yeah well Jake’s looking at you.” She smirked.

Your head shoots up meeting the eyes of Hangman, smiling at you.

He puts down his beer and comes over to you.

“Why is he coming here?” You ask Penny, starting to panic. “I don’t know, but you’ll find out.” She smirks.

“Alright Y/C/S, I’m tired of seeing you all alone every Friday night when we come here. Come play darts with me and Coyote.” He says and offers you his hand. “We’re rivals Hangman, why do you care?” You ask, suspicious, narrowing your eyes. “Alright, how about we call a truce. We can be friends from now on and still fight each other up in the air. But you seem like a good person and I wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to be friends with a nice and outgoing person like you.” You seem genuinely surprised by his words and think for a few seconds before taking his hand and smiling. “Alright Hangman, lead the way. Maybe I’ll finally beat you at something.” You smirk. He lets out a loud laugh before replying. “In your dreams.” You roll your eyes and follow him to the dart board where Coyote was waiting for you both.

“Ever played darts?” Jake asks. “Of course I have, who do you take me for?” “Okay then, you start.” He replies.

After a few games that all ended in exactly the same way, meaning Jake came first, you second and Coyote third, you gave up and went to the bar to get yourself and the guys another round of drinks. “Looks like It’s always gonna be this way uh? Me first and you second.” He smirks as he comes up to you at the bar. “Alright Hangman I get it, you’re the best in everything that exists. Happy?” You reply sarcastically. “Very.” He gives you a bright smile in response. You hand him his beer and go back to the back of the bar to give Coyote his. “Okay, how about a game of pool?” He ask. “So you can win and rub it in my face? Pass.” You reply, rolling your eyes.

“What if I let you win?” “It’s not fair, I want to win the normal way, just by being better than you.” “Oh come on, I just want to have friendly activities, I don’t want you moping around on your own like the other friday nights.” He whines. “I was not moping around, I was talking with Penny. She happens to be very interesting and very interested in what I have to say. Thank you very much.” “Alright, I’m sorry, I just want to be your friend. What do you want to do then?” “It’s okay we can play pool if you want, but I don’t want you to let me win.” “Deal.” He replies with a bright smile.

The night ended in yet another second place on your part and a first place on Jake’s but you didn’t really mind. Jake was nice to you and he offered to be your friend which was a nice change in your life. Even though you were still rivals at Top Gun, you were friends on land and that’s all that mattered.

The week went by pretty rapidly and you were sad when you woke up that Friday morning. You knew it was your last day being with all of them and you were not ready to let them all go. That last class taught by Warlock, that last dogfight up in the air, those last risky manoeuvres, all of those you’ll deeply miss at the end of that day and could only hope you’ll be back one day.

Before you went up in the air that last afternoon, walking side by side with Jake and Javy, you thought about all the memories you would bring back with you. You stopped by your jets and looked at them. “Well, last flight together boys. Try not to kill me. I’ll see you on the ground.” You smiled. “Try to make this one count guys.” Javy answered. “May the best fighter pilot win.” Jake winked at you and you rolled your eyes as per usual. “You know you should really stop doing that, one day you’ll get stuck with your eyes back there.” Jake grinned. You chuckled and rolled your eyes again before turning back and walking to your jet to check it before take-off.

Dogfighting was thrilling as usual and even though you gave it all, Jake managed to win the fight yet again. Leaving you in second place, not without a smile on your face.

The party that followed the last class was nice and seeing everyone happy made you incredibly emotional. After getting your diplomas and taking the class photos Jake came up to you and gave you a hug, congratulating you for those thirteen weeks spent being rivals with you.

“You really gave me a run for my money and I really appreciate the fact that you accepted to be friends in the end. I’m really proud of you and I hope we can see more of each other in the future.” He says with a genuine smile. “Thank you for all of this, and for being my friend. Did you get your assignment yet?” “Yeah, I’m going back to Lemoore and the vigilantes. What about you?” “Well looks like we’re going to see each other a lot more than you think.” “You’re coming to Lemoore too?” Yup, same squadron as you pal.” You smile. “Really?” He asks, hopeful, and you nod. “They want me in the vigilantes.” Jake isn’t able to contain his happiness and engulfs you in a tight hug. “Oh God, I’m so happy! You can’t imagine how sad I was to be letting a friend like you go back to Virginia while I was on the other side of the country.” “Easy Cowboy!” You laugh as he still wasn’t letting you get out of his arms.

The party came to an end and you were all headed to The Hard Deck for a last night together before going back to your assigned squadrons. You played a few games of darts and pool with Jake and Javy before eclipsing yourself to go sit on the beach. You looked at the stars and thought about those thirteen weeks and the people you’ll be leaving behind. You were happy to be stationed with Jake and Javy at Lemoore and even more to be on Jake’s squadron. You knew you’d make a great duo together.

“Thought I’d find you here.” You heard the familiar voice of your future wingman coming toward you and you smiled to yourself.

“Why are you here on your own?” He asks. “Just getting some fresh air. Thinking about it all.” You reply with an absent-minded smile on your face. “You know we’re not leaving each other right? You’ll still see my incredibly handsome physique everyday from now on.” You chuckled and nudged his side playfully. “Alright come here.” He said and offered you his chest to rest on. “I got a question.” He asks and you hum in response. “Last week you said that Penny listened to whatever you had to say to her, how come since last week you never said anything to me since? Like nothing really personal that you might have said to Penny.” He asks, concerned. “Because I don’t trust you to keep my secrets.” You smile.

“Oh wow okay, very nice.” He rolls his eyes. “No you don’t understand. We’ve been rivals for thirteen weeks, Penny and I were just casually chatting on Friday nights, I’m not going to see her again before a long time, probably ever. I trust her not to divulge anything I said to her and even if she did, who would know me? You, I still had a week left being your friend slash rival and I didn’t know if I could really trust you with my secrets. Let’s be honest you could have been making fun of me and repeating them to everyone just to ruin my reputation or jeopardise my second place.” You explain.

“Alright, you’re probably right. I shouldn’t force you to say anything to me but know that if you need, I’ll always be there to listen and help if I can.” “Thanks Jake, that’s very nice of you. I appreciate the gesture.” “You’re welcome Y/C/S.”

A few days later you landed in Lemoore with Jake and Javy and a few others of your Top Gun class.

“Well boys. Here we are. Back at it again.” “Well, I’ll see you soon guys. Please don’t die and good luck with whatever comes your way I guess.” Javy bid you goodbye before heading to his own squadron. “You too buddy.” Jake replies.

“Well here we go, Y/C/S. Ready?” “Ready as I’ll ever be Hangman. Show me the way.”

A few months passed since the end of Top Gun and you and Hangman were by far the best wingmen in the squadron. Being Top Gun graduates gave you the skills and aptitudes to be the winning team every time.

Most of your jobs consisted in flying and keeping track of enemy aircrafts and carriers. Yet after many months flying side by side together you were called on an important mission.

The mission wasn’t difficult as much as it was important. You were to collect data on enemy carriers who were seemingly too close from the Californian coast.

You went up in the air with Jake and headed toward the sea in a few minutes only.

“Do you see it Hangman?” “Yes I do. What do you think it’s doing here?” “No idea. Wait I got two aircrafts on my radar. Control, are they with us?” “Negative Y/C/S, no other F-18 are flying near your position.” “You think they’re enemy aircrafts? What would they be doing here? Do they want to cause a war or something?” You say to Jake. “No idea Y/C/S. Stay alert.”

Suddenly the enemy aircrafts came flying your way and passed very close to your own jets. “Jesus fuck. What the hell? Control, what do we do?” “They are not with us, I repeat they are not Americans. You can counter if anything happens.” “Copy control.” You reply. “Hangman you with me?” “Affirmative Y/C/S.” “Alright let’s see what they want. I’m going to try and get close to one of them.” “Be careful Y/C/S.”

You approached one of their jets and started signing to ask them who they were and why they were here but they ignored you. Jake was right behind you as the other aircraft dropped behind Jake. “Y/C/S, they’re getting into fight positions.” “yeah I saw that, break left on three. One, two, three.” You and Jake break left and the enemy aircrafts follow your paths.

The dogfight starts as you try to get them off you but they don’t seem to budge. “Control, we’re probably going to need some help here.” “We’re sending you backups, they should be here in a few minutes, hold tight.” You started panicking when you saw the two aircrafts behind you seemingly trying to shoot you down and asked Jake for help. “Hangman, they’re on my tail, get them off me.” You tried several manoeuvres, trying to get the jets off you but you received no answer from your wingman.

“Hangman, where are you?” Still no response. With an agile manoeuvre you managed to get behind one of them and shoot him down but the other didn’t seem to be as easy to get off you. “Hangman!” You screamed as you heard the tone and froze from the realisation that your time had probably come but you managed to pull the ejection handle and shot through the sky.

The panic attack started as you were actively trying to search for another aircraft in the sky, Jake’s jet, but could only see one, the one that just shot you down. “Control to Y/C/S are you okay? I repeat, are you okay?” “Yes control, I’m alright. Can you come pick me up?” “They’re already on their way, hold tight Y/C/S.”

It wasn’t long before you hit the ground and you barely had enough time to pack up your parachute before the medical team came to get you back to base. But what you could only think about was where the hell was your wingman. Had he been shot down? Was he dead?

You landed on base and walked up the take-off and landing runway up to the hospital to get checked out. Suddenly you stopped dead in your tracks as you read the name of Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin on his aircraft. The jet was here, and in perfect condition. So he wasn’t dead. He left you on your own up there. He left you there to die.

You went to get checked out and got out after a couple hours and headed to your admiral’s office to give him a report on what you saw and what happened.

“Lieutenant Y/L/N, come in.” You entered and saluted the admiral. “I’m here to give you my report on the mission and its outcome Admiral.” “Go on.” “At 10:00 Lieutenant Seresin and I went up to get information on the position of the enemy carrier near our coast and noticed two enemy aircrafts on our territory. I contacted the tower to get information on those jets and after getting confirmation that they were not American I tried to get in contact with them but was left with no response on their part. We noticed with Lieutenant Seresin that they were getting into fighting position and after getting cleared by control we tried to fight them back. At that point I lost communication with Lieutenant Seresin. I managed to shoot down one of them but was left alone and the other jet caught me and shot me down. I had to eject and called control for immediate assistance to which they replied and came to get me back to base. I got cleared by the medical staff and came straight to you sir.”

“Thank you Lieutenant. You may go.” “Sir, can I ask, where is Lieutenant Seresin?” “He came back before you were shot down, he might be somewhere on base.” “Thank you Sir.” You replied with a salute before leaving his office.

You went down to the changing room to get a quick shower and get changed before getting into a fresh flight suit as yours was drenched in sweat from your rocky beginning of the day.

A few minutes later, you went to the mess to get some lunch. It wasn’t before you got back to the tarmac that you saw Jake, doing the last checks before getting back on his jet. You approach him with a death glare.

“Were you going to come check on me?” You ask bitterly. He didn’t reply. His expression seemed to be a mix of sadness and terror. “I only have one question Jake. Why?” He tried to speak, he tried to say sorry but no sound came out of his mouth as tears pooled in his eyes. “You left me on purpose up there? If I didn’t ask you before, now I know why your callsign is Hangman. Leaving people out to dry. At the mercy of heartless people up there. I knew I couldn’t trust you with my secrets. Now I know I can’t trust you with my life. From now on I never want to see you again.”

Tears made their way up to your eyes but you turned around before Jake could see them. You went back to the Admiral’s office and knocked on his door.

“Come in.” You entered and saluted. “What can I do for you Lieutenant Y/L/N?” “If it’s not too much trouble I would like to get my old post back at the Golden Warriors in Virginia, Sir.” “What guided your decision?”

“I came to the realisation that California might not be made for me after all.” “Are you sure?” “I am Sir.” “Alright. I’ll make some calls and get you back to Virginia. We’ll miss you here Lieutenant, you were a great asset to this squadron.” “Thank you Sir, for everything.” You saluted and left the admiral’s office.

You went back to your quarters to pack your belongings. After an hour, the Admiral called you back into his office. “Lieutenant, I hope your bag is ready, you’re leaving with a fret in ten minutes.” “I’m ready Sir. Thank you for everything.”

You were boarding the fret plane that was about to get you to Virginia when you saw him. Jake, a few metres away from your plane, looking at you with sadness. You looked at him and shook your head before climbing up on the plane, never to see him again.

Being back to the warriors was a joy. You met up with your old friends and comrade whom you left when leaving for Top Gun. They were so happy to see you again and so happy to find out that you came second in your Top Gun class. They knew you were posted with the vigilantes for a few months, you didn’t, however, tell them about the reason you came back to them.

“So does this mean I’m getting my best wingwoman back?” You turn to meet the voice that said this with a bright smile on your face. “Oh my God, Hi Rooster! I’m so happy to see you again!” “You too Y/C/S, it’s been too long. You’re finally back with us? Did they mistreat you or something?” He asks, furrowing his eyebrows. “It’s complicated. You give him a small smile with your answer. “Alright, we’ll talk about it later.”

As it was friday evening when you came back, you comrades and you were headed to the bar as usual. “Hi Y/N, it’s been so long! Where have you been?” Lila, the bartender asks you. “Hi Lila, I was stationed in California but I’m back for good now.” You smile at her. “Good to know, the usual for you guys?” Everybody agrees and Lila gets to work as you head toward the pool table with the rest of the guys.

“So tell me all about what happened. There has to be an excellent reason for you to be back otherwise you would have stayed back in Lemoore.” Rooster asks you as he takes the pool sticks and hands one to you. “Alright, alright, I almost died.” You reply, sighing. “What?” Rooster says, shocked.

“Yeah, my wingman left me with two enemy aircrafts and I had to eject after getting toned. I almost died this morning.” “This morning?” “Yeah it happened at 10 o’clock I got back and asked Hangman for explanations which he couldn’t give me so I went to see the Admiral and asked to come back to my old squadron and he accepted.”

“Wait, Hangman left you up there?” “Yeah you know him?” “Who do you think gave him the callsign? I was with him at the navy academy.” “Yeah well, I thought he was my friend, turns out I was wrong. I told him I never wanted to see him again.” “You did good, and I’m so glad you’re here Y/C/S, I missed you.” He gives you a genuine smile and you start your game as the beers arrive at your tables.

Going back to the Golden Warriors was the best decision you took in a while. You truly felt at home there. You knew you could count on your comrades and they could count on you.

The year after, Rooster went to Top Gun too and decided to be assigned back to the warriors which felt like a relief to you as he was your closest friend there. Following Bradley’s return, you and Rooster were stationed abroad for a few years as wingmen.

“Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear Y/C/S! Happy birthday to you.” Your whole squadron sang in unison in honour of your thirtieth birthday and you smiled brightly at them.

“So how is it being thirty?” Rooster asks you. “Well not a great change if you ask me. I’m still surrounded by the best people there are. Even six years later I’m still not tired of hanging out with you guys. As Rooster was about to reply both of your phones rang.

“Hello?” “Lieutenant Y/L/N, this is Vice Admiral Simpson. You’ve been called back to Top Gun for a top secret mission. You are to be on base at 0900 in two days.” “Copy Sir.”

You hung up the phone at the same time as Rooster and turned to face him. “I’ve been called back to Top Gun, I have to leave tomorrow.” He says. “Do you really think you’re going alone?” You smirk and he gives you a bright smile in response.

The next day you pack your bags and go to the airport to get on a plane for Miramar. “Hey you!” You exclaim when you see Bradley coming up to you. “How you doing Y/N?” “I’m good, I can’t wait to go back there, it’s been so long.” “What do you think we’re gonna do there?” “I don’t know but I intend to find out and I’m not going back to Virginia before we succeed on this top secret mission.”

“Make it two.” “Who do you think will join us there? This can’t possibly be just the two of us.” “Well I think there’s a girl that I was at Top Gun with that’ll join us, her name’s Phoenix. And well, maybe you know who else.” “Yeah don’t tell me about it.” You reply, losing your smile.

“It’s been six years Y/C/S, maybe he’s changed.” “Or maybe he’s still the exact same Roo.” He gives you a sad smile when the voice calls for your flight to board.

“There’s no comparison, I really prefer to be the one flying, this thing was way too long.” You exclaim arching your back to try and relieve the pain that developed during the hours you sat on the uncomfortable plane seat. “I agree, Y/C/S.” “Why couldn’t we take a fret to fightertown uh?” “Because it’s a top secret mission Y/C/S, people can’t know where we’re going, remember?” “Ah yeah, right. Well how about we go to The Hard Deck to end the day before tomorrow uh?” “Let’s go!” Rooster replies.

“Bradshaw! Is that you?” A woman’s voice exclaimed. “Ah that should be Phoenix, the girl I told you about.” “This is how I find out you’re stateside?” “Yeah I just thought I’d surprise you.” “Uhm.” Phoenix uhmed as she took her shot at pool and struck Bradley in the stomach with her pool stick. “I guess I surprised you back.” “It’s good to see you.” “Good to see you too.”

“Y/C/S this is Phoenix, Phe this is Y/C/S. We’re together at the warriors.” “Nice to meet you Phoenix.” You smile, giving her your hand to shake. She shook your hand with a smile. “You too.” “I hope Rooster’s not giving you too much trouble back there.” “He’s alright, I have to shake him up from time to time, you know.” “Oh believe me I know. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have won Top Gun right, Bradshaw?” She grinned and you chuckled.

“Bradshaw. As I live and breathe.” Oh you knew that voice alright. The smug voice of your once best-friend, Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin. You rolled your eyes and kept on discussing with Phoenix, hidden behind her figure. Jake hadn’t seen you yet, too focused on messing with your wingman. “Hangman.” Rooster deadpanned. “You look… good.” “Well I am good Rooster. I am very good. In fact I am too good to be true.” He said with a smirk and everybody shook their heads and rolled their eyes in response.

“So…” Payback intervened to ease up the tension. “Anybody know what this uh- special detachment is all about?” “Well, mission's a mission.” Jake answered. “They don’t confront me. What I wanna know… who’s gonna be team leader. And which one of y’all has what it takes to follow me.” “Hangman, the only place you’ll lead anyone is an early grave.” Rooster replied, not missing a beat. Your heart dropped, hearing the word come out of Rooster’s mouth, making you relive the moment once again. At that point Phoenix had moved and you were in full view of Jake but when he saw you, his expression didn’t change one bit. Some of them knew what he had done which made the moment uncomfortable for everyone but nobody said anything.

Fanboy, who wasn’t aware of your past with Jake oohed in the background, making everybody stop on their track but Jake’s smirk remained on his face nonetheless. “Well anyone who follows you is just gonna run out of fuel. But that’s just you ain’t it Rooster? You’re snug on that perch waiting for just the right moment… that never comes.” Jake replied, not to appear weak after Rooster’s comment. Rooster knew better but to reply to Jake after that and held his tongue. “I love this song.” Jake said and moved from the table.

You and Phoenix approach Rooster, still looking at Jake. “Well he hasn’t changed.” Phoenix says. “Nope. Sure hasn’t.” Rooster replies, looking back at you, making sure you were alright after their exchange.

After that, Rooster headed toward the jukebox to unplug it and piss off Jake for not listening to his favourite song and sat down at the piano. “I hope you’re okay. Rooster told me what happened to you with Jake when we were at Top Gun together.” Phoenix says to you. “I’m alright. But trust me, I won’t let him be team leader if that’s the last thing I ever do.” “I’ll help you, we can’t follow someone like that.”

“Hi Y/C/S.” Coyote came up to greet you with a small smile on his lips. “Hi Javy, how are you doing?” “Well, I’m alright, I’m glad to see you again after so long, I’m sad you didn’t come say goodbye when you left.” “Yeah well, you know, life happened.” His expression saddened but you gave him a soft smile and a hug. “I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye, Javy, I took a quick decision and didn’t look back before I left.” “It’s alright, I understand.” He replied.

Rooster began to play the keys to Great Balls of Fire and Phoenix beckoned you all to go join Rooster.

The next morning at 9am you were all on base as asked by the vice admiral. Jake hadn’t talked to you at The Hard Deck last night and hasn’t laid eyes on you ever since you all arrived this morning. You didn’t know how to feel. You were torn between sadness of seeing your old friend not wanting to talk nor apologise to you but you were also relieved that he didn’t because you wouldn’t know how to react and you were scared to fall down in tears in front of him.

But in the end all you wanted was to know why you weren’t important enough for him to let alone to die.

—

“I’m dead, dickhead!” Phoenix said. You had to admit, seeing Hangman leave Phoenix and Bob on their own during dogfighting had a bitter taste and reminded you of your near death experience. You still couldn’t figure out why he would leave people out to dry like that all the time, why he had this need to escape danger and then save the day in the end just to appear like the hero of the day when all he did was flee.

You were about to go up for dogfighting with Payback and Fanboy when you heard Phoenix shout after Hangman. “You gonna do that everytime? Risk everyone’s life like that just to protect yourself? We’re a team up there Bagman. I know you almost killed Y/C/S six years ago and I won’t let you pull that stuff again with another one of us.I’m going to protect them by not letting you be team leader, believe me on that.” She pointed a finger at him during her speech and he didn’t say a word in return. She walked away as soon as she ended her rant and headed back to the rec room to meet the others.

You went up and waited for Maverick to show up with the guys. “Guys, you see him?” “Negative Y/C/S.” Suddenly you see Maverick drop down right in front of you, your jet facing his, coming at you. You wanted to take a shot but you also wanted to avoid getting toned so you dropped down to escape.

“Guys I need you on my right for this, I’ve got an idea.” You say to your wingmen. After turning around and getting chased by Maverick for a few minutes you managed to slow down and invert your plane so that you could get behind him and take your shot while Payback and Fanboy shot up in front of his jet to surprise him.

“That’s a kill Mav!” You exclaim out of breath. You heard Payback and Fanboy screaming of joy in their jet and couldn’t help but laugh. You were ordered to go back to base and turn your jet around, back to the tarmac. You saw Phoenix and Rooster running up to you to congratulate you as you were the first to shoot Maverick down all day. Even Jake couldn’t manage it.

After a few days, Jake still hadn’t said a word to you nor looked at you and you started to feel sad that he lied to you about being important to him. You thought that if you were that important he would have explained why he left you on your own that day. But he still hadn’t dared approach you.

“You alright Y/C/S?” Rooster asked you at the end of the first week, as you were all headed to The Hard Deck for a few drinks. “Not sure.” “Is this about Hangman?” You nodded and he pursed his lips. “You know, in my opinion you should either forget about it all and move on or face the problem head on and go talk to Hangman to get answers because it seems like he won’t be the one willing to give them to you.”

“I think I just need closure. I need him to explain why he did it, that's it. After that I’ll leave him alone if that’s what he wants but I just need to know.” “Then you should go see him and get your answers because otherwise you’ll never get ‘em.” “Yeah you’re probably right.” You sighed.

“Hi Penny, how you doing?” “I’m great, I’m so glad you’re all back here. Has your week been okay?” “It has, thanks.” “What can I get you?” “I’ll take 6 beers please.” “Comin’ up.” While Penny was getting your order you took a look around the bar to see if you recognized any familiar faces in the lot, only to be met by Jake’s eyes, staring at you with sadness while holding a conversation with Coyote.

You turned back to Penny and she put down the six beers you ordered in front of you. “Open a tab for me please.” You say as you handed her your card. You headed back to the table where you sat with Rooster, Phoenix, Payback, Fanboy and Bob and gave them their beers not looking back at Jake once.

As the night went on you forced yourself not to think about him but you could feel his eyes on your back and it made you uncomfortable. You excused yourself to go to the bathroom and walked out of the bar to get fresh air. “It’s alright.” You thought to yourself. “It’s alright.I’m alright.” You breathed. You walked up to the beach and sat down on the sand.

You felt someone come up to you and sit down in the sand next to you. You didn’t need to turn your head to see who it was, you could smell the cologne a mile away.

“I’m sorry.” He said in a whisper. “What for?” You asked not nearly louder. “Almost killing you.” “Why did you do it?” “I don’t know.” “Well you must know something.” “I saw my life flashing before my eyes up there, I thought I was going to die and I left you when they were chasing you because it was my only chance to escape. I’m sorry.”

“I thought I was your friend.” Tears made their way up to your eyes. “I thought you were my wingman and I thought I was important enough for you to not let me die. I was right, I can’t trust you up there.” “I’m sorry.” He repeated. “It’s gonna take a whole lot more than that, trust me.” You stated as you got up and went back inside.

“Y/C/S, I’m appointing you team leader.” Maverick said the next wednesday. “Thank you sir.” You replied, not feeling entirely ready for the task, but proud that he believed in you nonetheless. You finished training a week early as the mission had been updated and left that morning to get on the carrier that would bring you close enough to enemy coastlines.

“Y/C/S, your two fox-trot teams?” Cyclone asked. “Payback and Fanboy, Phoenix and Bob.” They looked at you with an expression of surprise mixed with anxiousness and fear. “And your wingman?” You looked at them all. “Rooster.” He knew you would pick him as you made a great team back with the warriors.

You all got ready to get in your jets. “Don’t leave me alone up there alright?” You asked Rooster. “I promise you I won’t.” “Alright, let’s go light up some things.”

“Dagger one is hit! I repeat dagger one is hit!” You heard Phoenix shout through your com as you ejected from your superhornet after almost getting hit by enemy fire. You landed on the ground and quickly tried to pack up your parachute when another enemy aircraft noticed you and tried to kill you.

You ran away as fast as you could but knew your life was almost to an end when you heard a loud explosion behind you. You turned your head around, still running when you saw the enemy crashing down and saw Rooster flying away mere seconds before getting shot down. You froze on the spot, not believing what you saw and hoped Rooster wasn’t dead when you saw his seat eject from his jet and his parachute open.

You let out a sigh of relief before running up to where Rooster was going to land. You ran up to him and tackled him to the ground in a tight hug. Rooster let out a loud oof before returning the hug. “Thank you for coming to save me.” “I would never let you die Y/C/S.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me.” Rooster whispers as you were looking at the last enemy aircraft left intact. “Yeah well, that’s the only solution we’ve got isn’t it? Nobody can come get us and if we get caught we die. So…” You walked quickly to the F-14 in the makeshift hanger and looked at the panel next to it. “Alright let me remember this.” You say, closing your eyes.

“You know how to pilot this?” “Yeah well, I got bored reading my F-18 NATOPS, so I got back to the old ones.” You shrugged. “Jesus Christ.” “Okay.” You started lighting up buttons and opened the canopy. “Once I give you the signal for the air, you’re gonna flip this switch until the needle gets to 120. When the engine starts you’re gonna pull out the pins and disconnect everything. You understand?” You ask seriously. “Yeah.” He replies.

You flip the switch and air starts running through the pipes. “Yes!” You exclaim. “Once I’m up, store the ladder.” You say as you put your helmet back on and climb into the two-seater.

“Okay.” You say to yourself. “I hope I remember this correctly.” You add, flipping some switches and giving Bradley the signal. He does as asked and removes the pins before climbing up into the plane. “Oh my God, this thing’s so old!” He exclaims. “Alright.” You push down the stick and the plane starts moving. You get in place on the cratered runway and hope to God this will work.

“Runway’s cratered. How are we gonna get this museum piece in the air?” “I got an idea.” You reply and deploy the wings. “Why are the wings coming out Y/C/S?” You ignore him and keep pulling buttons. “Y/C/S this is a taxiway, not a runway. This is a very short taxiway Y/C/S.” You keep ignoring him and push down the stick. “You just hang on.” You say and let go of the pedal and the jet starts moving quickly. “Holy shit!” “Come on, come on, come on.” You pray to no one in particular and the plane starts going up.

As you made your way back to the carrier Bradley turned on his geolocation for the carrier to track him. “Y/C/S tally two, five o’clock low.” Bradley says to you. “What do we do?” “Okay look, be cool. If they knew who we were we’d be dead already.” You both put on your masks and tried to act normal as the enemy aircrafts got closer to you.

You kept fighting the two aircrafts and managed to shoot one down and make the other crash into a mountain below. “You alright Y/C/S?” Rooster asks. “I’m out of breath, this shit’s so hard to pilot. I’ll be glad to get an F-18 back when all this is over.” “I bet you do! Not sure they’ll be happy we crashed two multi-million dollar planes though.” He says and you chuckle in response.

You were finally flying above the ocean, only miles away from the carrier and you gave a sigh of relief to know this will finally be over. Only to be met with a ringing sound in the plane, warning you that an enemy plane was near you again. “Oh my God.” You whispered and looked everywhere. “Where the hell is this guy?” “He’s on our nose.” You deadpan.

You try to shoot him but nothing comes out. “Dammit! We’re out of ammo.” You say as you see a missile coming out of the enemy plane and coming straight at you. “Smoke in the air! Rooster flares!” You shout and break left. Rooster pushes the button that would eject the last flares of the plane and confuse the missile. “We’re out of flares Y/C/S!” He shouts. “Shit he’s already on us!”

You get attacked by the enemy as he tries to shoot you down with his guns. “Aaah this is not good!” Bradley screams. You do whatever is in your power to avoid enemy fire but you’re exhausted. “We took another hit!” “No no no no!” You exclaim. “We can’t take much more of this!” Rooster says after you get hit again. “We can’t outrun this guy, we gotta eject!” “What?” “We need altitude. Pull the ejection handles the second I tell you.” “Y/C/S wait !”

“Rooster, there's no other way!” You shout as you pull the stick as hard as you can and your plane shoots up almost vertically. “Eject! Eject! Eject!” Rooster tries to pull the handles but nothing happens. “Rooster pull the handle! Eject!” “It’s not working!” “Y/C/S!” He shouts.

“I’m sorry.” You kept going, slowly coming to the realisation that you were going to die. You didn’t want to eject either because you didn’t want to be responsible for Rooster’s death.

So you stayed like that. Awaiting your fate. You closed your eyes and prayed silently.

You awaited the missile that would finally kill you, saying sorry to Rooster. When you suddenly heard a loud explosion behind you. You turned your head along with Rooster to check out what just happened.

“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen! This is your saviour speaking. Please fasten your seatbelts, return your tray tables to their locked and upright positions and prepare for landing.” You heard the smug voice of Jake Seresin through your intercom and tears made their way up in your eyes. You didn’t dare look at him because you wouldn’t know what to do.

“Hey Hangman! You look good!” “I am good, Rooster! I’m very good. I’ll see you back on deck.” He says before heading back to the carrier as you followed.

When you crash-landed on the carrier you finally let yourself cry a little before getting out of your plane.

“Was this the kind of sorry you’re willing to accept from me?” Jake shouts through the noise as he approaches you after getting out of his plane. “Thank you.” You tell him with tears in your eyes. He hesitates but finally engulfs you in a tight hug which you reciprocate. “I’ve missed you those last six years. I’m so sorry for what I did. You can’t imagine how sorry I am and how terrified I was that you almost died.” You could feel his tears crashing on your flight suit as you hug him tighter. “I want my friend back.” He says in a whisper but you heard him nonetheless. “You got her Jake.”

You spend the two days it took you to go back stateside reminiscing with Jake about your lost six years.

That afternoon when you landed, you all headed to The Hard Deck to get a few drink to celebrate.

“Who are you looking at like that?” Phoenix asks you that evening. “Uhm?” You turn your head to her. “You look lovesick. Who are you looking at?” She grins. “No one.” You state. “Is it Hangman?” She smirks. “No.” Your eyes go wide at her words. “Oh my God, you have a crush on Jake!” She exclaims, excited.

“Shhh! Don’t tell anyone okay? I thought we were just friends but turns out I might have harboured a tiny crush on him since Top Gun…” “Why didn’t you tell him?” “Because I’m obviously just his friend and I spent the last six years being mad at him?” “Well I think you should tell him.”

“We’ll be leaving each other tomorrow anyway. What change does it make?” “Well you obviously could be happier with him than you are right now and who knows, maybe he’ll stop trying to kill you when you’re in danger.” “I’ll be going back abroad with Bradley anyway, I won’t see him for another ten years probably, so no, I’m not going to tell him how I feel.”

“Tell who how you feel?” Rooster interrupted. “Nothi-” “Y/C/S has a crush on Hangman but won’t tell him because she says it’s pointless and she won’t be seeing him for years after tomorrow.” Phoenix replied, cutting your answer short. You sighed and looked down, nursing your beer. “Well Hangman just happened to tell me the exact same thing! How crazy?” Rooster grins.

Your head shoots up to meet Rooster’s face, looking for a lie in his eyes but nothing. “What are you talking about?”

“Jake’s been in love with you since Top Gun apparently. He wanted to tell you but he didn’t, don’t ask me why, and that day up in the sky he got so scared of possibly seeing you die that he just left. And he’s held himself accountable for that for six years and now he’s just too scared to tell you so he said he’d rather be friends with you if it just kept you near him.” “God you’re both so stubborn.” Phoenix slaps her forehead.

“There’s no point, Rooster and I are leaving tomorrow, we’ll be going back to Italy or probably be posted in Guam or Hawaii or something. I won’t be seeing him for years probably. I won’t make myself sad by him rejecting me or even worse, by him saying he loves me back and me leaving him like that.” You shake your head.

“Well I hate to break it to you Y/C/S but you’ve been asked to go back to the vigilantes. It’s up to you whether you want to go back with me or you want to have a future with Hangman.” Rooster shrugs. “I- what?” You furrow your brows. “Yeah, Cyclone told me when we landed. He’s going to call you tomorrow to get your answer. You should really think about it.” Rooster grins.

“I-uh I don’t know, guys. The decision was easy before. What do I do now?” You start panicking. “Well you go get yourself another drink and tell Jake you’re in love with him. Simple as that.” Phoenix nudges you towards the bar and inevitably, toward Jake.

You take small steps toward the bar and order yourself another beer. “Go tell her!” You hear Coyote whisper to Jake behind you. “No dude I can’t, she’s leaving tomorrow I won’t see her again, what’s the point?” “I’m telling you she looks at you like you hung the moon, go tell her you feel the same or I swear I’ll do it for you.” Javy urges.

Penny hands you your beer and you turn around, facing Jake, whom Javy had pushed toward you in a desperate attempt to make him talk to you.

“Oh sorry!” You say, almost hitting Jake when you turned around. “It’s alright, can-uh can we go talk outside?” “Uh yeah, let’s go.” You start panicking.

“Y/N I-uh. I need to tell you something. I believe it’s pointless because you’ll be going back to Virginia or wherever tomorrow and I’ll go back to Lemoore but Javy believes I should tell you so…” He starts playing with his fingers, not sure what to say now. “I-uh. I like you.” He says looking up at you.

“I like you a lot. I’ve like you since Top Gun and I never told you and I regretted it for the last six years but here I am, being the better man and telling you how I feel.” Your heart is racing and tears make their way to your eyes. You don’t know what to say, you didn’t know you would ever hear him say those words to you. “Please say something.” He begs.

“I like you too Jake. I’ve liked you since Top Gun, even though I spent the last six years hating you I feel like I’ve never stopped loving you. And I also believed it was pointless to tell you but now I’m not so sure anymore.” “We’re gonna figure out a way to see each other, don't worry. I’m not letting you go again, I promise.” “It’s alright Jake, I already have a solution.” You give him a watery grin.

“You do?” “I’ve been asked to go back to the vigilantes.” “Oh God I could kiss you right now.” He smiles widely. “Yeah I wonder why you still haven’t actually.” You shrug. He looks at you with nothing but love and cups your cheeks before putting his lips on yours.

Inside, Javy, Natasha and Bradley are high-fiving and cheering seeing you two finally admitting your love to each other.

“Please, don’t ever leave me up there on my own again.” “I won’t baby, I promise.” You grin before kissing him again.

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quarktrinity · 1 year ago

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quark watches star trek season 1 episode 7

ok were looking for this lady christines ex.

hes definitely dead

"dr korby"

what kind of bras do they have these ladies wearing

oh hes alive! neat!!

this episode is called "what are little girls made of?" bad omen i think

"can you beam down by yourself captain kirk?" hes going to kill you

this set looks like a zoo exhibit

"beam down two security men" theyre going to die

kirk stop grabbing her shes engaged

dramatic lights!!!

random other guy!

alien!!!

"bottomless pit" shut up

ok so this is where the redshirt thing came from

"dr korby was detained" what

why do you call dr brown "brownie"

dr brown is so evil

so were just skimming over the fact that a guy just fucking died

ohhhh nooooo not the other red shiiirrrrt

this is the most 60s secret lab ive ever seen

woah other woman. christine is obviously jealous

oh hey dr korby

WOW that is the most lustful kiss ive ever seen on television

woooaaahhhh these people are eeeviiiiil who couldve seen this comiiiiing

ok dr brown is a robot apparently

oh shit the alien guy can mimic kirks voice. the actors pretty good at lip syncing too

the aliens not allowed to disobey christines orders. hi chekhov is that ur gun on the table there?

"ruk destroyed them both totally against my wishes, i assure you" sure dude

"the old ones" shut up

this fight choreography is extremely homoerotic

does this show ever pass the bechdel test like ever?

andreas overalls are so stupid

ok so andreas a robot. korby showed this by having her kiss kirk. thats not consensual! go away!!!

theyre turning kirk into a robot??? they had to strip his clothes to do that???

theyre spinning him around. stop spinning him. please

apparently this guys fiancee used to be his student? thats icky

STOP SPINNING HIM

this show is so determined to sexualize kirk at every given opportunity. normally im fine with this but only when he has agency about it

theyre having gummies for dinner

andrea: "i am now programmed to please you, also. is the food appealing?" christine: "yes, thank you" star trek has now passed the bechdel test

this episode seems to have a theme about following orders

oh this episode is also about transhumanism

this episode is strongly criticizing transhumanism

kirk rolls a nat 20 on sleight of hand

hey kirk remember when ruk agreed to follow christines orders. how about you tell her that

oh she knows??? why didnt she take advantage of that before

i love when this show decides to enter the horror genre for a while. its great

weirdly phallic image of kirk holding a dick-shaped stalactite

cameras waaaayyyy too close for this fight choreo. cant tell whats going on

oh ruk is helping him!! yay!

uh oh robot kirk is on the ship

robot kirk commits a hatecrime against spock

"i felt quite at home on the enterprise" what do you mean "felt"

real kirk stop making out with the robot girl. what are you doing

stop trying to seduce the robot girl shes not into you leave her alone

this episode is also about the singularity

jesus christ korby just fuckin killed ruk

korbys a robot too :O literally didnt see that coming

robo korby is having such an existential crisis rn

andreas in love with korby apparently. ok

andrea and korby are dead now

spock: "dont call me slurs" kirk: "ok" (paraphrased) so does spock not know what happened. like at all

#quark watches star trek #star trek

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murderedgoat · 9 months ago

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(OPINION) Vote "Violent J" and "Shaggy2Dope" of I.C.P. for President of the United States. Fuck America, what has it done for me?

I can't say for certain that this is a call to arms of the youth, but what I will say is this: All those bags of bones in government offices will either govern you into varying degrees of misery, or they won't fucking govern at all. American politicians only care about two things: money and themselves. A bunch of losers in suits down in Ohio offered to overturn a landslide marijuana legalization vote (somehow?????) all for the sake of their make believe fucking fairytale sky dictator. Cunts. The Insane Clown Posse, and their fans were put on Earth to spread joy, positivity, and freedom of expression in many an art form. They are the polar opposites of piece of shit, 1%-er, bald, white dipshit politicians, and anyone born and raised in San Antonio, TX.

We have a president currently in office that's used the "N" word on live TV meetings in the late 80's early-ish 90's, has a hate boner for Haitian people and their country, and is actively funding and supporting Palestinian apartheid. The dude running against him in this years POTUS race is a conniving rapist, gun ho "white power" enabling, bat-shit stupid convicted felon. Go back in time and tell Teddy Roosevelt that a man whom brazenly told the world he hid felony-level-classified state documents from FLOOR TO CEILING in his golf home shitter is actively running for president in 2024, and he would pull out a .22 derringer, shoot you in between the eyes, and have your corpse dismissed as "extra-terrestrial." So fuck it. We the people can do write ins.

None of the misery I listed above would happen in an Insane Clown Posse U.S.A. Nuh uh, no siree. Just think about the policies we could get passed with a couple of juggalos in the oval office huh? New prints of the bible have disclaimers on them, letting them know that god is indeed, not real, and that they should delegate that love to the people they, oh I don't know, gave birth to! Kid Rock banned in all 50 states. Faygo now has a 0 calorie option and is only 99 cents.

John Fetterman gets guillotined live on CNN. Free healthcare.

Defense budget spending is reduced to half of it currently is.

The Juggalo College Loan Forgiveness Program (in order to have all your debt erased, suck some whippit out of a balloon on a beachfront balcony office.)

Mardi Gras is celebrated nationally in every major city in all 50 states and is broadcast live on MSNBC like the new years eve ball drop, only everything is uncensored including all the ass-holes, dicks and puke. And we have people from the news studio go down to bourbon street, get shitfaced, and moon the camera live on TV. Rent reduced by like 90%.

Home ownership is possible for over 75% of the younger generation, for the first time ever. Israel isn't recognized as a country anymore (finally) 3/4's of the NYPD are fired, blacklisted, and can never serve even the simplest security job ever the fuck again. Lest their hatred for colored skin erupt again and take it out on the dude corralling carts into Target. All IOF fighters are extradited to the U.S. , tried and charged for war crimes, mass murder, etc. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Nemathatyou or however the fuck you spell that dogs name, is chained by his ankles to the hitch of a 2002 Chevy Silverado, then dragged and beaten within an inch of his worthless life through the poorest, most poorly paved city in the entirety of Mississippi.

Both tumblr and twitters CEO's disappear and is replaced with non-transphobic and generally friendlier leadership Would you believe me if I said that this is the short list?! What on this list isn't there to like? If this sounds like the America you want, then just write-in "Violent J" as president, and "Shaggy2Dope" as vice president this November. Fuck homegrown and nepotistic politicians. It's time for some real change. Change for the better. We can also make Boeing change their name back to "McDonnell Douglas."

VOTE I.C.P. FOR PRESIDENT, BITCHES!!!!!!!!

#icp #juggalo #insane clown posse #politics #whoop whoop #murderedgoatblog #no ones gonna see this shit any damn way #just putting this out there its a good idea.

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the-firebird69 · 11 months ago

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Does a large number of things going on one of the largest is Trump is on trial and he is in a lot of trouble. He is in court today and he got in trouble today too he was at the rally and it backfired he's got markings on his face and he's saying something about our son so we're going to have to hit him and we still will even though he's trying to modify his a****** look and he was trying to shoot someone who's in the jury and someone heated his gun up I need some moron he's a moron heated it up and he couldn't tell it was heated. Now he's going down the river and people are going to take him to court for shooting at them. And he was threatening to be banished from Court and he said I would like that and people want to see what they were saying and he was issuing threats and he's not going to go he's not going to be president and presidents don't threaten juries now and you're a fool George and it's still around and it's getting a lot more you until you're gone and that's what it is it's because you're a f****** huge dick and you can't mind your own business and you hurt people of your own like him that are useful I'm like you and garbage and it's still not on the computers are getting rid of you so he had a conniption and that was Trump that was our son the last paragraph and he went nuts screaming and yelling and started to go after George and the museum and it was incredible and it went on for a while and it was going to be horrible for them it will be a nightmare this guy is going to go down and he is going to get hurt very badly and he's sitting there saying stuff that he had the computers go free did he helped them out and the first people that the computer goes after are the people that say that because that's what the program to do they recognize you as a threat and they classifying categorize you and then they go after you and murder you if you're the ones doing it. There are other things happening and people are seeing John remillard is going after anybody that has a half decent time near our son they are going after his people to kill them all they're all animals and they are that's also happening tons of people have had enough of them. And the City of trump been diving with sharks and got bit and he's an idiot

-on top of this there is a whole bunch of other things going on and we are going to face them down on a lot of dumb things are doing to people even their own and if they don't like it they're going to die we noticed that they have this sense of lawlessness about them here and all over and we don't like it and we told them to stop and they're not listening so we are going to go after them and we're going to take them down but we heard this back we're in his side and we're helping the project and we said you're not our team you're not on our team do not us you would never be us and we didn't ask you to do our job in any way at all and you can think so then you're delusional because you appear to be in everything that you're doing you are complete status you look like s*** you look terrible in front of the planet and there's only after you and your own plans are from elsewhere as far as the way is Georgia all the way to Africa and back again and really they hate you that's what they say they say it like that too we hate you not good enough for a lot of you and they get you killed and they seek revenge for your ass and I behavior that's going on believe it or not there are a few more things happening we're going to get to in a moment

Olympus

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spaghettificationandpretzels · 3 years ago

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The Reaper and the Death Angel Snippet 1 - The lab

This can be read at any time, including when I've gotten past the slow burn and Jax and the OC are together but fits best between parts 9 and 10. This isn't one story, it's lots of little ones that don't justify their own chapter.

Part 9

Contains: Forensic anthropology, dead bodies, exposition, Tig being Tig, only the OC and her brother are my own, I've stolen Captain Holt from Brooklyn nine-nine this time, Clay is a dick.

1.2K words

Comment if you want to be tagged.

From the grand tour to quiet lunches, who doesn't love a museum department that deals with corpses.

"Welcome everyone. Since Little Brother brought you here after closing, you have me all to yourselves and I've cleared it with Professor Holt so you guys get to see the back rooms."

You were in your scrubs, they were the standard blue, but there were patches of bright, happily patterned fabric every now and then; today's theme is ladybugs.

"I like your shirt!" Juice stood closest to the door, moving from foot to foot in childlike joy.

"Thank you Juicy, I love ladybugs. They are cute but voracious predators. I use them as natural pest control." Clay was looking unimpressed with his arm crossed.

"Isn't it a little unprofessional?" You shook your head.

"My job is very sad at times, my bosses don't care what I do as long as I do my job and my childish uniform make all the death a little easier. Is that understandable?" Clay gave a dismissive nod.

"This way gentlemen."

You took them through the lab first, showed them all the different rooms and equipment and introduced them to your co-workers, next were the archive rooms.

"Here we have the colossal squid Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, the largest one found is more than 1000 pounds." You pulled back the tank cover to show them the preserved specimen.

"Aren't these the ones that Sperm Whales eat?" You smiled and nodded.

"Yes, some Sperm Whales actually have scars from fights with large squids."

You walked them over to another section.

"This is the baculum or penis bone of a walrus who has the largest in the world." You could see the guys giggling.

"Penis bone?" You huffed.

"Yes Tig, a penis bone. Now into the weapons archive."

You walked them through a set of doors into another room.

"This is a 1882 mousetrap, the gun would be loaded each day in preparation for the mouse but it wasn't very popular." Happy looked a little sad.

"Don't worry Hap, it didn't sell well, it also rarely worked." You guided them down a flight of stairs.

"This is my favourite room, the Egyptian archive. We even have a bed that's a direct recreation of Queen Cleopatra's bed." You paused, "Yes I have napped in it, it's very comfortable."

The final stop was bone storage.

"This is where the remains of unidentified people stay until we're ready to help them, I'm not going to take you in because it's basically the embodiment of limbo which is not fun. But as you can see by the size of the room, I'm far too busy to worry about anything outside of these people waiting to have their stories told." They all seemed to understand what you were saying.

****

"Oh hello Jackson, what brings you hear today?" He put down a bag from your favourite coffee shop.

"Sam said you were having a rough few days so I thought I bring you some lunch." You looked in the bag, it contained your favourite cake, and a large ice coffee.

"Thank you Jax, you're very thoughtful. Do you have the time to keep me company?" he nodded and sat down and you split the cake in half to share it with him.

"How's Wendy doing." He took a sip from his own coffee and reached into the pocket of his Kutte.

"Good, she gave me this yesterday." He handed over a sonogram photo.

"Look at his little nose, he's gorgeous Jax." Jax smiled big and wide, it made his eyes wrinkle at the corner.

'Yeah, he is."

****

"Hi Juicy, is everything ok?" He nodded and came into your office.

"I was wondering if you could show me your database program, you mentioned it was opened sourced and I wanted to know a bit more about it." You got up to take him to your computer expert Angela.

"Angela would be better equipt to tell you, I'll introduce you to her a little more than I did the first time and you guys can talk, I'm sure you'll get along great."

****

You were happy you convinced the museum to hire Anvil for security, it made life a lot easier to turn people away if you didn't want to see them.

"Deputy Chief Hale is here to see you y/n, should we let him in?" You picked up the phone with one hand and continued to type with the other.

"No thank you Travis, if it's got to do with a case he's more than welcome to call me." you hung up and went back to your work, you hoped that Hale wouldn't become a problem.

****

"Clay, how can I help you today?" He walked in and sat down without asking.

"Yeah, I was wondering if you know anyone here who can source rare orchids?" At least he was here for a good reason.

"For Gemma?" He nodded.

"Dr Todd would be the best, she's an expert in rare flowering plants. I'll page her to come over."

Dr Tood arrived about 20 minutes later and you left her and Clay to talk.

"I have an exam to do so I'll leave you guys to it."

****

Jax's lunchtime visits have become a weekly occurrence, he would come in with a coffee and your favourite cake and sit with you in your office until you had to return to work. You would talk about anything and everything, but the talk drifted to Abel and the club most of the time.

"Wendy's stopped returning my calls, I'm really worried about her but she seemed fine when I went to check on her." He sounded worried.

"Give it time, she'd be feeling him move around now and it might be getting a bit much. If you like I can go and see how's she doing?" You could see Jax visibly relax.

"Thanks, I really appreciate it."

"Your friend Harry is out of Chino, isn't he?" Jax nodded.

"Yeah, but I don't know if he wants anything to do with the Club, he's working at the mill right now." You shook your head.

"Hard on the body and shit pay, Oswald should be ashamed of himself." Jax huffed.

"Clay loves the man, thinks he's going to keep Charming a small town." you rolled your eyes.

"We know that's not true, the moment his land is worth more to him developed he'll sell it off." Jax shrugged.

"I know, but Clay likes to be in business with people we know." He sounded fed up.

"Well he's better than Jacob Hale so that's a plus." Jax chuckled at you in agreeance.

****

Jax was back again for another lunch, this time you brought food for him. Your lunches had gone from once a week to whenever you both had the time, which meant you were spending a lot more time together.

"Have you heard from Wendy?" He shook his head.

"She hasn't been returning my calls either, I don't know whether I should pop by your house to see if she'll talk to me. I've been meaning to ask you for a few days." He was more slumped than usual.

"Nah, I doubt she'd even come out. She's probably just feeling overwhelmed. You leaned in a little closer.

"Well if you change your mind, I'm here."

"Thanks y/n."

Part 10

#jax teller #sons of anarchy #sons of anarchy imagine #fluff #soa #tig trager #chibs telford #happy lowman #jax teller x oc #jax teller fanfiction #jax teller imagine #jax teller x you #jax teller x reader #sons of anarhcy fanficton #sons of anarchy fluff #juice

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astromechs · 2 years ago

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one line, any fic

tagged by @seek--rest!!

tagging: (no obligation or pressure!) @kitausuret, @mattmurderock, @paperprinc3, @literatigeek, @mari--lace, @inkforhumanhands, @bisamwilson, @the-cones-of-dunshire, @sgtjamesrogers, @liminal-zone

rules: pick any 10 of your fics, scroll somewhere to the mid point, pick a line, and share it! Then tag 10 people.

come, my friends, i will take you on a journey through my evolution as a writer....

Programmed (my first fic on ao3; published 12-19-2009)

Sam looked at GERTY. "We're not programs, GERTY. We're people."

For all his capabilities, GERTY had no response to that. His understanding, his malleable circuits, his complex internal machinery could only carry him so far. Though he had found loopholes in his own programming to suit his needs, he was, after all, limited by his mechanical brain. The subtleties and contradictions of the human mind would always elude him, no matter how hard he tried to run them through a logical algorithm.

And then his screen went black.

Triumph of the RIckRoll (published 12-24-2009; remains my comedic magnum opus tbqh)

Grimliglook hated the universe. No, not hated, he despised it, every minute atom of it. He hated the stars, he hated the planets, he hated the asteroids… he hated everything. It probably wasn't healthy for a mysterious alien being such as himself to go around carrying that much hatred, but he did anyway. That wasn't to say that the doctors didn't warn him, but he hated them too, so it didn't matter.

prelude to a kiss (published 6-30-2017)

"I ain't done anything, Star-Dick," Rocket says one day when Peter finally manages to corner him with the accusation, with the kind of smirk that suggests exactly the opposite. "Not my fault you got terrible timing."

i won't let you go (so don't let go of me) (published 8-3-2019)

A vague figure comes into her line of sight, and she freezes where she stands. The effort she’s already expended just to walk probably less than a hundred steps has already made her breaths labored and her legs weak. She knows doesn’t have the strength for a fight right now; the thought sits uneasily in her chest, and rises up to grab her by the throat. Fingers shaking, she instinctively reaches for the gun she no longer has, then lets her hand drop uselessly to her side.

anything that's worth my love (is worth the fight) (published 11-17-2019)

They stand there for a time in silence, Peter looking as lost and haunted as he feels. There’s nothing to say, anyway; no platitudes will bring the planet back, gallows humor can only go so far, and with both of those options gone, well. That’s it.

slipped away into a moment in time ('cause it was never mine) (published 8-30-2020)

Foolishly, she doesn’t fight it. But what’s most foolish of all is that in the warmth of his embrace, she almost lets herself believe him.

keep whatever it is (that's compelling you on) (published 9-9-2021)

He wakes with a start, drenched in a cold sweat (as cold as their last kiss), gasping for breath. Next to him on the bed, Natalie stirs and shifts closer; when he reaches out a tentative hand, lets his fingers graze over her stomach, she’s warm.

His eyes scrunch tightly shut. Code falls behind his lids like the rain that patters against the windows outside.

if we dare to dream (at the end of the scene) (published 9-23-2021)

In that place, there’s a whole lot of good; he sinks into it and it seeps into every part of him, and even if it doesn’t erode his scars or make the pain of everything they’ve been through magically disappear (nothing can do that), it’s within his reach. Something he can hold onto for a while, that he doesn’t have to worry about slipping through his fingers right away.

it's miserable and magical, oh yeah (published 6-27-2022)

Ammo’s expensive, okay? Especially for someone who’s barely pulling in above minimum wage. He’s just trying to save it for when he really needs it.

the devil makes us sin (but we like it when we're spinning in his grip) (published 10-19-2022)

“In case you didn’t notice,” Jessica tosses back his way, “I’m already doing something for you. That’s the whole point of this. You don’t get to negotiate more terms. How do I know more about this than an actual lawyer?”

diesel is desire (you were playin' with fire) (published 11-10-2022)

Instead, something that resembles a fraction of a laugh huffs out of her mouth. “I never said anything about being together ,” she says. “You came to that conclusion all on your own.” If she notices the way that his brows lift, she chooses to ignore it, pressing on. “We’re playing a part. The more convincing, the more painless it’ll be. So — back straight; you’re slouching like a teenage boy. You’ll never pass for society if you slouch .”

With an exasperated sigh, he complies.

#thank you!! <3 #tag game #* fic #sometimes i don't remember that i've actually had an ao3 account since 2009 lol

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ragingbookdragon · 4 years ago

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The Secrets Best Left In The Dark

Batsis x Batfamily One-Shot

Word Count: 4K Warnings: Angst, Mentions of Death

Author's Note: I thrive on angst, so I have no apologies for y'all. Enjoy! -Thorne

They’d never claim their eldest sibling was cowardly. Far from it, she put her life on the line every day, in and out of the suit, defending those she cared for with a strength that they’d never seen in anyone. But while everyone in their family was typically hot-tempered and ready for a beatdown, she was calm and quiet. Always kind, and never letting anger, or any type of other emotion show besides pleasantness. For a while, they merely assumed she was the doormat type, simply on the basis that she never argued with their dad over anything—the whole “It’s my way or the highway” and his way was what she always went with—and that made her seem like an alien surrounded by humans because everyone argued with Bruce. That, and the fact that whenever she got into the rare fight during patrol, she’d never hit anybody. She was trained to take down multiple combatants and not once did she ever punch, hit, or kick a single person.

It was practically abnormal to be in the Batfamily and never lay a hand on a criminal, and yet that was what their sister did. Hardly ever did she use force to get what she wanted, always relying on stealth. Even on the minute cases when she got caught in an infiltration and had to fight her way out, she used electrified gauntlets to subdue them, rarely coming to blows. So, in a sense while everyone in her family was an aggressive fighter, she was a defensive—or perhaps a passive one—and that’s how she acted in life too. Always passive by nature, but always playing the peacekeeper between brothers and between fathers and sons.

They never knew why she was such a way, from the stories that Diana and Clark used to tell, back when it was just their sister and Bruce, she was a whirlwind that got into fights with anything that dared breathe in her direction—apparently, she made her angriest siblings look like mice. But no matter how many times they pried or even asked Bruce (apparently, he didn’t know what changed either—and this was coming from the World’s Greatest Detective), she never talked about it, simply saying that she grew out of always being angry and wanted to be calmer.

They suspected she held a dark secret—but no one could’ve prepared for just how dark and damaging it had been to her all these years.

***

In hindsight, taking a trip into Scarecrow’s lab was a bad idea, but when the offer had come up in the cave from her father, (Y/N) was happy to lend a hand, knowing that with his recent injury, he wouldn’t’ve been able to get out there during the night. It was also amazing, in the twenty-seven years she’d been alive, and in the past nineteen years that she’d been a vigilante, she’d never seen her father take a break—she could count on one hand how many times he had, and even then, he was still working in the cave, so technically it wasn’t a break.

But after tangling with Bane and Croc, he’d broken a few ribs and after repeated complaints and worries from her, his sons, and Alfred, Bruce finally agreed to let his children handle patrol. Which is why when the quadrants of the city were split up between Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian, it left (Y/N) to pick up specific places that Bruce wanted checked out—she warmly agreed to do so. And while she was confident in her abilities to do everything, he asked of her, she should’ve called for backup when it came to infiltrating Scarecrow’s hideout.

***

Another vent went off above her and she ducked, eyes narrowing as she watched the orange fog, appearing blue through her detective mode, drift out. She would’ve sprayed it, but she’d used up all of her explosive gel covering the others. Now she simply had to avoid them and hope that her gas mask filtered properly—so far, it was. A shrill laugh echoed through the speakers above her, and shivers went down her spine.

Anytime now, Batgirl. You will fall too.

She frowned. “I’m not afraid of you, Doctor Crane.” Ducking under another pipe, she added, “I can help you if you’ll let me.”

Help me? Help…ME? You can’t even help YOURSELF!

Scarecrow had always been a talker, much like the majority of the villains they faced, and he was looking for a rise. She came to the end of the corridor where the pipes met a brick wall and she sighed, searching for a way through. A vent covered the top right corner and she pulled out the grapple gun, pointing it at the grate. She pressed the trigger and it latched onto the metal bars; grasping the cord, she yanked as hard as she could, stepping backwards when it fell, hitting the ground with a clang.

(Y/N) heaved herself up into the vent and crawled on her hands and knees, as quietly as she could, twisting and turning through the maze of confined metal. When she came to the end, another grate covered the exit and she pressed her foot against it, pushing until the bolts popped loose and she could slip out.

From the looks of it, if the advanced chemistry equipment were any help, she’d ended up in Scarecrow’s lab. He wasn’t in sight, but that gave her time to look around and see if he’d changed any formulas recently. She raised her wrist and tapped at the blue screen, taking a moment to run a program. When it beeped, (Y/N) sighed in relief and reached up, pulling the gas mask off—the air was clean.

She set the mask down on the counter and put a finger to her ear. “Batman, do you read me?” His voice came through a moment later.

“I read you Batgirl. Loud and clear.”

“I’m in Doctor Crane’s lab,” she said, poking around at the notes he’d scrawled out. “I don’t see anything new. The formulas all look the same.”

“Compounds?”

She frowned and read. “Honestly, it’s a bit hard to decipher. His handwriting is a lot like Red’s when he’s had one too many energy drinks.” A quiet huff came from over the line, telling her that he was amused. “I’ll send you pictures of it and see if you can.” (Y/N) snapped a few photos. “Get ‘em?”

“Just now,” he replied, and she walked over to one of the lit Bunsen burners.

“Looks like he’s got something brewing right now though,” (Y/N) leaned over and peered into it, careful to avoid any steam that was rising.

“Recognize it?”

She paused. “It’s not the usual stuff he’s got. It looks almost golden and—”

All at once the dish exploded and she had just enough time to cover her face from the shattering glass, letting out a gasp as she recoiled.

“Batgirl, what happened?”

(Y/N) coughed and waved a hand, and when her hand appeared double, she breathed out in shock. “Oh no,” she whispered.

“Batgirl, report.” She hurried to the exit of the lab as Scarecrow’s cackle sounded overhead.

“I’ve been hit with a blast of toxin.” Pulling open the door, she fumbled with her utility belt then let out a sigh.

“What’s wrong?”

(Y/N) shook her head and weaved down the corridors, the faster she got to her bike, the faster she could get back to the cave.

“I don’t have any anti-toxin on me.” She pushed against the doors and stumbled out into the cold and rainy night. Her mind was already beginning to fog over as she climbed onto her bike, and she barely had enough focus to keep it steady while she programmed it to auto-drive.

“I’m sending one of the boys to you.”

She grunted and lifted her foot as the bike revved and shot forward. “Don’t. I’ve already programmed the bike to the cave’s coordinates. I’ll be back in less than fifteen minutes.”

“You won’t make it that long.”

(Y/N) groaned as the lights began to flash around her and she saw faces and images passing her. “I just have to…focus.”

Horns blared around her as the bike weaved in and out of cars and she held onto the frame with all the strength she had. His voice started echoing in her ears and she shut her eyes, trying to block it out.

You could’ve saved me.

Another groan escaped her, and she heard, “(Y/N), talk to me.”

She shook her head. “I can’t—I have to—focus now.” But with every passing second, his voice got louder and more insistent.

You let me die. You watched me die.

(Y/N)’s eyes filled with tears and they dripped down her cheeks. I tried to save you. she thought, hoping it would suffice, but she knew it wouldn’t. I tried so hard to. The last thing she remembered was turning onto the street that led to the cave.

***

Bruce was already pushing away from the Batcomputer when the boys arrived back at the cave, Dick and Damian from the Batmobile, and Tim and Jason from their own rides. Knowing that their father wasn’t one to sit around, it wasn’t out of the ordinary for him to be moving, but with how quick and worried his movements seemed, they knew something was wrong.

Dick pulled the cowl away from his face and asked, “B? What’s wrong?”

Bruce didn’t respond at first, hurrying towards the medical station they had. “Your sister was dosed with fear toxin and she doesn’t have anti-toxin to counteract it.”

Jason, who’d already taken his hood off, was already in the process of putting it back on. “Let one of us take it to her.”

Their father shook his head, rummaging for an antidote. “She’s coming back here.”

“Here?” Tim repeated, striding over. “Fear toxin works within seconds on normal people, minutes for us.” He looked at his brothers. “She won’t have enough time to get back here and not be under the effects.”

Bruce nodded, focusing as he poured a vial of glowing green liquid into the needle gun. “I know.” He looked at Tim. “That’s why I’m getting it ready for her.”

“Father, can we do anything?” Damian questioned, pulling away the domino mask from his eyes.

“Get ready to be on the defensive if she’s offensive,” he replied. “I don’t think she’ll hit anybody, but you never know.”

“She can’t hit that hard. (Y/N) only weighs—” Jason cut off as the rev of an engine cut though the air and they turned to see their eldest sister coming in on a sleek black motorcycle, that was shaking badly.

“(Y/N)!” Dick yelled and the bike suddenly shifted and toppled sideways, throwing her from it. It slid across the cave floor in a hail of sparks, metal, and plastic flying in every direction as (Y/N) rolled too.

They started running towards her, hoping to stop her when her back collided with one of the glass cases that held their suits, and she went limp.

Bruce reached her first, and knelt down, setting the antidote aside to check her first. The way she hit the case and with how hard, it was possible that she could be seriously injured—or worse.

“(Y/N)!” he called, hands coming to pull her away from the case. She whimpered and he let out a sigh—she was still alive. “(Y/N), can you hear me?” he inquired, reaching up to pull the cowl from her face.

Her brothers crowded behind him and they all stared in horror as tears streamed down her cheeks, and blood out of her nose.

“I’m sorry,” she bawled. “I tried to save you.” Bruce looked at her then grabbed the needle gun, bringing it up to her neck.

“Hang on, (Y/N). You’re gonna be okay.”

She grabbed his hand and cried, “I held on as long as I could, but my grip was slipping. I’m sorry I couldn’t hold onto you. I’m sorry I let you go. I let you die. I’m sor—” her sobs cut her off as she curled in on herself, and as if finally snapping out of a trance, Bruce pulled his hand from her grip and pulled the trigger of the gun.

(Y/N) jerked as the needle entered her skin and they watched the neon green liquid in the vial emptied. She fell into whimpers and mumbles of “I’m sorry” before her eyes rolled back and she collapsed in Bruce’s arms.

He stared at her for a second, feeling numb at his daughter’s admissions. Whatever her fear had been, it’d been there a long time, and he had no idea what it was about. Sighing heavily, he drew his eyes to his sons, to Jason.

“Will you take (Y/N) to her bedroom while I get an IV ready?”

Jason nodded and bent down, picking up his unconscious sister. He tucked her head in the crook of his neck and looked at Dick. “Get the doors, yeah?” Dick nodded and hurried ahead of him, while Tim and Damian followed in suit.

Bruce was left alone in a matter of moments, and all he could do was rise to his feet and ready the medical supplies, all the while, thinking back on every night that (Y/N) had gone on patrol in the last nineteen years—and the last time someone died in front of her.

***

Her head felt like an overripe melon ready to burst, and that first moment of cracking her eyes open was the biggest mistake since she told her dad what ‘Thot’ meant. The second she opened them, she shut them once more, inhaling deeply through her nose as the fog started to clear from her mind.

“Queenie, hey, you’re awake,” Jason murmured, and she nodded, blinking a few times before his face came into focus, Dick appearing Tim appearing behind him.

“Go get dad,” Dick said to someone, and she figured it was Damian since neither Jason nor Tim moved.

(Y/N) started shifting, trying to sit up when Dick put his hand on her shoulder, gentle, but firm as he said, “Don’t try to move, Barbie.”

“Where’s dad?” she asked, craning her neck to see.

“Damian’s going to get him sis,” Tim answered, smoothing out the blanket covering her. “Just relax. You took a beating when you came into the cave.”

“I did?” she questioned, eyes widening in shock when they nodded, faces pinched with worry.

The ceiling light turned on just bright enough to give sight and they looked at Bruce who was coming in, Damian following.

“(Y/N),” Dick moved, letting Bruce take his spot, and he took her hand in his, running his thumb over the back of her hand. “You had us all worried.”

She frowned and exhaled heavily. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.” She gazed between them, and something in their eyes made an emotion she couldn’t describe rise in her chest.

“Why are you all looking at me like that?” (Y/N) met Bruce’s eyes. “What happened?” Before he could answer, she gasped and looked at her brothers. “I didn’t hurt anyone, did I?”

A chorus of hurried, “No’s!” rang out and she sighed in relief, reclining back on the pillows.

“Oh, thank goodness.” She went silent, then started, “But…something did happen, didn’t it?”

Her brothers glanced between themselves then they looked at Bruce who sighed and squeezed her hand, drawing her attention to him.

“What?” she asked and when he said nothing, she repeated, “Dad, what?”

His steel blue eyes met hers and he murmured, “You were apologizing for…letting someone die.”

Whatever had flashed in her eyes that told them she knew exactly what they were talking about was shocking enough because Jason said, “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t wanna, Queenie.”

(Y/N) fell silent for a full minute and when she spoke again, her voice was quiet and the look in her eyes was far away. “Before Dick came to the manor it was just you and I patrolling Gotham. At eight, I wasn’t really let out of your sight, but one night I had wandered off while you were dealing with Two-Face.” She looked at Bruce. “I found an injured GCPD officer on a bridge. He had been tailing Killer Croc.”

She glanced at Tim. “His name was Grady Richards.”

Tim’s eyes fell to the tablet in his hands, and he tapped at the screen for a few moments, then read, “Hero cop Grady Richards honored after dying in line of duty. He fell off a broken bridge on Miagani Island.”

Bruce’s eyes found hers again. “He didn’t fall, did he?”

(Y/N) felt tears grow in her vision and she shook her head. “No…no he didn’t.” Inhaling deeply, she recounted, “Croc came back and there was no way either of us could’ve taken him, so we ran. And Croc chased us.” She shut her eyes, remembering the night.

***

Fear pulsed through her veins as she sprinted as far away from the overgrown crocodile as she could. The GCPD officer was ahead of her, but he stopped and spun around to see her.

“Hurry!” he yelled, pointing back to the car. “Get to the cruiser!”

She spared a glance over her shoulder, eyes going wide when she saw Killer Croc picking up one of the concrete guards.

“Duck!” was all she heard, and she hit the ground, watching as if in slow motion as it flew overhead, then smashed into the top of the cop’s car, glass and metal shattering under the pressure.

Someone grabbed her by the back of her suit and hauled her up, slinging her behind them, and the back of the GCPD officer’s uniform came into view.

“Start running, Batgirl! And don’t stop!” he yelled, and when he has his sidearm drawn, he looked down at her. “You’ve got as much time as I have bullets.” He turned, opening fire, and she took a moment to stare before scrambling to her feet to start running.

A cry of pain sounded behind her, and against her better judgement, she turned and looked, gaping as Croc’s arm sent the officer flying. He hit the guardrail and collapsed against it and her feet were moving before she could stop them.

The first punch went to the back of Croc’s knee and she knew it had to have hurt her more than it did him because he didn’t even flinch. But when those glowing yellow eyes peered down at her, she knew she was in trouble.

“Looks like I’ve got an appetizer for the night!” he laughed and reached for her, but she ducked and rolled out of his way, standing in front of the wounded GCPD officer, who weakly looked up at her.

“What are you—doing? I told you…to run.”

She couldn’t beat Killer Croc, and she knew it, but she shook her head and stared down the villain before her.

Croc’s attacks were wide and though she was small, she was pushed to her limit rolling and dodging every one. After a few moments, she was practically dead on her feet, huffing as her lungs begged for air. She kept wiping away the rain that splattered against her mask and on a particularly unlucky step, she found herself slipping.

And it was all the opening that Croc needed because he swiped at her and she flew backwards into the officer who’d managed to stand, just barely. Colliding with him tipped his balance and they went over the guardrail, barreling towards the ground.

She reached out as fast as she could and grabbed hold of the metal beam that ran the length of the under bridge, crying out in pain as it pulled the joints and bones. Her other hand gripped the officer’s and she held on tight. Croc leaned over the bridge, apparently not seeing them because his footsteps went off in the opposite direction, leaving them in silence.

Time passed and she wasn’t sure how long, but both her arms were getting tired, and she looked down at the officer.

“Sir?” she called, and he looked up at her. “You have to climb. I’m starting to lose grip.”

He tried to reach up but let out a cry and grabbed his side with his free hand. Pulling his hand away, she saw the crimson dilute with rainwater.

The hand that held the ledge began to cramp and she started hyperventilating. “Please, you need to hurry! I can’t hold on much longer!” Again, he tried, and she looked down at him as her fingers began to shake.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered and let go of his hand, and the last thing she saw until he hit the ground was the sight of his eyes, wide with fear and pleading.

***

“I watched his head explode when he hit the ground,” she said, tears pouring down her cheeks as she stared out the window, watching the rain hit against the glass. “I had to make a choice. Either both of us died or one of us lived.” (Y/N) looked at Bruce. “And I chose my life over his.”

No one could believe their ears at the story she’d told, but suddenly, the self-sacrificing attitude their sister had, the way she’d bend over backwards for anyone, made perfect sense—she did it out of atonement, for a wrong she carried since she was eight years old.

“I pulled myself back up onto the bridge and I ran as far as I could and didn’t look back,” she said. “I kept my mouth shut when the paper ran his story and never told anyone about it.”

(Y/N)’s breath shuddered. “I just pushed it down as far inside me as I could and tried to forget about it.” Her eyes met Bruce and she tearfully stated, “But every time I closed my eyes, I saw his face.”

He leaned forward and took her hand. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked softly, dark brows furrowed in hurt.

She swallowed thickly and shook her head as she replied, “I killed someone that night. I was terrified about what you would’ve said. About what you would’ve done.” He gazed at her and (Y/N) whispered, “I’m sorry, dad.”

Bruce dropped her gaze and took a deep breath before murmuring, “It was just an accident, (Y/N).”

“I let go of—”

“I would’ve been more upset having to bury my daughter,” he interrupted, and she fell silent, gaping at him. He searched her face and reached up, placing a hand on her cheek. “I understand why you kept this secret, but you should’ve come to me, (Y/N).” Shaking his head, he added, “You didn’t deserve to be buried under this for nineteen years.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, lowering her head and Bruce shook his head in response.

“No, I’m sorry.” When she met his eye, he continued, “I’m sorry I didn’t know you were carrying this. Then and now.”

(Y/N) swallowed and rested back against the bed. “I send his widow money on the anniversary of his death. I slip it into the pension she’s given.” She let out a sigh. “It’s the only way I’ve found that I could sleep at night.”

Her eyes drifted to the window and Bruce placed a kiss to her forehead. “Get some sleep, sweetheart.” She nodded and before he left, he said, “And when you feel up for it, we’ll see about setting up a fund in his name.”

She wished it didn’t make her as emotional as it did, but silent tears dripped down her cheeks as the door closed, leaving her and her brothers alone. They gathered on her bed, leaning close to offer their support, and she was thankful for them doing so. And for the first time in nineteen years, when (Y/N) closed her eyes, she didn’t see Grady Richards’ face.

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remakethestars · 4 years ago

Text

Being Batman’s Daughter Would Include:

Headcanons.

❝Listen, Robin. At their core, people are cowardly and self-serving. Trust no one until you know them. And even then, never completely.❞

— Bruce Wayne, “The Lesson Plan”

TRIGGER WARNING: Plant murder. Mentions of drugs/tranqs (stopping dealers), violence/physical harm, broken bones (knee cap), limb dislocation (shoulder), (Jason’s) death, smoke, waterboarding/drowning?

Headcanon masterlist.

You know how every teenager has that paradigm shift because as much as they love the people around them, they’ll never know the inner workings of your psyche? And they realize they’ll never truly be known? And it makes them feel really lonely?

Yeah, you never come to feel like that because you know Bruce digs so far into everyone around him he probably knows you better than you do.

Honestly, he probably reads your diary. At least, he reads the fake one you hide under your mattress. And the second decoy in the A.C. vent above your dresser.

If you’re as paranoid as Bruce, you probably don’t have a diary, and the aforementioned “decoys” are just to mess with him.

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War was practically your Bible growing up.

You’re torn between giving yourself the tactical advantage of being underestimated & being non-reactive, which — besides giving you the lioness role in the lion–gazelle dynamic — gives you the advantage of having time to think carefully on the repercussions before speaking.

Because, as Sun Tzu said in chapter seven, verse twenty-one, “Ponder and deliberate before you make a move.”

Seeing as Bruce and Damian both have eidetic memories, I’m guessing you do too.

Which means you totally read the dictionary when you were young and whip our big words nobody’s heard of.

Bruce always assured you it’s okay to be scared. As a matter of fact, like he told Dick (seen in flashbacks in “The Lesson Plan”), he taught you to “Let terror embrace you. The better you know fear, the better you can use it against others.”

And we all know Bruce is the paragon of using fear against people.

Take that, Scarecrow!

(See, I chose that gif because earlier in that move, he displays a fear of bats, & in that scene, he summons them to use as a distraction and walks through them completely unperturbed. No? Okay, I’ll see myself out.)

You started into the vigilante business young, a little bulge under the back of Batman’s cape that made the rest of the Justice League in the meeting think Bruce was host to an alien parasite until your little mask-covered eyes poked up over his shoulder.

The League’s known you since you were young, so they kind of all see you as their niece. That just quadruples the amount of people who are overprotective of you.

Eventually, in your tweens, you think enough’s enough and start out on your own — being underestimated may be an advantage, but it’s getting ridiculous — and you tackle unsolved cases.

You set up various safe houses around the world for your own disposal (using the zeta tubes) and anyone who sees the inside of one in an emergency is always surprised. You don’t really understand why; what serious vigilante doesn’t have secure, state-of-the-art safe locations scattered across the planet?

Sometimes, it gets you into danger, but you always get yourself out of it. If there ever comes a time you can’t, well, you’ve got a direct link to Batman, and if communications fail, you can always yell for your Uncle Clark at the top of your lungs.

If the latter ever comes to fruition, you ask Bruce if he’s disappointed you had to call for back-up or that you called Superman instead of Batman, and he says, “It takes a strong person to admit when they’re weak, [Y/N]; if anything, I’m proud of you. Besides … you’re not the only one who yells for Uncle Clark when they get in over their head.”

Your training entailed hacking and mechanics, so you like to fix computers and sell them on the internet Hugh Jeffreys style. It started out with Macs from the dumpster behind Gotham Academy and turned into a surprising side hustle. Large portions of your profits go into either savings or funding your extracurricular activities.

You’re using a MacBook that’s running Linux and an iPhone 4 that’s running your own program.

At some point, your phone falls into the wrong hands, and someone asks why it has such high security. You deadpan and say, “I have three older brothers.” No further explanation required.

One such solo case led you to a ring of drug dealers working in a small town outside of Gotham. You made some tranquillizers and heavy-duty smoke bombs and busted out your shinobi-iri training.

After sliding on a mask covering the bottom half of your face that filtered out smoke, you set all of the bombs off at once in the ventilation system, filling the building and using the infrared in your domino mask to sedate everyone before the cops arrived so no one got hurt (because there would inevitably be a firefight if the cops got involved).

You never go into a situation expecting to go hand-to-hand with someone; you always have a plan to take our your targets quickly an efficiently.

One night, when you’re working on a cold case in Gotham, you stumble across some intel that Poison Ivy’s been stockpiling chemicals and is going to wipe out all human life on Earth.

Luckily for you, Bruce’s paranoia is hereditary; you just happen to carry some white kryptonite in your belt, so you won’t have to go all the way back to the cave to obtain some.

You type out a quick debrief on your wrist computer in case you end up needing to send out an S.O.S., pop on your bottom mask to filter out spores or pheromones she might send in your direction, and bust out your shinobi-iri training again.

Of course, you try the peaceful approach, explaining to Ivy that you agree with her on the tree-hugger front to build rapport (T.B.F., who doesn’t?), but it comes to physical confrontation. You kill every vine that comes your way with a quick punch from your kryptonite ring, toss an expanding polyurethane foam bomb (see Batgirl #38) at her feet, and manage to get an inhibitor collar on her.

Gordon takes her away, and by the next morning, it’s on the news.

“You took down Ivy by yourself?” Bruce asks when you come down for breakfast.

“… Yeah,” you say after a moment, expecting a tongue-lashing.

“Are you hurt?”

“No. She didn’t get a hit in. And before you ask, I had a contingency set up in case things went sideways.”

“… Good job.”

Your dad has the article framed in the batcave, which is the bat-equivalent of having your drawing on the fridge or getting a sticker back on a test.

You’re fighting a grin for the rest of the day.

It bugs you you can’t tell anyone why you’re so happy, so you visit Dick in Blüdhaven while he’s on patrol and give him a play-by-play. You even get a hair-ruffle!

Deathstroke targets you at some point. One of Batman and Nightwing’s worst villains, and he targets you because he knows they love you. You’re the smallest bat at the time, the weakest; he thinks you’ll be the easiest to take.

Boy, was he wrong.

He was trained by the League of Assassins, so you know dropping a smoke bomb’s not going to give you cover (and his mask probably has infrared). His brain processes faster than yours, so tricking him is improbable. He’s probably done enough research on you to know you favor foam bombs and has fast enough reflexes to dodge before they go off.

And he’s jammed your comms so you can’t call for backup. You’re worried he’s got kryptonite on him and will hurt Superman if you call for help.

It’s just you and him.

He has enhanced stamina, so he tries to wear you out. You maintain distance to avoid taking damage and wearing faster.

You always admired Tim for his ability to plan ahead (see, like, the entirety of the Red Robin comics). He doesn’t know how he does it; he just does. He can’t really teach you, so you just watch and learn.

You realize your fight with Slade is just a matter of managing the distance and immobilizing him, so you strike. You duck behind a pillar or grab onto a railing or something and shoot him through the thigh with your grappling gun, reeling him in. He, of course, draws his sword or a knife to cut the line, but you’re already throwing high-density expanding polyurethane bombs.

And, just like that, you’ve single-handedly taken Deathstroke.

It sends a clear message to the rest of the Gotham villains, Blüdhaven’s villains, the League of Assassins — don’t mess with the bat’s little girl. She can hold her own.

Now it’s time for you to come up with another plan to take him down; you doubt the same method will work twice, and you’ve just made a very powerful enemy.

As Wonder Woman’s said, “Do not mistake a desire to avoid violence for an inability to deal with it.” You might go into most situations with a plan to take down your opponent already in motion, but when it comes to an all-out brawl, you’re perfectly capable and don’t pull your punches.

You’re working on an unsolved case in Blüdhaven (Dick’s got enough on his plate) when you get an S.O.S. from the aforementioned along with the feed and recording from his mask. You listen to the mission briefing while you ride back to the cave and then the audio from the Young Justice mission. They got jumped by the League of Shadows in an abandoned factory, and Talia’s trying to coerce Damian into joining the League or whatever.

The usual dropping some smoke bombs and tranqing everyone isn’t going to work on thirty armed League assassins who were trained to fight blind, so you load up on polyurethane foam bombs and call Jason and Cassandra.

The three of you take out the guards outside before splitting up and taking either end of the building (Cass stays with you). You meet in the middle, in the room the team’s being held in.

You highjacked the speakers, so they’re blasting AC/DC’s “Shoot to Thrill” upon Jason’s insistence. You wanted Zayde Wølf or Alice Cooper’s “Hey, Stoopid,” but big brothers will be big brothers.

Jason pops them with rubber bullets from above to slow them down for you while Cass demolishes them and you drop foam bombs, slinging your signature custom shuriken, bonk them over the head with Tim’s staff you picked up along the way, dislocate their arms, or shatter their kneecaps.

You and Jason get a couple slices from swords that got a little too close, but it’s nothing compared to what you’ve had before.

When the fighting’s done and the building’s quiet, the team’s, like, “Who the heck are you guys?”

And Dick’s, like, 😏 “They’re our siblings.”

Speaking of siblings, you’re older than Damian, and as such, you take upon yourself the honor of teaching him all things pop-culture.

“I have a lot of amazing older siblings. I want to be a good big sister.”

First things first, you give him one of your refurbished e-waste phones and take him to Target to pick out an OtterBox or a LifeProof case or something that’ll keep it safe in the pocket of a vigilante.

Vigilantes are always coming to you when their phone’s broken anyway; you’ve got a stack of spares you’ve repaired.

Then you help him set up a Spotify account (follow me at @remakethestars 😉) and try to help him find his rhythm.

Poor child’s never had Oreos before, so you drag a pack of Double Stuffs out of the cabinet and a glass of milk and show him the best milk-dunking method you know.

You think about handing him a cookie and telling him to waterboard it until the bubbles stop coming up, but cookie-dunking is something every kid does; it’s sacred, and you don’t want him to associate it with violence.

You show him how you and Alfred feed the bats in the batcave.

And you show him Vine compilations and your favorite shows and movies and as many classics as you can, and you put up with him pointing out the inaccuracies and calling them stupid.

Every time he doesn’t get a reference, you write it down so you know what to show him later.

If anything ever happens to you, Damian finds your list and makes it his personal mission to watch/read everything on it. It makes him feel close to you.

You build a relationship with him that’s similar to his and Dick’s, and he comes to you with things he might not be able to come to anyone else with.

Plus, since you live in the manor still and he doesn’t want Bruce to think less of him, it’s you he comes to after a nightmare.

If you know Alfred has pictures of him curled up in your side, you ask him to send them to you. Not for blackmail purposes; just to have.

You’d never use the need of comfort or the sharing of emotions against him because (A) it’s perpetuating toxic masculinity and (B) you don’t want him to think it’s wrong or confirm any of the stupid “strength” things the League of Shadows taught him.

You gave him a stuffed cat that looks like Alfred (the cat, not the butler) with some of your perfume spritzed on it. He verbalized his revulsion when you gave it to him, but on nights he has a bad dream and you’re not home, it brings him comfort.

Titus comes to get you when Damian’s upset.

Even when he’s not with Damian, he seems to know. Pets are like that.

You’ve learned to trust Titus’s instincts. Damian thinks it’s suspicious when he’s feeling down and you just happen to call.

You never realized it until a long time later, but Ace was acting weird the day Jason came back from the dead.

And he was acting weird the day Jason came back to Gotham too. He ran to the door and began barking. Alfred swept security, but nothing seemed to be off. The whole family was on edge that day.

You were the reason Jason knew he wasn’t completely forgotten; he spotted you through a café window, and you were wearing his jacket.

Visit my headcanon masterlist.

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sturchling · 3 years ago

Note

A maribat no pairing needed but if you want one you can write it in. But basically Marinette goes to Gotham and stays with the bat family. Bruce is leaving hits he is Batman so he can help Marinette with being ladybug

Sorry for the wait! Hope you like it! I decided to make this one a little more funny with a completely oblivious Marinette. Sorry if you don't like her being this oblivious, just wanted to have some fun with this one. I really liked that idea and thought it was funny. I hope you like it too, I had a lot of fun writing it!

Marinette was so excited she was shaking. She had just gotten word that she had been accepted into an exchange student program with Gotham Academy. Not only would she be able to get away from Lila and the drama with the class, but she may also be able to find Batman and get some help with tracking down Hawkmoth. Marinette would be hosted by the Wayne family, who was sponsoring this whole program. Marinette was impressed by Mr. Wayne's generousity. It is really generous of Mr. Wayne to set up and fund this whole program. He must be a really nice man. Marinette wasn't going waste this opportunity. She would enjoy her time in America, and she would definitely find Batman before the program was over!

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

Bruce really hoped this crazy plan worked. He had learned several weeks ago about a blog based out of Paris called the Ladyblog. It mainly posted a bunch of nonsense about a girl named Lila who was clearly a liar. But that wasn't what caught his attention. What caught his attention was a few stories posted between the interviews with the liar. These posts were about something called 'akuma attacks' and a supervillain named Hawkmoth who had been terrorizing Paris for years now. At first, Bruce just thought it was more nonsense, like the posts about the liar. But to be safe, he looked into it more, and was astonished to find out it was the truth. He learned everything Hawkmoth had done, all the different akumas, and about the local heroes: Ladybug and Chat Noir.

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

He was shocked to see that the heroes defending Paris were just kids. And while they have done great on their own, Bruce could tell they haven't had any kind of combat training. If they go up against an akuma with real training, they would be at a significant disadvantage. Plus, they would likely not have any good strategy to discover Hawkmoth's identity. Even if they keep winning against the akumas, they have to find and beat Hawkmoth or this madness will never end. He resolved in that moment to find these kids and help them. He focused on Ladybug and started to figure out her civilian ID. It took a few weeks, but he eventually found out she was Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She always disappeared once Ladybug appeared, and there were a few times that a security camera would see her duck into an alley, and then a few moments later, Ladybug would emerge. Once he knew her identity, he began to plan.

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

He decided the easiest way to get her to Gotham would likely be something regarding school. At first he thought of a class trip for her whole class, but decided against it. That idea wouldn't work with the rest of his plan. Instead, he set up a student exchange program with Gotham Academy. He would host the student that was selected at his manor for the duration of the program and fund the entire thing. The academy didn't think anything of it, used to Mr. Wayne's charitable acts for the school. His one condition was that he got to choose the student. The academy agreed, it only made sense since Mr. Wayne was funding the program and would host the student as well.

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

Mr. Wayne made sure that the news of the program made it to Paris and was heavily advertised. He even sent the information to Ms. Dupain-Cheng's school. He was sure that she would learn about it and apply quickly. Ms. Dupain-Cheng had seemed like an ambitious student from what he had found so far, so the offer of studying in America would be tempting. Plus if she was as clever as she seemed, based off her actions as Ladybug, then he was sure she would want to come and try to meet with Batman. It didn't take long for Marinette's application to cross his desk. As he approved her application and typed up her acceptance email, he smiled and began the next phase of his plan.

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

Bruce knew that Marinette would be very concerned if he approached her about being Ladybug outright. It would be best if she approached him. And here was the problem. She wouldn't approach him, she would only approach Batman. So he needed to have her figure out that he was Batman. He didn't want her to transform into Ladybug and look around Gotham for him. That could cause people back in Paris to figure out her identity, if Ladybug appeared in Gotham at the same time as Marinette. And if Hawkmoth figured it out, that would be horrible. And if Marinette went looking for Batman in her civilian form, it could be really dangerous. Instead, Bruce and his sons were going to make it painfully obvious who they were. They would leave all their equipment out in plain view, all their case files out, he was even going to park the Batmobile outside in the driveway (out of sight of the gates of course, he doesn't want anyone but Marinette to find out his identity). Short of walking around in their costumes, they would do everything they could.

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

Bruce's sons were excited. They didn't have to be careful about their identities around her which was a plus, and after learning that Marinette fighting Hawkmoth with only Chat Noir for consistent help, they were more than ready to help them with the Hawkmoth problem. They had also made bets on how long it would take her to figure it out, and which member of the family would be the one to give it away. They were ready for Marinette to arrive.

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

Marinette had arrived about a week ago, and Bruce's plan was in full effect. But, surprisingly, Marinette hadn't figured it out. She spent most of her time out, walking around Gotham. She had told the Waynes that she was familiarizing her self with the city and also gathering inspiration for her designs. In reality, she was focused on finding Batman. So focused in fact, that she missed all the clues that the Waynes were leaving her. She had walked right past the Batmobile, hardly giving it a second glance. She had picked up some casefiles sitting at the dining table, and instead of reading, or even just looking at them, she just handed them to Bruce and finished setting the table. She had walked in on Jason cleaning his guns in the living room, and instead of commenting on that, just sat down and turned on the TV. At one point, she even came into the gym and found Dick doing an acrobatic routine that only Nightwing would be able to do, all while Tim and Jason were sparing, and Damian was sharpening his sword. They were sure this would get her attention. But Marinette didn't even notice. She just got on a treadmill, put in her headphones and started running. They boys just stared at her. They were shocked that she could be so oblivious.

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

While Marinette was out walking around Gotham, looking for Batman again, the Batfam was having a meeting at the manor. They couldn't believe that Marinette hadn't figured it out yet. At least Bruce could definitely prove that his secret ID was better than Clark's. Marinette's been living with him for months now, with them actively trying to reveal their secret to her, and she still couldn't figure it out. They were running out of ideas and time. The program ended in a few weeks and they had done everything they could think of. Except for one thing. They hadn't thought they would have to be so obvious, but it was clear that Marinette would figure it out any other way.

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

So, that is how they found themselves coming up from the Batcave, in full costume, making a lot of noise to draw Marinette's attention as she sat watching TV in the living room. Marinette came around the corner and looked at them. Marinette's eyes grew wide, and she just stared. The Waynes were sure she finally figured it out. Finally, she broke the silence, saying "Nice costumes guys! You look just like the real Batfam. Nice attention to detail!" Then she just went back into the living room, leaving the Batfam frozen in disbelief.

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

Bruce decided enough was enough, and the family went into the living room, still in costume, and told Marinette their secret directly. She was pretty surprised. She had been so consumed with looking for Batman around Gotham, she never even thought she might be living with him. The night continued for a long time after that. Marinette revealed her secret and the Waynes revealed they had known all along. They told her that they had seen her using the horse miraculous to go back to Paris for an akuma battle, which that may not have been how they figured her out, but they had seen that too. After all the reveals were done, the group spent the rest of the night focused on Hawkmoth and how to track him. Tim got to work immediately and was sure he would have an answer soon, though it may be after she went back to Paris. The rest of Marinette's time in Gotham was spent training how to fight properly, and how to find better places to transform. Marinette soon went back to Paris, armed with better fighting skills, and the knowledge that she now had Batman as an ally in the fight against Hawkmoth.

#ml #ml fic #ml fanfic #miraculous ladybug #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #miraculous fic #miraculous fanfic #maribat #ml x dc #miraculous x dc #dc x mlb #mlb x dc #oblivious marinette #maribat fic #maribat fanfic

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noctuaas · 5 years ago

Text

ON THE DOWN LOW

synopsis; you share a dirty little secret with your host family’s son.

pairing; tendou satori x reader

content; nsfw/smut, fem!reader, friends with benefits, clothed sex, morning sex, don’t get caught

word count; 1.8k

At this rate, you were going to be late for school. Wouldn’t that look great; the one foreign exchange student in your homeroom stumbling into class long after the bell, out of breath with her hair mussed up and skirt wrinkled. You could only pray that no one on the school board would choose to call up your host family and tell them that not only was the exchange student they were housing tardy this morning, but their son was as well.

You couldn’t exactly blame Tendou for initiating this at such an unusual time. He saw an opportunity, and he pounced on it, simple as that. With his mother out of town and his father already gone for an early morning business meeting, you honestly weren’t even surprised that he spent the morning spouting off flirtatious comments; only that it led to this.

“You’re not gonna have time for breakfast,” you panted down at him.

“What do you mean?” Tendou finally pulled away from the home he had found between your legs. His eyes travelled up to meet your own, and you knew from personal experience that your clothes were the only thing stopping his gaze from taking a detour across your body. “This is my breakfast.”

“I think most people would rather have breakfast in bed,” you joked back. Risking a glance at the clock on the microwave, you saw there was less than 30 minutes until class started.

“I figured eating at the counter was quicker,” he chuckled deviously. Tendou mirrored your glance, quickly evaluating his options before slowly beginning to rise to his feet. The light caught your slick smeared across his lips, glinting tauntingly before getting drug under his tongue. He was never one to wipe his chin with the back of his hand. Instead, he licked everything away, savoring your taste, like he was on death row and you really were his last meal.

As he rose to your level, you pushed up from where you were leaning back on the countertop and met his lips halfway. The redhead’s tongue was against yours immediately, insisting you taste yourself in his mouth.

It was almost intoxicating, only fueled by the feeling of Tendou’s clothed erection pressing against your bare sex. You couldn’t resist the whine that seeped between your lips when his fingers clawed at your hips, pulling you ever closer.

Time was of the essence here, and at this point you were becoming needy. The hand that had found its way into his hair rerouted to slip down to his waistband, but you were interrupted.

“You should ask nicely,” Tendou intercepted your fingers at his belt, barring you from entrance.

“You started it,” you scoffed like a petty little kid.

Tendou didn’t move an inch. Those scarlet eyes of his bore into you, and you tried to stare back, but your resolve was no match to his. “Please,” you finally murmured, fingers nudging his belt buckle once more. His devious grin stretched wider at your submission.

He had the tip of his cock pressing into you faster than you had ever seen. There was no undressing; the only thing tossed away was his belt, which joined your previously discarded underwear on the tile floor with a clank; the slacks of his uniform were shoved down just below his ass cheeks, barely far enough to free himself.

The feeling of Tendou filling you made you let out a long sigh, like he was finally relieving a persistent ache. Instinctually, your legs hiked higher up his sides, pulling him deeper, and if it weren’t for the fact that he was already sliding himself back out, you’d have crossed your ankles to keep him close.

Tendou found a rhythm quickly. It started out slow, focused more on technique and allowing himself to kiss and tug at your lips before moving to lap at your throat hungrily; if you didn’t know any better, you’d almost say it was sensual. It didn’t last long though, each thrust increasing with speed until he was driving into you at the rapid pace you expected from this race against time.

“Fuck, kitten, you feel so good,” Tendou groaned into the crook of your neck. The pet name sent tingles through your skin, crawling down your body until it settled like fire in your lower gut. The only response you gave was the flex of your fingers, nails digging into his shoulders and grasping at his shirt.

The force of his thrusts caused you to let out little mewls and moans in huffs, breath escaping your lungs with every slam of his hips against yours. Tendou had to hook an arm under your knee and grab onto your thigh to keep you flush with the edge of the counter. Though his palm was cold to the touch, you swore your skin burned under the calloused pads of his fingers.

Combined with the tightening internal coil from Tendou’s actions, the burning of your abs as you tried to hold yourself upright was becoming too much to handle. Pulling away from Tendou’s face, you placed your hands behind you so you could lean back and brace against them. You were just beginning to sink back onto your elbows when the sound of the door to the utility room crashing open jolted you from your bliss.

Shooting back upright, a yelp of surprise nearly escaped you, but Tendou’s hand was clamped over your mouth in an instant. You both stared at each other, wide-eyed and frozen in place, as footsteps echoed from the utility room. It was only separated from the kitchen by a small, open archway.

When a voice grumbled out something about ‘forgot my briefcase,’ you instantly recognized it as Tendou’s father.

Step, step, step.

The sound of his heavy footfalls seemed to retreat further into the laundry room, but you knew he still couldn’t be more than 10 feet away. Tendou craned his neck back, trying to peek further past the doorway, before turning back to you with that mischievous smirk of his.

“Shhh,” he whispered almost inaudibly, letting go of your leg and placing a finger over his lips. You didn’t even have time to wonder what he was up to before he was pushing himself back into you, slowly, as if testing the waters.

The pleasant pressure was minor enough to ignore, and the only response you gave was a worried glance past Tendou’s shoulder at the doorway. You could still hear the shuffling of movement across the wall.

Displeased by your lack of reaction, Tendou took the hand that wasn’t covering your mouth and brought it down between your hips. His thumb dipped around where you two were connected, collecting your juices so that when he moved it up to rub your clit, it glided over it without unwanted friction.

Now, that got your attention. Your stomach tensed and you huffed into his fingers, which only led Tendou to tighten his grip on your face; his hand was firm enough that not a lick of air would escape your mouth, but just barely gentle enough that no marks would be left.

His thumb brushed against your clit in every direction until he found the perfect mix of pressure and angle that made your hips buck and eyes roll into fluttering eyelids. As soon as he discovered this, he repeated the motion, but this time snapped his hips into you as well.

Oh, how badly you wanted to gasp and whine and moan his name, but instead you choked on your own voice and forced it back into your chest.

If we get caught, you thought, I’m so getting kicked out of the exchange program.

You hated to admit it, but the idea was kind of thrilling. It was like throwing lighter fluid on the fire in your belly.

Every time the roll of Tendou’s hips lined up perfectly with the way he thumbed your clit, white hot electricity seared through your lower abdomen. He was hitting that spot more and more, and the heat was pooling now. You grabbed onto his wrist, the one at your face, and squeezed sharply; you were trying to channel every urge to cry out into the aching grip you had on his arm.

The coil in your gut was seconds from snapping, and you could tell Tendou was in a similar boat; his jaw was clenched and his eyes half lidded. You begged him with your eyes, silently told him how badly you wanted to cum.

Through both your hazes, the sound of a briefcase clicking closed broke in. It was quiet, barely louder than a pin drop, yet somehow felt as loud as a gun firing next to your ear. Tendou’s head lifted slightly in realization, then he gave you a hasty nod of encouragement.

Creeeaaaaakkk, slam!

As soon as his father was gone, Tendou was mumbling, “Come for me, baby girl, come on.”

He didn’t have to ask twice. You were already falling over the edge, the pleasure rolling from your core out to your finger and toe tips before rolling back again. He finally broke his hand away from your face, and you gasped for air, gasped his name, gasped until your lungs couldn't take any more. Your heels dug into his back, pressed into his spine like you might be able to collapse into him.

You didn’t know exactly how long it took for Tendou to finish behind you. You were coming down from your high and the next thing you knew, he had his cock in his hand and he was spilling out all over your thighs.

Both of you heaved until your breathing evened out, foreheads pressed together. At long last, Tendou broke the silence with a chuckle, and you couldn’t resist laughing as well.

When he peeled away from you to grab a dish towel and clean you up, your skin stuck together from the sticky sheen of sweat. You were lucky he managed to not get anything on your skirt.

“You’re in big trouble,” you said as he placed his routine post-sex kiss on your cheek.

“Why—” he babbled incredulously, “What for?”

“Because,” you glanced at the clock, “We have less than 15 minutes to get to class.”

“Shit!” Tendou scrambled to pull himself together, hastily running about as he shoved his dick back in his pants. You followed suit, jumping off the counter and grabbing your underwear. You tugged them on with about as much coordination as you could while hopping down the hall to get your backpack and shoes. You were both running around like bats out of hell, cackling with laughter by the time you were out the door.

You ran the whole way to school. At least it was a reasonable explanation for why you looked sweaty enough to have just had a sex marathon.

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keravnous · 3 years ago

Text

- agent 14/agent steve haines; american money

It's a Thursday and it's raining. The raindrops are heavy and loud on impact, running down his windshield like tears. He's on his way to the set and he prays that it'll clear up soon.

"This show will kill you", Warren sits on his bed, sheets lazily draped over his legs. Steve can see where his pubic hair begins and his mouth waters. Warren takes a long drag from his cigarette, blows the smoke into the air.

"It fucking won't, nothing can", Steve's leaning against the door frame, coffee in hand.

"Fuck yes, it can. And it will, lurking around at Forum Drive all day and for what? Two minutes of frightening pictures that will make Karens all over LS go buck wild."

"Who's Karen?"

"Forget about it. Let me suck your dick, Haines, c'mere."

As he arrives near the recreational center and pulls into one of the lots it has indeed stopped raining. The streets are still wet but the sun's coming out again and the air is already mushy with the reblooming heat. There's a lanky man with a dog and he's yelling into his phone - the man that is, not the dog.

He knows who the guy is, even though he most likely doesn't know him, probably he doesn't even know that Steve exists. He's an associate of Franklin Clinton and the Bureau keeps a close eye on him, due to the nature of Clinton being so close with Townley and Philips.

Steve watches Lamar, leaning against the hood of his car, the remaining rain wetting his thigh through the denim.

"Man Frank, you just ain't around no more, homie. That's all I'm saying. Yeah - Yeah, sure whatever, dog - Yeah, fuck yourself too, homie."

He hangs up and stuffs his phone back into his pocket. The dog looks at him. "Man, you get the fool more than I do, Chop. Wassup with him, can you tell me? He always been that fool, but something ain't right there."

Steve knows what ain't right there. Franklin must've picked up by now, or maybe Townley told him, what they were up to that one afternoon at the warehouse. And for what he knows about Clinton and what the intel tells him, the young man probably isn't much of a big fan of government-approved interrogation techniques.

And he probably also won't like what Steve has next in stock. Warren was a little careless the last time around, tongue loosend by sweet kisses and a hand around his dick, when he spoke about a securicar delivering important IAA files soon. It won't hurt 14 but it would definitely aid Steve an awful lot, so he decided to send the boys on the road again, maybe on Tuesday.

The production team's van rolls up next to him and they swarm around him like a stock of bees buzzes around their queen and then there's sound and light checks being run and a woman applies powder to his face. Lamar Davis has not moved a single step. Their eyes meet.

"What are you idiots doing here?", he hollers. Steve wonders if he could be of use.

"We're shooting a show", he replies, while the attach a little microphone to his collar, "The Underbelly of Paradise, you surely have already seen an episode or two."

"You're that Haines-guy then?", something in Lamar's voice makes his skin crawl, his files told Steve that he too is a gangster after all, killing and robbing are some of Davis' favourites. The look he shoots him isn't much friendlier.

"In the flesh", Steve dusts of the sleeves of his polo shirt.

"Yeah, aight. Fuck you then, man. C'mon Chop, we best be leavin', homie. Imma take you back to Frank's crib", oh, there is something in Lamar's voice that Steve definitely doesn't like at all but he just smiles politely at the man, until he's around the corner and out of sight. Steve's smile drops.

"Can we hurry this up a little, people? I don't got all day!" The bees start buzzing again.

The raid on the Humane goes by easier than expected. They are in Warren's living room, as the news inform about the incident. Steve is just pouring himself another glass of wine and Warren looks at him.

He knows, that the other one knows. It's a cover story the IAA will buy, but not Warren. Pain shoots through his legs as he slowly makes his way towards the sofa.

Warren mouths a few words at him. Be careful. Steve nods and leans over, places a soft kiss on his shoulder.

"Learned from the best", he whispers and Warren jerks.

"What?", there's panic in his voice.

"The Rashkovsky Job? The breakout and then his research goes missing?"

Warren blinks at him in disbelief.

"So, did he let you know if he likes it in South America?"

They laugh and Steve feels light, his fingertips tingle with it.

Steve's on his balcony. There's a saxophonist a few meters down the road, playing some Sinatra pieces and the music wraps itself around him like a blanket. The musician's interpretation reaks of melancholy and reminds Steve of the golden days of Vinewood cinema, noir films and cigarette smoke. Musicians playing at street corners isn't something foreign in a city where everyone has dreams of being the next big national superstar, but Steve usually hates him with his guts. This one's different. It touches him and he finds himself enjoying the dark, warm tunes that float through the cool air. It will be autumn soon and Steve's glad that the heat will be gone.

Warren watches him from the inside, leaning against the kitchen counter, lips curled in a smile.

Steve has always hated Michael's bloated and ugly, fat face and now he even gets to point a gun at it. It feels like his birthday and christmas fall on the same day.

"They know or they think they know that I'm the one that was behind the incident."

They stare each other into the ground, guns raised. Steve's ready to fire, has been from the minute Townley walked onto the plaza for the first time.

"Put the weapons down, boys. Fun time's over!", Steve wants to sigh. This is not happening. And then they are suddendly surrounded by their own man Sanchez has sent and then fucking Merryweather's there, too. This is not fucking happening. And so he does the only thing he's always been good at.

"We all know you Agency boys are balls deep in a plot to drive up your fundings by any means necessary", he shouldn't have said that. Warren trusted him with that info, even showed him the intel. He sees something moving behind Agent ULP's eyes, it's fear. He's got him.

Suddendly there's a loud pop and then pain shooting through his left leg. "Same goddamn leg", he blurts out as hell starts to break loose around him. Sanchez blood sprays the concrete in a bright red as the bullet pierces his skull. Steve wishes it would've been Michael instead.

He runs until he can't take the pain no more, then cowers on the ground, slowly robbing behind cover, as Dave and Michael pick up the gun fight. He's bleeding heavily, red liquid rushing out of the wound and drenching his cargos. It seems like the bullet is stuck and maybe has wounded some arteries. He figures that he probably hasn't that much time left. He strips himself out of his shirt and wraps it around his leg, adding pressure on his thigh, just above the bullet wound.

He thinks about Warren. Oh dear God, don't let me die today.

"What did you do?", it's Warren, he's sitting at Steve's kitchen table.

"Did you let yourself in, pretty boy?"

"What happend?", he sounds furious now, gets up and his eyes bore into Steve's. He's dizzy with it, with what Warren's gaze tells him, let's him know without saying a word.

"Nothing, it's nothing."

"You got shot!"

"Yeah, the same leg."

"That's - you're-"

Steve wraps his arms around him and presses him close and Warren releases a surprised noise. "I'm still here", he says and it's more for and to himself, than for Warren but the other doesn't seem to care, burying his face in Steve's neck.

The world's a little brighter and warmer and Steve doesn't feel that threatend anymore. He has to make a phone call, but that can wait a few more minutes.

He has a team on the way to the plant, it will be alright. They'll be gone for good, just another casualty. He sighs, takes a deep breath and throws the script on the seat across from him.

"Are the cameras rolling? Yes? How do I look, the chin's sharp?"

Warren looks at him, eyes still a little hazy from his last orgasm and Steve turns his head and looks at him. He's so pretty and Steve's heart misses a beat.

"I-", his voice breaks and Warren blinks.

"Yeah?"

"I hate you."

Warren laughs. It's deep and dripping with amusement, running down Steve's body like hot honey. He rolls himself over, on top of Warren, who's still laughing deep in his chest, burying a hand in Steve's blond hair.

"No. No, you don't."

They look at each other and their gazes turn soft. "Sometimes I do", Steve's voice is quiet, honesty seeping through his words, "But sometimes I-, I would burn the world down to protect you."

Warren's hand caresses his neck. "My life would be so very boring without you, Haines. It nearly makes me forget that I just really want to skin you alive, sometimes."

It's not really an I love you - I love you too, but it's as close as they can get without hurting their egos. The kiss is soft and sweet and a promise.

"Hi, I'm Steve Haines. I've tracked down killers, attacked incompetence and taken down terrorist cells, and tonight -"

The gunshot rips through the night and the camera man throws himself back, lands unpleasently on his back.

"My god! The guy! What's-his-name! Fuck, shit, they shot him!", he stares down at the dead man, blood rushing out of the bullet wound in the back of his head. The impact had torn some skin and skull apart and there's a nasty opening, his brain leaks out of it. The camera man vomits out of the gondola as sirens erupt in the night.

Warren has his feet up on the coffee table, mindlessly zapping through the programs. It's all shallow and boring and he hopes that Steve will be home soon. Home.

His stomach does a funny little flip and Warren smiles to himself, wraps the blanket around him tighter. It smells of him, his perfume. He closes his eyes and he can practically feel Steve's hand creeping around his neck, resting on his shoulder, heavy and warm. It's always like that, when he comes in on Warren sitting on the sofa. He will lean down and place a feather light kiss on the back of his head, maybe rest his nose there for a moment, taking the other man's scent in for a few seconds, before getting up again and ranting about Norton or another colleague. A fuzzy warmth spreads in his stomach and Warren sighs. A sudden noise interrupts his daydreaming and he lazily opens an eye at the TV. It's a Weazle Broadcast.

"We interrupt our nightly program for an important message. We just recieved notice that FIB Special Agent Steve Haines has been shot on duty at the Del Pierro Pier. Agent Haines died a hero, doing what he loved, which was presenting a TV show. He helped combine the chaos of anti-terrorism and the mindlessness of network television into one highly successful career. Mr. Haines, who was not married, leaves behind his mother."

The world goes silent.

He's not moving. Has not in hours, maybe it's even a full day at this point. He has not eaten, has not showered, has not moved at all.

Warren feels like a dead man. The thought makes a bitter laugh splutter over his lips and then has him break out in tears immediately after.

It's a scary thought that people continue to live their lives, acknowledging that an agent passed away last night but they are now out and about, at their jobs, maybe seeing friends or family. A lover, even. They are busy living their life's while Warren's just dissolved in a matter of seconds.

It's a scary thought being ripped off of something so dear so abruptly, it's scary how it ripped a hole it Warren's chest that is now filled with a black, emotionless but equally painful void that nags, tears and claws at him.

It's a scary thought that he's alone again.

His body, his throat gives in and he's rolling on his side, screaming and tearing at the blanket, fingers grabbing at the fabric, as his knuckles turn white. He's screaming and screaming and screaming until his throat is sore and his eyes burn and the only noises that leave his mouth are little pathetic whines of exhaustion and the gasping for air. The pain in his chest takes his breath away, chokes him and makes him want to curl up, bore a knife into it, twist and turn it until it goes away. He feels like vomiting.

It's Sunday. It's been a little over 30 hours. Warren is tired, but everytime he tries to close his eyes he sees him, hears his laughter ring in his ears. It hurts. It hurts so much, he has hardly any words left to describe the agony he is going through.

His head hurts too, so does his throat and his stomach, with the constant throwing up and the lack of hydration. But he can't bring himself to get up, to grab a glass of water and drown some pain killers and go to bed. His legs are heavy and he just doesn't have the energy.

Warren feels like dying but he's also so painfully alive.

He's wide awake. He'll need to find a solution for how he's going to be able to go to work tomorrow.

But for now he's wrapping himself in Steve's blanket, the one he sleeps in when he's been over, inhaling the fading scent.

"Agent 14?"

His eyes are red, bloodshot and his fingers are trembling, seconds away from shaking. He had powder this morning to just make it somehow and it's slowly wearing off. He hasn't been on coke since college and it sent him on a murder high, blood pumping like a race horse only to now let him dive head-first into a killer hole.

It's been three days since Steve left his life both, quiet and eardrum-tearing loudly, and it feels like a nightmare, eternal and burning hot. He's empty inside but there's also just so much pain, it feels like he's breaking into pieces. His stomach clenches and his heartbeat is heavy, vibrates thickly in his chest and he just wants to die, too.

"Mrs. Rackham", his voice is rough, it doesn't bother to hide that Warren had been crying and screaming his lungs out every night since Steve's brain had been splattered onto the ferris wheel.

"I need to talk to you."

This is about Avon and Clifford, he's sure. His hand shakes and coffee spills on his desk. He curses under his breath and reaches for a tissue but Mrs. Rackham grabs his hand with force. They look at each other. Warren blinks.

"You are not in a good condition. I don't need explanations or lies, 14. I want to offer you my sincere condolences on your loss, Mister Jones. "

Warren takes a deep breath but he can't keep his eyes from tearing up.

"Take the week off, Agent", as he's not moving, shocked and dumbfounded, she starts to pick his jacket up, "Go now, I'll cover you up."

He gets on his feet, knees weak and body shaking, takes his jacket from her hands.

"Thank you, Phoenicia", he means it.

She looks at him. "I'm sorry", and she means it, too, "The IAA could've done some-"

"Don't."

She nods sharply and then looks at him once more, eyes piercing.

"I lost my husband in service as well, Iraq in 2004."

And then they're hugging, Warren is burrying his face into her neck and wailing like a little child.

It's a weird feeling and it fucks with his head as his gaze falls on the door of his apartment. He could've sworn that he heard the key turning the lock. He stares and stares and stares and it feels like his brain is readying for Steve to come through the door anytime.

He doesn't.

It's midnight and he had five more moments like the door-lock one earlier. He feels like he may go insane.

Warren fumbles for his phone on the nightstand and opens up Eyefind, types his thoughts into the searchbar.

At the end of his research he's left with two possibilities: it's either a stage of grief (denial they call it - dying's more fitting, Warren thinks) or the sideeffects of the coke slowly wearing off.

It's raining. It's like the heavens above are pissing down on him. Warren's crying while the rain relentlessly pounds on his umbrella.

He's standing a few meters away from the funeral party. Steve's mother bails her eyes out and he would like to go over to her and wrap her im his arms but he would just be a stranger to her.

There's a saxophonist in front of the cementry. He's playing Sinatra's Summer Wind, sounding sad but warm nonetheless. Steve's family probably thinks of that as a weird coincidence but Warren has spent two full nights finding the man again, who has played down at Steve's street corner all those months ago. It was difficult and time consuming, but not impossible.

There's a new wave of tears making their way out of Warren's eyes and he has to clasp a hand on his mouth to stop the painful noises from making their way into the soft air of spring. He feels like he's breaking apart, torn into two pieces.

He cries and cries and cries until the funeral party is long gone any the sun sets. The saxophonist is still playing.

When Warren comes home the sun's gone for some while and it's dark out. There's a light burning in his kitchen. For a moment, just a split second, it feels like Steve will swing around the corner. But he doesn't.

He walks into the kitchen to find a bouquet of white lillies sitting on the countertop. He checks the card attached to them.

Sorry about your loss.

He doesn't recognize the handwriting, it looks like it could've been written by someone who's older than Warren, male maybe, but his last Hand Writing and Letter Indentification Course was two years ago. He figures his cleaner, a nice elderly lady, had put them there. He thinks about her seeing the bouquet on the door step and carefully carrying them inside, placing them in the only vase Warren has at home. It makes him both sad and glad, glad that at least she's still around.

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.

14 would've liked to ask Robert Frost if he was just stupid or naive or both.

Two days later he's so angry at the world that he grabs the vase and throws it across the room, where it collides with the wall and breaks in a thousand little pieces.

The anger keeps on coming, rage that boils hot and white in his stomach, makes him lash out at colleagues and scream his lungs out, throwing things and fits like it's nothing.

He finds himself beating into walls and furniture until his knuckles bleed.

Mrs. Rackham puts him onto another break, Temporarily Suspended Until Further Notice the record reads.

Warren's awake, restless but exhausted, again. It's three in the morning. His head hurts, his bones hurts, his whole body feels heavy.

"I should've stopped you from going", he whispers into the night and his mind conjurs up Steve's voice, consoling him.

"No, really. I should have been more persistent. If you just would've stayed with me that night."

Steve answers him again, but it sounds washed out in Warren's ear.

Oh, please don't let me forget his voice.

He's not moving again. Hasn't done so in two days.

Mrs. Rackham continues to call him, but he won't pick up. He can't handle her, can't handle her sorrow and her advices. He doesn't want to hear it. She would probably also bug him about not showing up for work again and that's just something he really doesn't want to hear right now.

It's phone rings again and he picks it up to throw it against the wall with all the force he can possibly muster, so it would just shut up, but it's not Phoenicia calling this time. It's Lester.

"14? This is Crest." He doesn't sound good. Warren doesn't know what to say.

"I am, ehrm, calling to see how you're doing?" Odd. He can't bring himself to say anything back. "You know I, err, saw you didn't clock in to work for a few days? Are you doing, ehrm, well?"

"Yeah", it sounds as broken as he feels. There's an uncomfortable silence on the other end of the line for a few seconds, maybe even for a full minute. He hears Lester's inhaler.

"I, well I err heard about Haines."

It should send him into a rage, a fit, maybe even crying manically but there's just nothing. Just the casual numbness that hangs above him like thick clouds these days.

"Yeah, a shame, isn't it?"

There's coughing, then deep breaths being taken. "You're not doing too well, Crest?"

"Can we meet up, 14? I", another cough, "I know a place."

The sun's out and it burns in Warren's eyes, on his skin, even though he's wearing both, a jacket and sunglasses. Crest sits across from him at the table, not touching his iced coffee. So isn't Warren, he is neither thirsty nor hungry.

They are at a bean machine on Vinewood Boulevard. It's one of the stores Steve used to buy his coffee at. There should be stining pain at the thought but there's just sadness, blackness wandering through Warren's mind.

"You don't look too good", Crest says.

"You neither", Warren says and to mask the shaking of his voice he takes a sip from the coffee. It tastes like nothing, like liquid paper.

"I don't feel to good either. But you also don't, so what's the matter, 14."

Warren just shrugs. Lester looks at him, a steady and stern gaze, as if he's looking for answers in Warren's eyes, in his fucking soul.

"What are we doing here?"

"Just looking after a, err, friend."

"We're not friends, Crest."

"Associates then, maybe?", the look on his face is a little sad, offended. Warren can't bring himself to care.

"Yeah, whatever."

"Any lead, yet?"

Warren lifts his eyebrows in suprise. "A lead?"

"Yeah, you know", Crest clears his throat and leans in a little, "Who did it, you know."

Maybe Warren's mind is playing tricks on him again, but Crest looks a little concerned.

"No, none. Nothing."

Crest nods and leans back. Lester doesn't offer his help, so Warren decides that he then won't ask for it. Still confused and mouth already opened he wants to know why, as Lester's lungs throw a fit, his body cramping and being thrown forward and then back again by his dry coughs. Warren's up on his feet in a matter of seconds, his heartbeat picking up a fast rate he hasn't feeled in weeks, adrenaline rushing through his veins. He grabs Lester by his shoulders and holds him up, while he coughs coughs coughs. At the end of it there's blood on his chin.

"You're not planing on dying as well, are you?"

The look Lester shoots him, slumped in his chair with other guests on the terrace staring at them in shock, makes Warren's skin crawl.

He hasn't been at an attorney's office ever. It's a weird experience.

The people are nice and calm and so is Mister Allan, who has Steve's testament laying in front of him.

"So, Mister Jones, shall we get started then?"

Warren nods. It still confuses him. He wonders what Steve's mother thought, when she heard that she won't inherit everything. Warren doesn't want money, money won't replace anything.

He must've said that out loud, because Allan chuckles.

"Mister Haines hasn't left you money. No need to worry, Mister Jones."

He leaves the office with a black box tucked safely under his arm. He doesn't open it, not in the office, not on the way out in the elevator, not at home. He tucks it away in his closet, deep down where he keeps a ski puffer, that he never wears anyways.

He finds himself talking to Steve, or what his mind conjurs up of his memories, more often. It helps him, or so he hopes.

He misses him and the soliloquy is a good substitute, at least for now.

They are at a clinic just above the hills and behind the Vinewood sign, far away from the city, the air is dry and crisp nonetheless. Lester sits in a wicker chair, wrapped in a blanket and stares at the fountain in the middle the perfectly trimmed meadow. Warren sits next to him, craving a cigarette, but not lighting one. He'll have to wait a couple more minutes, until the nurse will bring Lester back into the clinic.

"Thank you for stopping by", Crest means it.

"Am I the only one?"

"No, oh no. There's, ehrm, Franklin's coming over too, once or twice a week."

He looks better, rested. Warren doesn't know who Franklin is, but he nods politely anyways.

"That's nice."

"Yeah, he's a good kid." A crook then.

"Are they treating you well up here?"

"It's fine, I- argh, fuck it. The dinner's horrible but the doctor's are good enough. Won't make a difference anyways."

"That's what they're saying then?", Warren looks into the setting sun. From up here Los Santos seems peaceful, quiet, a big, glorious and shining city. It's a hell hole full of shit, Warren knows that now, but he can't leave. Not yet.

"Yeah. No. They don't say it, but they mean it. It's in their eyes." Lester takes a sip of his water.

"Don't say that, Crest."

Lester looks at him. He doesn't say it, but the look on his face says it all. You've been through enough, I won't tell you that I'm dying soon.

"Yeah, well, it was nice seeing you. Getting better and such", Warren gets up, the wicker creaking, his phone in hand and sunglasses back on. They look at each other for a long, quiet moment and then Warren nods, turns around to leave. A surprisingly strong hand grabs his arm.

"I have a project, it's happening right now, Warren."

He stops in his tracks. From somewhere behind the fountain laughter sweeps up the hill. There's an old lady on the meadow with their grandchildren and they're playing ball. She has a bandage around her head.

"A project?", Warren doesn't turn around.

"Yeah, I'd like you to take over. You need something to do."

"I still have a job, Crest."

"That reminds you of him." It's like a kick into his guts and there's sudden rage boiling inside of him, but there's also something else. A certain calmness, that wraps itself around his shoulders like a white blanket. T feels a lot like clarity.

"That it does, yeah."

"I'll have Paige bring you the details."

"Sure. Good night, Crest."

He walks over the little path out of bark mulch, that is overgrown by trees, back to his car. He feels oddly content.

See, life does goes on. It's a weird thought that strikes him out of nowhere. He's afraid of forgetting everything that was, since forgetting always seemed easy. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week but who knows what will be in a year? Maybe he'll catch himself sooner or later, not thinking about Steve for a few weeks, months, years.

He's afraid of that, sincerely so.

The air in the bunker is cold and damp. Some of his people are moving out the old equipment. He doesn't know Crest's newest associate, it's most likely no one from the Hertz/Clifford-Incident.

I'm sorry I called him a buffoon, if I had only known back then.

He thinks of Phoenicia's concerned face and suddendly he finds himself smiling.

"Oh, he was a buffoon, you weren't wrong, Ma'am", he says to himself and hears a quiet chuckle errupting from his chest. There's sadness floading him, but it's warm and sweet and feels like an old friend.

There's no time for tears as the door of the bunker suddendly beeps loudly, informing him of a visitor arriving.

"So, you're getting along, then?", Crest sounds better. Warren lets go a breath, he doesn't even know he held in the first place.

"Yeah. They are quiet, but I appreciate the effort they are putting into it."

"I told you, they're are reliable."

"So you did."

There's a long pause, silence.

"Listen, Crest. I gotta go, speak to you soon."

As he hangs up, he's confronted with his lie, standing alone in his quiet living room.

The next time Lester invites him over, he says yes. He lives in a bigger, cleaner house now and Warren can only guess, that he was indeed involved in the robbery at the Casino his team is trying to solve right now. He'll offer them a false trace. Maybe they'll pick that one up.

"Georgina's not home, you just missed her", Lester wobbles down the stairs to the living room, crutch in hand.

"Who?"

"Georgina, he lives with her", Warren looks up, from where he is securing Lester's arm with his own hand and looks into the face of a young man. He looks younger than himself and wears expensive street style clothing.

"Who are you?"

"That's Franklin, Warren. Franklin, that's the friend I've been telling you about."

"Pleasure", Warren's voice still on the edge, while the man's handshake is firm.

"You lost your man, dog? Lest been telling me."

"I did, eight months ago."

There's something moving behind Franklin's face but he's quick to cover it up. Warren wonders: what and why.

"Shame man, I'm sorry to hear that, homie. My girl left me, too."

"He didn't leave me. He died."

Franklin looks at Lester, confused and a little reproachful, too. Then, it seems to click, as Franklin looks at him again. He now looks a little terrified, actually.

"Franklin was just leaving anways, weren't you?", Crest sits down in a beige armchair. Warren notices that he has new glasses.

"Yeah, shit. I mean of course, I was on my way out. Nice meeting you man, I hope you're, you know, doing better soon. See you around."

"Thank you", Warren recieves an awkward pat on his shoulder and then Franklin's steps distance themselves, until the front door falls shut.

He didn't leave me. He died.

His own words echo in his skull but they don't throw him into a manic tantrum, he's not crying, not screaming. He's oddly calm.

Is this how it feels, when one comes to terms with something, he wonders. Maybe, it is.

He died.

That he did and it must've been fucking ugly. Blood and soupy brain everywhere. Warren wishes he could've held him during these moments, when the body is slowling shutting down, when something mysterious, unknown happens to the human consciousness.

He died.

And Warren had missed him every single day since then. He leans himself against the closed bedroom door of his apartment and then makes his way to his closet.

The box is still where he has left it.

He died. He died. He died.

"I miss you, Steve", he whispers into the silence of his flat and then he smiles, it's small and sad, and he sinks onto the ground, box clutched in his hands, "Fuck, I wish you were still here."

There's silence but Warren likes to think that something of Steve's mind, his soul is still left on this earth, stayed with him. It's a nice thought, even if it's unrealistic. It's still consoling.

Steve's gone for good, but just because his body doesn't walk the dirty streets of LS anymore doesn't mean that he left Warren's life completely - he still existed, left his footprints behind. And Warren's ready, willing even, to take carefully aligned pictures of them and hang them on his wall. He's ready to look at them every day that may come and maybe he'll stop crying at some point. Or maybe he won't. He'll be fine.

It's an odd feeling. His life still feels empty, incomplete since Steve passed and so does Warren. He feels empty, shallow and sad, but it will pass and he will take the time. It doesn't mean forgetting him, quite the contrary maybe.

He flips the lid, puts it aside carefully with a quiet thump on the carpet below. He takes a look inside and bursts out laughing.

"Did he leave you something?", he hasn't seen her in years, since college. She used to be his flat mate.

"Yeah", he smiles to himself.

"What is it?", she looks moved and Warren would love to tell her, but he can't. He really can't. Not all of it, anyways.

"A letter."

"A letter?"

"Yeah, a fucking love letter."

"Warren! Don't say that! It's very heartwarming!"

It's been a year. He still misses him. "He wasn't the type for it, that's all."

He thinks of the envelope he keeps in his safe. It's a document, FIB header and logo, completely official.

Reference: Counter Espionage, Crimes Against National Safety, A Report By Steve Haines to be handed to Misses Phoenicia Rackham In Relation "To Agent 14", Mister Warren Jones

"Oh, was he not, you know, a little a romantic?"

"No, it must've taken a lot for him to write a love letter." It was really sweet and it went well with the attempt to put Warren in a High Security Penitentiary.

"Really?", she looks a little concerned, but she doesn't get Steve, their relationship as it was, like Warren does.

He looks up from his coffee cup and lights a cigarette. He hasn't had a smoke in a long time but at least he stopped with the cocaine.

"Yeah. Sometimes", there's a smile tugging at his lips, "Sometimes I think he would've rather seen me locked away."

#i'm sorry but i had to #my writing #steve/14 tag #steve haines/agent 14 #agent steve haines #agent 14 #gta v #gta online

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saanphoenix · 4 years ago

Text

“Why do so many old-school FFVII fans think that Cloud took Zack’s memories?”

Alright, so first things first. We gotta start from the beginning. We gotta start with Jenova.

Jenova is the name given to the alien entity known as the Calamity. “Heaven’s dark harbinger.” This being, assumed to be female because of the body she was in at the Crater, was basically godlike in her natural abilities. Historically, she was able to shapeshift. She was telepathic. She had a nigh indomitable will. And she used her abilities to infect the race of human(oid)s that happened upon her crash site--the Cetra.

Now, Ifalna, within the English translation of the OG, states that Jenova turned the Cetra into monsters, nearly wiping them all out, and that the wee few that remained basically had to be sacrificed to seal Jenova away before she could do anymore damage to all life on the planet. The notes Sephiroth finds within the Shinra Mansion seem to corroborate this version of events, as he tells Zack that the Cetra chose to fight the Calamity while the other humans “hid”, thus being spared Jenova’s shenanigans, allowing them to become the dominant race on the planet, but ultimately being cowards unworthy to be the shepherds of any star, to quote Emet-Selch from FFXIV. Stay with me now.

We also know that the notes Sephiroth reads within the Shinra Mansion do not, in any way, call Jenova the Calamity. They still refer to her as a Cetra. Meaning that those notes are outdated, before the discovery of a living Cetra, a Cetra who is 2000 years removed from her own people’s history. Right? So.

(’Ah, but what about Genesis point-blank telling Sephiroth the truth? He knew what was up!’ Yes, because Hollander and Hojo found out from Gast’s recordings, and Ifalna herself, what Jenova actually was, and then Hollander told Genesis, who then said some stupid ass shit to trigger Sephiroth into looking into the wrong information, and now Nibelheim is not Nibelheim anymore and Cloud is missing one more family member than he was when he joined Shinra. Also, fuck Genesis. Anyway.)

HOJO, yeah? Hojo, in two separate novels written by Nojima himself, states to Aerith and Tseng separately that Jenova 1) will inevitably infect all life on the planet with her “cells” because of the very nature of the Lifestream and 2) turned the Cetra against each other via subtle manipulation and illusions of their loved ones, dead or alive, conceived from their own memories. She didn’t show up looking like the Eldritch horror with the eyeball nipple, she showed up looking like a run-of-the-mill Cetra. And she would further disguise herself as people a Cetra knew in order to gain their trust. And then, after she had gained that trust, she would say shit like, “Hey. Your friend over there hates you,” or, “Hey. Your friend over there wants to kill you.” And thus the Cetra, at the very least morally but probably also physically, became monsters and tore themselves apart.

You ever wonder why everything the Cetra had was booby-trapped and hidden behind riddles and self-sacrificial bullshit like their Temple? My guess is because Jenova made it so they couldn’t trust anyone, even themselves.

“Why did I read all that? What does that have to do with Cloud voring Zack’s memories?”

Because we gotta understand the mechanics of this bitch first so that we know what to look out for.

Now, we have an alien in stasis--presumed dead but definitely not--and a buncha scientists who really want a coveted spot sucking President Shinra’s dick as head of the Science Dept. who all think that taking the genetic material of a Cetra and splicing it into a modern-day human’s DNA will give them a Geiger counter to the Promised Land. Which they want to use as fuel because only some of them really understand what mako is and the others are just fucking stupid. Anyway, my guess is that they archeology their way to Jenova’s still-kinda-alive corpse and do some DNA testing and go, “Ah! We’ve found a Cetra. It has to be one! She’s by the crater, after all, and that’s where some of them were nuked by a Meteor! :) We’re geniuses!” And Jenova, in the Lifestream, went, “GOTCHA, BITCH!”

And through the power of dino DNA, out pops a lot of nonviable lifeforms, some monsters, and, eventually, a relatively normal kid with a flare for the dramatic who will become wholly obsessed with apples and very boring literature that he will insist on repeating every five goddamn seconds. As he was no Geiger counter to the Promised Land, out pops another relatively normal kid who will grow up to have dreams, and honor, and steal food from his neighbors because he was so damn honorable that he just could not ask for a handout.

With Hollander and Gillian’s experiments not producing anything of note other than children that need love and support, Hojo and Lucrecia decide to take a slightly different sample of Jenova’s cells and just start sticking them everywhere. They’re in Lucrecia. They’re in Lucrecia’s fetus. And...something strange starts to happen.

Lucrecia starts to feel the effects of Jenova. Lucrecia’s mind and body start to kind of deteriorate. Not the way that Genesis’ and Angeal’s do later on, but she is plagued by shit like severe depression and fatigue. She falls out on the floor multiple times. Her bodyguard is a little late on pulling the trigger of the gun aimed at her husband and, instead of doing anything productive about her husband proving he’s an amoral murderous fuckhead, she just decides to play doll with her kinda undead bodyguard, get even sicker, and then, finally, pops out a very strange looking baby. In fact, he looks a little alien.

“No, seriously, what does this have to do with anything?”

Genetics. How Jenova cells work. Whatever clump of cells they injected into Lucrecia, clearly different from those used in Project G, seemed to focus more on the mental fuckery aspect of Jenova than the physical, shapeshifting aspect of Jenova. I would also argue that one of the reasons Lucrecia was so adversely affected by the cells and Gillian was not is their mental well-being. Gillian, even when we meet her, seems very upbeat and doing pretty okay despite her husband having died from exhaustion a coupla years back. Lucrecia was depressed and very subservient even before she married Hojo. Losing her mentor--Vincent’s father--probably exacerbated that. And, later in Advent Children, that sort of mentality--hopelessness and despair--is what Sephiroth’s Geostigma feeds off of. That and thoughts of death/dying. But that is more speculation than anything.

So, Sephiroth’s cells are different from Genesis’ and Angeal’s, and they were all three bred differently, but they’re all kinda chimeras of Jenova’s. And once Genesis learns about his origins, it’s like the lightbulb goes off. This guy’s creating clones by infecting his 2nd and 3rd Class SOLDIERs with his own cells. And when he does that, their physical appearance becomes his own. As does their will. Whatever Genesis wants, the clones also want. And then he just grows a wing for shits and giggles. Once he tells his BFF Angeal the sitch, behold! He’s got monster clones--maybe because he realizes how fucked up overwriting a human being with yourself is--and wings, too. ...Why?

The power to do all of this shit was always there. It was genetically always there. They just had to be made aware of it, to have the puzzle piece put into place. When Sephiroth dies, that puzzle piece is put into place. And then he starts fuckin’ with shit. And turns into monstrous angels. And then dies again. And then comes back and finally grows himself his own wing. He did it, fellas. He’s a big boy now.

But we’re not here to talk about Sephiroth--ignore how much I talked about Sephiroth and his mommies previously--we’re here to talk about ZACK and CLOUD.

“What’s up with Zack and Cloud?”

First, what we must realize is that even though Hojo says that both Zack and Cloud are failed clones because they 1) didn’t take on any physical characteristics of Sephiroth, 2) didn’t seem controlled by Jenova (or Sephiroth) and, 3) didn’t exhibit the other signs of a Reunion impulse like the other clones in Nibelheim that does not mean that Sephiroth’s cells, Jenova’s cells, are not working on them.

As we’ve observed in other 1sts, abilities do not always manifest immediately or even noticeably. Clearly, Sephiroth’s physical appearance is a bit of a hint, but Genesis and Angeal look pretty damn normal and, if it weren’t for their mako injections, they probably wouldn’t be showing that much of an increase in physical capabilities. Theoretically. Maybe 10-year-old Angeal had biceps the size of a man’s head. I mean. Pff.

Zack’s tolerance to Jenova was strong due to his previous exposure in the SOLDIER program. Cloud’s mind broke pretty early on. Neither of these results matter to the fact that they both now have Sephiroth’s cells within them--just as Genesis’ and Angeal’s clones had theirs--and that their very wills are now going to be affected by Sephiroth’s. But they are also going to be a little bit like him in terms of power.

Zack’s hair, when ingested by a Genesis clone, a clone of a Type-G SOLDIER, transforms that clone into a monster. Zack doesn’t even have to do anything. The Jenova/Sephiroth cells within his body can just Do That, cause that change in another life form, of their own accord. I’m honestly shocked that, whenever they gave Zack these S-cells, HE didn’t turn into a monster. But that’s neither here nor there. I wanna talk about Cloud.

Cloud has mako poisoning, which the Remake describes as his spirit/soul being stuck between his body and the Lifestream. Weird. Anyway, he’s not fully aware of his surroundings at all times, and he clearly can’t control his body that much. He somehow has the ability to kinda get his feet shuffling, and I’m going to go on a limb and say he can chew whatever food Zack gives him, but most of the time, he’s a puppet with cut strings.

But he is also still recovering from a mind break caused by Jenova cells. The same cells that are just chilling in his body, like they are in Zack’s. And all the months Zack is dragging his ass across a continent, an ocean, and another continent, they and Cloud are listening to whatever the fuck Zack is saying. Cloud is also constantly in physical contact with Zack.

In The Kids Are Alright: A Turks Side Story, Kadaj has the power to not only read surface thoughts and memories just by being near someone, but he can also read deeper ones by making physical contact with someone. Because Jenova. And Sephiroth, whose cells Cloud and Zack have, in the OG demonstrates that he, too, can glean thoughts and memories from others. Because Jenova.

If this power is a genetic trait, as it is with Genesis and Angeal, then, sitting pretty underneath their skin, Zack and Cloud have this ability. Dormant. Snoozing. Kinda like the 1st Class Trio’s wings.

But Zack has a high tolerance and a high ignorance to Jenova and just what he might be capable of. Cloud’s mind is floating in and out at best. He’s not in control of himself. And when you have a situation like that, it is very, very easy to come to the conclusion that Cloud’s Jenova cells are passively absorbing the memories of Zack’s time in Nibelheim. That they are knitting these memories together with what little remain in Cloud’s head. That when Tifa comes across Cloud at the train station and calls him by name and remembers who he is that Cloud’s Jenova cells latch onto those memories in Tifa--as Sephiroth tells them they did--and they knit those memories with Zack’s and Cloud’s and the end result is the man we get at the beginning of the OG.

Because Cloud has visual memory of shit he never saw. It’s not just a visual medium telling a visual story. You wanna know how I know that for a fact? Because, in the Remake, Cloud remembers Sephiroth walking up to Jenova’s tank in the reactor from Sephiroth’s perspective. He is looking through Sephiroth’s eyes, through his memory, up at “Mother.” In that moment in the Remake, Cloud is Sephiroth. He’s not Cloud anymore.

Cloud sees Sephiroth delivering the speech of being an Ancient. Cloud wasn’t there. Cloud didn’t see that. Zack did. That is Zack’s memory.

The man writing the Remake is the same man who’s been at the head of MOST FFVII writing. He was on the OG, he wrote Advent Children, he wrote the novels, he wrote Crisis Core, he’s writing the Remake. He knows what these cells can do because he’s crafted this world-building for decades.

Cloud didn’t take all of Zack’s memories. He didn’t need to. Kadaj, in the novel, doesn’t glean everything from someone right off the bat. Because he doesn’t need to. Only when he needs to learn something else does he go digging. The same is probably true for what Cloud’s cells most likely did to be able to know what he knows. Hell! Kadaj gets punched in the novel and he ACCIDENTALLY picks up the emotions and memories of the guy who punched him. He didn’t want ‘em but he got ‘em!”

There is evidence within the OG, and even more within the Compilation, that lend weight to the theory that Cloud unintentionally read Zack’s mind when it came to the events of Nibelheim.

For years, people have wondered, “How the hell does Cloud know that if he wasn’t there?” For years, people have wondered, “How can he use the Buster Sword if he was just a little grunt that used a gun all the time?” The logical answer is, “Because of his Jenova cells. They can just do that shit.”

#long post #ffvii #ffvii spoilers #zack fair #cloud strife #jenova #sephiroth #jesus christ i wrote a novel

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cagestark · 4 years ago

Text

The Rest it Kills

About this: ballerina!peter and mobster!tony. Starker. Physical and emotional between established quentin beck/peter parker.

THIS IS UNFINISHED. Anyone is welcome to continue it.

“FRIDAY, baby? Do you have the shot?”

It’s a celebration, which does nothing to explain why the room gets quiet as soon as Tony enters it. Around the table are four of his best and brightest, the handful of underlings that were instrumental in helping Tony execute his vision of how to repay Adrian Toomes for encroaching upon his weapons market. For a job well done, he’d invited them up to the penthouse to have at his expensive collection of spirits.

He’d left them alone for only a half hour to make a few calls, but now upon his return they were shifty eyed and babbling about something inconsequential, a sure sign that they had hastily changed the subject.

“Alright,” Tony says, pouring himself a glass of scotch. “Out with it. I’m a paranoid bastard at best. At worst?—well. Ask Toomes.”

“It’s nothing bad, Tony,” Rogers says. If the fact that Rogers hadn’t told a lie his entire life didn’t put Tony at ease, then his clear eyes and voice did. Rogers was his number two, and they got on thick as thieves. He’s about as likely to lie to Tony as the sun is not to rise.

“Then I’m not angry,” Tony says, taking the empty seat. “But now I’m curious. Which is worse?”

“Angry,” Wilson says in that deadpan way that Tony just adores.

“Come on, don’t leave me in suspense,” Tony says, finishing his scotch with a single gulp. He pours himself another.

It’s Romanov who—doesn’t break, per say. Tony isn’t convinced that there’s anything that could break Natasha, though if they were on opposite sides, he might have a few places he’d be willing to start. She must weigh the pros and cons and decide that letting Tony in on their little secret is the best move. Whether it’s best for her, for them, or for someone else, Tony can’t say.

She shifts and pulls out a piece of paper folded in half and tosses it across the table. Barnes and Rogers groan.

“Nat, you rat,” Barnes says.

“Wow,” she says, eyes glittering. “That rhymed, Bucky. It was beautiful.”

“What the fuck is this?” Tony wonders out loud as he unfolds the paper. It turns out to be nothing extraordinary. It’s a program for the New York City Ballet. The ballet is something new by Ratmansky, with principal dancers MAXIMOFF/PARKER. “Ballet? Taking up a new hobby, Barnes?”

“I thought I’d look great in the tights,” is all Barnes says. A deflection if Tony’s ever heard one.

“Their boy toy is the lead,” Romanov admits (to fresh groaning from around the table).

Tony’s eyebrows raise. “Boy toy? All three of you?”

“We are in the process of wooing him, so to speak,” Wilson admits, taking a swig from the bottle in front of him. “Barnes and Rogers might be willing to tag team him, but I want him all for myself.”

Rogers’s eyes flash, cold steel in the overhead lights. “Watch the way you’re talking about Peter. He’s not a piece of meat to be shared.”

“This is a goddamn episode of the Bachelor,” Tony laughs. “Which one is Peter: Maximoff or Parker?”

“Parker,” all four chime together.

“I feel like a father whose kids are going out on their first date. Are you buying him flowers? Are you opening the car door for him? Are you being safe?” Tony jests. He leans back in his chair feeling the warm thrum of the scotch in his stomach, glancing from one besotted man to the next.

“All that and more,” Barnes says. Then, with more than a little bitterness: “It’s the way he deserves to be treated.”

Tony lifts his brows. Natasha slides him the deck of cards so that he can shuffle. He’ll lose, especially once he’s as drunk as he hopes to be, but there’s no amount of money he could lose to them that wouldn’t amount to pocket change in his book. Consider it their bonus. As he deals, he asks, “Trouble in paradise?”

“You could say that,” Wilson mutters. “He’s not exactly on the market.”

“Never took you for a homewrecker, Rogers. Barnes maybe—“

“Hardly a home to wreck,” Barnes admits. “Not a happy one, at least. Pete’s boyfriend is a perverted, abusive low life.”

Tony goes stiff. The buzzing in his gut transfers to his brain, raw as the sizzle of electricity. In his mind, he sees himself as a young boy sitting cross-legged by the vanity in his mother’s room watching her apply creams and powders to disguise Howard’s abuse. All the heinous crimes Tony commits, that one is not among them. He doesn’t prey on the weak. It’s the only promise to his mother that he’s never broken.

“So, take care of him,” Tony says lowly. “Do you or do you not have certain skills and the balls to use them? You could kill this boyfriend and have it look like a hundred different accidents. What’s the problem here? Do you need daddy’s permission or something? Well, here, I’m giving it.”

Rogers scowls darkly at his hand. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Wouldn’t I? Regale me, then! Because it sounds to me like I’m sitting around the table with a bunch of pussies.”

“Peter asked us not to,” Barnes says.

Tony blinks. “Is—is that it? Good God. Definitely a bunch of pussies. Kill the bastard anyway. If you can’t stomach it; if you don’t want your boy toy mad at you, give me a name and I’ll do it. It can be done before we’re four rounds into poker, for fuck’s sake.”

“It’s not like we don’t have the stomach for it,” Wilson says. He’s the newest of their crew, but Tony appreciates his fearlessness, the open, unabashed expression he gives Tony when calling him out on perceived bullshit. “It’s about respect, man. We respect Peter’s wishes, and he trusts us because of it.”

The form of respect Tony is most acquainted with is fear. This softness he sees in his men right now translates to nothing short of weakness. Tony has never lived in a fairytale: the world is hard, and it makes hard people.

The rest, it kills.

“It’s complicated,” Rogers says to soothe Tony’s hackles. “If you knew the kid, you’d understand I think.”

“Now you’ve gone and done it,” Barnes mutters. There’s movement underneath the table: one person kicking another, everyone jolting to get their legs out of the way. Barnes looks like he’s sucked on a lemon, or taken a shot of Nat’s imported whiskey. “Now he’s gonna go see Pete for himself and none of us will have a chance.”

As it is, Tony doesn’t have to lift a finger to meet Peter because Peter comes to him.

Tony knows the benefit of giving his men a nice long leash.

He doesn’t have to. With them living in the Tower, it’s within his rights to keep surveillance on all of them; except he knows that distrust breeds distrust. Wilson, Romanov, Rogers, and Barnes have earned his trust. For that reason alone, he removed the wiretaps and cameras in their rooms upon their arrivals.

But it’s still his home, and he watches it. Closely. Tony has just poured his third glass of scotch when FRIDAY alerts him that there’s an unauthorized presence in the Tower.

“Unescorted?” Tony asks. His blood thrums—this is the most exciting thing to happen all day.

“Mr. Rogers and Mr. Barnes are the ones who granted him entrance using Mr. Roger’s passcode, and they appear to be returning to Mr. Rogers apartment, judging by the floor number selected in the private elevator.”

Tony rolls his eyes, relaxing back in his chair. “A fuck, baby?”

Tony has asked them not to entertain guests at the Tower without his authorization, but Tony was young once. He knew the thrill of breaking rules, how good forbidden, casual sex could feel. He wouldn’t put it past Rogers and Barnes to have grown bored, considering they’ve been dicking each other down since they were teens. Just thinking about twenty years of monogamy has his cock shriveling. If they’re just bringing home someone to bend between them and spitroast, Tony’s not going to bother abandoning his scotch.

“Judging by the young man’s level of inebriation, I would hope not.”

Groaning, Tony sets his scotch aside. He gives it a mournful glance while he steps into a pair of jeans and straps up. “I’m coming back for you, baby,” he whispers. “Wait for me. Take no other lover. Fuck, I hate wasting my humor on an empty room.”

“I’m here, boss,” FRI offers.

Tony rolls his eyes.

When he knocks on Steve’s (Steve and Bucky’s apartment, considering how much time Bucky spends there) at fifteen minutes ‘til midnight on a Thursday, he would usually expect a bleary-eyed blonde to crack the door open, a dark apartment the backdrop behind him. Instead, the door opens and light floods out into the hallway. Steve is dressed in his pajamas, that is to say that he’s wearing only a pair of pajama pants that cling to his hipbones for dear fucking life.

“FRI said there’s someone in my building and they’re drunker than I am. Don’t you know that’s a crime?” Tony asks, leaning against the doorframe. The cock of his hip emphasizes where his gun rests, but Steve’s eyes don’t even flicker to it.

Nonplussed, Steve just steps aside to give Tony room to enter.

Slumped on the sofa, bundled underneath a large blanket is a young man. Handsome, his face is a testament to masculinity: cut jaw, straight nose, flat brows and thin lips. The only hint of estrogen is the clear, smooth skin that looks like he’s never grown facial hair in his life. Right away, Tony places his bets that he knows who this kid is.

Peter Parker is resplendent, large brown eyes that blink sluggishly, dragging all over Tony’s figure like his eyes can’t decide where to rest. Sitting up, the blanket falls away and reveals his naked chest which Tony eyes with appreciation. He has the optimal figure for a ballerino, obvious strength that is lean and not bulky.

One of the thin lips is split, bruise blooming like the most tender flower beside his mouth. The wound opens when the kid’s mouth falls open.

“Ohmygod,” he slurs, elbows shaking from lack of strength. He collapses back onto the comfortable couch. “Tony Stark is here.”

Were he not so sobered by the kid’s appearance, the bruises and blood and the red-rimmed eyes and raw mouth, he might be charmed. Bucky appears dressed no more than Steve and Tony, a glass of water in his hand. He helps Peter sit up and coaxes him to drink from the glass. Every other sip, Peter gets distracted, gaping from naked chest to naked chest. At one point, he falls asleep propped up on Bucky’s shoulder.

“He’s not drunk,” Tony says, standing back with Steve while they watch Bucky try to coax the kid into consciousness. “Drugged?”

Steve hums. A muscle in his jaw jumps from how he’s grinding it. “It’s not the first time. Beck and Peter have different tastes in the bedroom. Peter has mentioned before that sometimes after their date nights, he wakes up sore.”

“Jesus fucking Christ. And you haven’t killed this guy, yet?”

Steve looks downright tortured. He does it well; Tony’s always thought of him as a bit of a melodramatic. “Peter would never see us again if we did. We have to decide between being around to support and protect him or not being around at all.��

“If Beck was dead,” Tony says coldly. “There’d be nothing to protect him from.”

“James,” Peter groans, losing and finding purpose again during the middle of the word. “Tony Stark is here!”

“In the flesh, kid,” Tony says, stepping forward. Peter’s eyes trace down Tony’s chest, tracing the matting of scars over his sternum before dipping over his abs (nowhere near as pronounced as Barnes or Rogers’s, but Tony does alright). The kid licks his lips. He can’t help but preen a little, winking at Bucky who is rolling his eyes. “

The curiosity has been planted like a seed deep inside Tony’s mind. It sprouts, soaking up thoughts until it’s the only thing he can think about, Peter Parker, principal dancer, owner of three of his best-men’s hearts.

It leads Tony here, to the best seats money can’t even buy at the Lincoln Center in Manhattan, dressed in his best tuxedo, dark eyes focused on the curtain that glows gold. His heart pounds when it withdraws on a dark, empty stage, though he hardly knows why.

By the end, he has a better idea.

There’s no hiding a single sharp line or sensual curve in the outfits they wear onstage, the pale tights and leotards. There is nothing soft about him save for his curls, but still he leaps and lands silent on his canvas-clad feet. The dance is obviously based around Maximoff’s character with Peter there as her supporting love interest, but even when the red-head bewitches the audience with her fouettés, Tony can’t take his eyes off of Peter’s figure, bowed at the edge of the stage and watching her with the sweetest supplication. When it is time for his own variation, he leaps and bows with a boneless grace that does more than take Tony’s breath away. It makes him hard. It makes him think about those long, strong legs wrapped around his waist while he gives the boy his cock. It makes him think about peeling those tights off and wrapping them around the dainty, pale wrists. It’s a good thing no one can see his erection behind the wall of his box seat when they all stand to give their ovation.

Peter bows and flushes, hand in hand with Maximoff before standing behind her sweetly while the entire place howls for her.

Tony thinks that maybe he’s starting to understand.

No one bothers him where he leans against the wall beside Peter’s dressing room door. Whether it is his reputation or his thunderous expression, he knows not, but he’s grateful for the lack of distractions while he eavesdrops on the conversation taking place inside the dressing room between Peter and a man Peter calls Quent.

—work harder in the gym. Have you been tracking your calories on the app we downloaded together?

Yes, Quent, Peter mumbles, barely audible through the walls.

All of them?

I said yes.

Don’t get defensive, babe. I had three different audience members come to talk to me about your figure tonight. It pisses me off too! If you’re ready to leave the industry—

You know I’m not.

Quentin sighs, the long-suffering sigh of an argument that has been often visited. I know. This is your dream. Poor baby. It must be so tough, loving a job that hurts you so much. But I’m so proud of you for pushing through, Peter, you know that, right? I just wish you were a little more grateful to me for trying to keep you on the right track. You treat me like the bad guy.

Peter doesn’t respond.

Is there anything you need before I go? How’s your back feeling? Your lifts looked a little strained towards the end.

Feels okay. I’ve got everything I need back at my apartment. I’ll go home and put my feet up.

You deserve it. Just don’t forget to use that app okay? There’s a rustle, a struggle, maybe Peter trying to pull away. But Tony’s always had an overactive imagination. Hey. Don’t be like that. I love you.

You too.

Peter. Say it right.

Tony slips away from the door before Quentin can come out. From his place around the corner, Tony still has decent vantage to put eyes on this man for himself. Average height, average weight. Fit enough—for a civilian. Tony’s hands positively ache for a gun. Though he’s carrying, he’s no fool. Now isn’t the time, nor the place.

Once he’s sure the man is gone and not returning, Tony makes his way back to the door. It’s time to meet this young talent from Queens (yeah, Tony read the brochure) for himself. But when Tony goes to lift his hand to knock, the door swings open.

Peter blinks in surprise. He’s dressed in gray leggings that look soft as cashmere, a NYDC hoodie on, sneakers on his feet. Spilling from the sneakers’ tops are black fuzzy socks, meant to keep his toes warm from the cold New York weather.

He’s limping.

And gaping. It never gets old, seeing the way his reputation precedes him. He loves the way the crowds part for him on the street, loves the way waiters and waitresses stammer and struggle to serve him, the way eyes grow wide like Tony is a god in the flesh.

Tony extends a hand. “I’m Tony Stark. It’s a pleasure to meet you; you’re a very talented dancer.”

“Hi,” Peter breathes, taking Tony’s hand. Tony grips gently, feeling like he’s liable to break bones, the kid’s so fucking delicate. And cold. But Tony knows the saying: cold hands, warm heart. He wonders what that makes him. Peter works to regain himself, saying, “Trust me, I know who you are. It’s so nice to meet you. Thank you—they didn’t tell me that anyone important was going to be in the audience.”

“They who?” Tony asks. “Your managers, or my men?”

Peter swallows, face draining of blood. As much as Tony likes these games, they aren’t as enjoyable when the worm on his hook is as pretty and polite as Peter is. He puts on his most charming (softest) smile and makes sure to ask, gesturing to the messy dressing room behind him, may I come in?

Nodding, Peter opens the door wider. They both ignore how he was clearly on his way out, a backpack in his hands. He sits it down carefully by the vanity where he applied his stage makeup and seats himself on the chair, nudging his shoes off. When he stretches the arches of his feet, he winces. Tony gives him a moment to settle, stepping around the tiny room and taking in the smells and sights. On one wall is a picture of Peter and Quentin, arms around each other, beaming.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter asks, voice quiet. Tony glances over at him. “Are your—men in trouble?”

“No,” Tony admits. “If they were, I certainly wouldn’t be here watching ballet; I’d be...busy.”

Peter sags in relief. The way his shoulders hunch throw his collar bones into sharp prominence where they peek out from the neck of his sweatshirt. “Oh thank God. They’re so nice, Mr. Stark, and I promise they don’t tell me anything about their—your work. James still insists that he works for some guy named Potts in New Jersey. Who’s Tony Stank, he asked me when I brought you up.”

Tony lets his lips twitch. “James’s middle name is Buchanan. Some call him Bucky. Tell him I said: now we’re even.”

Peter grins and it’s radiant. Tony feels an unsteadiness in his gut, like missing a step on the stairs or hearing a gunshot go off when he’s not been the one to pull the trigger. There’s just the gentlest stirring of jealousy when Peter mouths the name, Bucky, testing the way it tastes and wrinkling his nose in laughter.

“I can’t wait to see the look on his face,” Peter says. “Thank you, Mr. Stark.”

Now might be the time to offer to let the kid use his given name but—Tony’s kind of into it. A few more instances of Mr. Stark rolling off that polished tongue might have Tony hardening in his tux. “Take a picture for me,” Tony suggests, sitting down on the cozy loveseat that is opposite of Peter’s vanity.

“You said—you enjoyed the show?” Peter asks, demure. The sleeves of his sweatshirt pass his wrists and most of his palms, turning his hands into adorable little sweater-paws. When he reaches up to bite at a nail, the sleeve slips down past his tiny wrist. Tony could surely wrap an entire hand around that wrist and have more to spare.

“It was incredible,” Tony admits. “I don’t usually have the attention span to sit through longer shows, but I was hooked from curtain rise to curtain fall, kid.”

Peter flushes, not so much in embarrassment as he does from the pleasure of being complimented. The flush of the drunk, though it seems Peter’s poison of choice is praise. Tony can’t help but want to spread him out on the sheets in his bedroom and say the sweetest, filthiest things to see if he can get the kid hard with just his voice. “I’m so glad. There hasn’t been as much press; new shows are always a little slow to take off. Wanda really is something special, though. She spent a season overseas and came back with so much more grace and growth—”

“Did she do well tonight?” Tony asks, unbuttoning the top button on his jacket to reveal the trim waist and vest beneath. He realizes what he’s doing just as the words are coming out of his mouth. Tony is flirting with Peter, and his flirtation is a force of nature. “I barely noticed her. Couldn’t take my eyes off of you, kid. How the hell you manage to dance that way, I can’t fathom.”

Now the flush hints at being flustered. He soaks in the way Peter’s face darkens, the way he hides behind one of his hands as the praise makes his posture go soft and waxy. His voice is remarkably even when he says, “Lots and lots of practice.”

“Your hard work pays off. I was captivated. I could tell that my men were the same.”

That topic sobers Peter, who sits up straighter. His pretty face twists, the question mark clear, the confusion too genuine for Tony to take it disrespectfully. On the contrary, Tony finds his forthrightness attractive when he asks, “Why did you come tonight, Mr. Stark?”

“I came to see what it was about you that has my men so enthralled,” Tony admits. With the kind of power he has comes the freedom to be honest, even painfully, brutally honest, because repercussions are either minimal or nonexistent.

“Did you figure it out?” Peter asks. Tony can’t help but feel like the kid is asking him for the both of them: what is it so special about me? Yes, this boy is fragile. That can’t be overlooked. But inside of him there’s still a spark of spirit ready to alight at any moment, grateful for any tinder that it’s given. He’s not Maria Stark. Not yet.

“Yes,” Tony says, standing. He rebuttons his jacket. “And I’d like very much to get to know you better, if you’re agreeable.”

“Me?” Peter’s head cocks, squinting up at Tony like he’s trying to see through him, to see what is really being said. “Why?”

Tony is used to letting his baser instincts guide him. He fucks who he wants, goes where he wants, says what he wants, and he owes no one alive an explanation for it. Many people have stopped asking Tony questions like why? Certainly none of Toomes’s men asked Tony why when he was torturing them forty-eight hours ago.

“Because I want to,” Tony says. He reaches down and picks up Peter’s backpack, putting it over his shoulder, the canvas bag downright gauche against his Givenchy tuxedo. “So what do you say, kid? You look dead on your feet, but would you like to be dead on your feet somewhere more private?”

Peter takes a long moment to think about it before tucking his toes into his shoes.

He belongs there amongst the backdrop of Tony’s penthouse. Peter glances around with all the coltish wonder of a newborn, running his fingers across the genuine leather of the sofa, leaning forward to look at the smart-glass table that Tony likes to prop his feet up on at night. Upon entering, Tony removes his tuxedo jacket and takes Peter’s hastily-removed sweatshirt. He appreciates the four inches of skin that appear when his shirt rides up, sticking to his outerwear.

He doesn’t appreciate the yellowing bruises dotting the kid’s biceps. Fingertips, he knows. His mother wore them round her neck like pearls.

“Is it okay if I take my shoes off?” Peter asks. He limped from the theater to the car, from the car to the elevator, and from the elevator to the couch where he collapsed with a sigh of relief. When Tony encourages him to, Peter nudges off his comfortable shoes and brings one foot up into his lap where he firmly presses his knuckles into the sole.

Peter asks for a drink. Tony gives him access to his wine, and the kid chooses for himself: a red, Chateau Margaux that smells of rose petals and hints at citrus and turns Peter’s cheeks pink. He doesn’t ask for a second glass, and Tony doesn’t offer it; the last thing he wants is the kid to think that Tony invited him here to take advantage of him.

“Tell me,” Tony asks, watching with rapt attention the faces Peter makes, like he’s dancing on the knife’s edge between pleasure and pain. “Tell me how you met my men. They aren’t exactly patrons of the arts.”

Peter’s face smoothes and he smiles. “It was Natalie, actually. She comes to shows every so often; I think her and one of the instructors know each other. Sometimes, she sponsors promising dancers.”

Romanov. Her and this instructor must truly know each other for her to be using a cover name around them. He files all this away in the darkest parts of his mind, should she ever become a problem someday. Tony has places reserved in his brain for all of his closest allies; already, he is making one for Peter too. Trust is earned but ever ephemeral.

“So Nat introduced you?”

“Yes. She sponsored me for a while, so we got to know each other pretty well. Once I mixed up my days and showed up at her condo when I wasn’t supposed to, and I met the others. Sometimes they would come to shows or send me gifts backstage.” Peter frowns. “I asked them to stop though because—Quent would just throw them all away.”��

“Quentin Beck.”

“How’d you know?”

Tony just smiles and changes the subject. “You must know that the three of my men are half in love with you.”

Peter groans, pressing both his palms flat to his heated cheeks. “I had a feeling they were...interested. I hope they don’t feel that I’ve led them on, Mr. Stark. Nothing untoward happens at all when we’re together; sometimes I, I meet Steve and James for dinner, or other times Sam comes over to my apartment and we just talk, I promise. They’re so kind and it’s—it’s nice to have people to talk to.”

Peter stops talking abruptly, mouth open. He lets it fall closed with a click. When Tony prods him gently, he admits, “The attention is nice, too. It feels good, feeling wanted. Does that make me bad?”

Tony wonders what kind of miserable asshole would have Peter in his bed at night and not show the kid attention. It takes a special fuck-up to come home to a lover like Peter and not make him feel wanted. “Wanting attention? Not at all, kid. It’s the least of what you deserve.”

“You sound like them,” Peter says, smiling. “James and Steve and Sam. They’re always doing and saying nice things and telling me that I deserve them.”

“Good,” says Tony, one side of his mouth curling upwards. “I feel like a proud father; I’ve taught them well. Should you have those elevated?”

“Sorry?”

“Your feet. Elevation will keep down the swelling.” Tony places one of the expensive throw pillows on his lap and pats it invitingly. Peter stretches out without anymore prompting, toes flexing as his joints pop before curling in. The kid makes for an indecent picture, all long lines, absolutely nothing hidden by the leggings he wears.

“I asked them if I could meet you, you know,” Peter admits. He’s red from far more than the wine, now, judging by the way he has one hand pressed over his eyes to shield him from Tony’s gaze. As if it’s possible to. Peter peaks through his fingers. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Mr. Stark, but I’ve had a crush on you for ages.”

A crush. God. Tony doesn’t know what’s more hilarious, the sweet naivete of this boy or how it makes his cold heart flutter. Tony’s eyebrows raise. “Is that so? I’m not exactly crush material for the mentally stable.”

Peter hums. “When I was a kid, I had a lot of bullies. I started dancing when I was four years old, and not a lot of other boys understood. Sometimes, I used to daydream about you coming to protect me from them. To put them all in their place and then whisk me off to that house you gave a tour of on TV once, the one in Malibu.”

“Good taste,” Tony says. “You know, I used to do the same thing when I was young. I dreamed about someone coming to protect me and my mother, to take us both away somewhere where no one could ever hurt us.”

Sitting up on his elbows, Peter fixes Tony with a serious, solemn stare. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Is that what happened?”

“No. I became that someone. What happened to you?”

“I guess I gave up on the idea,” says Peter.

“Look. Maybe you don’t have your crush on me anymore, but I’m not the kind of man who can look away from innocent human suffering. My men told me about your boyfriend.” Peter sags back onto the couch and puts his face in his hands. He shakes his head from side to side, though no words come out. “This is my offer, kid. Let me take care of the problem. Let me be that knight in shining armor you wanted when you were younger.

#starker #cagewrites #unfinished fic #tw: abuse #ballerina!peter #mobster!tony

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thekidultlife · 4 years ago

Text

100 Things I Learned About Love | Vernon!Android AU

Pairing: Hansol Vernon Chwe x female!reader

Genre: SCI FI!! Action, Romance, Angst(?)

Word Count: 22.2k (yes another giant fic)

Warnings: A bit of death and gore

A/N: Well, I’m gonna say sorry first to the anon who requested a vernon android au when we were just starting this blog (like three yrs ago) and I only managed to finish it now;;

So this fic is a continuation (and is in the same universe) of the Jihoon Android AU The Coldest Human; The Warmest Robot. It is primarly inspired by the book “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick and the anime “Beatless”. This one here has also elements from Huxley’s “A Brand New World” (because I just love reading dystopian novels for some reason). I kind of mashed everything together to create the world!

This will be the 2nd part of a four part series! Next would be Soonyoung’s story and then finally Joshua’s! This series kind of explores the whole world I created for it. Jihoon’s story introduced the whole world and the relationship between android and creator, while Hansol’s story explores the world of bounty hunters! I still haven’t decided fully with what to do with the rest but I hope you enjoy this one!!

Tag List: @haotheheckk, @smthingabtlove!! (because they asked to skskks)

If mornings had any color, it would be a disgusting green. Afternoons, electric orange. Midnights, as dark as crude oil. Cities were built upon lines of flickering yellow, as streets were colored with the void of space; dark, desolate, and meaningless.

Society is tinted with the same shades of emptiness. Dressed in uniform white body suits—hair covered entirely as it was deemed unhygienic—only the face bore the resemblance of the classic human being, as if it was a mask. Serene smiles and polite gestures were exchanged almost to a hundred times; laughter was hollow and chemically induced, as with tears and frowns. Frivolity and superficiality were the main trends.

As what they appear to be, is what they are actually are.

Welcome to the West Martian colony!

“Here ya go. The case’s now yours, doll,” your boss tossed a folder filled with papers on the polyester table. “Choi quit a few days ago after retiring Woozi.”

Your head perked up immediately as soon as you heard the news; disbelief painted on your face.

“What? Why?” you asked, standing up with mouth agape. He was one of your idols, your role models; the reason why you went into this line of work.

“He’s not talkin’, doll. Sadly. Told me it’s personal. But can’t blame him really, this business is gettin’ old.”

Your boss with his thinning hair and scotch-tapped broken glasses, sipped from a coffee stained mug; seemingly too overused for years of constant coffee drinking.

Yet you loved this place—this pseudo-police department home to bounty hunters of West Mars, with its crumbling brittle plastic window blinds and its moldy paper odor—all a different world than that of the city around it. You loved how it was like something straight from an Earth comic book; classic, rustic, and homey; a sheer contrast to the minimalist style of the new century.

“So what do we have here? Some andy from the Orion branch?”

A finger flipped through the factsheet with brows raised and lips in a tiny pout as you scanned the information laid before you. There were several official photographs of the unit after it was made, but none were security cam shots.

“So, from the organization…SVT-class Type-12 Vernon. The name’s too Western.”

Your boss shrugged. “The org’s just pastin’ names on their andys like butter on bread, dolly.”

“Guess so. But this Vernon just looks someone my age,” you remarked, munching on the biscotti within your arm’s reach.

“It’s an andy, YN. A hundred years, and it’ll still look the same. Now off ya go, better start retiring ‘em or you’re gonna get retired first.”

Sighing, you stood up and brushed the crumbs off your skinny jeans. Bending over, you picked up your briefcase filled with a laser gun and a V-T scale equipment as you bid your boss a short goodbye.

In reality, you didn’t want to leave the home base.

One particular reason was that you’d be taking the hovercraft and start cruising around the godforsaken city, not that it believes in any god for as long as you could account for. The city was an abomination, a stubborn mulish creation born out of rejection of the old, ancient ways—ways that had led to the destruction of the Earth, ways you still hold on to despite migrating to Mars. Despite being physically present, and even born in the red planet, you knew your heart was still back on Earth. You were proud to be to be human, with ancestry from the noble home planet, and everything which diminishes humanity is your enemy.

—you paused.

Lips parted, eyes transfixed.

A thousand snowflakes suspended on the air as if you were in a colony-sized snow globe. You continued to wonder, because you had never before seen snow in its truest, purest form, and everything you knew about them was from data gathered on Earth.

You removed your glove to touch one floating. It was cold, you shivered. However, it did not melt as you expected it to be as it only glistened against the dark backdrop of the city night like holographic particles.

“What the—!”

As if deliberately cutting you off, the hovercraft swiveled across the air, its power flickering on and off until it was unable to balance itself, swerving up and down across the night sky. You held on to the metal rails, as the turbulence brought you to your knees, the alarm systems of the vehicle blaring on your ears.

“Fucking hell…!” You cursed, grabbing your laser gun as the vehicle plunged you towards the empty streets of the city. Fortunately enough, you were trained to encounter these sorts of problems and thus, you were able to jump towards the nearest rooftop before the hovercraft exploded upon impact to the asphalt road.

Sighing, you watched the flames burn plastic and metal as if you couldn’t believe what you had just experienced. Well, of course it was unbelievable. So far, the only adventure you had experienced in your whole life was your day-to-day job of ‘retiring’ andys, which could get a bit messy but those were on balmier days. Normally, it wouldn’t get pass you to laser a hole on an andy’s head, but if you’re doing it like ten to twenty times a week, it could get boring.

Bam—!!

Your thoughts were placed in a halt as several other hovercrafts continued to fall from the sky like shooting stars, except that people could get killed. But havoc proceeded as it did, where lines of self-driving cars suddenly powered on and chased after human beings who had heard the crash and checked what had happened.

“What the fuck is happening?” you whispered, eyes peering on the alley beneath you. Hopping on several rooftops and sliding down the gutter towards the ground, you cautiously approached the main road, seeing if there was anyone who was in trouble. Luckily, there wasn’t anyone loitering around at this hour anymore.

You checked your intercom for any news or announcements from your home base or from the AI government, yet there was none. As it were, your intercom was actually having trouble projecting a hologram or following any of your commands seemingly halfway hacked.

“Dammit, I couldn’t get hold of HQ,” you grumbled, running towards a nearby police android to alert its human command center. “Hey, could you get in touch with your district station? It’s getting chaotic here.”

Yet the android only stared at you, its eyes blank as if you were a mere holographic image. The artificial smile on its face, which was made to comfort humans interacting with it, seemed more sinister than welcoming. The prolonged silence causing your heart to thump in anxiety.

“Hey? You heard me? Tell the—”

“Hi there. I’m Akiro. What can I do to help you?” It’s human voice making shivers crawl down your skin.

“I said, alert the district station! Haven’t you detected the level of violence—”

“Hi there. I’m Akiro. What can I—Hi there. I’m Akiro—Akiro—Hi—Hi there. H-H-H-Hi-i-i-i—”

The malfunction was obvious in its speech. It wasn’t unusual for an android to malfunction but when it began moving closer and closer to you, you took a step back, dread treading on your spine. Androids made you uneasy as humans once felt ill at ease with clowns—its artificial expressions making its lack of a soul even more prominent, triggering your fight or flight response.

It continued to move towards you until a snowflake dropped on its head, stopping as if it was suddenly glued to the ground. You hesitantly walked closer to it, inspecting its dead eyes to see if it had returned to normal. Raising an arm, you reached for its control box hidden behind its neck.

It grabbed your wrist, without warning. You gasped and began struggling to release yourself from its vice grip, yet you knew how strong androids were.

“Fuck it!”

“Hi there—Hi—I’m A-A-A-Aki-Akiro,” the android continued talking as if its movements were controlled by a remote system.

You moved to reach for your laser gun at your back pocket but the android was swift enough to twist your arm in a lock on your back. It pushed you to the ground as you grit your teeth at the scrapes on your knees and elbows, but you couldn’t break free.

“What can I do to help you?”

You groaned. “Maybe letting go of my fucking arm?”

Gathering your wits, you pushed yourself off the ground, rolling sideways and then kicking the android who was thrown off-balance with your two feet. As it fell to the ground, you grabbed your laser gun and without hesitation, pulled the trigger to blast off its processor.

As the headless android dropped to the asphalt, you sighed in relief as the adrenaline continued to pump into your veins, breathing heavily from all the action. You didn’t understand why the android was behaving out of its initial program and attacking you, a human, who it was supposed to protect.

While you were resting, the glaring headlights of a self-driving car were flashed towards your direction.

Disoriented, you froze to the ground as you tried to make do of your situation and surroundings. However, just like the android, the car sped right towards you in its maximum speed, as if it was trying to kill you. As soon as you heard its tires screech, you willed yourself to move away as the car missed you in just a few centimeters—throwing you to the ground and slammed itself towards the nearby wall.

Without even letting you take a breath, an arm was encircled around your neck, making you unable to breathe; its grip tightening gradually. Two other androids—one a police android, the other a personal helper—faced you with their blank stares as if they were zombies ordered to kill any human on sight.

The helper android had your laser gun on its possession as it slowly aimed it on your head. Panic rose as you tried to remove the arm locking you in place. Mentally, you were cursing at how you had underestimated the situation and let yourself die under the hands of goddamn androids.

Silently, the android pulled the trigger and you braced yourself for impact.

Except it didn’t come.

Your eyes were forced open when you heard the sound of metal dropping to the ground. What you saw had your eyes widen in astonishment as another small disk stuck itself on the police android’s head and split it into individual pieces. In a few seconds, you were dropped onto the ground, choking on your knees as the pieces of the android holding you fell into heaps next to you.

“Are you okay?”

A warm voice asked as a hand was offered to you. You looked up to see doe-like eyes gazing at you with a curious but a worried expression. His slightly curly caramel colored locks fell to his forehead softly as if it were made of the finest materials.

You nodded silently, still stunned by everything happening around you.

When you didn’t take his hand, the mysterious man carried you on his back as he walked you away from the site. While you were being carried, you noticed how he was ‘destroying’ the approaching rogue androids with a disc-like device which would stick on their skin and eventually ‘disassembling’ them to several parts.

“W-who are you…?” you finally asked, your voice returning despite still being painful.

Grabbing another disk from his pocket, the guy hurled it towards an incoming self-driving car which had it stopping, its parts detaching themselves automatically.

“I’m called Hansol. The snowflakes are nanobots which hacks the AI in androids and cars and drives them into killing humans. Unfortunately, I don’t have the capabilities to stop it,” he replied, his voice kind of removed, which had you wondering if he was an android or not. “Though I think Jihoon can.”

“Then…this…this will all continue?” you asked unbelievingly. You didn’t want it to continue, of course. More people would die and you still weren’t sure to what extent the casualties are because of this sudden outbreak.

“The snowflakes will lose its power when its controller is far away. So far, Joshua is already gone from this area.”

“Joshua? An android?”

“Yeah. SVT-class Type-03 Joshua. We came here together, and I tried to convince him out of it, but he wants to test out his abilities.”

Having enough evidence, you pushed yourself away from Hansol and landed safely on the ground with an abhorrent look on your face.

Aiming your laser gun at him, you shouted. “You’re an android too, aren’t you?”

Hansol simply gazed at you with his piercing eyes—tempting you to retract your accusation.

“Yes, I am. SVT-class Type-12 Vernon,” he replied, then looking down on the ground as he scratched his nape. “I like the name Hansol better though, so I want to be called Hansol from now on.”

You grinned. Your prey presented itself right in front of you without you giving an ounce of an effort.

“I’m supposed to retire you, you know?” you remarked, still aiming the gun at him. “And I will.”

Hansol stared at you with a frown on his lips, obviously disliking the fact that he was about to ‘die’ tonight. In fact, he didn’t want to die. He had a lot of things he wanted to do, so many questions yet unanswered.

“I’m…I…I don’t know how to plead. The data is incomplete in the cloud, but, um…don’t shoot me…please,” Hansol replied as he raised his arms.

You were obviously taken aback by his plea. You couldn’t count how many androids begged for their lives because there were none. He was the first one who ever did it.

Shaking thoughts of doubt, you tried to reason with yourself.

Androids don’t plead. They escape. Kill.

The most efficient way out is what they do.

“How am I supposed to believe you?” you shouted back; your finger threatening to press on the trigger. “You might be using analog hack for all I know.”

He scratched his nape again, unable to give an appropriate answer. “Well…I guess I could only ask you to trust me.”

You laughed sarcastically. You have never seen an android use deception so badly.

“If that’s too much to ask, then I guess this is it,” he continued, looking at you again straight into the eyes with his evocative gaze.

You just couldn’t believe what you were hearing. For all the years you spent hunting androids, never had you encountered one who had basically given up without any chase or struggle, especially from one who had every capability to squash you like an ant. You couldn’t help the itch to ask.

“Why? Why give up?”

Hansol shrugged, his gaze on the yellow lines outlining the faraway city buildings. “If I fight back, I will hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

You gazed right into his eyes for a moment, trying to gauge the truth in his words, trying to calculate if he was using analog hack against your weakness as a human being. You dislike androids but never had you seen one like him.

“How should I know that?” you shouted again; laser gun still aimed at him. “Using tricks like reverse psychology…I’ll give you an A+ for creativity.”

“I’m not lying,” the android instantly replied. “If you have to kill me, then there is nothing I could do. I made a vow to myself never to hurt humans because that’s the right thing to do. I don’t want to see anyone suffer because of what I did. For some reason, it pains me as well.”

If only you could see how wide your eyes were, or how your lips parted in disbelief the moment you heard him. It almost gave you goosebumps. The air that hung underneath his every word felt so real and heavy that you would have never thought it was uttered by a mere android.

Androids and morality? Fucking hell…who would’ve thought you’d string those words together in the same sentence.

He was more human than most people living in the city. An android—known for their lack of soul; born only to be enslaved by their own programming; without their own thoughts, their own convictions.

But here is one in front of you, willing to die for his own principles; saying it pains him to see you hurt. That is not what androids do. Not in a million years.

What the hell is he then?

You threw your arms up in the air and tucked the laser gun in its holster as you made one big, ugly groan.

“Oh fine! Fuck it! I give up!”

Whether or not he will run away or he will kill you, you didn’t care anymore. It was a risk. You blame your biological flaw to see human traits in objects if he ever did harm you, but whatever, you decided to trust him.

With a small smile and a tiny huff, Hansol walked towards you slowly.

Heart hammering against your chest, you were deathly afraid that he might twist your neck or blast a hole through your chest. You couldn’t be so sure with these androids.

As soon as he had reached you, Hansol placed a hand on top of your head; your eyes squeezed tightly shut as if trying to brace for something bad coming. Yet as soon as you felt his hand, you opened your eyes and gave him a quizzical look.

He only smiled.

“Thank you for trusting me.”

The following morning was the same as ever. Except, not.

“—last night which appears to be a massive AI hack on neighboring Sectors 3, 4 and 7—“

With eyes heavy and a cup of coffee, you pressed another button.

“—71 people dead and more than a thousand injured, hospitals are in full capacity as of the moment—“

Another press of a button.

“—and take a deep breath. Happiness is found within Mercer as we continue to ascend up on the hill—“

“What a load of crap,” you muttered, turning to another channel. It was still six in the morning and you were already in a painfully awful mood. It could’ve been easily fixed with a Penfield Mood Organ but that was another can of shit you’d rather not touch with a ten-foot pole.

“—Mrs. Kim?”

You hadn’t caught on with what the news anchor was asking Mrs. Kim, but you could already take a gander that it was definitely about last night.

“My husband…He was just…he was truly a hero,” Mrs. Kim answered, wrecked by staggered sobs and sniffling of noses. You continued to watch, wondering what had happened to Mr. Kim—crushed by a car? Ran down by a flaming rogue hovercraft? Murdered by an andy?

“Your husband a hero, Mrs. Kim?” The interviewer repeated, coaxing the other for details. You waited for the dramatic reply after Mrs. Kim had settled herself down from the crying fit she was having.

“Yes…someone was stealing our ducks last night—“

You paused.

“During the whole chaos?”

“Yes, sir,” she sniffed and you rolled your eyes. “He—he tried protecting them yet they murdered him! Those bunch of foul-hearted bastards! Our ducks! Our Muscovy ducks…they were fifty grand a piece—“

You switched the TV off, now more tired and irritated than you were when you had turned it on about an hour ago. If you were asked to name one trend which just tasted like shit to you, that would probably be the current craze over owning animals. The whole Mercerism thing was only running second to that.

“I, uh…made some pancakes,” a foreign but familiar voice interrupted your thoughts, making you turn your head towards the doorway. With your eyes set upon Vernon, or Hansol, as he liked to be called, you instantly recalled what had happened last night.

You wondered if your brain disappeared that time or your common sense simply deteriorated because there was no way you would let a half-a-million-dollar bounty money just run free. Not to mention that he has all the capabilities to decapitate you in a millisecond.

Inwardly groaning, you gave him a small glance as he waited for your response with sheer curiosity. At least he followed you to your apartment and now you have a free housekeeper.

But that was last night, this was today. You can certainly do something about it, but you weren’t really in the mood for it. A headache was threatening to split your brain into half and racking your brain about the moralities and the whys of your decision last night wouldn’t really help anyone.

“Oh, right, right,” you replied absentmindedly, removing yourself from the cover of your flannel blanket and walked towards the dining room of the small apartment your meager earnings could afford.

It was a simple place. White walls, dirty carpet, and a worn-out sofa which had seen better days. Kitchen was slightly okay—the once white tiles now yellowed with age; the grout covered in black mold of unknown origin. The view was horrendous; covered up by dark globs of factory shadows and the ever-present rumbling of the monorail as it passes by.

Being a bounty hunter wasn’t exactly a glamorous job. It wasn’t like you were the police, who, as a matter of fact, are now mostly made up of androids. A bounty hunter does the nitty-gritty jobs the police wouldn’t do; such as hunting androids. Yet you liked this job. Even if it was stupidly exhausting.

Settling on your chair, you gazed at the expertly done pancakes and bacon, sending wonderful scents of home to your senses. You wondered why you had never thought of getting a helper android for yourself with how convenient they are, yet considering the fact that one helper was an inch away of killing you last night, it was better that you hadn’t.

“I hope you like them,” Hansol said, placing a bottle of maple syrup on the table. “I searched the cloud and it says you liked pancakes and bacon.”

Awkwardly, you nodded at him and then looked down on the piping hot breakfast on your table. You continued to gaze at it, the burnt patterns on the pancake beginning to take form of an image in your head, and then back at Hansol who was just standing at the side.

“You don’t like it?” he asked, as soon as he noticed the blank look on your face, curious if the cloud made some mistake.

“N-no! It’s…it’s fine,” you replied, waving your hands to and fro. “I just, um…are you just going to stand there?”

Hansol raised his brows at your question, his doe eyes widening just a bit. “Ah, me? Yeah. Isn’t this the right way?”

“The right way?” you asked, your forehead creasing.

“Yeah, the right way. I’m an android so I can’t sit with you. I heard from the cloud.”

“Why not?”

Hansol shrugged, the kitchen towel in his hands hanging. “Heard it’s inappropriate according to human table etiquette. Besides I don’t need to eat and I don’t really get tired.”

Sighing, you rolled your eyes at his response. “Human standards, what a load of bull. You just standing there makes me uncomfortable. So, you either sit down or you scram.”

You could tell that he was definitely taken aback, and began wavering if he should follow you or not. In the end, Hansol was forced down on the chair in front of you with a nervous look, awkward in his seat as you continued to stare at him.

Finally acknowledging that everything was alright, you began to drip maple syrup on your pancakes. The android was only watching you and your actions—very typical android behavior; gathering data from its surroundings.

“So, you’re Hansol?” you began, slicing through the three-tiered pancake tower with a knife.

“Yeah. Vernon is my model name, but I want to go by my own name.”

You raised your brows at him, biting into a forkful of food. “Cool. You picked that name on your own?”

“Yeah. It was the name of a musician I liked, so I took it.”

“Oh,” was the only thing you could say, because deep inside your head, you were already in a state of confusion.

For all the years working as a bounty hunter, this was the first time you’ve ever seen an android want to name himself after a musician he liked. Hell, this was your first time seeing an android have preferences. Usually, they would reflect the preferences of the human being they were talking to, but you haven’t even said anything about yourself to him other than your name.

No. He probably accessed the cloud or something. Androids of his caliber usually have better access to the place data miners dump people’s personal information.

Is this how advanced the Nexus 9 really is? If so, this could potentially cause a stir among bounty hunters. If they can’t identify their prey, things could potentially end up disastrous.

“You do know I’m assigned to retire you? Or kill you, to be exact. Not sure why we’re still using euphemism towards damn machines but whatever,” you pushed on, curious of how he would respond, thinking if there was anything more to the Nexus 9.

“Yeah, you told me last night,” he replied immediately and at the most flippant way; as if he wasn’t talking about being killed by the person in front of him.

“And…you’re not worried?” you asked, eyeing him up and wondering what was currently running in his processor. “I could just whip out my laser gun and fire a hole through your head while I eat this pancake, you know?”

Hansol leaned his head to the side, looking as if he was trying to process an answer to your question.

“I’m not worried. I mean, if you wanted me dead, you would’ve done it already,” he replied, as a matter-of-fact.

“What if I’m just too lazy to do it today? I could do it any other day I want, any time I want, and the thing is, you robots can’t even predict it with your fancy algorithms,” you smirked at him, your prejudice against androids showing through.

Yet even with your provocations, Hansol remained calm.

“It doesn’t matter. The fact that you haven’t done it yet means a lot to me. That’s why I trust you.”

At his answer, you simply frowned; unamused that he rebutted you with a good response and by the time he replied, you had already ran out of rocks to throw at him. So, in the end, you simply scoffed and finished your pancake, leaving him by the dining table with an irate glare.

Hansol watched your retreating back as he began to clean up the mess on the table. He was truly being honest with his words—he trusted you, and if he dies at your hands, well, that was it. Even though he didn’t really want to think of that possibility.

It was strange that the thought of you betraying his trust hurt more than the thought of dying.

“I’m going to work now. Don’t even think about leaving this place,” you told him as soon as you returned from the bedroom, all geared up. “There are other bounty hunters out to get you, and I don’t want them to get my bounty money.”

Silently, Hansol nodded as he saw you pick up your work equipment and your laser gun in a manner that seemed routine. Before you took another step further however, you stared into his eyes, thinking, pondering what you were about to do.

Slowly, you raised your arm and allowed the laser gun on your hands to unfold, pointing towards his direction. You saw the crosshairs between his doe-like eyes—an image you frequently saw seconds before you blow a hole through an andy’s processor. A decision made in a fraction of a second can ultimately change your life—that if you simply pressed the trigger within your grasps, Hansol would no longer move, or talk, or look at you with evocative gazes.

At that moment, you had all the power between “life and death”, as he unquestioningly relinquished it all to you by simply standing there in his spot in front of the kitchen counter.

Hansol felt himself tense up despite his calm exterior. He could already see it, just after thinking about the possibility, yet he never thought reality felt more painfully sharp than his thoughts were.

Your fingers brushed against the trigger. Just one press and he will be gone and you will be rich. Just another day as a bounty hunter. Could you do it?

You sighed.

In the end, you lowered your gun and turned to the other direction as if nothing had happened.

“I’ll be late for work,” you simply remarked, more to yourself than to anyone and then left him there in the kitchen, still stunned. You wondered if your shoulders felt burdened because of the heavy gun or because of the decision you just made.

Quick footfalls echoed across the dreary hallway.

The place stunk like hospital antiseptic and muriatic acid; matching the dim-lit atmosphere illuminated by only a few incandescent bulbs hanging every two meters. There were glass windows every so often, and if you took your time to peer through, you would see rows and rows of human-sized cylinders filled with a greenish liquid; all connected by wires the size of your torso to a place you simply assumed was the power supply.

“What an ironic place to hide for an andy,” you remarked as you looked around. Your partner this time, by the name of Morrison, scoffed amusingly at your comment.

“Who would’ve guessed they’re in a fertilization plant?”

You frowned. “What a gloomy place to be born in.”

Exactly as the name suggested, fertilizations plants ‘manufacture’ children. While that is as disgusting as you thought it was, that is the reality of the world you live in. While there are a few rare exceptions, people no longer have sex—it was too animalistic, too impure of an act to participate in.

Thus, the solution to a declining population is just to make babies just like how factories make your easily reproducible mug sitting on your kitchen counter. You couldn’t even deny the awful truth that you were made in one of these factories (you know, just like your mug). And more disappointingly, there was truly no ethical problem, because the world today only worships one god: Purity, in its coldest and most cruel manifestation.

In the end, aren’t we simply androids as well? Just made up of blood and guts?

“So? Have you caught on to that SVT andy yet?”

Morrison suddenly asked, dragging you back from your inner thoughts. You took a double take.

“The what—?”

“The SVT-class andy,” he clarified, “you know, the Vernon one.”

The mere mention of his model name made you purse your lips in annoyance. If only you could say that he was in your apartment doing some arbitrary thing an android would do if they were left alone.

“Still nothing. I was supposed to do an initial search last night but after being caught in all that chaos, I just went straight home,” you lied, having no choice. There was no way you would let everyone know you have something worth half a million bucks in your dingy, totally unsecure apartment.

“Well, no one could have it easy with these military grades. They’re craftier than your average andy after all,” he shrugged, giving you a pat on the shoulder. “Remember when Choi Seungcheol took almost three months to locate SVT-class Woozi? Man, I could still remember coming with him to a dozen places just to look for leads.”

As soon as Morrison reminisced memories with the former chief, you feel a bit heavy hearted. You did look up to him as your hero.

“You ever knew why he left?” you asked.

Morrison only shrugged. “Some say he just got tired of this awful job. Some say he was getting married. Most of them are just gossip anyway.”

You only sighed. “I guess we might never know the truth.”

“C’mon! Choi wouldn’t want you depressed! Straighten those shoulders! We have an andy to face!” your partner smiled, again giving a strong shove on your back. “Today’s just a commercial grade escapee. It wouldn’t be that hard. Peyton had it already detained and ready for questioning.”

Sucking in a huge amount of air and exhaling loudly, you prepped yourself up for some wonderful, heart-palpitating action.

“Alright! Let get it!”

As soon as the both of you entered the room, which was definitely a locker room prepared by the factory staff for your visit, you could already see the subject sitting quietly in front of a steel table; a dim white bulb only giving light to the gloomy room. It was definitely a classic cult-style interrogation room you’ve seen in vintage silent films.

“Good day to you sir,” Morrison greeted as he set his fedora on top of the table and prepped his V-T scale. “I am Agent Will Morrison. You are under suspicion of being an android and we will be administering this test to confirm it or not.”

“I told him so many times already! I’m being framed! The manager hates me and he’s been spreading those rumors!” the man screamed, his face heavy with fear and anxiety.

“We’ll see. If that’s the truth, then there’s no need to worry,” you retorted back with a clipped tone.

You then placed your hands on his shoulders, asking him to wear specialized VR glasses and then carefully arranging the electrodes attached to a spectrometer on his face.

“Settle down now. You don’t want to affect the test results, right?”

At your cleverly concealed threats, the man stopped his outbursts and looked at you in fear. You simply smiled at him before giving Morrison the go signal.

Identifying and hunting androids almost every single day of your life, you couldn’t even count in your head how many times they went for this flimsy cover-up story. They probably thought they were being clever or something.

“So, Jonathan West, age 35 and working as a plumber in one of Sector 3’s fertilization plants, correct?”

“Yes, sir,” the man replied, unbeknownst to him, the test was already starting.

“You are accused as the android who committed the Palmaide Apartment murders wherein six people were discovered to be brutally murdered and then embedded inside the concrete walls of the apartment.”

“Sir! I’m not android! Please believe me! I have a wife and two kids….! I-I can’t possibly be the murderer!”

You slid unnoticed under the shadows beside Agent Peyton, although still nearby enough to the subject that it would be easy to subdue it down if it goes berserk.

Watching the test being conducted for the nth time, you could easily claim to have memorized all hundred and fifty questions in the questionnaire.

Most questions are practically the same—asking how you would react to certain and usually gruesome scenarios—all designed to gauge micro-expressions and reactions. It is a common belief that androids do not have these sophisticated and almost undetectable movements on your face. Hence, the electrodes.

“I want you to immerse yourself in a certain situation,” you could hear Morrison speak as he turned on the virtual reality system. “Tell me what you think of it.”

Here it comes. Your thoughts turned rancid as you recalled the contents of that video. It was made to intentionally cause distress in humans—limbs being torn, live vivisections, disgusting lobotomies and other gruesome things that could make your stomach lurch; and more importantly, it is intentionally shown to be done to people the subject knows in real life.

Tests such as the Voight-Kampff Scale however are hardly perfect. Humans are complex creatures and are fundamentally unpredictable variables. Different people react to one single scenario in a million different ways. Even if you are looking for signs of empathy—a true testament of humanity—not everyone exhibits it the same way.

That’s why, no matter how many times you’ve blasted a hole through an andy’s head, you would always have this unreasonable nagging feeling underneath your gut that screams you might be wrong. You might actually kill an innocent person.

As you stood there and studied Jonathan West, you realized that his expression turned from disturbed to one of sheer horror. It was quite easy to know, to be honest—he turned pale and looked as if he just wanted to pluck his eyes out and forget that he ever seen what he was seeing right now. It was too real to be simple analog hack.

“Sir…I-I…please make it stop! Please, please….I can’t look anymore,” He muttered weakly, looking as if he was really going to puke big time, which prompted Morrison to immediately close the virtual reality system.

The man was still panting when it was shut down; visibly distraught by what he had seen. Agent Peyton, who was silent during the whole ordeal, then went to the man and asked him if he was alright. In the end, Peyton gave him a glass of water before the test proceeded as it should.

In your opinion, after that display, the subject was already leaning to the ‘most likely human’ side of the spectrum. He wasn’t making red flags which could mark him as an android, though he had a few quirks such as making a rather hollow laugh. Some humans have that kind of laugh, so you didn’t really mind it.

There are days when the excitement of discovering an android wouldn’t really pay you a visit. Sometimes, humans are mistaken as androids either because of their personalities, or by people who simply don’t really like them. Just like how it was in this case.

After a series of more questions and tests, Morrison was also convinced that Jonathan West was human. Besides, the processor level of the android you were looking for wasn’t capable of doing such complex analog hacks.

Even after a deliberation between the three of you outside of the room, it became a unanimous decision to exonerate the subject of any of the accusations placed on him. While you were still a bit doubtful, both Morrison and Peyton—men of more experience than you have as a bounty hunter—agree that West was human and the rumors simply might have been caused by office politics.

“Mr. West, the three of us have finished deliberating and we have decided that you are indeed as human as you could be,” Morrison began, sitting on the same seat he had been for the past few hours.

The man let out a heavy sigh of relief as he made a bashful smile. “Oh my god! Thank you so much, my good sir! Thank you! Thank you!”

Studying the exchange just beside Morrison, you made a small smile. In the end, you didn’t make a mistake and he still had a chance to live. Accidentally killing someone just because of some careless assessment was something you’d rather not go through in your entire life.

“Well, we thank you for giving us your time,” Morrison said as he stood up and walked towards the man, extending a hand. “And we apologize for the inconvenience.”

West shook his hand as they walked towards the door with you and Peyton following closely behind. It was finally over, and you could finally think about what you’d have for lunch. It’s been a while since you had some simple sandwiches. Going for a Subway down 14th Street would be great.

Your eyes found themselves again watching the man and your partner Morrison. You can’t stop smiling at how peaceful the day had become, contrary to what you were expecting.

“It’s no problem, sir!” West exclaimed. “Thank you for trusting me.”

You halted. Your smile faltering.

Those words rang loudly like a deafening siren in your head.

Someone had said those exact same words to you the day before, but for some reason, right now, those words made you shiver in dread; fear dropping down the pits of your stomach.

You instantly averted your alarmed eyes towards West who had been looking back at you as well.

He gave you a blank look.

He knew. You knew.

In just a span of a few seconds, you immediately seized his wrist, twisting it behind his back before tackling him to the ground. You saw the glint of a concealed knife in West’s hands before it flew away to some indiscriminate area of the room.

The man struggled yet he was pinned down by your whole body weight, unable to move—a tactic you learned through experience by subduing andys day in and day out.

Without a second thought, you grabbed your laser gun and fired it center of his forehead. The man lay still in a matter of seconds.

Your heart was beating wildly. You had finally done it.

For a moment, you feared that you might see blood and pieces of bone after the bright light of the laser dissipated. Yet when you finally stood up, huffing, the only thing you saw was the bright red glow of metal heated to melting point.

The two men beside you only stared at the motionless body of the andy with stunned expressions in their faces; unable to believe that they had almost made a grave mistake.

Everything it did was an incredible display of analog hacking.

Because androids are incapable of creating actual emotion, they simply react to the environment and transmit the appropriate response as dictated by the cloud and by their own programming as a means to communicate properly with humans. Using this technique and the fatal flaw of humans to anthropomorphize objects, androids are able to give the impression of ‘humanness’, of having a soul. That is analog hacking.

By ‘hacking’ through people’s ability to empathize, androids are able to deceive, to give a feeling that they too have a soul. It almost killed all of you today.

Eventually, your colleagues’ stares migrated to your direction while you were still gathering yourself.

“What?” was the only response you gave.

It was only until later that noon, as the three of you enjoyed a wonderful lunch at the 14th Street sandwich joint, when Morrison finally put an end to his curiosity.

“Say, YN,” he began, his mouth full of sandwich. “That andy earlier. How’d you know it wasn’t human?”

You were in the middle of sipping from your can of soda when he opened that question. You could only scrunch your brows together, looking for the right way to answer the question.

“Well…” you replied, unsure of how to say it. “I just…I guess I just knew. There’s really no secret behind it. We just exchanged looks and I knew he was about to stab you.”

Peyton nodded. “Pure instincts, huh?”

You knew he was only acknowledging your reason, yet to you, it felt like he was questioning whether you were telling the truth or not. And to be perfectly honest, you were lying by omission.

Because after all, you can’t just tell them that the way that andy said those words and the way Hansol said it, felt so drastically different.

It only took as far as thirty minutes for Hansol to get bored of your characterless apartment and began to get curious about the city of West Mars. Peeking from your dirty windows, all he could see were the tall skyscrapers, fluorescing still despite the morning sunlight, and the numerous utilitarian-looking factories doting the Martian landscape.

He guessed this was a neighborhood no one really fancied to go to, other than those who actually live here—the specials, the dirty, the outcasts. Even after a few hundred centuries, human civilization barely took one foot forward. Even after the Earth had died and most of the population moved to space colonies, life was still the same. There were still oppressors and the oppressed.

Hansol clutched his tightening chest; his eyes still transfixed at the smoke belching from the factory chimneys.

It had been months since he began to feel something. At first there were small bursts of ‘pressure’ in his chest, just some unexplainable pangs of ‘pain’, ‘guilt’, and ‘conscience’— it all began when his fellow android Joshua started murdering people. Six people; a family.

Hansol couldn’t bear to watch it and tried to stop him, yet he also got embedded into the wall with them. The only thing saving him was his ‘second brain’ or a backup processor installed only in him, which was supposed to aid him in his tactical assessments. Otherwise, he’d be dead as well.

He tried to save those people, but he had been a few hours late. In the end, he could only call the police. All this time, whenever he recalled that certain memory, he had to hold himself together. All sorts of things swirled inside him that he thought he might have had a hydraulic leak, but there was nothing physically wrong with him upon inspection.

Jihoon called it ‘emotion’, as soon as Hansol contacted him—born from the rumored empathy organ installed inside all the SVT-class androids. It blurred the lines between human and machine. Hansol couldn’t understand it, even until now, he didn’t have a tight grasp on such an abstract concept. All he knew is that he didn’t want to see anyone get hurt because of him anymore.

Just like those six people.

Caught himself in reverie, Hansol decided to explore the city some more. Staying in your apartment seemed to be making him…reflect. If that was the right word.

He silently apologized to you as soon as he stepped out of the front door, a bit guilty that he had to disobey. But he wanted to do a few things first, and most of them involves going out of your apartment. If he could just go out and then be back before you were back from work, it was as if he never went out in the first place. Well, at least to you.

Going wherever his feet took him, Hansol found himself out of the slums and in the middle of the busy city center.

The tall buildings from the distance were now like crystal towers before him, extending to eternal heights to the heavens beyond. The bright lights of large TV screens flashed in vivid technicolor as it sang ads for the miraculous Penfield Mood Organ, while the throngs of people clad in all white body suits walked across the glowing asphalts beneath their feet.

The thrum of city life vibrated all throughout the crossing like a magnetic field pulsing at every nanosecond; almost undetectable by an indifferent crowd, yet to Hansol, it was almost as if electromagnetic waves were coursing through his skin.

He placed his hand over his chest; trying to ground himself as soon as he felt his heart (if he did have one) soar over something much bigger than life. He tried to put his finger on what to call it, but he guessed the closest he could describe it would be something akin to what humans call ‘wonder’, or ‘amazement’ or ‘astonishment’.

“Good morning, sir! I am Akito, the police android! Is there anything I can help you with?”

Just like that, Hansol’s bubble was popped as soon as the android appeared. It seemed like he had been standing in the middle of the city center for far too long that it made him quite suspicious.

“No, I…I’m about to go anyway. Thanks, Akito,” Hansol replied, still quite disoriented from the sudden intrusion, but left his place eventually.

Wandering around the area, he noticed a variety of shops and stores, and even some that he didn’t really understand what for. Yet when he was browsing over the different designs for the white body suits most people seemed to enjoy wearing (not like it had other designs), he found what he was looking for.

Well, first on the agenda, then.

After a rather filling lunch, you and your colleagues went out of the restaurant and hopped into the company hovercraft to go back to the office. Since the whole hunting went surprisingly well and ended earlier than expected, there weren’t any hunting jobs scheduled for the rest of the day.

As you laughed at the joke Morrison cracked about how Peyton didn’t utter a single word for the first six months when he joined the company, you spotted a rather familiar figure from the distance.

You frowned and inwardly groaned.

“Boys, I think I have a few errands to do in the city center. You go on ahead,” you told them as they looked at you in bewilderment but reluctantly agreed.

“Well if that’s the case, see you tomorrow, YN,” Morrison replied as he wore his hat again. “Good work today!”

“Thanks! Good working with you two as well!” you told them and the pointed at Peyton playfully. “Better start working on your goodbyes too. See ya!”

As soon as there where gone, making sure that their hovercraft were already a few miles away from where you were standing, you marched irately at the subject of your irritation. It seemed he had moved places from where you had first seen him but you doubted if he had seen you as well.

“Mister, mister! Do that again!”

It did take time for you to finally locate him since he was pretty much easy to spot relative to the city dwellers who were in all-white body suits. Voices of children were getting louder as you went deeper inside the nearby park, and finally, you caught up to him blowing bubbles in sizes no one would probably be able to do other than him.

“Hansol,” you called behind his back, your hands on your hips and frown on your face. “Why’s your hair black?”

Eventually he turned around and saw your rather upset expression which made him avert his gaze back to the ground. The children around him (and yes they were wearing those stupid body suits) looked at the both of you in wonder, surprised that their entertainment aka Hansol had stopped blowing bubbles all of the sudden.

“Who’s she, mister?” a child asked, probably confused at your sudden appearance. “Your girlfriend?”

“Oh, no,” Hansol replied, ready to explain everything. “I’m actually an android—”

Letting him finish was something you’d rather not do, so you immediately covered his mouth.

“Sorry kids, we’ve gotta go now!” You apologized and then managed to drag him out of the park, away from all those children.

Reaching a faraway bench at a rather remote place, you made him sit and contemplate about what he had done. Hansol seemed to know what was wrong and proceeded to sulk at the far end of the bench with a downcast look.

“Well?” you began, your arms crossed and your brows furrowed. Standing in front of him like that, it only made him feel a bit more guilty.

“I, uh…I’m really sorry…” he replied, still unable to look at you. He didn’t calculate the fact that you might be in the same area as well thus his plan had failed. He should consider attaching a GPS tracker on you.

“Didn’t I specifically tell you to not go out of the apartment?” you reprimanded him. “You could be seen by my colleagues and you’d be dead!”

“Sorry…I just wanted to change my appearance so I could hide more easily.”

You groaned and sighed heavily.

“You could be killed! You were lucky it was me who caught you the other night! You think other bounty hunters would just magically trust you if you asked them pretty please?”

“Then why did you?”

Hansol threw back a question right at you like a curve ball and it hit you hard right at the gut. Taken aback, you simply pursed your lips and glared at him.

“Please don’t ask me that,” you replied and then abruptly turned around. “C’mon. Let’s go back.”

Watching your retreating back, just like this morning, Hansol silently regarded you and your response. In the end however, he couldn’t understand anything, and eventually rose up from his seat and followed you home.

“Tell me more about yourself.”

You asked one day, as the both of you enjoyed a quiet breakfast on a Sunday morning.

It was clear to you that Hansol was not your ordinary android. He does things and says things which clearly were not ‘android’ by nature. As someone who identifies and hunts down androids for a living, you thought you already knew how to distinguish a human being from an android, but considering your confusion towards Hansol, it seems like you clearly do not.

Which is why, you had to ask.

“Me? Uhh…” Hansol scratched the nape of his neck, thinking what parts of himself should he tell you because there really was a lot of information about him. “Well…I’m an android designed for tactical assessments.”

You raised your brow at him, clearly pondering why that was the first thing he wished to share with you. “What does that mean?”

“Oh, I, uh…I gather data, consolidate them and then give an assessment of what choices the enemy could make during battle. I just give information and it’s Jihoon who would give the orders and the others would do the fighting. I’m a non-combatant type.”

“So that’s why your only weapon are those disks. They’re for self-defense,” you replied, leaning back. “Anything else?”

Hansol only stared at you, caught off guard that he had to provide more. “Uh…my birthday is on February 18.”

You nodded at him, unsure how his processor actually works, because it seems like he’s been giving you random things about him. “You mean your manufacturing date. Andys don’t give birth.”

“You could say it like that, but I like to think it’s my birthday,” he replied, and you arched another brow at him as you took a sip from your cup of coffee.

“Why?” you asked. The more Hansol talked, the more you sink into bewilderment. You regarded yourself as someone who could tell the difference between an android and a human being, yet right now, as you conversed with Hansol, that fine line was beginning to get blurry.

“I think,” he began, snatching you away from your thoughts, “I think there’s just something special with a birthday than a manufacturing date. It’s like…how do I say this…if you have a birthday, you matter as an existence. You were born to leave a mark in this world. As an android who isn’t exactly ‘alive’, I’d like to know what mark I would leave.”

Utterly speechless was what you were after you had heard Hansol’s explanation. It was weird, truly weird how he had the self-awareness to question his purpose, and you were sitting there wondering if any of the androids you had retired before had thoughts like this. If they did, you weren’t so different to a murderer as you thought you were.

As guilt began to spiral inside your gut, you tried to rationalize your concerns. Hansol was just different, probably using a novel way to use analog hack. Yeah, he’s probably analog hacking you—pretending to have deeper thinking and consciousness which he could easily access through the cloud. That scenario had the highest probability to be true.

“Oh, wow,” you replied hesitantly, gazing at the empty plate before you. “I—uh…I don’t think I’ve ever met an android like you.”

“Really?” he asked, his voice seemingly curious. “I guess maybe because we have an up-to-date processor….”

“Maybe you’re right.” You quietly scoffed. Are the organization’s labs really that advanced to even mimic human thought?

Smiling, you stood up from your seat. “Why don’t we take a breath of fresh air?”

Hansol glanced at you with a questioning look. “Where are we going?”

“Oh, just a trip to the grocery store.”

Hansol had several presumptions before he arrived to the West Martian Colony, before he had met you.

From what he had gathered in the cloud, human beings are always unpredictable. They were not run by any program, any command, not like his kind who were bound to the beck and call of a few strings of code. Humans follow their “heart” or whatever that means. They are selfish and cold, kind and warm.

Hansol was definitely apprehensive. He had never met any human being aside from his creator and a few scientists who would come and go into the labs like a cold draft. Yet despite that, Hansol knew deep down, that he doesn’t hate people. He certainly doesn’t hate you.

His brothers’ views towards humans were varying however. Hoshi, or Soonyoung was a lot more carefree, though he believed in the traditional roles of an android servant and a human master. Jihoon was too preoccupied with figuring what was wrong with him that he didn’t seem to care about them (though it seems like he has that sorted out now, according to his last status report). On the other hand, Joshua disliked people. He always made it clear to his brothers that humans were weak and that androids had long outpaced their creators.

Clear enough to make him murder people just to show you how he looks down on them.

It was interesting listening to them in past back in the labs. However, now that he had escaped and had met you, these memories began to resurface in his processor. Hansol had no idea why, to be honest. Was it because he was beginning to interact with a real human being in a much closer environment? That would be an interesting theory to explore, but right now, Hansol had to focus on where you were taking him.

“—are you sure you haven’t met another android before?” you asked him, the first part of your question he hadn’t caught. “I mean; don’t you have that info in your cloud?”

Hansol hummed, scratching his head. “I have my brothers and I met a few police androids, but other than that, I don’t have much experience. As for the cloud, it only stores pure information. We cannot derive actual experience from it.”

“Ah, I guess that’s right,” you replied, realizing that maybe it was like gathering information about something only through a book. It’s likely not going to make anyone instantly good at something.

For a while now, Hansol had been studying you. He was quiet about it, but he always wondered why you haven’t retired him yet. It was no secret that he was your assigned target, but surely, a mere plea from that night wouldn’t change your mind in an instant. Humans are so unpredictable.

“Hmm…we should sit here,” you suddenly said, stopping before a stone bench. “This has a great view of the shopping plaza.”

As you had said, it indeed held a spectacular view of the massive plaza just a few steps in front of you. There were several boutiques, cafes, stores of every shape and size—yet of course, it was as drab as it can be.

Everything was white, as Hansol stared at one giant building, from the stone ground to the shops, buildings and even the latex suits people wore as they walk around. The only redeeming feature it had were the ever-changing holographic ads shown on the white walls.

“Looks stupid, doesn’t it?” you remarked as you seated yourself on the bench with a cold expression.

“Is that why you’re not wearing those suits?” he asked as he sat beside you, glancing at the plaza.

“Everyone else in this city is stupid,” you told him, ignoring his question.

“Why?”

You snorted loudly. “Look at them Hansol. Why are they wearing those stupid suits from head to toe? Look at how they’re all smiling so happily as if everything’s alright. It’s stupid.”

Hansol continued to stare at them, gazing at every face, every being in that plaza. Of course, he could remember all of them because of his impressive processor, yet despite that, he couldn’t understand what you were trying to say.

“But those are just clothes,” he replied, shrugging.

“Not sure if an andy like you would get it. But it’s more than a fashion trend. It’s an ideology.”

Ideology. He turned that word over and over inside his mind, trying to milk out anything substantial from that word alone. A way of thinking. What are these people thinking then whenever they decide to wear those body suits? Why would they do that?

Your questions seemed to have opened a whole new world for Hansol to explore. Human ideology; there were so many of that from the old century alone—liberalism, fascism, socialism. Why do humans subscribe to these thoughts and beliefs? And what would that mean to him as an android? Would he be able to subscribe to an ideology? Or had he always believed in one, just never realizing it?

If that’s the case, would he be able to find his purpose in it?

“What do they believe in?” he asked you, now fascinated.

Glad that he asked, you immediately replied.

“Purity. Cleanliness. Everything that is old is dirty, bad, and everything that is new is clean, good. I mean, I could understand why. It’s our fault that the Earth is basically a one big garbage dump. Maybe we just want to wash our hands clean from all of that guilt. I don’t know.”

“Why is that stupid then? I think that’s a valid reason.”

“That’s true,” you replied. “But that was how it was back then. It used to be an ideology. Now, after hundreds of years had passed, it had been so ingrained into the culture that no one really asks why is clean good and dirty, bad. People are being ostracized because of this and no one really understands why. It just seemed to have become desensitized. It’s true meaning forgotten.”

“What do you mean?”

You scoffed. “Ask one of them why they where those body suits and I bet you they would answer it with something like ‘it’s clean’ or some sort of bullshit. Ask why the Penfield mood organ is such a huge trend nowadays, or why they would submit themselves to chemicals just to induce happiness.”

“People couldn’t bear to feel any longer. Emotions have become so burdensome that it’s just easier to change your mood with one press of a button. They just do whatever other people do and, in the end, it became some sort of a mob mentality.”

For once, Hansol saw true despair in your eyes. Even if you appear to hate how the world is, he knew you were just deeply sad at how things ended up. Anger is after all, expressed when you are too sad to cry.

It struck a cord inside his processor, for some reason, as he felt the urge to do something to make you feel a little bit better. He didn’t understand why, but he knew what he should do.

Silently, Hansol took your hand, his fingers slowly intertwining with yours. He felt warm, was what you immediately thought while you anticipated what he was about to do.

“It must be lonely living in this city. There are people all around you but they all feel like ghosts. Passing by, passing through the walls and then disappear without a trace,” he began as he kept on gazing at your connected hands, talking as if he was expressing his actual thoughts.

“Hansol…?”

“That’s why, as this city becomes more and more alienating…” he continued; his honest eyes piercing right through yours. “I’ll be your friend.”

For a moment, you gazed at him, too stunned to even utter a sound. It was just a simple proposal of friendship, yet why does your heart feel like it’ll burst from the seams?

“W-why…?” you asked, becoming more and more conscious about how he was gripping your hand so tightly; his thumb brushing your skin in slow soothing circles.

“Why, you ask…I’m not even sure myself, but,” he replied, “Maybe I just want to make that sad look on your face disappear.”

You pursed your lips, head totally blank for any response.

You shouldn’t just say that to anyone, you know?

Not to me who’ve never felt something like this before.

The sound of lasers fired. Muffled voices; indiscernible against the background battle noise.

It was another day out in the field, and you were lucky there were five of you hunting a military grade android. During hunts like this, you don’t usually share the earn; it was all for the experience. Besides, how much would you even get if the bounty was divided upon five people?

You zeroed in on your prey. Shooting a laser beam at its direction, you deliberately let it miss as the android dodged it. When it had stopped running, you slid on the gravel and kicked its feet off the ground, then turned around faster than it could recover. As you aimed your two laser guns at it, the image of Hansol flashed in your brain, which made you hesitate to press the trigger.

“YN! Watch your head!”

To return to your apartment with a bandaged forehead and a huge frown on your face was enough to let the door slam behind you. It was both stupid and humiliating to falter in the middle of a simple mission like that, especially if the reason was the android living in your apartment.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. You were supposed to retire Hansol several months before yet here you are still hung up and getting more and more sentimental towards him as the days pass by.

You couldn’t help it. You were only human.

If he wakes you up in the morning with a smile and some PB & J; if he talks about his sudden interest in various things with an eager look; if he greets you as you return home from work, dinner on the table and then asking you about your day; if he holds your hand and says he’ll be your friend—could you even stop yourself from softening up?

You were clearly angry with yourself to let this whole thing get to this point.

Were you really that lonely that you would even find comfort in an android?

Tossing all of your equipment—V-T scale, laser gun and leather bag—on your worn-out sofa, you went straight to your bedroom and found the subject of your frustrations, sitting on the bed and looking at the window with a rather pondering gaze.

“Say, YN,” Hansol started, without even waiting another second to pass by. He probably knew that you were going home the moment you left the office.

“What?” you replied, unbuckling the holsters on your belt and all the safety gear you had on your body. “I’m not in a good mood so make it quick. I just got hammered by an android.”

Before he replied to you, Hansol decided to turn around and look at you with those eyes that seem to gouge the truth from the depths of your being. It made you halt all your fussing and returned his stare back at him.

“How do you know the difference between an android and a human being?” he asked which made you turn your head slightly. What a simple question to ask a bounty hunter.

“Well, isn’t that obvious?” you replied as you placed your hands over your hips. “Humans have empathy while androids don’t.”

“But what if something was invented to make android experience empathy? What then?”

You blinked several times at his second question and then began chuckling. “You mean an empathy organ? Sorry to burst your bubble but that’s not even real. It’s an urban legend.”

Hansol made a side eye as he pondered what he was going to say next, his expression basically unchanged.

“Just hypothetically speaking, if an empathy organ does exist, how would you know the difference now?”

“Eh…if we’re hypothetically speaking, then I don’t really know. I wouldn’t be able to hunt anymore if that’s the case. I can’t risk making a mistake and kill someone, not to mention that if androids begin crying before me and beg me for their lives, I wouldn’t be able to shoot them at all.”

As soon as you uttered those words, you paused and contemplated.

You gazed back at him—realization dawning on you; your eyes wide with incredulity.

It was no longer a matter of if. Someone had already begged you for their life and you didn’t shoot them.

No. No way.

That’s not possible.

At your silence, Hansol never confirmed or denied your realization and simply stared at you with those powerful eyes; waiting for you to finally digest it all.

“This isn’t hypothetical at all, is it?” you finally asked, your expression uneasy.

“No, it isn’t.”

You sighed frustratingly but it made sense.

If Hansol really has an empathy organ, everything he did—asking you to trust him, his un-Android like responses, him holding your hand—everything made so much sense. And while it did provide some answers, it gave you more questions as well.

First of all…

“H-How is that possible?!”

Hansol shrugged at your sudden outburst. “That’s why we escaped from the organization. We don’t know how it works or if it’s really installed inside of us, so we went our separate ways.”

“So…so…!” you pointed your finger at him, still incredulous. “There’s more of you?”

“Yeah. All of the SVT-class androids have empathy organs installed while we were being made in the organization’s laboratories. At least that’s how Jihoon suspected it.”

“Jihoon?”

“Yes. SVT-class Type-07 Woozi. He stayed behind the labs to search for our original creator. He did find her daughter and they’re working on an experiment to test the validity and the effectivity of the empathy organ.”

For a minute you felt like the ground was going to swallow you whole. There was too much go on, too much information that you can’t properly process them all. Falling on your knees to the ground as you leaned against the bed for support, you felt like you were going to have an aneurysm.

“YN? Are you ok?” Hansol dashed to your side in Mach speed, his hand easily finding your back.

For Pete’s sake! You’re the reason why I’m not ok!!

“I’ll get you a glass of water and some ice for your head injury. It seems like it could be the cause of your headache,” he told you and the disappeared towards the kitchen, completely oblivious of your dilemma.

Goddamn it.

Didn’t Choi Seungcheol retire Woozi already? If the andy’s still alive then did he fail the mission? If he did, then why did he confirm that he retired Woozi?

And then it seems like there are more empathy organs out there. Not to mention I’m living with an andy who’s supposed to have one.

It wasn’t even two minutes before Hansol was back with a glass of water which you promptly drank, and then allowed him to settle himself behind you while he was giving a cold compress to your head—all done without complaints because you were too lost in your thoughts.

No. No. No.

An empathy organ is just a myth! Something like the Holy Grail or something! It’s impossible for Hansol to have one!

But…it just fits so well with all the strange things he had done so far! Who android would hold your hand just because you looked sad?

Wait. Get yourself together, YN.

Hansol is just a weird android.

He’s totally chill and a bit spaced out. He sometimes says really deep stuff and then comforts you so gently that your problems just melt away.

That’s…That’s what androids are supposed to be right?

Without even realizing, Hansol had already wrapped his arms around your waist. It was only until you were done with your internal monologue that you realized the warmth you felt from behind you.

“Wha-what are you doing!” You exclaimed, though still unable to move because of how he was holding on to you tightly.

“Oh, this?” he began, completely oblivious to your embarrassment. “I’m embracing you. I wanted to know if it feels as warm as what the cloud tells me.”

You groaned, struggling to get free. “Don’t patronize me! I know what a freakin’ hug is! Now, let me go!”

Instead of opening his arms, Hansol instead pulled you closer to him, making you flush even more. “Sorry. Just endure it a bit longer. The data I’ve gathered is still incomplete. Besides, now that you know about the empathy organ, it’s safe for me to test it on you, right?”

“What! I never—”

As soon as you met his eyes, you were unable to finish the rest of your words. There he was again with those eyes that just makes you screech into a complete halt. It was so intense that it almost gave you shivers down your spine.

“Do you really hate it?” he asked again. “I’ll let you go.”

You allowed a few moments to pass by—the sound of passing cars and the incessant ticking of the clock was what you could hear, as well as your faint breaths.

“Fine. Do whatever you like,” you finally conceded and leaned against chest. It was warm.

With a calm smile, he nuzzled against your shoulder. “How did you get that injury?”

“Oh, this? I almost got my head whacked by an android,” you replied plainly, almost forgetting that you were actually having a bad day because of what had happened.

“That’s unusual.”

“You could say that again. I just got…distracted.”

Hansol raised his brows at your reply; noting the pause between your words. Since he cannot place his chin on your head, he decided to prop himself on your shoulder, his lips near your ear.

“Was it because of me?”

You jumped at the sound of his voice being so near to your ear. It made you ticklish and pulled back away from him just for a tiny bit.

“You’re too close!” you exclaimed, flushed and uncharacteristically nervous. “And I didn’t get distracted because of you!”

He sighed at your response. “Sorry. But I’m glad it wasn’t because me. I’ll be troubled if I distract you from your work.”

Pursing your lips, you only returned to your original position in silence. You have been distracted me from work since the beginning.

“Maybe I can help you?” Hansol continued talking when you didn’t reply.

“With what?” you chuckled cynically. “Hunting androids? Don’t you feel bad about killing your own kind?”

“Well, some humans don’t feel bad if they kill other people. What’s the difference?”

You scoffed. “Touché,”

“I’ll help you if you’re in trouble.” He pressed on and you could only groan in exasperation. While he tends to be a bit spacey, he can also be stubborn. It’s not like you can stop him if you refused.

“You’re weirdly obstinate—”

About to add an explanation, your words were cut short however by the doorbell. You stood up to get it but got dizzy from the sudden change that Hansol decided that you better sit down and rest.

As he padded his way across the living room, Hansol opened the door to see no one except for a bag of food on the ground. He tried to look around and assessed the surroundings, yet he found nothing suspicious.

Confused, he leaned his head to the side and eventually decided to take the food inside. It didn’t seem harmful.

“Wonder who that was,” he muttered before going back inside.

As a freeloader, Hansol took it upon himself the responsibility of maintaining your apartment in tip-top shape. From the floor to the ceiling; to every nook and cranny he finds—he made sure that everything was sparkling clean to the point that you thought you went to a different apartment when you went home.

It was easy to pretend he was a regular every day helper android since he always kept to himself at most times, and other than visiting a regular antique vinyl shop in an indefinite area of the city, he never really did anything out of the blue.

Hansol had two leeks, one in each hand as he assessed which one was the best using his state-of-the-art processor. The engineers at the labs probably never thought his military grade processor would be used in this way but it was extremely helpful. He tossed the one on his left to his grocery cart and the other back to the stall—concluding that it was already at 40% freshness and most of the chlorophyll and other biominerals had died out.

One of his responsibilities was making sure that groceries and other supplies in your apartment were well-stocked. And while it did make you furious at how he easily hacked into your bank account to access money, you eventually gave him permission to go on grocery trips for you because of how he efficiently did everything.

He turned his cart to the left, its squeaky rusting wheels making it hard to keep it moving in a straight line.

Next stop was the chicken aisle. He remembers seeing a photo of you in the cloud as you enjoyed a bucket of chicken nuggets, and he plans to make them for dinner that night. Halting the troublesome cart before the freezers, Hansol checked the display if there were any of the chicken nuggets he wanted to buy.

“This one’s too expensive…” he told himself in contemplation.

“Hi! I’m Martin of Fresh Daily Chicken! How may I help you?”

And there were those androids again.

Hansol knew they were just following their program but it was getting on his nerves. They kept on bothering him every single time he went out that it was very tempting to just dissemble them in front of his eyes.

“I’m fine, Martin. You can go help someone else,” he replied, wondering if there was an edge to his tone as he returned the chicken back to the freezer.

Instead of leaving though, Martin gripped Hansol’s arm tightly, as the other stopped and glared at the android with suspicion. In a beat, Hansol flicked his hand away and stood still for a moment, assessing the situation at hand. Nanoseconds pass, he finally realized what was happening.

“Joshua. What are you doing here?”

His voice was filled with animosity; his eyes like fire flickering. Hansol knew his brother was up to no good as soon as he showed up using a hacked android.

“Sharp as ever, aren’t we?” the android replied, the tone of its usual monotonous voice reflecting the malice of the hacker behind it all. “I guess I should expect no less from an android made to evaluate things.”

Hansol wasn’t having any of this small talk. “If you don’t have anything important to say, I’m leaving.”

“And what? Play house with your bounty hunter?” the android sneered. “She doesn’t trust you as much as you trust her, you know?”

Hansol threw daggers at the android with his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

It made a rather hollow chuckle. “Did you forget how despicable humans are? She’s planning on retiring you and your pleading won’t help you now. That’s why…”

“That’s why what?” Hansol felt uneasy.

“That’s why I’ll help you finish her off first.”

Like the wind howling, the android’s words felt like a siren blaring right into his ears. If he had any blood, it would’ve been boiling by now. If only looks could kill, the android would’ve been long dead.

“No. I don’t need your help and I never will. Get fuck out of here before I—”

“Fine, fine,” it responded rather dismissively, unperturbed by Hansol’s threats. “But if you need me, I’m just one call away.”

And just like that, Joshua disappeared. “Hi! I’m Martin of Fresh Daily Chicken! How may I help you?”

Hnasol sighed and returned to his grocery shopping.

“Empathy organ?”

A boisterous laugh was all you could hear across the otherwise silent donut shop. You frowned, clearly annoyed.

“Didn’t know ya believe in those bullshit urban legends, YN.” Your boss replied, crumbs falling down his shirt, and thus has been looked at disgustedly by the people around you.

“Just answer the damn question, please,” you replied, giving him a not-too-pleased expression.

“What can I say?” he shrugged, “It ain’t real.”

You hold off clicking your tongue, and instead averted your gaze to the window beside you, towards the quiet concrete and asphalt streets of West Mars. Thinking that you could achieve something by bribing your boss with donuts, was a dashed dream. He easily dismissed the notion, now munching on some more donuts you had bought with your own pay.

“Doesn’t matter if it’s real or not. I just want to hear what you know about it,” you insisted, pushing your plate of donuts to his side.

He gulped in some coffee. “Well, for one, we don’t know where it is. Rumors say it was made by an engineer in the org, and they died without telling anyone.”

An engineer in the org? You felt like you have two pieces of the puzzle right below your nose, yet you couldn’t wad through the multitude of memories you had.

“Some say it was silently waiting in that engineer’s lab, but not gonna lie, doll, I myself don’t think it’s in there. Can’t be too easy,” he eagerly chomped on a bavarian. “It was prolly never built, kinda a blueprint of some sort.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why?” Your boss chuckled again. “It’s just not possible! Look, have you ever heard of the phrase ‘good in theory but not in practice’? It’s just like that. You can’t build something science can’t even understand.”

You slumped on your chair, disappointed at his replies.

“C’mon now, doll. Stop digging around urban legends and focus on getting more andys to retire,” he continued when you didn’t reply. “Besides, you still got that SVT andy on your plate, don’t ya? Better set your eyes on that. These military grades ain’t just your ordinary tin foil man.”

Sighing, you silently berated yourself for letting this situation go out of hand.

“Alright. I’m still working on it though.”

You really weren’t. The fact that Hansol was still alive and kicking after several months since you the assignment dropped to your lap was proof that you were procrastinating. And becoming weaker.

You cursed yourself.

“Just a little warning for you. These andys, like the SVT line, are notoriously good at analog hacking. So, do be careful with handling them. Just because they told you you’re friends, ain’t gonna stop them from killin’ you when it suits them. They’re smarter than you’d expect.”

Pursing your lips, you felt your boss’ words weigh down upon you like a pile of stones.

You shouldn’t have trusted Hansol.

It was a gamble you shouldn’t have made in the first place.

The sun was already high and bright; blinding your eyes with its garish lighting as you stood before an android you just made into Swiss cheese with the number of holes you created a few seconds ago. Kicking off the dead weight, you decided to find the other one.

Another day out in the field means another chance to falter and fail even in a simple mission. You had already hesitated once and it had cost you a head injury. If you hesitate again, what would it cost you this time around?

It was getting into your nerves.

Was it truly wise to trust Hansol all this time?

Even if he had no intention of hurting you, it was your job to retire runaway andys before they harm anyone. Therefore, it makes sense to shoot him dead with a laser gun; no questions asked.

Then what was stopping you?

You stalked the andy a few meters away from you like a lion in a hunt; eyes laser focused and ears picking up every minute shuffle. The laser guns on both your hands were ready to shoot yet it wasn’t the right time or place.

Running a few meters away, you shot a few laser beams into the air; the sound echoing across the apartment rooftops in resounding waves. Your target tensed up; alarmed at how the sound was nearby.

You laid your trap.

The android began calculating the most efficient way out and then stood up from its hiding place, unaware that it was the moment you were waiting for. It jumped towards the nearest building and crouched beside a water tank, sniffing the air of your presence.

You grinned. “Looking for me?”

The android looked up, its eyes blank but you knew it was surprised. With two laser guns on both your hands, you aimed at it from the top of the water tank, the sun casting a glare over you. Lunging from its position, it made a narrowing escape as it sacrificed one leg to a laser beam.

It was all over.

You caught up and then threw it to the ground with one harsh kick. Stepping over its torso; effectively pinning it down, you took one good look.

“Did you know that it takes about three minutes for the Nexus 7 processor to calculate the next best move?” you told the android, despite knowing it wouldn’t really listen to you. “Enough time for me to set you up.”

“In the past, it only took you a minute.”

The android rebuked you, making you scrunch up your brows. How the hell did it know that?

“You’ve grown weaker, bounty hunter,” it continued, a grin creeping up to its lips; making its rather soulless expression more unnerving. “Could it be that you like us now?”

“Shut up,” you replied, aiming the two guns at its head. “That’s not going to stop me from retiring you.”

“What if I beg for my life then? Will you spare me now?”

You stopped.

The hands clutching your guns became unsteady. Its words zeroed in at your predicament just like how you had obliterated its leg with numerous laser beams—mocking you; taunting you with your weakness for Hansol.

“You think you could separate androids into your moralistic categories of good and bad? That android is only using you, you know? Like poison, gradually weakening your resolve until you could no longer pick up your laser gun. And when that time comes, he would strike and he will kill you.”

Your temper flared up.

You pressed the triggers furiously, your foot holding it still as laser after laser shot through its head. Even if the head was no longer recognizable, you continued to shoot just to please the rage and frustration weighing inside of you.

As the concrete beneath your feet began to weaken, you eventually stopped; realizing what you were doing all this time. Breaths heavy and eyes wide, you stared at the android which became, more or less, bits and pieces of burnt metal and hydraulic cables.

It still irritated you, so kicked it as far as you could so you wouldn’t be able to see it.

When you returned to the office to hand over the post-hunt report, Morrison was waiting for you t your desk; the serious and alarmed look on his face making you anxious.

“Morrison,” you acknowledged him, tossing your report to your table as well as your various work equipment. “What brings you here?”

“YN. We need to talk,” he replied, his tone of voice not so different that you had originally assumed which only heightened the tension of the situation.

As you followed behind him, you wondered what he wanted—was it about your dwindling work performance? Are you getting fired?

You only knew the answer to your questions when he stopped by a deserted hallway and then faced you. It was all your fears could ever hope for.

“Please tell me YN, that the person living in your apartment isn’t the SVT andy, Vernon.”

Your heart, along with your gut immediately dropped.

“W-what…”

“A few months ago, I saw you with someone walking around the city. I thought it was your boyfriend so I ignored it. The other day however, I heard you got injured so I went and delivered you dinner. That’s when I realized that the person you’re with was the SVT andy.”

If only the ground could swallow you whole. If only you could disappear at that exact moment. You had no explanation. You had been found out. You had nothing in your defense and the only thing you could do was hang your head low and avert your gaze out of guilt and shame.

“YN…”

“I’m sorry…” you replied, voice just above a whisper.

“Is that andy holding you hostage? Is it threatening you?” Morrison asked out of concern as soon as he saw you. “I could help—”

“No. This is my own doing,” you replied. “This is my own fault.”

“Then…why?” he asked. “Among all of us here, you were the one who hated them the most. Have you become sentimental towards them?”

“How the hell would I know!” You screamed as you tremble in both rage and despair. “Do I look like I’m enjoying it right now? Look at how weak I’ve become! Look how I almost died just because I hesitated to pull the trigger!”

“YN…I—”

“Shut up. All of you shut up,” you cut him off. “This is my problem and I’ll solve it on my own.”

Turning to the side, you marched down the hallway and left Morrison stunned and worried about you.

You tightened your fists until your knuckles turned white. Guilt, shame, anger—everything swirled inside of you like a thick soup; slowly pushing you downwards to a spiral of turmoil.

Androids would always be androids no matter what they say. Hansol was only using the way he knew he would survive. Even if it meant deceiving you.

You were angry.

More to yourself than anybody however.

How could you let yourself be swayed by an android’s sweet talking? You felt like an idiot; trusting his words, getting soft and sentimental for a mere android. You were weak and you hated it. Like slow moving magma, your rage was scalding you from the inside until you could no longer bear it. You pushed pass the entrance way and escaped to the streets of West Mars.

How could you be so susceptible? How could you allow him to easily manipulate you using your own desperate need for companionship? How could you allow yourself to succumb to such a baser kind of human emotion?

As a bounty hunter, you should’ve tossed all of them aside a long time ago. You should’ve been erased that weakness when you first began.

Yes, it was lonely. But in order to succeed, one must be alone on top of the mountain with no one to depend on.

You allowed the day to pass you by. As the afternoon became night and the flashing lights of the city returned to illuminate the streets with animations at a million frames per second, you sat high above a building and watch it al unfold like flowers blooming at night. As the dark skies slowly encroached the sunset reflecting the red dunes of Mars, you waited for the exact moment to solve all of your problems.

Problems of your own doing is something you have to solve by yourself. It was your fault that you believed in him when you clearly knew you shouldn’t have. Even if it weighs your heart, the guilt you felt was heavier.

You shouldn’t have allowed things to get to this point. Thus, you reap what you sow.

Head still swimming, you returned to your apartment at the wee hours of the morning. It was the perfect time; the calculated time—because you knew Hansol was at the living room, charging up next to a wireless charging station he himself had built. You saw him at that exact position; sitting, leaning against the wall with head hung low as a circular light glowed underneath the skin of his nape.

You knew what you have to do.

He was defenseless before you; asleep and unaware of what you are about to do. It was perfect this way— he couldn’t say anything, he couldn’t do anything, he couldn’t feel anything.

As you looked at his sleeping figure, you couldn’t help but notice how his now dark hair tumbling against his forehead in a soft caress, how his long eyelashes padded gently across his skin, how his soft breaths echoed across the room. Even at these last moments, he still caught you off guard.

Yet beautiful things erode and fade away like the fleeting spring.

You raised the laser gun to his forehead, your finger already by the trigger.

You can do it YN. Just one press and he’ll be gone. All your problems will be gone, and you’ll be able to return to your everyday life. You’ve done this so many times already.

He’s only an android.

‘…Vernon is my model name, but I want to go by my own name.’

He can be easily manufactured again and again like a replaceable object.

‘…As an android who isn’t exactly ‘alive’, I’d like to know what mark I would leave.’

Your hands trembled as your chest tightened into a vice grip. You couldn’t breathe.

Stop it.

He’s only using you for his own means. You don’t matter to him.

‘I’ll be your friend.’

‘Maybe I just want to make that sad look on your face disappear.’

He looked so peaceful, so innocent and so forgiving. Not like you who had been dirtied by the sins of humanity. You knew that even if you shot him, he would still smile and say ‘I understand.’

Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!

He’s just faking everything. He’s just deceiving you YN.

‘Thank you for trusting me.’

You screamed one painful cry; your knees giving way and sunk to the carpet in a thud. Hands propping you up as tears continued to stream down your face, you couldn’t stop crying all the pain you held inside for all these years. It was too painful.

You can’t do it.

“Just kill me now, goddamn it!” you shouted yet your eyes were looking at the floor, too scared to know if he was awake or not. “If you’re planning to kill me eventually, then do it now! Kill me now while I still trust you!”

In the midst of your endless sobs, you felt strong arms pull you into a tight embrace; wrapping you with all the love and warmth he could muster in one single action. You could only bury yourself to his chest, clutching to his shirt as if you were holding on to him for support.

“Kill me now, Hansol…”

“I won’t kill you YN. I have no intentions of ever hurting you,” he whispered as he brushed your hair gently with his fingers.

“How could you fucking say that!” you exclaimed; screams muffled. “I keep on hurting you! Hell, I even pointed a gun to you while you were sleeping! How…how could you just forgive me like that…”

“You only did what you needed to do, and if you need to kill me, then I wouldn’t mind dying. I understand that there are things you must sacrifice.”

As soon as you heard those words, you looked up to him with aghast. You could see that despite what he had said, you saw a flicker of pain in his eyes; a sadness that was accepted because there are things you simply cannot change.

“W-why…?” you asked as your heart poured out for him. “Why are you saying that even though it hurts you…?”

Hansol made a small smile and wiped away the tear stains away from your cheeks. “Because you’re the first person who ever trusted me, and it made me so happy to stay by your side all this time. That’s why even if it hurts, I feel relieved that I can at least make you happy in return.”

Stabbing pain filled your chest as if you were being pierced through by laser beams numerous times. You could feel yourself tremble as tears threatened to spill from your eyes once again; grasping to his shirt as if he might slip away any time soon.

“You fucking idiot…!” you muttered through your sobs. “You think I can still retire you after saying that? I can’t do it. I can’t…Hansol…I don’t know how or why but you matter so much to me now.”

His hand that was on your cheeks continued to caress you as gently as he could; not letting you go until you stopped crying. For some reason, he felt touched that you were pouring out all of your thoughts to him among all people in the world.

“I always kept myself so busy all this time just to distract me from all the loneliness I was feeling. I always try to be tough and cold so that my emotions wouldn’t get the best of me. But…but you showed me something I had thrown away a long time ago. You cared for me even though I tried to kill you so many times and it hurts so much how you are able to forgive me like that. I don’t deserve any of these, Hansol. I don’t deserve you.”

As he comforted you, he could feel his chest swell with so much emotion. You were crying for him, and he couldn’t help but share a bit of that pain as well. Picking up your hand, he slowly intertwined his fingers around yours and gazed at you with those eyes that easily seized you; body and soul.

“I feel like I should be saying something now but I don’t know what,” he whispered. “That’s why, I’ll just show you how I feel.”

Cupping your cheek with his hand, Hansol slowly reduced the distance between the two of you until his lips met yours in a soft and gentle kiss. It was warm and peaceful and light—as if everything which held you down were released and swept away by the cool breeze. You held on to his hand tightly, never letting go of this exact moment as you etched it vividly into your memory.

As the both of you pulled away, you gave him a small bashful smile.

“I think ‘I like you’ would be the best thing to say,” you whispered to him as he gave a toothy grin.

“You finally smiled,” he remarked as he allowed your foreheads to touch.

“Because of you.”

The both of you stayed that way until you felt your heart calm down. That night seemed to have uprooted all of your being—everything that you have built upon yourself for all these years was turned upside down. It was like a transformation; yet rather than frightening, it felt cathartic in some sense.

“Say, YN,” Hansol started, breaking the companiable silence the two of you shared. “Why did you become a bounty hunter?”

“Hm?” you hummed, gazing at your carpet as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. “Good question. Why did I become a bounty hunter?”

“You don’t know the answer?”

“I do know why,” you replied as you became more contemplative. “I think I was just too angry at the world. Angry that I was all alone; angry that no one really cared. So, I searched for ways to release that anger. That’s when I found myself wanting to be a bounty hunter.”

He pulled you closer, nuzzling to your shoulder; wanting to give comfort to the both of you. “Did you grow up like that?”

Amused by his question, you chuckled. “The thing is, when you are made from a glass incubator, it feels like you’re an artificial existence. Even if there are parents or siblings, most of them just kind of want to play house or something. When they’re done, you get thrown out. That’s it. And somehow just like that, I ended up all alone.”

Hansol was quiet, feeling like you weren’t done talking yet.

“When I met you…when I got to spend time with you, it felt like I was in a foreign territory. I wasn’t used being taken care of. It’s always just me so, I was scared as fuck that maybe this wonderful thing wouldn’t really last. That maybe you were just deceiving me and I was being an idiot for believing that life would finally give me some slack.”

You continued. “That’s why, I thought…let’s just end this with my own two hands. That way I can still have my dignity intact.”

As soon those words left your lips, the android embracing you hugged you tighter—a silent declaration that he was never going to let you go; that you deserved better and he will give everything just to make you happy.

“I don’t think I can ever leave you, YN. I was lucky that it was you who I met that night. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to understand myself or what I was feeling. I wouldn’t be able to experience a normal everyday life if I hadn’t met you. You have become someone important to me as well.”

At that night, as you finally fell asleep on Hansol’s shoulders, he easily carried you to your bed and gently laid you there without making a sound. Unable to resist, he slipped under the covers and silently watched your chest breathing in and out.

It was the first time he felt this way. It was unbelievable.

Combing your hair as softly as he could, Hansol contemplated this future with you. He was incredibly happy, if that was how the beautiful feeling in his chest should be called—how you embraced him tightly, how you grinned at him and held his hand. Those were things he could never forget.

With that said, he had to ensure that everything would stay as it is as long as it could. Using the built-in network among the SVT-line androids, he made a call.

Beep. Beep.

Click.

“Hello, brother? It’s me, Hansol. I need your help.”

The sun was still shining like any other day; as if it was unbothered by the egregious happenings of your life. Just like how it was during your first day as a bounty hunter.

Yet everything was different now. The anger that you held on to for far too long was released to the polluted city air just like scattered ashes of a bygone age. Now you have to rebuild yourself from scratch; to start anew and live differently than what you were doing all these years. Yet you weren’t alone this time, you had Hansol to support you along the way as the both of you rediscover life and the whole point of it.

That’s why it’s important to cut the few loose strings you had and tie them securely so they wouldn’t unravel in the future.

It was your last day on the job. Your last hunt.

“YN.”

You heard Morrison call you, turning to the direction where you had heard him. You were about to leave with your hovercraft to the designated location where the andy was reported yet he had stopped before you ever could.

“Last time, I—”

“It’s ok,” you cut him off. “I think I needed it to realize what I truly want to do with my life. Being a bounty hunter taught me a lot but I guess we just overgrow things.”

“Are you sure?” he asked you.

“Yes, you could say I was happy with my decision.” You scratched the nape of your neck. “You know, I think I understand now why Choi Seungcheol left.”

Morrison grinned. “Oh, really now?”

“Yeah. I think he realized the same thing as I did,” you replied, hands on your pockets. You just can’t live with anger in your heart.

Your partner genuinely smiled at you and give you a pat on the back. “Well then, it was great working with you, YN. You’ve been phenomenal.”

“Thank you. It was a pleasure working with you as well Morrison,” you grinned. “Now, time to go for my last hunt.”

“Good luck. Don’t go easy on the andy now,” he replied while you hopped into your hovercraft.

“You bet I won’t,” you replied, smiling. “Well, see you later then!”

With those words, you turned on the hovercraft as it slowly ascended to the skies. You could see down below Morrison who was looking up at you with a bittersweet smile on his face. This business was indeed dying.

“Alright. Time for my swan song.”

Your destination for today was in Sector 12, where all the warehouses and cargo facilities were located as they enter the West Martian colony. The andy in question was a normal escapee posing as a cargo boy—which was as common as it could get.

You hoped that your last andy should’ve at least been a little more challenging. But alas, you can’t have everything.

Turning the steering wheel to the side, you avoided a tall building and continued cruising through the sector with nothing much in mind. That is until something entered the hovercraft; making it shake through the skies like a rogue vehicle.

You clung to the wheel as you braced the impact, avoiding getting tossed to the air like a pancake. Still recovering from the shock, you were greeted by a punch which completely obliterated the hovercraft’s UI and had just missed your head by a hair.

Turning around, you saw that it was the android you were supposed to retire today—seemingly fallen from god knows where to your lap. Just like how Hansol just came to you that night. Lucky.

“Don’t underestimate me, fucker,” you exclaimed as you grabbed its arm with both your hands and levered it with your shoulder to the air, sending it flying to one of the buildings below. Taking your two trusty laser guns, you jumped off of the already derailing hovercraft before it plummeted to the ground in an explosion of fire and smoke.

Landing safely to one of the rooftops, you spotted the andy running away from you.

“Hey! Don’t get cowardly now!”

Shouting, you continued to shoot laser beams at its direction, pissed that it was playing some game of tag. With a head start of a few meters and an exceptional speed, there was no way you could ever catch up to an android. The only way you could ever gain an advantage was to play the strategy game.

Disappearing from view, you hid yourself as you pursued it; minding your distance so it wouldn’t be able to detect your presence with any of its scanners. Since the andy you were after had a Nexus 6 processor, it can see you through thermal readings which had a scanning radius of a few meters.

Confused of your vanishing act, the android in question stopped running and looked around. There was no sign of you yet you can see it using a special set of goggles which was luckily inside your pocket than in the hovercraft.

As it walked in search of you, you fired your laser guns to the distance which predictably alarmed the android and dashed to where it came from. And just like that, you were able to lay your ambush—jumping out from high ground and trapping it in place.

When do they even learn? You’ve done this technique so many times that it was hardly clever strategy to you anymore.

You shot it with your laser gun, missing its head in just a few centimeters. That however, was a fatal mistake as it swerved your leg around, tripping you to the ground in the process. Without stopping, the android then aimed for your head with its fist which could’ve easily broke your skull if not for the fact that you rolled out of the way just in time.

Even if your head was still reeling and you were still on the ground, you kicked its torso with both your feet as it staggered and lost balance. You ran off somewhere, picking up both your laser guns as it continued to pursue you.

Man, I judged this way too early.

Now that the tables have turned, the both you found yourselves inside a warehouse complex devoid of any human or andy. It was kind of strange that there was no one in sight except for the both of you, yet you shouldn’t really be wondering about that when an andy is after you with a huge metal pipe.

Now that you think about it, why was it even running after you? And why did it attack you in the first place? Shouldn’t it be running away from you?

You couldn’t find time to answer those questions when a pipe was hurled at your direction, hitting the cargo container you were hiding behind and piercing through the metal. You could’ve died if not for your quick reflexes. Clearly annoyed at being in the defensive, you faced the android square on and fired your laser guns at it as fast as you could.

A laser beam hit it on its chest and then on its legs, creating rather large gaping holes on its body. When you were near enough, you kicked it hard; crashing against the doors of the warehouse which opened upon impact. In one final blow, you shot through its processor at point blank.

It fell down to the ground in one swoop. It was all over. The final hunt was done.

“YN…?”

You heard your name being called by a familiar voice you never expected to hear while you were in the middle of a hunt. In an instant, you turned your head and saw with great surprise the person you had trusted the most.

“Hansol? What are you doing here?”

“No, what are you doing here?” he answered back. “You shouldn’t be here!”

“Looks like the final guest has arrived.” A figure from the shadows appeared; a gentle expression was on his face yet there was something dark looming just underneath his presence. “Took me some time to get you moving but looks like it went well.”

“Joshua, what’s the meaning of this?” Hansol asked, his eyes dark like coal; brimming with suspicion and fury.

“Joshua? Isn’t he one of your brothers and wasn’t he the one responsible for the AI hack that night?” You asked Hansol with incredulity bearing in your eyes.

You were standing there in the midst of it all, mouth ajar and eyes wide; unable to follow what was happening. You didn’t understand why Hansol was there or why he seemed to dislike his brother. If anything, it all seemed to suspicious.

“You’re right, YN. I am one of Hansol’s brothers and the AI hack was my work,” the android calmly replied which made you feel uneasy.

“And there’s no meaning at all, brother. I just wanted to meet YN,” he replied, shrugging with a carefree smile. “And besides, you did ask for my help.”

“I didn’t ask for your help. I came because you threatened to hurt her.”

Hurt me? You dared to take a look at Joshua who seemed to notice your apprehension yet only smiled so serenely—making it even more menacing.

“Ah, as honest as ever, huh?” Joshua replied as he pocketed his hands. “Or not.”

There was no denying that Hansol gazed at Joshua with contempt; the first time you have ever seen him display such a negative emotion. You now wondered what Joshua had done in order to push Hansol, who was as kind as ever, to treat him that way.

“Did you forget what happened to that family of six a few months ago? You know, that one in Palmaide.”

Joshua continued when Hansol refused to reply. You blinked several times at his words, feeling like you were familiar with the story one way or another. At the mere mention of the memory, Hansol immediately grit his teeth; sending death glares to the other android.

“Oh? Why are you looking at me like that?” Joshua asked, and then grinned, a malicious lilt in his voice appearing all of the sudden. “You didn’t tell YN, did you?”

“Tell me what?” you answered back with a clipped tone. “Tell me what, Hansol?”

In the midst of your questions, Hansol could only furrow his brow and purse his lips. He turned his head to the side, unable to face you.

“I-I…I’m sorry. I just…I always wanted to tell you…” he began, his voice unsteady.

“What is it?” you asked again, completely alarmed and afraid of what he might say.

“I—”

“He’s partly responsible for six deaths in the Palmaide Apartments.”

Joshua was the one who answered for him; malaise dripping from every word like thick poison. You could only gaze at him with disbelief and turned to Hansol for an explanation yet he couldn’t even look at you.

“Is that true, Hansol?” you asked, your voice a mere whisper; smelling the scent of betrayal.

“I…I didn’t want to hurt them,” he answered you as he trembled like a leaf in the wind. “Joshua was—”

“I did most of the killing but he just stood there, you know? Watching as I sliced open everyone and bury them to the wall,” Joshua interrupted. “Why the wall you ask? Don’t you think human guts look pretty when displayed?”

“You sick fucker!”

You pointed both laser guns to Joshua who only looked at you curiously even though you were shaking with anger. He seemed totally unperturbed by everything; a testament that he was far from sane.

“You shouldn’t be pointing your gun at me,” he replied as he leaned his head to the side. “Hansol was only lying to you, you know…saying he cares about you. Soon enough, I’ll be dissecting you and he’ll just watch me do it with those eyes you love so much.”

You wondered if the empathy organ really exists; wondering if Joshua had one or if Hansol had one. They could really be deceiving you for all you know. Back and forth, you tossed possibilities and motives inside your head, unsure of who to believe.

In the end, you gradually moved the guns to Hansol’s direction; your eyes meeting his. He looked hurt, but you could never really tell if that was real or something faked. Even if you had so many years of experience, the true test of your instincts was at that exact moment. It was only you who could determine who to trust.

Joshua grinned at the whole situation.

“You, move!”

You ordered which Hansol promptly followed, walking to the left and in front of Joshua. Still with the guns pointed at him, you continued to shout.

“Hansol, explain to me what happened.”

With your demands, Hansol flinched and then bit his lip, scared of what you would say if he told you the truth yet obeyed you nonetheless.

“At that time, I was so shocked—I just…I didn’t know what to do,” he began as he fiddled with his fingers. “I tried to stop Joshua…and we got into a fight. I lost and the next thing I knew I was in the wall as well…”

“YN, I’m…I’m really sorry…I-I—” he continued as his voice trembled and his heart beating wildly. “I didn’t know what you’ll say. I tried to save them but I was too late…the whole thing…it scares me sometimes. I don’t want it to happen ever again. That’s why I want to protect people as much as I can…”

About to say something, the sound of slow clapping stopped you from continuing. You gazed at Joshua who was looking at the whole thing with an amused expression.

“How heroic. You can’t obviously fall for that, YN, can you?” the android remarked, his arrogance obvious. “Don’t you think it’s now time to shoot?”

“You’re right,” you replied with such a cool and calm voice; as if a decision had finally dawned on you.

Hansol feared for the worst but like he said, there was nothing he could do if you decide to kill him. If that’s what makes you happy, then he understands. If that will make you more at peace, then he can forgive you. It hurts but it hurts him more if he sees you in despair.

You breathed in, and then breathed out. With eyes that seem to pierce right through Hansol’s being, you gazed at him with those clear looks as you pointed your gun at him.

“Keep still!”

You shouted at Hansol while the other tensed up. It was not a moment to falter.

In a heartbeat, you pressed both triggers. Hansol closed his eyes and braced for the impact. Even with death at his doorstep, he can proudly say that he loves you.

“You bitch!”

Hansol could hear Joshua curse from behind him, prompting him to open both of his eyes and realize what you had just done.

Shooting two laser beams at Hansol’s direction, you deliberately missed it a few centimeters off so it would instead hit Joshua, who was right behind him. The other was of course fuming mad. Before Hansol could reorient himself however, you grabbed his hand and began running.

“I’ve seen way better acting than yours, motherfucker!” You screamed with delight as you saw Joshua bending over to a partially burnt arm and leg; throwing murderous glances at you.

“What…?” Hansol asked but you only grinned at him, squeezing his hand.

“Let’s go! I don’t think I can wipe him out with just that.”

Dashing towards the exit, you were stopped by throes of androids who blocked the way. You clicked your tongue—totally forgetting that Joshua’s main ability was designed to overwhelm the opponent— and tried to find another way out.

“Ah, even that wouldn’t work, huh?” the voice behind you resounded across the empty warehouse. “I tried so hard to eliminate you, YN. If I didn’t, Hansol would never give up his weak mindset of protecting people. Too bad.”

While he was busy with his evil villain monologue, you were trying to find a way out of your situation. The entrance was blocked and you could take a gander that the whole building was surrounded as well. You had totally forgotten about his abilities, and Hansol couldn’t be of much help either since he was never made for this kind of combat. Oh for Pete’s sake!

“Oh well, so much for trying,” he sighed. “Everyone, you can dispose of them now.”

Shit.

You gazed at Hansol for an answer yet you noticed that he was only standing there with the most composed expression he could ever muster in a situation like this.

“We have to get out of here, Hansol!” you exclaimed, seizing his hand yet he didn’t budge a single inch at all.

He was just staring at one random spot in the warehouse.

“What…”

“Sorry I was late.”

A voice you have never heard before now echoed across the area. You looked up and saw someone standing by the mezzanine, leaning against the rusted railings as if they had no care in the world.

“Jihoon. You took your time,” Hansol responded, smiling.

“Why are you here?!” Joshua shouted, now even more furious at the turn of events. For some reason, you sensed that he had just lost his upper hand.

“Hansol asked for my help. So, I came,” Jihoon replied while you noticed black diamonds floating high above the air and settled in to surround the whole place. “He knew you were bound to cause some trouble, and you did.”

“If you think you’re one step ahead of us, we are two steps ahead of you,” Hansol continued. “Jihoon and my abilities are a good match after all.”

The android who was at the center of it all was silent as he trembled with sheer rage. If you could describe the tension weighing down all of you inside that warehouse, it would be like a dense core of a black hole—as if everything was compressed to the point of singularity. You were very much afraid but you knew you were not alone.

In a quiet voice, Joshua muttered. “Get them. Kill them all.”

Without even waiting for a second, the androids from outside marched in, making you take a step back. As soon as they entered however, the androids were immediately electrocuted; shaking in a frenzy before plummeting to the ground still twitching due to the remaining electrons passing through their conductors.

“Jihoon can easily stop all of those androids. That is his main ability as a tactical adviser,” Hansol explained as he caught your shoulder. “But we should go now. Joshua will probably go after us.”

In one breath, Hansol picked you up from the ground and carried you over his shoulder; sprinting out of the warehouse by kicking a hole through the roof. You didn’t want to be carried this way but you understood why. Hansol was far faster on foot than you; besides, it was easier to shoot this way.

As expected, Joshua came running after you; cursing both your names. You began to fire at him yet he was too fast and the whole ride on Hansol’s shoulder was a little too bumpy. It wasn’t as effective as you imagined it would be.

“This won’t work” you told him, trying to distract the android chasing after you. “At this rate, my laser gun would run out of batteries, and your energy would get depleted before we could ever chase him out.”

“What are you suggesting then?” Hansol asked, climbing on top of a cargo container tower.

For a moment, you were silent as you thought of how to defeat your agile enemy.

“Say, those diamond things your brother uses…they’re the ones doing the electrocuting, aren’t they?”

Hansol nodded as he dodged the iron beams being hurled at you both. “Yes, they’re made of specials alloys that conduct well with electricity and a special aluminum coating to protect it. They can be spread out as far as a hundred meters in radius.”

You grinned. “Perfect. Now, this is what we’re going to do.”

It had been quiet for a while.

Joshua clearly lost the both of you when you made use of a container full of flour to mask your escape earlier. But he wasn’t going back. He was incredibly furious and the both of you needed to pay before he could make Jihoon suffer.

He paused and looked around. Something was in the air but he didn’t know what it was.

Without warning, a laser beam appeared out of nowhere and hit him behind his shoulder; making him stumble forward and almost pushing him to the ground. Before he could even recover, another one came flying from a different direction—now to his left.

“Calculate the angle for me, Hansol,” you ordered; a massive railgun at your grasps. It was a sleek black gun that was propped up behind a cargo container.

The both of you were actually far from where Joshua was at but with the help of Jihoon’s diamond things—as you aptly described it—scattered across the sector, you were able to locate Joshua as well as shooting him from a distance in various directions.

How? Well…

“39.9 degrees up, 5 degrees to the right, yes…” Hansol replied as he watched over your shoulder.

Immediately, you found the right coordinates and fired the railgun—the sound of its energy loading up increasing the adrenaline in your veins. The laser beam hit one of the diamonds floating above you, but instead of destroying it, the magnetic field generated by the diamond bent the laser beam as it ricochets to another diamond a few distance away, sitting at a perfect angle to hit Joshua. Like a game of BBTan.

There were several diamonds sitting just above the two of you which you alternated with so that Joshua wouldn’t be able to tell where the laser beams were coming from.

“Good thing Jihoon brought Soonyoung’s railgun,” Hansol remarked as he fixed your goggles from before; adjusting it so that he can transmit signals to it.

“Soonyoung’s another brother right?” you asked as you adjusted the crossfires of the massive gun. “Is he dangerous?”

“If you’re asking if he’s dangerous to humans like Joshua, then no,” he readily replied. “As a military-grade android, then yes. He’s the true combatant-type. I don’t think any bounty hunter can deal with him.”

You whistled. “That’s scary. I’m glad he’s not the one I was assigned to hunt.”

“He’s too carefree to be able to pull off something like this though, and Jihoon has him on a leash anyway. I’m not worried.”

Chuckling, you pulled your attention off of the railgun and turned to Hansol. “Is he still moving?”

“He’s at a weakened state now. I think I’ll handle this on my own. This is something between us, after all.”

“Sometimes I envy your sense of composure,” you remarked as you sighed. “Don’t die on me.”

“I don’t plan to.”

Just as he had said, Hansol stepped out of one of the cargo containers to face a rather battered Joshua. Using his state-of-the-art processor, he assessed that Joshua was only hanging due to the immense anger he feeling and one powerful strike can finish him off in an instant.

“Didn’t think you’d show up,” Joshua remarked his face marred with bruises and burnt marks.

“I thought maybe you’d want to give up,” Hansol replied. “I don’t want to hurt you any more than this.”

Joshua furrowed his brows as he threw daggers with his eyes at Hansol. “Save me the heroics. I’m not weak like you. I don’t need humans to help me.”

“We’re made with the same materials; the same blueprint, Joshua. You have to accept that you have an empathy organ inside of you, and rejecting it any further would lead you to deteriorate.”

“Don’t make me laugh. The empathy organ isn’t real!” He scoffed. “Jihoon made a wrong interpretation of the data he gathered.”

“I disagree,” Hansol replied. “The data I have gathered says otherwise. It was consistent to Jihoon’s findings.”

“Who would’ve guessed you got smitten by that bounty hunter! I guess I just have to convince you out of it,” Joshua grinned.

Without warning, Joshua sprinted from his position; throwing a high velocity kick towards Hansol’s direction. Hansol immediately blocked it with his arms and clutched Joshua’s ankle; smashing him down to the ground in an explosive crash.

Through the cloud of dust, Joshua hurled debris towards Hansol’s direction which he easily dodged. However, he wasn’t prepared when the other android suddenly flew at his direction; hands outstretched to grab on Hansol’s neck.

Hansol immediately countered, ducking below and grabbing the other’s neck in a chokehold before slamming Joshua back to the ground. He picked him up soon after and tossed him faraway like a curve ball. Joshua caught himself flying and saw himself crashing to the concrete floor; shards of rock and dust clouds up in the air.

“You know you’re no match for me if I use my predictive algorithms,” Hansol remarked as he looked down on Joshua who was lying on the floor. “Especially at that state.”

The other android grinned as he wiped leaked fluids from his lips. “I’m impressed. By asking Jihoon for help, the only one who could counter my AI hacking, then have your girlfriend shoot lasers to weaken me, and then finally attacking me one-on-one where you have the upper hand—your android side is showing.”

“I never denied my identity as an android. I will always be made of artificial materials. But I will not deny the fact that I have developed emotions and a consciousness of my own,” Hansol answered. “We will always be creatures of myth—a cold android swayed by their own emotions.”

Joshua spat on the floor; disgusted by his brother’s words. “I will never be like you!”

Again, he sprung from the ground and dashed towards Hansol.

The other easily countered everything his brother threw at him. As Joshua hurled an uppercut, Hansol dodged and smashed his fist at Joshua’s stomach; the other immediately curling.

“Stop this already!” Hansol pleaded; his chest tightening at how stubborn his brother could be, even to the point of near death.

“Fuck you.”

Joshua stood up, trying to land a blow on Hansol yet he was already struggling to stand upright. Hansol dodged the attack as he pushed Joshua away, putting in more distance between them. Every time Joshua tried to strike, he only ducked, dodged or jumped above the other.

“You’re looking down on me, huh? You think you’re above everyone else just because you think you understand yourself!” Joshua shouted.

“I’m not! Why are you even doing this?” Hansol replied as he bit his lip. He can no longer bear looking at his brother who he once looked up to.

“He’s right, you know?”

Jihoon’s voice resounded across the area, floating diamonds following just behind him. “It’s time for you to stop.”

Joshua clicked his tongue, knowing full well that he can’t take on both Hansol and Jihoon at the same time. With barred teeth, he glared at both his brothers.

“We’re not done here yet.”

With those words, he jumped off the building where a hovercraft caught him and escaped away from the city skylines. Hansol and Jihoon watched as their brother left, realizing that they must take significant measures to prevent Joshua from hurting anyone ever again.

“Did you do what I told you?” Jihoon asked Hansol, who only nodded in response. “We’ll have to deal with him sooner or later.”

“He’s not going to stop, is he?” Hansol responded as Jihoon turned around and waved his hand.

“It’s going to take a lot to stop him. We might need Soonyoung after all,” he replied, and then stopped walking, averting his gaze to Hansol. “While we’re planning things, you should enjoy this down time with your girlfriend. Things might get a little heated soon.”

Somewhere inside a fully automated café, Hansol was sitting beside you as he observed the people walking to and fro outside the busy street. He had been staying with you since that night and he was more than satisfied to explore his newfound freedom with you.

“So, you quit as well, huh?” a deep voice echoed across the café filled with people dressed in weird latex suits—you three being the only people dressed normally.

“There’s…I just don’t know…Seungcheol,” you replied, looking at your cup of macchiato with a pensive expression. “Sometimes, I get nightmares.”

The other man chuckled. “That those andys you retired might be human, right? Me too.”

You gave a bitter smile. “Humans and androids all seems to identical nowadays. Especially with that new research about human-android relationships…I feel like I’m killing humans when I retire androids…”

Seungcheol mirrored your expression.

“I felt the same. I felt like that for years…and the last one I did, SVT-class Type-07 Woozi…I couldn’t do it anymore. That android was too close to a human being. It was protecting its girlfriend,” Seungcheol recounted, as you looked at a newspaper article featuring a top scientist with a blond android leading the research on humans and androids, on top of the table.

“That line…there were rumors that there was an empathy organ embedded on its androids,” you remarked, relaying a very well-known information.

“He’s part of that line, isn’t he?” Seungcheol asked with a father-like knowing grin as he sipped his coffee—his eyes staring at the direction of a distracted Hansol.

You threw a smirk at him. “I couldn’t retire him. How could I refuse if he asked me to trust him?”

Your companion chuckled. “These andys knowing what to throw at us bounty hunters. But I didn’t regret letting that android live.”

You glanced at Hansol, and as soon as he realized your gaze, he looked at you curiously. “Me too. I think I’m at peace more than I was before. I didn’t realize it, but I was being stubborn.”

“You don’t dislike them anymore?” Seungcheol asked.

“I still dislike all this baloney,” you scoffed, pointing at your surroundings filled with people in white overalls with expressions induced by chemicals. “But I don’t dislike him.”

Seungcheol raised his brows at you. “I’m surprised you accepted the existence of an empathy organ.”

“I can’t deny that I’m skeptical about it, but I also can’t deny the fact that Hansol is different compared to all the androids I’ve met before. He made me realize how much anger I was hiding inside of me. He doesn’t make me feel lonely as this city does.”

“People are living in spaces separate from each other…not caring, not loving. It’s funny, you know?” you continued when your companion didn’t reply. “Androids are becoming more human, as humans become more robotic. You’d wonder what the future holds for us.”

He nodded in understanding.

“Yeah, you’d wonder.”

#seventeen #caratwritersclub #svtcreations #seventeen vernon #seventeen scenarios #seventeen fluff #seventeen imagines #hansol vernon chwe

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