#he can’t entirely hide them with how he influences the electricity of hell

[midnight-mismanagement]

Ngl I do enjoy the juicy dichotomy of Vox being all about innovation and the future while simultaneously, not being able to get over whatever happened between him and Alastor in the past.

#he wants so bad to leave the past behind #he innovates his own head to reinvent himself #leaving himself behind #and yet #he can’t escape his emotions #his attachments #and on top of that #he can’t entirely hide them with how he influences the electricity of hell #hazbin hotel vox

[clatoera]

Picket Fence is Sharp as Knives Chapter 4: ...or bring me back to life (part 2)

Hey besties! Welcome back, I'll keep it short and sweet. This is part 2 of Chapter 3, with Cash, GLoss, and Enobaria. This is directly influenced by works by @kentwellss and @bodyelectric77 who I think Capture Enobaria and Cashmere so well, and I most certainly consulted them for advice in writing them! I won't drag this out

Title from Electric Touch (t swift)

AO3

Masterpost

Thank you my friends ❤️ Enjoy!

“Where the hell were you?”  Clove hisses in the door frame, grabbing Cato firmly by the front of his shirt and fully yanking him forward with a brisk jerk of her arm. It’s now nearing noon, a hard couple of hours later than Glimmer’s initial arrival at ten, and Cato is just finally returning home with not just Cashmere but Enobaria and Gloss also in tow. 

Directly behind Cato is Cashmere, perfect blonde curls framing her face, flawless airbrushed makeup covering her already perfect skin, and of course head to toe matching baby pink workout-style clothing.

Clove can’t help but narrow her eyes in a scowl as she looks her over, nevermind the fact that she was just as lethal as she herself is. “Did you think we were having a photoshoot over here, did you really take two hours to get ready to come help your sister-“

It’s Enobaria’s turn to get defensive, wrapping her hand around Clove’s wrist before tugging her out of the way of the doorway and into just into the side of the house. “Do not judge her, Cato just said Glimmer was here and needed her sister, he didn’t specify she was in a crisis until Gloss was already on his way. Do not snap on her.”

Clove watches as the third sibling, also somehow as impeccably dressed as his sister despite the rush to get to Two, follows behind Cashmere, who immediately brushes past Cato to find Glimmer. Though she cannot see her she hears Glimmer promptly start bawling at the sight of her beloved older siblings.  

“It’s been two hours, Cato.” Clove reminds him, pulling herself out of Enobaria’s grasp as she also trails behind the twins. “What have you been doing? I had to make THREE grilled cheeses when you were gone–”

Cato gives a half shrug to his wife, hands up in defeat. “You said it wasn’t my job to tell anyone, how was I supposed to get her here faster?  I had to make small talk with Blondie Two while we waited for Lipgloss to get here. She was trying to convince me to use purple shit in my hair, Clove. I put up with a lot, for you.”

Clove rolls her eyes, but loops her arm through his anyway. “We are going to be hiding in the kitchen.”

“Why are we hiding? I bet it’s going to get good.” Cato teases with a playful smile and raises of his eyebrows, but allows her to tug him along anyway. “I bet you’ll be able to see the makeup be cried right off Cashmere’s face.”

And though Clove stifles a laugh, as they sneak off to hide from the inevitable fall out, she warns him anyway, “say that too loud and Enobaria might rip your mouth off.”

–

“Glimmy, are you sure? Are you absolutely, entirely, one hundred thousand million percent sure?”  Cashmere takes her little sister’s face in her hands, manicured thumbs catching tears as they spill across the crests of her cheek bones. “Are you really really really sure?”

“I’m really sure.” Glimmer admits, with the slightest nod of her head before she wraps both her arms around her sister’s shoulders and pulls in for a tight hug, burying her face in the glossy blonde curls that catch her tears. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Cash insists, squeezing her eyes to push back her own tears, bringing up her hands to caress her hair, fingers catching in the knotted strands at the very end. “We can take care of this for you, I promise. Don’t worry, I’ll start making calls.”

Cashmere almost doesn’t hear Glimmer’s mumbled response, distracted as their brother sits directly on the other side of their sister from where she is nearly in Cash’s lap.

 “What was that, Glim?” Gloss, runs his hand over her back, pausing as he takes in the oversized shirt that is most certainly not hers.

“I said I want it.” Glimmer lifts her head from Cashmere’s shoulder, but rests her cheek there amongst her hair anyway. “I know it’s not okay back home, but it’s mine. And I want it.”

“Oh!” Cashmere feels her voice crack, and wide blue eyes snap open in something like fear to meet Gloss’s who reflect the same uncertainty and concern as her own. “Thats! Um!! Okay! Thats…okay. okay.” 

“I’m going to kill him.” Gloss announces in a voice that is a little too steady, a little too full of intention to be joking. “It’s that stupid little twig twink of a man, isn’t it? I’m going to fucking kill him.”

“What? No! I mean…yes, it’s his, but you can’t kill him.” Glimmer grabs at her brother’s upper arm, squeezing with a desperate plea for him to stop. 

“What did he say to you, then? If you’re this upset, he must have said something. I swear I’m going to kill him, this is his fault. I will snap him like a fucking twig.” Gloss places his large hand on top of Glimmer’s gently squeezing her little hand in his. “What did he say to you, Glimmer? You wouldn’t be this upset if he didn’t run his stupid little mouth.”

“I didn’t tell him. He didn’t say anything, it’s not his fault.”  Glimmer promises yet again, before she hides her face back in her sister's hair. Her thin resolve cracks again, as does her voice, when she finally admits.“I just wish mama were here.”

Cashmere wraps both arms around Gimmer, pulling her once again sobbing little sister closer into her arms. She shoots Gloss a warning look, knowing full well the reality of what their mother would say. Knowing fully well the shame she would say Glimmer brought upon them, the social stigma that Glimmer would be subjected to as a single mother, especially considering the status their family once held. 

Gloss gives her a nod, as if he read her thoughts, and knew it  was going to be something the two of them address on their own before reminding Glimmer of her precarious social situation and the judgment that would soon be passed over her. 

“I’m sorry,” Glimmer murmurs weakly, as if she too can read the silence of her siblings. “I’m sorry, but she’s mine and I really really want her.” 

“You have nothing to be sorry for. This is not your fault, he clearly took advantage -“ Gloss insists, gently rubbing circles on the back of Glimmer’s shoulders.

“He didn’t, Gloss. I was there. I was involved, I was very much participating, it’s not his fault any more than mine-” 

Gloss holds up a hand to stop her from continuing the statement, but he continues to look down at his two sisters with something between distrust and disgust. 

Cashmere holds back the urge to question her, in fear it will sound chastising. She wasn’t a stupid girl, she certainly had the knowledge to make sure this didn’t happen. And she wouldn’t have chosen this on purpose, would she?  It was a question for another time, when she wasn’t as fragile or shaking with fear in her arms. 

“It’ll be okay.” Cash promises, and though she is not sure how much she believes it, she assured glimmer anyway. “You’ll be okay. We’ll help you. We’ll be right here.”

“And I’m serious, I will kill him Glimmer.”

“Gloss…” Cashmere warns, allowing Glimmer to fully collapse in her arms. “He’ll only kill him if you want him to.”

“Please, don’t. He doesn’t know. He won’t know, he didn’t upset me.” Glimmer assures, nearly laying over so that her head rests on her sister’s thigh and her feet rest in the lap of her brother as she tries to catch her breath and cease her own crying, as it continues to make her head and throat ache. 

“Oh he will know, he has an obligation to you–” Gloss insists, leaning back on Clove’s soft couch, getting comfortable as Glimmer seems to do the same. 

“He has no obligation to me, just like I have none to him.” Glimmer curls on her side, resting her cheek on the soft baby pink of Cashmere’s leggings. “He doesn’t need to know.”

“He most definitely needs to know–” Comes the booming voice of Cato from the kitchen, before it is abruptly shut down by a groan and a “Fuck, Enobaria, that hurt!”

There is a tense silence that falls over the three siblings, as Glimmer continues to cry aimlessly across the laps of her siblings, as if she were just a little girl who had gotten picked on just a moment too long at school and ran to Cashmere and Gloss to fix it. None speak, none continue the string of questions of ‘how long’ or ‘do you know what this is going to do to you?”

Instead they hold her, letting her sobs be the only sound filling Cato and Clove’s living room, until finally, finally she cries herself to sleep in the arms of her sister. 

–

“It’s not even the afternoon yet Enobaria, did you spend too much time around Haymitch, give me that.” Clove reaches to swipe the bottle of Vodka out of Enobaria’s fingers, but she quickly holds the bottle above her head and just out of reach of Clove. 

“Listen, I’m celebrating, Clove.” Enobaria smirks, hoping up to sit on Clove’s kitchen island, ducking down out of Cato’s grabbing hands, too. “I even invited Brutus but he’s out on a run, or we’d be having a full blown party right now.”

“What are we celebrating?” The voice of Gloss calls out, as he and Cashmere slip into the kitchen sans Glimmer. Cashmere is noticeably wiping tears out of her lash line, no longer holding in her emotions now that Glimmer is comfortably tucked away on the couch, sleeping under a plush blanket at last. 

“That it was yours and not mine.” Enobaria gestures to Cato and Clove, before taking approximately a shot worth of vodka straight out of the bottle. 

“That’s so mean.” Cashmere remarks, but once she wipes away her tears on the sleeve of her shirt, she holds her hands out to take the bottle from Enobaria. “Give me some of that.”

“I’m married?” Clove scowls, as Cato shoots Enobaria an offended look. “

“Yeah well.. Things were looking scary there when you were seventeen, Clove. I was concerned.” Enobaria hands Cashmere the Vodka, and hops down to wrap her arms around her shoulders from behind. “It’s okay. Seriously. She’s going to be just fine.”

“I have failed her. In every single step of her life. I have failed to protect her again and again and again and again. I have never been able to protect her.” Cashmere admits, taking a long drink from the bottle before handing it directly to her brother who follows suit. She turns to face Enobaria, who wipes away her tears this time. 

Cato chuckles to himself, rubbing at the back of his neck with a hand as if he is debating actually letting his joke out. “I think it was someone else who actually failed at protection-”

“Will you shut your stupid stupid mouth for more than forty five seconds, Cato.” Enobaria glares, but Clove does in fact laugh at his stupid joke, which is more than enough validation for him. 

“She’s pregnant, not dying.” Clove tries to assuage, and though her tone is reassuring, the anxious way she is scoring some sort of squash betrays she feels otherwise. “I had no dad and I'm just fine.”

“Yeah, Clove, you’re the picture of well adjusted.” Gloss snaps, but reaches over her to grab a handful of the carrots she has already sliced into perfect little match sticks to give her hands something to do. 

“To be fair, Clove’s issues are deeper than not having a dad.” Enobaria defends absently, but the majority of her attention is on Cashmere, on trying to get her to breathe through the sobs that flow through her body as if her grief is being pumped by her very heart. 

“Wow, thanks.”

Cato interjects, anger rising more and more in his voice, though the fact he has not yet snapped is a testament to how much he has had to grow since his time as a temperamental teenager.  “It HAS a dad, who deserves to know  about it. He has a right to know it exists!”

“Will you shut up, Cato?” Cashmere whines, running her hands over her face in frustration. “You’re not helping.”

“No, I won’t shut up. And you’re in my house. So I’ll say whatever the fuck I want. And what I want to say is that he has a fucking right to know. And if she does not tell him, I will. I’m not fucking around, I will tell him.” Cato snarls, before stepping around to stand behind Clove, his hands wrapping around her waist before he starts getting a little too aggressive in more than just his voice. “He has a right to know.”

“You can’t tell him, but I do agree with you. He deserves to know. And you all know that, too.” Clove agrees, leaning her head back against his chest, before resting one of her hands on top of both of his. 

“You’d tell me, right, Clove?” Cato asks, and though he directs it to Clove, it’s clear that he’s making a point.”

“Before literally anyone else, Cato.” Clove admits, before she goes back to perfectly cubing vegetables into perfect, sharp edged cubes. 

“That’s different.” Enobaria points out, “besides, everyone’s been worried about that for like ten years, no one would really be shocked–”

“It’s not different. Because whether or not we had been together, doesn’t matter. I would still tell him.” Clove responds, wiping her starch covered hands on the sides of Cato’s shirt she still wore from bed this morning. “And let's not pretend we don’t all know he’s obsessed with her, it isn’t like he’ll be mad.”

“I, honestly, don’t know if I believe it’s his. I don’t even believe he’s into women-” Gloss admits, before he finishes off the rest of the bottle of vodka the three older victors had been passing around. “He’s a little too twinky, if you know what I mean-”

“I promise it is his. She explicitly blamed us for that part.” Cato points out, before he reaches out and takes the empty bottle before it can end up shattered on the marble floor. “Seriously, though. Clove’s right. She isn’t dying.”

“You don’t understand what she’s going to face back home,” Gloss begins. “There’s very certain standards in District One, especially when you consider the status our family had. There is a big emphasis on the standard family, on marriage, on children, and to stray from that..”

“It’s social suicide.” Cashmere sniffles, but the cold look on her face conveys a rage her snuffling does not. “Not that there’s much left of that level of society but…those that still exist will eat her alive.”

Gloss continues, “she will be ostracized. We weren’t even allowed to play with children who came from families that strayed from that set structure. Glimmer…she’ll be outcast. Her baby will have no friends, and will not be allowed to socialize with the children of her class. She’s going to be very, very isolated, it won’t be good for her.”

“It’s true, even when I go over, we just say we’re very good friends.” Enobaria admits, resting her chin on Cashmere’s shoulder. “There’s different expectations there.”

“Even after all she’s gone through? After she was thrown to the wolves of the Capitol for ten years, people are going to begrudge her this little bit of peace?” Clove raises a dark eyebrow, but leans forward on her hands on the counter top.  “Even as a Victor, people would do this to her?

“It doesn’t matter. All that will matter is that she is a mother and she is unmarried and that will be enough.” Gloss grimaces as he sits at the island, bringing his head to rest in his hands. “I don’t even know what our mom would do if she knew.”

“She loved Glimmer, so much. But she also loved her status. Her social circle. I don’t like to think about what she’d say.” Cashmere admits, maneuvering so that she is not broken from Enobaria’s arms but is able to sit beside her brother. “And if she saw her today, even? In that sweater that is way too big, where did she even get that, oh our mother would be so disappointed.”

“It’s his.” Clove confides, before she goes right back to anxiously perfecting sharp edges, creating rectangles of squash,  wiping the knife on a kitchen towel before she does so. “It makes her feel warm, and safe, I guess. Something about how she used to wear them in the Capitol, I don’t know. I didn’t press any further. But it’s his shirt.” She pauses, and runs her hand over the sharp edge of the blade. “Maybe she’ll be happy, and that will be enough. Maybe, just maybe, it’s possible for her to be happy despite the things the district will say about her. Cato and I know as well as anyone what it’s like to have half a district turn on you, but we’re happy anyway. Maybe, and you apparently think i’m fucking crazy, but maybe she will be happy.”

There is an awkward, tense pause that comes over all of them at the conflicting viewpoints. If Glimmer would be happy despite the social stigma she was heading into, well that is something only time will tell. 

“We could…just kill him?” Enobaria offers as a distraction, a coy smile on her face.

“I was actually about to suggest that. Enobaria could get away with it...” Gloss perks up, lifting his head from his hands to chime in. “He wouldn’t see it coming if Enobaria showed up.”

“Right because if there's a murder who would ever suspect us of being capable of such atrocities.” Clove interjects,  not even bothering to honor their ridiculous idea with eye contact.

“Or…she could just tell him!” Cato tries on last time, though at this point, it’s clear none of them are getting anywhere.

“Well…. Since we’re all here, Clove, do you think you could make it like a brunch situation or anything? I bet Brutus is done on his run-” Gloss requests, flashing her a dazzling smile that has Cato glaring in his direction. 

“Sorry, my charity meals are complete for the week, try again next time.”

“...Clove, do you have knives or something, I need to go throw at something.” Cashmere decides, hopping off the island chair and out of Enobaria’s comforting embrace. She could at the very least blow off some much needed steam. 

“Second drawer on your left.”

“No, not kitchen knives, I mean-’

“I know. Second drawer on your left.”

#arwbfb tag #the hunger games #clato #cato and clove #clato fanfic #arwbfb au #glimmer tag #cashmere and enobaria tag #gloss tag #cato and clove tag #always remember we're burned for better tag #picket fence is sharp as knives tag

[thevictorianghost]

If you could rewrite legend of korra and make it your own(or just in general better) how would you do it? The villains would stay the same and korra and crew are the same(personalities you can definitely tweak a bit. I would definitely not have any love triangles and make korra and asami happen in the beginning) how would you do it with your ships being canon as well?

Okay so I’ve never actually watched LOK. I’ve heard A LOT about it through watching countless video essays on Youtube and reading Tumblr posts about it. I know the who, the what and the how, I just haven’t wanted to watch it because, even though it looks cinematically gorgeous, the story was written by Bry/ke and there’s a LOT of it, worldbuilding and storywise, that I just can’t bare to watch.

So here goes. This got long. Enjoy!

1) Remove the Decopunk world. 

A Decopunk world is a world where technology is 1920s-ish, but very advanced. We have cars, tanks, radio, bobs and faux bobs, cloche hats, short skirts, nice suits, etc. I adore Decopunk. The 1920s are one of my favourite eras. An optimistic way of looking at the world, partying, illegal alcohol, the remnants of the Great War... I love it. I really do. But it doesn’t work in the pre-established world of Avatar. It brings elements that are far too imperialistic and colonial in nature (which prompted the comics to be imperialistic and colonial in nature, with the Northern and Southern Water Tribe, you can find many posts about that), which came along hand in hand with the Industrial Revolution, as this article puts it so well. Please read it, it’s awesome.

Why did they feel they had to denature Avatar’s world? They already had everything they could possibly want. 

The Fire Nation could be more Steampunk, which is a little less advanced than Decopunk (First Industrial Revolution vs Second Industrial Revolution) because there were elements of Steampunk in the Fire Nation Army (such as the tanks, the navy and the dirigibles). But it could be for them only. It could show us how Zuko transformed the Fire Nation from a war industry to a steam-powered country. This could be the new way to channel firebending (and please, no more “anyone can do lightning bending”, you don’t need lightning bending to get electricity and it makes  Zuko, Iroh, Ozai and Azula weak in the show!). 

We’ve seen waterbending used in clever ways in the Northern Water Tribe. How could Katara’s waterbending and Sokka’s engineering influence the Southern Water Tribe to make them use waterbending more? Canals, waterfalls, waterways, etc.? In new and different ways? Could the Southern Water Tribe use hydroelectricity, but in a clean, sustainable way? Why does the Southern Water Tribe port look so... mundane? 

The Earth Kingdom already had a working train system in Ba Sing Se. And the postal system in Omashu. Toph could have taught earthbenders how to follow the Badgermoles way and dug tunnels throughout a nation in peace. Then boom. Subways. But instead of machines pushing the people along, you can have benders do it. Instead of messenger hawks, the postal system could run through the entire kingdom instead of just Omashu and be much more efficient. The Earth Kingdom could be praised for its fast postal system that could, maybe, work as telegrams.

I’ll come back to the Air Nomads.

Those are just examples from the top of my head. I don’t mean “never allow technology to “””progress””” (I use that word veeeeery loosely because it has huge imperialistic undertones). I mean instead of trashing the fun parts of bending to make way for Decopunk technology that doesn’t need bending, work with it! Get creative! This worldbuilding feels... too easy. When Avatar: The Last Airbender was praised for its worldbuilding.

I adore Decopunk. I enjoy it far more than Dieselpunk and it’s much less known that Steampunk. But it has no place in the Avatar world.

2) That doesn’t mean “remove Republic City”.

First of all, it should honestly have a better name. It’s kind of like naming a city “Democracy City”. Which is way too on the nose. Harmony City sounds better, and that’s the first thing that came to mind. Anyway.

I really like the idea of a city being built in the spirit of Iroh and the White Lotus. To allow the Four Nations to live together in harmony in one city. But why is Republic City literally New York City with an “““Asian””” flair? What is up with that? I know New York is the MOST Decopunk city ever (you can’t encounter anything Decopunk without seeing New York, with its Art Deco buildings, the Harlem Renaissance, the Prohibition, etc.). But they do NOTHING with it! They just take New York, change some names, add some Asian flair, and call it a day. 

I don’t want 1920s New York for Republic City. I want Zootopia.

What happens in a city where all the Four Nations are represented? How does Water, Earth, Fire and Air work together? Big cities tend to be quartered in neighborhoods, so each neighborhood could be a smaller version of their nation. We could have a Northern Water Tribe next to an Earth Kingdom next to... you know what I mean? Each neighborhood could be a small-scale introduction to the nation for Korra first, then you can send her to that nation afterwards!

Which leads us to this.

3) Have Korra follow a traditional Avatar’s journey. 

I really don’t know why they decided that Korra would learn three elements before the age of sixteen (when that’s the age Avatars usually START their journeys) and then only have her learn Airbending during the entire show. Wasn’t the structure of each Book being about Aang learning one element at a time a good structure? Why go out of their way to NOT do that? Why was it the White Lotus’ prerogative to train the Avatar in the first place, too?  

So let’s have Korra know waterbending first (and show Katara teaching her, please!), then she can learn Earth, Fire and Air. By going to the Earth Kingdom, to the Fire Nation, and to the Air Temples. This could help develop each nation and show us how they have grown through the years. And it could lead Korra and the audience to figure out that there’s not only Aang who has had children to represent the Air Nomads, but there were other Air Nomads who survived the genocide and we can actually see the Air Nomads as a thriving culture.

So about Republic City. As I said, we could keep it. But now that Korra is going on a traditional Avatar journey, you could have, say, one episode at the beginning and one episode at the end of each season taking place in Republic City. To show us how each Nation’s neighborhood works and as an introduction to Korra before she actually takes the plunge to travel to that nation. 

Please! Build upon the Avatar world at large more! Come on!

4) Stop it with the love triangles. 

Many have talked about the Mako, Korra, Bolin and Asami love triangles. I’ve read once that they don’t exactly feel like friends, they’re only colleagues who share the fact they all dated Korra at one point. Which is sad. Knowing that the Gaang is so beloved because they’re such GOOD FRIENDS first!

So work to build strong, healthy friendships first, THEN start thinking about romance if you have to. And please, if you want a ship to be endgame, don’t have it so you have to confirm it on Twitter. 

Don’t.

Oh! And also. Bolin and Eska’s relationship was unhealthy as all hell and treated as “funny” and “comic relief” because a woman was being emotionally abusive to a man. That’s terrible. Please don’t do that.

5) Don’t let Katara fall to the side like she did. 

Many, MANY before me have talked about how Katara got the short end of the stick in LOK. Where’s her statue? Where’s her recognition as the Greatest Waterbender in the World? Why is she day in and day out in the healing hut, when she said “I don’t want to heal, I want to FIGHT”? Does she even have a waterbending school? Or is that completely fanon? Why does she allow Aang to take one of their children on life-changing field trips while leaving their other kids behind? Aren’t they also Air Nomads by birth??

It’s okay to worship the old Gaang because, well, we all love them! I do love Aang, even if I give him a hard time a lot, but I love the character. I just don’t like the way Book 3 Aang was written. But some characters shouldn’t have everything while others have nothing. Aang is LITERALLY THE STATUE OF LIBERTY. But where was Katara’s statue? And also, what happened to Suki?? What happened to Mai or Ty Lee, too?? Or even Sokka?? He died some time ago and... that’s it??

Which brings us to this.

6) Zutara, Taang, Sukka and Mailee.

I’ve seen that picture of Toph, Aang, Sokka and Katara being edited with Zuko and Katara next to each other, Toph and Aang next to each other, and a (suddenly alive!) Suki next to Sokka. I think that’s so good! It feels so healthy!

Not all relationships that started when people were kids work out. Sokka and Suki seem the strongest relationship at the end of the show and they’re probably the only ones I could see working out in the end. Sokka could become the Southern Water Tribe Chief and Suki could become his Queen when she’s retired from the Kyoshi Warriors.

Katara and Aang would be lifelong friends, of course they would be, but I don’t really see them lasting. Aang was twelve when they started dating. They’d date a few years, then they’d decide they want other things. That’s a good thing to show kids!

I’ve written many metas about Zutara, but Ambassador then Fire Lady Katara would show a changing world, where the Fire Nation, now no longer a war industry but a Steampunk country, is moving forward, with Zuko literally marrying a woman the Fire Nation tried to wipe out. They would be equals and leave an equal mark upon the world. Together.

Toph and Aang would be amazing together. They’d be a great team, working in the Earth Kindom, helping rebuild the old Temples when the Air Nomads came out of hiding, and bringing peace around the world. I don’t think they’d be a conventional relationship. They’d do their own thing for a while, find each other for a while, work together on some projects, then continue doing their own thing. Aang being the Avatar who travels the world and Toph teaching metalbenders and working with the King in Ba Sing Se and Bumi in Omashu and wherever she’s needed. I think Toph would be much more fulfilled than what we’ve seen of elderly Katara. She doesn’t have Katara’s abandonment issues (I’ve talked about them here) and she’s more independent, I believe.

I know I haven’t talked about them much yet, but I want Mai and Ty Lee together in the end. Badass ladies challenging their respective stereotypes and create a new world for themselves. Mai could find herself away from the Fire Nation court (I don’t know what she’d do, but circuses love people who throw knives, don’t they? She could be a circus performer for a while), and I think Ty Lee, in this version, could work at the circus and with Aang to rebuild the Air Nomads. I love the idea of Ty Lee being a descendant of the Air Nomads.

All of them should be shown creating Zootopia-like Republic City. Because of course they should be! They’re the Gaang!

So yeah, that’s how I would see the world of Avatar grow beyond the borders of the original show! :)

#atla #avatar the last airbender #anti-lok #anti-bryke #zutara #sukka #taang #mailee #darkcrowprincess

[blueburds-but-swtor]

Not Entirely Without Heart (Part 1)

Fendithas could feel Zenith shift beside him, being in such close proximity. He was fidgety--very much unlike the experienced marksman that he was. Even without the use of the Force, the Jedi could tell something was amiss.

“Eager for the Imperials to show up?”

Zenith made a huff in reply. “They’ll be sorry whenever they do. Got something fun in mind.”

Fendithas’ gaze dropped and followed the other man’s hand. He rose a brow at the detonator he retrieved--but it wasn’t a typical bomb. No, just at a glance, he could tell it had some modifications.

“That is... a bit different than your regular detonators.”

“Yeah. Picked it up earlier, thought it’d be useful. Instead of an explosion, it electrocutes anyone in a ten-foot radius. Pop a couple of these, it’ll kill any Imps caught in it.”

“And you reduce environmental damage in the process. Good thinking.”

Zenith flashed him a hint of a grin. Voices echoed below their hiding spot, followed by sounds of boots colliding against the pavement in heavy steps. They were coming; Fendithas could sense their numbers. Ten--twenty, twenty-something. A small group, all things considered, but any group of Imperials in Corellia was a threat.

They’d been assigned to intercept the group before they could rendezvous with reinforcements. Unfortunately, the Imperials decided to take a sneaky route, traveling through roads with nearby homes. While Corellia had been (mostly) evacuated, the less property damage they caused the better.

And Fendithas was almost surprised that Zenith took that into account. He, of course, wouldn’t complain; he would have chose to done the same. Perhaps his influence had finally begun to rub off on him.

When the Imperials had passed them and while they were still within range, Zenith set the detonators to a countdown before hurling them into the crowd. And once they landed with soft tinking sounds, it was too late for the Imps.

A violent explosion of electricity illuminated the entire area on which they stood. Fendithas watched, just long enough to know that the detonators hit their mark, before he turned away. He felt their lives flicker out, like candles being extinguished one after the other. They were the enemy; seldom did he have pity for Imperials, but feeling death through the Force was never pleasant.

One remained. Instinctively, Fendithas reached for his lightsaber to swoop down and finish the job. But the life was quickly taken. When he glanced beside him, he saw Zenith, rifle in-hand. “Done.”

“Jedi assistance wasn’t even required for this mission, it seems,” Fendithas gently teased.

“Yeah, well... They see you, they see a hero. They think all it takes is a Jedi with some experience under his belt to turn the tide of war.”

“I’m not quite sure how to take that.”

“Then don’t think about it.”

.

Their work was done; they’d done everything they could. For now.

A trip to the Fleet was well overdue, Zenith and the other members of Fendithas’ crew needing supplies. They were able to secure a tram back to the spaceport, having a car just to themselves. It was nice, Fendithas would admit, to have just a chance to rest.

He relaxed in his seat, opting to watch the Corellian buildings whiz by in a blur of shades of orange. Zenith chose to stand, one hand on his hip and the other holding onto a rail for support. Never a moment’s peace for him, Fendithas supposed.

“I really did appreciate your use of the detonators earlier. I don’t think I clearly expressed that earlier.”

“You did. Sort of.”

“Have you found my methods of ‘the less collateral damage the better’ to be more affective?”

“In some cases. Not always.”

Fendithas smirked.

“Can’t be helped sometimes. But I’m seeing things from another perspective, I think.”

Fendithas patted the seat beside him, and Zenith sat.

“Nadia somehow caught wind of one of our negotiations from Balmorra. Think Tai must’ve let it slip during a call--not sure how else she could have heard about it.”

“What negotiations?”

“The one where...” Zenith made vague hand gestures. “I sort of told you to threaten that Imperial collaborator’s wife and kid.”

“But I turned that threat into a guarantee of protection--a promise that the Republic would keep them safe.”

“You did. That wasn’t what I wanted. And that’s what got Nadia upset.”

Fendithas blinked.

“’Upset’ is even putting it lightly. She called me heartless, Fen. I haven’t cared about being insulted in decades. My own Balmorran people called me a monster, a terrorist, and it never affected me. Hell, even when Cedrax threw insults at me, they were empty words. I couldn’t care less. But when she said that, I felt...”

“Shame.”

“Yeah. I did.”

Fendithas couldn’t blame her. The suggestion was appalling back then, all those months ago. But Zenith had changed--whether he recognized it or not. The changes were subtle, changes a Jedi possessing a close relationship with him could definitely notice. Zenith had become more open-minded, willing to negotiate if the terms were right. A big step in the right direction, Fendithas would say.

And that was, more or less, the character Nadia came to know him as. Aggressive, stubborn but not prideful. Ruthless to Imperials, sympathetic and loyal toward his friends. Never one to threaten innocent spouses and children.

To be informed of such a morally-questionable decision from his past would have definitely sparked disappointment and frustration in her heart.

“Do you still stand by your opinion? That threatening them would have worked most efficiently?”

“I don’t know,” Zenith muttered. “What you did made things work out in the end. I can acknowledge that. But if they genuinely didn’t have any ties with the Imps, then I guess they didn’t deserve to be threatened.”

“I think Nadia would approve of that sentiment,” Fendithas said gently. He heard Zenith huff lightly in response before he turned his gaze elsewhere.

#swtor #my writing #oc: Fendithas Valran #Zenith #part 2 coming Soon?? ? ?? #had this sitting in my drafts for a while. was getting kind of long & i didnt really know how i wanted to progress it #figured it was best to just split it up

[plunnies-n-shit]

Lily of the Valley

Bleach -- GrimmIchi -- Skyrim AU

As a child, Ichigo gets lost in the mountains in the middle of winter. He doesn't mean to, but just. A blizzard rushes in, and he. Takes a wrong turn here, a wrong turn there, and suddenly there's nothing but white for as far as he can see. He stumbles, and falls into the snow, and, exhausted, falls asleep in the snow.

He wakes up in a cave beside a fire. His head is hazy, but. Outside the entrance he can see a valley, deep enough that even the tops of the trees he can see are avoiding the snow. He can hear a river. 

The pelt his head is resting on rumbles, and he realizes with distant fear that his head is not resting on a pelt but on a snowy sabre tooth cub

There is a burst of cold, and from the entrance approaches a tall, beautiful woman. She coaxes Ichigo's head back down, checks his fever, pulls the pelt back up under his chin. "Sleep, little cub," she says, running a claw-tipped hand through Ichigo's hair. "You'll feel better once you sleep."

Ichigo spends what feels like a week in that valley cave-- sleeping, most of the time, but sometimes he's strong enough to sit up and eat on his own, and sometimes he's even strong enough to play with the snowy sabre tooth cub for a little bit, rolling around and wrestling on the cave floor. Most of the time, though, he's barely strong enough to sit up, the cub's head in his lap as he scratches behind its ears. 

Sometimes the lady comes back, and sometimes a huge snowy sabre cat returns in her place, but they're both very gentle and very friendly and Ichigo eventually stops being afraid of them.

At the end of the week, Ichigo falls asleep in the cave and wakes up on the very edge of his village. The snow is starting to melt. He's spent the whole winter in that valley, but the memory is starting to feel like a dream

People whisper that it's Mountain Magic, or a Spriggan's Blessing, that left this little now-golden-eyed boy at their village. Ichigo grows up a hunter, unnaturally silent, eerily accurate with a bow in his hands. Shunned, for the most part, but also strangely respected. Not that he minds-- his family loves him, and even if they fall silent when he approaches Ichigo knows that the villagers appreciate having the extra food when the snow starts coming down hard and Ichigo is the only one who can hunt safely in the blizzard.

Years later, and Ichigo is part of an organization working at harassing and undermining the Thalmor until they lose their hold in Skyrim. His most recent mission has been a uh........ mixed success? He's managed to sabotage the Thalmor "shipment"-- he has no love for the Stormcloaks, but no one deserves to end their life in a Thalmor cell-- but he's also now being chased through the mountain forest by a handful of angry highelves.

He's fast, but he's also one person, and the Thalmor are very pissed. Ichigo can taste the electricity building in the air as the spell charges, and he knows he isn't going to be able to dodge it.

And then the spellcaster goes down with a strangled cry under 200something pounds of angry snowy sabre cat.

Ichigo, the little shit of an opportunist that he is, doesn't question it. He turns and tackles the closest (confused and now very scared) Thalmor. It's. Not a pretty fight. But Ichigo comes out the other side alive. With a dagger in his side, but alive.

The sabre cat shakes some of the excess gore off of it's fur and turns towards Ichigo, and with a twist of light and cold, there is a blue-haired man standing where the sabre cat was crouched. 

"Bit off a bit more than you could chew, huh, Sunshine?"

Ichigo maybe passes out from shock, though he'll claim later that he just passed out from bloodloss.

He wakes up in that cave in that mountain valley. Now that he's older, he can understand better what he's seeing-- a combination of a deep, sheer valley, a river, and set on a thermal vent similar to the ones that heat The Rift, this valley is a perfectly hidden sanctuary of summer-- protected not by Spriggans, apparently, but shapeshifters like Grimmjow.

Well. Shapeshifters Grimmjow and Pantera, his mother. Over the years their numbers have dwindled into just the two of them, and they've even had to plant a sapling of the Eldergleam to ensure that there will be spriggans to defend this place when they are gone.

Ichigo takes a week to recover-- an actual week this time, not what feels like a week because he was in and out of sleep. Grimmjow nurses him carefully back to health, because Ichigo doesn't actually know any healing magics, and Grimmjow can tell that Ichigo still has Pantera's magic lingering in his blood from his childhood and is hesitant to add any more to that because he doesn't know what that might do to Ichigo.

It was just residual from healing him, but it also left a kind of. Permanent blessing from Kyne. Not the same way Pantera and Grimmjow are blessed, but. Similar. Ichigo has those sabre-cat traits, a naturally silent and skilled hunter, and even has an affinity for nature magic that he hasn't even realized until Grimmjow starts showing him how to shape earth and water, encourage plants and trees to grow, and even communicate with animals.

Grimmjow really doesn't want Ichigo to leave once Ichigo is healed, because Ichigo is his, he just got Ichigo back. But Ichigo can't abandon his mission, can't abandon his nation to the Thalmor, so Grimmjow is like. "I'll go with you? I can help, and the quicker you get this done the quicker I can drag you back to my den and never let you go right? Cool, i'm right, lets go. Thalmor? Just fucking point em out."

No one even questions it when Ichigo comes back from his mission with a fucking snowy sabre cat at his side. At this point they just mark it down on the "Kurosaki's Bullshit Board" and move on.

The next mission they have for Ichigo is infiltrating the Thalmor Embassy because there's something going on with dragons? And anything that makes the Thalmor nervous the Vizards want to know about. Thankfully the invitation includes a "plus one" so Grimmjow can come along because there's no way in hell Grimmjow is letting Ichigo walk alone into that den of snakes.

Long story short, shit goes down, Ichigo and Grimmjow (and the Vizards, kind of) get involved with the Blades. Yuzu and Karin are the Dragonborn, which they've been carefully hiding from Ichigo, and now they get to look like guilty kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar while Ichigo scolds them for being reckless. The Stormcloak rebellion is ended at a summit at High Hrothgar by two barely-teenage girls. Alduiin's (very short) reign of terror is also ended by two barely-teenage girls who can now summon and ride dragons.

The Thalmor's hold is shaking, and soon there's going to be a Moot to chose the next High King, which Ichigo and the girls are definitely going to attend because now they can and they can influence the choice towards someone opposed to the Thalmor but hopefully not entirely isolationist (and hopefully definitely not racist).

The Thalmor are pissed at Ichigo and kidnap him because if they take him out of the picture they can strong-arm the rest into stepping down and shutting up, right?

Wrong.

Yuzu stays at the Moot because she's the most diplomatic and now she has the power of Sympathy while Karin and Grimmjow go stage a heroic rescue of Grimmjow's boyfriend Ichigo from the grips of the Thalmor, completely decimating the Thalmor along the way. Grimmjow gets to tear out Aizen's throat with his teeth, to which Karin is like "gross dude" and Ichigo is like "ok, that was kinda hot."

High King Yoruichi forces the now-pathetic Thalmor out for a time for "high treason against the Province of Skyrim and her Beloved Citizens." They'll be back, probably, but at least for a few years Yuzu and Karin have time to grow into their power and Grimmjow and Ichigo have time to have a little uh. Vacation.

#q's plunnies #Lily of the Valley #bleach #skyrim #elder scrolls: skyrim #grimmichi #grimmjow jaegerjaquez #ichigo kurosaki

[artificialqueens]

Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor, 1 (Branjie) (and background everyone) - Ortega

a/n: hey everyone! no ur not getting deja vu, i’m reposting what i have of this fic again just with a few necessary adjustments if u kwam. rip all my notes and lovely comments as i’m going to have chapter 1 deleted after this for obvious reasons, so feel free to still leave me some luv bc i’m ngl, re-jigging two fics is taking it out of me asdfghjklkjhgfds. without further ado may i now present to you strictly au 2: electric boogaloo xo

(this one goes out to the anon who wanted radio 1 DJ Heidi Nina Closet xo)

fic summary: Strictly Come Dancing enters its 18th series and its producers, after being goaded by a rival dance show on its inclusivity, commission it to be an all-female cast. Unlike Akeria who’s just here to bone her potential dance partner, dancer Vanessa is ready to act like a professional.

And then TV presenter Brooke Lynn walks into the rehearsal room.

***

8th August 2020

Political correctness gone mad. Or at least, that’s what all the straight, white, 50 year old men have been tweeting. But the TV bosses thought that a same-sex version of the nation’s favourite dancing show would pull the viewers in, at least get some hype going like the good old days. The show’s been going since 2004, Vanessa thinks, as she rolls her neck and looks at the various alleged celebrities opposite them. This is what caused the death of the X Factor, all these sensationalist spin-offs, and now they’re doing the same with this one. She supposes the BBC were intimidated by Dancing on Ice, who had a single solitary same-sex couple on their show and were called out live by H from Steps. How humiliating. She’s only been part of the show for two years; this is her third, but her first one with a partner. She scans her eyes back down the line again, her gaze interrupted as Akeria whispers to her.

“Who you gunning for? I like that goddess, third from the right. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin. Shit, our babies would be beautiful.”

Vanessa pauses, looks at who Akeria’s talking about and snorts a laugh. “Keeks, that’s Asia O'Hara. The chef? She’s been on Saturday Kitchen a couple times.”

“You actually watch that shit?” Akeria side-eyed her.

“Hey, drop the judgemental tone, bitch! It’s easy, chilled-out Saturday morning viewing. Anyway, chefs? Nah. Two left feet and they stomp their way across the dancefloor.”

“It ain’t the dancefloor I’m worried about. I’m more interested in what’s going on in the bedroom,” Akeria wiggles her eyebrows, making Vanessa snort a laugh. Seeing her friend’s expression of disbelief, Akeria rolls her eyes. “Oh, come on, Vanj. You telling me you never thought about it? A lil’ steamy affair? Get the Daily Mail’s tongues wagging?”

“Shut the hell up. You’re awful,” Vanessa laughs long-sufferingly in reply, casts her eyes back down the line of celebrities. Scarlet Envy is at the top- Vanessa knows her, she’s in one of the big soap operas. She’s talking quite earnestly to Yvie Oddly. Vanessa is aware of Yvie only because her niece is obsessed with her Youtube channel. What is it she does again? Gaming walkthroughs? She can’t remember. There’s a tall newsreader with dark hair that Vanessa doesn’t remember the name of but she knows that Jan’s eyeing her up from across the room, so even if she ends up being half-decent and Vanessa gets on well with her Jan will still cut her to make sure she ends up with her as a partner. There’s a black girl with a mane of dark hair and a gap tooth chatting to a blonde woman with glittery makeup, some pretty girls that must be influencers or makeup artists or something (in fact, Vanessa definitely recognises one from Love Island), and Monet X Change. Vanessa definitely knows her, and she’s quite surprised the show managed to net Monet given that most of the singers that appear on the show are usually washed up talent show rejects. Vanessa’s seen some clips of her touring, she knows she’s a good dancer. Maybe she’d be good.

Vanessa takes one final sweep down the line as she sees the producers readying themselves to begin. One, two, three, four…hang on. There’s only eleven celebrities, and unless she’s suddenly lost the ability to count Vanessa knows there’s twelve dancers. Maybe they were going to be more cutthroat than she thought, maybe this would be where they decide which dancers they’re giving partners to and which one they’re cutting. Vanessa nervously shifts in her character shoes as the producers begin their welcome.

As they’re talking, the huge rehearsal room doors burst open and a tall blonde comes rushing through them, dressed in white trainers, a baggy white gym top, and black Nike leggings. She looks on her way to be sweating half of her perfectly made up face off as she runs over to join the other celebrities, sweeping her long, curling-ironed hair up into a bun and apologising frantically as she does so.

“Kiki,” Vanessa whispers to her friend. “Who’s that?”

She feels Akeria shrug beside her. Luckily Monique is standing by her right side and has heard her question.

“Oh, bitch! That’s Brooke Lynn. She presents stuff.”

“What the fuck’s stuff?” Vanessa laughs quietly, not wanting to incur the wrath of the producers by talking over them.

“She did, uh…The Voice. An’ she did some kind of consumer show in the evenings. She does The One Show now. Bunch of boring ass shit, basically,” Monique waves a hand dismissively towards the end, gets distracted by a wink and a small wave across the room from Monet X Change.

“Damn. So they give her all the boring shows to present because they know people will tune in ‘cause she’s hot?” Vanessa muses. It’s just a fact, after all. She’s not been able to tear her eyes away from her since she rushed into the room. Vanessa hopes she’s a good dancer.

“Oop. Here we go already. The Strictly curse claims its first victim,” Akeria overhears her, sticks her tongue out at her as Vanessa bats her on the arm. The sudden movement causes one of the producers to whip round and glare at Vanessa and she immediately drops her arm and fixes him with an easy smile.

When she looks back at Brooke Lynn, she’s hiding her mouth with her hand and her eyes are twinkling at her in a laugh. Vanessa presses her lips together to keep from smiling back.

They all warm up together, even though Vanessa’s already warmed up, but it’s a good chance to see who has potential and who looks more like an octopus out of water with half its limbs cut off. She scans the mirrored wall as she rolls her shoulders in time with the EDM that’s blasting from the speakers. The blonde influencer-looking girl is fucked from the start, Vanessa notes. She’s rolling her shoulders both the wrong way and off-beat. One of the celebrities, the pouty one from Love Island, is already complaining that she’s pulled a muscle. Vanessa makes the executive decision that if she gets partnered up with her then she’s quitting the show and also possibly going on a killing spree in Elstree Studios.

Brooke Lynn hasn’t met her eyes since they caught each others’ earlier. She’s not being weird, it’s just an observation. Vanessa’s, however, have drifted her way a couple of times. Brooke seems to be sailing through the warmup that Jaida’s leading easily, and Vanessa notes how easily she’s managing the split stretches, how she can bend her body almost in half until her head touches the floor. She’s clearly had some sort of dance training before, and Vanessa thinks her good looks would just be a bonus of being partnered with her. She sweeps her gaze across the room again as she stretches out her other leg, her gaze landing on Yvie. She’s bendy, her forehead pressed to the floor as she stretches out and giggles at Scarlet beside her whose body appears to be made almost entirely of cardboard. Vanessa stifles a giggle herself as Jaida starts leading them in squats, hears Monique muttering something to her as she drops to the floor. Vanessa fixes her with a confused face.

“Think you’ve got an admirer,” Monique repeats a little louder, raising her eyebrows and jerking her head behind them to where the celebrities warmed up. Vanessa brings herself up out of the squat, whips her head round to see Brooke looking right at her.

Or rather, her ass.

As Brooke suddenly looks at about six different places in the room in the space of a second and her face turns roughly the same colour as a fire engine, Vanessa turns her head back round, trying to ignore the heat she can feel attacking her own face.

It’s kind of ironic that every year at least one couple is claimed by the Strictly curse and yet the producers still call the process of finding a potential partner “Speed Dating”. The curse is a phenomenon that Vanessa has felt the brunt of and knows all too well- a partner and a contestant, almost every year, end up either falling for each other or falling into bed with each other. It’s natural, she supposes- you can’t spend practically every waking moment of every day pressed up against someone else and not trip and fall onto their dick. However, this is a room full of girls, at least half of whom Vanessa knows are gay as all hell, and maybe this year there’ll be a bit more nuance and obliviousness and just general all-round idiocy.

Looking at the celebrities, she sees Scarlet joke-grinding against Yvie, both of them almost falling over laughing. Maybe everyone will be a little less oblivious than Vanessa has given them credit for.

One of the producers launches into a spiel about how the pairing up process will work. Everyone knows they won’t get properly paired up until the launch show, but this will be more of a chemistry test than a dancing test, he explains, to see who gets on with each other best. Then at the end, all of them will get to write down their top three potential partners.

“After all,” he laughs, “You’re going to be spending a long time together!”

There’s a polite bubble of laughter that pops in the room, and Vanessa feels her stomach explode suddenly with butterflies. What if she gets paired up with someone she doesn’t get on well with at all, never mind someone who can dance? Her mind drifts. Phi Phi’s standing beside her, her face set in a small frown. Vanessa whispers to her.

“Who you got your eyes on?”

Phi Phi doesn’t shift her gaze, and Vanessa follows it. Her gaze lands on the woman with the glittery makeup who’s laughing like a seal at something that gap tooth girl has said and isn’t paying any attention to what the producers are saying. “Anyone with a pulse who’s taking the competition seriously. I know who I don’t want, put it that way.”

Vanessa indulges her in a laugh. Phi Phi has reached the semi-final four times and has never advanced further, and her frustration is starting to show. Vanessa supposes she’s at an advantage here- she’s fresh on the show, she doesn’t have any chips on her shoulder. As she looks around the room, she can see each of the dancers’ past experiences reflected on their faces like battle scars: four-time World Championship finalist Courtney is smiling easily, happy in the knowledge that she won last year and will probably get a dud partner this year, Shea, former West End Choreographer who could literally get given Theresa May and still manage to advance to the finals has a calm exterior, and frowning determinedly is 2018 Latin European champion Vixen, who bowed out early last year with her partner and has expressed very openly and very loudly to everyone who’ll hear her that she’s going for the glitterball this year. In a similar boat is World Cup Freestyle Latin Champion Aja, who was up against Courtney in the finals last year and lost by only a tiny margin of the vote. The girl doesn’t seem bitter, but she’s already got her eyes trained on Monet and has clearly backed her winner already. Crystal is lost in a daydream, classic. To the untrained eye the girl may look as if she couldn’t even do the macarena in time, but the girls know better. Crystal is hard-working, determined, creative, clever, and one of the highest-ranking ballroom and Latin dancers in the country. Vanessa knows that whoever she gets as a partner she’ll be able to mold into something amazing.

Vanessa’s gaze then lands on Plastique. The girl is a fierce dancer and it’s her fifth year on the show already. If she’s nervous, she doesn’t show it. Then again, she trained under Alyssa Edwards so she’s very possibly not felt butterflies in her stomach since the year 2012. Vanessa’s eyes widen a bit as she notices Plastique eyeing up Brooke. She’s going to need to turn up the charm all the way to 100, as Plastique’s reputation precedes her and she’ll be top choice for a lot of the girls opposite.

One by one, the dancers introduce themselves. Vanessa keeps her introduction short and sweet. She doesn’t like to brag about her titles unlike some of the other girls, and she knows that her achievements are outshone by many so she focuses on the fact it’s her first year with a partner instead.

“I ain’t got a track record like Courtney, but I also ain’t got one like Monique either,” Vanessa jokes, her friend nudging her and shouting in protest as the other girls laugh. Monique takes it in good humour though- she’s been an early out for a few years in a row having kept landing Olympic sportsmen with limbs like toy soldiers, so it’s a fair enough comment. Vanessa continues, trying not to let her eyes land on Brooke all that much. “So whoever gets paired with me don’t need to be worried ‘cuz they’re gonna always end up being special to me. My first partner on the show, and the first person I get to experience it with. And I’d be happy to get any of you, because you all look nice and smiley an’ friendly!”

She adds in that last bit to come across as gracious, and it seems to work as the celebrities opposite all smile at her gently and she hears a couple of “aaw!”s thrown her way. She can practically feel Phi Phi, Aja and Vixen all roll their eyes at her, but she doesn’t care. It’s a point in her favour with the girls opposite at least.

After the professionals have all said their piece, the celebrities pipe up. To give them their dues, there are quite a few that Vanessa would be glad to be partnered up with. Peppermint, a TV journalist, seems like she’d be great to gossip with if nothing else, Gigi, the once so intimidating-looking model has got a goofy side that would keep Vanessa sane in rehearsals, and Instagram influencer Blair seems similarly sweet and is so eager to please that it almost hurts. Then Brooke steps forward, her expression the serene calm of a woman who’s used to speaking in front of an audience, and all Vanessa can think about is how much of a point that confident, in-control body language would be in their favour when they took to the floor in week one.

No, not when. If. She’s getting ahead of herself.

“Hey everyone! I’m Brooke Lynn Hytes, uh, I present stuff. I’m basically like Ant and Dec but without the loveable double-act element and the millions of national TV awards clogging up my trophy cabinets and gathering dust.”

Vanessa lets out a snort. The actual joke isn’t even that funny, but Brooke’s delivery was so deadpan and matter of fact that it made the whole thing ten times more hilarious. Akeria turns to face Vanessa, raises her eyebrows and hisses over to her.

“Girl. Any further up her ass and your new nickname is gonna be suppository for the rest of the season.”

“Uh, dance-experience-wise I actually have a fair bit. I did exams and dance shows in high school. I don’t know if I should’ve mentioned that, now you’re all gonna be fighting over me like a pack of zombies,” Brooke laughs. The other girls join in with the laughter and Vanessa shifts from foot to foot. Brooke doesn’t know how accurate she’s just been. Oblivious, she carries on. “So yeah! Good luck to us all. Please don’t tear me limb from limb.”

Another laugh that Vanessa joins in weakly with. Unsurprisingly, Brooke introducing herself to the room has done nothing for Vanessa’s nerves. She has a favourite now, but it’s akin to putting money on a greyhound race- it’s a complete gamble. She tells herself that she can’t pin her hopes on getting partnered with Brooke, even though that thought is a bit like locking a stable door after the pony’s bolted, or whatever the goddamn figure of speech is. As gap-in-teeth-girl who’s standing beside Brooke begins to introduce herself (Heidi’s a Radio 1 DJ, and that explains why her voice sounds so familiar) Vanessa jumps a little as she hears Monique whisper to her out of nowhere.

“Girl, Jesus. Dare you to be less obvious.”

Vanessa narrows her eyes at her as she turns her head. “What?”

“Brooke Lynn,” Monique cocks her head towards the girl in question. Vanessa keeps her gaze steely. “Put your tongue back in your mouth, sis.”

“Oh, like you’ve not got a favourite already,” Vanessa whispers back. She’s got the Monet card she can use if she wants to.

“You know you don’t have to take that partner thing literally, right? You don’t actually have to fuck the person you get matched with,” Monique shoots back, pressing her lips together to stop herself from laughing. Vanessa rolls her eyes.

“You’re being ridiculous. She’s got dance experience, the height difference is good, I could win with her. There’s nothing more to it than that. I’d be happy with any of these bitches.”

Monique raises her eyebrows. “You’re not tryin’ to be Miss World, Vanj, it’s okay to say you wouldn’t kick her outta bed.”

“Okay, so what about Monet? I’m sure the reason that you keep lookin’ all the way down that end of the room is definitely…shit, I don’t know…some sort of eye condition?” Vanessa uses her trump card, smiles and sticks her tongue out at Monique who gives her a little shove and clamps her mouth shut in a pout, knowing she’s been outmanoeuvred. Vanessa tunes back in to the introductions. The Love Island girl introduces herself as Farrah, and she’s pouting and asking the pros not to work her too hard. Vanessa thinks back to what Phi Phi had said. She’ll give the girl some credit. Maybe Vanessa should focus more on who she doesn’t want after all.

The producers start leading girls from their side of the room to the middle so that they form two big vertical lines in front of each other. Vanessa starts in front of Blair, who smiles kindly at her and appears too shy to speak. There’s no time for Vanessa to really attempt to strike up a conversation as they’re all getting shuffled around based on their heights. She watches as Brooke gets moved from in front of Aja, past Shea, past Crystal, and finally given to Jan.

Fuck.

Vanessa shakes the disappointment off. She’s being ridiculous, she knows she’ll get a turn with mostly everyone and the fact that Brooke’s tall, statuesque frame contrasts with her pint-sized self means that she’s a dead cert to get a shot at dancing with her. There’s not many people smaller than her so she knows she’s not going to be leading. This is good, as she’s obviously not used to it. The girls paired up with the smaller celebrities are going to have to work twice as hard.

Blair gets shuffled around to be partnered with Aja, and eventually Vanessa gets Gigi deposited in front of her. She gives her a friendly wave and a pleasant smile, and eventually everyone is paired up- for now. Vanessa looks over at Akeria, notices she’s been given Asia to dance with first. Akeria meets her gaze and gives her a smile that Vanessa doesn’t think she’s going to be able to wipe off her face until mid-June of next year.

As the producers give the girls some time to teach the celebrities an incredibly basic salsa step to start them off with, Vanessa relaxes as she begins talking Gigi through the steps. She’s glad she’s finally getting to do what she loves instead of being consumed by nerves and what-ifs. She knows how to dance and she’s good at it- it’s just a fact- and she knows she’s able to teach things, having helped out with the kids at her dance school when she was younger. To her delight Gigi picks things up quickly, and the two of them are simply dancing the same four basic moves in a loop as they move on to chatting.

“You’re a good teacher! It’s taking some of these other bitches ages,” Gigi laughs, Vanessa giving a guilty giggle at the comment as she notices Jadia, very patiently and very deliberately, walking Scarlet through the steps again.

“See, you wouldn’t think I never had a partner before!” Vanessa beams back at her, twirling around and landing back in Gigi’s hold. To some of the girls it might be a little awkward trying to make small-talk with someone they’ve just met whilst holding one of their hands and having another pressed to their back, but to Vanessa it comes naturally. She notices that Gigi is scanning the room and looking at the other girls. Vanessa knows a searching pair of eyes when she sees one. “You got your eye on a girl?”

“Well, you’d be good,” Gigi says immediately, although how much of that is out of courtesy Vanessa doesn’t know. “Or, I mean. Jaida’s a fierce teacher, and she’s won it before, right?”

Vanessa nods. She knows that Gigi is still holding back the namedrop of the girl she really wants. “But I guess, you know, Crystal’s a talent. It kind of seems like everyone sleeps on her despite the fact she’s got all these trophies and ranks so highly and she does ballroom and Latin. She ever won before?”

“Not yet. She got paired with some stompy politician last year and was an early out, but she made the semis before that,” Vanessa indulges her, although she’s quite sure that judging by the slight blush on Gigi’s face that she’s well aware of where Crystal’s ranked in previous seasons. Gigi seems nice, and she’s complimented Vanessa so she decides to throw one her way too. “You’ve got potential, you could take her to the finals easily. She could do a lot with you.”

“That’s sweet. Thanks,” Gigi smiles, Vanessa giving another twirl just as the producers get everyone to stop and switch round again. Time passes by in steps and twirls rather than minutes, but the variety of people she gets paired with ensures that things don’t become boring. Vanessa gets Scarlet, who steps on her toes about three times and, in her own words, dances like an inflatable waving tube man stuck outside a car showroom, then actress Willam, the one with the laugh like a seal and sparkly makeup and scant regard for the moves she’s been taught, preferring to make Vanessa laugh the whole time. After that she is paired with Jackie, the newsreader she’d noticed earlier. She shows promise but Vanessa does notice Jan’s head bobbing about looking at them from the other side of the room the whole time they’re together like an invasive meerkat so Vanessa does her a solid and talks Jan up a storm. She can’t really focus too much on Jackie, to be fair, because Plastique’s been partnered with Brooke and the two of them are already laughing and hitting it off with each other and Vanessa feels her blood fizz with determination.

Finally, mercifully, Brooke gets led down by one of the producers to stand in front of her, and for a moment Vanessa is tongue-tied. Brooke’s dark green eyes and her gorgeous face are a little intimidating, not that she’s got a crush or anything, and Vanessa feels herself growing shy for a second. But then she remembers that they only have minutes together, and if she wants to be partnered with this girl she’s going to have to up the charm offensive. The producers have been stalking the room like lions with notebooks, recording every laugh and lingering glance.

“Hey!” Vanessa starts cheerfully, fixing Brooke with the winning smile she always used to flash at the judges when she was competing. “I’m Vanjie. Well, Vanessa. Either. Is fine.”

Brooke smiles back at her despite the fact that her introduction was so awkward Vanessa feels like digging a hole in the ground and leaping into it. “Nice to meet you, Vanjie-Well-Vanessa. I’m Brooke Lynn.“

Before Vanessa can feel any more embarrassed at Brooke’s teasing, she takes a little bow and stands ready, her hand held out for her to take. "May I have this dance?”

Vanessa lets out a laugh at the cheesiness of it all, takes Brooke’s hand and stands in hold with her. Their hands seem to fit perfectly together and even though their bodies are still quite far apart Brooke’s hand on her back makes Vanessa feel close to her in a way she’s not felt dancing with any man before.

Monique’s teasing face appears in her mind and Vanessa shakes those particular thoughts away.

“I bet you said that to all these girls,” Vanessa quirks an eyebrow at her, and Brooke tilts her head to the ceiling in thought.

“Uh…no, don’t think so. Just you so far,” she shrugs, and it definitely doesn’t make Vanessa feel special in any way at all.

They start to step and oh shit. This is exciting. This is the first girl that’s properly led her, the first one that the moves have seemed to come so easily to, and Vanessa can feel her heart going like a train as she imagines what she could actually choreograph with a girl like Brooke to work with. She’s a bit quiet as she’s lost in thought, so she cracks an impressed face at the girl opposite her.

“You’re good.”

“Yeah, so are you,” Brooke looks at her a little funny, her face inquisitive. “Hey, how come you didn’t mention any of your accolades? Y'know. World Latin Champion 2016, four-time finalist. That’s a bragging right.”

Vanessa almost loses her steps she’s so shocked. How the fuck does Brooke know about all that? She’s not mentioned it. Brooke can clearly see the shock on her face and a blush hits her cheeks. “That probably sounds weird. I looked you up when I knew I was coming on the show.”

Vanessa laughs, pulls a face at Brooke. “Nah, that sounds even more weird. You’re just digging yourself a hole now.”

Brooke gives an embarrassed giggle, looks up at the sky to avoid Vanessa’s gaze and oh fuck she’s still moving perfectly and she’s not got her eyes trained on her feet holy shit. “No, I mean I looked all the girls up!”

Vanessa bursts out laughing again. The girl’s not helping her case. “Dig, dig, dig, bitch!”

Brooke squeals in protest as Vanessa feels her smile hurt her face. “You know what I mean! Ugh, God. Just answer the question and stop picking on me. I’m a very important celebrity. Don’t you know who I am?”

Brooke’s deadpan sort of humour is killing Vanessa. She tries to get out another jibe through her laugh. “Jesus, I hope that’s not how you normally interview people.”

There’s a pause as Brooke laughs back. Vanessa thinks over her question. “I don’t know. Guess I just didn’t want to come across like a showoff.”

“But it’s just a fact. You’re good,” Brooke shrugs. The praise makes Vanessa’s heart light up.

“An’ I guess I didn’t want the same as you. People fightin’ over me,” she shrugs back, making light of Brooke’s compliment. Brooke pulls a face.

“I don’t know about that, I think I’m going to have to fight off a couple of these girls if I want you,” she comments offhandedly, Vanessa suddenly feeling like she’d been shocked with a tazer. She’d been so focused on trying to charm the partner she wanted that she had no idea the celebrities would’ve been gunning for her too.

“Who wants to be partnered with me?” she asks, thinking retrospectively that she could’ve tried to appear a little less keen.

“Well, Asia’s making a bee-line, I know that much. And Willam was all smiles after she left you. And, I mean, I wouldn’t mind getting you either,” Brooke says, her last comment making Vanessa happier than it should.

“Wouldn’t mind? You’re gonna have to work harder than that,” Vanessa raises her eyebrows, faux-unimpressed. She has to slam her mouth shut at the end of her sentence to avoid tacking on a “baby” to the end of it. Jesus, what is wrong with her?

“You know they give us that card at the end where we write our top three partner choices on it,” Brooke continues. The fact she is trying so hard to come across as nonchalant is making her seem everything but, and Vanessa is loving it. “Hypothetically…would I be on yours?”

“Hypothetically? You might be,” Vanessa grins at her, spins round and misses the look that Brooke gives back at her. Is this flirting? She needs to stop.

“And, uh, hypothetically, of course, would I be first, second or third on that list?”

Vanessa looks to the ceiling, maintains the charade of not appearing overly keen. “At the moment, you are…third.”

Brooke’s face is so actively shocked that Vanessa bursts out laughing. “Third?! You bitch! Why?”

Vanessa composes herself. “Well first of all, I don’t know where you’re putting me on this list, girl, so I gotta hedge my bets. Second, I’m still trying to recover from wouldn’t mind, so that knocks you down a place. Also you just called me a bitch, so you’re now reserve-third.”

“If I told you you were first on my list, does that move me up a place?” Brooke smiles at her cheekily. Vanessa tries to keep a calm exterior and not show Brooke that she’s maybe-sort-of-a-little-bit melting at her words.

“You could. How do I know you’re telling the truth, though?”

Brooke shrugs a little. “Well, I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

With that, Vanessa feels Brooke’s hand being ripped out of her own and coming to rest in between her shoulder blades, and suddenly she’s being dipped to the ground and brought back up again. She ends up pressed up against Brooke’s chest, her face tilted up to meet hers and her lips way too close to be good for Vanessa’s heart rate. She hears an impressed cry from someone- probably Monique or Akeria stirring the pot- and there’s a kind of hush that falls over the room in response to the move that’s a little bit more advanced than anyone was expecting.

“O-kay!” a producer exclaims, and Vanessa melts out of hold, only a little bit captivated. “If we could all switch round again, uh, I think we’ll have Aja with…Farrah-”

Brooke gives her a wink and a smile as she walks away towards Courtney who she’s been paired with next, and Vanessa attempts to compose herself as she gives a little wave back and tries to focus on Monet who she’s now in front of.

If things all ended up the way she wanted them to, this was going to be a very interesting season.

#rpdr fanfiction #bet you look good on the dancefloor #ortega #strictly au #lesbian au #branjie #background crygi #background jankie #background scyvie #background momo #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #akeria davenport #monique heart #asia o'hara #gigi goode #heidi n closet #monet x change #crystal methyd #jaida essence hall #scarlet envy #plastique tiara #yvie oddly #phi phi o'hara #willam belli #courtney act #shea coulee

[griimreaping]

@kaijvking​   ━━━━━   “ fucking hell. ” ( dione <-< )

EA voice: Rated M for mature

word cound: 3084 :)

A crack of billiards breaking cuts through the soft din of voices in the mostly full bar. Men and women conversing back and forth over every flavor of drinks, cigarette smoke hanging around the rafters in a layer of bluish miasma softening every edge. A jukebox in the corner supplies the modest dancefloor with any imaginable hit from the seventies or eighties. Elton John's piano prowess currently envelopes the interior, setting feet tapping and one of the pool players singing along. Near the back corner, a pair occupy one of the soft leather booths, nursing drinks as they talk. 

Their meetings were a regularity now, every Saturday evening in the same bar that they'd initially met in. Study sessions Jean had taken to calling them. Dione asked so many questions of such a broad scope that it sometimes made the woman's head reel with his breadth of knowledge; it gave her more than enough zeal to pick his brain as well. However, it didn't take long for his focus to single in on the technicalities of the woman's telepathy. Even from their first encounter, the magnetic force of it brought them back together time and time again. 

Each question Jean answers with candid ease. Swirling the last of her drink around the bottom of the whiskey tumbler in an amber-gold whirl, she tries not to crack a smile at his latest inquiry. Everyone always wanted to know the same things. How did her influences on others work? Giving an inarticulate motion of her hand, the woman replies,

❛ Thoughts are nothing more than sensations—hot, cold, pain, pleasure. Skin on skin contact is like a feedback loop. If I'm feeling good and touch you, you'd feel the same sensations or vice versa. It can be... an intense experience. Sex is a different animal entirely. ❛ Lifting a shoulder in a half shrug, she finishes the last of the whiskey and laments the lack of buzz it gives her. Whatever mutagen that had bestowed the powers she had, took away lasting effects of alcohol; twenty minutes tops of that warm fuzziness.

❛ I'll have to ask for a demonstration sometime. ❛  Dione replies smoothly, and Jean stares at him. Blinking, the woman's lips part slightly as if to give a reply before she closes them again, her mind skipping like a needle on a scratched record. Attempting to conjure up the bluster that she knows would be the appropriate response, Jean's apprehension disappears in a heartbeat. 

❛ I could give you one now, ❛ she suggests, a bit stunned that she'd said it out loud. Of course, it would be a lie to say that her mind hadn't wandered during their meetings. Or after, for that matter. Watching the slight raise of his eyebrows accompanied by a smile that quirks the edges of his mouth, Jean's brain checks out wholly. Leaning her elbows onto the table, she gives a gesture toward the hallway next to the crooning jukebox.

❛ There's a storage room. Down the hall, just before the bathrooms. If you're serious, that is? ❛ There's an intensity in his face that sends her mind swimming, none of it being from her drink. Watching as Dione leans back into the embrace of the worn leather booth, that usual radio static of others' thoughts dying to a dull roar as her mouth goes a little dry. Not wanting to spoil a surprise for herself, Jean keeps from reaching out for his thoughts, instead waiting for a genuine response. Feeling the dragging pulse of anticipation hit a chord along the length of her spine Jean presses her thighs together beneath the table.

❛ Go, I'll buy us a few minutes. ❛  Dione provides guilelessly while pushing his glass away and standing, trailing the back of his knuckle along the length of Jean's arm before walking away. The electricity of his touch has the woman doubting whether she was the one with the touch-based abilities, goosebumps still across her arms as she too stands. 

The storage room's interior is bathed in murky saffron light coming from a narrow porthole window on the swinging door; Jean does her best not to trip as she finds a place to wait. Snuggling herself between a set of large shelves ladened with alcohol bottles and various dry packaged goods, she ensures that if anyone were to pop in, she'd be able to hide with relative ease. Resting her back along the cool painted brick wall, Jean can feel the rumble of the pipes within in addition to a faint cardiac pulse from the jukebox's music.

A minute passes, turning into two, then three. Jean fishes her cellphone out of her pocket with a soft, defeated sigh and begins to flick through missed text messages, nothing of immediate interest. Then as if being punched in the back, the music from outside roars to life along with the drunken cheer of nearly the entire bar. Heart hammering in her chest, Jean isn't ready for the door to be nudged open, flooding the room momentarily with jaundiced light. 

Scrambling to duck behind a large can of tomatoes, the woman hears Dione quietly call out her name. Biting her tongue against a remark, Jean sticks out her hand from her hiding space to wave him over. Door falling closed and blanketing them in velvet darkness. She can't help the quiet scoff of a laugh as he joins her in the small hideaway.

❛ Is that Billy Joel? ❛ she asks with a grin, seeing the expression reflected in his face as two warm hands come up to cup Jean's jawline, tilting her head back to look up at him.

❛ Mhm, ❛ Lips meeting in a tentative kiss, her hands come up to wind into the fabric of his shirt, greedily pulling closer. Dione's calloused fingers slide back into Jean's hair as her mouth moves against his own, an effusive electricity humming wherever their skin met. He silently muses that this must be what she meant by a feedback loop, ghostly sensations echoing his own. Experimenting with this knowledge, his fingertips glide down the curve of Jean's neck. Rewarded with a soft gasp, Dione's tongue glides across Jean's, relishing the way she shivers, that unseen voltaic energy hooking its claws into him. 

Pulse rushing in her ears, the woman feels the edges of her thoughts melding with his, sensations slotting into one another like puzzle pieces, amplifying even these breathless open-mouthed kisses. Hands wandering across the plane of Dione's chest and stomach Jean finds the hem of his shirt, working it up inch by inch so her fingers can map out the feel of warm skin beneath her touch. A low groan builds in the man's chest as Jean's nails leave light lines down his lower back, pulling him flush as a leg hooks the back of Dione's calf. 

❛ You weren't lying about touch being a different experience. ❛ Voice rough already as the wet heat of his mouth moves on to leave marks across Jean's throat, stubble scratching the sensitive skin. Dione's hands break their idleness by descending along the curves of her body beneath the increasingly cumbersome clothing; this isn't a deterrent as palms knead her breasts through the thin fabric. Thumbs brushing across the hardening peaks of her nipples, Dione's teeth nip before sucking a faint mark into the woman's neck. Jean's mind fizzles for a moment, nails biting deeper into his lower back as the mental connection they share gives her a few glimpses of just precisely what he would do if they weren't in some storage room. A deep familiar ache wraps its fire around the woman's spine as she swallows a muffled whine. 

Using his knee, Dione gently coaxes Jean's legs a bit further apart, lazily grinding against her, shuddering from the fireworks of sparks that dazzle through their intertwined consciousness. Hands mapping the muscles of his back are a far away distraction as his questing touches move lower and lower down her body. Finding the space between the hem of Jean's shirt and the button of her pants, Dione teases his fingertips just under the edge, feeling the little anticipatory press of her hips into his touch.  

A half-complete thought of throwing his shirt to the floor floats through his mind on a voice that isn't his own, before a following twinge of disgust that the floor is probably dirty. Dione can't help the grin against the side of Jean's neck, and she huffs out a quiet laugh.

❛ You know it's true, floor's probably gross. ❛  She mumbles while continuing to savor the feel of his skin beneath her palms. Nodding in agreement before pressing in for another kiss that wastes little time before deepening, Dione groans deep in his chest. Easing an arm around the curve of Jean's lower back to hold her in close as the catch on her pants is undone, Dione's hand smoothly pushes past the zipper and soft lace of her underwear. 

A touch that's only meant to tease parts Jean easily, the sound she makes muffled thankfully by his lips. The hand wrapped around her side massages, soothing against the woman's ribs while her hands leave stinging lines down Dione's shoulder blades, trying to ground herself. Rubbing lazy circles around and around, not entirely putting enough pressure where she needs him, has Jean's thoughts fraying around the edges, and Dione can feel it. A heat with teeth that claws along the lengths of his nerves, allowing him to feel exactly what his teasing accomplished. Overwhelming, the man breaks the kiss and breathes raggedly with his forehead still pressed to hers. A soft tutting noise as the sparks of her thoughts beg him to touch her properly, breathlessly chuckling; his voice comes out hoarse.

❛ So needy. I can hear you begging for more, and I've barely touched you yet, cariño. How long have you been thinking about me doing this? ❛ Angling his hand differently, the touch varies effortlessly as if reading the ebb and flow of her wordless wants that electrify that connection between them. Jean swallows dryly, wanting to be a little more agitated with herself that she's coming apart so quickly in his hands but can't seem to find the edge. Nuzzling his face against the crook of her shoulder, Dione finds himself rocking against her with every pulse of molten thoughts that engulf his mind like a silken flame. Boxing Jean deeper into the corner, his words are like fire against the woman's neck as he continues.

❛ Though, crammed into a storage closet in the back of some packed bar probably wasn't the first place that you'd imagined, is it? No, but I'll make it up to you. Your body deserves proper exploration, don't you agree? ❛ Dione questions hotly against the side of Jean's neck as he finally finds that combination he'd been looking for through the frazzled tangle of Jean's mind. Nails leaving sharp half-moon marks in the meat of his shoulders, the woman's hips work against the press of his fingers with a myriad of desperately quieted sounds. Pulse pounding in her ears; she can almost hear the very drunken revelry to whatever song he'd chosen reverberating through the wall. Dione's teeth marking her shoulder once more brings Jean tumbling back into the moment, as his leg nudges her feet apart a bit more and those long fingers dip down, curling into her with surprising strength. 

Pulse thundering through her chest so hard that Jean is sure that Dione can feel it; the woman clamps her lips so tight against the desperate moan that tries to break free. Teetering there on the edge of her orgasm as the heel of his hand grinds incessantly against her clit Jean writhes back against his long fingers. A muffled string of pleas falls past her lips as a hand comes up to tightly wind into Dione's hair earning herself a low growl. The arch of her back presses them closer as Jean's muscles tense in anticipation, breath coming out in ragged gasps.

❛ Not much longer—  Look at me. ❛ Not sure if he means about her, the song, or himself, Jean tilts her head back against the wall and meets Dione's gaze. His hair is a bit damp around the temples, and those brown eyes glitter in the darkness with hungry intensity. The stubble dusting his jaw that had been scratching the woman's cheeks and neck sends a shudder through her as the unabated thought of his face between her thighs instead of his fingers blooms in her mind. Mouth quirking in a half-smile, Dione leans in for a kiss, mumbling against her lips.

❛ Later, I'll enjoy my dessert later, cariño. ❛ A dizzying chain of fantasies fell one after the other like dominos as Jean's body coiled tighter against the unrelenting coax of his hand. Shuddering before having half the sense to crush her mouth to his in a desperate kiss, Jean's body clenches tight, a dam somewhere within smashing open. Flooding the connection between their minds with a constellation of fireworks and stars, Jean claws at Dione's back her want to scream out, warring with the need to stay quiet in this cramped storage room that smelled like liquor. It's by virtue of his arm wrapped around her that Jean remains standing. 

Squeezing the woman tight against the wall as Dione's nerves are blinded by the abrupt overwhelming power of her climax, he barely feels the feather-light kisses that find the edges of his mouth, the line of his jaw, his racing pulse. It isn't until she's speaking with breathless intent that his mind seems to dial back into the moment. Able to feel the full crest of her pleasure, Jean senses the neglected ache from him curling around the back of her mind. Prying her hands from the stinging skin of Dione's shoulder blades, Jean cups his face in her hands, forcing the man to look at her.

❛ Fuck me—   ❛ The unspoken I need you, going between them in the intensity of her gaze just before their lips meet again with that smoldering spark. It's a small feat of shuffling clothing and half-hearted kisses to sate the gnawing urgency while outside, the song rises to a roar with the collective voices of the bar erupting in a cheer as it ends. Glancing at one another for a heartbeat, Jean nearly laughs as the next song starts. Jimmy Buffet, wonderful. The accompanying clamor of excitement at another crowd favorite begins, giving them another few precious minutes that wouldn't be wasted. 

Reaching out and fisting Dione's shirt in her greedy hands, Jean swallows a startled noise as he hauls her up bodily, settling the woman's thighs around his hips as he leans his weight into her. Grinding his hardness purposefully against the slick juncture of her legs, Dione curses harshly as his hips stutter. Hands digging harshly into the muscles of Jean's thighs, they both very well know that there will be bruises. That unrelenting closed circuit between the two recycling the same pleasure back and forth, amplifying each touch and brush of skin. It has the frazzled cusp of Jean's nerves screaming for more, feeling how much he ached for his own release. Readjusting her grip on his shoulders, Jean grazes her nose along the side of his neck.

❛ Dione, please, plea— ❛ not getting the chance for the second plea, Jean's voice is stolen as he sinks into her with one fluid thrust. The sudden flash of ecstasy so bright it has Jean sobbing out his name as her muscles cinch down around him. Feeling the flex of his back as a desperately rushed pace is set, Jean digs her heels into the curve of his spine and writhes back against the thrusts. Those same molten waves of bliss roll through their joined minds, and she can barely breathe around the intensity of it as it consumes and sets fire to every nerve and thought. Bruising the undersides of her thighs as he grasps at her for dear life, Dione growls deeply against the crook of her throat, the heat of his breath only adding to the dampness across Jean's body. 

❛ Fucking hell. ❛ He snarls out none too quietly, oblivious to the boots that thud down the hallway toward their storeroom. Jean's hand scramble in that moment and press tight against his mouth, a stuttered shushing passing her lips as he continues that rough gallop toward that creeping euphoria. Dione's breath huffs loud and hot through his nose across Jean's fingers threaded over his mouth, the low strangled groan vibrating against her palms. Head leaning forward to press his forehead to Jean's, he makes no move to remove her hands. Grip shifting to cup the back of her knees, forcing the woman's legs up and further apart, he hits that spot deep within that makes the world erupt into stars. Her legs shaking in his hands. 

Garbled strings of whispered breathless curses and pleas flow past Jean's lips as her back arches toward the sharp coil of pleasure sinking its teeth around her spine. Toes curling inside her shoes, the pace abruptly shifts from desperate to a deliberate slow roll of his hips against her own. That fluid ease of his cock in and out of her has all semblance of thought dissolving in Jean's mind as her fingers release around his mouth and fist in his hair to pull into a ravenous kiss that has both their minds reeling. Burying himself to the hilt and pressing her tight between the wall and the firmness of his body, Dione feels her quake with the combined force of both their climaxes. Razing every nerve in its wake in an electric wildfire, the circuit between them makes her all too aware of that warm rush filling her up. Catching his deep rumbling groan around the hammer of her pulse and the ringing in her ears, Jean emits a choked whine in response.

Blinking open bleary eyes that she hadn't remembered, closing Jean pants for air, crushed against the wall and Dione's weight. Loosening the harsh grip she'd had in his hair, she feels the man against her shudder. A few breathless words muttered that the woman doesn't quite catch. Outside, the last few bars to Margaritaville are nearly screamed at the top of every patron's lungs.

#‘ﾟanswered » JEAN MASTERS — ❝ here the light only dies to remember ! ❝ #‘ﾟships » KAIJVKING — ❝ if you don’t love me now you’ll never love me again ! ❝ #is it over 3k words? #yes #is it sssssssssssssssssssmut #yes it sure is #but yknow #fuckitlmao #I wonder if I should make a seperate ship tag for him #hmmmm #HMMMMMMMMM #don't look at me #this was 1000% worth it barbra #fuck around and write a fic yknow #as you do

[seeaddywrite]

not by blood, but by choice

a/n: ugh, okay, so technically this was started as a response to the Day 2 prompt for Roswell New Mexico Week 2019, which was family, but i am the worst at adhering to deadlines. 4k of this was written yesterday, but I COULDN’T GET IT TO END.

thanks to @soberqueerinthewild, as always, for listening to me whine & letting me borrow her idea of Isobel taking self-defense classes! 

right. Max + Malex fic, set six months post-finale. 

“So, Isobel is where, again?” Michael asks, his elbows on Max’s kitchen counter to either side of a full plate. Max is damn good at using the grill on his patio, and Michael’s never one to pass up free food. If he’d known that it would end up just being himself, his brother, and his newly official boyfriend, however, he’s not so sure he would have accepted the invitation. 

It’s not that Michael hates spending time with Max. He really doesn’t, anymore, not since the other man died. Six months of sharp-edged grief and directionless anger over the actions of a dead man had been awful, and Michael can’t pretend that he’s not glad to have his brother’s steadying presence back in his head. They’ve been spending more time together in the three weeks since Max has been back, usually involving food and shitty television, and, most importantly, Isobel’s presence as a buffer. He and Max don’t know how to spend uncomplicated, unplanned time together anymore, even after the residual anger and bitterness between them fades, and Alex’s presence seems to have made the awkwardness worse. 

And that shouldn’t be a surprise, shouldn’t be the smack in the face that it is, because Michael has known since before Max’s death that he thinks Michael should let Alex go to focus on a future in which he can be happy, as if a relationship with Alex can never be more than a reminder of the tragedies in their shared pasts. And Michael’s pretty sure that there’s a little bit of discomfort at the idea of Michael with a man, too, and he doesn’t want to touch that particular idiocy with a ten-foot pole. He’s pretty sure Max won’t make it out of that conversation in one piece, and Michael doesn’t want Isobel and Liz on his ass for killing him again when they’d only just gotten him back. 

“Self-defense class,” Max says with a small sigh, glancing at Alex like he’s not sure how much he can say about the matter in front of him, despite the fact that he’s been involved in every step of the work to bring Max back and protect them all from the long-reaching arm of Project Shepherd. “She’s a little . . . focused.” 

Michael picks up what Max isn’t saying without any mental prodding, and he drops a hand from the counter to Alex’s good knee, squeezing for his own, selfish comfort. He gets a reassuring smile for his troubles, and Michael takes a moment to revel in how lucky he is that Alex was willing to give him another chance after every stupid fucking thing he’s done in the last year: dating Maria, trying to hide from his grief at the bottom of a bottle, and swinging first and asking questions later. Alex had been the one to drag him out of his self-imposed exile and help him to realize that Isobel needed someone, too, so he understands the worry Michael feels better than most anyone could. 

Michael would like to think that he’d pulled himself together enough to be there for his sister, but no amount of support had been enough to heal the gaping wounds Noah left in her soul. Max’s return helped, and her obsessive need to become more powerful has definitely eased in the past few weeks. She’s no longer practicing mind control on random passers-by, and she’s done blowing things up just because she can, a fact for which the entire town should be grateful. But Michael knows, just as Max does, that their sister is far from fine. Her laser focus has been turned from expanding her supernatural powers to physical self-defense now that Max is back with them, and it might be better for their anonymity, but no one is convinced that it’s better for Isobel. 

“She’s been through a lot,” Alex says, his voice level as he cuts through the moment of tension with his usual affability. He’s been eating steadily, and is sitting comfortably on one of the tall stools surrounding the kitchen counter, no hint of uncertainty in his posture, but Michael knows better. He’d asked at least three times on their way to Max’s if Michael was sure that he’d be welcome, and when he realized that Isobel wasn’t coming, the grip on Michael’s fingers had tightened to an almost painful degree. Even now, when Max lifts his chin and gives Alex a look, there’s an undeniable tension in the muscles beneath Michael’s hand. 

But Alex isn’t intimidated by Max. He wants to get along with him, Michael thinks, because they share all of the same friends and loved ones, and are at least tangentially family, which means more to Alex than most people would be able to understand. That doesn’t mean he’s going to back down and show his throat, though, or let Max run roughshod over his opinions. Max doesn’t seem quite sure how to handle that; he’s been running the show to keep the three aliens safe for their entire lives, and Michael suspects he’s having a hard time adjusting to the fact that others had become just as involved in that goal while he was gone. But Alex is good at plans and strategies in a way that Max isn’t, and has more personal experience with trauma and healing than Michael cares to think about. His understanding of Isobel’s actions carry weight, whether Max wants to admit it or not. 

 “No matter why she’s doing it, self-defense isn’t a bad way to help her build some confidence,” Alex continues, meeting Max’s gaze calmly across the table. “She’s got an expert teacher and other people in the class to make sure she doesn’t take it too far. It’s as safe as anything like that can be -- and I think we’d all rather she took out her frustrations on a punching bag instead of people. I really don’t think you need to worry about her; she’s just looking for a way to feel safe in her own skin again.”

They’ve talked about this before, Alex and Michael. It’s always been after nightmares of being forced to put Isobel’s body in a pod next to Max’s, or watching her being dragged away by scientists who caught her using her powers in obvious ways during her more reckless moments. It’s been Alex who’s gathered him close in the middle of the night and whispered reassurances and explained that recovery from trauma doesn’t always seem right or healthy to others, but Isobel has to learn to stand on her own again without interference from her friends and family. She has to learn what it means not to depend on anyone after years of leaning on Noah and his reputation to make a life for herself. Michael doesn’t pretend to understand, but he’s promised Alex -- and Isobel herself -- to give her some time and space to try. 

But Max has only been up and moving for three weeks, and he’s too mired in the guilt of sending his sister into such a tailspin to realize that he’s not doing her any favors by trying to smother her. But that’s Max; he’s always been too ready to do whatever it takes to protect them, no matter what the cost. That’s how they ended up covering up a murder and carrying that burden by themselves for over a decade. It’s why his friendship with Michael crumbled around them. It’s why he can never really feel safe -- and Michael’s tired of watching the same thing happen, again and again.

Max stabs a piece of chicken with a bit more violence than strictly necessary, but doesn’t make any move to eat it. “I’ve been worrying about Isobel since she fell out of her pod and into my arms when we were seven,” he says coldly. At some point, he’s shifted to sit up straighter in his chair, and crossed his arms over his chest while he stares, narrow-eyed, across the table at Alex. “She’s never had any interest in self-defense before. A taser and influencing minds has always been enough for her. So even if I could stop worrying, I wouldn’t, because my sister is off the rails, and she needs help. And for the record? The fact that you’re dating Michael now does not give you the right to tell me how to be there for my family.”

There’s a moment of stunned silence from all parties as the electricity in the room flickers and Max battles with himself to rein his powers back in. He seems just as shocked as the others about the words that have escaped his mouth, and Michael can’t quite wrap his head around the speed with which the conversation escalated. He gapes openly at Max, his blood on a slow boil. Who the hell does he think he is? Alex has been building a friendship with Isobel for half a year, while Max was gone. He’s listened to her cry, and even helped her find a decent self-defense class. Alex has been there for her, and for everyone else, while Max abandoned them for a moment of heroism that left them all fucking reeling -- and he’s going there? With Alex, who’d only been trying to help? Fuck no. 

“I’m sorry.” Max swallows heavily, his eyes sliding closed for a minute. The apology gives Michael the moment he needs to press pause on his impending explosion, and Alex looks genuinely poleaxed by the unexpected words. He’d been bracing for a blow-up, Michael realizes, taking in the challenging tilt to his chin and the glint of banked fire in his eyes. 

“That wasn’t -- I’m not --” Max trails off, running the palm of his hand over his face before opening his eyes and directing his words to both of them. “I don’t have the right to talk to you that way, Alex, and I should know better, by now, than to let my temper get the best of me.” He glances wryly toward Michael, who just raises an eyebrow, waiting. 

Alex doesn’t share Michael’s patience for whatever comes next. He pushes his plate off to the side of the table and leans forward, his expression inscrutable, but Michael can read the uncertainty in the tilt of his eyebrows and the tight line of his lips. He nudges his boyfriend’s knee with his own, trying to get him to look over, but Alex is focused on Max. 

“I know that you’ve been protecting them for most of your lives,” he says quietly, a strange solemnity in his voice that makes Michael want to wrap an arm around his shoulders and pull him into his side. Family is a difficult concept for Alex; he’s never had anyone willing to protect him from his father of any of the rest of life’s cruelties. And while Michael’s always wished for something more than Max and Isobel, someone more, he knows that he’s damn lucky to have them. Alex knows it, too, and is trying to meet Max halfway, which is more than Michael would have ever asked of him. 

“You’re family, and I respect that. I’m not trying to tell you how to support Isobel, or to pretend that she’s doing fine when we all know better. I’ve just been where she’s been, at least a little.” Alex hesitates, and in a moment of prescience, Michael can tell what he’s about to say and opens his mouth to stop him, to tell him that he doesn’t need to reopen his own wounds just because Max is bleeding all over him. But before he gets the chance, Alex plows forward, as unfailingly brave as he’s always been. “Someone who was supposed to love me hurt me, too. It’s not the same, and I’m not naive enough to think I know exactly what she’s going through. But I do know that after something like that? After betrayal and feeling so completely out of control of your own life? It takes time to feel comfortable in your own skin again. Time, space, and support from people who love you.” 

Michael tangles his fingers with Alex’s, and soaks up the small smile he gets in return. If Max is anything but understanding and kind in the face of such an emotionally honest confession, not even the threat of Liz’s temper tantrum is going to stop him from punching his brother in the fucking face. Alex doesn’t often talk about his father, and Michael can count on one hand the amount of times he’s heard him admit that he needed help to begin healing the wounds left by years of abuse and unfounded hatred. If Max rewards that honesty with callous words or cruelty, Michael doesn’t care what their connection is -- Alex is his family, too, and doesn’t have many other people to protect him. That’s Michael’s job, and one he takes damn seriously. 

Thankfully, Max only nods slowly. There’s no way to be sure of what he already knows about Alex’s father, or the real reasons he went to war, but there’s a glimmer of understanding in his eyes that tells Michael he knows enough to tread carefully. “It turns out I’m not so great at protecting anyone,” he says dryly, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. “Or taking good advice, apparently. I really am sorry -- you’re right. I need to let Isobel come to me, if that’s what she wants. It’s just harder than I expected, after all this time.” His smile is a sad, resigned thing, and Michael is irritated that it gets to him. Max deserves to feel some guilt and regret for what he’s done, and even if his death isn’t the cause of all of Isobel’s trauma, he needs to own the fact that he fucked up. 

Michael does his best to squash the thought. They haven’t talked about the moments leading up to Max’s death, or how any of them feel about it -- the three of them have simply slapped a bandage over the bleeding wound and done their best not to poke at it. Michael knows it won’t last forever; eventually, he’s going to lose it and tell Max exactly how much damage he’s done to all of them, not just Isobel, with his stupid stunt. He’s got plenty to answer for, and part of Michael wants to point it out, to bellow that he didn’t seem to care so much about protecting them when he was resurrecting Rosa Ortecho, that maybe he should have thought about how Isobel might feel -- but he doesn’t. This isn’t the time, not with so much already going on around them. 

Alex shakes his head, but some of the tension has dissipated from his face. “You don’t have to apologize. I get it. It’s hard to take advice from people you don’t really trust, and I know I don’t have yours, yet. But I really do just want to help, in whatever way I can. You might not think he and I are good for each other, but Michael’s the only family I’ve got, and you and Isobel are his, so . . .” he trails off, looking uncomfortable while trying to navigate complex emotions. Talking about how he feels and his own motivations is never going to be easy for Alex, even though he and Michael have gotten better at it is as they restarted their relationship. 

It’s hard to watch him push through the explanation, but Michael doesn’t jump in and try to help. He knows better; Alex is perfectly capable of expressing himself, and won’t appreciate an attempted subject change, no matter how awkward this one is. He shifts restlessly on the stool and kicks at the bottom of the counter in an effort to distract himself. The knowledge that Max doesn’t think the two of them should be together has weighed on Alex since Michael told him the story of how his hand was healed, and he knows that it’s better to get it all out in the open now, because if he has any say in the matter, Alex is sticking around for the rest of their lives. And if it helps him, or Max, to air their grievances, then Michael can deal with it. 

“What?” Max is staring at Alex, his expression twisted into obvious confusion. “Why would you think that?” There’s an obvious glimmer of hurt in the depths of his eyes that Michael doubts Alex can see. Max doesn’t usually bother to hide his emotions from his family, but with others, he tends to make more of an effort. “I’m not going to pretend that I know you very well, but I don’t have a problem with the two of you being together. I don’t know what Michael’s been telling you, but I’m not actually a bigot.”

“Max,” Michael interrupts, rolling his eyes. “He’s not calling you a fucking homophobe, relax. I told him about what you said before you --” he waves a hand, still uncomfortable with blurting out the word ‘died’ in reference to his brother. Isobel had taken to using the word as a weapon, wielding it viciously every time Max tried to convince her to give up her relentless pursuit of power and self-confidence, every time his protective instincts became smothering and hard for her to deal with, but Michael can’t quite bring himself to do the same. Not when it’s still so fresh in his mind, and Max’s, too. 

Alex nods, for the first time looking uncomfortable. “It makes sense. I know that I haven’t been the most reliable person for Michael, so I understand that you might not want to listen to what I have to say about Isobel, but -” 

“Wait, wait, hold on a second,” Max interjects, directing his bewildered stare at Michael. “What did I say? I remember -- I remember the lightning, and killing Noah, but everything gets hazy, after that.” There’s a far-off look in his eyes as he struggles to put the pieces together, and Michael shifts on his stool and eventually stands, restless energy crawling beneath his skin.  He’s recounted that night’s events for Alex, and for Liz, later, but this is the first time the subject has been broached with Max. It’s a hundred times worse; every word feels fraught with tension and buried emotion, and Michael doesn’t want this to escalate into a real fight. 

He can feel Alex’s eyes on him and knows that he’s going to have to answer, if only because Alex doesn’t have all of the details, and groans. This conversation feels like peeling a scab off of a nearly-healed wound, and it hurts, but Michael can’t bring himself to stalk off and ignore it any longer. They need to talk about this, to get it all out in the open, and Michael refuses to restart a decade-long habit of storming off when he and Max argue. The two of them are damned good at hurting each other, at leaving when things get hard, but Isobel isn’t in a place to bring them back together, anymore. And call him selfish, but Michael has enjoyed having his brother back, these past three weeks. Things have been good between them, and losing that over something that Max doesn’t even remember clearly would be fucking stupid. Michael might be frustrated, might feel like shaking Max until his brain rattles around in his skull, but he’s still Michael’s family, and that’s so rare that he won’t entertain the idea of losing it again because of death or stupid arguments. 

So he stops the restless pacing around the kitchen just behind Alex’s shoulder and flexes his newly-healed hand in pointed reminder of the conversation in the cave that Max can’t recall.   He’s not ashamed to admit that he takes a little takes petty, vindictive pleasure in the way that Max flinches — he’s not awful enough to want Max to hurt, but Michael wants to make damn sure he remembers, the next time he’s hyped up on power and thinks he can play God, that’s never okay to irrevocably change someone’s body without their fucking explicit consent, even if he’s sure it’ll be an improvement. 

“You said to leave the past behind and look forward,” he says, and if the words drip with accusation, Michael thinks it’s justified. That had fucked him up, for a while. Those words had gotten in his head and under his skin, and burrowed even deeper when Isobel agreed with them -- and he and Alex had lost months while Michael tried to follow their advice with Maria. “You wanted to get rid of my reminder.” Again, he flexes fingers that had been stiff and numb for the last decade, this time without really thinking about it. “And Isobel agreed, afterward, so --”

“You thought that meant I was telling you to give up on Alex?” Max interrupts abruptly, and Michael doesn’t understand the incredulousness in his voice. What the hell else could he have meant? But Max is staring at him, brows drawn and mouth open, and for a split second, Michael wishes that he could read the other man’s mind with Isobel’s ease. It’d be nice to know what Max is thinking, if only to get him to stop staring at Michael that way. 

“Let me get this straight,” Max says finally breaking the tense silence as he pushes away from the counter to stand. He runs his fingers through his short hair in a move that Michael recognizes from years of post-drunken brawl confrontations -- it’s the frustrated gesture that comes right before the agitated pacing in front of holding cell in the Sheriff’s office. With the pacing comes the ‘I’m so disappointed in you’ face that, despite all of Michael’s determination not to give a shit, always makes him feel a tug of guilt in the pit of his stomach. “You have never once listened to me before, about anything, and that’s where you decide to start?” 

Sure enough, the predicted pacing starts a second later, and Michael’s eyes narrow, his temper flaring hot and powerful in his chest. He’s glad Max isn’t dead, and he won’t deny it, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to start listening to the same old bullshit, especially when he hasn’t done anything wrong. 

“Do you need me to participate in this conversation, or is this where I’m supposed to shut up and listen to daddy like a good little boy?” Michael asks acerbically, his expression twisting into something bitter. “Fuck off, Max. I’ve listened to you before, and you know it. You’re the one who said anything to keep the secret, remember? Last I checked, I’ve been following your lead on that for years, even when it meant letting Isobel think I was a goddamn murderer!” His hands are clenched into fists at his sides, and Michael deliberately pushes away from Alex and the table in case things get ugly. 

He’s ready and braced for a fight. Part of him is even looking forward to it; Michael’s still got a hell of a lot of anger where Max is concerned, most of it centered around the fact that he’d done exactly what Isobel and Michael had warned him not to. He’d decided he was a freaking deity and sacrificed himself, leaving them torn apart and bleeding when they needed him. Michael’s hand, the fiasco with Noah, ten years of resentment — Michael’s practically salivating for a chance to swing at Max. Maybe then the restlessness that’s been crawling beneath his skin, making him unpredictable and reckless since Max’s death will finally be appeased. Maybe he’ll be able to let it all go, afterward, and function normally, like’s supposed to. 

Max doesn’t give him the chance to find out. His reply is strangely even, tinged with regret and something Michael can’t get a read on without pushing into his head. “I’m a lot of things, Michael, and we both know that not all of them are good, but I’d like to think I’m not that much of a hypocrite.”

It’s Alex who frowns and asks, “What do you mean?” when Michael just stares, still balancing precariously on the razor-thin line between cold silence and an explosion of temper. The wind’s been taken from his sails, though, and he wants to hear the answer to Alex’s question, so he says nothing.

Dark eyes glance between them, and Max huffs a disbelieving laugh and shakes his head. “Come on. Think about it. I should have given up on Liz a long, long time ago. If all I cared about was hiding the truth about what we are, I would never have gotten close enough to fall in love with her -- and I definitely wouldn’t have told her the truth when she came back, especially not after what happened to Rosa. Everytime we got closer, something awful happened, and it hurt both of us. And being with her now, it’s still like dangling from a cliff.” 

There’s a fond nostalgia in the way he speaks, like he’s repeating words from Liz’s mouth with the incredulity of someone who still can’t quite believe he got the girl. “It’s not safe. It’s not easy. Every minute with Liz is like this incredible adrenaline rush, and I’m always wondering what’s going to happen when I finally crash, but I wouldn’t give her up for anything. Not even when Isobel begged me to find someone else. I knew that I couldn’t.” 

Max looks from Michael’s face to Alex’s, and the slightest hints of a smile tweak the corners of his lips. “So I’d say it’d be pretty damn hypocritical of me to tell you to give up the love of your life when I’m not willing to do the same.” Max’s tall, broad body sags back against the kitchen wall, and he tips his head back against the panelling, staring up at the ceiling. “I don’t remember that night very well. Just feeling invincible, with all that power -- but I still do think you need to let go of the past and stop reminding yourself of everything that hurt you. It’s impossible to move forward together, carrying all of that weight with you, and it would have ruined any chance you had of making things work. That’s all I meant, Michael, I swear.” 

There’s a moment’s silence, and Max swallows before lifting his head to look back across the room at Michael again, apparently waiting for a response. He doesn’t get one -- at least, not from Michael. There’s too much going on in his head to even consider responding coherently; strong feelings always intensify the noise in his mind, turning his thoughts to chaos and threads of ideas impossible to untangle from one another. It’d made learning to speak as a child way more difficult than it should have been for someone as smart as Michael, and he still finds himself lapsing into silence from time to time. 

Max and Alex both know this about him, and no one presses. His boyfriend simply slides from his chair to stand behind him and wraps him in a warm, gentle embrace from behind, and rests his chin on Michael’s shoulder while he looks at Max, who’s still slumped against the wall, looking tired and significantly more concerned the longer the silence goes on. “Good,” he says, speaking for both of them while Michael tries to understand how he and Max could possibly misunderstand each other on such an epic level when they literally share a psychic connection. “Because I’m not leaving again, and things might have gotten pretty damn awkward if you were going to be an ass about it.” 

The blunt statement makes Michael laugh, and for the first time since entering Max’s house that night, he turns his head and presses a chaste kiss to the corner of his boyfriend’s mouth. It’s the first overt display of affection he’s made in front of Max and is suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that he’s been careful not to initiate much in the way of physical contact in front of his brother. Alex hasn’t said anything, and Michael knows he wouldn’t, whether it bothered him or not, but he’s immediately pissed at himself for the reluctance. Max’s opinion isn’t supposed to matter, whether real or assumed, but apparently, Michael’s always going to care, at least a little, about what his brother thinks. 

It’s a galling realization, but it doesn’t seem quite as bad as it would have an hour ago. 

“Nah, he’ll just find something else to be an ass about,” Michael drawls a moment later, and Max makes a face at him, but it does nothing to disguise the relief in his expression. He’s been waiting for Michael to erupt, to yell and call him names, because that’s what they’ve done for ten years, and damn, it feels good to break that cycle. “Which is fine, because Max being nice usually ends in being a captive audience for Dostoyevsky read aloud, and I don’t think we need to be a part of his masturbatory fantasies, you know?” 

Max snorts, and Alex grins, the stretch of his smile obvious against Michael’s cheek. “Well, that explains some things about the books Liz has been carting around lately. I knew she didn’t randomly decide to pick up the most depressing book ever written,” he adds, the teasing clear in his voice. This close, Michael can almost feel the slight waver of worry that the joke won’t be well-received, that Max is going to snap at him again and all the progress they’ve just made will be ruined, but Michael isn’t worried. 

Used to the mocking comments, Max just rolls his eyes and grabs his plate from the counter, still half full of food, and shoves it in the microwave to reheat. “Great,” he tosses over his shoulder, loud enough for both of the other men to hear clearly. “Another brother who wants to take shots at my library. You’re going to have to get some new material, Manes, because Michael and Isobel have exhausted those jokes. You two deserve each other.” He sighs dramatically with a good-natured smile in their direction, then takes his steaming plate from the microwave before disappearing into the living room with it. Michael can’t decide if he’s giving them a much-needed moment alone or is really just that hungry, but he appreciates it anyway. Alex has frozen against his back, and they definitely do need a second to themselves. 

As soon as he hears the television turn on in the living room, Michael turns in Alex’s arms and presses his lips to the hinge of his jaw. “Now you’ve done it,” he says lightly, running a hand down Alex’s back soothingly. “He’s adopted you. You’re going to have to put up with all of that oblivious, overprotective bullshit just like the rest of us, and pretty soon you’ll be as crazy as me.” 

Alex huffs a disbelieving laugh, obviously bewildered by the twist the evening had taken. “I came here ready to fight with him all night,” he admits quietly, and casts a surreptitious glance over his shoulder, as if worried that Max is eavesdropping from the next room. “This is better. Even if it’s a little bizarre.” There’s a small, pleased smile on his face as he takes a step back from Michael and laces their hands together, and it remains as they heat up the remains of their own food and join Max in the living room to watch Friends reruns with Isobel’s Netflix account. They don’t talk about anything difficult for the rest of the evening, reverting instead to teasing comments and character imitations, and Michael catches himself relaxing into the easy camaraderie of the evening. 

It’s not perfect, and maybe it never will be, but Michael thinks it’s a pretty damn good start to the family they’re trying to rebuild. 

#rnmweek19 #roswellweek19 #day two: family #my fic #malex + max #malex fic #whistles

[distressedpanda]

Her Song (Loki x OFC) Part 3

Warnings: Mild Language, Angst, Slow Burn, So much Angst, Wait did I mention angst?

All kidding aside, this chapter is very angsty. It was also my favorite chapter to write. I do apologize for how short this chapter is, but I am certain it will still be a good read. So here is the wonderful, frustrating, torture that is angst.

Let me know if you would like to be tagged!

Part 1 Part 2

He hadn't seen her for over two weeks now. Feelings started to form, which simply angered the god further. Feelings were for mortals, not Gods. He shouldn't feel this lonely without her around. He had always been alone and preferred it that way. But alas, he couldn't stop himself from thinking, had he said the wrong things? Had he pushed to far? Had he overstepped some invisible line he was unaware Midgardians had?

He had taken to lazing around the training center hoping he would bump into her. He felt in his very soul that he had to know her, needed to be near her. Thor had noticed this action, and continuously teased Loki about it. Mistakenly, Loki and spoken to his brother about these developing feelings.

“Why do you like her?” Thor had innocently asked.

“Her song,” Loki had answered in an unguarded moment of open clarity, that had been meant to stay to himself. It was true of course her voice had drawn him in further, but it wasn't all that drew him to her. Her almost ethereal beauty, the way she challenged him and spoke as though she were his equal. Even the frustrating way she wouldn't directly answer his inquiries, only made him want to know everything he could about her.

Thor now took any and every opportunity to pick at him about it, but there he was day after day, waiting.

This particular day, however he had gotten fed up with himself. Damnit, why am I acting this way? Throwing his hands up in frustration, he turned to leave. To hell with these damned mortal emotions.

But a sound reached his ears as he turned to leave, stopping him in his tracks. It was low and mournful, yet eerily sweet. It was a song with no words, and it both tore out his heart and filled it with joy. Chasing the tune, his feet thundered through the halls. It's her, he thought, It's Iloa, it has to be! Coming to a training room door, he threw it open without hesitation.

But no one was there. “No,” he gasped into the empty space, "I have finally gone mad,” he breathed unsteadily.

But no it was still there, further down the hall. He had simply acted to quickly. He walked further down the hall, slowly this time. Cautiously checking each door as he went. And then. . .

There she was, Iloa, standing in the middle of the room head lifted to the ceiling, her long ruby red locks cascading down her back. In the light they looked like liquid fire, flowing around and framing her silhouette. Her eyes closed, as she sang her haunting tune.

Something warm and wet rolled down his cheek and he looked up to see if the foreign thing had come from the ceiling.

Nothing there.

With shaky fingers, he touched the liquid now rolling down both cheeks. Tears. He was crying. Never in his life had this happened, and looking back at the beauty before him, he knew it was her song affecting him this way. At least, that's what he told himself.

Before he realized his feet were moving, he was reaching out to the girl. Wrapping her up in his arms, pulling her back flush with his chest, just as her song ended. Feeling the familiar and comforting spark course through him to his heart. She smelled like the ocean on a sunny day and he gulped in greedy lung fulls trying to fill himself with her.

She gasped softly, but knew who had her even before he spoke. His scent wrapping around her and filling her lungs. And the electricity was always there.

“Why are you so sad, my dear?” he whispered against her hair. He knew at full voice, she would hear the trembling timber in it.

She chuckled, which seemed completely out of atmosphere to Loki. “I am not sad, it's just practice. This song doesn't hurt anyone,” she answered, not understanding his actions. "Um," she added confused, "You can let go now."

No, I can't. It hurt me, he thought meekly, then immediately shook his head against her hair, causing her to giggle. The sound cleared his addled brain, bringing back a touch of the anger he had started feeling at her absence. He trembled, tightening his grasp on her, fighting to keep the anger and the rest of those damned emotions at bay. All he wanted to feel was her warmth and the buzzing spark coursing through his veins. It was comforting, welcoming. It was home.

Iloa felt the shift in him, like a string tugging at her heart. He was trembling, and his arms tightened minutely around her waist. She huffed slightly at the constriction, but managed to turn to face him even within the tight grasp. She placed her hand on his cheek and he nuzzled into the touch. This was not like him. His eyes closed, head bowed, his long raven hair hiding his face. The trembling had not stopped but seemed to grow worse at her touch. Her brow knitted together, as she leaned closer trying to see his face, “Loki, what's the matter with you? Are you alright?” her voice calm, low, and very desperate.

The desperation in her voice made Loki's mind snap, had he hurt her? Had he done the wrong thing showing concern? Why was he feeling these things for her? Why was he feeling anything at all? Why was he frightened?

Fear? Fear?! His brain roared to life with rage, I fear nothing! No one! This witch has spelled me for the last time! He dropped his arms and was beside the door in an instant. Fists forming at his sides, peeking up through the curtain of his hair. Willing his seiðr forth, “Where have you been?” he demanded, in a low threatening growl. He would have his answers, and this time he was prepared to fight to get them.

Even though he was clear across the room now, Iloa couldn't stop herself from taking a step back from the monster now before her. That is what he became, teeth barred, snarling at her. Even the way he looked up at her, eyes glowing lime green, was nothing short of a predator stalking his prey. She sighed long and low, very aware of the dangerous game she had been playing with the god. She raised her hands in front of her chest, placating the animal she had somehow awoken, “I was out,” she kept her voice low, calm, submissive, with just a hint of a calming hum, “On a mission, with the others. I am sorry no one told you.” She dropped her hands and head, this wasn't anyone's fault but hers, “I am sorry that I didn't tell you.”

The hurt in that last sentence tore at Loki's heart, but he couldn't still the rage in his mind. Through her sweet and gentle words he could pick up the hum, but this time it was having no effect on him. He slammed a fist backwards against the wall beside the door frame Putting just a touch of his magic into his fist, the drywall to cracked and splintered all the way down the wall. He reveled in the gasp that emitted from her throat, stopping her song.

“STOP SINGING!” he shouted, his voice a warning, a threat, a promise, but of what Iloa wasn't sure, she only knew it wouldn't be anything good. “You have poisoned my mind for the last time, you foul wench!” He spit these words at her, as though the very admission that she had affected him left a bad taste in his mouth. Truth be told, it had. Only not for the reasons he was currently divulging.

She glared up at him, still hurt by his change and now words. “I didn't poison you, Loki!” she shot back in an attempt to get him out of the state he was in.

Loki watched her eyes turn into blazing sapphires, and became hypnotized by them. This was no spell, no song. He wasn't under anyone's influence but his own. My mind is my own, but why can't I control it! His mind roared again but this time the anger was aimed more at himself.

To Iloa, it seemed that the only thing Loki ever responded to when he was like this, was more anger or violence. She could play that game and if it meant saving her life against the God, she would. “All I have done is speak to you. Sure our first real conversation wasn't exactly under your control, at the beginning,” she waved a hand at him dismissively, “But let's be honest here, what I did is nothing compared to what you have done.” Bravely, she took a step forward, then another, watching confusion flash across his face before the animal returned.

This was working, she had to keep pushing. She had to get through to him, “That's right, Loki. I have heard all the stories.” He actually flinched at her words, but was still snarling at her. More, she had to dig deeper. Stepping forward still, she continued, “How you have tortured and tormented people. Hell, you have even killed to get your way. And not just enemies, oh no! You kill people that are trying to help you! You hurt people that love you, that care for you and just want to get to know you!” She was now standing in front of him, yelling as tears formed in her eyes. It took all her will power to keep them from escaping.

“And yea, that last one is me,” she deflated and watched as he ever so slightly mimicked the action, the seiðr leaving his eyes. “I don't know what this thing is between us, but I can tell you right now it has nothing to do with my songs. And the saddest part of this entire conversation, is that deep down,” she reached up and punctuated her next words by jabbing her finger into his chest right above his heart, “You know what I am saying is true.”

She let out a long sigh, dropping her head and hand. “So call me whatever you think you need to, act out in your confusion and be a fool. Just know that I won't be so easily brushed to the side.”

She moved to pass him, gripping the door handle, but the familiar feel of electricity shot through her hand. He had reached out, laying his hand atop hers. “Stop,” he breathed. The anger was still there, he was still sneering with his eyes closed, head down. But the animal had faded, anger no longer directed at her. “Please, just wait,” he begged.

She dropped her hand out of his grasp, taking a step back and crossing her arms over her chest defensively. He appeared lifeless before her, like a puppet with his strings clipped. “What is wrong, Loki?” she asked sincerely. “If you will not talk to me, we cannot possibly remedy this misunderstanding between us. And I am certain that is all this is, a misunderstanding.”

He nodded his head just enough to register, before dropping to his knees. Iloa rushed to his side reaching out to him, but he held out a hand stopping her, “Please don't,” he whispered. “I can't control this anger. If you touch me again, I know I shall lash out. I don't want that, Iloa.”

She gasped at the sound of her name. Even in his defeated voice it was like the most beautiful music to her ears. She doubted her hearing, “Say it again.” she begged in wonder.

Loki looked up at her, his usual bright emerald eyes seeming dull and dead. “I don't want to hurt you,” he answered.

She shock her head earnestly, kneeling in front of him. His eyes followed her cautiously, but she was careful not to touch him, “Not that,” she breathed, begging him with her eyes.

He cocked his head to the side, his brow furrowing. Just as she was about to answer his unasked question, light flashed in his eyes, softening his features, and he answered softly, "Iloa."

Iloa closed her eyes and savored the beauty of her name on his lips. And though she had been warned, she couldn't control her body as it lunged forward wrapping her arms around his neck. Holding Loki tightly, she absorbed the electricity humming sweetly through her veins, she whispered, "Thank you."

He froze, muscles tensing at the contact. He had expected his body to immediately rage against her, but it didn't. Nothing happened, as her comforting embrace tightened, all he felt was her energy and warmth course through his body to his heart. This mortal cared, genuinely cared for him. Slowly, cautiously, he let himself relax. Muscle by muscle, fearing this would turn against Iloa at any moment. But it didn't, the anger had a new target. Sighing in relief, Loki knew it was no longer the girl holding him, he was only angry with himself.

He returned the embrace timidly at first, then she made a sound, almost like a purr, at his touch and he tightened his arms, effectively pulling her across his lap and burying his face in her luscious locks. There was another scent there, one his mind refused to identify. It was thick and heady, and all to familiar. But hard as he tried, he couldn't pull from his memory exactly what it was.

"I am burdened with these feelings towards you. And I hate myself and you, but I can't hate you. Why? Why do I feel this? I can't, I cannot," he said in a panicked whisper against her hair. She tried to move to see his face but he held her tighter. "I am a God!" he added, his voice sounding strangled as he forced it past his lips. Squeezing her until she groaned in response.

She chuckled lightly, running her fingers through his long dark locks, comfortingly. "Perhaps, you are more human than you think," she answered.

He huffed without amusement, "Doubtful," he admitted, relaxing into her embrace. She could breathe again and held him close, as he continued to speak, "I have a need to be near you, always," he took a shuttering breathe, forcing the next words, "I have fear."

Immediately, he hated himself for admitting this fault. He buried himself more completely in Iloa's embrace, like a child seeking comfort.

She smoothed his hair, "We all have fear, dear Loki. We all need comfort sometimes as well," she cooed.

Immediately, he tensed and she knew that her words had not had the effect she had wanted. He moved his hands to grasp her waist, placing her back on her knees again, gently but firmly. He rose to his feet and her eyes followed. He turned for the door, "I am a God, mortal!" He snarled the words at her, but it sounded forced. There was no bite behind them. "I shall have no fears."

He opened the door, hearing her sigh deeply behind him. He glanced momentarily, over his shoulder at where she still knelt on the floor. Those sapphire eyes claimed him as she spoke softly, "Please know, I will be here for you, when you are ready."

Then he was gone.

#loki #loki x ofc #angst #somuchangst #didimention #fanfiction #fanfic #slow burn #tom hiddleston loki

[tarithenurse]

Wrong Number

Prompt: “You have found a ritual for summoning the Devil himself…but when you try it out it’s your neighbour that appears. Assuming the ritual has gone wrong, you let them go.” Contents: tiny bit of gore, but mostly just confusion, (British) cussing, and attempts at humour. A/N: I couldn’t help but think of Crowley from Supernatural when I saw this prompt, so please accept the change to King of Hell rather than the Devil.

Checking the list of components one more time to make sure everything is ready you can’t help but feel a shiver of fearful anticipation rummaging around in your guts. The King of Hell. Of all the demons (and other less savoury creatures) you’ve summoned, this is going to be your piece de resistance. It’s not even like you need something from the fucker, not really. You just want to know if the ritual’s for real. Aunt Agatha had a lot of weird stuff, most of which was bogus…or downright dangerous, you recall, scratching at the still angrily-red scar on your arm – it had turned out the pen was mightiest.

Back on track! The herbs are good to go, virgin’s blood too which had been much easier to procure than the creator of the spell might have imagined. Lighting the candles, you begin reciting the words, letting them roll off and create a meaning beyond the syntactic property to power each action. As the blood drips from your arm into the bowl, the candles flare up –

Everything is dark. No candles, no electricity, just the yellow glow from the streetlights beyond the small living room. Then the power returns, blinding you once more although you do your best to fight it, blinking at the person standing in the middle of the room. A pair of fluffy red loafers are warming sock-clad feet. The flowery apron throws off the severity of the black shirt and suit pants…a shirt that happens to have its sleeves rolled up to avoid the bubbles of what looks like dish soap drenching the hands of the stocky man.

”What…” the English accent of your neighbour cuts through your baffled mind, ”on earth….is going on?”

Hastily tossing the nearest pillow over the bowl and wrapping a towel around your arm, you hurry over the middle-aged man who’s slowly turning in his spot to take in the sudden change in surroundings. Crap! Crapcrapcrap!

”Mister Crowley!” Your mind’s racing to come up with something – anything. ”Please, sit down again! I’ll get the water for you and then we’ll call someone to help you.”

”Help me?” He certainly looks perplexed.

Guiding him by the arm, you manage to get him onto the couch. ”Yes, don’t you remember? You came to my door, completely outta’t. I thought you were about to croak on me!”

You can hear him settling in a bit as you scurry to the kitchen, find a glass and filling it, and grabbing both an extra towel and your phone. If that’s the lie you’re going with, then you have to do it right. But why? Nothing makes sense. Sure, a spell can backfire or a ritual can be for something else than planned…but for something to fail as monumentally like this, dumping an innocent, old civilian in a witch’s lap? Unheard of! Still, that’s exactly what seems to have happened, and as stunning as the conundrum is you still have to deal with damage control first.

”Alriiight, here you go.”

Passing him the towel for the wet hands first, you can’t help but notice the sharp intelligence in his eyes. You don’t know much about Mr. Crowley, as he tends to keep to himself, except that he lives alone in the only manor in a neighbourhood of terraced houses. Everything about the place seems to be in perfect order, oozing a sense of old money which has the local gang of kids in a twist trying to figure out more.

”Ye’re sayin’ I showed up at ye door?” The disbelief’s palpable.

”Yeah,” you nod, ”all pale and shaking. Scared me shitless too.”

Crowley scowls at the phone on the coffee table. ”I feel fine, no need to ring anyone.”

Thank you. ”Are you sure? Wouldn’t wanna’ve you getting another fit when you’re alone…you know…in case it’s something…”

”I’m sure…” The moment of silence’s enough to establish an awkwardness that seems entirely one-sided and only bothering you. ”It’s prob’ly for the better if I get back.”

At least he lets you walk him the few hundred meters to his place, even goes as far as to open the door with you still by his side, allowing you a glimpse of a richly decorated hallway beyond. Wood panelling, fine tapestry, small crystal chandeliers, and decor that never has been near an IKEA…in fact warehouses were probably a new concept when the items were made.

…

Closing the door behind him, Crowley can’t help but smile to himself at the way the young witch handled the situation. Whomever she had tried to summon, she clearly didn’t expect him, and sure, he’d been pissed of at first, ready to kill her then and there, but…why? This could be fun.

…

It's been days where you’ve made sure not to try any summonings, focusing instead on cleansing your home until the place reeks of sage. You’ve had charged crystals placed strategically along vectors, drawn and redrawn a variety of sigils and runes…and of course cleansed yourself. Almost ready. Magic’s powerful and you’ve had to make sure nothing has somehow influenced what you were (and will be) doing.

But how did it happen? Nothing indicated that the spell was a forgery. Sure, aunt Agatha did get slightly loopy (which explains how she ended up splicing herself when attempting to pass through a wall), which is why you’ve taken the scroll to an expert after it landed Mr. Crowley in your living room. But the conclusion at the occultist was the same as your own.

Glancing at the alarm clock, the red ciphers glow like lava in the shape of 3:42.

“Cain’s cock!” Pushing the duvet aside, you swing your legs out of bed, bending down to rummage for your slippers.

Soon, you’re at your desk, bend over the yellowed parchment to study the beautiful script and tiny illustrations for the millionth time.

…

You manage to wait a few more days before finally giving in and using the first spell since the incident. It’s just a simple incantation to help take care of an injured squirrel, not a full-blown summon…but Crowley still appears. This time there’s no apron, but a gorgeous, grey tie and a glass of whiskey in his hand.

How can you even begin to explain this? It’s pure luck that he apparently is too drunk to even remember your name, let alone that he’s supposed to be somewhere else.

The third time he appears (this time in his pajamas and bathrobe), you’d been conjuring a bit of snow for the neighbourhood kids who were mourning the droopy snowman.

The fourth time, you’re ready for him. A Devil’s Trap is decorating the ceiling, fortified with crystals charged in lay lines. This time he’s dressed up for a proper meeting, but so are you because you want to make a strong impression when confronting him. Oh yes, you’ve done your homework. Delved deep and cashed in favours to learn more about this neighbour of yours. Crowley’s a demon alright, a crossroads’ demon to be exact…but it’s been a while apparently since he’s made a deal with anyone and rumour has it he’s moved up in the hierarchy of Hell. How far? You’re not sure, but it doesn’t matter because he should know enough of his trade to stay away unless called for. So why does he keep showing the fuck up?!

Checking yourself in the mirror, you make sure the dress is falling correctly to hide the weapon strapped to your thigh. It’s just a knife, but the seller (the occult specialist who examined the spell) has guaranteed that the runes are identical to those on the Winchester’s demon-killing knife.

Then you begin. Lighting candles and chanting the words you know by heart now after having stared at them so often. Herbs, sulphur, scales, and blood mixes in the bowl and the result’s the same as your first attempt of using the summoning spell. The shadows obscure most of the short man, but the yellow light from the street lamps proves that it’s not just your eyes deceiving you. So does the smell of whiskey.

Moving to the couch and little coffee table, you keep an eye on the figure. “Cup of tea, Mr. Crowley? I’m afraid it’s just Earl Grey, didn’t know what else to get you.”

“Ye always do tea parties in the dark?” he drawls.

“Nope. Lights just went out.”

With a snap he restores it, taking in the room before looking towards where you’re pouring the steaming tea into your aunt’s old cups. A tray of scones is set temptingly in the middle of the cozy arrangement, butter and jam nearby, and it clearly catches his interest just like you’d hoped. Scooting further into your seat in a deep chair, you hope to portray a certain nonchalance as you test the scalding hot tea. Please, step into the trap.

Crowley gets all of five steps before stopping abruptly. “Bloody hell!” Glancing around, it takes a moment before he spots the trap painted above him. “Bravo, ye found out I’m a demon, gonna let me out?”

“I think we oughtta talk first.”

He’s fuming. Stubby fingers clench the glass so tight you half expect it to splinter, but just as quick as he was at getting worked up, he calms himself. The side of him that, according to rumour, made him a successful crossroads’ demon shows as he braces himself for negotiation.

“Fine!” Okay…still a bit pissed. “Ye got me, little witch, what ye want?”

You shouldn’t be surprised that he knows what you are, but it does make you uncomfortable to hear him say it. You feel exposed somehow. Demons rarely harm witches unless provoked…the question remains, of course, what Crowley would consider a provocation considering he’s been going out of his way to turn up randomly. Why not start with that?

“Let’s start with something easy…why’d you keep popping in?”

The first answer is an eyeroll. “Ye summoned me.”

“I’w’s making it snow last time.” The cup clinks loudly as you set it down.

“Alright, so I might’ve had fun, making ye think ye were messing things up. Doesn’t mean ye still didn’t summon me the first time…like now.”

So, there’s something wrong with the spell or the diabolic hierarchy is fucked up. Tossing him a scone, you walk over to the small dining table to pick up the scroll. Rex Inferi shouldn’t be that hard to understand, but obviously something has been lost in translation. Unless…

“Show me your eyes.”

“Not int’rested in oggling.”

Hoisting the dress up to reach the knife doesn’t go as smoothly as you’d hoped. And when you finally do brandish it, Crowley scoffs at it before returning his focus to the drink he’s nursing. He still hasn’t taken a bit of the scone. In an attempt to regain a sense of control, you flash the knife before him and explain of its properties.

“HA!” His laughter continues and sounds anything but fake. “Ye think that’s gonna scare me? Sweetheart, I know the real deal and that there?” He gestures to the weapon with the almost empty glass. “Not even close. Need Enochian for that, not…whatever that’s supposed to be.”

“In that case you want mind a test-run, do ya?”

“Ye don’t wanna go cuttin’ me.” Crowley keeps a wary eye on the knife regardless of his proclaimed safety.

Would be nice to avoid blood on the rug. “Oh no?”

“Nope.”

“Give me one good reason…” You let the metal reflect the light just enough to serve as a reminder of its presence.

A finger flicks, perhaps out of habit, but the Devil’s Trap works as intended. “Bollocks! Fine! ‘Cause I am the bloody King of Hell, alright?!”

The silence lays heavily in the little room after the outburst. Red eyes glow with frustration, until Crowley blinks. Well, shit. Old aunt Agatha might have gotten at least a few things right, but how are you going to deal with the King of Hell trapped in your living room?

#SPN #supernatural #supernatural fanfiction #spn fanfic #crowley spn #King of Hell spn #supernatural crowley #Supernatural King of Hell #SPN Family #King of Hell Crowley #witchey stuff spn #summon crowley #wrong number summon

[sidpah]

Nature’s Classroom

There is no warmth coaxing me out, and I’m away from home for the first time. Far far away, and I’m too young to be strong. Looking up at the springs and underside of a drab military mattress. I hate the creep who’s sleeping on it. I hate the kids snoring all around me. I’m alone among them and can’t wait for the calendar page to fall so I can break the hell out of here.

Earlier when I sat on my bunk rifling through my duffle-bag looking at trinkets and wrinkled pictures, fighting back the tears that come with remembering, they laughed at me, legs dangling from high bunks, talons gnarled together eyeing me like celluloid vultures in a wool and pine desert. There’s no electricity so there’s no television or radio or any other entertainment than watching this fat little jester.

I palmed an old letter so they wouldn’t see and slid it into my pocket so they couldn’t read it. Or steal it. They’re a bunch of thieves. That’s why we’ve been confined together. Not one of us is innocent. I won’t lie about that. The difference between us is that I feel rehabilitated. Or penitent. While they revel in their baseness. It’s their bond. It’s all they talk about: reminiscing hauls, their muggings and petty thefts, rings slipped off oblivious fingers, folded cash from a mother’s hidden billfold… And how they’d spent their ill-gotten funds, and what they’ll do together, when they’re freed, pitting their feeble minds against the petty cash of the unsuspecting public. These were the influences the superiors have seen fit to buffer me with, and the best I can do is try to tell myself that I’m not actually here. That and hide my valuables. (Nothing I own has significant monetary value, purely sentimental, but those pricks don’t delineate between the two; valuable is valuable, and the thought that they have something someone else wants is the only kick that matters.)

I hide them in a small slit that I made on the side of my mattress. It’s a tiny incision right in the middle near the wall where my head would lay when I was pretending to sleep.

In the dark I would snake a hand down into my bag, root around until I’d extracted an item to secret away, and then oh so slowly, pull it up under the covers. With great patience, so their nocturnally-trained burglar eyes wouldn’t catch the movement, I’d bring my hand up and slip it under the pillow where I would deposit the treasure without anyone being the wiser. This whole process could take upwards of twenty minutes. But it was worth it. It was all so I’d have the relief, potent tangible relief, of sliding my hand under the pillow and into the hole just to know that my past was where I’d left it.

But now the mattress above me sags in the middle and I turn over to try to keep from watching the springs pull and compress. It makes me queasy.

“You sleeping?” he asks me. I produce a fake snore but he doesn’t buy it. “Fruitcake, fruitcake, I know you’re awake.” I bury my head beneath the covers and curl up tight. Something soft bounces off my ear. “Wake up, you little bitch.” I snore again too loudly and it hurts my throat. “Wanna suck me off?” I roll over on my back and see his face, all protruding eyes. “Come on, I know you want to. A handjob, then. You’re down there jerking off anyway. Help a brother out.” Fucker. I don’t look at him and turn onto my other side. I hear him roll over and now he’s facing me again. Goddamn it. “Hey, hey, pansy, come on, no one’ll know. I know you want to,” he whispers curling his lips into a snarl.

Without premeditation, I roll onto my back and piston two legs toward the mattress, kicking with all my might the sag above my stomach. I can’t help but laugh as his dark form gracelessly falls past me and smacks loudly on the concrete floor, tailed by the angular blur of his blanket covering his limbs sprawled out and I can smell the surprise on him. Fucker, hope he’s dead, I think with tasty satisfaction.

That week I didn’t shit on a toilet or shower once. The line was never too long but I couldn’t bring myself to be part of it. I’d rather hide behind a nice clean bush. I’m not so civilized that I can’t tell poison ivy from a maple leaf.

I sat alone beneath a towering pine in the middle of a thunderstorm. I kept dry while I prayed for a tornado. That prayer, like all my prayers, was left unanswered. The tree later fell on a hiker and killed him dead a few feet from where I sat. I thought about running away at the height of the downpour, but I didn’t know how I’d gotten here, so I didn’t know how to leave. I thought about just heading deep into the woods. Surely there must be a road carved in there somewhere. But I knew I’d die either at the paws of a bear or at the slow steady hands of starvation.

So I remained in my place and fell desperately in love with a little copper-haired girl who cheered me on as I tried to swing over the mud or lava or imaginary gorge (can’t remember which it was supposed to be) and my feet scraped at it and either got dirty or burned or scooped helplessly at the air. It’s not flattering but most times I simply died a bumbling death. But she didn’t mind, and she always managed to bring me back to life, even when the others were ready to bury me where I lay. When she swung I made sure to catch her, just to feel her body beneath her warm winter coat. To know what a warm body felt like. What a body like hers would feel like. Sometimes I’d pretend that I’d forgotten how to let go. I yelled out sincere words of encouragement as she scaled the wall I was too afraid to approach. I knew the embarrassment already. There was no need to relive the experience. I’d tried to talk her out of climbing but it was something she had to do. Some of us feel motivated to do grand things. Some of us barely feel the motivation to feel motivated. I watched on with vicarious consternation. And when she fell from thirty feet above, my heart lurched. I gasped, hoping no one heard. From so far away I saw the expression of shock her entire body curled itself into, that instinctual “O” her lips made as her fingers clawed at the crumbing rock. I saw the tips of those fingers scrape open revealing their core and I saw her hair stay suspended around her face as the rest of her fragile shell rushed toward me for the last time.

When she hit the ground she was laughing and smiling and joking about how it was much more fun to come down than it was to climb up. The cord saved her. But I hugged her all the tighter when she landed. If I could, I would never let her leave the ground again.

I ate paltry breakfasts consisting of one paper cup of raisins and one small half-brown banana while everyone else had bacon and eggs, hash browns and pancakes. I had orange juice. They had orange juice. We pretended to be equals. I would clean up the dishes afterwards and someone would stay to help. They would be rewarded with a plaque for helping me. I was duty-bound to my chores. They were going beyond their call. I was the imbecile who always needed assistance. My first day there I got lost. I dragged bulging green duffle-bag over dirt and rock and fern. Going from shack to shack asking if this is where I belonged. I didn’t belong here at all, and I knew it before I’d stepped foot into the van hours earlier. Before I posed for that final commemorative photograph. But when someone approached and offered to help me with my bag and indoctrinate me into the ranks, he was given a medal or a plaque or a commendation. I was scolded for being late and chastised for being directionless.

Often, she would stay to help, no matter how little there was for her to do. And no matter how much she’d rather be joining in with whichever group activity she was choosing to miss. I hated group activities. That mandatory ballroom dancing could have been the worst. If she didn’t always offer to be my partner. She was the subtle variation that mutated the revolting into the sublime. I searched for her whenever possible. I probably made her detest me with my clinginess. But if she grew sick of me, she never once showed it. Even when we were torn from our feigned slumber for a fire drill in the dark cold hours when I was busy not sleeping and not shitting, I dropped out of my ranks and ran to find her in her flannel pajamas, arms wrapped tight across her shaking midsection. She was standing in line. I forgot we were segregated and that I shouldn’t be seeing all the other girls in their bedclothes. I didn’t see them anyhow. I saw only her and she seemed delighted that I’d come all the way to find her. I hadn’t remembered my shoes so my feet turned yellow and went numb. Which was okay because I couldn’t feel all the rocks that I stepped on or the piece of broken soda bottle that I wasn’t awake enough to see embedded in the dirt. I spent the rest of the night happily extracting glass and stones from my cold dead feet, not in the least thinking about my task and only remembering how her hair looked, tussled from her pillow, and the rosy hue of her cheeks surrounded by clouds of my hanging breath.

Later I slept flu-bound on a couch behind the stage while the troops were being entertained. The music made my head swim, putting me in mind of a school fieldtrip I’d attended years before. I’d been so scared by a performance of The Wind in the Willows that I’d laid down on the theater floor stretched out beneath the seats of four or five of my classmates. The cool surface and smell of chewed bubblegum calmed me. Not having to see those swinging actors in animal makeup and fake fur calmed me. “He has a stomachache,” my teacher told the kids who asked why I was pinching their legs from behind. I smiled to myself and then rolled over to vomit into a brown pail. She came to me when she could. She brought me cool wet washcloths for my forehead and glasses of water to sip with chocolate graham crackers to nibble on if I felt up to it.

“You can’t call home,” they said. “Against the rules,” they said. “Against the law,” I said. Like always, the elders’ rules prevailed.

I shuffled into the trailer to get my nightly fix while she waited for me outside. The old woman had what I needed in a little paper cup. She was nice – didn’t make me pay. Guess she felt sorry for me. Not sorry enough to let me use her phone, though. I sat at a small cluttered table that probably folded into the wall, or would have, if she’d ever cleaned it off, which to the best of my knowledge, she never did. Over it was one tiny porthole of a window with the curtains perpetually drawn. The door was light and creaked, felt like aluminum and cardboard. There was never a smell of food in that trailer. I wonder if she ever ate. Only the bitter wisps of an inhaler and the stale scent of old tobacco.

On the last day, I watched the little copper-haired girl climb the steps to her bus, leaving for a distant land, and I waved optimistically with a big plastered-on smile full of big sad teeth, asking her to keep in touch. Knowing for the first time what it was to be heartbroken. She didn’t wave back. I headed off to my own bus, bound southward, all the while stealing wistful glances, hoping to see her turn, wave, run to my waiting embrace replete with soundtrack of swelling strings… She never replied to any of my letters.

Some time in, I was taken under the wing of an old gentleman who taught me things I cherished and then forgot. He taught me survival in the woods. He taught me either to find a large tree in a thunderstorm and stay beneath it, or else stay as far away from any large trees as you can, I can’t remember which. He taught me which mushrooms I could eat if I was starving, and which ones I could eat if I was suicidal. He taught me how to make a fire with a tent peg and a dead leaf. He taught me that even elderly couples, those who seem so content and at ease, can still secretly despise one another. He taught me to see people for what they are and accept them for the same reasons. The most important lesson he taught me was kindness. For that I will not regret the experience.

#fiction #camp

[violetsystems]

#personal

It can be a nightmare after all these years to be too transparent for public record.  I imagine it would be something like a poltergeist; always bumping into things and being misinterpreted or read into.  The age old posit of “Shit Happens” doesn’t leave much room for argument or even proof of life  Nobody ever seems to hear my side of things other than when I write about it here.  Nobody registers the endless frustration because I hide it all so well.  I changed a lot of my routines in the last two weeks specifically.  A year ago I started getting harassed at the gym so I changed my schedule there to an early one.  Eventually I quit the gym altogether.  These days I don’t even own a gym membership.  The Nike Training App core routines and some barbells have delivered far more than the stress I had leaving the house.  I think I’ve learned over time that Yoga and Pilates in the back bedroom teaches you more about form and control.  I use a mirror to monitor my posture.  I don’t feel any prying eyes on me behind closed doors.  For years everybody knows I’ve been my own coach and source of motivation.  The source of inspiration is a given and that’s always been fiercely personal to me.  The fact that it should be so obvious is something I’ve learned to enjoy because it is to me.  But nobody particularly knows or cares what goes on in my personal life other than here where I write.  They forget about the weeks and the work therein.  So I probably resemble a ghost clanking with chains in the hallways.  There’s no causality because nobody pays enough attention to accept I exist.  I’m stuck in a limbo between the known and unknown.  There’s some attention I avoid.  I avoid heavy doses of it every day because I know better.  It’s sticks out like a sore thumb socially and I’ve had to practice a sort of poker face.  People often have a habit of expressing their distaste that I think for myself.  I changed my train route to work.  I still bump into awkward invisible walls.  People trying to hijack my narrative in public.  People afraid of ghosts I guess.  Some cultures leave offerings for the dead.  Others try to exorcise and eradicate them.  Some people throw dust to the wind and some people keep their loved ones in a jar above the fireplace.  I’m still alive clawing at the fabric of society and not so much reality.  Society is fake this we all know.  More obsessed with post truth and fake news than statistical based science.  I used to have more dread towards my situation.  That I would be completely forgotten and misunderstood for the rest of my life.  Obviously people following me around on my commute regardless of my route disproves that fate.  People treat me like Frankenstein sometimes.  Pitchforks, torches and all.  Every other week I’m on trial for a different section of my being.  I’m a patchwork of things I’ve picked up from art school year after year.  And year after year there’s something else that claims it’s cooler, fresher, and more alive.  A good excuse to keep me buried.  To keep the heresy out of plain sight.  And then there’s me banging away at the keyboard early in the morning on the internet like a spirit in the tv static.  People free to read into the message however they please.  Most people just surf right through me.  The noise is still out there every Saturday pulsing like a brain in a petri dish.  The horror.

I read this article about how they were growing brain tissue in a lab.  There was this rhythmic pulse of electricity that they couldn’t explain.  The ethics of testing on conscious living material are dicey at best.  So are half the relational aesthetics driven social experiments done in the name of justice and revolution.  What is right and normal is a lengthy discussion.  But it requires dialog. Sometimes I feel like that brain in a dish trying to give a signal but nobody wants to acknowledge.  No one wants the inconvenience of reading how I really feel.  My routine the last year has been fairly measured and predictable.  Yet people still feel the need to watch and make sure.  It’s been a bit of an insult to come full circle a year later and know full well I told you so.  And some of that sting from my own pride is softened by the fact that I broke free from the petri dish a long time ago.  Patch worked my own identity in the face of valid harsh criticism.  I am who I am and I accept pretty much everyone at face value.  I have saved so much face this year that I’ve become more weary of public and how much it takes to put on the act and show.  For all the revolutionary movements I’ve supported and all the calls to action I’ve heeded nothing much has changed for me.  In America there is this endless cycle of outrage.  Right versus left.  Good versus evil.  Black versus white.  And it spirals into a fractal of endless opinions and vitriol.  Nothing gets defined.  Compromise is completely nonexistent.  Closure is a luxury most cannot afford.  You can’t have closure without getting yourself wrapped up in a bigger drama which limits and belittles the argument in favor of populism or worse.  The tribe of public opinion has spoken.  You have been voted off the Deleuzian Island you were shipwrecked on.  A reality exposition in front of camera phones and a conscripted army of influencers.  America has moved from clique to tribe.  Everything is a little more Mad Max than it used to be.  On the weekends I still stare out my kitchen window early in the morning.  People have so many hidden expectations for me now it exhausts me just thinking about it.  It is pure mental anguish to read into all the projections and there’s no real payoff.  What statement shirt will I see today.  What hidden message or Easter Egg do I have to squint my eyes at to prove I’m fully woke.  It’s what is expected of me to be left alone I guess.  Yes I’m ok.  Yes I have a job.  Yes I keep myself busy.  Yes I keep myself out of trouble.  Yes everything outside of my apartment these days seems to be causing me more trouble than it’s worth.  Yes I’m very sad on the inside.  And yes none of that really matters because when I shut the door and think about the people I care about it’s all worth it.  Because I’m not some experiment in a dish that demands some qualitative proof of my usefulness to science, life and America.  I’m my own science project.  A mixture of phantom, shade and shambling mound.  I figured out a way to hide the scar tissue in broad daylight and let the sun fill the hollows in my face.  I’m the most handsome Frankenstein to walk the Earth.  Maybe more of the Hulk for good measure.  Aren’t they pretty much the same thing anyway?

Universal Studios actually owns the film rights to Frankenstein down to the makeup.  The only Frankenstein movie to ever make it to Japan was because of a guy from Chicago selling the rights to Toho.  He’s also the guy that could have boosted Lenny Bruce’s career.  He instead launched Woody Allen’s rise to stardom.  A parable lies within all of this.  Maybe why we’ll never see a decent standalone Hulk movie inside the MCU.  Maybe I’ll just read the comics instead and let it play out in my own head.  There’s a lot of bullshit that I don’t ever want to be part of.  A lot of soul sucking corporate tactics that don’t honor the actual art form.  And there’s the reality that money, jobs, and careers make the world go round.  I work at a non profit.  I make a non profit salary.  I’ve lived being made to feel like I’m inferior to money.  I’ve learned how to budget myself a return to New York every two months.  Someone at work asked if I had any gigs there.  I said I quit music because it was threatening my safety.  In truth the last year was really about setting up a perimeter in my life.  A place that was safe enough and anonymous to share some intimacy with another person.  Music didn’t serve that for me anymore.  It hindered my goals.  How I’ve gone about building fences around my garden has been akin to that scene in Frankenstein negotiating with the villagers.  Except in a no holds barred me alone against the court of public opinion sort of way.  Modern day Hulk has evolved into a sort of cultured retaliation against the mobs.  He’s still too similar to the mad scientist story to make poetic cinema out of it all.  Me I live this shit every day.  Hulk in Hell.  Abused in some ways and blessed in others.  People don’t like it when I’m angry.  I guess as they say that’s the trick.  I’m angry all the time.  It’s how I act upon it.  How I sacrifice my incomprehensible rage and tortured feelings out of love.  For me I spent the whole last year doing something about it.  Challenging the infrastructure of all this bullshit and leading by example.  Too much force and you break things.  Too little and they walk all over you.  Lenny Bruce had the entire police department after him for saying what he felt.  Woody Allen succeeded in Hollywood.  How you view the hypocrisy of all that is all in what you accept and what you resist.  Resistance isn’t fun.  And it looks different for everyone.  The most political battle to fight is the personal one.  The right to be and the right to think.  What is the real different between Frankenstein and the Human Ken Doll anyway?  Who owns the rights to me being me?  What gives me the right to have an opinion?  Who I can talk to and who I can love?  What I need to become to be treated as an equal in the public eye?  What people have done to stop me from becoming who I really am?  Why do I even care about having a popularly accepted opinion when no one listens?  Who has room for drama in their life when I only make space for all the love I have for you?  Of all the pieces of my life that I stitched together you are the most important one to me.  Because you are the piece that makes me whole just by being you.  It’s not a missing link it’s been an important foundation to my struggle.  If I keep bumping into you in the dark just remember it’s a love tap.  I don’t mind if you tap back.  Only you though.  Fuck all this other shit. <3 Tim

[heyymonkey2]

First Night Back in Fuuga Chapters 4-6

And now including a chapter that graduates this fic into mature categorization ^^; (Hey, leave these two alone in Fuuga long enough and it’s bound to happen.)

Continued musings after Chapter 138 (aka, surviving until 139 on 4/20)

A03 Link

Chapter 4: Yona and Hak talk about the night they lost control

"Enjoying the view? Hey, there's nothing bad going on that Tae-Yeon can't see!" Hak is red-faced and scowling.

Yona turns from his embrace to see Tae-Woo covering Tae-Yeon's eyes in the near distance. She'd completely forgotten Mundok had made Tae-Woo her temporary bodyguard since the night before. Cute little Tae-Yeon must have wandered over to visit.

"How was I supposed to know where that was going?! It looked a little--" a bar of soap narrowly misses Tae-Woo's head.

"Will you be Big Brother's bride?" Tae-Yeon asks with bright eyes as he comes closer. Yona opens her arms and pulls him into a hug with a great smile. Hak watches with a mix of affection and mild frustration that a small child just stole his thunder. He's the Thunderbeast, damn it.

"She's the princess!" Tae-Woo emphasizes the impossibility of such a thing to Tae-Yeon while narrowly dodging an entire bucket from Hak.

"Alright, outta here! I can take it from here on. If the Old Man asks, the princess begged me to help her with laundry."

"Wha--" Yona is cut off as Hak nudges her to go along with this.

Tae-Woo looks at Yona's sad pile of laundry and nods, "The princess thing actually explains a lot..."

"WHA--" Yona's stunned.

"We can help, too." Tae-Yeon offers sweetly.

"Yeah, Gramps said I couldn't leave the princess alone with you," Tae-Woo adds, "What's that about?"

Hak jolts. Ehhh, "There are... reasons." Oh shit -- Hak notices Yona is turning red now too -- she must have connected exactly what that's about. Hak puts his palm to his face in frustration -- he's definitely not having the conversation of his life with Yona right here with these two doing laundry next to them.

"Please, Tae-Woo. For me, could you allow us a moment of privacy," Yona places her hand on Tae-Woo's shoulder and looks at him with her big amethyst eyes. His breathing quickens. Wow, can she affect a man. Yona leans down gives Tae-Yeon a kiss on the top of the head, "We'll be back to the great hall by dinner. Can I sit by you then?" Tae-Yeon beams at the invitation.

The two Wind boys find themselves walking away in a pleasant daze. Hak watches them go, feeling his usual pride about Yona's influence. He's watched it countless times and felt it as many himself.

"So we should talk?" Yona volunteers.

Hak slides a hand around hers, "Come with me."

"I'm really relieved we're not doing this over laundry."

"I couldn't risk you injuring yourself. That would be too distracting."

Yona smacks Hak, "I was doing my best!"

Hak cringes at that thought, then takes her assault hand back into his gentle hold. They're walking through the woods alone together, great speckled patterns of sunlight breaking through the leaves above creating beautiful patterns of light and shadows on the leaf-strewn ground below.

"This feels like old times, just you and me and the woods, " she smiles at the thought, then focuses on her hand in his as he leads. That is different this time. Back when he first lead her through the woods, he held her hand to guide her, steady her. But at this moment... it's completely unnecessary. They're just walking as friends. And yet she doesn't want to let go. He's hardly let her hand out of his. And each time they rejoin she feels an electric shock pulse through her body with warmth... and some foreign sensation she can't put her finger on, but that she wants more of in such a way she wonders if she'll ever reach "enough."

"We're far better dressed this time," Hak clarifies. He's totally right. They've been through some pretty rough times together in the hygiene and wardrobe department. Now they're adorned in fine Wind Tribe garments. Really fine, given Hak's status and that she no longer has to hide that she's the princess.

"I really like that on you..." Yona braves a compliment.

Hak's chest tightens, "Oh?"

"It suits you."

"I honestly shouldn't be wearing it..." Hak reflects he's already given back his name and title. Everything in Fuuga now is just borrowed.

Yona squeezes his hand, "Don't say that."

"If pretending could hurt people I care about... or someone I care about, then I'm happiest to be honest." Hak stops and smiles. Yona realizes what he's looking at -- they're at what appears to be a secret shooting range, "I used to practice here when I was a kid."

"Taking me off into the woods alone and training me to fight. Mundok would kill you, huh?" Yona laughs.

"I figured if this gets awkward, it'd give us something to do that doesn't require talking. And I'm better at it than you, so I can regain my confidence."

Yona huffs, "You saw me in those contests! If we're shooting at targets, you can't outdo a bullseye," she nods towards the target in the distance.

"Then I'll challenge you to something harder."

"Cheater."

"How's that cheating?"

"Fine, then I can raise challenges, too. I challenge you to tell me why you really brought me out here. Be honest." Yona wants to die as she asks it, but she's so mixed up inside already she can barely contain it any longer.

"We should have brought alcohol," Hak realizes and laments.

Yona laughs nervously, "We have to loosen up before this conversation? Should I be afraid?"

Hak looks at her dead seriously this time, "I am."

This affects Yona in ways she can't quite understand. Her Hak, this man whom she can barely carry a thought without anymore, is standing before her... upset in some deep way. Without even processing, she finds herself at him, reaching up toward his face, putting her hands in his hair, barely breathing as she pulls his face near hers, foreheads together, "Tell me anything. Just don't ever look at me that way again."

Hak closes his eyes for a brief moment of gathering courage, then opens them to look at her sincerely, profoundly, "I'm in love with you."

Chapter 5: Yona reacts to Hak's confession

"Let me go with this time."

Lili stands behind Soo-Won at his desk in his palace library. What he's always writing and studying in here is always a mystery to her. But she came to the palace to better understand him. To watch him. She wonders how well could he continue to hide his motivations when out in action.

"Going to Kai is going to be dangerous. This isn't like Xing or even what you experienced with nadai in your own lands. It will be war."

"I know that," Ugh, has he not paid attention to her this whole time she's been here? He still treats her like a General's fragile daughter, "Like hell."

Soo-Won finally turns. He tilts his head at Lili, curious, "Is that something you'd like to see?"

She shrugs.

"Or is there, rather, someone you'd like to see," he holds his gaze steady on her.

The silence is long.

"You should stay here," Soo-Won turns back toward his writing.

Lili scrunches her face in frustration, then lifts her chin in defiance, "If I can't join you, I'll go on my own."

Soo-Won smiles ever so slightly at her persistence, "Then I'd rather you join us."

"That's it? Just like that?"

"There's no arguing with you, Lady Lili. I shouldn't have tried."

Maybe he has been paying attention? As she turns to leave, she notices the hairpin on his desk. It's unmistakable -- the exact same one she gave back to Yona after Sei.

Soo-Won notices her standing there staring, shaken, "Are you OK?"

"How did you get that?! Did you..." She stops herself as her mind races. She thought peace negotiations had taken place at the border of Xing. She knew Yona had been there. They said no blood was shed. But how did he... ?

"I don't know what you're talking about," Soo-Won holds as even as ever.

As Lili leaves the room, she passes Min-Soo on her way. He, too, notices the hairpin on Soo-Won's desk, even more fully realizing the danger it signals.

"Hold still and quit flirting!"

A shirtless Jae-Ha sits in a Wind tribe medical tent as Yun changes his bandages. Jae-Ha turns his attention from one of the Wind nurses back to Yun and sighs pleasantly, "Hak wasn't lying about the beauties in this region."

"You have to be alive if you want to seduce women. Quit moving or I'm leaving you for dead."

"You wouldn't," Jae-Ha teases, "You're our dear mother, Yun. We rely on you to put up with us. We need you."

Yun sighs, "Enough, enough -- your tricks won't work on me."

"Oh good, have you brought Yona Dear with you?" Jae-Ha calls to Shin-Ah, Kija, and Zeno as they enter.

"The Little Miss isn't with us," Zeno volunteers, "But she'll be lively for dinner."

Jae-Ha does a quick accounting of the group and knows immediately what must be happening, "Did they go somewhere together?"

He turns to Shin-Ah who gives a stoic nod.

"Nearby I hope," Kija chides, "She should bring at least one of us with as well if she goes outside of town because--" Kija's protective rant is cut off by another complaint from Yun, "Now you're too tense! Loosen up."

"...my apologies," Jae-Ha barely gets out. He's surprised by his own reaction to what he knows must be going on. He's wanted this moment to happen for them for a long time. But Dragon's blood is a powerful thing. He has to get a handle on this.

"Kija, I think they need to be alone."

As innocent Kija starts to think about why on Earth Yona would need to be alone with Hak...

Yona steps backwards in shock -- she stumbles her steps and falls to the ground, both hands on the grass and her eyes wide. She stares up at Hak, who's frozen, concerned.

She starts smiling in disbelief. Tears in her eyes, "You dummy."

Hak scratches his head, "This is a little confusing."

"Come here so I can hit you!"

Unsure and braced, he moves to her side. She huffs at him with her beautiful, adorable pout, "I said I loved you last night and you didn't say anything!"

Hmmm... if that was too long to make her wait, Hak realizes this is really, really not the moment to reveal how long he's been in love with her. So he picks another truth instead, "I thought you were just saying that!"

"Why would someone just say something like that?!"

"It wouldn't be the first time!"

"What?!"

"You don't remember? Tae-Jun. The day I became your bodyguard."

Yona thinks back, then smiles and starts cracking up, "Oh yeah."

They both smile in reverie, then, "So... you didn't just say it to save me from Mundok?"

Yona closes her eyes for a moment in awe of her thickheaded, adorable general, then she opens them filled with sincerity. She turns to him, he still in a nervous state of doubt and confusion, and crawls onto him. Then, pushing him back onto the soft ground, she brings her parted lips to his stupid, sexy mouth. Once the sweet, soft contact is made, she presses into him and all the tension in his body begins to melt away.

Yona started the kiss, but it doesn't take long for Hak to take the lead -- he moves his arms around her and pulls her closer to him as his mouth responds with a growing hunger. But she pulls away, just a little... there's something she has to make sure he knows, "There's only one reason I keep kissing you, Hak," she shakes her head just thinking about the depth of her feeling, "I love you. Truly."

There's no sarcastic response. No joke. No more confusion. Hak's eyes are wide with amazed realization as he runs a hand across her cheek and through her hair. As though touching her romantically for the first time, he gently brings her face down to meet his once more and takes her mouth in his slowly, deeply. She feels the emotion of the kiss to the point she's overwhelmed.

"Ahhmm," she moans and shifts on top of him. She wants to feel more of him, to get closer. She rubs against him, then again -- so naturally it's truly innocent, but...

"Princess," Hak pulls his mouth back, his hands on her sides. Yona looks down at him, processing what she's feeling against their clothes and the resulting overload of physical reactions and mounting desires. Her thighs weaken as her chest hardens and a warmth shoots through her entire body driving her insane with a desperate wish, need, to continue.

"Hak," Yona pleads, "It's OK."

Chapter 6: Hak losing the only battle you probably want to watch him defeated in

"Focus... Focus..." Hak squints at the target, releases his arrow, and -- misses entirely.

"Hak, it's not OK!" Yona protests behind him.

He lowers his bow, staring ahead in disbelief. Uh oh.

"I wasn't about to let my father decide my love life for me. You shouldn't let anyone else decide yours!"

Still not looking at her, "Can we not get started about that right now," as he shakes the reminder that Yona has made really questionable choices in men, "I vowed to protect you. To myself as seriously as anyone else. And today... I'm protecting you from me."

"Whyyy?" Yona whines, "Refusing to touch a girl after confessing is worse than cruel. You're not being heroic at all!"

"Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out," Hak encourages himself under his breath as he begins to pace. He remembers back to that moment, the princess mounted on him, and for the first time in their relationship, his... enormous loss of control pressed firmly against her. On top of this already being completely new territory for them, the princess arched into it and then brought her mouth back to his to go further. It was a fucking dream.

Loss of control. That was the problem. Is still the problem. He's a well-practiced man in many things. But if he lets go, it will be like that day with the honey all over again. Before he knows it, he'll be... licking somewhere the princess wasn't ready for and she'll be pulling away from him. Did she know what she was doing just now? She's seemed so innocent in his eyes all this time, for her to do that to him... no wait, he promised not to be shocked when she does things like this. Surprising him is not out of character. And that scares him even more. If he gives in to what he'd like to do right now and then she decides to become an explorer... oh god. Of all things, Mundok's words from the night before echo in his mind, "All men know, sometimes that's a battle lost."

Hak feels petite arms wrap around him. She's hugging him from behind, her face nestled against his back, "We're going to leave for Kai in 2 days and between now and then we may not be able to be alone together at all. We were apart for so long already... And I didn't tell you this, but I've been barely able to keep from touching you for so long already. I've been barely able breathe whenever I see you! I don't know what to say because my thoughts are all distracted. And I just want to be close so badly. ... we can't even sleep near one another anymore. ... so us here right now... can I have just this much?"

Hak looks down to see her hands burrowed into his robes and feeling his abs. He sighs resignation with a soft smile of love, "Speaking of, my thoughts have been getting more and more confused right now, too. I'm seriously starting to forget the reasons we can't... carefully... a little."

Yona smiles victory into his back and squeezes him tighter, "I know we just confessed, I'm not trying to push you to go faster than you're comfortable with."

Hak is mortified that that sentence just came out of his to-be-lover's mouth, "Hey now, that is not--"

"I just have been dying to put my hands on you. To feel you. Look at you. Can I just... take this off real quick?"

Before Hak has even responded she's already untying his robe. Explorer-mode. She's straight up doing this. Hak begins to wonder if their entire relationship will be a mix of excitement and sheer terror.

He turns to face her as he drops his outer robe. She coaches, "And..." she motions to the rest covering his chest.

Wow, he didn't expect to be so self-conscious with her staring at him while he undresses. His inner robe falls to the ground. He stands before her shirtless, nothing she hasn't seen before, but then she's never looked at him like this before. He notices how seriously she's taking this "freedom to look at each other romantically" thing as she stares straight forward at his pecks, cleavage, abs, pelvic bones, and that low torso v-shape that leads to...

"Ahh," he's surprised when she puts her hands right on his skin and starts moving them across the taut, defined surface like studying a map full of untouched treasure. She stops at the scar that runs across his chest from his left downward right. The visible proof that he's willing to die for her. He's not sentimental about that -- he's always known it about himself. The scar means a tremendous amount to him for other reasons though. When he sees it, every single time, he remembers a part of its story that he never saw coming. That day at the cliffs, the princess proved she was willing to die for him, too, when she went over the cliff with him.

Hak puts his hand over Yona's on his scar, both of them moved by their memories... and this moment. He can't help it, he leans down and pulls her face to his. It's an active, needy kiss and Yona moves up onto her tiptoes to return it, both hands against his bare pecks for balance.

They make out playfully, tongues flicking, lip-biting, fully taking advantage of this moment to discover all the electric aspects of this new thing they can do together. Yona's hands wander up, down, around his broad bare chest. "Ohh," she jumps as she feels one of his hands meet her breast. She's far more sensitive there than she ever imagined! But her alarm sent his hand in retreat. She thinks for just a second, then...

Yona takes a step back from Hak. His eyes begin to uncloud a little, "I'm sorry, did I..." he forgets the rest of his sentence when she drops her outer robe. His breathing slows into deep breaths of painful anticipation.

"I want you to see me, too," the inner robe drops and her aroused mounds are entirely exposed to the daylight.

#akatsuki no yona #first night back in fuuga #hak x yona #fanfic #hak #akayona #smut

[whimsically-ominously-auspice]

I heard about the 64% of all lives matter wanting the blue lives matter to do the bottom breath exercise

Compared to the, especially much lower 41% of black lives matter positive response out of only 1/3 of the voters saying yes they would exercise. Thier 41% was for anyone else to, not just blue matters

These numbers are broken down from bigger numbers

I really like this. This anger and revenge and hate from all lives matter people

Remember the conversation was, "please stop killing us, our black lives matter"

"Shut up nigg** we will kill you all, blue lives matter"

Then all us went all lives matter. Some in shock and so on and what have you. Some to settle, some to continue the fight.

So I'm glad to see so many continue the fight.

And that is what I am saying.

I obviously am All Lives Matter. I prove that. But I took my time and watched the conversation and listened to myself and felt the arrogance. And i took sides.

And i said Black Lives Matter. Because of what was said.

But I defend blue lives, criminal lives, illegal alien lives, all lives. Because all lives matter

I'm just black panther to the core.

And that's how they are:

a life is a life

A life paid is a life cost.

They taught me that.

My richest most developed understanding of the world was taught to me by negros

My most in depth acceptance of kindness and love and myself was taught by the Harringtons.

The world gave me the black Panthers

My mom directed me to the Harringtons.

They are what gave the black Panthers depth.

Not words. Not soldiers on the streets.

Humans.

Like I said the other day, same as for with criminals and so the Harringtons allowed me to embrace what I hated myself most for. To give others a chance. Like,Jesse James. Others.

Unfortunately they've pushed me so far I can no longer

Love like what I got from the Harringtons has been pushed so far away

By criminals like Jesse James and i will say Jesse in particular m he also for by Malcolm.

So these movements and protests they help people get together and like Seattle's Mayor says, with love.

Its not about anti-others.

Black Lives Matter or all lives matter.

It's about being around love. Acceptance. Protection. No matter who you are or where you been or where you'll go.

It's like being with the Harringtons.

It creates calmer and happier people.

Sure the white supremacy are out with a vengeance and not y'alls business, but we relabeled our SMS to help our planet with that problem

Fun oddity... I saw a video of this guy randomly picked to check the system. Bec it's fairly new and it's not SMS: brightgady but another because of the limited people and rarity of people allowed to kill with permission.

Its called The Brightside of Hell. Because that's where it sends people. LoL.

And so.

This guy all skinny and in all black in an umbrella was breaking windows and he's been driving me nuts since day one i saw that guy. I wanted to kill him,but at the same time i knew i should not.

So, today they tell me he was checking the routing system of people dressed similar and people with big afro hair was the reason for the umbrella.

And they went into a group in a building. Left their bank and credit cards. Phones. All everything traceable. Some others had the same exact umbrella. All skin tones. Big afros also. Because that was a concern for me... An afro being thought of as something else. Just because i seriously seriously love afros

Only African Americans can wear an afro. True story.

So I really treasure it.

So they all left in a mass. Like in a line and then walked around. Some traded the umbrella off and so on. Changed clothes. They did anything possible to confuse the system. Changed gender type clothing and put on wigs. And did stuff they never ever did before.

So then the guy breaking windows was actually on my own shop front.

And turns out the system is perfect. Its God driven and I hear "hey! And tree!!" From tree himself.

So we have an amazing platform. And i wanted and I would assume the world would want it tested to an Extreme.

The guy that broke the Windows is a little nerd, to himself guy and would never ever do anything like,that and he said He thought he would go home and,cry but he,said instead he felt such a rush and enjoyed it

SMS put out a serious alarm on him and when the kill team went to "interrogate" him of his crimes the actual system screamed at them all rrrrrrl rrrrrl so they knew not to harm him. It has an override to override all sounds blocks so if its turned on vibrate it will do it still.

It said "warning warning. There is something wrong! This is not a normal criminal: proceed with caution, check computer before leaving!"

Obviously he was having a mental break and the internet history would say so. What has he been reading or watching? What kind of help does he need?

And/ OR someone is threatening their life to commit such crimes and the SMS hasnt seen or been notified of anyone.

And they actually had that alert after i attacked Denise and busted her head open.

And it auto downloaded my internet history and the phone numbers contacting me frequently and people from chat apps.

So i was chatting with someone new and so it could been presumed it was due to them telling me to or their influence.

He had been annoying me all fucking day and raging me. -.-

But she tried to throw me out the car in 100° heat. She deserved that shit.

But it also showed i blow up and can't tolerate her and will lose my shit every 4 to 6 months on her.

But it was more violent than usual. But its because of my younger brother. She's all scared of him and treats him wirh respect and shit and he told me how he pulled her hair when she was driving and so that is where it came from. More so than anything. That is exactly what was in my mind. I was all he did it. So can I.

Watch me now. Bitch.

So,fucking tired of her lies!! Fucking throw me out the car. Fuck you.

You think I'm not crippled? Well I'll show you what I can do Because walking ain't one.

Had i been in a happy loving relationship or even in my own house all clean with water and electric then I probably wouldn't done that because I would just been all. Well first take me back to my house. But i would been all I'm bout to get out the car and away from her so i can just ignore her till then.

But it ain't that way, I'm unhappy and im angry and she just wanted to fucking look at me like her stupid eyes were gonna mind control me.

Yeah sure if what you want is a beating.

Tired of people trying to control me.

So movements and protests

Yall stupid white supremacy you think you know shit, all you know is you.

When the rest of us get together in life, in the world, its church. Love and peace and shit.

You stupid ass white niggers don't know love. You know fear. Fear once they finish paying their debt to be shipped that no one will work for you.

Fear of African Americans doing what they want and living their dreams

Well there ain't plantations no more.

So you fucking white supremacy have a problem. And it's me. So you better stay in your fucking houses. You get out ane mix in with any other protests and cause shit and harm ill find you

You have another big ass KKK rally ... Your hoods will be removed.

I ain't gonna say all I'd fucking do to you ignorant white ass fools in need of a REAL NIGGER because i don't want you all doing shit to my people. The ones you don't think belong here.

When Venus joined our human race, we all changed skin color. To Negro. Black. Before we were pink, green. Halo (a shade of white) and blue. Few were purple. Those were mean ones. Like the ones I'm sending out with the Brightside.

So for us all to hide the Venetians because they were as Snoop Dogg shows and as the Egyptian pyramids show, they had dog heads. So we changed to human heads and we all hid in Negro skin.

It was a trick that worked

We told space invaders that had,came to attack us before that we had came and killed everyone and we were a totally different race.

Shit worked man.

So these white supremacy. They're afraid of that black skin.

They really are. And they hate it because they want to take over.

And then compound how the entire North America was fucking empty except for some invading settlers from outer space, they really feel that the Nigger have taken over

Cause they aint been to New Mexico. Because they dumb white trash and they ain't seen how black people aren't all over and didn't take over.

But guess whose fault is that? Plantation owners with the bright idea to get people from all over the world to visit or move to the "new world" and not worry about sea fare, just work for your food and you can explore.

So definitely not the Nigger's fault.

Most African American just came to visit

And some were rich but wanted to work for food doe the week or two to see the feeling

And a lot more paid half or more to do part work and part true vacation.

They never returned

So then they got more people to come search.

And it went on.

Like I said we went to Africa to stop it. Returned Africans and so on.

Shit by the time Harriet Tubman came along there was full blown families here. Ma and pa come to vacation. Brother comes to look for them. Then son then sister then their ma and pa and ya got 5 generations.

And we taught the word Nigger in Africa to be respect.

But we warned "if you hear a white man say nigger he may have your family"

Then they ask the Negro "do you know any niggers? Where they are?"

There was HUGE legendary lessons on how to use the word.

In Africa it meant teacher that was all.

On the long ship rides to America the truth was told about how the word was used. So they used it proper.

No ome trusted outsiders. So if a black boy with a thick accent said "nigger to a black slave asking for help in,secret to find his family, then he would know the boy was a slave and would protect him and hide him for wandering the streets as he was.

We're smart. Every thing was intuition. Few code words.

We knew a Negro slave. How far and much they would protect. How they would risk their own lives.

It would get the search party on the plantation. They could search then leave in secret, have food and rest.

Then off to the next plantation.

The word nigger is sacred. To people like Snoop Dogg and others that say nigga.

They continue to keep the word in use to show love as it was initially used.

As I said before it stemmed from,the word Negro the Spanish word for black.

You need to know the whole black skin culture... They called each other blackie and so on

Like i said we all were Negro once to protect the Earth from invaders. So,we were all happy to be black.

We were invaded and we worked a system to accept other planets 32 other races.

We got lax. We thought we were safe

The walls of Jericho? That is in the Bible. It was am alien sect we were observing to see if we could accept their style and way of life. We could not. We killed them and destroyed their village.

Some like Zulululu had observed us and lied during their observation period. To be perfect like us.

They aren't

Just like people in the white supremacy movement.

Like those in the walls of Jericho they will be killed.

They don't belong under the heading of all lives matter.

They don't fit our world and they are out numbered.

So I will say nigger but as you see I block it out when it's used harmfully against others

Except when I say white bigger because there ain't anything a white supremacist hates more. And there ain't much I hate more than a white supremacist.

[incomplete-nano-stash]

Time Wolf - Chapter 4

               Laricia was surprised by the re-entry of her husband to the house. “I wasn’t expecting you home until …” Once she saw that Stephen was right behind Ian, wearing the TX-31 suit, she understood perfectly. “I see. Come on back, we’ll attend to you both.”

               “Thanks, honey.” Ian bent over to deliver a friendly kiss to Laricia. Stephen would have scratched his head were he not wearing a helmet. Ian motioned toward the basement door, leading Stephen down.

               Stephen tried to pull the suit off of himself carefully. To his surprise, there was yet another docking station that Ian plugged the suit into, hiding under his house. This wasn’t the biggest surprise, however. “You’re … married?” Stephen stuttered.

               “Just, actually, not six years ago,” Ian replied. “Her family disowned her, she was lost and cold and alone when she came here. I took her in, nursed her to health, and eventually we wound up … well …”

               The older man seemed immensely embarrassed by his relationship to the far-younger Laricia. Stephen decided it was a subject not to be broached until later. “So one question, how do I get this thing off? I wasn’t conscious the last time.”

               Ian seemed in a fog, only absently aware Stephen had asked the question. “Oh, yeah, it’s a voice command. Use this code.” He hastily wrote down a combination before handing it to Stephen.

               Stephen looked over the sheet, taking a deep breath. “Shutdown sequence, code T7KK29, sleep and recharge mode.”

               Chime. “Shutting down.”

               The entire suit split open and virtually spit Stephen out through its crotch. As he landed in a heap on the floor, the docking station held the suit motionless, silently charging it up. Ian picked Stephen up, hoisting him by the shoulders.

               Laricia chose that moment to come into the basement, holding two mugs. “Here you go, boys, some coffee. Sorry about this, the ration’s about out so it’s mostly water.”

               Ian took his mug, sipped, and smiled warmly at his wife. “Laricia, you don’t ever have to worry about that because you are a magician with limited resources.”

               Laricia beamed. “I’ll start dinner.” She walked back up the stairs and closed the door behind her. Stephen took his own sip of the coffee and found he had to agree with Ian; although it was watery, the coffee was surprisingly bracing.

               “So you see one of the issues we have now.” Ian set the mug down on his work bench, the only light coming from four candles stationed at the table’s corners.

               “Looks like food isn’t the only thing being rationed,” Stephen observed.

               “If only it were that. Water, technology, electricity, health care, natural gas, hell even goddamn solar panels are highly regulated.”

               “The government?” Stephen asked hopefully, though he thought he might know the answer already.

               “I wish.” Ian sighed, slumping on his stool. “You see, when I told you Wolf Technologies runs the world, I wasn’t being facetious. They literally run the world. And the world was happy to let ‘em do it, because the governments had been so corrupted by that point they felt it was the lesser of two evils.”

               Stephen shivered, though the basement was not cold. Shoving a hand in his pocket, he found the duplicate ring, which he pulled out and showed to Ian. “This was my first indication that something was weird about this situation.”

               Ian took the ring in his hand, looking it over carefully. “Interesting … nice structure, though a little worse for wear … hm, what does this inscription mean?”

               Stephen cleared his throat. “It was a little pet name my wife and I came up with for our marriage, a mashup of both of our names. It stands for ‘Stephen Tiffany Rockford Fulton.’”

               Ian raised an eyebrow. “Your wife’s name is Tiffany?”

               “Last I knew, why?”

               The old man chuckled. “No reason … anyway, why was this your first sign?”

               Stephen took off the ring currently on his finger. “Because I was still wearing it when I found it.” He handed the original ring to Ian, who inspected it.

               “Fascinating … an actual time travel artifact! This is …” He trailed off, then looked back at Stephen while handing back the two rings. “Hang on to these as tight as you can, Wolf Technologies is always hunting down time travel artifacts so they can be destroyed.”

               Stephen clutched the rings tightly. “Why?”

               “They’re proof that things can be changed, that time travel isn’t just limited to the higher-ups. An average citizen holding a time travel artifact, if he got it himself, would be utter chaos.”

               “I see.” Stephen returned his original ring … or at least he hoped it was his original ring … to his finger. “So what was the upgrade that I used to get away?”

               “Oh, that? Just a little something I hacked based on an old Army package for the TX-31.” Ian grinned, a little too proud of his handiwork. “You don’t need to worry yourself any about how it works, just know that it works.”

               The younger man sighed, guessing that he probably would rather not know the particulars. “Fair enough.” He pulled up a stool and sat at the bench next to Ian, who turned and began tinkering with another circuit board. The two men sat in silence for a while, in the flickering light, the only sounds coming from Ian’s circuit board machinations.

               “So, Stephen … I know we didn’t know each other very well,” Ian finally broke the silence. “Tell me a bit about yourself.”

               Stephen sighed. “What’s there to know? I work at Wolf Technologies, I’ve got a little family. I really need to get back to them.”

               “Tell me about your family,” Ian urged, slightly distracted.

               “They’re my rock,” Stephen sighed. “Tiffany was my high school girlfriend, and I always thought she was the only one who understood me truly. She stayed with me, stayed loyal even when I was in college. She went to a different college, got a different degree, we got together after graduation.”

               “Sounds like true love,” Ian chuckled.

               “It is, believe me. We got married right after graduation. My position at Wolf Technologies was going to give us a great head start to our life together, and with both of us working we’d have a great advantage.”

               A silence hung over the work bench for what felt like an uncomfortably long time. Eventually, Stephen broke it himself. “The morning I came forward, she’d just called me an hour before and told me she was pregnant, our first.”

               Ian nodded. “Congratulations.”

               Stephen blushed. “What good will it do if I can’t get back to her? What good will it do if I know what my daughter has to look forward to is, well …” He motioned around the basement. “I don’t want my baby to grow up like this.”

               Ian snuffled, set down the circuit board, and turned to face the younger man. “Listen, Stephen. We’ve been trying for a while, but I think this would be a good opportunity to get a leg up on Wolf Technologies using our TX-31 here.” He led Stephen over to the suit. “Wolf Technologies has outlawed all civilian use of the TX-31 in order to protect themselves. They claimed that they had destroyed all of the production models, so knowing that a time-displaced prototype is around is going to likely quadruple their efforts to try to get it back and make sure you can’t make the return trip.”

               Dread filled Stephen’s heart. “I gotta go back, don’t I? I have to fight my way back.”

               “Afraid so,” Ian confirmed. “However, you’ll need to go back to a point in time when you can influence things. One thing is for certain, you have to prevent the TX-31 from going into production.”

               “Well that’ll be easy, I just have to give it a failing rating, right?”

               “If it were that simple, I would’ve told you to do that, but it’s not.” The door opened, causing Ian to cut himself short. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

               “Dinner’s ready, boys,” Laricia called down. “Come on up while it’s hot.”

               The two men steadily walked up the staircase, up to where Laricia waited, next to a well-laid-out table of food. She was smiling at both of them.

               Her smile faded as the glass behind her shattered, as the canisters started pumping chemical smoke into the air. All three of them ducked down under the table, huddling close with their shirts over their mouths. The door splintered as it was kicked down, and Stephen suddenly felt the sensation of a small hand yanking on his ankle.

               “Get out here, timer. You’re under arrest!” The small hands scrabbled at Stephen’s ankle, trying to pull him out from where Ian and Laricia kept holding him. At last, three of the riot-squad men were able to extract him, kicking and fighting the whole way.

               The eyes of one of the soldiers widened when he saw Stephen’s face. “Holy crap, how’s this possible?” He waved for one of his teammates. “Guys, look!”

               All of the soldiers shared concerned muttering and whispering, trying to decide what to do. Stephen looked back under the table, at Ian and Laricia crouching with fear. He finally turned back toward the lead soldier, clearing his throat despite the burning sensation of the gas.

               “I’ll come with you guys, just leave those two alone. They have nothing to do with this.”

               The soldier raised his weapon. “Where is your TX-31?”

               These were Wolf Technologies men, all right. “It’s at City Hall.”

               The soldier nodded. “Get him up on his feet. We’re taking him to base.” The small soldiers pushed on Stephen’s shoulders to force him to his feet, keeping their guns trained on him the whole time. “Send a company to locate the TX-31 and destroy it.”

               Vinyl restraints were slipped on Stephen’s wrists, and he was forcibly pushed out of the door.

#time wolf #incomplete nano #nanowrimo #chapter 4

[what-is-sibling-test]

So, we've gotten to see everyone have their own fangirl/boy moments through time, but what about Garcia? I have a mighty need to see him have a giddy meltdown and the rest of the team's reactions to it lol.

The gang has been walking for almost an hour already, and in New York City in August 1884, on hot, muddy streets crowded with horses, carts, wagons, draughtsmen, newsies, hucksters, men in tweed caps and women with parasols, when they’ve had to stop and buy cups of lemonade for a nickel and still haven’t figured out what Rittenhouse is doing, that is a pain. Lucy said that the foundation stone for the Statue of Liberty was laid on August 5 of this year, which seems like a big symbolic moment for Rittenhouse to target (put in some creepy subliminal messaging?) but they went out to Bedloe’s Island as soon as they landed, and they can’t find any evidence that Rittenhouse was here. They ask around, but none of the workmen have seen anything out of the ordinary.

Lucy’s next guess is the earthquake that hits on August 10, causing notable property damage in Queens and across the eastern United States, but what would Rittenhouse be doing with that – being good neighbors and helping people rebuild their chimneys? Either way, they’re a bit early for both events. It’s the second of August, and they’re spinning their wheels, trying to canvass the city and see if that sparks any stroke of genius. Everyone is hot and thirsty and out of sorts, the lemonade being a while ago, when Flynn stops dead and says, “Hold on. I think I know what they might be doing.”

He turns around and starts marching off with a zealot’s gleam in his eye, as the team trails along after him like a gaggle of cranky ducklings. They don’t stop until Flynn has reached a large brownstone warehouse on the Lower East Side, which honestly looks like it could be the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory a few decades early. The lettering on the facade reads EDISON MACHINE WORKS.

“Edison.” Flynn comes to a halt and cracks his knuckles with the expression of a man confronting his nemesis, until Lucy feels compelled to remind him that he can’t actually shoot him. “Come on.”

Lucy, Rufus, and Wyatt exchange a baffled glance, but follow him into the building, which is hot, crowded, and noisy as hell. There’s the deafening bang of machines, young men running by in shirtsleeves spattered with ink, and the other labor of trying to build an electrical grid for a late nineteenth-century city by hand. Flynn leans over the tall desk and shouts at the receptionist for a while; it is clearly difficult for them to understand each other. But the receptionist finally gets the mouthpiece off the hook (the Bell Telephone Company was founded in 1877, and in two more years, there will be almost 150,000 telephone owners in America) and calls for someone. While they wait, everyone eyes Flynn suspiciously. “Look,” Wyatt says. “We all know you hate Edison, but – ”

Flynn snorts, as if they are actually here for Edison, and Rufus frowns, as if something has just occurred to him. “Wait. Did you ask for – ”

The rest of that sentence is cut off as they turn around to see a thin, pale, dark-haired young man in an ill-fitting suit standing at the head of the hallway. “Yes… hello?” He speaks English laboriously, with a heavy accent. “You… see me?”

Flynn turns around and grins broadly, looking practically giddy, as Rufus’s jaw drops, and Lucy, who as the historian is used to having the jump on things, is baffled. Then both Flynn and Rufus rush forward in an apparent competition as to who can shake the newcomer’s hand faster, and end up grabbing his right and left to do so at the same time. Wyatt stares at Lucy and mouths, The fuck?

 “Sir.” Flynn is practically wriggling, before he recollects himself. “It’s an honor to finally meet you. I am a big fan of your work.”

“Me too,” Rufus says. “I am also a big fan of your work.”

“Big… fan?” The young man frowns over this unfamiliar expression. “I am sorry,  I can – can I help?”

Flynn thinks of something, brightens even further, and switches into Croatian. Nobody can understand what he’s saying – except for the young man, who starts to answer him with much more ease, as it is clearly also his native language. As they’re talking away in an animated fashion, and Rufus is looking like Flynn ran up and stole his ice cream, Lucy edges forward. “I’m sorry,” she mutters. “Who is that, exactly?”

Rufus looks at her as if he can’t believe that she of all people just asked him. “Tesla, Lucy! Nikola Tesla!”

Oh. Right. Shit. The twenty-eight-year-old Tesla just immigrated to the United States a few months ago, and will work at Edison Machine Works for a few more months until he quits in December in unspecified circumstances (widely rumored to be Thomas Edison screwing him over). If Rittenhouse is trying to pre-empt that, get in there ahead of the Edison jerk-curve (he might be one of their historical members, which should make this even easier) and collect Tesla for themselves, they can set themselves up to be the beneficiaries of his inventions – which covers basically all of modern electrical and computer engineering. They could literally rewire the entire grid in their favor, influence how wireless communication develops and how it’s used, and – the possibilities are limitless. Thomas Edison being a dick strikes again!

Lucy glances over at Flynn, who is practically vibrating with excitement. A soft smile crosses her face, as while she, Wyatt, and Rufus have all had their moments of meltdown over their favorite historical figures, she has never seen him like this. Then she glances back at Rufus. “Why does Tesla speak Croatian? He was a Serb, wasn’t he? From the Austrian Empire?”

“Yeah, but he was born and raised in Smiljan,” Rufus says, looking rather pleased that he knows something she doesn’t. “That’s in modern Croatia, so it’s his native language. It’s only a couple hours drive from Zagreb.”

“Let me guess.” Lucy raises her eyebrows at him. “You have definitely made a pilgrimage there in the past.”

“It was the first big trip I took after I got the job at Mason Industries,” Rufus says. “Seriously, without Tesla, literally nothing of what I do would be the same. He’s a genius. Excuse me, I gotta go stop Flynn from proposing marriage.”

Lucy raises both eyebrows and turns, hiding a smile in her hand, as Rufus speeds back over and practically hip-checks Flynn away from their shared hero. Flynn looks put out, but turns back to Lucy and Wyatt and dutifully translates that yes, Tesla has been approached by some rich Americans who want to buy him out and send him onto bigger and better things for their company. Flynn has told him not to take the offer, but warned him that Thomas Edison is – 

“Wild guess,” Wyatt says. “A dick?”

Flynn stares at him judgmentally, as if Wyatt has not grasped that essential fact yet, there is no hope for him. “Yes. Anyway, they’ll be coming back, we need to stay here and keep an eye on that.”

“Terrible burden, right?” Wyatt can’t help a grin. “You know, man, I didn’t know you actually liked historical people. Instead of shooting them.”

Flynn stares at him with a massively wounded expression, but seems to decide that he deserves that enough not to retaliate. He does shoot one more dirty look at Wyatt over his shoulder, and zooms back over to Tesla with the dewy-eyed expression that he usually only wears while gazing at Lucy. He interrupts Rufus, who is doing his best to compensate for Tesla’s limited English (basically repeating “I love you, dude,” over and over, much to the inventor’s confusion) and pointedly commandeers the conversation back into Croatian. Wyatt and Lucy glance at each other, then bite their lips again.

(Well, Lucy thinks. It is very sweet.)

from 'RittenhouseTL' for all things Timeless https://ift.tt/2slsOrQ via Istudy world

#IFTTT #'RittenhouseTL' for all things Timeless